As for me, the above is one of thee most beautiful, lovely, enticing and romantically sensual things in the cannon. I'm an artillery person at heart and nothing makes me wax nostalgic for time past than the Napoleon 12 pounder, which was a greater invention than the spoon.Named for the despot, the Napoleon really was a revolution in warfare in it killed so very well. So much so that it piled up Americans in their Civil War in heaps...........ah such a blessed creation this grim reaper is with her pretty smile.
There is nothing to match a well regulated cannoneer squad. Cool under fire and firing, they do not overload their weapon as it too often the case.........things get hot and cracking, and boys start dumping in extra charge and start blowing guns or knocking them off their caissons, but it is a thing of absolute beauty to see them lined up upon a rise, bore sighted upon an enemy, loaded and that crisp command of fire..........then all is alive with the smoke of sulfur, and the cool reloading of swab, powder, ram, and canister, fuse, and touch for fire.....and that magic comes to life again.
It is pure sweetness to see fields of fire conducted by those who know their business around these ladies.
I dislike ball intensely, as big cannon balls knock holes in things without life, but there is nothing so Patton lovely than grape, so called because the buckshot is the size of grapes, loaded into a cannon and mowing down swathes of the enemy.
Canister bursting in air is fine to terrorize, but when work is to be done, nothing is like the grape at appropriate distance. So life giving for all the Napoleon kills, means more of your comrades will return to the camp alive.
There is romance in artillery even if it is lost in the modern age of over the horizon firing. What is prettier than a naval battle crossing the T in ships accomplishing this broadside on a coming column of ships and shattering them in the depths of the night.
Concussions of immense fiery clouds of ignition you can feel ripple upon your form, knowing with satisfaction that the deadly fire is shattering a dangerous enemy to stark terror with every salvo.
The duel is always set, and one always hopes for the enemy to do stupid things, and often they do. Then the blessedness of death comes so easy, in it is not that heavy sick worry of your impending doom in your gut, but an elevation occurs in an almost sadistic form of the cat with a mouse. For then, the play begins as the masters of the cannon walk their fire into the enemy lines, shattering them step by step and continuing on again and again in salvo.
Of course it is called battle, and of course the masters do not will to cause a stampede as their is no sport in blowing up fleeing fiends who once were soldiers of rapine. No the pleasure is cracking the lines to silence, and then opening up with concentrations and isolating pockets to be a reason to continue on, as the order of "Cease fire" is a most wicked curse when the field is not yet cleared.
No it is better to leave the sympathetic Powells in their pathetic civilized warfare, and pretend the enemy is a threat of the past, and then work them over hard before the world which knows not gang rape and bayonet of baby condemns the hot stuff in how much feverous joy there is to be giving back, as you have been baptised in the brains and blood of your friends before in battle from these same foes.
There is not enough artillery in American warfare. That is a sadness in the lack of howitzer, mortar and cannon is a loss of the heart of keeping infantry alive. Better is shrapnel from 20 miles than a bullet from 200 hundred feet in the guts of a combat Soldier.
War would be far more sporting with Napoleons, for one could not worry about gut shot and dying a rotting death with modern surgery. Battle would be glorious and manly.
Think of a world where artillery salts the wastes of Islamistans with plutonium bursts to spread pesticide on terrorists and herding them into concentrations to be dispatched by the 155 Howitzer. All those smiling American Soldiers alive going home to happy families, no dead, just warm big guns and cold dead terrorists. That is the most pleasant of warfare and is the artists brush of civilized warfare in your enemy dead in mass forever and you living out your mortal coil awaiting for eternity.
I love the cannon and I would that Americans would love her too, for in her cheap attire she makes warfare affordable and quite glamorous with nuclear combat rounds. Imagine a few of those going off on a night in some perfect fire storm rivers of glass as signatures to enemies of what is come.
Why they would run and never stop, and those who crawled into holes would make them their grave as the radioactive salted earth would be weeks in making them sick, and alas no turban head carries enough lice to feed them for a fortnight nocturne.
What difference does it make if the orb is an iron ball or a pulse weapon neutralizing life at 20,000 yards. The cannon calls for attention and must be caressed with the adoration and love she requires, for she will bring life in Soldiers sent back to families and life in the bread those families will have in not having spent their taxes upon the rocket's red glare.
Artillery is the ultimate human pesticide of the roach of the enemy.
Invite the Lady again America or you will become the fodder of history.
agtG
