On the Mons Meg ...
I know you guys are more focused on
why it cracked, but i find it also interesting to find
when it cracked... as attached down below.
On the cannons recoil ...
A problematic issue with artillery aboard ships; even considering that their carriages were tied to the ship walls, to limit their course.
This fell into the complexity of bringing gross artillery aboard, as opposed to earlier conviction that ships could only carry relatively small guns, given to their structure, namely then vessels width (narrow breadth).
In order to achieve success in their sea adventures, the Portuguese invented or took advantage of previous inventions, upgrading their basics. For a start, the heavier guns (camelos)
* were mounted aboard the lower board ships (caravels) thus avoiding the tilt caused by such guns on high board carracks (naus), those which were equipped with smaller ordnance for their defense purposes. This was the start of advantage in sea warfare.Then a new idea was to build watertight gunports
** in the ships hull by a lower deck level, thus gaining more fire power and the possibility to shoot fire at the waterline (ao lume d'įgua), an extraordinary asset, as the ball would take a horizontal trajectory, keeping to bounce off the water surface and hitting the enemy's more lightly built (Turc) ships at water level, causing their quick sinking.
On the water tank episodes ...
Not that this did not take place but, there would be a difference between shooting a gigantic gun in confined spaces, which dual occurrence is not the general rule, and shooting them in the open field, like in siege or beating situations where, apart from the environmental fuss
***, somehow the smoke burn and air dislocation find ways to escape. Notwithstanding that, during artillery primitive ages, all kinds of accidents would take place, where hardly gunners stood safe. For come reason the French used convicted men to operate them
.
On the gunpowder quality, Alamo and all ...
It takes a few contextual reasons for gunpowder not being successfully effective; from early times where the invention still had an incipient condition, passing by the difficulty in acquiring the ideal ingredients
***, and ending wth the ineptitude of non specialized makers ... not forgetting climate conditions (humidity) most depending in the place where it is stored.
* As these guns shot stone projectiles (pelouros), their lower density, as opposed to iron, made thin barrels feasible, and the resultant pieces were remarkably light when compared to their destructive power.
** This revolutionary idea is attributed to a Descharges, but other nations started by declining it, with fears to weaken the ships hull structure. But the Portuguese, circa four years earlier, took the risk, by placing them in pondered hull spots, as it was fundamental to lower the artillery center of gravity.
*** Philip is right in that the Constantinople crowd ran for their lives over Mehmed's massive cannon firing endlessly on the walls, but maybe the effect from the assailants side was not so unbearable, specially spaced by the extremely slow rate of its reloading; adding by the way that (as i've read), its imprecision gave the besieged the opportunity to repair most of the damage after each shot, limiting the cannon's effect.
Is such story plausible, Philip ?
This being true, such cannon reloading procedure gave a chance for the Turcs to dry their bodies between each diving into water tank.
**** Such look for precious gunpowder raw materials may be observed in the third attached text.
So long
...
.