I just finished reading a history of rockets, and apparently Congreve got the idea of using rockets from innovative Indian soldiers who used them against the British. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the names of the Indian commanders who used the rockets.
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Probably would be using grapeshot. Grapeshot “spreads” like a shotgun blast, giving you more victims per shot. I didnt see the movie, so I don’t know how it was depicted, but I believe that you can mow down a couple dozen people (all along the path of the shot) before the shot(s) lose enough energy and drop into the turf.
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That sounds like your describing chain shot, as per Valgard’s link. That was all stuffed into a single cannon. The chainshot spreads out and twirls after leaving the bore.
It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to get the cannons to fire simultaneously. Fuses (wicks), and gunpowder suffered from quality control issues, meaning that you would get differing burn rates, even when using the same “batch” of gunpowder. (One of the innovations that helped the breech loader become more feasible was a predictable powder burn rate.)
If you stuffed one end into cannon “A”, and the other end into cannon “B”, with the chain connecting the two ends via the muzzles, you would probably have one cannon going off just a tad before the other, and you might have the early ball/end come out, pirouette around, and smack the barrel (or crew) of the slow cannon. The shot would then not go exactly where you pointed the cannon. (And comedy hi-jinx ensues. Cue three stooges theme)
- You could conseivably stuff anything into a muzzle loader that fits into the bore. (You might have to “seal” the load in there with a wad of cotton, to keep it from coming back out as you move the cannon back into the firing position…) Flat objects, such as ninja shuriken, may not receive as much force from the shot (and thus lose out on potential muzzle velocity), if they lay “edge on” to the blast when fired.
Obviously, you want to send hard objects downrange to injure the foe (or his structures). While shooting a load of raw eggs might be more amusing, this limits your choices to rock, metal, glass…
Note, however, that shooting odd shaped objects results in excessive barrel wear, (and may even cause the barrel to burst if the shot gets wedged inside). As cannons were expensive, and took some time to build, this was avoided except in emergencies. (One of the prized battlefield booty was to capture the enemy’s cannon and muskets. If cannon had to be abandoned to the advance of the enemy, you “spiked” the guns, which was to drive a wedge or rod down the barrel to make the cannon useless until repaired, if possible.)
- Weight becomes a consideration when you have to move cannons around using only man or horse muscle. A lot of a cannons weight is in the barrel. A long barreled cannon will have descent range, but to make it convenient to move around, the muzzle bore will be smaller. Short barreled cannon (including mortars) have short range, but could have a bigger bore. So these bigger bore weapons were intended for smashing fortifications and ships, when it was possible to get in close to the enemy.
There were some early “rotating cannon”, much like a gatling gun, that was spun with steam. Not considered a succesfull design, if I recall correctly. Probably spun too fast, and had jamming problems.
Sorry. I have been replying as I work my way down the thread. I see several others have covered my points better. 
At least I rate a cookie for “recalling” this stuff more or less correctly. (Right?)
Actually, a rod was hammered down the touch-hole, not the barrel.
OK, after five years of this, I have to ask: Is all this information off the top of your head, or the result of some damn-fast Googling? If the former, I humbly kneel before your magnificence. If the latter–nah, I don’t see how that’s possible. Not THAT fast.
Just to add a little esoterica to this discussion. There is pretty consistent confusion about grape shot and cannister, also called case shot. The confusion can usually be traced to ignorant persons, like infantrymen.
Grape shot was generally naval ordinance. It was a half dozen or so two or three pound solid shot put in a bag and then bound up with light rope. Once it was crammed into the mouth of a cannon and fired it had enough mass to penetrate the lighter upper portions of a ships side and cause all sorts of difficulties on the receiving end. It was very good at cutting up rigging and discouraging boarding parties and small boats. It was called grape shot because the completed round, bagged and bound, looked somewhat like a bunch of grapes.
Cannister was the stuff of field artillery. It was a whole bunch of small iron balls of up to one inch in diameter in a sheet metal can, thus cannister. I think that a cannister for the American Civil War 12 pound bronze gun-howitzer held about 60 cannister shot. It was the ultimate close range anti-personnel ordinance. Cannister was effective out to a quarter-mile but under 200 yards it was devastating against massed troops. The idea was to aim slightly low so that the pellets that did not go directly into the mass of the enemy would strike in front of them and ricochet into them – you did not want to waste any part of the spread of shot by having it pass over the heads of your adversary. It was the artillery’s final defensive fire.
By the time of the American Civil War cannister wasn’t much good for offensive operation because, with most infantrymen having a reliable rifled musket, your horses and gun crews would be shot down by the time you maneuvered within range, unlimbered, dropped trail, loaded and aimed. You certainly weren’t going to get off more than a round or two before you ran out of cannoneers.
By the time of WWI the defensive fire function of field artillery firing cannister had been supplanted by machine guns.
Kerry, is that you??
d & r
Depends. My Dad was artillery and I have an interest in it. With good memory, stuff that I had to take the time to look up a few years ago has stuck with me for off-the-top-of-my head responses. (Of course, by not hitting Google™ each time, I open myself to corrections as I mis-remember stuff.)
If you’re not specifically talking artillery, then I’d have to note that I have always enjoyed reading, I’m old, I’ve got a pretty good memory, (and I rarely “clutter” my memory with stuff like the names of the head coach and quarterback of the nearby NFL franchise). Everybody knows stuff; I just know different stuff than other people.
And brought back as flechettes.
Damn. I was just about to ask why Napoleon, an artillery officer, said he gave the Parisian rioters “a whiff of the grape” instead of “a whiff of cannister”, only to find that it was Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer who coined the phrase and proved his infantryman-like ignorance.
And as any fan of the Horatio Hornblower series knows, you must be careful not to heat the shot to the point where it can no longer be loaded… or removed… from the barrel (iron expands when heated up).
During World War II, the USAAF and the RAF employed a similar tactic, Skip Bombing, for attacking various targets on the water. The Brits used it to blow up some dams, and the Americans used it against Japanese shipping. An unfortunate problem with skip-bombing was that every once in a while, a bomb would skip off the water and go back into the plane, bring a rather bad day to an abrupt end.
And on the subject of firing cannons down an enemy line, a few days before the Battle of New Orleans, a pair of American gunboats managed to get up close to the shore next to where the British troops were lined up fighting the Americans. It proved to be one of the few actions where the Gunboat navy saw any success at all. Shortly after, the gunboats were chased off or destroyed by a British frigate.
Oh, and if you ever wonder why sailing captains never liked an enemy to “Cross their T”, imagine what a raking broadside of a dozen or more 24 pound cannons, firing down the length of a ship packed with 400 or more sailors, does for crew morale.
Everything old is new again
That’s where I heard the term grape-shot first, a description of the early career of Napoleon.