The Mary Rose was a carrack in the English Tudor Navy of King Henry VIII that fought in multiple battles during the 16th century before it was sunk in 1545. After its wreck was located in 1971 and raised in 1982 the ship and all the items contained within the partially preserved hull became the focus of intense study. Among these items are the weaponry found, including the cannons, but also massive darts that seemed to have been designed for an incendiary payload. Recently [Tod’s Workshop] collaborated with others to test these presumed incendiary darts.
Although fire arrows have been around for a while, seeing what appears to be super-sized versions of these is somewhat unusual, but could make sense in taking out enemy ships of the time. The main questions are how you would even fire them, and how effective they would be. Were the darts thrown by hand from e.g. the crow’s nest, or fired from a cannon?
The reproduction darts used are based on the recovered remnants of the original darts, with an incendiary mixture inside a pitch-covered cloth covering. This mixture would be ignited by wooden fuses after a set amount of time, at which point the resulting fire would be basically impossible to put out. Obviously, this also means that if you were to throw one of these darts, it can absolutely not fall onto your own ship.
First tested was throwing the dart by hand, which seems like it would clear the ship. Of course, the three recovered darts were found near a rather special cannon that appeared to be both a miscast and angled upwards. Whether that cannon was used for launching apparently somewhat experimental darts is hard to say, but it can be tested. Sadly, lacking a full-sized black powder cannon a scale model dart was fired using compressed air.
From that scale test it’s clear that at full charge the dart would disintegrate due to the rapid acceleration, but a ‘soft’, or reduced, charge could work against nearby targets. Once the dart lodges itself into the enemy ship’s structure, it would definitely cause severe damage as further tests in the video demonstrate. Having a salvo of these fire darts fired at you from a nearby ship would definitely make for a pretty bad day.
“cannon”
I see your “cannon” and raise you the ‘auto-correct’ button on a spellchecker.
Go on… Ask why I’m so sure that’s what happened :)
It’s “shoot” or “loose”. You don’t “fire” arrows, even if they are “fire arrows”…
Dogs of war are “slipped”, arrows are “let loose”, but what for … French cows ?
Seems a Ballista would be better than a cannon.
Fetchez la vache.
Well it’s a dart and they aren’t sure if they were thrown or launched out of a cannon or what, so I think bets on specific terminology are all off. Doubt very highly it was deployed from a bow.
Didn’t reply to the correct comment again award
But that capping charge burns so vigorisley that it would blow the arrow from its intended course, right? That would defeat the whole purpose of using something that resembles an arrow. Might as well use a spear instead of an arrow.
Just thinking out loud.
Also, about the small arrow and using a softer charge so that the arrow doesn’t disintegrate… It means it can only be launched when you’re really close by the other ship. But the only reason you’d want to come close by another ship is when you want to enter it. Seems to me that setting an enemy ship on fire just before you intend to enter it, is a bit of a foolish thing to do. :P
My feeling is that you only want to use such incendiary charges from the long distance. At the minimum to wreak chaos on the enemy ship, to divert their attention to extinguishing many small fires, so that you gain more time to position your own cannons to blow them to smithereens before they can do that to you.
More small fires is always better than a few large fires.
It’s gruesome to think about it, but it follows the same law as: more wounded enemies is always better than more dead enemies. A fight is about winning the fight, not about killing as many opponents as you can. Wounded men cause more confusion and demoralization than dead men. And you win fights mostly by confusing and demoralizing the enemy so that their attack and defense crumbles.
The crew of the Mary Rose were fighters, soldiers, and you must think like them.
Also, ships are valuable. Capturing an enemy ship is most always preferable over destroying an enemy ship, because you could add that enemy ship to your own fleet and become stronger. So again, causing confusion and chaos on the enemy ship is preferable to destroying it, because it gives you the chance to capture it. You don’t want to sink a ship, you want to incapacitate it if you have that option. Then tow it to your harbor to repair it and add it to your own fleet. So, you would want to use your cannons to shoot the masts down, and then get close enough to clear the decks with shrapnel. Trying to sink a ship is only something you’d want to do if they are getting you under and you are about to loose to them. And as a last action you might want to blow up your own ship to prevent the enemy from capturing it and using it against you.
These were not like modern ships, where if you’s capture a ship you’ll not be able to make use of it because its systems are incompatible with yours and you have nobody to man those systems. A cannon is simple, can be manned by anyone. A modern radar-based threat detection and targeting system is specialized stuff needing many people to man, with lots of training behind them.
I’m not an expert though. This stuff just interests me to no end. ;)