Watching the Boston Pops’ 4th of July celebration, with their signature 1812 Overture and accompanying cannon made me wonder; are cannons still used for combat purposes?
I am asking about stereotypical stationary or carriage-mounted cannons; not heavy guns mounted in airplanes or tanks, etc which may also be called cannons.
You mean artillery like an M119? I’m pretty sure every army in the world has at least one.
North Korea has a shitload of modern artillery in range of Seoul, SK.
I assume that by ‘cannon’, it is meant the non-rifled bore and no ‘sighting apparatus’ upon it that shot out either rounded balls and/or scattershot (like shotgun, but much larger bore). Those type ‘tubes’ are probably now just museum pieces with so many rifled ‘howitzers’ and other similar tubes made nowadays.
The Artillery Museum at Ft Sill, OK (Artillery Capital/Training Center of World, literally) has great display pieces from ‘over the years’, including plenty of ‘cannon’ (smooth bore, ball-like projectile) but those are not shown/displayed as ‘in use’ past a few hundred years ago (give or take). As soon as the ability to make rifled bores and matching projectiles became en vogue, the ‘cannon’ of old became near useless. There was practically no accuracy without that rifling/matched ammo (in comparison). Much safer, too, having better ammunition (self-contained powder/projectile, per se).
Making those old-fashioned cannon tubes is not easy, and overloading one will ruin it in one shot, such as splitting open the tube. It also took more labor to operate the old-style cannon - powder, balls, cleaning tube itself between rounds, etc, etc. Newer styles just need to have the shell shoved in and pull the lanyard, and repeat. Much more ‘automated’ and safe to operator(s), imho.
(I am hearing a LOT of artillery at the moment from Ft Sill, so must be a training day for them guys. So glad I am no longer involved with Red Leg stuff, but I do miss watching them guns fire and having access to all kinds of used brass. Last time I went to the Arty museum, the computer systems I maintained were shown in the ‘antique’ row (TACFire/Firefinders et al…made me feel sooooo old, LOL)
Actually, I’d be surprised if many armies used modern lightweight artillery like the M119 - rapid airnborne deployment is something the U.S. military places special emphasis on, much more than any other nation.
Now, if you said M109, I’d agree. Self-propelled artillery is pretty ubiquitous.
At this point, probably just revolutionary and civil war re enactments. Navies probably use some sort of miniature chase gun for salutation purposes.
Declan
**Ionizer ** - For the sake of completeness, I feel I should mention that many modern tank guns have gone back to using a smoothbore barrel. These weapons aren’t really considered “artillery” though. They typically fire a sabot dart stabalized by fins on the projectile, not rifling in the barrel.
But also expensive, compared to a field gun towed behind a truck.
True, but the M119 mentioned isn’t just a towed cannon, it’s a lightweight cannon designed to be transporable by helicopter. That’s what’s makes it so special.
For sure - I was just kinda saying what made typical ‘cannon’ obsolete. And then it went to the cartridge improvements which negated the barrel stuff, of course. I just forgot to put that part in as I was thinking more of the miles-away long-range shooting than closer-up stuff. Next time I am in Lawton (tomorrow??), I’m gonna have to by the museum and other displays of tube-guns to look in barrels for rifling. My curiosity is slightly piqued now, for sure; thx for reminding me 
There was a pretty good show (maybe History Channel or similar?) a few months ago that described the history/evolution of cannon/tube-guns that had that “Gunny” Marine fellow giving the what-nots of the guns and what changes were done that made them better than the previous iteration(s). I wish I could remember the name of show as it was very good with details about this exact OP topic.
Either way, the US also has the M198, which is a pretty standard 155mm towed artillery piece.
Not too long ago last century there were also all sorts of field guns, infantry guns, and anti-tank guns. The infantry gun of WW2 was probably the last to be used in a similar role to the field artillery pieces of the 18th and 19th centuries. They were towable guns like the M3 meant to support infantry units with direct fire; i.e. shooting explosive shells with a flat trajectory at targets you can see. Though most of the big powers stopped using them after WW2, I’d guess some of them stuck around in national guard arsenals or the armies of third world countries. Still, though, they were breach-loading and rifled and a lot more advanced than the 18th/early 19th century cannons the OP is thinking of.
Lock ‘N’ Load with R. Lee Ermey.
The M119 105mm howitzer was a British development borrowed and improved for US light infantry use. The 82nd, 10th, 101st, and 25th Infantry divisions use this weapon. British and French light infantry also use these weapons. As stated above, the M198 155mm is also a towed howitzer. The latest is the M777 155mm howitzer; very advanced and most structural components are now titainium. It will reach out 45km+ with the right projectile and propellant charge. Also air transportable via helicopter. Former Soviet forces have an assortment of light, towable/airliftable artillery.
The M119 is the US name for the L118
If you go here
You can see a list of nations which use it and how many they have. That’s just one type of towed artillery. There are many others such as
If you look at the bottoms of those articles, you can see that towed artillery is still very common, even in 1st world militaries.
Why is self-propelled artillery significantly more expensive than towed artillery + trucks?
**ramel **- I was sure towed artillery was obsolete in modern militaries. I stand corrected.
Because the chassis, turret system and armor are a lot more expensive than a couple of wheels and a truck. Also, modern self-propelled guns tend to have very advanced computerized targeting systems, which may not be transferable to towed pieces.
Because then you’re buying two motorized vehicles instead of one, I guess. (You still need the truck for other things, presumably.)
That’s the one. Thanks!
That site seems to be too bandwidth-limited to stream properly. It was pausing every 5 seconds or so.
Self-propelled guns can also fire/move/fire much faster than towed ones. SP guns are usually mounted between two ‘tracks’ (like a tank’s) and to fire, only have to drop the ‘shovel’ in the back into ground to stabilize for recoil. The ‘shovel’ (not right term, iirc) is similar to a bulldozer blade that is pushed into the ground to help keep the recoil’s power from pushing backwards and putting lots of strain into the tracks and other ‘driving hardware’. Towed guns have these ‘shovels’ on them as well (usually - bigger bore guns for sure), but it takes longer to spread the two individual smaller shovels apart wide and hammer them into the soil, then undo them and bring back to center when time to go elsewhere. This pic shows the shovel-thing at rear of a Soviet self-prop gun to illustrate what I am trying to describe - American guns are very similar.
I have seen self-prop guns that even have super-thick armor ‘box’ around area where driver/troops are. Almost like a tank, but with huge tube coming out the front and no turret - just a big box over back-half of vehicle. There were/are also systems to auto-load such behemoths (remote control, so to speak), but I am not sure if these ever went full issue (mass produced). They are heavy beyond belief and seemed to have mechanical probs constantly (or so I heard from a person who ran one at Ft Sill, usually just to bring out for the displays by HQ now and then). The ones I saw were like this, but bigger/taller in the ‘boxed’ area. Probably obsolete nowadays.
The targeting system is pretty much the same. Projectiles, propellant charges, fuzes, and primers are identical for the 155mm US systems whether M109 SP or M198/M777 towed howitzer. The is some difference in recoil length of the system and barrel length can be different among different models. The computer takes this into account. Also influencing accuracy are tube temperature (how many rounds in immediate past) and barrel wear.
The towed howitzers are air mobile, expecially desireable in areas like Afghanistan where roads are too narrow or won’t support the weight of a SP howitzer. Dropping a couple of 155mm guns on a mountain top gives a commanding position for supporting troops in a 45km radius with artillery fire. I believe the Dutch did/do use their SP howitzers in Afghanistan though.
With the towed howitzer, pretty much any vehicle can tow the gun. If a Self-propelled howitzer’s engine or other mechanicals go down, it’s stuck in that spot until support can change out a powerpack or a heavy flatbed can be brought around to recover the vehicle.
Some of the towed howitzers have their own propulsion and can move short distances at low speed on level ground by themselves. An example is the G5 towed gun from South Africa.
