Artillery

Caroline is our Falconet, a small artillery piece which can be fired from a swivel mounting. The swivel can be attached to a cart, placed into a block or in the ground, or lashed to a post.

She is capable of firing a 14oz round shot to a range of about a mile, but would not have been used for that purpose as the shot is too small to be worth using.

This type of gun would usually fire small shot such as a bag of musket balls or a handful of gravel. Devastating against troops at short range, say 3 – 400 yards. It is effectively a large shotgun or blunderbuss.

Caroline is man-portable, weighing about 55 pounds, none of this kilo stuff back in the 17th Century (OK, 25 kilo for those who can’t cope with real measurements), but we usually move her on a small cart as there are gun tools, powder, shot, and other necessities to carry.

She can be loaded and fired single handed, but it’s better with a crew of 3 or 4 people. Faster as well, reloading takes about 25 seconds with an experienced team. Blank firing only for our displays, but it would only take a few seconds longer to put some rocks in.