Bombardment Cannons are cannons developed by Daggerpaine Industries to be attached to skyships.
History
Shortly after the development of the skyships, Daggerpaine Industries was charged with creating a cannon that could fire straight down, or at a low angle.
Daggerpaine Industries, knew this would be tricky, so they started off with a real 12 lb cannon, and hung it upside down over a pool of water. The cannonballs just kept falling out. So, they tried loading from the side, but the release valve just wasn't quick enough, and the cannons kept exploding. After that, they realized they'd need a device to load it. They built a separate piece of hardware, and connected it to a cannon. They built a small wooden platform, to recreate the structure of a skyship. It loaded perfectly, but the device was so heavy, that when the cannon fired, the cannon's recoil broke the device, shattered the platform, and sent their prototype into the pool.
After many months of work, they finally figured it out:
Several trapdoors would be place on the bottom of the ship. On the inside, the cannon would be sideways, and the device would be connected to the cannon by several metal supports. You would load the device with a modified cannonball, open the trapdoor, and swing the cannon into position, like a swivel gun. You would then swing the device, called the "Droploader", into place, and fire. The cannonball would slide into a waiting chamber just outside the cannon. The burning fuse would release the valve, letting the cannonball enter at the same time of the ignition. This would send the cannonball hurtling down at the enemy.
This invention was much more favorable of Admiralty, but because of budgets, most ships still could only drop explosives.
Info
- Price: Around 50,000 pounds.
- Weight variations: 12 lb, 18 lb
- Cannonball: Modified Arial Cannonball
- Weight: Over 100 pounds in total