Sighting cannons

In all the old movies, and in the repro cannons currently made, there doesn't seem to be a provision for sights of any kind on them. I'm assuming the repro guns are taken from historical prototypes. How did they sight things in in ye olde days? Fire and adjust? Seems quite a waste of what is often the critical and decisive first shot, particularly at a moving target, like a ship or infantry formation. I know if I was getting shot at by a cannon I would want to move!!! :rotf:

The most effective gunnery is done by trained and experienced gunners. All gunners possesed tools for aiming there guns, calipers and levels were used to set the angle of fire. To be accurate you had to know the balistics of the gun. for example my field gun has a 2" bore, fireing a 1/2 pound ball, with 600 gr of canon powder, the elevation is set at +1 deg and the windage is set to 3deg left of center, this puts the shot dead on target at 100 yards. for a target at 600 yards the elevation is set at +4 deg and 5 deg left of center, this is accurate enough to hit a 55 gal drum at this range. I made my own tools to start with, the elevation gauge fits into the muzzle of the gun and has a gravity arm that points to the elevation in degrees. then it was a matter of eyeing the windage. I now use an 1890s artillery tool that can do both elevation and windage. All the tools are removed from the gun before firing. But i have found that experience shooting is the best way to achieve accuracy.A Target the size of a ship at 150 to 300 yards would be easy to hit, as would massed troops in the open.

There are instructions on how to aim a cannon on the South African Miniature cannon club website. http://southafricancannons.org/pages/aim.html

pendulem houssa (mispelled im sure)was a common sight the gunner caried with him and put on cannon to aim and removed before firing

http://www.civilwarartillery.com/equipment/cannonsights.htm

Many years ago (yeah I'm old enough so that phrase is becoming a common opening to my stories...), anyway many years ago a fellow was shooting a small galloper (small field artillery) at Fort Frederick. Now some of us suggested that he fashion a piece of wood to rest near the muzzle so that the rear of the tube would have a "front sight" that would place the tube "level". Well of course that wasn't done, and he lined up the bulge of the muzzle with the breech. Which gave him quite a bit of elevation. I suppose he thought he was going to "lob" the shot into the target at 60 yards. So BOOM goes the cannon, and a tree branch on a tree, behind the berm, and about twenty feet or so from the ground, comes crashing to the Earth. :shocked2:

So YES they needed something to aim the guns, OR they needed a whole lot of practice. :haha:

LD