The Heavy Armory · Chapter 8

Great Guns

Muzzle-loading guns on carriages, from the first that could be moved to the last before the breechloader. The Black Powder Armory stops at the swivel gun on the rail. This chapter starts with the gun beside it.

Named by the weight of the ball. A nine-pounder throws a nine-pound iron shot. The entries group them into four sizes.

Slow-Firing is the drill. Sponge, load, ram, prime, run out, lay, fire. A good crew does it in the listed rounds. Chapter 3 says what a short crew does.

Every gun here is Unreliable until the last decades of the period, and all of them make smoke.

Shot

A smoothbore gun fires any of these. The crew chooses when it loads.

Shot	Effect	Price
Round shot	The listed profile	x1
Grape or canister	Range becomes Short. Against people, Blast equal to the gun's Hull damage, with no Boons needed. Against vehicles and structures, half damage	x1
Chain or bar shot	Range one band shorter. Against a sailing ship: 2 less Hull, and System Damage equal to half the gun's Hull damage	x1.5
Heated shot	Forts and shore batteries only. Adds Burn 2 against wooden ships and buildings. Slow-Firing 1 higher	x1
Double shot	Range becomes Short. Add 2 Hull. Add 1 Bane Die	x2
Shell (from 1820)	Guns of Heavy mount only. Adds Blast 4 and Burn 1. Unreliable even on a gun that is not	x3

Light Gun

Falcon, minion, three- and four-pounder, grasshopper

The smallest carriage gun: a battalion piece on land and the armament of a sloop or a merchantman at sea. Two horses or six men move it.

Medium Gun

Saker, six-, nine-, and twelve-pounder, field gun

The standard field gun of every army and the main battery of a frigate. A battery of six on land, or a broadside of fourteen at sea, is what most fights of this period are decided by.

Long Nine

Chase gun, long gun, bow chaser

A nine-pounder with a long, carefully bored barrel, mounted in the bow or stern to fire during a chase. It is the gun a captain lays himself.

Heavy Gun

Culverin, eighteen- and twenty-four-pounder, siege gun

The lower-deck gun of a frigate and the breaching gun of a siege train. On land it needs eight horses and a road.

Great Gun

Demi-cannon, thirty-two- and forty-two-pounder

The lower-deck gun of a ship of the line, and the gun of a coastal fort. It is too heavy to take on campaign. A broadside of these is the heaviest blow of the age of sail.

Carronade

Smasher, gunnade, short gun

A short, light gun throwing a heavy ball a short way. It needs a third of a long gun's crew and weight, which lets a small ship carry a big ship's broadside. From 1779.

Mortar

Bomb, coehorn, siege mortar

A squat tube that lobs a hollow, fused shell over a wall. It is the only gun of the period that hits what is behind cover. At sea it is carried by a bomb vessel built for nothing else.

Field Howitzer

Licorne, obusier, royal howitzer

A short gun on a field carriage, firing shells at a high angle. One or two march with every battery to deal with troops behind a hedge or a wall.

Organ Gun

Ribauldequin, volley cart, death organ

A row of small barrels on a cart, fired together. It defends a gate or a breach with one devastating volley and then takes six maneuvers to load again.

War Rocket Battery

Rocket troop, rocket boat frame

Frames or troughs firing iron-cased rockets in volleys. They set fire to towns and ships, frighten horses, and land almost anywhere. From 1805.

Spar Torpedo

Torpedo boat spar, the davit charge

A powder charge on a long pole over the bow of a launch, pushed against a ship's side below the waterline and fired. The launch takes one quarter of the damage it deals. From 1863.