Two hand cannon barrels reencounter their brother

[fernando]

Hi Dmitry,

Originally Posted by Dmitry

I have seen a video of a cannon enthusiast, in which he described these pieces being set-up upright, for fireworks, and demonstrated how they were used in that capacity. Perhaps this was their primary purpose?

I guess you have missed the various threads that were posted about this subject.
An aproach to these things timelime would be as follows:
As it is vastly recorded, the first of these devices that appeared, were around the same time as ground artillery, and were the predecessors of portable firearms, the so called hand gonnes. They were either mounted laying on stocks or had a socket hole in the back to be mounted on back pole extensions. The couple shown above seems to belong to such family, meant for horizontal use.
At a later stage barrels for upright use started to appear, to be shot either single or in serial devices, such as traps to defend castle gates or a number of other defence purposes.
Much later came the barrels for non bellicose purposes, such as gunpowder testers and signal mortars, to salute harbour entrances, instruct naval manoeuvres, celebrations and other kind of noise making. Many of these had a lip under the fire hole, to deposit the combustion powder, and also a wider base, to ensure their upright position.
It seems as the ultimate variation of these upright barrels was their use in stack cleaning.
Obviously this is a rough synopsis, made by a non specialist; there are experts in this forum much more able to put you in the correct picture.

Fernando

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