• CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I mean around the same period of history the explosion of steamboat boilers (which tended to turn the entire boat into mist) were considered to be completely unpredictable acts of god (it was always lack of maintenance) so… kinda yeh.

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Make the chambers share a central wick or ignition chamber.

      I also wonder if just firing 2 regular canonballs was effective

        • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The article/meme specifically states the canon was experimental and the canon never saw battle.

          Also didn’t ships already have canons capable of tearing down masts with chained balls by that time?

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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            4 months ago

            The difference there, chain shot, is that the chain is still fairly short, because you can’t really get a large length of chain to reliably ‘unfold’ from a single projectile when fired. This beast had a chain that started unfurled, attached to each cannon ball, and long enough to go all the way down each of the barrels - making it, theoretically, have a massive spread of chain which could scythe down large numbers of troops in formation, instead of just a handful (for which one would generally prefer grapeshot, shrapnel, or canister).

              • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                It would work in the sense that you’d now have two cannonballs being lifted up towards the gun and crew when the center ball left the barrel only for them to smash violently into each other assuming they don’t smash into something else first, lol.

              • Agent641@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                More beads. Like, 20 of them. Load one, put the others up my bum. Fire the cannon. Pure bliss.

      • Agent641@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        A common combustion chamber would have been better, but even then you have slightly different sized balls, different wadding with different amounts of friction, etc.

        I dont see why it wouldn’t work with just a regular cannon and two balls, linked by chain, stacked in series in the barrel.

    • Artyom
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      4 months ago

      If I had to guess, you’d still have a difficulty measuring how much gunpowder you had in each side.