💥 1453 | The Fall of Constantinople | Part 3: Cannon vs Wall What you’re seeing: An Ottoman bombard firing toward the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, followed by a separate shot of one impact tearing into the stone. First you sit behind the gun as it roars; then you see what a hit like that did when it found a weak point in the wall. Where is this? This recreates the land walls west of Constantinople, near the Lycus Valley. In 1453 this was the main Ottoman attack sector, facing the Gate of St. Romanus, where Mehmed II concentrated his largest guns. What is Orban’s bombard? Orban, a Hungarian engineer, cast an enormous bronze cannon for the Ottomans. It fired huge stone balls at short range. The gun was powerful but slow and dangerous: crews had to cool and re-chock it between shots to avoid cracking the barrel. Did one shot really break the walls?
No single cannonball knocked the city down. Day after day, barrages like this fractured the outer facing, shook the brick and mort...