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The
St. John’s Wreck (c.1564)
In
1991 the remains of a Spanish shipwreck were found on the
south-western edge of Little Bahamas Bank, to the north of the
Bahamas Archipelago. Ever
since the Museum’s archaeological team has been studying the
as-yet unidentified shipwreck, which appears to have sunk around
1564. For more
details on the shipwreck, visit The
St. John’s Wreck page.
One of the most fascinating discoveries from the wreck has
been its substantial compliment of artillery, which I currently
forming the basis for a major research project by the Museum and
outside experts. So
far three large wrought-iron breech-loading guns have been located
on the wreck site, along with seven small breech-loading “swivel
guns”.
Swivel
Guns (Versos)
Of
the seven swivel guns (“versos” in Spanish) found on the St. John’s Wreck, four have
been raised. Of
these, one has completed its conservation process and is on
display, a second is currently undergoing conservation while the
remaining two are in holding tanks awaiting treatment.
Spanish
“versos” were
breech-loading weapons, designed to be mounded on a swivel yoke a
bit like the rowlock of a rowing boat.
This swivel mounting fitted into a slot on the ship’s
rail, and the gun was designed to be fired at close range, firing
anti-personnel shot into the faces of any attackers.
This mount gave rise to the term “swivel gun” for the
general weapon type, although there are several variants of the
basic generic type. Contemporaries
also had several names for these weapons, including the English
“base” and “sling”,
and the Spanish “verso”
and “verso doble”.
The
way these guns worked was that the gunner would load a small
powder chamber with either loose or bagged gunpowder, then secure
the charge in place with a small wad. The projectile was slipped into the rear of the barrel, and
usually took the form of a small bag of musket shot or scrap
metal, although small roundshot could also be fired.
The powder chamber was slipped into place in the cradle at
the rear of the weapon, held by a small lip in the mouth of the
chamber. To hold it
in place a small wedge was driven into the cradle at the rear of
the powder chamber, securing it tightly against the end of the
barrel. A little lip
at the base of the chamber also prevented the powder chamber form
falling out when the wedge was in place.
The swivel gun was then ready to fire.
A long tiller extended out from the back of the cradle,
making the weapon simplicity itself to aim.
The gunner would stub a length of burning slowmatch (cord
soaked in saltpeter) into the touch-hole at the rear of the powder
chamber, and the gun would be fired, scattering its shot in a
narrow arc from the front of its muzzle.
Experiments have shown that effective range for these
weapons was about 25 yards; an ideal range to fire at anyone
trying to board your ship.
One
of the useful features of a swivel gun was that it was easy to
remove the chamber after firing, insert a fresh bag of ammunition
and slip in a pre-loaded second powder chamber. This ensured that the guns were capable of a rapid rate of
fire if needed. Experiments
have shown that a good gunner could reload the weapon and fire it
again 20-30 seconds after firing the first shot.
This made it a short-range rapid-fire anti-personnel weapon
of great value on a ship, and explains why swivel guns remained in
use in one form or another for three centuries, from c.1450 to
1750.
Typologies
have been produced covering the development of versos (see R.
Smith & R. Brown (eds.) Guns from the Sea (London 1988), and
the principal study by Joe J. Simmons III equated the swivel guns
he found on two 16th century shipwrecks in the Bahamas
and the Turks and Caicos islands with Spanish records.
Through his research he was able to differentiate between
the two main Spanish types, the “verso
normal” and the “verso
doble”. The
former are obviously smaller, but other characteristics include a
slim, smooth barrel and a tiller terminating in a loop or button.
The “verso doble”
was a larger gun, and had the back part of its barrel reinforced.
A third type called the “verso
liso” (smooth verso) was also noted, but it much rarer.
Of
the swivel guns recovered from the St. John’s Wreck, the gun
which is fully conserved (91-028) is a “verso doble”, as are the two weapons awaiting conservation
treatment (92-1240, 92-1189).
The gun currently being conserved is most probably a
“verso liso”, one of only three so far identified.
It is characterized by its short length and smooth lines,
with the cradle for the powder chamber extending smoothly beyond
the end of the barrel. Although more work needs to be done on these fascinating
guns, it is clear that the St. John’s Wreck was relatively well
armed, and was expecting trouble, as all the swivel guns which
have so far been fully examined show evidence of having been
loaded when the ship sank.
Large
Wrought-Iron Guns (Bombardettas)
Three
long wrought-iron breech-loading guns have been discovered on the
St. John’s Wreck, and two of these are currently undergoing
conservation in the Museum’s laboratory.
Similar guns have been recovered from other 16th
century Spanish shipwrecks in the Americas, including wrecks off
the Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Padre Island Texas and Cuba.
These weapons were the precursors of the bronze cannon of
the mid 16th century, and remained in use from around
the end of the 14th until the end of the 16th
centuries. The
Spanish called these types of guns “Bombardettas”, while the
English referred to them as “Port Pieces” or “Murderers”.
They
were constructed from a series of wrought-iron staves, forming a
long, thin barrel shape, then a series of iron cylinders and rings
were heat shrunk over the staves, forming a strong, resilient
wrought-iron tube. The
tube was sunk into a wooden bed with its muzzle protruding, and a
scooped out slot left in the bed at the rear of the tube to
accommodate a powder chamber,
This chamber looked like a shorter version of the barrel
itself, but was closed off with a strong metal plug, forming an
end to the chamber. For
more detailed information on the construction of these guns, see
the Forged Guns page in Gunfounding
101.
The
two guns which have so far been recovered are similar, but one is
significantly shorter than the other; a sort of
“mini-bombardetta”. A
typology produced for these weapons by Joe J. Simmons (see above)
fails to classify these gun, concentrating only on their powder
chambers. From
contemporary Spanish documents, it appears that one size of
“bombardetta” was not differentiated from another, although
research conducted on English guns by Alex Hildred of the Mary
Rose Trust points towards a division between longer
“port-pieces” and smaller, anti-personnel “murderers”.
This might reflect the difference in the Museum’s guns,
although it is still too early to tell.
These
guns would have been mounted on wooden carriages, fitted with
either spoked or truck wheels, although so far no evidence of the
carriages has been recovered.
Initial evidence even suggests that the guns might have
been removed from the deck of the ship and struck down into the
hold, probably in anticipation of the storm which most probably
caused the wrecking of the vessel.
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