Firing THE DEADLY Howitzer

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This is a sort of technical video showing experimental firings of a French howitzer cast in 1738. We made this primarily for distribution to our gun crew members, to help with post-game analysis, rather than for general entertainment. But we didn't see any reason not to make it public as well. In this video, the Springfieldarsenal.com crew fires the howitzer and takes data to assess the shot-to-shot variaton in initial velocity of this weapon. Average velocity of the round over the range of 100 yards is calculated from the time of flight observed in the video. Note that very small powder charges are used, much too small to fill the chamber of the weapon, so the weapon is not operating within its design parameters. Warning: FFFG black powder is not intended for use in cannons as it can develop excessive pressures. We used it under carefully controlled conditions to attempt to obtain more complete burning of the powder in the short-barrelled weapon.


Shot TOF V avg. Recoil
no. (sec.) (fps) (in.)? ?
1 0.7 429 28
2 0.78 385 21
3 0.82 366 17.5
4 0.82 366 18
5 0.84 357 19.5
6 0.78 385 20
8 0.75 400 21.5
10 0.92 326 15.5
11 0.78 385 20.5
13 0.82 366 19
14 1.01 297 11
n=11 ?
? ? ? ?
Mean 0.082 366 19.2

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ballistics
• artillery
• cannon
• blackpowder
• shoot
• gun
• analysis
• howitzer
• firearm
• explode
• rocket
• fireworks
• civil
• war
• skirmish

[cannonmn]

Think you may have mis-read what we did, or we didn't explain very well. We got the average velocity of the ball with enough precision for our purposes by timing the flight from the slowed-down video after we got back to the lab. We figure the accuracy using this method was about plus or minus 5 feet per-second. We only watched the recoil as another piece of data so we could see trends during the test.

[cannonmn]

You are saying you have shot artillery with bores of 88, 155, and 188mm, and a heavier projectile with a small powder charge gives greater accuracy. I certainly agree. I guess that's actually the whole idea behind why all artillery 105mm or larger has usually seven "zone charges" so you can optimize the accuracy by removing the extra propellant you don't need to get the shell to a given target. Also, of course, less propellant means less barrel wear and longer barrel life.

[cannonmn]

Here are the detailed data in case you missed it in the "description" of this video. Shot TOF V avg. Recoil no. (sec.) (fps) (in.) 1 0.7 429 28 2 0.78 385 21 3 0.82 366 17.5 4 0.82 366 18 5 0.84 357 19.5 6 0.78 385 20 8 0.75 400 21.5 10 0.92 326 15.5 11 0.78 385 20.5 13 0.82 366 19 14 1.01 297 11 Mean 0.082 366 19.2

[Blk05titan26]

155 the ball would do a u turn when it saw chuck is the target that it is supposed to hit..........

[155Millimeter]

Chuck Norris could withstand a blow to the stomach from this thing...

[Blk05titan26]

imagine getting hit by this mother fucker

[staticfive]

This test is inconclusive... plywood is a terrible slider for the gun, as it won't slide consistently. Also, they shot at different angles. put it on rollers with a heavy spring and record the max distance while shooting at LEVEL!