Cannon shot

“ I'm sure my cannon will stand it. Come on now, help me depress the muzzle just a trifle," and by means of the electric current the big gun was raised at the breech a few inches.
As is well known, cannon shots do not go in straight lines. They leave the muzzle, curve upward and come down on another curve. It is this curve described by the projectile that is called the trajectory. The upward curve, as you all know, is caused by the force of the powder, and the downward by the force of gravitation acting on the shot as soon as it reaches its zenith. ”

“ Their purpose is to assist the artillerist in attaining his object without waste of time and ammunition, and also to regulate his aim when the effect of shot cannot be seen on account of the dust and smoke of the battle-field. The first few shots generally produce a great effect on the enemy, and it [163] is very important that they should be directed with some knowledge of their results, which, in the field, can only be attained by experience, or from the data afforded by a table of fire. Tables of fire for different kinds of cannon may be found in the Ordnance and Artillery Manuals. ”

“ A cannon-ball had passed into the breast and out at the back—and so rapid must have been its transit, from its forming such a clear aperture—in circumference about twelve inches—that the man must have been close to the cannon’s mouth when he was shot—it spoke volumes for the courage of the troops.
The hospital at Vittoria that evening presented a sad spectacle; not only was part of it filled with wounded, but the streets all round it—about two thousand men, including those of the French with those of the Allies. ”

“ The calmness and stillness of night gave place to a horrible discord of deafening sounds; the earth beneath our feet shook and vibrated with the ceaseless discharge of heavy guns; the baleful glare of portfires and fireballs flung down the hill by the enemy to enable them more clearly to ascertain our position, and the incessant flash of the cannon, cast a fierce, unearthly light upon the scene. Again, again, and again came the hissing storm of iron, each time with more deadly effect; the ground before and around us was ploughed and gashed by the rushing shot ”

“ If it be simply a cannon-shot, you either toil on without heeding it, or having covered yourself as well as you can till the ball strike, you start up again and seize your tools. If it be a shell, you lie quite still till it burst. The unmilitary reader may perhaps question whether it be possible to tell the nature of the missile which is coming against you, when as yet it has barely escaped from the muzzle of the gun, and is still a mile or more distant ”

“ When a cannon-shot strikes a limb and carries it away, the immense velocity and momentum of the impinging force can scarcely be supposed to have no physical effect upon the neighboring or even distant parts independent of, and in addition to, the ‘shock,’ in the ordinary acceptation of the term, which would result from the removal of the same part by the knife of the surgeon, or the crushing of it by a heavy stone or the wheel of a railway wagon. ”

“ The range of these giant cannon is enormous and their destructive power great, this being added to by the fact that the explosive shell has replaced the solid round shot of old-time gunnery. A 14-inch gun of 45 caliber can discharge a 1,400-pound projectile at a muzzle velocity of 2,600 feet per second. If we compare this with a locomotive going at the speed of sixty miles an hour, we have in the latter a speed of eighty-eight feet per second to compare with the 2,600 feet per second of the cannon ball. ”

“ On the 19th of July, as the first rays of morning light glanced upon the hostile armies, the French were discovered in order of battle, and a sudden burst of artillery from the batteries of the allies sent forward a shower of balls, which, rending the ranks of the enemy, formed a prelude to the sanguinary conflict which followed. For some time the fighting was limited to the infantry [19] and artillery, and the Fourth Horse were spectators of the fray; yet a cannon shot or two occasionally plunging into the ranks, laid several troopers and their horses dead on the plain. ”

“ Shot after shot was fired, and one after another the Confederate cannon were disabled. They were blown up by small charges of powder put under them, set off by fuses lighted by the Confederates themselves, but this did not show in the picture, and it looked as though the Southern battery was blown up by shots from the big gun.
"All ready now, Paul! Lead your men!" yelled the director, who was standing near Russ and his camera. "Rush right up the hill. Stop firing here!" he called to those in charge of the big gun. ”

“ The artillerist has to contrive that the whole of the powder made use of shall be burned before the shot leaves the cannon, and yet that the charge shall not explode so rapidly as to burst the cannon. ”

“ For some hours the attack and defence were so equally well supported, as scarcely to admit any appearance [45] of superiority in the cannonade on either side. The wonderful construction of the battering ships seemed to bid defiance to the heaviest ordnance; shells rebounded from their tops, and a thirty-two pound shot scarcely seemed to make any impression on them. The effect of the red-hot shot was doubted; sometimes smoke came from the ships, but the fire-engines within soon occasioned it to cease, and the result was uncertain ”

“ Nor did the cannon shot come alone: a fearful fire from about five hundred muskets was poured from the hedge on either side, directly into the road: the assailants were within a few feet of their enemy at the moment they were firing, and every shot took effect. Out of the four hundred men who headed the column, above half were killed, or so badly wounded as to be incapable of motion. ”

“ All night long their artillery played upon us, and as the waning moon showed them our position, the cannon-shot ploughed up the ground right through, and amidst the wearied soldiers.
“Morning at length approached, and our troops were once more arrayed for the fight. With daylight came retribution and triumph to our arms. Our infantry was formed in line, supported on both flanks by the horse artillery. A masked battery now began to play on us with fearful effect; the heavy shot of the Sikhs dismounted our guns ”

“ The mortar gun is a short cannon, say eighteen inches long, working in a carriage on a pivot and so arranged as to be shot at any angle, even to straight up. They had perfected themselves so that they knew the exact elevation to give the gun and the length of the fuse to explode it, as in many instances the cannon ball would fall in our trenches, and, exploding, would do much harm, and causing much confusion among us. ”

“ When these arms reached such a degree of excellence that horses and gunners could be shot down at a distance of one thousand yards, the old-fashioned smooth-bore artillery was deprived of its prestige. To retrieve this disadvantage and restore the superiority of artillery over musketry in length of range, methods of rifling cannon for field service became an important study. For assailing distant lines of troops, for opening a battle, for dispersing bodies of cavalry, for shelling intrenchments, for firing over troops from hills in their rear, rifled guns are of invaluable service. ”

“ To fire a piece by way of the ricochet, the cannon is only charged with a quantity of powder sufficient to carry the shot along the face of the works attacked. The shot, thus discharged, goes rolling and bounding, killing, maiming, or destroying all it meets in its course, and creates much more disorder by going thus slowly, than if thrown from the piece with greater violence.
When ricochet firing is used, the pieces are elevated from 3 to 6 degrees, and no more; because if the elevation is greater, the shot will only drop into the work, without bounding from one place to another. ”

“ Meanwhile the English cannon had crashed and thundered unceasingly since the preceding morning. The entire range was subjected to a terrible bombardment, from the Vrede positions, east of the road from Potgieter's Drift, up to our right wing on the Acton Homes road. Shells of every sort and size fell fast and thick on our positions. I saw the huge projectiles of the naval guns striking the earth, and how great clouds of dust and smoke arose whenever one of these huge shells came in contact with the earth. ”

“ There! By Caesar, Ned! It landed within three feet of the target! Oh, you beauty!" he yelled at his giant cannon. "You did all I hoped you would! Thirty miles, Ned! Think of that! A two-ton projectile being shot thirty miles!"
"It's great, Tom!" yelled his chum, clapping him on the back, and capering about. "It's the longest shot on record."
"It certainly is," declared the foreman of the steel workers, who had helped in casting many big guns. "No cannon ever made can equal it. ”

“ As time went on, cannon, though primitively formed as described, increased in size that prodigious balls might be expelled from them against walled places, in imitation of the ancient machine which they had superseded; thus they soon became of enormous bore, until they attained the dignity of bombardes, like Mons Meg in Edinburgh Castle; but the difficulty of managing these pieces, and the growing knowledge that iron shot of much less weight could be impelled further by the use of better powder, gradually introduced the cast metal cannon used at the present day. ”

“ Artillery practice nowadays abhors the wasted shot. The time when cannon fired in the general direction of the enemy, and hoped to hit something, passed when the long-range rifles and howitzers, with their marvelously accurate sighting instruments, came into existence. Whole books have been written on the subject of pointing a modern cannon in the modern way. A great proportion of our industrial effort in the recent conflict was devoted to the sole end that we might aim our artillery accurately. ”

“ Everywhere above in front of us the flashes of the rifles leapt forth into the darkness, and the sharp reports followed in such swift succession as to give the impression of Maxims firing. All of a sudden I saw a great long jet of flame, and instantly the thunder of a cannon broke upon the startled air, and presently behind us I could hear the shrapnel bullets falling on the ground.
Then many of those who had not yet begun to climb the hill turned and fled; but others rushed upwards and rapidly approached the cornice of rocks whence the heavy firing issued. ”

“ During the War of the Revolution, cannon were fired at short range, and it was the custom to load them with grape-shot, or small iron balls, when firing against a charging enemy, because the grape would scatter like the shot of a shot-gun and tear a bigger gap in the ranks of the enemy than would a single solid cannon-ball. ”

“ Those thousand men are to be fed three times a-day, and provisions for four months are to be stowed. One hundred and twenty cannon, some of them of the heaviest metal, are to be carried; and room is to be found for all the weight of shot and quantities of powder, with other missiles, rockets, and signal fires, necessary for service. ”

“ However, the employment of bomb-cannon about to be introduced in naval warfare, throwing explosive shot, regulated with just sufficient force to penetrate without passing through the side of the opposed vessel, will render any other than metallic defensive cover ineffectual ”

“ Towards morning the troops were formed in one line facing the enemy; the THIRTY-FIRST happened to be on the right of the whole. At the break of day, the British artillery opened on the enemy, who returned their fire, and after a short cannonading the infantry advanced to the attack: the THIRTY-FIRST moved steadily towards a battery of seven guns on the enemy’s extreme left, which kept up a continued fire of grape; it was, however, carried by the bayonet without a single check, and almost without a shot being fired by the assailants, though the loss of the THIRTY-FIRST was severe. ”

“ Mortars with iron beds immoveably fixed in the earth throw their shot to greater distances than guns which are affixed to carriages can do, and which, therefore, can recoil. This has been [320] incontestibly proved, both in large and small artillery. Having suspended a gun barrel, charged with a determinate quantity of shot, from the ceiling by two cords, so as to allow of its recoil, fire it point blank at a target, and mark the result accurately. ”

“ Are cannon-balls heated to redness, and fired from cannon at shipping, magazines, wooden buildings, etc., to combine destruction by fire with battering by concussion. In modern warfare, shells containing molten iron are intended to be used in lieu of red-hot shot ”

“ The powder had been put in the firing chamber. The steel socket had been firmly fixed in the earth, so that if the force of the explosion was in a lateral direction, instead of straight up, no damage would result. The weight, even if it shot from the muzzle of the improvised "cannon," would only go harmlessly up in the air, and then drop back. The firing wires were so long that Tom and his friends could stand some distance away. ”

“ Muzzle-loading.
The 72-ton Krupp guns; bore 15.75 inches, weight of steel shot 1700 pounds, charge of prismatic powder 452 pounds. Guns all steel. Breech-loading.
Cannonade. The act of discharging shot or shells from cannon for the purpose of destroying an army, or battering a town, ship, or fort; usually applied to an attack of some continuance.
Cannon-ball. A ball usually made of cast iron, to be thrown from cannon.
Cannon Baskets. The old English phrase for gabions.
Cannon-bullet. A cannon-ball.
Cannoneer. A man who manages cannon. ”