Ha ha. Little do you know, Oh Ancientotter, that is exactly what turned me on to cannon shooting. I took my turns serving on gun crews back in my re-ennacting days. A 12-pound Napolean gun (original) for a while, when doing Civil War, a 3-pounder Grasshopper battalion gun, 6-pound field piece, and 2-pound Galloper when I did Revolutionary War. I went through the National Park Service artillery school- a requirement back then of all gunners who wanted to fire their artillery on Park Property.
The biggest one I owned personally was a little 3-pounder U.S. Mountain Howitzer, circa 1795- a repro of the very first U.S. designed and built artillery piece in U.S. service. Made to be broken down and transported on the backs of horses and mules. She made quite a "woomp" with a quarter pound charge of powder. Not as much of a woomp as the 12-pound Napolean gun did with its one pound powder charge. Might have played a role in my partial deafness...
Now I'm perfectly happy playing with my miniature gun, shooting at crab buoys off my buddy's dock on the Chesapeake Bay.
The most impressive demonstration we would put on was with the Napolean gun firing canister shot. 144 one ounce balls (.69 caliber) per discharge- one hellacious big shotgun. No wonder the casualty figures were so high in the Civil War.
