Quote:
Originally Posted by unkated
With a little research, you could also make cannister - a cylinder filled with small lead balls (or a collection of 1/4 - 1/2-in nuts and short bolts) that splits apart as it leaves the barrel, making a giant shotgun. Other than only being deployable at close range, it would be effective against infantry. Reload time is kind of slow.
Uncle Ted
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As I recall, ships (and even castles) of the gunpowder era where often fitted with swivel guns for pretty much that same purpose - a short range anti-personnel weapon.
For those who haven't heard about them, a swivel gun is basically a small canon on a swiveling mount to allow wide arc of movement, filled with grapeshot to help repel enemies attempting to board the ship (or castle).
Again, reload time is slow but you can mitigate that somewhat by having multiple swivel guns in the same place so that one (or more) are available while the first gun is reloading.
The main point here is that you can get multiple swivel guns for the cost of a single larger cannon and they have a greater range of movement as well as being much faster to move.