Comments by "Gaza is not Amalek" (@Ass_of_Amalek) on "Forgotten History: World's Biggest Black Powder Cannon - a 100-Ton Gun" video.

now I'm left wondering how they aimed this gun! :( I didn't see any sights on it. would they have aimed it with a gun looking through sights directly on the gun? would they have had some sort of sights in the bunker mechanically linked to the gun? what about ballistic calculations? I'm sure they would have wanted to make every one of those 120 shots before sending the gun back to england count! so I would expect that they had some sort of calculation for the elevation, if only based on guesstimated range. but what about wind? did they have a device to measure wind speed, or just more guesstimation and looking at the way flags blow?
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I'm pretty sure that none of that system was innovative, it was just big. I think the real tricky part would have probably been the construction of the cannon. there's a technical drawing of a cross-section of the cannon that shows that it's constructed of many interlocking bands of steel (or wrought iron, I'm not sure), and they all would have been huge and very difficult to shape and assemble. the machinery used in the factory to build the gun (furnaces, cranes, power-hammers etc) would have been much more impressive than the machinery required to operate the gun. you can find videos on yourube of factories forging giant steel objects. the machinery is extremely impressive, and it would be even more so if it had to be powered on site by coal-fired steam engines.
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