Canister Shot From Civil War Cannon.wmv 

Obselete tactics and advanced technology doesn't mix well, the Russians learned hard in WW1

Fine for the home side, terrible for the opposing army. Of course the opposing team would have their own batteries, which balanced it out.

This reminds me of that sick mel gibson movie from when i was a kid; The Patriot. Different wars but, still, its a badass movie. Im going to watch it again on the 4th!!!

Scary to say the least.

Even worse considering that during the time of Napoleon there could be batteries of _several_ dozen....

these were men beyond any words nothing can do them justice all knew they were gonna dye!

Horrible !

I think it needs be said never forget these AMERICANS. This was American guts and resolve to fight for what they believed in so passionately. Both sides marched into this ridiculous certain death. Not North or south but Americans. Bravery x infinity RIP ALL

Men made of sterner stuff. Men who stared into the face of death and walked into it. God bless them all... Blue and Gray.

Artillery makes me weak in the knees. I can handle 40mm grenades going off but artillery is a whole different deal. Yesterday I came on a video of the Syrian army prepping an ISIS held area with a 2 hr barrage, presumably from their "old" Soviet 122mm guns. Recorded with excellent video and audio the sight and sounds really drove home the power of the shells. The crack-boom have a fearful authority upon the ears and psyche. As a side note whoever was running the artillery was skilled judging by the accuracy and the TOT was very impressive. Video was from July 2018.

Imagine being some poor Confederate soldier on July 1st, 1862 at malvern hill, virginia... Union artillery officer Henry Hunt lined his guns wheel to wheel atop the hill and savaged the oncoming rebel waves of infantry.

I guess wait for it to shoot first

It's interesting, the cannon itself against infantry could be absolutely brutal in the right situation, but often did not cause mass casualties. Rather field artillery was meant to demoralize and break the enemies formation. I'm sure hearing the thunder of a battery go off and one big ball knock out 4-12 of your fellow line men was much more psychologically devastating than a wall of musket fire.

j dman I would not have wanted to be part of a tightly-packed (shoulder to shoulder) massed infantry formation facing that. The carnage would have been horrible; men blown apart, dismembered or horribly wounded. The problem of using Napoleonic era infantry tactics against evolved artillery weapons and tactics.

@@rzr2ffe325 we'll cover was rarely used. So their would be nothing to hide behind. Only skirmishers would use them. Line infantry wouldn't as it made them vulnerable to cavalry. So they would usually use cavalry on the flank. (Although this is a more Europe style tactic not sure if it was used in the civil war.)

Id be like fuck this. Come on lads let's use guerrilla and ninja tactics instead. infiltrate and cut their throats while they sleep. Fuck this field warfare shit. There's no honour or sporting chance in it anymore.

Comment of the month LOL >"Marching toward one of these would take bigger balls than the gun itself."

Easy to say that with your modern understanding and preconceptions. A different time my friend.

They would have if Lee had done what Longstreet wanted to do.

And if J.E.B. Stuart had GPS 3:45 he might have not left Lee twisting in the wind at Gettysburg

Anyone else here after reading the "as the founding fathers intended" copypaste?

Would like to see some text advising ranges and elevation of the canon.

Against a blick formation, 1-2 grapeshot cansiters, decently aimed would be enough to kill all soldiers in formation, minus a few survivors.

I mean its pretty safe to say its devastating. Weapons like this and the gatling gun are why linear warfare went to the wayside. A single canister shot would take out huge chunks of formations, sometimes up to two dozen men. Especially since you can load more than one canister like they show here. Literally hundreds of shots. Artillery fucking works. Lol

Incomming u mean

and the proper amount of powder. most of these reenactment shots/firing only uses a fraction of what they did in the day.

That's because they're firing blanks. I was playing some video games like Empire Total War and some earlier games than that, and thought those cannons don't recoil that much.... nope. They do. Now watching movies that don't show cannons recoiling, it's kind of just looks fake. :( There are movies, more recent movies, that have come up with ways to make the cannons look as though they're recoiling.

The drama 'Sharpe' did have a recoil of sort from cannon firing. At times the rope hauling the carriage back is visible, at least once the crew on the rope pulled early! Nothing like seeing a canon 'flinch' before the shot fires. A little funky, but they tried.

I know for filming the movie Gettysburg, they used less powder in order to cut down on the amount of smoke. If they had used realistic amounts, they wouldn’t have been able to see much to film. If you watch Master & Commander, that movie really captures how much smoke would be given off from those old cannons.

Waterloo is so funny when they show the whole battery firing 😂

Also hear the brass cannon ring?

Same. Pretty sure those re-enactors could be persuaded to do it all again :-)

Thought the idea was injure or kill, not evaporate them ?

@@tommypackwood1013 Injury is actually a better outcome than death provided its reasonably severe; an injured man takes two others to remove him from the field of battle and soaks up further resources for his care.

@@marvindebot3264 Thats true in todays battlefield. Not during the days of Napoleonic warfare. If you got hit on the battlefield and couldnt get off the field on your own power. you laid there until the battle was over.

@@Front-Toward-Enemy That isn't correct at all for CIVIL WAR battles. Medics and Medical Corps were long underway by then. This isn't Napoleonic warfare. And what you said can be true for any war since then, i.e. WW2 or Vietnam...

He said, "Hold my paper cartridge"

@@crankyoldguy5661 "Hold my rimfire cartridge"

like ringing a bell

I've always read about that but this is the first time I've actually heard it. Wished I was there in person to hear it.

John Koeberlein yes it would the thought of it is scary enough! and you do have courage, to admit you dont think youd have the courage to everyone reading! :)

John Koeberlein Delication and courage, and belief in the cause you were fighting for.

Get drunk first with your buddies.

As with all who go into that. It's got nothing to do with courage and everything to do with fear. The fear that your comrades are doing it and you're letting them down if you don't. That's what warmongers rely on in the young. Always works.

If the Yankees were marching in to your country to burn your farm, rape your women and destroy everything you know and love, you'd get mad dog mad enough to face any canon.

No rebel forces could be found. Succession is not rebellion

​@@jksandman000 *sucession, but yeah, it was legal, and Fort Sumpter was a foriegn army occupying newly sovereign territory. I'm never going to defend slavery, and I had ancestors fight on both sides. I just wish that people understood that the South had every right to do what they did. Slavery was terrible, but thats not why the North wanted war. People like to point to Southern state constitutions preserving slavery as "proof" of that being the issue. It was not. The North was extorting the South for money at every turn. Ending slavery wasn't only a non-priority for the North, but they wanted to avoid it. They needed that cash to keep flowing. Emancipation was only used as a tactic to destabilize and punish the South later in the war, as things had gotten desperate. By the end of the war, most objectives were lost, and actions taken were purely punitive. Although I consider Abraham Lincoln to be out first communist president (he suspended the constitution, was a fan of Karl Marx, and wanted control over the distribution of goods and wealth.), things would have been much better if he hadn't been assassinated. Oh, well.. It's interesting, and disturbing history. What happened happened. I just wish that people wouldn't get so bent out of shape about it. It's over, and everyone involved is dead. If anything, the South has more of a right to be sore about it, because the economic and social ramifications persist to this day. I find the events of the past in relation to war to be very fascinating. How different would the world be if the Romanovs, or Ferdinand weren't assassinated? What if there was no French revolution? If just one king would have been passed in favor of his brother? IDK..it's late, sorry for the rambling.

This is true

The colonels were always in front with the rest of them. It’s those pesky generals that sat back.

Every household should have one especially if you live in Portland

@@ryanhodge2721but why should the general charge the cannon

@@womble3383 They shouldn't.

Yes it did, those are the exact words used by many survivors to describe it. You share my sentiment.

one witness said it was like someone blew up a crate of tomatoes another said the confederate line dissolved in to a red mist

Mankind is so sick. Always was, always will be until the last explosives will blow away the last brain.

Another kind of warfare I'd hate to see would be every war before the invention of guns Sword against sword Real face to face combat on a large scale, imagine the blood, and what it would be like to be wounded during a battle, I would pray for a quick death in that situation Sure the civil war and the first world war was bloody but at least it was quick

And yet despite the horrendous damage done to men with weapons like this, it would pale into comparison when most of Europe went to war within half a century, the carnage done by arty in the Great War was unimaginable. Brave souls all. #UBIQUE

jack johnson There's bunch of battle with guns like that

over 600 guns at Gettysburg

Imagine one with hundreds.

It wasn't the gun that was different, it was the charge.

During the battle of Fredericksburg the Union shelled the town with 180 cannon firing for over 8 hours. There were no Confederates in town, they were stationed on a rise south of town.

It's still used.

I can't imagine coming against a whole line of these being sent your way. It just cut them down like weeds in the field. To think they just came at it... Why?! Ya know?🤯

There are some reports from Gettysburg that when they ran out of canister rounds, usually the smallest number of rounds carried in the limber and cassion, they would fire what they called 'rotten shot'. A shell, hollow shot filled with balls and a bursting charge set off by a time fuse. They would neglect to use a fuse and the shell would burst inside the gun tube the effects were much like canister rounds but you didn't want to fire it over friendly troops!!

You hear the guns in reenactments and then this and it is a completely different sound. Have you ever checked out the videos on how they think the real rebel yell sounded? Cool stuff

@@PheonixNine There's footage of them actually doing it

If it is fired at you, you don't hear a thing. They are going faster than the sound.

@@Michael-rg7mx No, they are not. You absolutely would have heard the angry bee sound a second before it hit you.

the union won, get over it. slavery is shit and so is everything confederates stood for.

@@domnikoli >states rights are shit

Makes me fear for them.

Sounds like we have a TRIGGERED democrat.

@@domnikoli you uneducated buffoon the C.S.A stood for more than just slavery so go back to school and learn something.

@ZARDOZ HASPOKEN People aren't going to forget the Civil War. revering the traitorous"heroes" of the South, and their fight to retain slavery doesn't need to be done, however. Their statues and such can be put in museums, where they belong. Your victimhood is noted. LOL

Amen to that...

ZARDOZ HASPOKEN buddy boy, you’re missing the point. Only “1.5%” of men were religious leaders, kings, nobels, ect in the past. It’s the sheep with belief that were the threat, the common man indoctrinated to act as the arm of the 1.5%. It doesn’t matter who owned slaves, it matters how many men voted and fought to maintain it, and we have plenty of evidence that most Southerners were in support and fighting for it, whether they owned slaves or not, so it doesn’t matter, most were guilty of contributing to a terrible practice.

This is a myth. Journals from common Confederate soldiers showed they knew exactly what they were fighting for and were happy to die for slavery.

I read a diary of a young Mississippi solider who's reg. was held in reserves 20 yards inside the woods when a new Union artillery position opened up. At first the shells overshot their position and then started crashing into the ranks. He found himself on the ground, thinking he was dying, covered in blood and tissue as he stared up into a tree above him where there was a half a skull on a branch dripping on him...I read this 25 years ago and I never forgot it...

Cindy Klenk yes. I just did some lineage on my family and found a small cemetery in Carolina the other week. there are some of his and my family buried there. I have walked petersburg many times. live close to there. he also fought at battery Wagner and roanoke Island.

I had an ancestor who was wounded at Cold Harbor and then killed at Weldon Railroad leaving Petersburg . I live outside Lynchburg. Three confederate generals are buried here most famous is Gen. Earley.

Cold Harbour was murder, not war.

Weldon technically ran right in front of my home.

+AKGaming Check out N.S.S.A. North South skirmish Association. Winchester Va. you might find some videos at the Spring or Fall national match of about 12 of them all shooting at once. Also Mortars.

+AKGaming or if you search for Grayling michigan artillery match

+1903A3shooter How much distance though for the NSSA?

yup...

nothing to cheer about.

Abby Babby imagine what they saw at Franklin. my ggg grandfather fought at cold harbor and he told my family that he remembered heads, arms and legs being blown clean off by cannon fire.

That was maybe the heaviest enemy fire at close range. Later WWI charges dealt with machine guns. Canister was 12 ga. shotgun x 10 up close.

Multitask gamer Pro Thats quite the weapon system.

Cindy Klenk Thank you Cindy.

Cindy Klenk I think I need to go back through Grants writings, I missed that.

Gettysburg Pickett’s charge scene

Very hard to imagine. Don't know how they did it.

I would imagine that at times men may have figured that they had better odds at getting to the guns than they did in a hasty retreat back to their lines. 50 yards from the guns you just MIGHT have a chance at silencing them. Running back almost a mile in open fields to your own lines you have now exposed yourself to all guns and you have no fighting chance at all. It's an interesting dilemma once you've committed to advancing in the field in the first place. Don't advance and your own officers may shoot you down!

I would call in "air support"

I know.. Crazy.

I have to admit I would have been right there with you and probably passed you by. :)

frightening indeed...but remember the grand batteries deployed in the napoleonic era involving hundreds instead guns at once. i refer you to the battle of friedland, wagram, and more notably leipzig in 1813

It was a time period of honor, they'd rather die than be framed a coward.

My belief is they were more afraid of letting their comrades down then they were afraid of dying.

I imagine artillery men were rarely taken prisoner

Thank you! If you want more information or videos find us on Facebook facebook.com/BatteryI Our website www.batteryi.org More videos at: ru-vid.com

What struck me was the ringing sound immediately following each shot. I suspect that it was the bronze barrel behaving like a struck bell.

Charles Prokopp I may be off, but unless this ringing sound is consistent when firing shells, the bell tone is probably from the breaking of the canister rounds containing the shot.

The "dust" rises because the shell leaving the barrel creates a vacuum sucking up whatever loose sand or dust surrounds the artillery piece. Take a look at larger artillery pieces and they such up the dust for 20 yards around the piece whenever a round is fired.

It is amazing for the courage it would take

Borat Erali Nazarbayev On my farm we don't plow at all, but most farms do plow much like the fields shown in this vedio.

Borat Erali Nazarbayev that's how we plow our enemies down .

When I was in Vietnam I saw first hand was canister shot and "beehive" rounds could do. One night the NVA attacked an artillery battery protected by tanks and infrantry (us). They hit the side of the perimeter where the big guns were located. They artillery

this is how we built up the iron levels in some of our fields

What did the artillery do?

Bells no doubt caused flashbacks for many CW veterans

NO SPONGING!

Seagulls....homo sapiens is only real problem.

@@kvarnerinfoTV - No, socialist liberals are. They are the ones who turned a normal person like you into someone who hates and despises his own kind. Thanks to them, YOU and people like you are the actual problem. So in your damaged mind we should all die and let the bees take over, because we're so awful? Right, because bees don't try to kill anything that comes near their hive, do they?

@@56squadron thnaks to others we are in 6th mass extinction, we destroyed the planet and we will face destruction in next 100 years

@@56squadron And no, we should care for environment, other animals and act as advanced species.

Seagulls have taken over our land fills and parking lots and it's no where near water.

@@reddfraser2 Traitors to whom ? They were fighting for the Confederate States of America. Sherman and Grant waged war on civilians in the South. It is well documented by the people who survived this. It was also documented and bragged about by the Union Army Officers. They burned towns,homes, barns, raped, killed,stole and destroyed everything in their path. The people they lied about freeing were put into contraband camps and allowed to starve to death or die of sickness. Over one million African- Americans died under Union Army control from 1862 thru 1870. U.S. 1860 census / 1870 census.

What you are hearing is the cannon tube ringing like a bell. It is bronze and you've just struck it very hard .

@@philgiglio7922 Not fffg tho Phil, cannon powder is far courser than that. fffg is a pistol or small to medium bore rifle powder.

@@philgiglio7922 You can definitely hear the shot roaring through the air in multiple parts of the video. He was referring to that.

+Sean Coyne Yeah, I've been to big reenactments and the noise is just mind boggling. No wonder so many old soldiers were deaf. Listen to that cannon ring and the shot go moaning off. Lordy, what a terrible sound.

+Sean Coyne Cannon firings in Tasmania! Tell me more. I'd love to see that one day

It was a re-enactment of the last British convicts leaving the Port Arthur penal settlement, held at the historic prison grounds. The gun was owned and fired by a local group of enthusiasts, dressed in period uniforms. Come to Tasmania for a holiday, you won't regret it. This place is unbelievably beautiful.

I live here :P Might have to see if i can find out about the enthusiast group.

+Sean Coyne That, in the guts, was a sonic blast wave.

+Paul Brooks Yeah, resolution and guts spilled all over the field

Actually the NC troops penetrated deeper into the lines at Cemetery ridge.

Heh heh heh. "Penetrated deeper."

Not sure where you read that, but the NC troops on the far left of the attack (under Trimble) were pretty much annihilated before getting close to the Union line. The fences on the Emmitsburg Road were too close to the Union lines for the Confederates to disassemble ahead of the attack (like they did on their right), so they were forced to scale them under fire, which broke up their lines. Because of this, they ended up in a giant mass heading towards the Union lines. Hays's Yankee batteries cut them to pieces at close range with double and triple canister. Also, Hays's men were lined 4 deep and were instructed to pass loaded muskets forward to the front ranks to keep a constant withering rate of fire going. A wooden board on the fence the NC men scaled measured 16 feet long, 14 inches wide - it was examined after the battle and 836 musket ball holes were counted. That is some intense shit right there...

The ONLY reason would be that you were brainwashed, stupid and insane. The sane thing to do would have been to shoot the son of a bitch officer who ordered you to commit such stupid suicide, which is EXACTLY what I would have done. They would have executed me, but I would have died a stupid death anyway, so why not die for a JUST CAUSE!

Anytime someone views history from current thought they are bound to never understand why things were done the way they were or why.

A Soldier Doesn't Fight Because He Hates What's In Front Of Him, He Fights Because He Loves What's Behind Him.

What's at stake? Another man's cause. It's that simple. Someone else starts the war, gets you to believe in it all and you die for another man's cause. It's a perpetual cycle. I used to buy into it. Its why I enlisted. Not anymore

deeply cringey comment

It was canister. Grape shot is different.

psychology at times more potent blood shed

To loose is depressing, to win is sublime.... about the way of and reality of War,..to fight takes Brave Fellows. ...Cowards of either sides are not generally welcome in these battles between Honorable Brave Men....Hero's ......and Brave Women too. Laughing beats crying any day of the week, ask any Soldier, or Veteran, ...Soldier's never change......IF you know any...ask them..

It was being used as an experiment calm down.