LARP Cannon with actual projectiles

Question

This years story of our fantasy combat LARP features the siege of a city. Eventually this will culminate in a battle, where there is an actual siege of a palisade-type fortification, including siege weapons (we have done this successfully several times in the past).

This year we had the idea to include a dwarven party supporting the agressor: by supplying them with a dwarven siege cannon. What we're still struggling with, is how to make the cannon safe, and fun.

Requirements:

• It must be safe for our participants - for combatants and the crew manning the cannon.
• The cannon should shoot real projectiles of some sort
• The cannon will not shoot at people deliberately, but will instead be used against the walls/gate.*
  • Of course it must still be safe if one of the combatants were to be hit accidentally!
• A range of, say, 30-50 meters would be nice (could be somewhat ballistic).

Bonus:

• If at all possible the cannon should make a loud booming noise when fired
• It would also look cool if there was a nice puff of smoke when fired.

How could we build a cannon which meets our above requirements?

A good answer would include:

• Experience with cannons (or other "gunpowder" weapons) in LARP
• What projectile is used
• How it is propelled
• How the cannon could be built
• How special effects could be achieved (sound/smoke/...)

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*) The idea is that after X hits with the cannon the gate/some section of wall will "collapse", i.e. be opened manually.

Answer 1

When I used to do pirate LARP we used the guts of a Nerf gun for this. Someone had built or acquired a little gun carriage and dummy cannon and we put the Nerf launcher plus (painted) rocket in it, with a little talcum powder inside the rocket for smoke effects. Pulling a string launched the rocket.

The advantages of this are that the firing mechanism is cheap and it does actually fire a projectile that everyone can see.

The disadvantages are that you need to build yourself a prop to make it look like a cannon and it doesn't go 'boom'.

We tried using the bangers from party poppers inside something that echoes to amplify the sound, but really if you want something to sound like a large 'boom' outdoors then you're going to have to resort to something that makes a large boom, and time your Nerf-firing appropriately.

Answer 2

What you could use is something similar to what I've used in airsoft; an RPG launcher which uses a 40mm gas grenade to fire nerf rockets.

We used these for attacking vehicles (One of the players had a BMP-1) as well as land rovers.

It should be pretty easy to replicate one of these things; you basically need a tube that would fit a 40mm gas grenade that you then use to fire whatever missile you want, there are quite a few videos on youtube of these things in action so you can see the range of them.

The bonus of these things is that they're safe, no gunpowder or explosives to worry about, just a sealed propulsion unit that you use to fire whatever you have stuffed down the barrel. The range may not be what you need however, so have a look at the videos.

My friend hand-built a PIAT that used these and it was a tube with a slot in section at the end where the grenade was dropped in, (a whole tube section pulled out) you then sealed the tube (rubber o-rings to seal, the important bit is to make sure that the seal is tight so there is no gas leakage) and used a basic trigger to fire it; you could wrap a cannon around that.

You won't get a burst of smoke from that, so it won't help with that; but for things like that we generally used blanks (for artillery pieces that were just for show) so if you rig the trigger up to fire the grenade as well as the blank you'd have smoke and a projectile at the same time.

Answer 3

I'd recommend a vortex cannon, something like this:

http://makezine.com/projects/build-giant-collapsible-vortex-air-cannon/

You could make a smaller one like this, which is also styled in a way you might like:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Potent-Pirate-Smoke-Ring-Cannon/

You said "siege" so I assume you want something big- bigger than a handheld man portable device. This would be physically large, but not unwieldly as it can be dissembled.

The projectile is simply air- to make it visual, you can use dry ice to make fog which would make it visible (or if you have power you could use a smoke machine). It will be harmless, non toxic, but also clearly indicate when something is hit because the smoke ring will dissipate and splash around the target.

Some say the range of these cannons can be the 30 meters you want, but on a chaotic battlefield... could be quite variable and heavily dependent on weather conditions. Rain will probably render it entirely ineffective, as will strong wind.

The primary advantage of this is that it is doable at a hobbyist level, uses cheap and widely available materials, is easily replicated, and is entirely, completely, provably LARP safe.

Answer 4

If you want a cannon that fires a ball, then you might look at using something based on the crossbow type technology- basically a bungie catapult in a pipe. This would be reasonably easy to construct and to prototype - it would certainly be worth prototyping to ensure that you can create the amount of safe motive power you want that way.

For a projectile, I would be thinking of a soft foam ball of the lightest type you can find- furniture foam would probably be best if it is going to be flying through the air at speed. A layer of latex would allow you to give it colour and allow it to fly a little better without impacting safety.

Whatever you use, if you're firing it at people you need to first do the maths to ensure it's within safe parameters and secondly test the hell out of it to absolutely minimise the risks to targets and the people firing it.

One other suggestion that might give you the range and the effect would be to have a simple powder cannon that only gives you a bang and smoke ( still don't want to fire it too close to anyone! ) and then have a ref using a regular LARP-safe longbow to physrep the projectile. It won't look like a cannonball, but it will be very clear where it lands/what it hits and a bow should have sufficient range for the job. The other option there would be to have a ref on the player's side calling the impacts for them. If you look at some of the systems that use black-powder weaponry this approach is not uncommon and breaks immersion less than you might expect.

Answer 5

What we normally use here in Russia is a cannon made from a metal tube (closed from one side) that shoots tennis balls. Fireworks are used to propel it -- and you have to experiment with the squibs available nearby to find those that are both safe and powerful enough. There is a special hole used to fire the squib. Here is a video of me shooting it, from around 2:00 till 2:20. As you may see, it hits pretty hard, so don't hit the heads at close range. :) I will try to provide a better video soon.

Answer 6

To be honest I only know Larping from the outside. I did it once with my friends without any siege weapons. But here something you could try.

A slingshot cannon. Basically a durable enough cannon pretty object that has a sling shot you can cock back pretty comfortably. I say big,because im assuming you want big balls. for the ammo you could wrap something fist-sized in a good amount of camping foam or something like that, so you should have both weight and softness. Dodge balls would probably be perfect, they'd just hurt more. I think that solves the shooting a thing aspect.

Ways you could pull the cocking of would be

1. Have a drawstring connect to the end of the rubber band that comes out from the back that you pull
2. Have two slots from the side that has handles to pull back the band
3. You could also make a way to have it automatically hold the band back if you wanna go that far. just more work

for strength I guess you could adjust the power and weight of the whole thing. or use pressurized air instead. But I believe that's more costly and dangerous.But would probably fulfill all your needs and wants beside safetty

for the something to go boom and smoke, i saw other answers say a vortex cannon. That should work. you could build a smaller one and attach it to the side. or maybe make and equal sized one and say its a double barrel cannon. And make it so they shoot simultaneously. theoretically the smoke should look like they shoot at the same time, with a little "boof" sound.

To intensify the boom sound. try having a little chamber that you can house and unload like a fire cracker that you'd manually light whence you fire. the mounting and look of the cannon is probably pretty whatever you want

Just in case this doesn't knock down things the way you want it to. you could designate parts of the "wall" that will come down when hit, mixed with sturdy bits of the "wall". this way the whole "wall " doesn't have to be built like a house of cards. Let me know if this helps.