Cannon

After the Chinese worked out the basics of gunpowder they began to experiment with how to use it on the battlefield and as such during the Song Dynasty people invented basic bombs, rockets and firearms for battlefield use. Eventually someone decided that their firelances was a good idea that could be made even better by making it even bigger. Thus was born the first cannons. By an odd quick of fate, this design process apparently happened in reverse in Europe with cannons being built first which were then scaled down into man portable handgonnes/hand-cannons.

Not to be confused with canon.

Cannons in Warfare

The Great Turkish Penis Compensator Bombard, when you absolutely positively need to conquer Constantinople accept no substitutes

The history of the cannon is written in blood, in it's first chapters this is often the blood of their users along with their targets. The first generations of cannons were crude affairs made by people with rudimentary metallurgy working things out by trial and error, with error often ending with the poor sods manning the gun getting a face full of iron shards. This was made all the worse by the crude gunpowder available at the time and mishandling by inexperienced crews. In this initial period history Cannons were used for two purposes: small wall mounted defensive weapons in fortifications and large siege weapons to get through city walls. While they were powerful, cannons were simply too inaccurate in the early times, which was especially true for the heavier offensive guns. The big siege guns would usually be carted into a fixed location and be set there. Early cannons fired a variety of shot from spears to rough rocks, though eventually cast iron balls became the most common as things progressed.

Cannons in Fantasy

Fantasy writers are a bit more accommodating to cannons than firearms: in part because they became more practical earlier on and also because they were crew served devices ill suited to use of a single warrior (unless he/she had fantastic powers to begin with).

Types of cannons

Note: for easy of use only list black powder weapons so we don't talk about every gun that ever existed.

• Cannons/Howitzers/Mortars: The difference between these weapons is in how there projectiles are fired. Cannon projectiles follow fairly flat trajectory, Mortars are fired in high steep arcs that drop the round directly onto the targets head, while Howitzers are between the two firing upward but not as steeply as a mortar.

• Quaker "Gun":Quakers are A US christian group who are pacifists. A Quaker gun is a wooden log painted black to trick an enemy into thinking you have many more cannons then you really do have.

• Bombard: An early cannon, a Bombard is a big iron wide bore cannon that fired massive stone balls at castle walls in order to break them down. unlike later cannons few bombards don't tend to have carriages and have to be fixed in place wooden frames, though a few bombards did have wheels.

• Culverins: 15th and 16th century cannon that fired a ball weighing between 20 and 14 pounds. Used a slow match fuse.
  • Hongyipao: The name literally translates to ""red barbarian cannon" and was introduced to Korea and china by the Portuguese, however in most regards it was pretty much just a Culverin.

• Saker: a smaller version of the Culverin from the 16th century fired a five pound ball.

• Minion : Minion is the french word for "cute" and it most certainty was. A 17 century version of the Saker it too fired a five pound ball. Used on ships as a weapon to repel boarding partys.

• Demi-cannon: an 18th century cannon that fired a ball less then 42 pounds, while being bigger then the saker. Replaced full cannons in the british navy due to them being too unwieldy, First rate (Google it if your curious what it is, but all you need to know now is that were talking a big ass ship), mounted 100 such cannons in 50 gun broadsides.

• Falconet: a light cannon the fired a one pound ball. Though invented for land use, it was common on ships and both the Americans and British used them in the revolutionary war. A breech loading version was invented in the 1620's

• Carronade: the mathematical formula to determine how hard something hits with, how much force it has, is Mass times acceleration. So to get a cannon ball to hit harder you have two options, shoot it faster, or make it bigger. The Carronade takes the second option. The carronade was invented by the British navy and they are short, almost sawed off, cannons the fired reduce powder charges, but with a much bigger ball, while the cannon it self was lighter due to being shorter. However they had a much reduced range, but god help you if you got broadsided by a ship with whole side of these.

• Canon obusier de 12/Napoleon: the napoleon is a french gun and it revolutionized gunnery when it was invented in 1853. It was portable yet able to destroy fortifications almost a mile away. Used by the French and both Americas in there civil war and were the last Bronze cannons used in an American army.

• Parrott rifle:A US civil war cannon, the Parrott rifle was, well, rifled. What made the parrott special was that is used iron, not steel to forge it but had a additional band of iron applied to the breech of the gun to strengthen it.

• Ribauldequin:Don't ask us how to say it. the Ribauldequin is troubling to list as a "cannon", since it is also known as a Organ gun and has a number of small barrels rather then one big one. rather then a cannon thinking of it as a bunch of guns on a cannon carriage may be more accurate.

• Abus Gun: An Ottoman artillery piece the Abus gun was small, but still hard to move about and was fired from a tripod and shot a roughly 5 pound cannon ball.

• Basilisk: a medieval big, big gun, the basilisk was a bronze cannon that was ten feet long, weighted up to 4 thousand pounds,had a five inch or 130mm, (the M1 Abrums today is armed with a 120mm cannon) bore and fired a ball upto 160 pounds in weight. The basilisk was too big however and it was phased out in favor of lighter more maneuverable guns.

• Swivel gun: a small cannon a stick, the Swivel gun were mostly used on ships and were mounted on the decks and while ineffective against all but the smallest boats, against boarding party's they could be very effective. thanks to there small size Swivel guns were the first breech loading weapons and breech loading versions existed by the 16th century.
  • Pierrier à boîte: a french breech loading swivel gun made of Wrought iron. The Pierrier à boîte breech, though allowing it to fire more rapidly then other guns, still had issues and had a tendency to leak leading to a loss of power and additional danger to the gunners.

• Gatling Gun: Name after a guy who created this pretty cool weapon during the American civil war. The earliest gatling gun requires a person to crank it, so is not like it will fire automatically by some sandwich eating russian. It is mounted on a 2 wheel cart that generally it requires horses or people to move it. Notable for its use in Zulu and the Boshin war, slaughtering those per-historical savages like no tomorrow.

Types of cannon ammunition

• Round Shot: the first type of cannon ammo, Round shot is, as the name suggests, a round ball made of either stone or later iron. Round shot was best used against fortification and infantry in the open. when firing at infantry the ideal use of round shot was to fire just in front of the infantry and let the ball bounce up and through the formation like a bowling ball from hell. This replicated in cannon mechanics in Warhammer fantasy.
  • Hot Shot: Against wooden ships that were full of black powder and other flammables, often the best solution is to light them on fire. As such an attempt to do this was to take an iron cannon ball, and heat it up so that it glowed red and then fire it. . .carefully. As you can imagine stick a red hot cannon ball down the barrel of an iron tube full of explosive was careful work and this is the modern source of the term "Hot Shot" as some one who does not take proper care and precautions.

• Chain shot: used only at sea, Chain shot was either two small cannon balls linked with chain, or one single cannon ball the broke into two halves after firing. Chain shot covered a larger area and was used to target the rigging of enemy ships. As steam ships become more common however, chain shot became less and less useful.

• Canister shot: Canisters shot is a collection of small iron musket balls, that was jammed down the barrel in a tine can. Upon firing it turned the cannon into a massive shot gun spraying the area in front of it with hundreds of musket balls and in a day and age where fighting was done shoulder to shoulder, Canister shot was lethal. Grape shot was similar but used bigger balls and was more common on ships. A cannon loaded with canister shot could and has stop an infantry charge dead in it's tracks. Canister rounds were made all the way to the modern age but fell out of fashion in favor of. . .

• Shrapnel rounds: you know how a person invents a thing and get his name attached to the invention so complexly that if you tried to use it today as a name it just sound strange? Well Henry Shrapnel was so successful with his invention that all types of flying debris now has his name. Shrapnel rounds were invented in 1784, and there basically canister shot, with a fuse so that the shell explodes in mid air rather then only at the muzzle of the gun almost tripling the range of the anti personal round. Round shot for use against infantry became a thing of the past. Shrapnel rounds were used all the way up to the modern age and some country still make Shrapnel rounds for there tanks.

• Shells: a bullet that's hollow and has stuff in it. Typically explosives but chemical payloads are also known. While Shells are known to exist ever since the 14th century, it was not until the modern day when accurate fuses came about that Shells became more common then solid shot.

• Carcass shot: no not something a necromancer with a cannon would use. Carcass shot was a high flammable material with an iron shell around it and some vents to spray the chemical after firing. it was called Carcass shot because, supposedly, the shot looked like a human Carcass thanks to the holes. Carcass shot was used mostly out of lower velocity mortars and Howitzers and was one of the first chemical weapons to be used. It was especially useful at night as the glow allowed it to be used to spot for the gun.

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