Fireballs?

[michaelsbagley]

Sigh....

So I have been reading John Esquemeling's "The Buccaneers of America" (more like plodding through, my reading time recently has been extremely scant), and I have noticed a few instances of the Buccaneers using "fireballs" (or was it "fire balls"?).

Each time I've read that, I've had a little snicker from my remembering playing "Dungeons and Dragons" when I was younger (is that a 10 or 12 die fireball? ), then the little joke in my head stops, and I read on assuming that the fireball was some sort of term for a "molotov cocktail" type thing or perhaps a grenado or similar device.

Does anyone have any other references to the use of "Fireballs" within either the Buccaneer or Pirate eras? Better yet, does anyone have any reasonable evidence (or references to) of what exactly they were or may have been?

I'm just curious, and don't currently have the time to delve into it right yet...

Thanks in advance for any help. I've doen a quick search here on "Twill" and didn't find anything, if a thread currently exists, I will happliy even take a pointer to that thread.

[Captain Jim]

Could these have been "hot shot" cannonballs? Since at least 1589 red-to-white hot cannon balls have been used to start fires/ignite powder on ships and in forts.

Basically the cannon would have been loaded in the normal way and then an "overwad" of wet material would have been rammed home, followed by the red-hot cannonball. A final wet wad (to keep the ball from rolling out) then fired immediately.

[Patrick Hand]

There was a reference somewhere when we were takling about granades.....

From what I remember, they were a mixture of flamible stuff mixed together and formed into balls with a fuse sticking out.... It didn't sound like they would work very well tho......

Now I'll have to see if I can find the reference again........

[michaelsbagley]

Could these have been "hot shot" cannonballs? Since at least 1589 red-to-white hot cannon balls have been used to start fires/ignite powder on ships and in forts.

Basically the cannon would have been loaded in the normal way and then an "overwad" of wet material would have been rammed home, followed by the red-hot cannonball. A final wet wad (to keep the ball from rolling out) then fired immediately.

I wouldn't rule out "hot shot" base on what little I know.... But the context of the battle I most recently read this in, the buccaneers had been travelling overland, and *probably wouldn't* have been lugging artillery.

Patrick's suggestion of the goopey ball of flamible stuff sounds more like it might have been what was being used. as it would have been more portable....

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions though!

[blackjohn]

Each time I've read that, I've had a little snicker from my remembering playing "Dungeons and Dragons" when I was younger (is that a 10 or 12 die fireball?   )

I don't think my 11th level Ranger has access to fireball under the latest edition of the rules. Rangers got smurfed in v3.5 rules.

There are a wide range of incendiary devices available to the naval combatant of the era, some hand thrown, others launched by little artillery, etc.

[Capn_Enigma]

Alexander Exquemelin does not mention "red cannonballs", but, as Patrick suggested, the great- grandfather of the anti- personnel hand grenade, consisting of a metal sphere, a bottle or some other sort of container, filled with gunpowder. Add nails etc. ad lib.

This is the quote:

... the buccaneers immediately swarmed up, furiously attacking the Spaniards with hand grenades and stink- pots...

[callenish gunner]

and there are existing examples of flintlock grenade launchers from the period ....so the grenade theory has a lot of credence!!! found a link from a post awhile back from gentleman of fortune ...as i recall they weighed in just over a pound or so more than a good sized blunderbuss

http://www.gentlemenoffortune.com/handmortar.htm

[michaelsbagley]

Alexander Exquemelin does not mention "red cannonballs", but, as Patrick suggested, the great- grandfather of the anti- personnel hand grenade, consisting of a metal sphere, a bottle or some other sort of container, filled with gunpowder. Add nails etc. ad lib.

This is the quote:

... the buccaneers immediately swarmed up, furiously attacking the Spaniards with hand grenades and stink- pots...

Thanks Enigma. That is the segment I am talking about.... But I hadn't even considered that the reference to "Fireballs" may have been a translators issue related to my edition of the book (which reads differently from your quote, similar, but not quite).

[Patrick Hand]

Excerpts from The Sea-Gunner

A TABLE Of the Principal Matters contained in this Book.

How to make Hand-Granadoes to be Hove by Hand.

How to make Fire-Pots of Clay.......To make Stink-Balls.

I almost remembered it right..... the mixture is put into a container.....

[blackjohn]

I've always thought fire darts were rather cool. Maybe I should make one to fire from my blunderbuss?

[John Maddox Roberts]

From what I've read, red-hot shot were never fired from ships, only from shore batteries firing on ships. You needed a furnace and it had to get really hot to heat a 4- to 32- pound iron shot glowing red. Keeping a ship from catching fire was hard enough without having a furnace like that aboard. I suppose the smith would have a forge, but it probably wasn't big enough to head heavy shot. There's a great description of a shore fort cooking up hot shot in one of the Hornblower novels, I forget which.

[Mission]

It's from after the time of the buccaneers, but a fire ball none-the-less.

"[Dec 26, 1710] Then we fell a-stern in our Birth along side, where the Enemy threw a Fire-ball out of one of her Tops, which lighting upon our Quarter-deck, blew up a Chest of Arms and Cartouch Boxes all loaded, and several Cartridges of Powder in the Steerage, by which mean Mr. Vanbrugh, our Agent, and a Dutchman were very much burnt; it might have done more Damage, had it not been quench'd as soon as possible." (Woodes Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Round the World, p. 161)

[Fox]

By coincidence, I had my attention drawn to this book today, which has a whole chapter on fireballs:

http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/a-glorious-empire.html

[PoD]

Good find. Just bought a copy.

[Mission]

Hey, are there any period quotes of interest specifically about fireballs burning people in that book? I'd order it, but by the time I got it, it would be too late for my article (on burns, obviously) and most of the rest of it doesn't look interesting to me.