Cannons....Part II

I actually got to see a cannon demonstration yesterday. The park was full of visitors the past few days and because of that they decided to bring in a few people to fire the cannon. The one that typically gets fired is extremely well taken care of and the brass has been polished until it shines. The sound of the thing going off was like having lightning strike twenty yards from me. There is a huge concussive sound and I could feel the air pressurize. The pressurized air and the sound hit me like a wave that I could feel mostly in my chest and in my feet as the ground shook. The only thing that kept my ears from ringing was the fact that the cannoners instructed all of the onlookers to put our fingers in our ears and open our mouths to relieve the pressure build up. Even after my hands left my ears, however, I could hear the echo ringing through the woods. Smoke filled the air partly obscuring everything over 30 yards away. Just imagine what it must have been to see (and feel) a whole battery of five guns open up at once and be answered by enemy fire from a little over 1000 yards at most. Yesterday evening the cannoners were firing blank charges. Real ammunition would have whistled, exploded, and sent showers of dirt, gravel, and shrapnel flying everywhere.

My first black powder training is later this morning hopefully I'll be able to assist in firing the cannon next time they do it.