Unusual Danish Artillery Piece

[cannonmn]

This was posted on the SARA forum today, the weapon is dated 1710 and is reportedly Danish.  It is fullsized artillery piece, altho I have no dimensions.  Nor do I know what museum it is in.  Anyone know the proper name for this type of weapon (I don't.)  I've seen many of those at Woolwich England, made of cast iron.  Those pieces came from India and some are quite large for field artillery pieces.

[Artilleryman]

Looks like it was designed to throw some type of canister or grape shot round.

[steelcharge]

No idea about proper name or model but this gun is in the "Tojhusmuseet", which has a large collection of old cannons. I've never been there but have been planning to go there someday.

Another photo of the cannon on someones site:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/hIbe4Kus5HuLkUnEvaoWWg

[Soot]

I've seen a Russian gun like this, called a secret howitzer of some sort, have to do some research.

[steelcharge]

I've seen a Russian gun like this, called a secret howitzer of some sort, have to do some research.

That's the "Shuvalov's Secret Howitzer".

After looking again at the other photo of the danish piece in my link, I think the info tag says something like "1700s, Denmark-Norway, 3-pounder bronze howitzer, Experimental howitzer."

[cannonmn]

The difference between the Danish piece shown and the "Shuvalov's Secret Howitzer" is that the latter was apparently designed to fire a disk-shaped projectile.  The bore cross-section was constant along the length of the barrel.  The Danish piece must have an ellipsoidal-conical bore, in other words, the bore shape you see at the muzzle is the same back to the breech, but the width of the bore narrows constantly from muzzle to breech.

[GGaskill]

One would think at first blush that a rectangular muzzle like that would excel at broadcasting canister without too many going over the attacking infantry line.  But even if it were more effective than round bore guns for canister, it would not be usable for anything else.  So makes for hauling a specialized piece along when it doesn't have all that much advantage over the more general design which can be used for everything at the cost of lessened effectiveness with the chance of not even using them.

[steelcharge]

The difference between the Danish piece shown and the "Shuvalov's Secret Howitzer" is that the latter was apparently designed to fire a disk-shaped projectile.

All info I could find on the Shuvalov piece stated that it was designed to fire canister and grape, but some shells of odd shape were also designed but they didn't perform well. Nor did the canister perform really any better than on a round-bore guns.

[Bob Smith]

It is A311, experimental howitzer of Gneral Schulwaloff- cast in 1708 at Copenhagen but rejected at trial.
Bob Smith

[Artilleryman]

One would think at first blush that a rectangular muzzle like that would excel at broadcasting canister without too many going over the attacking infantry line.  But even if it were more effective than round bore guns for canister, it would not be usable for anything else.  So makes for hauling a specialized piece along when it doesn't have all that much advantage over the more general design which can be used for everything at the cost of lessened effectiveness with the chance of not even using them.

Maybe the thought was to use it as a garrison gun to cover a gate or some other narrow approach. 

[Artilleryman]

It is A311, experimental howitzer of Gneral Schulwaloff- cast in 1708 at Copenhagen but rejected at trial.
Bob Smith

Makes you wonder how the piece survived rather than being thrown back into a furnace.