It is undeniable that, the first efficient component in artillery was not its wished purpose but the noise, that imposed fright among the enemy's hordes.
Aside from the first registered use of artillery in the Peninsula, which took place in the siege of Algeciras (1342-1344) where Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada, "fired iron projectiles from primitive gunpowder bombards, which caused extensive damage*, we have the Battle of Aljubarrota (1385), in which the Spaniards were equipped with 16 trons**, which only managed to kill two Portuguese and a British (ally) in the in the defenders right wing, with one of the volleys; however the trons fuss causing great consternation among the Portuguese horde, as our men of arms did not know such weapon.
* I am not certain of the type of the damage; a plausible inferrement would contextually be the psycho impact, rather than physical.
** Trom is the onomatopoeic name given after the noise caused by these devices (troooom).
In the Portuguese Navy museum, there is a device called Aljubarrota Trom, recognized as neither having being in the Aljubarrota battle, contrary to tradition, nor being a whole trom, but a loading chamber for one of the trom kind. With 1.7 yards in length and weighing 1.5 ton, must have served a 5 to 6 yards gun, basically due for beating walled fortification gates.
In a timeline as from then, artillery pieces were given a countless series of names, from those of birds, beasts, and other, until they ended up being named after their caliber (six pounder, twelve pounder), still not forgetting that, before a caliber 'standardization' was 'imposed', yet long after it was 'idealized', calibers existed for all tastes, through all such timeline, which caused great difficulty to check on what ammunition to introduce in each barrel.
It is amazing to see a (Portuguese, for one) list (never complete) of early cannon variants:
Besides gross an small bombards, bombardetas, and cradles we had ...
Eagles ... large and small,
Falcons and falconetes,
Lions (large cannon),
Camels and cameletes (ex-Moroccan wars and after in India),
1/4 cannon (circa 1/2 ton, for field use by King Dom Sebastião)
Bears,
Dogs (small bronze piece),
Serpentines (short culverins),
Serps,
Culverins and half culverins,
Culverins, bastards and legitimate,
Basiliscs (for siege),
Sacres and half sacres (1/4 and 1/8 culverin, used by Dutch),
Aspides,
Esperas (waits) and half esperas (short cannons),
Espalhafatos (fusses; threw stone balls 5 to 7 spans around ),
Selvagens (savages),
Roqueiras or forneiras,
Pedreiros (after stone projectiles),
Passa-volantes (Italian inspired).
Passa muros (one in Arzila thew 127 pound balls)
Mortars (from Latin mortarium=pestle),
Trabucos,
Esmerilhão (like a falconete, used in Alcacer Quibir)
To be continued ...
.