WI: An earlier discovery of nitrocellulose?

Really? I thought even pyrocellulose was a low explosive, not a high explosive.

In medium sized quantities, it can be detonated with a Primary Explosive, like from a Blasting Cap. Its Detonation Velocity is not far off from Picric Acid, and faster than TNT.

Think of it like other high explosives, they can burn, but not detonate unless there is a shockwave along with the heat
 
Proper steel making technology is the limiting factor in cannon and firearm use. That may delay nitrocellulose use until the late 1800's without an additional POD. Explosives and medical usage seems much more useful initially. I could see earlier use in mining and construction projects. Medical usage would assist in reductions in infections. Early plastics would see an increased interest in industrial chemistry.

(And if gun cotton led to an earlier canal revolution as major strategic canals are blasted open, allowing new trade routes at the same time, like an earlier Don Volga canal, an earlier Suez canal, interlinking the rivers of Germany and Poland with canals earlier... I could see the increased trade stimulating economies and pushing steel technology to develop faster. I'd bet that earlier steel would be arriving in the mid 17th Century at the earliest though. Likely later.)

fasquardon

One of the first major users of gunpowder were miners. Then there were many other civilian uses eg quarries, agriculture for clearing the land of rocks and tree stumps and probably the most important is road construction.

For this, the explosives do not have to be anywhere near in quality and power to the military needs.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Brass is too brittle. Really fine bronze cannon and bell makers were artists. A good bronze cannon could be made with finer tolerances, thus less windage than iron cannons. Although iron is lighter than bronze. the thickness required for a similar cast iron cannon with similar powder charges was greater, thus reducing the difference in cannon weight. Any smart captain took the bronze cannon until the mid-1800's when better wrought iron technology allowed iron to catch up.
 
Also, if there were any problems bronze cannons would tend deform in a noticeable way and allow you to diagnos a problem and not use it until repaired.
Whereas iron cannons tended to just shatter/explode if things went topsyturvy
 
Also, if there were any problems bronze cannons would tend deform in a noticeable way and allow you to diagnos a problem and not use it until repaired.
Whereas iron cannons tended to just shatter/explode if things went topsyturvy

It is for this reason that only in the late 1800s iron cannons replaced bronze ones and only after major resistance from many in the military.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
It is for this reason that only in the late 1800s iron cannons replaced bronze ones and only after major resistance from many in the military.

OTL they existed side by side. Iron cannons were cheap compared to bronze cannons. As soon as cannon makers could reliably cast iron guns, they did so. These weaker guns were used to increase numbers of cannon. Naval use was helped in larger calibers by the lighter weight of iron guns. Especially when you consider the number of stone throwers in early artillery.
 

Kaze

Banned
In medium sized quantities, it can be detonated with a Primary Explosive, like from a Blasting Cap. Its Detonation Velocity is not far off from Picric Acid, and faster than TNT.

Think of it like other high explosives, they can burn, but not detonate unless there is a shockwave along with the heat

Where on... you could use it to blast your way into castles - a bomb under the wall or at the doorway could be useful. Or blowing up the King by placing catches under the Parliament.
 
OTL they existed side by side. Iron cannons were cheap compared to bronze cannons. As soon as cannon makers could reliably cast iron guns, they did so. These weaker guns were used to increase numbers of cannon. Naval use was helped in larger calibers by the lighter weight of iron guns. Especially when you consider the number of stone throwers in early artillery.

This is mainly due to costs. The existing bronze weapons were not all suddenly switched to iron, the change took time.
 
Plus Bronze guns could be recast into new guns, cast iron, you really couldn't do that. Cheaper to use new metal.

Yes and that would make it easier to repair bronze guns especially as bronze has a lower melting point than iron. Also, bronze does rust as much.

Doing a search on the net it appears that the US Civil War was fought with both sides using iron and bronze guns and there does not appear to be an advantage to one or the other overall. So until then, the pluses and minuses are about even.

However, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 was fought with French using bronze and the Prussian using steel-cast cannon. The Prussian gun was clearly superior and that probably was when the move away from bronze cannons happened.

http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=The_Franco-Prussian_War_of_1870-1871

Maybe we are looking at it from a wrong perspective it does not appear to have been a discussion of bronze to iron but between bronze and iron to steel.
 
The problem with things like this is that a functional advance in something as complex as firearms/artillery requires a whole number of things to be advanced. Better explosives/propellants you need stronger rifles/cannon which means better metallurgy to produce the actual metals, better means of creating the weapons (casting, rolling etc), primers to fire the weapon's charge and so forth. Making collodion for bandaging, or a plastic like Bakelite is much more of a stand alone advance.

Part of the problem is until you have chemistry based on some sort of real understanding of the different elements, and also measures of weight and volume that are relatively standard, reproducing products of a "chemical industry" can be iffy. Absent standards of composition, purity, volume, and weight a formula from one alchemist to another, especially across cultural lines (Muslim world to Christian world) is a very inexact recipe indeed.
 
The problem with things like this is that a functional advance in something as complex as firearms/artillery requires a whole number of things to be advanced. Better explosives/propellants you need stronger rifles/cannon which means better metallurgy to produce the actual metals, better means of creating the weapons (casting, rolling etc), primers to fire the weapon's charge and so forth. Making collodion for bandaging, or a plastic like Bakelite is much more of a stand alone advance.

Part of the problem is until you have chemistry based on some sort of real understanding of the different elements, and also measures of weight and volume that are relatively standard, reproducing products of a "chemical industry" can be iffy. Absent standards of composition, purity, volume, and weight a formula from one alchemist to another, especially across cultural lines (Muslim world to Christian world) is a very inexact recipe indeed.

In his book "The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968" by William Manchester, he compares the development of the cast-iron cannon by the British and Germans to the atomic bomb project.
 
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