spitfirebill wrote:
these things just don't look right when they don't recoil on firing. ....
You need bigger charges!
For real GrassRoots entertainment try to find a local artillery club. You know how we spend endless hours for naught in the garage working on a dream that will never roll? These guys do the same thing with cannon, mostly muzzle loaders.
I went to one in Vermont in a big open field. Woodchucks line up at one end with their cannon, all trucked in on car trailers or whatever, launch balls of steel down range trying to hit a target. I try to imagine doing this while other farmers and woodchucks are at the other end of the field trying to blow my head off.
I grew up under the false notion that a round fired through the air would hit the ground, explode and kill the enemy. It actually skips across the ground several times taking out a troop or two along the way.
Google around and bring a lunch, lotsa intellectual and sensory information there.
Dan