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u/Local_Wave4618 1d ago
I don't think there was very much vs
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u/DyingSunSeverian 1d ago
Reminds me of the scene in The Patriot where a cannonball bounces and blows someone’s head off.
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u/branflakes613 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's another scene where a guy's leg gets casually taken off by a cannonball and it always hits me harder than the head one.
Also, while we're talking about great VHS movies for young me, Perfect Storm and Vertical Limit. Some psycho bought me Signs because of mel gibson. Holy shit the nightmares of that alien doing the big foot walk in Mexico.
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u/HereIGoAgain_1x10 1d ago
I lived in the country and the alien peeping in the window from on top of the barn was 10 times scarier lol they had the ambient noise in that movie. Pretty good for living next to a corn field and night time is creepy anyways in the country so the idea that there could just be some alien watching you from the roof was terrifying
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u/StrongStyleShiny 17h ago
I feel ya. I lived in the middle of the forest and watched a little movie called The Blair Witch Project. My bedroom window just faced a black void of trees so that was neat.
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u/Sufficient_Chemist38 12h ago
The Patriot was the first thing I thought of plus my ancestors that faced cannon fire in past wars.
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u/ThrowingShaed 1d ago
we dont know the scoring criteria. one expanded better, the other kept its shape better, but maybe there was some more even competition going on here
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u/Nzwaffles 1d ago
One of these days the watermelon will win
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u/thevigilante473 1d ago
How about 1000 watermelons? Strength in numbers or something.
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u/YeOldSpacePope 1d ago
To quote my main Pawn in Dragon's Dogma
"Even in numbers a weakling is a weakling still."
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u/DaisylikePie 1d ago
The gunpowder is the difference. Alone, the cannonball is no more powerful than the watermelon and less tasty.
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u/Fun-Revolution4247 1d ago
Technically, if they were placed side by side, the cannonball would have more potential energy due to having a higher mass.
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u/maior_novoreg 1d ago
1 kg of watermelon vs 1kg of cannonball, which would be have more?
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u/JohnnyFartmacher 19h ago
Technically, the potential energy by nuclear fusion of a watermelon is higher than an iron cannonball. It's trillions of times higher than the difference in potential energy due to gravity.
Now of course we want to consider the potential energy of matter/anti-matter annihiliation, which does have the cannonball coming out ahead due to its larger mass.
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u/GamerGriffin548 1d ago
Gunpowder is the real MVP. Why do we give the projectile such acclaim?
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u/Jneucks 1d ago
Well, now I want to see more cannonball vs ___?
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u/Rekanlats 1d ago
Honestly we are gonna shoot again with it in a few months, open to suggestions
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u/Mydogsblackasshole 1d ago
Get another cannon. Cannonball vs cannonball
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u/No_Introduction_3210 23h ago
Is one cannonball being fired at another, fired from a cannon, ball?
Or will it be a cannonball just hitting a, non-moving, ball made to be fired from a cannon?
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u/i_cant-stop_eating 1d ago
I’d like to see what would happen if you hit a giant bouncy ball. Would the ball bounce away or would the ball wrap itself around the cannon before the cannon passes through it. I’m assuming the latter, but would still like to see
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u/Ok-Information1616 1d ago
“This just in: bouncy ball projectile travelling at supersonic speed vaporizes family of five
…watermelons.”
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u/haringtiti 1d ago
ive watched enough cartoons to know that the bouncy ball would obviously go all the way around the earth and hit you from behind while you were still looking to see where it went
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u/Warden326 1d ago
A big bucket of oobleck, the non-newtonian fluid, would be cool
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u/Free-Calendar-5251 1d ago
Do you think it would hurt if you got hit by that
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u/BeMyBrutus 1d ago
No. Your brain wouldn't have enough time to process the pain signal.
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u/Free-Calendar-5251 1d ago
That's comforting
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u/DavidinCT 1d ago
This is one thing, like you don't even want to think about.
This a cannonball would go right through you, like a big hole, so depending on where it hits you, and to note, any part above the legs would be instant death, will make a huge difference.
It would happen so fast that it would be a millisecond by the time your brain catches up, your already gone.
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u/TetraDax 19h ago
This is one thing, like you don't even want to think about.
Oh, nah, reality was much more brutal. Solid Cannonballs were fired so that they landed a few meters before the lines, then skipped over the ground at a low angle and swiped legs. I.e., removed them. You very much felt that.
Alternatively, they used grape shots - Essentially turning the cannon into a massive shotgun that will take out dozens of people with a single shot.
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u/VSWR_on_Christmas 1d ago
The science is kinda weak on this one, but I think decapitated (read: guillotined) people are believed to live for a few seconds and hey, perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of hydrostatic shock (and it probably also depends on the specific cannon/projectile velocity) but I could see ~3-5 seconds of consciousness if hit in the stomach or groin and not the chest. YMMV, IANAL, QED, etc, etc.
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u/IdioticMutterings 1d ago
It actually used to be a method of execution in the British Navy for cowardice (amongst other things). You were tied across the barrel of a loaded canon, which was then fired.
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u/PaintshakerBaby 22h ago
It was also their preferred method of executing Indian dissidents en masse (genocide). Because total obliteration of the body made traditional burial ceremonies impossible.
Basically, it was the ultimate, sacrilegious Fuck You.
It is a too often forgotten atrocity.
It was common practice through the 1870s... just 150 years ago.
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u/thepokemonGOAT 21h ago
That sounds wayyyy too wasteful and time consuming to be the "preferred method".
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u/Foxtrot-13 17h ago
The British learned it from the Indians themselves. It was the Mughals who popularised it from the 16th century onwards, long before the British East India company turned up.
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u/roron5567 16h ago
One, you would be opening the can of worms of are Mughals Indians, historically they are, but they were from Central Asia, and conquerors themselves, and two, you don't need to do what your predecessors did.
The British outlawed the practice of Sati ( Voluntary/coersion of a woman to immolate herself on her husband's funeral pyre).
One of the reasons the British justified their lordship over Indians were that they were a "civilizing" force.
Your point makes no sense, the Mughals used it so that Hindus and Muslims would not be able to conduct funeral rites and the British did it for the same reason.
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u/Logical-Recognition3 1d ago
"By God, sir, I've lost my leg!" - Henry Paget
"By God, sir, so you have!" -Duke of Wellington
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u/Peripatetictyl 1d ago
Babe, would you still love me if I was hit by a cannonball?
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u/jtreasure1 1d ago
Yeah I've had somebody throw a watermelon at me before, they definitely hurt
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u/fatmummy222 1d ago
Apparently, if you train really hard for it, you might survive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Richards_(performer))
Probably still hurt a bit though
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u/sapien3000 1d ago
Wow he lived to age 81
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u/Free-Calendar-5251 1d ago
When you're a professional athlete like that, it's all about load management. Notice how he only did the cannonball stunt twice a day
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u/SNAAAAAKE 1d ago
Like the link says, that was just a compressed air cannon. CO2 <<<<<<<<<<< gun powder
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u/Cipher915 1d ago
Pretty similar to a cannonball vs a person.
Color being the biggest difference.
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u/Ossius 1d ago
Used to think the movies was kinda bullshit when you see someone hit by a cannonball and explode in an over the top way. Then I saw someone shoot a ballistic dummy with musketball and realized if you 10-20x the size the musket ball your statement is pretty spot on.
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u/StumpyTheGiant 1d ago
Folks, this is what it means to be atomized... and this is what happened to those people in that submarine
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u/hmurchison 1d ago
Yes but worse for oceanway. I was watching people talk about the force of what they underwent when the sub collapsed and they said there was a similar situation which there was a hull breach and a man got sucked through a slot. It was literally only about an inch and a half wide.
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u/GitEmSteveDave 1d ago
The difference is time. The sub imploded in a time frame when the human brain would not have been able to process the pain it was receiving. Depending on the hull breech, they might have begun to process things, but did not survive longer than a few seconds,
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u/-Aeryn- 1d ago edited 1d ago
a man got sucked through a slot. It was literally only about an inch and a half wide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Byford_Dolphin_accident_of_1983
Up to 8 bars of delta-p did that, but it still left recognisable bodies. Titan sub was 300
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u/Most_Bet_3658 19h ago
it was actually a 24in hole (if you are talking about the Byford Dolphin disaster). Still an awful way to die.
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u/Neako_the_Neko_Lover 1d ago
Wait how would he get suck out if force would be going into the sub. Not out
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u/Nami_Pilot 1d ago
ΔP ( Delta P)
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u/kinshadow 1d ago
Noooo, the pressure collapsed so fast that it heated them up to crazy high temps before atomizing them. They were incinerated instantaneously as they were vaporized. The watermelon goo from the cannonball strike probably still tastes like watermelon.
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u/letigre87 1d ago
They were, very briefly, diesel fuel during the compression ignition.
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u/Thinking_persephone 22h ago
So based on current market rates, you’re saying their value actually briefly went… up?
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u/Kartonrealista 1d ago
No and no. You will not get turned into atomic gas or plasma by a cannonball or by being instantly crushed by the water at the bottom of the ocean. You can see the very macroscopic chunks of watermelon in this video.
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u/InterestingSpeed2907 1d ago
New Gallagher routine looks dope af
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u/sarcasticphobia 1d ago
"You wouldn't really die of anything, in the traditional sense. You would just stop being biology and start being physics."
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u/Different-Bet8069 1d ago
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever pictured a cannon ball moving that fast. I just assumed it was slow moving and kinda bashed into stuff, not atomize it.
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u/lacarth 1d ago
Cannonballs are OVERALL less dangerous to a group than most modern high-explosives, but it's also a many-pound ball of iron flying at way-too-fast. There is a LOT of energy in that ball, and because it's not a nice, easy, conical shape like modern bullets, it tends to deliver a lot of that energy into whatever it hits. Unfortunately for you and your 1700s buddies, there's rarely something on the field capable of stopping a shot that isn't the ground.
So one cannon shot will just rip through a dozen people in formation before hitting the ground and throwing a bunch of dirt into the mix of people-juice it just created. It's just a line of death, rather than modern explosives' circle.
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u/kirotheavenger 21h ago
Accounts of the time always talk about cannon balls cutting rows or furroughs through the formations of men.
They even mention soldiers next to the path getting wounded by flying shards of bone. Grim.
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u/Dont-Really-Matter 22h ago
Pretty sure we still use cannons, just these days they are called 120mm or some shit 🤣
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u/lacarth 22h ago
Well, yes. But the difference in doctrine, construction, operation, munition, and effect is significant enough that if you said "There's a cannon here" with zero other context, most people will probably think of the good ol' Avast-Me-Hearties, instead of something from Rheinmetall.
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u/petulant-turnip 1d ago
Just curious, why are there flames coming out the back of the cannon as well as the front?
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u/lacarth 1d ago
In this particular instance, it looks like they opened the back to make it a "recoilless" version. That way, some of the extra force from the explosion is sent out, instead of needing to build the cannon bigger/bulkier and anchor it down more.
Historically cannons generally did not do that, except for maybe a little leak out of a touch hole where they ignite the powder.
P.S.: this info is based on a casual interest, and I am neither an engineer nor a historian. Please understand I might be wrong.
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u/culturedgoat 22h ago
Casual interest or not, that was a good explanation and I’m happy to accept it as canon
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u/imperialivan 21h ago
If I recall, the thickness of steel used for a (standard closed-breech) black powder cannon barrel needs to be roughly the same as the diameter of the cannonball. Sometimes even thicker at the breech. This cannon looks to be made from a section of pipe, so they left the back open so it won’t explode open.
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u/ForeverSquirrelled42 20h ago
Beautiful description! The visualization I got of a straight trajectory and its downward arch as it loses momentum passing through people isn’t one I’ve ever had or thought of until reading your comment.
That really tied things together for me as to how they did their business of war. My neurodivergent brain appreciates you.
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u/tramdog 1d ago
The Ken Burns American Revolution documentary has a surprising number of readings of accounts from soldiers in the war talking about cannonballs taking peoples heads and legs off all around them.
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u/farilladupree 1d ago
Different conflict, but during the Battle of Trafalgar, amongst other horrors, seven marines in a file (line) were killed by one cannonball on the quarterdeck of Admiral Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory. His assistant was cut in half by one as well and since they were in the middle of a battle, they just tossed the halves overboard. Chilling stuff.
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u/Chazo138 22h ago
It IS a large metal ball going fucking fast…if you get hit, you’re gonna have a bad time…damn those things are cool tho
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u/Diavolo_Rosso_ 1d ago
I think it's in the movie Glory where in a battle scene an officer is shown rallying his soldiers and his head just disappears from a cannonball strike like this.
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u/Kavorklestein 1d ago
I think that was The Patriot. Also shows one take out a dude’s leg.
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u/musicmunky 19h ago edited 10h ago
You're both correct - the Patriot has a scene where a cannon ball takes out legs, Glory has a scene right at the beginning where an officer's head is literally vaporized.
Edit: the scene from Glory.
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u/Accomplished-Mix-745 1d ago
See this is what the internet was for. Can we go back to this please
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u/LiamIsMyNameOk 1d ago
Can OP give a bit more clarification?
For a start, how am I meant to know which object is the watermelon, and which is the cannonball?
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u/Adventurous_Gate3330 1d ago edited 1d ago
Now imagine your an 18th century farmer holding a musket, and that watermelon was the dude standing next to you. Yikes!
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u/TalithePally 1d ago
Did we lose the ability to show the normal video before the slowmo replay? Does full speed joy exist anymore?
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u/Incognitokde 1d ago
I've seen so many internet videos that I genuinely believed that the canon ball was going to shatter instead of the watermelon. Good night everyone
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u/dasmikkimats 1d ago
Now picture this with that famous pic of the chest armor with a cannonball size hole in it. Oooof
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u/raidersfan18 1d ago
Welp... This proves it. A cannonball is stronger than a watermelon.