Feb 19, 2011: This cannon was created by a group of officers-artillerists guided by P. I. Shuvalov (by the way, he made a lot of useful developments in Russian artillery). The main perk of the howitzer was a conical breech chamber. It allowed to center the ball in the barrel bore much better. That minimized clearance between the bore surface and the shot in the beginning period of the shot, leading to increased firing range and accuracy (almost twice as much compared to usual guns of the same caliber). That, in turn, allowed to shortern the barrel, therefore making the guns lighter and more mobile.

In 1757, these howitzers were adopted in the Russian artillery. The gun received name Edinorog (that is Russian word for Unicorn) because the dolphins (the handles on the barrel) and the button (bottom right picture on the photo) of the new guns were cast in the form of unicorns. There is no precise indication of the reason to replace usual fishes by unicorns, but, just in case, a unicorn was pictured on the count blazon of P. Shuvalov.

The construction of the edinorog was so good that they were used in Russian artillery for about hundred years. They became the first in the world sample of a universal gun — it could be used as a cannon or as a howitzer and could fire all types of missiles. Besides Russia, edinorogs were also used in the Austrian artillery, which was considered the best one in the world in the second half of the 18th century. Source of these and a lot of other historical data — the Museum`s web-site.

St. Petersburg Museum of Artillery
Bronze barrel cast in 1757. Caliber 122 mm, length 122 cm, weight 262 kg, firing range 2340 m.