Question on Cannon Loading -Hanson Island

[Guest]

Sorry if this has been addressed in one of the weapons threads. We just saw the Battle of Hanson island, and part if Wakizara's strategy was to attack YSS when his men had to pause to reload the cannons. (YSS just turned his ships around and fired the cannons on the other side). My question is, if it takes a certain amount of time to reload the cannons, wouldn't you stagger their firing so that some cannons are always reloading and some are always firing? Like one row of gunmen firing and then are replaced by another row while the first reload. What nuance am I missing here?

I once visited the Naval Yard at Portsmouth England and got a tour of Admiral Nelson's flagship. The guide said that the English had the edge over the French because they could reload their cannons in under 2 minutes. Anyone know how long it took the Chosunese navy to reload theirs?

[moreshige2]

Guest said:

Sorry if this has been addressed in one of the weapons threads. We just saw the Battle of Hanson island, and part if Wakizara's strategy was to attack YSS when his men had to pause to reload the cannons. (YSS just turned his ships around and fired the cannons on the other side). My question is, if it takes a certain amount of time to reload the cannons, wouldn't you stagger their firing so that some cannons are always reloading and some are always firing? Like one row of gunmen firing and then are replaced by another row while the first reload. What nuance am I missing here?

I once visited the Naval Yard at Portsmouth England and got a tour of Admiral Nelson's flagship. The guide said that the English had the edge over the French because they could reload their cannons in under 2 minutes. Anyone know how long it took the Chosunese navy to reload theirs?

Hello there. Yes it might make sense to stagger the firing but I doubt it would be effective since usually during battle the Japanese ships headed towards Chosun at full speed. The Japanese had different objectives; they wanted to get to the Korean ships as close and soon as possible in order to board and engage in hand-to-hand combat. The Japanese also had little or no effective firepower.

Another factor we have to consider is that the Chosun forces faced huge odds. Maximum firing over a short period of time would be more effective against a huge enemy fleet that's chasing you. I suspect Nelson was able to stagger his firing power because he and the enemy were stationary until the one side became fully crippled before any boarding took place. And lastly, we have to look at the Chosun fleet's crane formation during battle. It's shaped like a "U" functioning also like a net ready to surround the enemy at both flanks. Turnbull, the author of Samurai Invasion the Japanese early on were too eager for the chase with the thought of being the first for glory. Yi Sun Shin knew the Japanese rashness and he used that to his advantage; he had no choice because even with superior cannons the Chosun fleet were in danger of being overrun.

Yi Sun Shin reminds me of Hannibal because both used run, avoid and sneak attack tactics to succeed against far superior numbers.