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Cannons are HARD to move around. And in rough terrain, it's HARD to get them where they will actually point at the enemy. It's not easy to drag them through mud or rocky terrain. Pick them up? NO WAY. All the steel needed to contain the force of the blast makes it way too heavy to carry.

I've been thinking.... What other possibilities are there for "artillery" that is more mobile in crappy terrain? One thing I've considered is light artillery that throws explosive shells on a high, slow trajectory. bombs/grenades basically. They don't rely on the projectile's kinetic energy, so the launcher can be very low-power. Possibly such that it could use stored tension (like a crossbow), instead of a gunpowder blast. This would mean that it wouldn't need to be made from nearly as much metal as a traditional cannon, and could even have a wooden frame light enough to be carried by a team of men in rough or boggy terrain. Hence, very mobile artillery.

I've been mulling this idea in my head for a while, but what finally got me to post this was reading about some battles in the 1814 north-eastern France campaign, where supposedly muddy terrain greatly reduced the effectiveness of Napoleon's artillery in a number of battles. Of course, I imagine this idea may be applicable far earlier than the Napoleonic period.
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