Re: Friend's BA (shaking head in disbelief)
I know a family with the last name of Gannon. Hopefully, they aren't closely related.
I don't think of cannons as the same as a rocket launcher or a bazooka, so I don't connect them with missiles in the way that you seem to. A howitzer is sort of a cross between a cannon and a mortar, and they are still in use, so I guess cannons aren't totally obsolete. A couple of months ago a 155 mm howitzer artillery made history by successfully shooting down an incoming cruise missile. Go cannon!