Grenade cannon

Grenade guns (French .: Canon obusier ) were shortened smooth cannons medium and large caliber , which for firing solid shot and grenades were used.

Grenade cannon "Canon-obusier de campagne de 12 modèle 1853 Le Hangest ". Bronze cast in Strasbourg in the mid-1850s. Caliber: 121 mm. Length: 1.91 m. Weight: 626 kg (with carriage: 1200 kg). Metal bullet or grenade, 4.1 kg.

Le Lassaigne grenade cannon , built in 1853.

In the larger caliber, they were also called bomb cannons . With the grenade cannons, the aim was to transfer the advantages of hollow projectile fire to the extended paths of the cannons. In the 12 cm grenade cannon, whose construction Napoléon III. had taken care of, it was hoped for a while to have found the unit gun of the field artillery . Because of their poor precision and range, they soon had to give way to rifled guns . The cannons were best known in the Civil War , in which they formed the standard model of field artillery under the designation 12-pounder Napoleon Model 1857 both on the part of the Union and the Confederate.

In later times the term Canon obusier was used for so-called "Kanonenhaubitzen", a mixture of cannon and howitzer (English gun howitzer ).

literature

• Johann Woldemar Streubel : The 12 pound grenade cannon . and its relation to the tactics of modern times. Verlag von Hugo Meuth, Kaiserslautern and Leipzig 1857 ( available online [accessed August 1, 2011] facsimile from Google Books ).
• Meyers Konversationslexikon , author collective, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna, fourth edition, 1885-1892, p. 612 [1]
• Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 8. Leipzig 1907, p. 224. [2]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Grenade cannon . In: Pierer's Universal Lexicon . tape 7 . Altenburg 1859, p. 542 (online version from Zeno.org ).