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Licorne
Licorne (russian: Единорог, ''Yedinorog'', 'unicorn') is the French name of an 18th- and 19th-century Russian cannon, a type of muzzle-loading howitzer, devised in 1757 by M.W. Danilov and S.A. Martynov and accepted by artillery commander, general Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov. The licorne was a hybrid between the howitzers and guns of the era (a gun-howitzer), with a longer barrel than contemporary howitzers, giving projectiles a flatter trajectory, but longer range. Similar to the howitzers, they had a powder chamber of smaller diameter than the gun caliber, but whereas a howitzer's chamber was cylindrical, a licorne's was conical, with its base diameter the same as the gun bore. The conical chamber was easier to load and facilitated the placement of the projectile perfectly in the center of the barrel. Licornes were able to fire both the solid shot used for cannons and howitzer shells, as well as grapeshot and canister. The length of the barrel was 9 or 10 calibres, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Licorne 1814
Licorne (russian: Единорог, ''Yedinorog'', 'unicorn') is the French name of an 18th- and 19th-century Russian Empire, Russian cannon, a type of Muzzleloader, muzzle-loading howitzer, devised in 1757 by M.W. Danilov and S.A. Martynov and accepted by artillery commander, general Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov. The licorne was a hybrid between the howitzers and guns of the era (a gun-howitzer), with a longer Gun barrel, barrel than contemporary howitzers, giving projectiles a flatter trajectory, but longer range. Similar to the howitzers, they had a powder chamber of smaller diameter than the gun caliber, but whereas a howitzer's chamber was cylindrical, a licorne's was conical, with its base diameter the same as the gun bore. The conical chamber was easier to load and facilitated the placement of the projectile perfectly in the center of the barrel. Licornes were able to fire both the solid Round shot, shot used for cannons and howitzer Shell (projectile), shells, as well as grape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksey Arakcheyev
Count Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev or Arakcheev (russian: граф Алексе́й Андре́евич Аракче́ев) ( – ) was an Imperial Russian general and statesman during the reign of Tsar Alexander I. He served under Tsars Paul I and Alexander I as an army commander and Inspector of Artillery. He had a violent temper, but was a competent artillerist, and is known for his reforms of Russian artillery known as the "System of 1805". When Alexander was succeeded by Nicholas I, he lost all his offices. Early years Count Arakcheyev was born on his father's estate in Garusovo, in Vyshnevolotsky Uyezd (at the time a part of Novgorod Governorate, from 1796 part of Tver Governorate). He was educated in arithmetic by a priest, and though he shone at arithmetic, he never mastered writing and grammar. In 1783, with the help of General Peter Ivanovich Melissino, Arakcheyev enrolled in the Shlyakhetny artillery school in Saint-Petersburg. By 1787 he had become a lieutenant i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years or so been depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with a long straight horn with spiralling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could be captured only by a virgin. In encyclopedias, its horn was described as having the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In medieval and Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as a unicorn horn. A bovine type of unicorn is thought by some scholars to have been depicted in seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization, the interpretation remaining controversial. An equine form of the unicorn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secret Howitzer
The 95 mm howitzer M1753, called secret howitzer or Shuvalov's secret howitzer, was an 18th-century Russian cannon, a type of muzzle-loading howitzer, devised and introduced into service by artillery commander, General Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov. Shuvalov's gun had an unusual, oval bore, which was designed to facilitate shot dispersal while firing canisters and therefore to increase the killing field. A special canister round produced for the cannon contained 168 balls; a grapeshot version, with 48 larger balls, was also provided for shooting at 300–600 yards distance. The name of the gun comes from the great secrecy which surrounded it. While not in use, the muzzle was covered with a lid to hide its unusual shape. The death penalty was set as the punishment for revealing the secret of the weapon. The first guns built used quoins for changing the elevation, but in 1753–1758 turnscrews were introduced. Originally they had cylindrical powder chambers like howitzers, but gun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howitzer
A howitzer () is a long- ranged weapon, falling between a cannon (also known as an artillery gun in the United States), which fires shells at flat trajectories, and a mortar, which fires at high angles of ascent and descent. Howitzers, like other artillery equipment, are usually organized in a group called a battery. Howitzers, together with long-barreled guns, mortars, and rocket artillery, are the four basic types of modern artillery. Mortars fire at angles of elevation greater than 45°, and are useful for mountain warfare because the projectile could go over obstacles. Cannons fire at low angles of elevation (<45°), and the projectile lands much faster at its target than it would in the case of a mortar. But the cannon is not useful if there is an obstacle like a hill/wall in front of its target. Etymology The English word ''howitzer'' comes from the Czech word , from , 'crowd', and is in turn a borrowing from the Middle High German word or (mode ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov
Count Pyotr Ivanovich Shuvalov (russian: Петр Иванович Шувалов; 1711 – ) was a Russian statesman and Field Marshal who, together with his brother Aleksandr Shuvalov, paved the way for the elevation of the Shuvalov family to the highest offices of the Russian Empire. He is also remembered as the founder of Izhevsk, the capital of Udmurtia. Pyotr Shuvalov began his career as a page at the court of tsesarevna Elizabeth. He was brought to tsesarevna's attention when he married her close friend and in-law, Mavra Shepeleva. For his assistance in the enthronement of Elizabeth, he was promoted to the rank of Chamberlain, then appointed senator and became a count in 1746. Initially, he was in charge of an army division stationed near St.Petersburg and then the Observation Corps, formed by Shuvalov himself and designated to protect the rear of the regular army. He also held the post of a conference minister and managed the artillery and weapons chancelleries. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secret Howitzer
The 95 mm howitzer M1753, called secret howitzer or Shuvalov's secret howitzer, was an 18th-century Russian cannon, a type of muzzle-loading howitzer, devised and introduced into service by artillery commander, General Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov. Shuvalov's gun had an unusual, oval bore, which was designed to facilitate shot dispersal while firing canisters and therefore to increase the killing field. A special canister round produced for the cannon contained 168 balls; a grapeshot version, with 48 larger balls, was also provided for shooting at 300–600 yards distance. The name of the gun comes from the great secrecy which surrounded it. While not in use, the muzzle was covered with a lid to hide its unusual shape. The death penalty was set as the punishment for revealing the secret of the weapon. The first guns built used quoins for changing the elevation, but in 1753–1758 turnscrews were introduced. Originally they had cylindrical powder chambers like howitzers, but gun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Invasion Of Russia
The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign, the Second Polish War, the Army of Twenty nations, and the Patriotic War of 1812 was launched by Napoleon Bonaparte to force the Russian Empire back into the continental blockade of the United Kingdom. Napoleon's invasion of Russia is one of the best studied military campaigns in history and is listed among the most lethal military operations in world history. It is characterized by the massive toll on human life: in less than six months nearly a million soldiers and civilians died. On 24 June 1812 and the following days, the first wave of the multinational crossed the Niemen into Russia. Through a series of long forced marches, Napoleon pushed his army of almost half a million people rapidly through Western Russia, now Belarus, in an attempt to destroy the separated Russian armies of Barclay de Tolly and Pyotr Bagration who amounted to around 180,000–220,000 at this time. Within six weeks, Napoleon lost ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Austerlitz
The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire (modern-day Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic). The decisive victory of Napoleon's Grande Armée at Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to a rapid end, with the Treaty of Pressburg signed by the Austrians later in the month. The battle is often cited as a tactical masterpiece, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Gaugamela.Farwell p. 64. "Austerlitz is generally regarded as one of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces and has been ranked as the equal of Arbela, Cannae, and Leuthen."Dupuy p. 102 After eliminating an Austrian army during the Ulm Campaign, French forces seized Vienna in November 1805. The Austrians avoided further conflict until the arrival of the Russians bolster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indiana University Press
Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes 140 new books annually, in addition to 39 academic journals, and maintains a current catalog comprising some 2,000 titles. Indiana University Press primarily publishes in the following areas: African, African American, Asian, cultural, Jewish, Holocaust, Middle Eastern studies, Russian and Eastern European, and women's and gender studies; anthropology, film studies, folklore, history, bioethics, music, paleontology, philanthropy, philosophy, and religion. IU Press undertakes extensive regional publishing under its Quarry Books imprint. History IU Press began in 1950 as part of Indiana University's post-war growth under President Herman B Wells. Bernard Perry, son of Harvard philosophy professor Ralph Barton Perry, served as the first d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established when the French ceded a part of Polish territory to the Russian Empire following France's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1915, during World War I, it was replaced by the German-controlled nominal Regency Kingdom until Poland regained independence in 1918. Following the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation for 123 years. The territory, with its native population, was split between the Habsburg monarchy, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire. After 1804, an equivalent to Congress Poland within the Austrian Empire was the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, also commonly referred to as "Austrian Poland". The area incorporated into Prussia and subse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the expansion of the Russian Empire in the preceding Russo-Turkish Wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe. The flashpoint was a disagreement over the rights of Christian minorities in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, with the French promoting the rights of Roman Catholics, and Russia promoting those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The churches worked out their differences with the Ottomans and came to an agreement, but both the French Emperor Napoleon III and the Russian Tsar Nicholas I refused to back down. Nicholas issued an ultimatum that demanded the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire be placed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
