I just saw a commercial for a new show starting tonight on the Discovery Channel called Doing DaVinci. Apparently, they are going to build one of DaVinci’s machines in each episode. Tonight(Apr. 13) at 10PM eastern is the series premiere, and they are going to build his tank. By the commercial, it looks like they are going to be concentrating on the “war waging” type designs. It looks to be a pretty interesting show. Thought some of the people here would be interested.[:D]
very much so…thank you!
I’m gonna have to tune in to that!
Just hope they remember that his drawings have the crank-shafts reversed so that it would never work if copied directly. [(-D] J/K of course, I’m looking forward to the series as well…and the tank is one of the one’s I’m most interested in for obvious reasons. [;)]
Thank you for the programming note MaxSheridan, sounds like a “don’t miss” show.
Are they going to do a three-color scheme on it, or just go with plain ol’ Panzer Gray?! [:-^]…[:D]
“Doin’ DaVinci”—I think I rented that flick at our local Adult Video/Bookstore last summer…
cough family forum cough, cough
[:P]
Four and a half hours before the “adult movie” connection??? You guys are really slipping![:D]
(just for the record, I thought that just after I wrote the original post![:-^])
My roomate and I are now both convinced of several things
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This is television at it’s worst.
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The Historian guy is a Canadian, and the engineer is worthless at doing anything but designing.
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This was probably made to replace smash-lab, but will probably fail, just like smash-lab.
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While cool, its a little worthless when trying to replicate da vinci’s designs-steel frames etc.
But we enjoyed the hour of heckling; and the countless jokes that we made about it’s horrible title…oh well, its too late to change now!
It was an interesting show…but seemed a little forced to me especially in terms of the interaction of the different team members. Have to admit that the format of a “build project” type of show is a little worn-out…and having conflicts between the “precision” engineer and the “art” guy were just a little too predictable. Entertaining but not particularly enlightening…they could just as easily have been building motorcycles. [;)]
What a let down. They should limit the builders to era materials. Also, the “test session” was a pure joke. Roll it forward in a straight line over perfect, level ground. Then roll it backward. Wow.
The best element of the show was the cannon makers work.
Those cannon were ridiculous! (in a cool way) I cannot imagine how many hours went into those…I’m also under the impression that breach-loaders weren’t feasible at this time because of metal alloy constraints
I was under the impression that they were going to build it in a more “period” style. Less “modern” components, and more fabrication. I agree that that genre is a bit over-done, but it was still kinda interesting.[:-^] But they gotta get rid of the gray-haired “artist/builder”…he drove me nuts. “It will work because I believe it will. Forget that the design called for 40 pegs, 39 is good enough.”…uh, OK![(-D]
beav,
Breech loading guns are documented at the end of the 14thc. Some sources quote their creation down to the year at 1372. The breech end had a container that looked like a drinking mug (then called a thunder box) and would be pre loaded with powder and ball and could be slid into place and locked in with a wooden wedge. This allowed for a pretty fast rate of fire and several could be prepared for engagements. Large versions of htis type of cannon were called veuglaire “fowler” and smaller versions were called crapaudeaux “toad”. The preloaded chambers in the hands of a good gun crew could allow one man to serve several guns or a crew to fire one gun every 4 minutes. This was much faster than other muzzle loading weapons of the period.
There are several examples of early 15thc. breechloading cannons such as bombards and peterara in the artillery display at Castelnaud France. The Germans had developed long barreled coulverines in the 14thc. that all used breech loading “thunder boxes” or chambers. Serpentines were just larger versions of the coulverine “snake”.
Between 1382 and 1389 “privy” records of Richard II record the purcahse of 72 cannons some with chambers, from a gun foundry. These guns fired both round shot and arrows or “dart”. The Tower of London records from 1399 show the purchase of “44 cannon of bronze and iron along with 408 springald arrows fletched with tin”.
A weapon system called the ribauldequin was developed in the 1330’s and utilized a number of small cannons mounted on a carriage. This is actually the first piece of artillery coining the term “field artillery”. Antonio della Scala, the Lord of Verona in the 14th c. had 3 great ribauldequins commissioned, each with 144 guns on 3 tiers. Other versions of this gun were used throughout the Italian wars and one of the brilliant things about them was that the carriages were designed in such a way that each gun could be detached and carried individually by a man. They could be moved to the battlefield this way and reassembled or (the cool thing about this “system”) fired individually by its carrier. It is thought that this is where the idea of the “hand gunne” came from or the hack butt. Pretty clever for the mid to late 14thc. (aprox 1375-1380). Many of these guns used chambers or breech loading.
Renarts, thanks for that bit of info…if only I’d have known that when I wrote that paper on major developments in artillery last year…
From that project though, I learned that cannon were horribly expensive-hence the random collections that were found in the hands of monarchs-many were short run. Another thing contributing to the amalgamation was tactics of the period. Machiavelli recommends that at a battle, both sides be allowed to concentrate their artillery in mobile fortifications (wicker baskets filled with earth, variations of which are still used today), then they fire off a salvo, and while they guns are reloaded the armies duke it out with the goal of capturing the other sides’ guns. The rational here being, if you disable or seize their artillery, you can sit safe in forts/castles and let the other guy murder himself on your defences (since he can no longer reduce them). 
Sweeeeeettt…
I wish I had known too, I could have given you loads of information for it. Its a hobby (like I don’t have enough…) and I’ve been lucky to have been able to fire everything from small handgonnes up to 32 pound cannons. Scary stuff even with modern reproductions much less a bunch of bell maker castings and self made gunpowder like they used in period. There is a reason that medieval gun crews got paid more (ultimately I think they got paid less in the long run…)
Lots of stories of cannons bursting after just a few firings depending on the quality of the castings, especially the more massive bombards used to reduce fortress walls and the like. Talk about drawing hazard pay! Maybe that explains Mike’s quirkiness [8-]!
I enjoyed mythbusters log-cannon build/myth. That one was a pretty enjoyable experiment, that worked…go figure…
How about the salami rocket? Now that was entertainment![:D] And I think it worked, too![tup]