carronade
Sign in to saveA carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the last quarter of the 18th century to the mid-19th century. Its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range, anti-ship and anti-crew weapon. The technology behind the carronade was greater dimensional precision, with the shot fitting more closely in the barrel, thus transmitting more of the propellant charge's energy to the projectile, allowing a lighter gun using less gunpowder to be effective.
Key facts
- Weapon.name
- Carronade
- Weapon.image
- Karronade 140mm.jpg
- Weapon.image_size
- 250px
- Weapon.origin
- United Kingdom
- Weapon.type
- Naval gun
- Weapon.service
- 1778–1881
- Weapon.used_by
- British EmpireDenmark-Norway
- Weapon.wars
- American Revolutionary War, French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, War of 1812, American Civil War, First Boer War
- Weapon.designer
- Robert Melville
- Weapon.design_date
- 1778
- Weapon.manufacturer
- Carron Company
- Weapon.weight
- 12–18 pounders
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
10 sectionsContents
- History
- Theory of design
- Early use
- Decline
- Design
- Ordnance
- Range
- Diagram
- Citations
- References
A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the last quarter of the 18th century to the mid-19th century. Its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range, anti-ship and anti-crew weapon. The technology behind the carronade was greater dimensional precision, with the shot fitting more closely in the barrel, thus transmitting more of the propellant charge's energy to the projectile, allowing a lighter gun using less gunpowder to be effective.
Carronades were initially found to be very successful, but they eventually disappeared as naval artillery advanced, with the introduction of rifling and consequent change in the shape of the projectile, exploding shells replacing solid shot, and naval engagements being fought at longer ranges.