> One thing's got me puzzled, though. Do cannon balls explode? It was always my impression that cannon balls were simply big balls of metal. Giant ball bearings, if you will.
> I'd appreciate your thoughts. :o)
>
> Sun"The exploding cannon ball"dragyn.

In short, no, cannon balls do not explode. The ground does, and makes it look like the cannon ball exploded. Well, not really. he ground doesn't explode, it just gets displaced really, really fast. It's natural that parts of the ground get pushed out of the way when something big an massive hits it at a high velocity. Just look at some of the meteor craters; that's an awful lot of earth to move.

You can see the same 'explosion' effect if you take a big ball bearing and slam it down into some sand. I think it was that effect that the producers wanted. From your description, I'm inclined to believe that the scene was done in multiple shots with a very slow moving, rather light weight, and painted 'cannon ball' and then a second shot where they try to go for that ground-displacement effect by burying some high explosives under the ground and then setting it off. It's safer that way then having a massive cannon ball traveling pretty close to the actors at really high speeds....

-Ka"Although exploding cannon balls were made later. They're called bombs."z!