Talk:Leather cannon

Wet swabbing the bore

The so-called "flaw" of the leather cannons---that they would rapidly become "red-hot"---makes no sense at all to anyone who has ever served in the Artillery.

It was common practice at the time---as it remains to this day in the case of "separate-loading" guns---to swab the bore with a soaking wet mop in order to extinguish any sparks and cool the powder chamber. Certainly the Swedes knew this at the time, so claims of "red-hot" bores leading to accidents are simply nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.28.169.232 (talk) 12:58, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Short answer: I think that depends on what kind of "cartridge" you use. That is, if your gunpowder package and ignition system can work under wet conditions. As far as I know most older loading and ignition systems would not work in a wet cannon.

Long answer: I was a gunner in a historical show group when I was in the Swedish army. We used different front loaded guns from about 1700 to 1850. We used the old fashioned approach of small paper bags with gunpowder that we inserted in the barrel. Then we inserted a somewhat modern igniter in the small hole on the side of the gun. Our igniter contained a modern safety matchstick running against a strip of matchstick paper in a small brass pipe. I attached a wire to the match and when pulling the wire the match ignited in the pipe and ignited the gunpowder bags inside the bore. For us, the igniter would work in a somewhat wet cannon (since the ignition hole comes down from above, and the igniter we inserted was dry), but the gunpowder bags would not work well in a wet cannon.

Thus, we only dry swabbed the bore between firing. We only wet swapped the bore after we were finished for the day, to clean and secure the gun for transportation. If we had to fire again after we had wet swabbed the cannon (oops, more tourists arrived after we thought we were finished) we had to dry swab the cannon until dry enough to fire again. Doing that on the battlefield would severely reduce your fire rate, so might not be a good option.

I have met a show group from the British army that used more modern back loaded guns from say 1870 or so, but they still used the same kind of simple paper bags. And their igniters were even simpler (more old fashioned) so not even their igniters could handle a wet cannon. So they also dry swabbed between firing.

I know that some other show groups use pre-packaged cartridges (I think waxed paper) with more powerful igniters. Thus speeding up and simplifying the loading process. (I even heard about using electrical igniters.) Thus they probably can wet swab between firing.

But from what I have seen, in the old days the simple paper bag approach was the more common. And the igniters used in the old days did not work well in a wet cannon.

So what you have seen are modern show groups using a more modern safe approach.

--David Göthberg (talk) 06:20, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

1612

In the movie 1612, a Russian village defends against Polish invaders by building a leather cannon. If true, this would have happened over a dozen years before the third Polish-Swedish war. The movie has true and fictional elements, but I cannot find confirmation on whether the leather cannon was real or not. The closest I could find was a mention of the movie and a bit of research that someone did in relation to the MythBusters episode that tested the feasibility of a leather cannon. Either way, a mention of the film may be in order vis-a-vis the In popular Cutler section of many articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Synetech (talk • contribs) 21:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

List of surviving examples in Scotland

List is included in this paper:

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_108/108_300_317.pdf

©Geni (talk) 21:12, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

The Swedes are doing it again

It might be worth adding to the article that there now are modern weapons of similar design. Since 1991 the new versions of the Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle no longer use a thick pipe. Instead they use a very thin pipe which is tightly wound with carbon fibre thread to help the thin pipe withstand the pressure of the explosion. This made the weapon much lighter. I think that the Carl-Gustaf might be the first modern weapon reusing this old approach, but I'm not sure and it doesn't matter anyway which modern weapon first used it, it is still a good example. And it is a bit funny that it is the Swedes doing it again. (Full disclosure: I am Swedish myself.) --David Göthberg (talk) 04:27, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I added it under the "See also" section. It could also be made into its own section with the title "Modern examples" with a slightly longer explanation. Although the "See also" link with the short explanation I added might be enough.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Wet shrink wrapping

I think I read long ago that they "shrink wrapped" the leather around the leather guns. That is, you wet the leather straps before you wrap them around the thin pipe. When the leather dries it shrinks a lot and thus applies a high pressure around the pipe, thus giving much better support. But I might be confusing it with leather use in some muskets. I know similar wet "shrink wrapping" is used with leather in other modern applications, mostly to give the leather a tight fit around for instance a steering wheel. --David Göthberg (talk) 05:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)