Powder chamber

Longitudinal section through the Austrian frigate Novara with the location of the powder magazine at the bottom left

A powder chamber (originally general for ammunition room ), also herb chamber called, is in warships of the room where the ammunition is stored.

At the time of sailing, this room, the herb chamber , as it was then called, was far below the waterline in the lowest and rearmost part of the ship; in the case of very large warships there was another shed for the ammunition in the foredeck.

The barrels with the gunpowder were usually not stacked upright, but lying in rows in the herb chamber. Leather strips were placed between them so that they didn't slip and, perhaps, could be handled better.

At that time , the herb chamber was illuminated (quite logically named) with a herb lantern , which was made of horn and covered with a close-meshed wire mesh in order to limit the risk of an explosion as much as possible. Below her was a lead-lined wooden vessel filled with water. In order to further reduce the possibility of a powder explosion, a lantern chamber was later built into the ships, from which the herb chamber then received its light indirectly through glazed openings in the partition wall.

In the event of a threatening fire in the ship, which happened quite often during combat operations at the time, the herb chamber could be flooded. For this purpose, there were metal pipes with valves in the ship's wall, which were then opened in an emergency.

literature

Konrad Reich , Martin Pagel: Heavenly broom over white dogs: words and idioms, stories and anecdotes - a reading book for half-men and grown-ups who want to get clearer terms from the ship's people and the sea - brought up again and explained , transpress VEB Verlag for Transport Berlin, Berlin 1981

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander : German Proverbs Lexicon: A House Treasure for the German People (Second Volume) , Verlag FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1870 (reprints of a total of 5 volumes: Aalen 1963, Darmstadt 1970 and Kettwig 1987)

Eduard Bobrik : General nautical dictionary with explanations: German; English; French; Spanish; Portuguese; Italian; Swedish; Danish; Dutch , published by Robert Hoffmann, Leipzig 1858

Remarks

↑ Which means nothing else than powder chamber , because the term herb has been used for powder since the 15th century . Only the origin of this word is not entirely certain. Wander suspects that it was derived from the vegetable ignition sponge , which was also called ignition herb at the time.
↑ But the powder chamber was also named quite earlier (around 1400) after St. Barbara , the patron saint for the artillery. On Spanish and Italian ships, for example, it was called Santa Barbara (santabárbara).
↑ A look into the herb chamber The storage of the powder kegs

[1] Which means nothing else than powder chamber , because the term herb has been used for powder since the 15th century . Only the origin of this word is not entirely certain. Wander suspects that it was derived from the vegetable ignition sponge , which was also called ignition herb at the time.

[2] But the powder chamber was also named quite earlier (around 1400) after St. Barbara , the patron saint for the artillery. On Spanish and Italian ships, for example, it was called Santa Barbara (santabárbara).

[3] A look into the herb chamber The storage of the powder kegs