Many years ago, I had the chance to participate in the production of a number of films for the ROTC program. Most were related to discussions of how weapons changed tactics throughout the course of history. The one that was the most exciting, however, was when we pulled a 12-pound Napoleon out of the museum and live fired it on a range. The guy in charge of the project was a gun buff (owned his own 3-pound cannon, gunsmithy equipment in his garage, and so on) and so he did all of the required stress tests on the weapon to make sure it was not cracked or a danger to those who were firing it. We had to take the gun tube off of the trunnions and place it on a dolly to get the gun out of the building as it was too heavy otherwise for the elevator. (We're talking an all day project to move the gun and fire it!) Loading the carriage and the gun tube in the back of an Army pickup, we headed out to the range where we went through the dicey operation of getting the gun put back together and run out to the firing position. We drew straws for all but the position of gun captain (the guy who was running the project wanted that and since he outranked us all we were eager (!) to comply.) I ended up as the lowly powder monkey, destined to run the ammunition from the storage site to the gun and watch as everyone else had the real fun. We had all the requisite safety precautions in hand. (The guy with the rammer staff had eye protection on and a specially designed rammer staff that allowed him to avoid placing his hands/arms directly in front of the cannon in case of a premature detonation and there was an L-shaped attachment at the front of the staff that would allow the staff to slide out of his hands instead of through them if there was a problem.) We spent the next several hours firing a combination of round shot and canister at targets varying from 1000 meters to 50. Here are some of my impressions. Impressions 1) Round shot is a lot more accurate than one might think. We were consistently hitting within 50 meters of a line of silhouettes at ranges over 500 meters. 2) When round shot hits, there is a LOT of junk that it throws up that adds to the projectile density. 3) Shot has a lot of penetrating power as we had one shot plow into the ground and split open a rock that was a couple of feet plus in diameter and a yard below the surface. 4) Canister is deadly. I have read accounts where participants talk about how the grass waved during firing of cannons at close range. Initially I thought it was from the force of the blast. We could see lines of grass/foliage waving when struck by canister as the round broke apart and went downrange in an expanding pattern out from the gun. 5) Canister also has some secondary ground effects and kicks up a lot of dirt, rocks, and other projectiles that make it deadly. 6) Canister makes BIG holes in things, so I imagine survivability is low if hit by it, The tapes mentioned were made to support the ROTC program's history classes. If you are at a university, you might want to stop in to see if they have them available. Back to Table of Contents -- ACW Newsletter # 5 Back to ACW Newsletter List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Marc Shefelton. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com