| Carronade |
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| 18th century weapons | |
| naval artillery | |
| scottish inventions | |
| weapons of the united kingdom | |
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It was designed as a short-range naval weapon with a low Muzzle Velocity , and is said to have been invented by Lieutenant General Robert Melville in 1759 and developed by Charles Gascoigne , manager of the Carron Company from 1769 to 1779. It was adopted by the Royal Navy in 1779, and its early years was also known as a "gasconade" or "melvillade". The lower muzzle velocity of a carronade's Round Shot was intended to create many more of the deadly wooden Splinter s when hitting the structure of an enemy vessel, leading to its Nickname , the smasher. However, it was only able to project a heavy Cannonball over a relatively limited distance. A carronade was much shorter and half the weight of an equivalent Long Gun . They were manufactured in the usual naval gun Calibre s (12, 18, 24 and 32 Pounders , but 6 pdr and 68 pdr versions are known) but were not counted in a ship's Rated number of guns. As a result, the classification of Royal Navy vessels in this period can mislead, since they would often be carrying more pieces of ordnance than they were described as carrying. Although the carronade, like other naval guns, was mounted with ropes to restrain the Recoil , the details of the gun mounting were usually quite different. The carronade was typically mounted on a sliding, rather than wheeled, Gun Carriage , and Elevation was achieved with a Turnscrew , like Field Gun s, rather than the Quoin s (wooden wedges) usual for naval guns. As a result of irregularities in the size of cannon balls and the difficulty of boring out used the two 68 pdr carronades which she carried on her Forecastle to great effect at the Battle Of Trafalgar , clearing the Gun Deck of the '' Bucentaure '' by firing a Round Shot and a keg of 500 Musket Ball s through the ''Bucentaure'''s Stern Windows . Lack of range against an opponent who could keep well clear and still use his long guns led to its disappearance in the Royal Navy from the 1850s with the development of steel, jacketed cannon by William George Armstrong and Joseph Whitworth . A few experimental ships were fitted with a carronade-only armament but suffered because enemies could stay outside their range. Carronades were used in the American Civil War . SEE ALSO
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