64-lber Great Gun

64-lber Great Gun
Belongs to	All Middle Eastern/Indian factions
Type	Fixed Artillery
Guns	4
Firepower	70
Range	600
Accuracy	35
Reload	30
Morale	3
Tech requirement	None
Produced from	Military Engineer School in any region controlled by a Middle Eastern/Indian faction
Cost	950
Upkeep	230
Turns to Train	3
Unit Cap	none

The 64-lber Great Gun is a type of cannon artillery in Empire: Total War.

Description

These enormous cannons can pound enemies to pieces in very short order. Their size and weight make them almost immoble once emplaced.

As the name suggests, these huge guns fire cannon balls in excess of 60 pounds. The impact of such a shot crushes anyone unlucky enough to be caught, and does terrible damage to any structure hit. That canister shot can be added on top of such a ball is merely piling on the misery for the unfortunate targets. These enormous guns require large-scale support to operate effectively. Indeed, in Indian service they are often towed by elephants rather than a team of smaller draught oxen!

Historically, guns this size were difficult to cast without flaws; the size of gunpowder charge involved in firing these guns meant that any flaw would be fatal to the gunners. Secondly, there was the difficulty of moving these guns to the battlefield. Smaller artillery produced substantial trains of draught animals, additional carts for powder, spares and shots, (all with more draught animals) - and then all of these would need feeding and watering, even before the gun crews were considered. That is was considered worthwhile to produce and then use these guns with all these drawbacks shows just how destructive they were.

General Information

Despite the size of these guns, they can hide in woodland. 64-lber has much greater firepower than any other cannon type; however, they have very poor accuracy with shrapnel shot, and cannot use canister shot.