I don't understand a 2 little details in this movie, somebody please answer.
1. When he was in the train, and the cannon was behind him, after he fires the first time from the cannon, he comes back to the cannon, and we see something blow up behind him? What was that, and how did that happen?
2. What did he put in the cannon right before the cannon ball, it looked kind of big, about the size of the cannon ball. What was that?
Thanks.
The answer to your first question lies in the answer to the second one, so let's start with #2: the big thing Johnnie put in the cannon was a metal container of gun-powder. He did this because his earlier attempt to fire the cannon and hit the train commandeered by the Union guys was unsuccessful, the charge was too weak, so he put the entire can into the cannon and it fired.
. . . this time, the charge was so HUGE that he caused a mighty explosion just behind the enemy's train. That's what blew up (in front of Johnnie, not behind him) and that's how it happened.
I think we are talking about two different moments. I just watched that part again, and he put something in the cannon, then it blew up behind him, and then he put the metal container in there. Do you remember this moment? Please try to answer my original questions.
Thanks.
The cannon ball landed just on Johnny Gray's feet. Your copy must have been bad if you did not see it !!
shareThe sequence of events is as follows -
(1) Johnny loads a few sprinkles of explosive from a battle charge, some wadding and a "live" cannonball (meaning it contains an explosive charge) into the cannon. He lights the fuse on the rear.
(2) The few sprinkles of explosive, having limited power, lob the cannonball only into the cab of the engine. Johnny is dismayed, and rolls the still-live cannonball out the door onto the ground as the engine continues down the track.
(3) As he prepares to reload the cannon, we see down the track in back that the cannonball has a delayed explosion, which catches Johnny's attention after haivng assured himself that the cannon didn't fire itself. Johnnny has now learned something new about cannonballs!
(4) This leads to Johnny deciding to use the full battle charge of powder in the cannister for the second shot, in order to reach the train ahead of him and to avoid having exploding cannonballs in the cab of his engine.
BJ
Thank you, step 3 explained my question.
shareJust to add a little further clarification for anybody else who's wondering the same thing (as I was) about the original second question:
The first time Johnny is loading the cannon, we see him put a couple handfuls of gunpowder down the barrel of the cannon, and then something about the size of a cannonball, but it's not a cannonball. This is the wadding for the cannon, and the reason you put it in has to do with the nature of the explosion going on in the cannon behind the ball itself. Without going into too much detail, the small amount of powder that Johnny put in the cannon is just going to sit at the bottom of the barrel, and the resulting explosion is mostly going to be applied to the bottom of the ball, which would not make the cannonball go as far.
The wadding is there to make the explosion push more "out" on the ball than "up", and also to keep the flame of the gunpowder flash from making contact with the explosives inside the cannonball itself (a potentially dangerous situation). Most firearms of the time used wadding, which is probably why Johnny knew to put the wadding in the cannon in the first place. It loaded just like the average rifle.