Low Tech cannons mortars and shells

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Hand mortars were a thing (with no stats in GURPS Low Tech!)

I think there were stats in GURPS 3E High Tech or a similar book, like Age of Napoleon.

They were useful for line-throwing, but as combat weapons they were distinctly unpopular because they compounded the inherent unreliability of black powder grenades and flintlock firearms. If you lit the grenade and then had a misfire with the grenade launcher, you were in deep trouble.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Early gunpowder artillery is really complicated and could easily be a booklet by itself. Even GURPS High Tech has one gun (!) to represent all traditional muzzle-loading cannon of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Pre-cartridge BP weapons in general are complicated, although not as complicated as modern guns. There are a lot of little details that GURPS, even GURPS High Tech, simplifies and lots of stuff that hasn't been GURPSified.

The problem is that historical weapons of the era just aren't that popular. Nobody cares about the difference between a doglock and a miquelet lock or all the weird attempts to overcome the inherent technological limitations that gunsmiths and cannon founders tried.

If you're doing swashbucklers/pyrates* it's mostly about swordplay, maybe with a brace of pistols to open the action or a blunderbuss to intimidate the rabble.

If you're doing DF with gunpowder, you basically want a tech-themed wand of fireballs.

If you're doing Steampunk, you want variations on successful late 19th century designs with Steampunk analogs of late 20th or early 21st century gun accessories.

Heavy weapons have limited RPG use unless you're hunting foes who can only be taken down by cannon fire. (As an example, GURPS 3E High Tech had a fun vignette on WW1-era artillery vs. Nameless Horror.) If you're on the receiving end, you need to be tough enough that cannons hurt rather than being insta-kill.



*

Pyrates = The romanticized version of Baroque-era Caribbean sea-robbers, with 99% less senseless cruelty, 90% less alcoholism and 100% better personal hygiene than the historical versions.