In the movie "Six days seven nights " the bad guys have a cannon aboard their ship. Is that common or just a hollywood thing?
Well, I don’t know about the boats over in the South Pacific, but the vessels here off the SoCal coast have no cannons. Although, that’d be nice. So, I guess relative to where I am, it’s just a Hollywood thing.
News from the Eastern Pacific: " There are ships with cannon aboard all over this area. Most are congregated in a den of pirates call Pearl Harbor. But the number of Privateers has been on the decline steadily since the late 1700s."
This is NOT to say that you could not buy almost any type of armament you wanted if you knew where to look. The Kurds in northern Iraq will sell you darn near anything you want, dirt cheap. If you really want a cannon for your boat, I can get…er…no, that would be arms trafficing. I can’t do that. Call me when you get to Southeast Asia and I’ll give you some names. But no guarantees they won’t just take your money and cut your throat. That’s what usually happens.
If you want to some serious firepower, foget cannons and get your tub some French Exorcet anti-ship missles. Also, the Russians have a new supersonic anti-ship missle that is reputed to be a real ass-kicker.
You can’t fire an Exocet or any other ASM off a vessel not designed for the backblast. It’d cook you and burn your boat to a cinder. You CAN fire things like Bazookas, Panzerfaust, LAWs, TOW missiles, recoilless rifles, mortars, etc., with no problem. You can also fire small cannon and similar weapons IF your boat can absorb the recoil.
Anyone need their 38’ Sportfisher upgraded a little?
The part about the recoil made me think of this:
In all the time I spent on Navy ships and saw the guns on them, it never occurred to me (because I’m no Gunner’s Mate) that they seem to have none of the recoil mechanisms that land-based guns (cannons) have. It didn’t hit me until I saw something on TV that said the water the ships are in absorbs the recoil. Well, for sure when I visited the New Jersey, it didn’t have those shock abosrber things that land artillery pieces have. If it is true that water absorbs the recoil, then wouldn’t it still shake the crap out of the ship while it was on its way to the sea? It doesn’t sound right to me.
BTW: About Pirates: It’s still pretty common in SE Asia. I even once ran across a report that implicated the Red Chinese Navy (PLAN: People’s Army Liberation Navy --that’s what they call themsleves) in large scale piracy in the area. So if you’re really concerned about the issue and want to sail in those waters, perhaps you want to forget your “Panzerfausts” and Exocets, and well… join the Navy.
The guns are attached to the ship. The entire ship/gun recoils when the gun fires. The ship is massive so there is less movement compared to a wheeled gun. But yes, the ship moves some, and water absorbs some of the force.