Death by Shockwave: Effects of Naval Cannons in 1800s

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The discussion centers on the potential for sailors in naval battles during the age of sail to be injured or killed by shock waves from cannonballs that passed close by, rather than direct hits. Participants express skepticism about the existence and impact of such shock waves, particularly given the lower muzzle velocities of Napoleonic era cannons compared to modern artillery. Some suggest that while the shock wave itself may not cause injury, it could lead to cavitation effects in the body, potentially resulting in fatal strokes without visible marks. Others argue that documented cases of deaths attributed to shock waves are likely myths or misinterpretations of battlefield injuries. Overall, the consensus leans towards a lack of scientific evidence supporting the idea that shock waves from cannonballs were a significant cause of injury or death.
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I'm not in the medical field and it has been a long time since my college physics courses so I turn to you folks for a possible answer and further explanation. It has been brought up on another forum concerning naval battles in the age of sail about the phenomena of sailors being killed or injured by cannon shot passing close to, but not striking, an individual. I presume this was due to the supersonic shock wave (1130 ft/sec) of the projectile hitting the individual. We're talking about Nelsonian era battles (1800's) with solid, non-explosive, shot of 18, 24, or 32 pound cannon balls and the victim at least 50 yards from the muzzle blast of the cannon. Does anyone have further knowledge of this effect? How far out from the cannon ball would the wave project and would it be sufficient to cause blunt force trauma to internal organs?
 
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Not sure about the comparable magnitude of these two, but from this picture it looks pretty nasty.

Here are some more...

http://www.usswisconsin.org/Pictures/bigguns.htm
 

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I find it hard to believe that Napoleonic era cannons generated that much of a shock wave. Consider that that the usual practice was to "skip" the cannonball across the battle field. The projectile may have bounced off the ground once or twice before reaching the opposing forces. They did this simply because the balls did no good if they were more then 2m off the ground. They had to use a low angle trajectory to keep the ball low.

Several factors indicate a low muzzle velocity. The balls themselves were not precise enough, the cannon barrels were not precise enough, the powder was not good enough.

I have read extensively about 17th and 18th century warfare and have never encountered such a claim. I remain very skeptical and would like to know about the source of this story.


To compare the guns on an Iowa class battleship with Napoleonic era cannon is to compare a horse and buggy to a Ferrari.
 
The photograph posted by stewartcs illustrates the 16''/50 Mark 7 rifled cannon mounted on U.S.S. Wisconsin. From a naval gunnery fansite and this WP article, these fire the Mark 8 armour piercing shell weighing 2,700 pounds, with a muzzle velocity of 2690 ft/s. The black sleeves (called Blast Bags) visible in the picture are designed to shield the gun crew from the blast effects, and indeed the entire deck had to be cleared before firing to avoid serious injury to crew members. (In Movietone newsfootage from WWII, you can hear a warning klaxon sounding shortly before firing large caliber naval cannon, similar to common practice in mining operations.)

But as Integral said, this is a completely different type of gun from Napoleonic War era naval cannon! From a http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Heritage/1797/Victory/guns.html, the 32 pounder cannon achieved a muzzle velocity of about 1600 ft/s. This page also says that on British ships, which used shorter cannon than French vessels, "the most common injury to gun crews was abdominal rupture" (from the blast of their own gun), and I recall reading that in some published accounts. I am not sure about possible shock wave effects from a cannon ball fired at close range passing very close to a person, but a contemporary account of a death "without a visible mark" on the rebel side, of a person almost struck by a cannonball fired by the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill, suggests this might have been possible.

Hmm... WWII shell about 80 times as massive as cannon ball, and ratio of kinetic energy as projectile leaves muzzle something like 236. Using nonrelativistic theory :wink:

[EDIT: warning! Just discovered there is a controversy over the notion of hydrostatic shock, and that biomedical companies selling lithotriptor devices have a huge financial stake in pushing the naysaying side, say by hiring a PR firm willing to engage in forum shilling. I did spot a misstatement in the WP article which suggests an attempt to mislead. Not that I think that's what's going on here, but it illustrates the dangers in taking anything you read on the web at face value. 1oldman, no offense, I hope.]
 
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Chris,
It also occurred to me that the gun crews and friendly troops would have been in more danger from such a shock wave then the enemy. I doubt that in the heat of battle that the crews did little more then step behind the muzzel before firing, needless to say I'll bet the lot of them were nearly deaf after a few months as gunners.
Wonder what they used for hearing protection?
 
It pains me to say it, but AFAIK, earplugs or nothing. And indeed many books mention that gunners tended to suffer permanent hearing loss. The human ear is a delicate organ.
 
Also, we must be clear that the blast wave seen in the photo is from the muzzle of the cannon, not from the projectile. If Chris's datum is correct, a 32-lb ball would be traveling 1600 ft/s, just a tad over 1000 mph, right? That's a very small object going less than Mach 2; I don't think it killed anybody with its sonic boom. However, (speaking of hydrostatic shock), maybe these stories are from people in the water. A cannon ball striking water at high speed could do all kinds of damage to a person emersed in that water. Shockwave would hit like a sledgehammer.
 
Agreed, water is basically incompressible while air is compressible. For example, many books mention the effect of depth charges exploding near survivors from a torpedoed ship who were floating in the water. Not nice. However, as I understand the OP's question (after several rereadings), he was asking about alleged muzzle blast effects on the gun crew, not people in the water. In Napoleonic times, sailors who went into the water quickly drowned, BTW, since as many sources attest, most of them were unable to swim.

Wow! This is getting grim--- let's discuss something cheerful, like the prospect of destroying the universe with a gravitational wave. Which, you know, you wouldn't see coming :wink:
 
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Stewartics, thanks for the reply but that's way overkill to the question at hand.

Integral, the documented acounts I'm referring to are in naval battles, and after about 1800 when cannon boring technology had improved, the muzzle velocities would have been in the 1000 ft/sec to 1600 ft/sec. The speed of sound at sea level is 1130 ft/sec. A 32 pound cannon ball is roughly 5.5 inches in diameter.

Chris Hillman, thanks for the reply. Here what a supersonic shock wave looks like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_wave.
So the question is; How far out from the cannon ball would it project and could it cause blunt force trauma?
 
  • #10
1oldman,
Yeah, I have realized that. In 18th century land battles the range of cannon fire was generally greater then 50yds, inside that range gun crews became easy targets. OTOH sea battles were generally fought inside of that range, it may well be that at less then 15 - 20 yds just the muzzle blast could be disabling, this may be the shock wave causing injury, more then simple passage of a cannonball.
 
  • #11
Integral, I don't really think so. The one instance that I can think of, the individual was standing with others on the quarterdeck and keeled over dead at the passing of a cannon ball. Non of the others were affected.
 
  • #12
Interesting, of course given the state of pathogy of the day, one has to wonder if that is really what killed him. There were so many hazards, one can only speculate.
 
  • #13
Well, that's true but I'm trying to get beyond the speculation. I can do plenty of that on my own.:smile:
 
  • #14
As others have pointed out, it is highly unlikely that the pressure wave killed them. That said, there is a common battlefield phenomena that might explain some of these deaths. Too wit, the pressure wave surrounding a projectile is a small, but powerfull, shockwave. In an environment like, say, the human squash, the danger is not the power of the wave itself, but the cavitation it causes. Simply put, if a big enough shockwave passes through a human skull, whether by massive projectile moving relativly slowly at a distance, or a high speed bullet missing by millimeters, the shockwave, by nature of moving faster in some media (bone, dense grey matter etc.) than in others ( encephalic fluid, blood ) creates a discontinuity in internal pressures that leads to a cavitation of the blood vessels. As anyone with any experience in hydrostatics can tell you cavitation in a pressure system is a bad thing...lol. It leads immediately to unpredictable pressure spikes in the system. In a system such as blood flow in the brain, I believe it is safe to say this is a bad thing.

In short, I think the shockwave itself is of small physical impact, but the cavitation it can cause might lead to sudden and perhaps life ending stroke, without leaving a mark on the cadaver as to the cause.
 
  • #15
Wysard, thank you, that is one of the best explanations I've received on this topic so far. I actually have the question out on several forums, including military medical, and so far I haven't had a whole lot of interest. :approve:
 
  • #16
We need a new whiffle bat icon!

1oldman said:
Here what a supersonic shock wave looks like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_wave.

I proclaim a rule: every time anyone gives a link to WP without solemnly intoning

[size=+2]not that I would believe anything I find at Wikipedia unless confirmed using reliable sources![/color][/size]

they get bopped with a whiffle bat.

Wikipedia, the website anyone can edit at any time in any way they please using any "identity" they please... what does that tell you the stability and reliability of things you read or images you find at Wikipedia? To be sure, the same point is valid for many websites put up by persons who may or may not have some idea what they are talking about.

one of the best explanations I've received on this topic so far

Better say speculation, not explanation! More or less wild speculation: that's all you're getting from anyone here, including me, as I hope you know!

It's quite possible that no-one really knows a scientifically sound answer to your question, because no-one in the 21st century has conducted a really careful scientific investigation of the effects of early 19th century artillery.
 
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  • #18
I just spoke to one of the elders here at the Army Research Lab.

He says that he has never heard of any case of a projectile whether it be from cannon, tank, rpg, mortar, or naval gun, etc. killing or injuring personnel solely due to it's shockwave.
 
  • #19
Thought you guys might find this interesting, especially the part where Dr Frysinger gets knocked on his keister by the sonic shock wave. :smile:
 
  • #20
Seycyrus, most of my military sources say the same thing so I think this is probably just a myth out of the history books.
 
  • #21
1oldman and Seycyrus, could be just a myth. Could also be that there ARE not deaths due to shockwave because it's almost impossible. Take Dr Frysinger. If he had had split his head open and died it would not be death by shockwave, but by blunt force trauma or exsanguination. The coroner looks at the immediate cause of death, trauma from object, stroke, hear attack whatever not the proximate cause of such thing unless it is either readily apparent, or suspicious circumstances are involved. Besides, on a battlefield the medics have more work to do saving the wounded than worrying about what killed some poor unfortunate. No apparent hard evidence. Hmm... there's a project for Mythbusters...!
 
  • #22
Wysard, MythBusters is where all this got started.:smile:

Chris, I use WP a lot because it's easily accessible, to others and myself. If I used something like Britannica, which I believe is a subscription service, other wouldn't have access to the info. Please don't hit me with that whiffle bat!:smile:
 
  • #24
I presume that I am watching a bullet passing near a detonator cap and the pressure wave from the bullet sets off the detonator. No one questions that. There is always a shockwave around any moving object. It's strength and propogation charachteristics can be radically different depending on the object, it's charachteristics, velocity and the media it is in.

That said, there is an enormous difference between proving a shockwave exists and that it can kill you. Let's face it, setting off a detonator by shock is far easier than killing a person with one. To demonstrate, if a tad on the nose, a good fart a millimeter from a car can set off a car alarm, but it is not likely to kill someone. At least not with the power of the wave, or sound, alone...lol.

Even beside a tire blowout the most comon reactions are those caused by surprise, rather than the puff of air.
 
  • #25
Can't anyone here just do a calculation on what the force would be? Then it will be obvious if it is or is not enough to hurt someone. (I don't know enough physics yet)
 
  • #26
Wysard, I didn't mean to deceive anyone but I posted that U-tube video before researching it. It is actually an elaborate piece of photography having an explosive squib detonate precisely as a bullet passes. It was not caused by the shock wave.
I did find another U-tube video, however, where you can actually see the pressure wave;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Num9TR7wlrw&feature=related
Of course I haven't researched this one either. So I'm really with Rib5, but it's been a very long time since my physics days to be able to calculate the force of impact such a shock wave might have.
 
  • #27
A shock wave is not an elastic wave, it is a plastic wave which travels faster than the speed of sound in any particular medium. The equations of shock waves, after Hugoniot, tell us that the shock front is a zone of immensely high pressure followe by a strong rarefaction (low pressure) which actually travels with a group velocity that is lightly faster than the shock front. The shock wave is therefore a short lived phenomenon that cannot travel very far, it dies out as soon as the rarefaction catches up with the shock front. When a shock wave travels through a medium, the medium will experience a strong compression followed immediately by a strong rarefaction. Therefore deformation patterns in rocks which have undergone shock waves are of a tensional nature, shatter cones associated with meteorite impacts being the prime example of such features.

As for the question at hand, if shock waves can break rocks then they can surely kill a man. But the shock wave from a cannon is tiny compared to the shock wave from a meteorite! I doubt that cannons could really generate powerful enough shockwaves to kill a man.
 
  • #28
billiards said:
As for the question at hand, if shock waves can break rocks then they can surely kill a man.

Not in the manner stated in this thread.

I have heard of men dying due to heart failure or "shock" during batlle; perhaps this is more significant than the shock wave being discussed.
 
  • #29
oldman1, I didn't mean to imply anything of the kind, just that using a small shockwave to set of an explosive is easy, but does not imply that the initial shockwave is lethal.

Rib5. The problem isn't the power of the shockwave, as previous posts elucidate the power of the wave itself must be enormous to kill, certainly larger than an average bullet. Having been on a flightline as, I am sure many other contributers here have, that when you are a less than 50 feet from an attack jet slamming away from you with the afterburners on the shockwave is fairly memorable the first time. But not lethal.

So, how would a shockwave of sound kill? What mechanisms might make it possible? If you remove what is impossible...whatever is left...no matter how unlikely...is the truth.
 
  • #30
DrClapeyron, Would you please extrapolate that train of thought.
billiards, Thank you for that input. Where canI find more info on that train of thought.
wysard, I don't think the blast from jet wash compares to a supersonic pressure wave. Remember, in the early days of supersonic flight, this pressure wave was strong enough to lock up the flight controls on a P-38. In my purely uneducated opinion, I envision a shock wave causing a ripple through the soft organs of the body, possibly rupturing some or merely disrupting the heart rhythm.
 
  • #31
Ok, we are now mixing up the shockwaves from explosions, supersonic jets and passing ordnance.

I believe the question that needs to be answered is the following: What velocity would a projectile need to have in order to generate a shockwave similar in magnitude to that produced by explosion that is capable of killing solely by it's shockwave.

The answer is most likely, faster than fast.
 
  • #33
another possisble mechanism

my husband read the same incident as 1oldman in a history of Nelson's Trafalgar (1805). He told me about it and I was "shocked" LOL because as a physician I could not understand the mechanism of injury. I agree that the cavitation of cerebral vessels could definitely account for the sudden death described. Also refer to a condition called "commotio cordis". Knowing the whiffle bat risk, let me say that I found my first reference to this in Wikipedia. Anyway, even though commotio cordis is described as being caused by blunt trauma, I think it reasonable to consider a shockwave as an instrument of blunt trauma. My husband personally experienced shockwave/blunt trauma as a police officer, when he was shot at close range by a hi-powered pistol while wearing body armor. Two things seem to have saved his life: the ballistic Lexan clipboard that the bullet penetrated before hitting his chest, and the impact didn't occur in that window of vulnerability (see the Wikipedia article). The bruise lasted a month!
 
  • #34
Deat by Shockwave

Uptherebels, thank you for that wonderfully professional explanation to the possible causes of dearth by shockwave and to the reference to commotio cordis in wikipedia. Now all I have to do is find out if Dr. Frysinger agrees that said cannon ball could produce the required shockwave. :smile:
 

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