Introduction by Ben Dickson

Carronades were first developed by the Caron Iron Works Company of Scotland and were introduced in the late 1770’s. They were first ordered by the Royal Navy in 1779 and were later copied or imitated by other navies. Their great advantage was their light weight in relation to the bore. This permitted mounting carronades on the quarterdecks and forecastles of all vessels, and mounting very large bore guns on the upper decks of small frigates. Early carronades were made with 18 and 24 pounder bores. The 18 pounder was short lived, with 24 and 32 pounder carronades becoming preferred. Larger ships carried 42 pounders and even a few 68 pounder carronades were used. This greatly increased a vessel’s broadside weight of shot. They could also be served by a smaller crew, a great advantage for the manpower starved Royal Navy. The disadvantage was primarily the shorter range in comparison with long guns. Other problems were caused by the short barrels which caused fire hazards, especially to both running and standing rigging. Their lifespan was rather short. In the decades following the Napoleonic Wars, precision gunnery became more important and carronades disappeared.

Because these weapons were compromises, they underwent a number of modifications through their short lifespan in various attempts to mitigate shortcomings. Early carronades were just short cannons and were made with trunnions. These trunnions were difficult to cast on carronades, and were soon replaced by a lug mounted on the bottom of the carronade. The swell as seen on long cannons was replaced by a nozzle in order to direct the muzzle blast away from the ship’s side. Early carriages were scaled down standard naval carriages, but the Caron Iron Works developed a slide that took advantage of the reduced recoil of carronades. Slides were built with a pivot which allowed the guns to be stowed against the bulwarks when not in use. Early slides used a modified gun carriage with quoins for elevation. The later forms added an elevating screw permitting easy elevation and depression of the gun by a single crewman.

Carronades were most useful during close action, and when loaded with grapeshot could do great damage to the ship’s company of an enemy vessel. Their nickname: “Smashers” gives some indication of the effect they could have. Some Captains fitted their ships exclusively with carronades, but the inability of such a ship to engage in a long range action meant that most ships used them in an auxiliary role.

With information taken from Brian Lavery’s Nelson’s Navy

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