# 'Superguns' of Elizabeth I's navy - BBC NEWS



## Yrys (22 Feb 2009)

also related to British Navy : 

Legendary British warship 'found' - BBC News
Captains’ logs yield climate clues - Sunday Times

a bit of background :

Elizabeth's Armada - BBC History
The Alderney Elizabethan wreck - The Alderney Maritime Trust 

Man dies after island wreck dive
Restrictions lifted on wreck site


Shipwreck cannon recovery starts

Marine archaeologists have started work to recover a cannon from a sunken Elizabethan wreck.
The ship went down off the island of Alderney in 1592.

Mensum Bound, directing the excavation, said the cannons on the ship were one of the most 
important finds of their kind in the world.






A variety of military equipment 
was found on the seabed

The warship, which is believed to have been built in Britain in 1575, was carrying a large cargo
of military supplies when it sank. The wreck was discovered in 1977 after a fisherman reeled 
in a musket. It is lying about 25 metres (82 ft) below the surface of the sea. Artefacts found 
on the seabed include muskets, swords, spurs and stirrups.

The team hopes to discover something on the seabed which will help them to discover the 
name of the vessel. Mensum Bound said: "The wreck covers a period of English history 
which is really very little known. It was a period when Britain was really fighting for its very 
survival."

The Alderney Maritime Trust was established to safeguard the wreck, curate the site and 
ensure the proper management of diving operations. 




Maritime 'treasure trove' raised






A treasure trove of artefacts is being recovered from what experts describe as one of 
the most important maritime discoveries since the Mary Rose. The late 16th Century 
shipwreck hails from a pivotal point in England's military history. The raised haul 
includes a 2m-long (7ft) cannon, which will give archaeologists an insight into 
Elizabeth I's naval might.

The wreck, discovered 30 years ago, is situated off the coast of Alderney.

Dr Mensun Bound, excavation leader and marine archaeologist from Oxford University,
said: "This boat is really grade A in terms of archaeology - it is hard to find anything
that really compares with it." The excavation of the Elizabethan warship is being filmed 
for the BBC's Timewatch series.
(available only in England...)

Recovering the cannon was a delicate operation; divers had to navigate through 
reef-strewn waters where strong currents prevailed.

Dr Bound said: "At first the weather was not too kind and we missed out on the 
window for the first attempt, but then the sea went down and the skies opened up, 
and everything was suddenly going our way. "There were a few tense moments, 
but overall it went really well.

"The cannon is in perfect condition - nothing has broken - it has an intact hand 
grenade, part of its carriage system is in place, there is the barrel of a gun or a 
sword on one side. "We cannot wait to get a closer look at it once it has been 
cleaned up.

"Archaeologically and historically, this is an important day."

The team hopes to raise another cannon in the coming days. As well as the cannon, 
the team has also recovered many more objects, including a musket, a soldier's 
breastplate and an intact navigational calendar. These join a large collection of 
artefacts - including another cannon - raised from another dive in the early 1990s.

*Pivotal point*

Experts believe the Alderney warship and its contents will help shed light on a key 
point of England's naval history. The boat is thought to have sunk in 1592, possibly 
after an encounter with one of the area's many reefs.

Just four years earlier, Elizabeth's navy had defeated the Spanish Armada and was 
embarking on expeditions that would exert its maritime and territorial domination 
around the world.

Dr Bound said: "The wreck illuminates a time when England was fighting for its v
ery survival - the world was at war, the Catholic south was fighting the Protestant 
north." At the same time, he added, the navy was undergoing a technological revolution.

He said: "Henry VIII's Mary Rose dates to 1545 and is an old-style ship. It had all 
sorts of guns, of different types, different shapes, different calibres, different ages, 
different styles." But just 47 years later, the Alderney warship looked very different 
- and by looking at artefacts such as the raised cannons the team hopes to discover 
just how advanced the navy really was.

"We hope they will demonstrate that this ship was carrying our first uniform, 
co-ordinated weapons system," Dr Bound explained. "We think that here we have 
a standardised weapons system here; the guns are all the same type, the same 
materials, the same technology, the same calibre. "It is a different type of navy, 
its a more professional navy. We have here the beginnings of broadside naval 
warfare."

The cannons and other arms, such as muskets and guns, will now be brought up 
the Thames to the Tower of London. There they will be examined and then flown 
to York for conservation.

The BBC Timewatch team will then follow the archaeologists as they rebuild and 
test the weapons, putting them through detailed ballistic tests to determine their 
precision and power.


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## Yrys (22 Feb 2009)

'Superguns' of Elizabeth I's navy - BBC News

The English navy at around the time of the Armada was evolving revolutionary new tactics, 
according to new research. Tests on cannon recovered from an Elizabethan warship suggest 
it carried powerful cast iron guns, of uniform size, firing standard ammunition.

"This marked the beginning of a kind of mechanisation of war," says naval historian Professor 
Eric Grove of Salford University. "The ship is now a gun platform in a way that it wasn't before."

Marine archaeologist Mensun Bound from Oxford University adds: "Elizabeth's navy created the 
first ever set of uniform cannon, capable of firing the same size shot in a deadly barrage. "[Her] 
navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of England's enemies, 
and which was still being used to devastating effect by Nelson 200 years later."

Deadly artillery

Until now, it was thought Queen Elizabeth was using the same cannon technology as her father, 
Henry VIII. His flagship, the Mary Rose, was ultra-modern for its day. However, it carried a 
bewildering variety of cannon - many designed for land warfare. They were all of different 
shapes and sizes, fired different shot at different rates with different killing power.

It is known that during Elizabeth's reign, English sailors and gunners became greatly feared. 
For example, at the beginning of Henry VIII's reign, the English fleet was forced to retreat 
from heavily armed French galleys. By the time of Elizabeth, even Phillip of Spain was 
warning of the deadly English artillery. But no-one has ever been able to clearly show why 
this was.

The new research follows the discovery of the first wreck of an Elizabethan fighting ship off 
Alderney in the Channel Islands, thought to date from around 1592, just four years after the 
Spanish Armada. The ship was a pinnace, a small ship carrying 12 guns, two of which have 
been recovered.

"There's a very good chance this ship fought against the Armada with its revolutionary guns,
but there's no proof that all or even some of the others were armed similarly," says Saul David,
historian and presenter of a BBC Timewatch documentary about the guns.

"Bear in mind that our ship is a pinnace and not a full-size warship. So it is probably going too 
far to say these guns defeated the Armada four years earlier. "But they certainly represent a 
huge leap forward in military technology and may have contributed to the Spanish defeat."

Spain attempted to invade England in 1588 with 200 ships. The Spanish were unable to 
overcome the English navy, but there were also other reasons for the defeat.

The English used fire ships in a night attack, the Spanish lacked a good deep water harbour 
to load their troops and they were eventually scattered by a storm. At the time, Spain was 
Europe's superpower and Philip II wanted Elizabeth's throne and to return England to 
Catholicism.

*Replica cannon*






The two cannon were recovered from the Alderney wreck last summer.






Replicas were recreated in a modern foundry, and tests carried out for the Timewatch 
documentary showed that the Elizabethans were throwing shot at almost the speed of 
sound.Elizabeth's "supergun", although relatively small, could hit a target a mile away. 
At a ship-to-ship fighting distance of about 100 yards, the ball would have sufficient 
punch to penetrate the oak planks of a galleon, travelling across the deck and out the 
other side.






Elizabeth's navy worked out that a few big guns were less effective than a lot of small 
guns, all the same, all firing at once. The English navy stood up to the Spanish Armada. 
But, perhaps more significantly, as England's reputation for naval prowess was growing, 
Philip abandoned any further attempts at invasion.

"What we have shown is that the English navy and its gun founders were almost 50 years 
ahead of their time technologically," concludes Mensun Bound. This made Elizabeth I the 
mother of British naval dominance lasting three centuries.


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## ltmaverick25 (22 Feb 2009)

I remember watching documentaries about the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English fleet.  The documentaries suggested that English naval gun power was not sufficient to cause any meaningful damage to the Spanish ships, that ultimately it was the fire ship tactic that won the day.

This new find seems to contradict those conclusions about English fire power.


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## George Wallace (22 Feb 2009)

And all these years I thought it was the fact that the Spanish ships were unable to lower their guns to engage the English ships, with their lower profiles, up close..........and of course the storm that sank a vast majority of the Spanish fleet.


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## a_majoor (22 Feb 2009)

Very interesting. The Venetians had a similar advantage over her nominal allies and the Ottomans in terms of shipboard artillery during this time period as well, with the Arsenal producing high quality cannon that were lighter and more powerful than anyone else. Their galleys were better than their opponents as well.

Of course qualitative advantage can only go so far. The _Serenìsima_ could economically and militarily outperform their opponents on an individual basis, but ultimately lack of manpower and conflicting impulses in their foreign policy could not be overcome. England had the ability to call on allied forces (in the United Provinces and the Protestant German principalities) as well as the advantage of a relatively consistent set of foreign policy goals (the _Serenìsima_ derived most of its wealth through trade with the Ottoman empire while also being at war with them, a rather confusing state of affairs).


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