Hey Joe - cannon question

[Alpo]

When hauling the caissons down the street, is the cannon secured in any way?

 

Watching Good Bad and Ugly. Army's pulling out, and they are dragging the cannon. Barrel is pointing up at about 11:00, then it hits a bump in the road and the barrel drops down to about 9:00.

 

Just got me to wondering if the barrel was secured in any way, or if it just kinda floated free.

[Rusty Chains]

Never noticed that in GBU but you can bet that any regular army unit would secure the barrel properly. If left loose it would flop around and damage the carriage where the trunnions are fastened or the elevation screw. Now a bunch of Italians pretending to be soldiers during the War of Northern Agression, not so much.

 

Now that you mention it....time to pull GBU out and throw it in the player! Thanks for the suggestion!

[Subdeacon Joe]

Here is a gun and limber (gun is "limbered up"):

 

another:

 

 

The elevating screw is run all the way up to lock the tube in place. If left to flop around, that ~1000 pounds of metal will start breaking things.


Here we see a caisson and limber:




For every gun you had a limber, and also a caisson with its limber. Caissons were the ammo haulers - two chests on it, plus the one on its limber. The limber for the gun also had a chest.

Now, if you were having to beat feet to keep from being over run, you might limber up and put some miles between you and the enemy, then secure everything properly. But then again, it really doesn't take that long for one person to turn that screw up while others are doing their jobs.

[Rusty Chains]

And unlike the ones you see in the parks dedicated to the War of Northern Aggression, with the elevation screw up and the muzzle down rain water won't collect inside. The department of the interior seems not to care for the bores of those old guns.

[Alpo]

Rusty, the scene is the town where Tuco catches Blondie in his hotel room. "There are two kinds of spurs - those that come in by the door and those that come in by the window." General Silby's men are running strategically retreating from the Yankees, and the hotel keeper is happy, "Now we'll get Northerners here, who pay with gold", as he watches them leave.

[Rusty Chains]

Thanks Alpo, I will watch for that....gonna fire up the video after the rain sets in later. Right now I am off to find a piece of marble for my gun cart rebuild. Finding a 6 by 12 piece has been tough (sigh it is so painful to have to go through all the big box stores and the floor covering stores to find the right piece ). The wife just rolls her eyes when I get started on one of these projects.