> 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. However, in this movie, our four heros are riding along and they get attacked by cannons mounted on a nearby tower. ("I hate cannon balls," says one of them.) It begins with a thump on the ground beside them. There's a brief shot of the cannon ball on the ground, then a huge explosion. (?) Maybe it wasn't supposed to look like it, but it sure seems like the cannon ball exploded.
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> I'd appreciate your thoughts. :o)
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> Sun"The exploding cannon ball"dragyn.

Like somebody just said, exploding cannonballs have been around for sometime. They were widely used in the War between the States, circa 1860.
In more recent times, such as when I was in the artillery about mid-1950's, there was a fused shell with what was called a "VT fuse." Variable time fuses did not have to be set to a number of seconds before they exploded. There was a small radio device that determined when they were about 20 meters above the ground and then, boom. At that height, a 105 mm shell would spread shrapnel over a 50 meter radius. It was a real killer. Fortunately I was shooting at old car bodies and such, as it was between wars and I never had to kill anybody. Actually, adjusting cannon fire on a target is fun until you realize that someday there might be people out there. I wouldn't have made a good wartime soldier.
Howard