"Spring-loaded Cannon for Little Wars" Topic

Can anyone recommend a spring-loaded cannon, suitable for playing Little Wars, that's currently available? I'm not particularly interested in paying ebay prices for a vintage one.

Thanks in advance!

You'll put yer eye out!

(Sorry. Anyway, my google-fu was weak and turned up nothing aside from the vintage jobs and non-spring-loaded replica cannon.)

The game was "Weapons and Warriors," circa 1994. Included a variety of springloaded artillery, including cannon, mortars, and catapults. Long out of production, although a recent reimagining of the game provided some rather odd artillery that fired discs instead of little rubber balls. I still see them around on occasion…

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Oh wow! I have Weapons & Warriors. The pieces I have are rubber-band shooters; balista, and a catapult.

Does anyone still make the spring loaded dart guns you used to get for 99 cents? They would be pretty powerful at close range against little lead men.

Come to think of it, MegaBloks makes spring-loaded cannon for their "Pirates of the Caribbean" line (as well as their fantasy line). The balls are hard rubber affixed to a dart shaft like the guns UltraOrk mentions. They should have sufficient weight and force to knock over most minis, especially plastic ones, depending on the weight and size of the base. And fortunately, they even look reasonably like actual cannon (although they use swivel mounts like on a small swivel gun rather than carriages).

You can see the sets here: link

You can always go hi-tech with eh USB version: link

May I suggest that Little Wars needs actual Britians naval guns. Are you using Britians as the figures for the game?

What I did until I found some inexpensive naval guns to use in the big game I did at Historicon, I just used non shooting cannon on the table, and then brought in the one shooting gun I had obtained. Many shooting toy cannons show up on eBay at reasonable costs. I will check my stocks to see what I have picked up along the way. If you are interested, send me a message.

If you are serious Little Wars organizer, you must get the original version of the Naval Gun, not the new style.
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forgot to post pic of game showing non-shooting on table.
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Depending upon the era, and effect desired, you could always resort to air-soft guns, and/or those that shoot those little foam darts.

Eye-protection is recommended.

For the large, plastic, 99 cent army men battles, we used to play outside with rocks and dirt clods. Works great, and the troops can actually be dug in for better protection.

Combat is a hoot, and requires a certain level of throwing accuracy.

Playmobil do an ACW 'Napoleon' gun-howitzer in their Western range that shoots a plastic projectile. It's out of scale with 54mm figures though. Best used as a substitute for a more appropriate artillery piece, therefore. Certainly does the business and has a good range/accuracy.
You can order from their spare parts catalogue.

No, we're not playing with Britains. My 4yo & I have been playing with cheap BMC ACW figs. So far, we've been rolling a die and inflicting that many casualties, but I wanted to introduce a bit of HG Wells into the rules. The Playmobil gun is a definite possibility.

lego guns work.

I've got 2 Britains naval guns and a 5.5" howitzer that will be going on the block soon, but I don't think they would do the job for you anyway--the rounds are plastic and don't have much oomph. The howitzer shells are bigger, of course, but still not heavy enough for what you want to do. I would go with the Weapons and Warriors cannons. They don't look right, but they do fire orange balls, which will not get lost so easily. In the alternative, you could try rubberband guns (I got some at a 5-Below store); still, I don't think they would be heavy enough to do the job on 54mm BMC figures, especially if they were any distance away.