Landships II

kieffer wrote:

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And what's the man on the left doing, is that a cleaning rod?

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I'm unfamiliar with the type but I'm supposing a 6 inch Newton-Stokes with a fixed firing pin in the breech - http://www.mortarsinminiature.com/images/6-in/Newton-Stokes6INMarkIMortar.jpg so that would most likely be a swab to cool the tube. But I see no bucket? There again, no crew members would be standing in front of the thing if it was about to fire 'in real life'. Hmmm ... a 50-60 pound shell, propelled anything up to a mile, I'm thinking *significant* muzzle blast.

True the breach needs to be kept clear of debris and there must be a handy provision to unship the breech to achieve that but it would not require a crew member standing by full-time to push through a cleaning rod as part of the process. But swabbing between rounds or every few rounds to keep the relatively light barrel (about 160 pounds only) at something like 'touchable' temperature might be a necessity. Just a guess. I'm supposing he would alternate with the loader. Those shells would get quite 'heavy', very quickly.

Moving posts - I've had a bit of a look in the activeboard pages and can see no mention of a member facility for that. It is usually a moderator function.

Steve