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.

Cannons in Warfare

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 guns. Early cannons fired a variety of shot from spears to rough rocks, though eventually cast iron balls became the most common as things progressed.

This article is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it