| The lack of space between the bulwarks and the main hatch coaming of the Revell Golden Hind was one of the first things I noticed when I took the kit out of the box. There is, indeed, insufficient room there for the guns to recoil - certainly not enough room for them to be run in to the point where their muzzels are inboard of the bulwarks. My initial thought was, "well, that's stupid." A few years ago, however, I was doing some digging into the history of naval guns for an encyclopedia article (Collier's) that I'd been hired to write. I learned that some eminent authorities (Peter Padfield's Guns at Sea, for example) argue that the practice of running in the guns, and letting them recoil till their muzzles were inboard,, may not have been the norm prior to the late seventeenth century. As evidence, these scholars cite contemporary paintings and drawings by artists who demonstrably knew what they were doing (the Van de Veldes, for instance). Such pictures often show gunners loading and ramming their pieces while the barrels are projecting fully through the gunports. Even a very small artillery piece will recoil several yards if it isn't restrained. Those scholars contend, though, that the breeching lines on pre-eighteenth-century naval guns frequently were set up so taut that the guns couldn't recoil (and, in the case of a ship built like the Revell Golden Hind, then go tumbling down the main hatch, probably to puncture the bottom and sink the ship). The researchers who are studying the remains of the Mary Rose (sunk in 1545) seem to think that some, at least, of her guns weren't intended to recoil. (Some of the carriages have four trucks; others have two, and certainly don't look like they were intended to be run in and out on a regular basis.) Professor Kelsey thinks the Golden Hind was probably built in 1574 - less than thirty years after the Mary Rose sank. Naval gunnery certainly had evolved during that time, but I think it's more than feasible that she had "non-recoiling" guns. Remember that, to the eyes of anybody accustomed to thinking of naval guns as looking like the ones on board the Victory or the Constitution, the guns on board the Golden Hind were tiny. Take a look at the ones on board some of the reconstructed ships - the ones at Jamestown Settlement, for instance. The whole gun sticks up slightly higher than an average man's knee. (My students and I are taking a trip up there in a few weeks; I'll see what the fellow in charge of the Susan Constant thinks about this interesting subject.) A heavy breeching rope could keep a gun like that from recoiling. Rigging one of the still-smaller guns on the forecastle or quarterdeck like that would be even more practical. Frankly, I'd be more comfortable if Revell had made that big hatch a little narrower. But I'm not prepared to say it's wrong. (If it were made narrow enough for the guns to recoil as we'd take for granted in later centuries, that hatch would look pretty silly - and not be useful for much. It couldn't be more than two or three feet wide.) What I do have trouble understanding is why the Revell designers (or Mr. Gay, or whoever actually did the original plans for the model) put lids on the gunports in the waist. If the guns can't be run in, the port lids can't be shut. And when I was studying contemporary plans and models of eighteenth-century British frigates I came to the conclusion that many of them didn't have lids on the ports in their waists. It's easy to figure out why; a sea that was high enough to come through the gunport in that position probably would be high enough to come all the way over the bulwark. In the case of the Revell Golden Hind, I think I'll probably leave the hatch as-is, rig the breeching lines on the waist guns almost taut, omit the lids from the ports in the waist, and fit the ones on the ports under the quarterdeck - where the lids would have the effect of keeping some gear at least a little drier than if the ports were left open. Oh - I can testify with virtual certainty that the pieces making up the guns in that kit are not recycled from any other one. As of 1965, when the Revell Golden Hind was released, the company had only made four other sailing ship kits with guns: the Constitution, Santa Maria, Bounty, and Victory. The guns in those kits look nothing like those of the Golden Hind. (My source there is, as usual, Dr. Graham's history of Revell.) Revell was notorious for pulling disreputable marketing stunts, but this kit most definitely was not one of them. Interesting stuff - if trivial in the grand scheme of things. The solemn, unfortunate truth is that, when it comes to sixteenth-century ships, we just don't know much. Donald McNarry calls models of ships from that period and before "too early models"; he'd rather concentrate on later subjects, for which the contemporary documentation is so much better. He has a point. On the other hand, trying to figure out what the Golden Hind might have looked like is a fascinating, fun exercise. We need to acknowledge, though, that any model of her - or of any other sixteenth-century ship - is, at best, a piece of educated guesswork. |