Going with this topic, I remember at the Copenhague Tojhuset they have a machine to make red hot shot. It has a couple of rails in spiral around an oven.
I think this was for a fort, not to use on board, but they existed too.
I also remember some Dutch account from a XVIIth century Pacific raider chasing a Spanish ship making the route from Peru to Panama.
The pursued ship run out of ammunition and started shooting fresh minted patacones.
This is a patacon. Of course what they probably shot were pieces of eight that went into the wood (some 20% larger).
|