Here are some images of Edu Toys Leonardo Da Vinci's Ship's Cannon With Shield.
From the Instructions "
Leonardo da Vinci was also a military engineer; he studied weapons and
medieval military techniques at length. A large part of his manuscripts
show machines and military architecture, some are copies of machines by
Taccola Francesco di Giorgio, others are his own inventions or
modifications of existing machines. He also spent a lot of time working
on naval battles, designing dozens of ships with as many attacking
methods as means of defense on the sea. One of the most original
projects is that of the ship with shield and cannon. Da Vinci drew this
naval weapon in manuscript B for the first time, almost certainly
copying it from a previous author, because the drawing of this project
was already presented in the treatises of engineers who came before da
Vinci and to whom he referred when studying. Again, it was a general
idea, only roughly drawn and without any technical details. Da Vinci
subsequently revisited the project; he reconsidered it, improved it and
redrew it clearly and in its entirety on folio 172r of the Codex
Atlanticus. The idea was to use a small, agile vessel equipped with a
cannon. The prow of the ship and the cannon are protected by a wooden
shield. Da Vinci studied this subject closely, identified the weak
points and invented his own version with many more functions. He
transformed the almost "fantastic" medieval drawing into a truly
achievable engineering project. First, he concentrated on the structure
of the vessel which needed to be reinforced and keep the cannon firmly
in the middle. The shield, which previous engineers had shown as being
immobile and almost temporary, in da Vinci's drawing was split in two
and became part of the structure and mobile. A system of ropes and
pulleys keeps the shields raised to protect the ship. Once the winches
are locked, the weight of the shields themselves causes them to rotate
outwards to uncover the cannon which can then fire. The shield rotate on
two non-parallel axes and da Vinci designed a geometric shape of them
so that when lowered, they fit around the curve of the ship. The
resulting contact between hull and shield is not an easy line to
calculate and da Vinci proposed a few variations. Firing the cannon is
another problem to deal with, as this causes a recoil powerful enough to
push the ship backwards. The semi-submerged shields themselves act as
breaks, keeping the ship steady as it fires. Da Vinci's drawing on folio
172r even shows the metal covered prow of the ship with a detail
showing the device that attaches the shield hinges. The metal covered
prow is there to deliver the first blow to the enemy and is therefore a
secondary weapon. The shields are not just to protect the prow, but also
to hide the main weapon: the cannon. The ship could therefore approach
the enemy quickly, and its tapered and futuristic shape made it also
rather menacing. It was protected by a shield which made the cannon
invisible and meant that enemy weapons would be ineffective work. The
angle of the shield was also useful to deflect cannon fire. When rammed
quickly into the enemy, it could create the first serious damage thanks
to its metal covered prow. Once the enemy ship was "hooked' and
presumably a breach had been created in the hull, it was the moment to
unveil the secret weapon. The shields having been quickly lowered thanks
to their own weight, the cannon was ready to fire directly into the
enemy ship. In theory, a small vessel such as this could therefore sink a
large galleon. It is not known whether a ship like this was ever built.
There are no records of it and perhaps this project too remained
amongst the many projects that Leonardo da Vinci never carried out.
2 comments:
Built into s nice looking model.
Thanks! I don't think it was ever built in real life. Only on paper.
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