A tiny cannon for ID and coments

[fernando]

This is the replica of a XIV century hand cannon at the Lisbon Military Museum ... where pictures are not allowed
The barrel has 27 cms. and is made of hot welded staves. The whole thing, barrel and pole, measures 1,24 mts.
The tag doesn't mention its caliber, but we can see it's quite a large one, close from my example, i would say. Also the touch hole is quite significant in size, meaning that after some shooting and degradation could well become as large as the one in my specimen.
The legend in the tag confirms that these things were handled by two men; one holding the pole under the arm and pointing the barrel mouth to the enemy lines and the "bota-fogo" (an expression that became legendary), a guy with the slow match, to detonate the device. Also as already aproached here, the accuracy of the shot was very limited, but the psichologic efect of the noise, the black smoke shadow and the smell of burnt sulphur, provoked in the spirit of medieval man the conviction that he was in the presence of devil's work.
Fernando