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| Pearls Before Swine - Stephan Pastis, 28 October 2012 |
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| There's something majestic about a ship like this. Looked for copyright info but couldn't find it |
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| Apparently Star Trek ships are also called ships of the line. So, a lot of Star Trek stuff popped up when I was looking for pictures. The nerd in me couldn't pass the opportunity up. copyright Gregory Stewart experimation.com |
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| When I say there's something majestic about a ship of the line, I mean to say that it is so beautiful on the water, yet so dangerous in war. Majesty then is grace and power, yes? On another note, can you imagine the sheer terror that could be produced by one broadside? The ship on the right in the foreground is the HMS Victory. A rather well-known British 1st-rate battleship. Ships of this variety were armed with anywhere from 90 to 120 heavy cannons. The lightest of these cannons fired 18-pound lead and iron projectiles. Even assuming that a 1st-rate ship had nothing heavier (the bulk of their armament would most likely be 32-pounders), that would mean that when one broadside was fired (about half of the ship's guns, so let's say 50 guns at once), there would be a flying wall of 10,000 pounds of metal jettisoned from the side of the ship. Wow. |
