Anvil Shooting

[KG3]

Ok, I guess it might be alright to post this here because it does involve ballistics and what not (I am a black smith)?  If not sorry.  I know anvils aren't the most kerbal thing to make fly,  I mean it's not like making a submarine fly or anything like that but I'm sure there is physics and stuff involved right? 

  

 

[Tex_NL]

Few years ago Discovery Science had a series called Flying Anvils, hosted by Tory Belleci, on anvil shooting.

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by Tex_NL

[YNM]

Why would flinging objects by banging them from beneath be something questionable ?

[Meecrob]

Exactly YNM...I'm hoping for a mod SSTO anvil now.

[magnemoe]

Impressed how high they go with just a thin layer of gunpowder below it.
If I understand it correctly. you have an solid flat metal surface like the bottom of another anvil, put gunpowder on it, then the anvil you launch, so once its a few cm up its not more press. 
High explosives yes that would work well. 

[KG3]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Impressed how high they go with just a thin layer of gunpowder below it.
If I understand it correctly. you have an solid flat metal surface like the bottom of another anvil, put gunpowder on it, then the anvil you launch, so once its a few cm up its not more press. 
High explosives yes that would work well. 

There is a space milled into the bottom of the anvils which will hold about of pound of black powder.  Usually it takes two anvils to shoot an anvil.  One anvil is placed upside down on a firm surface (like blocks of wood) on the ground.  A second anvil (the one that gets shot) is placed right side up on top of the first anvil.  Between the two anvils is about 2 pounds of black powder.  I have seen a video in which a guy uses the breech of a navel cannon (around 6" I think) to shoot the anvil instead.  Note that if there are any imperfections in the castings of the anvils you might wind up with a 100lb fragmentation grenade!

  Apparently anvil shooting is done competitively.  Points are given for time aloft and how close to the launch site the anvil lands.    

[magnemoe]

2 minutes ago, KG3 said:

There is a space milled into the bottom of the anvils which will hold about of pound of black powder.  Usually it takes two anvils to shoot an anvil.  One anvil is placed upside down on a firm surface (like blocks of wood) on the ground.  A second anvil (the one that gets shot) is placed right side up on top of the first anvil.  Between the two anvils is about 2 pounds of black powder.  I have seen a video in which a guy uses the breech of a navel cannon (around 6" I think) to shoot the anvil instead.  Note that if there are any imperfections in the castings of the anvils you might wind up with a 100lb fragmentation grenade!

  Apparently anvil shooting is done competitively.  Points are given for time aloft and how close to the launch site the anvil lands.    

Ok makes more sense, did not see the hole for powder. Also an good point about casting quality, using smokeless powder would be more effektiv but would increase risk, black powder has pressure limitations. 

 

[wumpus]

On 3/12/2018 at 9:18 AM, YNM said:

Why would flinging objects by banging them from beneath be something questionable ?

Even worse is that two reasonably influential and extremely kerbal designs have proposed this:

Jules Verne's means to travel "From the Earth to the Moon" (a classic cannon).
Project Orion (the real one by Freeman Dyson), which not only exploded a nuke to launch a carrier sized spaceship, it kept exploding nukes to get it to starfaring* speed.

* the popularizations I've read claim ".1C", but I really have to wonder how many kg of nukes that would take.  Isp might be in the thousands, but 30,000,000m/s is a *lot* of delta-v.  Presumably you would need highly efficient neutron bombs using mostly hydrogen (or be able to cheaply provide thousands of tons of deuterium.

[kerbiloid]

They should aim better. The birds flied away.

[KG3]

10 hours ago, Meecrob said:

Exactly YNM...I'm hoping for a mod SSTO anvil now.

An anvil mod sounds like a good idea to me.  I can think of lots of challenges, can you shoot an anvil onto the top of the VAB or shooting anvils on different planets and moons!  Would it be possible to shoot an anvil from the surface of Minmus and have it land on the Mun?

 

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Ok makes more sense, did not see the hole for powder. Also an good point about casting quality, using smokeless powder would be more effektiv but would increase risk, black powder has pressure limitations. 

Yes, slow and patient explosives only!

[sevenperforce]

6 minutes ago, KG3 said:

An anvil mod sounds like a good idea to me.  I can think of lots of challenges, can you shoot an anvil onto the top of the VAB or shooting anvils on different planets and moons!  Would it be possible to shoot an anvil from the surface of Minmus and have it land on the Mun?

Can't you already do that with any engine?

[KG3]

8 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Can't you already do that with any engine?

Oh...

yah but it's an ANVIL! 

[DDE]

On ‎12‎.‎03‎.‎2018 at 6:32 AM, KG3 said:

I mean it's not like making a submarine fly or anything like

Hold up!