Quote Originally Posted by Oleander Ardens View Post
True enough. But as every gun was suscitable to such variances things even out among the calibers. Personally I think that the barrel of larger guns was (caliber-wise) relatively shorter than the one of smaller guns. They might haver used also rather relatively less powder to propel the shots. But still the momentum of a 36 would have been vastly superior to a 24.
Yes the general differences in gunpowder would even things out. But there are also national differences as well as improvements throughout the century. There is too little information to produce a precise difference in penetration between year 1700 and 1800, if there even was any.

And yes I do think smaller guns overall had longer barrels but especially for the smaller guns there were several versions and there appears to be very few records that tells us what barrel length a certain ship used at a given time.

A 36# would be better than a 24# but what if you are within a range where both can penetrate then how much better is it? Sure it has 50% more energy at identical velocity but does it produce an average of 50% more casualties and gun dismounts? Carronades did not have same velocity and energy but enough to penetrate at shorter ranges. At such ranges the regular guns could be double or even tripple shotted.

If one looks at surface area of a hole then a 36# has a 31% larger hole than a 24# and that might be a better indicator for casualties.

So there will the advantage of range for heavy guns where smaller guns might not penetrate at all, but also at ranges where not many hits were achieved, to short ranges where the difference in weight might not be the best way of looking at the true effect from hits.

Are carronades even in? So far I haven't seen them.
I don't even know if ships in ETW use different gun sizes so maybe they don't bother with carronades.


CBR