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Odd Solutions to Historic Problems

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2020 32 min

United States - American Civil War — Young recruits during the Vietnam War, circa 1967. History

30. An Unfortunate Solution to the Problem of Where to Cram New Guns on a Ship Not Designed to Accommodate Them

A 1561 illustration of sailing ships similar to the Mary Rose being attacked by more maneuverable galleys. Wikimedia

The thinking behind the Mary Rose’s upgrade seems to have boiled down to “cannons are good, so more cannons are better“. In itself, it was not a bad line of reasoning. However, it could prove problematic if more cannons were added to a ship that had not been specifically designed to accommodate them and bear their additional weight. The Mary Rose was such a ship, and as built, there was no space for the new guns.

The solution was to add a new gun deck for the extra cannons. Between that and the addition of more and heavier cannons, the ship’s weight went from 500 tons to 700. That made her ride lower in the water, which brought the lower deck’s gun portholes closer to the sea’s surface. The consequences played out in the 1545 Battle of the Solent. The Mary Rose was among a fleet of English sailing ships becalmed in the Solent, unable to maneuver for lack of wind, when they were attacked by French rowing galleys.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.