Mess Cannon
 

I am looking for the ultimate design of Mess Cannon, one which is:

Cheap and easy to build.

Fires the chosen projectile a very long way.

Is very, very, LOUD!

Any ideas?

Oh, and I need to have it built by Friday!

We had an excellent cannon in 800NAS. The idea was pinched off a Swedish Viggen squadron (of all the unlikely places!)
A one metre cardboard tube closed at one end the exact diameter of a tennis ball. Small hole at the closed end into which you pour a measured quantity of lighter fluid.
Add Tennis Ball.
Aim.
Set a match to the hole and bang!
Spectacular results guaranteed.
ES

Hi,
This link or this one, or even this one might help

Cannon
 

Some food tins, (beans, soup etc) are also the right size to accommodate a tennis ball and can be stuck togther with gaffer tape to make a cannon barrel.Construction and use as per ES's post. Beer cans used to do the job but they have gone over to these variable cross section aluminium ones so no go!

I could give you advice but the result might be someone's leg shot off. :O

Poor aim with our QHI course cannon (in 1984, by a certain George McC, God rest his soul) resulted in a pelmet, curtain rails, a pair of curtains and plaster getting shot down in the newly decorated ladies' room in the OM at Shawbury, oops..

He was supposed to be going for a stack of pint pots on an armchair - the elevation was about 45 degrees too high.

Off to the mes to grab some baked bean tins now.




Ooh, that gives me an idea for an alternative fuel.....!:ooh:

I remember a couple of hooligans on 72 at Aldergrove in the early '90s who made a whopper. It was mounted on a tea trolley and incorporated a sighting mechanism. They'd wired up a car battery to provide the spark - no messing about with lighters. I have no recollection of whether it worked, because I'm afraid I was very, very drunk.

The secret of a good mess cannon is the incorporation of baffles at the base allowing a good build of gas.

Mess Cannon
 

I don't know if a WAFU by the name of P*t* Ch*rms is still around, or if he frequents these fora, but his Thunderflash powered device certainly impressed the then 1SL at a Mess Dinner on LGC80, one of the final courses before it became the ISC.

Use catering size cans, the ones about 6-8in diameter and cabbages as ammo.

I also remember the 45 pounder at RAF Odiham that was used as an underslung, loaded with some toilet rolls forced down the barrel and a thunderflash popped in the breach had a suitable effect which could get them over the hangar roof and that was before you got the soft stuff.

:ok:

Often remembered people borrowing it for functions turning up in their cars with towing hitches and hooking the monster on the towing eye before dissapearing into the sunset whilst attempting to still see over the bonnet.:}


Ahh... the old hard shiney white Toilet paper, each sheet lovingly crafted and individually printed with the words "Government property" on them, as if anyone would steal it.........

It was and still is, the only Government White Paper ever worth a sh*t. :cool:

A junglie pilot got hold of a 66mm LAW, to which yeovilton workshops kindly added a brass thread and bolt to the rear end with a small hole in the centre of the bolt.

Remove bolt, place fuse of crow scarer through small hole and tighten bolt with crow scarer in tube. Add tennis ball at other end, extend LAW, sights pop up and fire away!

Picture the scene at a Taranto Night with the cannon maskred in situ under the table due to a ban on Mess Cannons at the event. Fire first round at cardboard ships and cue the Commander of HMS Heron to stand on top table and make his way to the offender just as he says, 'fire me up Nobby!'. Priceless.

Offender ordered to leave mess, no resulting disciplinary action as the cannon way mysteriously stolen overnight......

PVC Pipe is your friend:}(I would recommend 100mm for the combustion chamber and a reducer to 40mm for the Barrell), you require an 'o' ring sealed screw end for the bottom of the combustion chamber (this aids in a rapid reload). PVC Glue to put it all together.

A pesio (sp) igniter embedded into a wooden pistol grip running your wires through a wooden dowl plug into the combustion chamber(assists in maintaining a superb overpressure)

A can of black spray paint, a wooden dowl plunger for loading ones' musket, a sack of spuds, some lighter fluid in a spray can (insert through the small hole in the combustion chamber).

Ram your spud in, fluid spray, aim, Fire! Chips for everyone. :ouch
So much fun, even made one in Bosnia. :E

You should go speak to your Helpfull Squippers (Proper Service Squippers, not this civillian rubbish), get hold of 3 empty glue tins (KB156) bodge tape them together first one with 2mm hole in bottom, 2nd 4mm hole and the 3rd with a 6mm hole, using a plant sprayer to spray a fine mist into the chamber and ignite with one of them trigger type gas burner lighters! works really well, if you can find a piece of drain pipe about 3ft long to bodge onto it, will fire an apple over a hangar no probs :ok:

good luck

WW

There is a book I bought in the states from barnesandnoble.com called back yard ballistics - has a whole range of cannon that can be made from plumbing apparatus

Back Yard Ballistics, William Gurstelle, ISBN 1-55652-357-0

I keep a copy in my desk. Available from Amazon. It is a US of A book so some of the things in there need some alternatives.:ok:

Cripes! Glad Al-Qaeda don't know about us!

Gainsey's tip is spot on. The catering size tins you get from the Mess/NAAFI are excellent, but it really has to be cabbage, so you have to get your ammuntion sorted. Don't want another Islandwhana, do we? Smaller bore varieties allow greater flexibility in available ordnance when the screaming hordes are at the barricade. Socks, tennis balls, your neighbours napkin etc.

I have seen quite large pieces of un-peeled fruit wrapped in a bra deployed, I assure you. And we won on that particular night, but we were only up against ATC, and the supplier of the bra had defected from their side minutes earlier.

Should you choose to 'go large', you can also big it up before firing by giving it a name like 'Big Bertha' (the big f*ck off train mounted jobber that shelled Blighty from France in WW1).

Whatever you decide to do, practice several times. Make sure the thing makes a bloody great bang and hopefully lots of smoke (this can be done independently, just go easy). Accuracy is totally unimportant for once.

Good luck mate, let us know how it goes.:ok:

I seem to remember a course at Linton on 72sqn built a monster of a cannon which was christened "The Chief." The barrel was a 6 foot length of steel pipe and the combusiton chamber was a fire extinguisher. Lynx deodorant was the propellant and it used coke cans for ammunition. The whole thing sounded like a mortar going off and won the inter-squadron mess cannon competiton hands down. As for the range.... No Idea, we never found any of the cans fired as it was a misty day and vis was down to 500m so no impacts were seen!!
Not really suited to indoor use though!

Wondered if anyone else had discovered 'crow scarers'* - bluddy marvleeous things:E:E

Try cutting a small hole in a tin of beans and inserting a crow scarer - removing the paper on the fuse makes it easier to light but decreases the fuse burn time:=:E

It makes a helluva bang and a helluva mess too... I suspect inserting it into a mortar would need good timing but the effect would be amazing:} Imagine the airburst...watch out for the shrapnel though!


*Crow scarers- as it says on the tin- available from farm supplies shops. Usually in a cardboard box with several 'strings'. They're basically industrial sized bangers, fitted into a length of hemp rope. Officially, you light the end of the string and leave it in your planted field- rope burns and eventually reaches scarers at various positions along its length....unofficially, you take them out of the rope...
They're much easier to get hold of than thunderflashes:ok:

Wrapping them in a couple of layers of cloth tape(we used the tape used to repair knots in glider winch cable:8) increases the power. Another tip is that they'll burn underwater too, which increases the fun factor no end:E

We used to tape them to the end of my crossbow bolts and fire them at seagulls- Just like real Flak:} . Never hit any gulls, but certainly increased their bowel movements...

I've seen them blow a beer can into tiny pieces, so be careful out there;)

Arty -

I remember that Linton bad boy. Despite being very, very drunk, I fully recall a can of coke disappearing into the Yorkshire mist at Warp Factor Snot followed by a senior officer declaring, 'Well, that's not coming into the Mess tonight'.

Definitely 72 (they're all really quite naughty lads and nothing much seems to have changed, apart from the fact that 33 and 230 are STILL mincing trannies).

Disqualified and banned from the Mess for simply being too good. Lewis Hamilton would understand.:D