My Dad is a big fan and has recruited his son (me) and his motorcycle club as fans ( http:// Jerry Eibert Wind & Fire Profile).

Anyway, my Dad, roadname EVORED, had the following myth suggestion. I'm not sure if this came to him while on the road, while weight training or when remembering his days as a Vietnam vet.

Myth: "You can't shoot a cannon from a canoe." This is a strength training motto. Basically it means that you have to build up your core muscles before being able to exert a max effort. Physically testing the motto literally would produce an interesting visual. The "cannon" might start out as simply a 50 cal handgun and progress to the obvious increases in force from varying sized actual cannons.

Mahalo!

Joe Eibert

quote:

The "cannon" might start out as simply a 50 cal handgun

I wouldn't cal that a hand gun! That is bigger than the main guns on an Iowa class battle ship.

Or did you mean .50 cal.?

What is the difference you ask.

well....49.5 inches.

Well, you can shoot a punt gun from a punt...

A punt gun is a very large shotgun, often a 2-bore.
A punt is a rather small boat, about canoe size.
This was a waterfowling technique way back when, the hunter would lie prone in the boat and "scull" towards large flocks of ducks and geese on the surface, then fire.

If by cannon you mean a muzzle-loading blackpower gun firing solid shot of at least two pounds in weight, then I doubt you could fire one in a canoe. In fact I doubt that you could fit a true cannon in most canoe - cannons are usually around six feet in length upwards (excluding the carridge) and weight at least half a ton. (Again, excluding the carridge).

The short Twelve-pound cannons on HMS Victory (The smallest she carried) weighed some 1.5 tons and required a minimum of five men to work. Not exactly the kind of gun you could fit in a canoe.

Could a swivel gun be classified as a cannon?

quote:

Originally posted by maxman:
Could a swivel gun be classified as a cannon?

Depends on exactly how you classify a 'cannon', since a swivel gun is/was little more than a cannon on a tripod that could fire shot up to a pound in weight.

If you wanted to be technical 'Cannon' means a breach-loading, blackpowder artillery gun firing a shot of 68(?) pounds. (I might have the weight wrong there). In which case no warship before the mid 1800's was technically carrying any cannons at all. (Demi-culverin was used to indicate that the gun fired shot of a set percentage of that from a 'real' cannon. Although, as I said, I can't recall exactly what weight of shot a true cannon fired off the top of my head).

I classify guns as the terms were used in the 17 and 1800's;

Cannon; A muzzle-loading blackpowder artilley gun on a carridge that fired shot weighing two pounds or more.

Hence I wouldn't classify a swivel gun as a cannon - as indeed no sailor would have done. In fact if you'd called a swivel gun a 'cannon' sailors would have given you a distainful look and muttered 'lubber' under their breath.

Trivia; Several officers of a Royal Navy ship stationed in the Caribbean in the early 1700's asked their captain for permission to go looking for prizes on their own. He agreed, allowing them to take one of the ships boats (not in fact that unusual an event). They armed the boat with a single swivel gun - it is not clear if the Captain was unwilling or unable to provide them with one of his ships cannons, or if the ships cannons were simply to large and heavy for the boat. (Baring in mind that the ships boats would have been at least as large as the boat MB used in the second Pirates Special - and this event predated the invention of the smaller and lighter carronades. In later periods Carronades were often put on the ships boats).
The officers went out, and managed to capture a French merchant ship. Which they later refitted and used themselves for future voyages.
The moral in this case was that while the swivel gun was a pitiful anti-ship weapon, against an unarmed opponent it was good enough.

As they've made a cannon from a single tree log before, they should find a tree with just the right bend, and make the cannon and canoe all out of the same tree!

quote:

Hence I wouldn't classify a swivel gun as a cannon - as indeed no sailor would have done.

I wouldn't either. I just thought I would throw that in.

There used to be a category of naval artillery called boat howitzers or boat guns. In US service, they were originally designed to be mounted in the bows of frigates' launches and fired during amphibious operations by landing parties to clear the landing area. They could be fired from the launches' bows and also off-loaded and used to support the landing party ashore as field artillery.

In US service in the mid 1800s, they came in several versions, to include: a light-weight 12 pdr, a medium/heavy 12 pdr, a 24 pdr, and even a rifled 12 pdr. About a 1000 were fielded by the US between 1847 and 1865. They mostly proved successful and were adapted to other naval and shore roles.

Of course, a ship's launch is a fairly large craft as row boats go; not to be confused with a canoe. Here's a picture of a boat howitzer in its shore role, and here's a drawing of one mounted in the bow of a launch.

In US service, cannon was a generic term for large pieces of ordnance or artillery, as distinguished from those pieces which could be held in the hand while being fired. Both the US Army artillery manual and the Naval Ordnance Instructions of the Civil War era use cannon as a general term to encompass all types of artillery ordnance - regardless of whether they were breech or muzzle loading, rifled or smoothbore, bronze or iron.