Cannon movies

[Ex 49'er]

"One Man's Hero" with Tom Berenger. It tells the little-known story of the "St. Patrick's Battalion" or "San Patricios", a group of mostly Irish and other immigrants of the Catholic faith who deserted to Mexico after encountering religious and ethnic prejudice in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War. Lots of cannons firing.
IMDB  link to movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120775/

[Cannoneer]

I like "Master and Commander" because the makers made an effort to realistically portray life aboard a sailing warship. From the very beginning of the movie when the sleeping ship is being shown, and the camera slowly pans along the gun deck till you can begin to make out "Jumping Billy" painted on the cheek of a gun carriage, then you see the next gun named "Sudden Death"; well, just from seeing those opening few minutes I made a guess that it was going to be a good movie.
Artilleryman; didn't you have something to do with the recorded sounds of the cannon fire heard in this movie?

[Cannoneer]

Gordon Laco was the historical consultant for the movie Master & Commander, The Far Side of the World.  He arrainged for Matt Switlik's 24 pdr howizter and my 12 pdr iron Napoleon to produce the sounds of artillery fire and projectiles in flight for that movie.

The sound crew for Master and Commander went to extremes to make sure that they got all of the sounds as authentically as they could.  They got an Oscar for their efforts in sound editing.  There is one very small mistake that I heard in the sound of the artillery.  During one of the boardsides you will hear a ringing sound from one of the guns.  Bronze guns make a ring sound on firing because the projectile bounces in the bore casing it to ring.  Iron guns do not make this sound and all of the guns aboard the ship are iron.  The reason for the ring showing up in the sound track is that when we fired a bronze howitzer they recorded that ring.  We heard it on play back and we eliminated that sound by wrapping the barrel with carpet.  They must have inadvertably put into to the final sound track.  We also had to duct tape all of the iron parts on the carriage that made sounds during firing such as the lock chain since naval trucks don't make those noises.

[p51]

To me, you have to break this down to “functional v/s Hollywood” tubes. Plenty of movies have guns that clearly are just made for special effects work, you can see the rammers going in maybe 5 inches or so and very little effort made to accurately portray the correct functions (nobody thumbing the vent, no swabs or worms, etc). Movies like John Wayne’s “Alamo” and the otherwise incredible “Waterloo” are good examples. Some of those guns practically have, ‘Made by Acme’ stamped on the side of them, they’re so poorly done.
Then, you have accurate depictions of what direct and indirect fire looks like. I think “The Patriot” did a halfway decent job of showing the horror of shot into massed formations. “Gettysburg” did an amazing job of showing canister effects at close range. In many movies, you can time the flight of a artillery projectile with a calendar when it’s almost instantaneous in real life.
I know it’s not in the scope of this part of the forum, but I think the most accurate depiction of artillery fire of any kind put to film was the tank attack at the start of the movie, “The Beast”. You watch that and you’ll be seriously wondering if they were shooting live rounds (they weren’t) among all the stunt people.

[Cat Whisperer]

...
I know it’s not in the scope of this part of the forum, but I think the most accurate depiction of artillery fire of any kind put to film was the tank attack at the start of the movie, “The Beast”. You watch that and you’ll be seriously wondering if they were shooting live rounds (they weren’t) among all the stunt people.

(We tolerate a LOT of off-topic stuff.)
For me it was the tank battle in Patton.  (When I saw it I was in Field Artillery OCS - the artillery fire on the tanks was right on!  I found myself instantly voicing the corrections - drop one hundred,  left five zero, fire for effect, over.)

[Cannoneer]

Here's a clip from a BBC production on Napoleon's exploits that shows to good effect how French artillery pieces tended to recoil more vertically than the cannon of other nations.

http://youtu.be/XKRAfwmfY90

[Zulu]

Wow!
Those carriages are taking a beating!  I'd have to think they couldn't last too long under such conditions.  That has to be a 1000 to 1200 lb. barrel.
Zulu

[Cannoneer]

This also goes to show just how ahead of his time Napoleon actually was in equipping his carriage wheels with hydraulic lifters long before any low-rider in California had the idea.

[Double D]

Here's a clip from a BBC production on Napoleon's exploits that shows to good effect how French artillery pieces tended to recoil more vertically than the cannon of other nations.

http://youtu.be/XKRAfwmfY90

The way they are recoiling I suspect they are special effect enhanced. It certainly looks better than the cannons that just sit there and belch smoke and fire as in normal in movies.

[guardsgunner]

It looks as if the wheels are in a rut and jumping out on firing.

[p51]

...
I know it’s not in the scope of this part of the forum, but I think the most accurate depiction of artillery fire of any kind put to film was the tank attack at the start of the movie, “The Beast”. You watch that and you’ll be seriously wondering if they were shooting live rounds (they weren’t) among all the stunt people.

(We tolerate a LOT of off-topic stuff.)
For me it was the tank battle in Patton.  (When I saw it I was in Field Artillery OCS - the artillery fire on the tanks was right on!  I found myself instantly voicing the corrections - drop one hundred,  left five zero, fire for effect, over.)

Yeah, for me it was the scene in “The Thin Red Line” where they get to the top of the hill with the Japanese bunkers and the one guy calls in indirect fire with a radio. He’s WAY inside danger close for that kind of mission (in the movies, people are always within rock throwing distances of called in indirect) but the corrections were pretty well depicted. I’d just had a call for fire course two days before I saw the movie so it was fresh at the time (I’d managed to air burst dead center over a 20 foot CONEX box from about 10 feet elevation on my spotter round and dropped my immediate suppressive fire between two target M113 hulks).
I could never get over Hollywood artillery even when I was a kid. Guns that just belch fire out (and leap up seconds later), often with nobody at the vent at all to set them off. Yeah, even as a kid, I knew better.

[oltom]

One of my favorites..."Cutthroat Island" with Geena Davis...Pirates, fun!  BoomLover

gina davis IS a cannon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
she walks barefoot thru most of the movie!!!