Identifying cannons in posts

Art by Charles Hamilton Smith

This bronze mortar weighs 2,540kg (nearly 5,600lbs) and it's crafted in the shape of a tiger sitting on its haunches with its tail curled above its back. The tiger's face is rendered in elaborate detail, and the muzzle of the gun is nestled in its gaping jaws.

Above: close-up of the tiger's face and mouth

The entire figure is also decorated with stippling patterns that create the appearance of stripes.

Above: this photo shows the tiger cannon devouring a small child

The mortar was created in Mysore, India, during the late-1700s. It was likely commissioned for Tipu Sultan, who ruled as the sultan of Mysore until 1799, when British soldiers seized control of the capital at Srirangapatna, ultimately killing him in battle.

Above: another view of the tiger's body

Tipu Sultan was a pioneer of rocket artillery; he was also known as the "Tiger of Mysore," and various tiger-themed objects were created in his name, including many other cannons and mortars. Some of these guns have similar stylistic elements, depicting a tiger's head with the muzzle of the gun in its mouth, but their design rarely includes the tiger's body.

Above: this cannon features a similar tiger's-head design, but it does not depict the tiger's body; it was created in Tipu Sultan's royal foundry in 1790, and is currently displayed in Chennai, India

Most of the artifacts from Tipu Sultan's court (including more than 900 cannons) were stolen by British soldiers as they ransacked the city of Srirangapatna. Many of those artifacts are still housed in museums, libraries, and private collections throughout the UK. The full-bodied tiger mortar featured in this post is part of the collection at the Royal Armouries Museum at Fort Nelson.

The British Government Should Return Tipu's Treasures to India

Sources & More Info:

Royal Armouries: Tiger Gun

Tiger of Mysore: Tipu Sultan's Sitting Tiger Gun

Weird and Wonderful Weaponry: Tiger Mortar

You Get: An image of St. Barbara, featuring her signature cannon, tower, and chalice

Im trying to see merpeople could use cannonballs that get shot from pirate ships into the ocean as chairs

Like yk a yoga ball but hard

Yes I know merpeople prolly don’t need chairs but I want this please

These are relatively bulky guns that can get up to 10 ft 10 inches long and fire a shot weighing 68 pounds. But the actual diameter of these shots is only going to be a bit less than 8.12 inches, which is the diameter of the bore, and is a bit smaller than the short side of your standard A4 paper (8.3 inches).

You could have a bit more luck with mortar shots, but still even the biggest mortars that fired shots and not explosive shells will have shots too small to be used as seats. For example, Roaring Meg, a mortar built in the 1640s, has a barrel diameter of 15.5 inches.

I believe Roaring Meg is the mortar with the highest caliber to fire iron shots, which in its case would be a hollow ball filled with black powder, but again, the shot itself would have a diameter of less than 15.5 inches, probably not enough for sitting comfortably. Roaring Meg’s shots also wouldn’t be ending up in the ocean because of where it was used, so for shots that end up in the ocean, you’d more likely be seeing maybe 13-inch mortar shots maximum.

However. This of course assumes that your mermaids are using solid shots or mortar shots, but there are a ton of other types of shots that they could maybe make use of in ways other than sitting. For example, there are two types of shots that a gun can fire called chain shots and bar shots.

Battle of Windmill

Kingston from Fort Henry

Mrs Gillis

8th image- cast iron 10-inch mortar

10th and 11th images- the guns I can properly make out are the cast iron, 24-pounder smooth bore muzzle loading gun mounted on an iron garrison carriage (on the left in the 10th image and closest in the 11th), and two bronze 3-pounder smooth bore muzzle loading guns mounted on wooden garrison carriages (these are the small, bronze ones that aren't the 24-pounder in these images).

28-pounders weren't actually really typically a caliber used in artillery during this time period, the most I can find about those with a brief search is anti-aircraft guns, which are way after this time period. This isn't to say they didn't exist at all, but especially with the usual gun classes used by the British among this time they'd probably be exceedingly rare if not just prototypes if they do exist.

This is a bit of a side tangent from identification, but the reason they do have this nice bed (maybe even the nicest in the ship- this would've been the admiral's quarters!) right next to some cannons is because, in the event the ship had to enter battle, you don't want to be wasting valuable space on the side of your ship where you could stick some firepower. So if the ship engaged in combat, the furniture would probably be stowed away at least so as not to be an obstacle, and it would just become another part of the gun deck. It's a similar concept in many forts: while the officer's quarters would be private, if they were in a position where it would be useful to have someone with a firearm in them firing out of loopholes during an attack or something, they'd have to let soldiers in to do that. I know most about British forts, so take this with a grain of salt when it comes to other ones, but often in forts the officer in question would have a few soldiers that he might particularly like or trust to be the ones to take up that position in his room, so his control over that space wouldn't be entirely relinquished. I'm unsure if something like that would apply to a ship, but I could see similar customs applying.

Anyways, final ID:

In terms of caliber, most of the one on the carriage being blocked by the artillery gin makes it harder to judge, it seems at first glance smaller than the gun on the ground, but again that might just be me. It's probably most likely that these are 6-pounders, or a 3-pounder if the one on the carriage is brass. Cast iron 6-pounders were much more common for the US during the war of 1812 than 3-pounders, which were not just much less common, but would be more likely to be brass, given that the US, I believe, introduced standardization of their artillery just before the war, making cast iron 6-pounders (among other calibers, though 6-pounders were most common), but not 3-pounders, brass or not. However, they still had quite a few brass 3-pounders in use from before this standardization.

Final ID:

On the carriage- either brass or cast iron smooth-bore muzzle loading field gun, likely a 3-pounder if brass and a 6-pounder if cast iron, mounted on a field carriage with a limber

Looking down on the Maumee River from Riverside Park in Perrysburg: which features two replica cannons from USS Constitution, made in 1906 and installed in the park in 1934.