55-Ton Bronze Monster Cannon of India

When I saw the article about this in the Baliscoe Mercury I was disappointed in the poor photo so I gathered up all photos I could find and published the page.

https://historicweapons.wordpress.c...maidan-55-ton-bronze-monster-cannon-of-india/

 

The whole country recoiled when that thing went off!

 

Fascinating , and quite lovely .

 

Funny, I posted same thing on a Cannon enthusiast board, one member questioned accuracy of "55 tons" weight. Another member found the dimensions somewhere, made a CAD model, got the volume, multiplied by a typical density for the bronze of 0.3 lb/cu. in., and came up with 59 tons, close enough.

 

Maybe his calculation..filled in the barrel ?

 

How many men did it take to load it and where are the cannon balls? Yikes.

Disappointed that no one got a really good photo of the face. Are you sure it was ever used or was it made for display?

 

Here's some info on it

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/523780/from-here--lord-battlefield.html

My friend's model subtracts the internal volume so weight should be a good number.

This was made for use, most likely to besiege a fortified place, break the walls. Far too expensive to make as a decoration. This type of piece back then usually fired carved stone balls.

These monsters were hard to move so we're usually cast right where they were intended to be fired. I have infinite respect for the Turkish master founder who supervised the casting of this thing right on the battlefield.

 

I wonder if it was ever fired, or actually worked?
It is an impressive feat of foundry-work in any case!

 

Here's a scholarly article on Indian monster cannons, with some additional info on this particular one:

http://www.bl.uk/eblj/1989articles/pdf/article4.pdf

 

A M A Z I N G !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I bet you needed huge balls to use that monster...

 

& lots of dry powder...............

 

On the contrary I think I read in the article linked above or somewhere that this weapon was designed to fire loads of grapeshot. I have some doubts because why would it have been designed for ammo different from what other similar-sized, contemporary "bombards" fired? I think a slightly-less-than-bore-diameter stone ball was used.

There are a couple of these mounted on gate posts at the US Naval Academy and for years I thought they were just ornamental stone balls since they were as perfectly spherical and smooth as you can get. As I recall they came from the huge bronze Dardenelles guns, also cast by Turks, with the innovative design of two halves, front and back, that screwed together and spanner-hole rings to facilitate screwing/unscrewing. One of these was at the Tower of London when I visited about 100 years ago.

Has been moved to Fareham, pic in this article. It really looked much better at the Tower, a very old, very classy place, compared to the modern, cheap-looking structure at Fareham that doesn't do it justice.

http://www.guns.com/2012/01/04/guns-that-changed-history-the-great-turkish-bombard/

 

Gold Bombed?

 

now you're just mumbling...