Medieval super cannon in action

[Shish-kabob-Forrest]

The Urban super cannons were designed by a Wallach in the vassal days between the rule of Vladislav Dracul and Vlad Tepes. They were used to smash open the walls of Constantinople. Said to have blown a ship in half during testing, they were the most powerful guns of their day and it would be centuries before a more powerful gun materialized.

Despite the fact that Vlad Tepes was said to be one of the Ottoman army's most skilled cannoneers, it is unlikely Vlad ever got a chance to use them. None the less, they greatly impacted campaigns he was involved in.

Anyway, this is a long documentary about castles and siege engines. But if you skip ahead to 38:00, you'll get to see the reconstruction and firing of an Urban super cannon. The cannon is made out of steel in stead of bronze and fired electronically for safety reasons, but; with scaling comparisons all the crucial stuff (powder charge, caliber, projectile etc.) is accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZCivQ3RRZc

While at first it looks a little disappointing, the slow motion reveals just how devastating it really was. Seeing the damage caused by the energy of the impact, it's easy to see how this thing could have blown a ship in half, first leaving that hole, but the energy causing the surrounding area to weaken and collapse. If you were there for the ship test, what you probably would have seen is the cannon blow a good size hole in the hull sending a massive blast of splinters out the back and a few seconds later the ship split in half and sink, much like the Titanic.

It is said the cannon was so inaccurate it literally couldn't hit the broad side of a city. But with that kind of power, it only needed to hit a handful of times to open up even the walls of Constantinople. Remember, the shattering energy of the first hit meant the 2nd hit would be up to 8x as destructive as the first.

[Vlad]

Awesome post.

The Turks/Ottomans/Muslims used Western technology in trying to INVADE EUROPE.

Nowadays, they do the same by using the European loose laws. This time..they REACHED the heart of EU. BINGO.

USA: BEWARE..