Well, now that the serious answers have been said, of course an Ottoman gun could shoot so fa.
It’s interesting that a lot of learned folks replying here seem to know either cannons or science but not both, when ironically the one grew from the other. The need to destroy far away things led directly to the field of ballistics and contibuted to the rise of physics, and was the inspiration for a variety of old and new technologies and sciences: the sextant used in navigation traces to a device for measuring shot angles; the concept of parallax (for measuring distance to stars among other things) was first used to estimate firing ranges; the first electronic computers were used to make ballistic firing tables; etc, etc.
To be honest I am amazed that it still exists - much militaria was melted down for the metal to be reused. I also find it fascinating that they had to unscrew it to reload it, hence the 15 shots per day. Having seen and felt more recent gunpowder based artillery going off, I can not imagine the noise and shock of that thing going off. I would not want to be on the recieving end either!
Bear in mind that it was a weapon designed for one specific purpose - to punch a hole in the wall protecting Constantinople. That’s all it had to do. And it did it.
It DID lack payload AND accuracy:
[QUOTE=wikipedia]
the payload was minuscule, the barrel required frequent replacement and its accuracy was only good enough for city-sized targets
…
The main body of the shell was composed of massively thick steel, containing around 15 kg (33 lb) of explosive. The **small amount of explosive – 15% of the weight of the shell **– meant that the effect of its shellburst was considered small for the shell’s size.
[/QUOTE]
Granted they didn’t care much about its lack of accuracy, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was inaccurate.
Why would they want to do that? At the time they set it up (March 1918) the German lines were about to advance and they damn near won the war - its first shot was fired on the same exact day that offensive kicked off. And being closer means, presumably, at least somewhat better accuracy.
I think the question is about the the Urban bombard, the largest piece of artillery the Ottomans had at Constantinople in 1453. The Urban bombard exploded during the siege and killed its eponymous engineer. The pictured piece is much smaller than the Urban bombard.
Pope Urban VIII (from 1623-1644) was a treasonous engineer? He did hire Bernini for St. Peter’s–maybe Bernini turned around and hired him as the contractor.
*What’s the correct word before those dates? I can’t say “reigned” or “served.”
It in fact post-dated the Siege of Constantinople, cast c. 1464.
Urban ;).