Big Cannons

Big Guns. Sophia Loren with the giant cannon from The Pride and the Passion.

Reading The Note-Books of Gaptain Coignet leads me to reading about the Siege of Fort Bard where I find this line:

The siege until May 29, where a 12-inch cannon named "cannone di Andreossi" (Andreossi's cannon in Italian) is positioned in the church behind the fort, where it can't be seen by the enemy.

A "12-inch cannon" is friggin' huge. I can't imagine them being able to bring such a large cannon up the trail and over the pass to get here. I do remember an old movie where a bunch of people were trying to move a huge cannon over a hill so they could attack the enemy. I think that was in Spain. Root around for a bit and I uncover The Pride and the Passion from 1957. The movie is based on the book The Gun by C. S. Forester, which I read a long time ago. So I've got two pieces of fiction reinforcing this idea. The only problem is there seems to be no evidence that Napoleon ever had a 12 inch cannon. 12 pound cannons he had in abundance, that is, guns that shot a 12 pound cannonball.

The cannon in the movie was a fiberglass fake, and the one in the book was an 18 pounder which is big for a portable cannon, but the bore is only three inches, not twelve. There were some big cannons around at the time, but they were mostly older and far away.

The Mighty Jaivana Cannon

The Mighty Jaivana Cannon is the closest one to the fictional movie cannon. It's from India, weighs more than a fully loaded semi-truck, and was only fired once.