Re: (TFT) Re: ...keep your powder dry

[stan rydzewski <srydzews@ix.netcom.com>]

Pasha and or Rick Smith wrote:
> 
>         Hi everyone,
> 
>         Thanks Stan, Justin!
>         I really enjoyed these two posts!
> 
>         What would the range of various sizes of cannon?
> I would be very interested since one of my campaigns has
> pirates with cannon.

That will vary, but if you're using late-medieval cannon most will
tend to be small, designed more to kill the crew of the other ship
rather than the ship itself.  A really heavily armed cog or suchlike 
vessel might mount four "large" guns (24 or 32 pounder culverins on 
the main deck), a dozen or so "medium" guns (6 to 12 pounders on the 
main deck and on the fore- and sterncastles) and a couple dozen 
smaller pieces (1 or 2 pounders in the tops and on the rail).

Of course, that's *a lot* of guns, more like what a warship would
have than a typical pirate ship.  I would think that a 15th c.
pirate ship would be doing well to have a brace of 12 pounders
as its main battery, and a dozen 1 to 2 pounder swivels to back
them up.  

I think the ratio Justin mentioned, of using powder equal to 1/3 the 
weight of the shot would be applicable to all these weapons.

>         If I understand Justin's reasoning, the number of
> cartidges will range from 30 to 75 per pound of powder.  So if
> we say that 50 cartridges can come from a chemist's dose of
> powder then the cost to fire a musket would be $2.  $2 is lower
> than I am really happy for the cost of powder.

Well I'm not sure that his reasoning and mine are necessarily at
odds with one another.  I mean, yes, I agree with him that the 
weight of powder per shot would be much lower with "advanced" 
18th century powder and weapons, but for the medieval period I
think my figures (which end up at $10 per shot) may be closer.

I don't know that Justin necessarily disagrees with me on that
point.  But at any rate, even if my figures are high they're
certainly more reasonable than ITL's.  If you're concerned 
about the $2 cost per shot that the 18th c. weapons would have
then why use them?
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