Talk:Mary Rose/2007/September

Guns

Can someone more knowledgeable on the subject please clarify how a ship can have 91 guns and 30 gunners? TDIPete 09:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting question - I thought at first the answer was going to be that the numbers of crew came from before the refit that increased her guns, but the 30 gunners comes from the Mary Rose official website and is apparently the figure recorded in 1545. Presumably the answer is that each gunner was in charge of more than one gun team. Viv Hamilton 09:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's more likely that the answer is that both sides of the ship didn't have to be manned at the same time. The Mary Rose was built in a time of broadside gunnery and sailing vessels that were extremely slow in maneuvering. Unless she was actually surrounded, there would be no point in manning all 91 guns at the same time. Also, guns of the time had a very slow rate of fire and needed to cool off between shots so they wouldn't blow up on its gun crew. For comparison, the maximum rate of fire of the 24-pounders of Vasa was a mere 10 shots/hour.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)