A cannon is a large-
caliber
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge (firearms) , bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the f ...
gun classified as a type of
artillery
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...
, which usually launches a
projectile
A projectile is an object that is propelled by the application of an external force and then moves freely under the influence of gravity and air resistance. Although any objects in motion through space are projectiles, they are commonly found in ...
using explosive chemical
propellant
A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the e ...
.
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). ...
("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of
smokeless powder
Finnish smokeless powderSmokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to gunpowder ("black powder"). The combustion products are mainly gaseous, compared to a ...
during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in
gauge
Gauge ( or ) may refer to:
Measurement
* Gauge (instrument), any of a variety of measuring instruments
* Gauge (firearms)
* Wire gauge, a measure of the size of a wire
** American wire gauge, a common measure of nonferrous wire diameter, es ...
,
effective range,
mobility
Mobility may refer to:
Social sciences and humanities
* Economic mobility, ability of individuals or families to improve their economic status
* Geographic mobility, the measure of how populations and goods move over time
* Mobilities, a contemp ...
,
rate of fire,
angle of fire and
firepower
Firepower is the military capability to direct force at an enemy. (It is not to be confused with the concept of rate of fire, which describes the cycling of the firing mechanism in a weapon system.) Firepower involves the whole range of potent ...
; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. A cannon is a type of heavy artillery weapon.
The word ''cannon'' is derived from several languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as ''tube'', ''cane'', or ''reed''. In the modern era, the term ''cannon'' has fallen into decline, replaced by ''guns'' or ''artillery'', if not a more specific term such as
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 ot ...
or
mortar, except for high-caliber
automatic weapon
An automatic firearm is an auto-loading firearm that continuously chambers and fires rounds when the trigger mechanism is actuated. The action of an automatic firearm is capable of harvesting the excess energy released from a previous discharge ...
s firing bigger rounds than machine guns, called
autocannon
An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber ( or more) armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bull ...
s.
The earliest known depiction of cannons appeared in
Song dynasty China as early as the 12th century; however, solid archaeological and documentary evidence of cannons do not appear until the 13th century. In 1288
Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...
troops are recorded to have used
hand cannon
The hand cannon (Chinese: 手 銃 ''shŏuchòng'', or 火 銃 ''huŏchòng''), also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of small arms as well as the most mecha ...
in combat, and the earliest extant cannon bearing a date of production comes from the same period. By the early 14th century, possible mentions of cannon had appeared in the Middle East
and the depiction of one in Europe by 1326. Recorded usage of cannon began appearing almost immediately after. They subsequently spread to India, their usage on the subcontinent being first attested to in 1366. By the end of the 14th century, cannons were widespread throughout
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...
.
Cannons were used primarily as anti-infantry weapons until around 1374, when large cannons were recorded to have breached walls for the first time in Europe. Cannons featured prominently as
siege
A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition warfare, attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity con ...
weapons, and ever larger pieces appeared. In 1464 a cannon known as the
Great Turkish Bombard
The Basillica or Great Turkish Bombard ( tr, Şahi topu or simply ''Şahi'') is a 15th-century siege cannon, specifically a super-sized bombard, which saw action in the 1807 Dardanelles operation.Schmidtchen (1977b), p. 228 It was built in ...
was created in the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
.
Cannons as field artillery became more important after 1453, with the introduction of
limber, which greatly improved cannon maneuverability and mobility. European cannons reached their longer, lighter, more accurate, and more efficient "classic form" around 1480. This classic European cannon design stayed relatively consistent in form with minor changes until the 1750s.
Etymology and terminology
The word ''cannon'' is derived from the
Old Italian
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...
word , meaning "large tube", which came from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, in turn originating from the Greek (), "reed", and then generalised to mean any hollow tube-like object; cognate with
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
''qanu(m)'' and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, "tube, reed".
The word has been used to refer to a
gun
A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, p ...
since 1326 in Italy, and 1418 in England. Both of the plural forms ''cannons'' and ''cannon'' are correct.
History
East Asia
The cannon may have appeared as early as the 12th century in China, and was probably a parallel development or evolution of the
fire-lance
The fire lance () was a gunpowder weapon and the ancestor of modern firearms. It first appeared in 10th–12th century China and was used to great effect during the Jin-Song Wars. It began as a small pyrotechnic device attached to a polearm weap ...
, a short ranged anti-personnel weapon combining a gunpowder-filled tube and a polearm of some sort. Co-viative projectiles such as iron scraps or porcelain shards were placed in fire lance barrels at some point, and eventually, the paper and bamboo materials of fire lance barrels were replaced by metal.
The earliest known depiction of a cannon is a sculpture from the
Dazu Rock Carvings
The Dazu Rock Carvings () are a series of Chinese religious sculptures and carvings and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Dazu District, Chongqing, China. The carvings date back as far as the 7th century AD, depicting and influenced by Buddhi ...
in Sichuan dated to 1128, however, the earliest archaeological samples and textual accounts do not appear until the 13th century. The primary extant specimens of cannon from the 13th century are the
Wuwei Bronze Cannon
The Wuwei Bronze Cannon (武威銅火炮 — Wǔwēi tóng huǒpào) or Xi Xia Bronze cannon (西夏铜火炮 — Xīxià tóng huǒpào)Kelly DeVries, John France, Clifford J. Rogers (October 2015). Journal of Medieval Military History'. 13: 25 ...
dated to 1227, the
Heilongjiang hand cannon
The Heilongjiang hand cannon or hand-gun is a bronze hand cannon manufactured no later than 1288 and is the world's oldest confirmed surviving firearm. It weighs 3.55 kg (7.83 pounds) and is 34 centimeters (13.4 inches) long. The Heilongjian ...
dated to 1288, and the
Xanadu Gun
The oldest extant gun bearing a date of production is the Xanadu Gun, so called because it was discovered in the ruins of Xanadu (Shangdu), the summer palace of the Yuan dynasty in Inner Mongolia, China. The Xanadu Gun is 34.7 cm in length a ...
dated to 1298. However, only the Xanadu gun contains an inscription bearing a date of production, so it is considered the earliest confirmed extant cannon. The Xanadu Gun is 34.7 cm in length and weighs 6.2 kg. The other cannons are dated using contextual evidence. The Heilongjiang
hand cannon
The hand cannon (Chinese: 手 銃 ''shŏuchòng'', or 火 銃 ''huŏchòng''), also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of small arms as well as the most mecha ...
is also often considered by some to be the oldest firearm since it was unearthed near the area where the
History of Yuan
The ''History of Yuan'' (''Yuán Shǐ''), also known as the ''Yuanshi'', is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' of China. Commissioned by the court of the Ming dynasty, in accordance to political ...
reports a battle took place involving hand cannons. According to the History of Yuan, in 1288, a Jurchen commander by the name of Li Ting led troops armed with hand cannons into battle against the rebel prince Nayan.
Chen Bingying argues there were no guns before 1259, while Dang Shoushan believes the Wuwei gun and other
Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...
era samples point to the appearance of guns by 1220, and Stephen Haw goes even further by stating that guns were developed as early as 1200. Sinologist
Joseph Needham
Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, in ...
and renaissance siege expert Thomas Arnold provide a more conservative estimate of around 1280 for the appearance of the "true" cannon. Whether or not any of these are correct, it seems likely that the gun was born sometime during the 13th century.
References to cannons proliferated throughout China in the following centuries. Cannon featured in literary pieces. In 1341 Xian Zhang wrote a poem called ''The Iron Cannon Affair'' describing a cannonball fired from an eruptor which could "pierce the heart or belly when striking a man or horse, and even transfix several persons at once." By the 1350s the cannon was used extensively in Chinese warfare. In 1358 the Ming army failed to take a city due to its garrisons' usage of cannon, however, they themselves would use cannon, in the thousands, later on during the siege of
Suzhou
Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...
in 1366.
The
Mongol invasion of Java
The Yuan dynasty under Kublai Khan attempted in 1292 to invade Java, an island in modern Indonesia, with 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers. This was intended as a punitive expedition against Kertanegara of Singhasari, who had refused to pay tribute to t ...
in 1293 brought gunpowder technology to the
Nusantara
Nusantara most commonly refers to:
*Nusantara (archipelago), an Old Javanese term which initially referred to the conquered territories of the Majapahit empire, corresponding to present-day Indonesia
*Nusantara (planned city), the future capital ci ...
archipelago in the form of cannon (Chinese:
''Pao'').
During the
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
cannons were used in riverine warfare at the
Battle of Lake Poyang
The Battle of Lake Poyang () was a naval conflict which took place (30 August – 4 October 1363) between the rebel forces of Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang during the Red Turban Rebellion which led to the fall of the Yuan dynasty. Chen Youlian ...
. One shipwreck in Shandong had a cannon dated to 1377 and an anchor dated to 1372. From the 13th to 15th centuries cannon-armed Chinese ships also travelled throughout Southeast Asia. Cannon appeared in
Đại Việt
Đại Việt (, ; literally Great Việt), often known as Annam ( vi, An Nam, Chữ Hán: 安南), was a monarchy in eastern Mainland Southeast Asia from the 10th century AD to the early 19th century, centered around the region of present-day ...
by 1390 at the latest.
The first of the western cannon to be introduced were
breech-loaders in the early 16th century, which the Chinese began producing themselves by 1523 and improved on by including composite metal construction in their making.
Japan did not acquire cannon until 1510 when a monk brought one back from China, and did not produce any in appreciable numbers. During the 1593
Siege of Pyongyang, 40,000 Ming troops deployed a variety of cannons against Japanese troops. Despite their defensive advantage and the use of arquebus by Japanese soldiers, the Japanese were at a severe disadvantage due to their lack of cannon. Throughout the
Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)
The Japanese invasions of Korea of 1592–1598 involved two separate yet linked invasions: an initial invasion in 1592 (), a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597 (). The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese force ...
, the Ming–Joseon coalition used artillery widely in land and naval battles, including on the
turtle ship
A ''Geobukseon'' ( ko, script=Hang, 거북선, ), also known as turtle ship in western descriptions, was a type of large Korean warship that was used intermittently by the Joseon Navy, Royal Korean Navy during the Joseon, Joseon dynasty from the ...
s of
Yi Sun-sin
Admiral Yi Sun-sin (April 28, 1545 – December 16, 1598) was a Korean admiral and military general famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin war in the Joseon Dynasty. Over the course of his career, Admiral Yi foug ...
.
According to
Ivan Petlin
Ivan Petlin (russian: Иван Петлин; 17th-century diminutive form, russian: Ивашко Петлин, Ivashko (Evashko) Petlin), a Siberian Cossack, was the first Russian to have reached China on an official mission (1618-1619). His exped ...
, the first Russian envoy to Beijing, in September 1619, the city was armed with large cannon with cannonballs weighing more than . His general observation was that the Chinese were militarily capable and had firearms:
Western Europe
![Šibenik - topovi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/%C5%A0ibenik_-_topovi.jpg)
Outside of China, the earliest texts to mention gunpowder are
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon (; la, Rogerus or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiri ...
's (1267) and in what has been interpreted as references to
firecracker
A firecracker (cracker, noise maker, banger) is a small explosive device primarily designed to produce a large amount of noise, especially in the form of a loud bang, usually for celebration or entertainment; any visual effect is incidental t ...
s. In the early 20th century, a British artillery officer proposed that
another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, , dated to 1247, contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder hidden in the text. These claims have been disputed by science historians.
In any case, the formula itself is not useful for firearms or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.
There is a record of a gun in Europe dating to 1322 being discovered in the nineteenth century but the artifact has since been lost. The earliest known European depiction of a gun appeared in 1326 in a manuscript by
Walter de Milemete
Walter de Milemete was an English scholar who in his early twenties was commissioned by Queen Isabella of France to write a treatise on kingship for her son, the young prince Edward, later king Edward III of England called ''De nobilitatibus, sap ...
, although not necessarily drawn by him, known as (''Concerning the Majesty, Wisdom, and Prudence of Kings''), which displays a gun with a large arrow emerging from it and its user lowering a long stick to ignite the gun through the touch hole. In the same year, another similar illustration showed a darker gun being set off by a group of knights, which also featured in another work of de Milemete's, . On 11 February of that same year, the
Signoria
A signoria () was the governing authority in many of the Italian city states during the Medieval and Renaissance periods.
The word signoria comes from ''signore'' , or "lord"; an abstract noun meaning (roughly) "government; governing authority; ...
of
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
appointed two officers to obtain and ammunition for the town's defense. In the following year a document from the Turin area recorded a certain amount was paid "for the making of a certain instrument or device made by Friar Marcello for the projection of pellets of lead". A reference from 1331 describes an attack mounted by two Germanic knights on
Cividale del Friuli
Cividale del Friuli ( fur, Cividât (locally ); german: Östrich; sl, Čedad) is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Udine, part of the North-Italian Friuli Venezia Giulia ''regione''. The town lies above sea-level in the foothills of the e ...
, using man-portable gunpowder weapons of some sort. The 1320s seem to have been the takeoff point for guns in Europe according to most modern military historians. Scholars suggest that the lack of gunpowder weapons in a well-traveled Venetian's catalogue for a new crusade in 1321 implies that guns were unknown in Europe up until this point, further solidifying the 1320 mark, however more evidence in this area may be forthcoming in the future.
The oldest extant cannon in Europe is a small bronze example unearthed in Loshult,
Scania
Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...
in southern Sweden. It dates from the early-mid 14th century, and is currently in the
Swedish History Museum
The Swedish History Museum ( sv, Historiska museet or Statens historiska museum) is a museum located in Stockholm, Sweden, that covers Swedish archaeology and cultural history from the Mesolithic period to present day. Founded in 1866, it operat ...
in Stockholm.
Early cannons in Europe often shot arrows and were known by an assortment of names such as , , ''ribaldis'', and . The ''ribaldis'', which shot large arrows and simplistic
grapeshot
Grapeshot is a type of artillery round invented by a British Officer during the Napoleonic Wars. It was used mainly as an anti infantry round, but had other uses in naval combat.
In artillery, a grapeshot is a type of ammunition that consists of ...
, were first mentioned in the
English Privy Wardrobe accounts during preparations for the
Battle of Crécy
The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France between a French army commanded by King PhilipVI and an English army led by King EdwardIII. The French attacked the English while they were traversing northern France du ...
, between 1345 and 1346.
The Florentine
Giovanni Villani
Giovanni Villani (; 1276 or 1280 – 1348)Bartlett (1992), 35. was an Italian banker, official, diplomat and chronicler from Florence who wrote the ''Nuova Cronica'' (''New Chronicles'') on the history of Florence. He was a leading statesman ...
recounts their destructiveness, indicating that by the end of the battle, "the whole plain was covered by men struck down by arrows and cannon balls".
Similar cannon were also used at the
Siege of Calais (1346–47) Siege of Calais may refer to:
*Siege of Calais (1346–1347), the siege and capture of Calais by the English during the Hundred Years' War
*Siege of Calais (1349), the failed siege by Sir Geoffroi de Charny on December 31, 1348
*Siege of Calais (14 ...
, although it was not until the 1380s that the ''ribaudekin'' clearly became mounted on wheels.
Early use
The
Battle of Crecy
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...
which pitted the English against the French in 1346 featured the early use of cannon which helped the
longbow
A longbow (known as warbow in its time, in contrast to a hunting bow) is a type of tall bow that makes a fairly long draw possible. A longbow is not significantly recurved. Its limbs are relatively narrow and are circular or D-shaped in cross ...
men repulse a large force of Genoese crossbowmen deployed by the French. The English originally intended to use the cannon against cavalry sent to attack their archers, thinking that the loud noises produced by their cannon would panic the advancing horses along with killing the knights atop them.
Early cannons could also be used for more than simply killing men and scaring horses. English cannon were used defensively in 1346 during the
Siege of Breteuil
The siege of Breteuil was the investment of the Norman town of Breteuil, held by partisans of Charles II, King of Navarre, by French forces. It lasted from April to about 20 August 1356. It was interrupted on 5 July when a small English army ...
to launch fire onto an advancing
siege tower
A Roman siege tower or breaching tower (or in the Middle Ages, a belfry''Castle: Stephen Biesty's Cross-Sections''. Dorling Kindersley Pub (T); 1st American edition (September 1994). Siege towers were invented in 300 BC. ) is a specialized siege ...
. In this way cannons could be used to burn down siege equipment before it reached the fortifications. The use of cannons to shoot fire could also be used offensively as another battle involved the setting of a castle ablaze with similar methods. The particular incendiary used in these projectiles was most likely a gunpowder mixture. This is one area where early Chinese and European cannons share a similarity as both were possibly used to shoot fire.
Another aspect of early European cannons is that they were rather small, dwarfed by the bombards which would come later. In fact, it is possible that the cannons used at Crécy were capable of being moved rather quickly as there is an anonymous chronicle that notes the guns being used to attack the French camp, indicating that they would have been mobile enough to press the attack. These smaller cannons would eventually give way to larger, wall-breaching guns by the end of the 1300s.
Islamic world
![Malik E Maidan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Malik_E_Maidan.jpg)
There is no clear consensus on when the cannon first appeared in the
Islamic world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...
, with dates ranging from 1260 to the mid-14th century. The cannon may have appeared in the Islamic world in the late 13th century, with
Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab
The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...
in the 14th century stating that cannons were used in the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
region of North Africa in 1274, and other Arabic military treatises in the 14th century referring to the use of cannon by
Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
forces in 1260 and 1303, and by Muslim forces at the 1324 Siege of
Huesca
Huesca (; an, Uesca) is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and of the comarca of Hoya de Huesca. In 2009 it had a population of 52,059, almo ...
in Spain. However, some scholars do not accept these early dates. While the date of its first appearance is not entirely clear, the general consensus among most historians is that there is no doubt the Mamluk forces were using cannon by 1342.
Other accounts may have also mentioned the use of cannon in the early 14th century. An Arabic text dating to 1320–1350 describes a type of gunpowder weapon called a which uses gunpowder to shoot projectiles out of a tube at the end of a stock. Some scholars consider this a hand cannon while others dispute this claim. The
Nasrid army besieging
Elche
Elche ( ca-valencia, Elx) is a city and municipality of Spain, belonging to the province of Alicante, in the Valencian Community. According to 2014 data, Elche has a population of 228,647 inhabitants,[Ahmad Y. al-Hassan
Ahmad Yousef Al-Hassan ( ar, links=no, أحمد يوسف الحسن) (June 25, 1925 – April 28, 2012) was a Palestinian/Syrian/Canadian historian of Arabic and Islamic science and technology, educated in Jerusalem, Cairo, and London with a PhD i ...]
, during the
Battle of Ain Jalut
The Battle of Ain Jalut (), also spelled Ayn Jalut, was fought between the Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and the Mongol Empire on 3 September 1260 (25 Ramadan 658 AH) in southeastern Galilee in the Jezreel Valley near what is known today as the S ...
in 1260, the
Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
s used cannon against the
Mongols
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal membe ...
. He claims that this was "the first cannon in history" and used a gunpowder formula almost identical to the ideal composition for explosive gunpowder. He also argues that this was not known in China or Europe until much later.
Al-Hassan further claims that the earliest textual evidence of cannon is from the Middle East, based on earlier originals which report hand-held cannons being used by the Mamluks at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.
Such an early date is not accepted by some historians,
including David Ayalon, Iqtidar Alam Khan,
Joseph Needham
Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, in ...
and
Tonio Andrade
Tonio Adam Andrade (born 1968) is an historian of East Asian history and the history of East Asian trading networks.
Bibliography
* ''Commerce, Culture, and Conflict: Taiwan Under European Rule, 1624–1662''. Yale University Press, 2000.
* ''H ...
. Khan argues that it was the
Mongols
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal membe ...
who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world, and believes cannon only reached
Mamluk Egypt
The Mamluk Sultanate ( ar, سلطنة المماليك, translit=Salṭanat al-Mamālīk), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz (western Arabia) from the mid-13th to early 16th ...
in the 1370s.
[.] Needham argued that the term , dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, did not refer to true hand-guns or bombards, and that contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world did not occur until 1365. Similarly, Andrade dates the textual appearance of cannons in middle eastern sources to the 1360s. Gabor Ágoston and David Ayalon note that the Mamluks had certainly used siege cannons by 1342
or the 1360s, respectively, but earlier uses of cannons in the
Islamic World
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...
are vague with a possible appearance in the
Emirate of Granada
The Emirate of Granada ( ar, إمارة غرﻧﺎﻃﺔ, Imārat Ġarnāṭah), also known as the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada ( es, Reino Nazarí de Granada), was an Emirate, Islamic realm in southern Iberia during the Late Middle Ages. It was the ...
by the 1320s and 1330s, though evidence is inconclusive.
Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab
The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...
reported the use of cannon as
siege machine
A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some are immobile, constructed in place to attack enemy fortifications from a distance, while other ...
s by the
Marinid
The Marinid Sultanate was a Berber Muslim empire from the mid-13th to the 15th century which controlled present-day Morocco and, intermittently, other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) a ...
sultan Abu Yaqub Yusuf at the siege of
Sijilmasa
, alternate_name =
, image = 1886608-the ruins of Sijilmassa-Rissani.jpg
, alt =
, caption = Sijilmasa ruins
, map_type = Morocco
, map_alt =
, coordinates =
, location = Errachidia, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco
, region =
, type = Sett ...
in 1274.
[Paul E. J. Hammer (2007)]
''Warfare in Early Modern Europe 1450–1660''
, p. 297, Ashgate Publishing
Ashgate Publishing was an academic book and journal publisher based in Farnham ( Surrey, United Kingdom). It was established in 1967 and specialised in the social sciences, arts, humanities and professional practice. It had an American office i ...
The passage by Ibn Khaldun on the Marinid Siege of Sijilmassa in 1274 occurs as follows: "
he Sultan
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
installed siege engines ... and gunpowder engines ..., which project small balls of iron. These balls are ejected from a chamber ... placed in front of a kindling fire of gunpowder; this happens by a strange property which attributes all actions to the power of the Creator." The source is not contemporary and was written a century later around 1382. Its interpretation has been rejected as anachronistic by some historians, who urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, as they did for an earlier incendiary, naphtha. Ágoston and Peter Purton note that in the 1204–1324 period, late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, , that they used for an earlier incendiary,
naphtha
Naphtha ( or ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
Mixtures labelled ''naphtha'' have been produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. In different industries and regions ''n ...
. Needham believes Ibn Khaldun was speaking of fire lances rather than hand cannon.
The Ottoman Empire made good use of cannon as siege artillery. Sixty-eight super-sized bombards were used by
Mehmed the Conqueror
Mehmed II ( ota, محمد ثانى, translit=Meḥmed-i s̱ānī; tr, II. Mehmed, ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror ( ota, ابو الفتح, Ebū'l-fetḥ, lit=the Father of Conquest, links=no; tr, Fâtih Su ...
to
capture Constantinople in 1453. Jim Bradbury argues that Urban, a Hungarian cannon engineer, introduced this cannon from Central Europe to the Ottoman realm; according to Paul Hammer, however, it could have been introduced from other Islamic countries which had earlier used cannons.
These cannon could fire heavy stone balls a mile, and the sound of their blast could reportedly be heard from a distance of .
Shkodër
Shkodër ( , ; sq-definite, Shkodra) is the fifth-most-populous city of the Republic of Albania and the seat of Shkodër County and Shkodër Municipality. The city sprawls across the Plain of Mbishkodra between the southern part of Lake Shkod ...
an historian
Marin Barleti
Marin Barleti ( la, Marinus Barletius, it, Marino Barlezio; – ) was a historian and Catholic priest from Shkodër who was a humanist. He is considered the first Albanian historian because of his 1504 eyewitness account of the 1478 siege o ...
discusses Turkish bombards at length in his book ''
De obsidione Scodrensi'' (1504), describing the 1478–79
siege of Shkodra
The fourth siege of Shkodra of 1478–79 was a confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetians together with the League of Lezhe and other Albanians at Shkodra (Scutari in Italian) and its Rozafa Castle during the First Ottoman-V ...
in which eleven bombards and two mortars were employed. The Ottomans also used cannon to control passage of ships through the Bosphorus strait.
Ottoman cannons also proved effective at stopping crusaders at Varna in 1444 and Kosovo in 1448 despite the presence of European cannon in the former case.
The similar Dardanelles Guns (for the location) were created by Munir Ali in 1464 and were still in use during the
Anglo-Turkish War (1807–1809)
The Anglo-Turkish War of 1807–1809, part of the Napoleonic Wars, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire.
Ultimatum
In the summer of 1806, during the War of the Third Coalition (of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Sweden) ...
.
[Schmidtchen, Volker (1977b), "Riesengeschütze des 15. Jahrhunderts. Technische Höchstleistungen ihrer Zeit", ''Technikgeschichte'' 44 (3): 213–237 (226–228)] These were cast in bronze into two parts: the chase (the barrel) and the breech, which combined weighed 18.4
tonne
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...
s. The two parts were screwed together using levers to facilitate moving it.
Fathullah Shirazi, a
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
inhabitant of India who worked for
Akbar
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
in the
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
, developed a
volley gun
A volley gun is a gun with multiple single-shot gun barrel, barrels that shoot projectiles in volley fire, either simultaneously or in succession. Although capable of unleashing intense firepower, volley guns differ from modern machine guns in ...
in the 16th century.
While there is evidence of cannons in Iran as early as 1405 they were not widespread. This changed following the increased use of firearms by Shah Ismail I, and the Iranian army used 500 cannons by the 1620s, probably captured from the Ottomans or acquired by allies in Europe.
By 1443, Iranians were also making some of their own cannon, as Mir Khawand wrote of a 1200 kg metal piece being made by an Iranian which was most likely a cannon. Due to the difficulties of transporting cannon in mountainous terrain, their use was less common compared to their use in Europe.
Eastern Europe
Documentary evidence of cannons in Russia does not appear until 1382 and they were used only in sieges, often by the defenders.
It was not until 1475 when Ivan III established the first Russian cannon foundry in Moscow that they began to produce cannons natively. The earliest surviving cannon from Russia dates to 1485.
Later on large cannons were known as bombards, ranging from three to five feet in length and were used by
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik (), historically known as Ragusa (; see notes on naming), is a city on the Adriatic Sea in the region of Dalmatia, in the southeastern semi-exclave of Croatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterran ...
and
Kotor
Kotor (Montenegrin Cyrillic: Котор, ), historically known as Cattaro (from Italian: ), is a coastal town in Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Bay of Kotor. The city has a population of 13,510 and is the administrative c ...
in defence during the later 14th century. The first bombards were made of iron, but bronze became more prevalent as it was recognized as more stable and capable of propelling stones weighing as much as . Around the same period, the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
began to accumulate its own cannon to face the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, starting with medium-sized cannon long and of 10 in calibre.
The earliest reliable recorded use of artillery in the region was against the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1396, forcing the Ottomans to withdraw.
The Ottomans acquired their own cannon and laid siege to the Byzantine capital again in 1422. By 1453, the Ottomans used 68 Hungarian-made cannon for the 55-day bombardment of the
walls of Constantinople
The Walls of Constantinople ( el, Τείχη της Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) are a series of defensive stone walls that have surrounded and protected the city of Constantinople (today Istanbul in Turkey) since its founding as the ...
, "hurling the pieces everywhere and killing those who happened to be nearby".
The largest of their cannons was the Great Turkish Bombard, which required an operating crew of 200 men
and 70 oxen, and 10,000 men to transport it.
Gunpowder made the formerly devastating
Greek fire
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman Empire beginning . Used to set fire to enemy ships, it consisted of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon. Some historians believe it could be ignited on contact w ...
obsolete, and with the final fall of Constantinople—which was protected by what were once the strongest walls in Europe—on 29 May 1453, "it was the
end of an era in more ways than one".
Southeast Asia
![Lantakas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Lantakas.jpg)
The
Javanese Majapahit
Majapahit ( jv, ꦩꦗꦥꦲꦶꦠ꧀; ), also known as Wilwatikta ( jv, ꦮꦶꦭ꧀ꦮꦠꦶꦏ꧀ꦠ; ), was a Javanese people, Javanese Hinduism, Hindu-Buddhism, Buddhist thalassocracy, thalassocratic empire in Southeast Asia that was ba ...
Empire was arguably able to encompass much of modern-day Indonesia due to its unique mastery of bronze-smithing and use of a central
arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...
fed by a large number of cottage industries within the immediate region. Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when
Kublai Khan
Kublai ; Mongolian script: ; (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder of the Yuan dynasty of China and the fifth khagan-emperor of th ...
's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese
sought to invade Java in 1293. ''
History of Yuan
The ''History of Yuan'' (''Yuán Shǐ''), also known as the ''Yuanshi'', is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' of China. Commissioned by the court of the Ming dynasty, in accordance to political ...
'' mentioned that the Mongol used a weapon called
''p'ao'' against Daha forces.
[Schlegel, Gustaaf (1902). "On the Invention and Use of Fire-Arms and Gunpowder in China, Prior to the Arrival of Europeans". ''T'oung Pao''. 3: 1–11.][Reid, Anthony (1993). ''Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680''. Volume Two: Expansion and Crisis. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.] This weapon is interpreted differently by researchers, it may be a
trebuchet
A trebuchet (french: trébuchet) is a type of catapult that uses a long arm to throw a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weigh ...
that throws
thunderclap bombs, firearms, cannons, or rockets. It is possible that the gunpowder weapons carried by the Mongol–Chinese troops amounted to more than one type.
[Averoes, Muhammad (2020). ''Antara Cerita dan Sejarah: Meriam Cetbang Majapahit''. ''Jurnal Sejarah'', 3(2), 89–100.]
Thomas Stamford Raffles
Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...
wrote in ''
The History of Java
''The History of Java'' is a book written by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, and published in 1817. It describes the history of the island of Java from ancient times.
It was reprinted from a digital master by the Cambridge University Press in 2010. ...
'' that in 1247
saka
The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who hist ...
(1325 AD), cannons were widely used in Java especially by the Majapahit. It is recorded that the small kingdoms in Java that sought the protection of Majapahit had to hand over their cannons to the Majapahit. Majapahit under ''Mahapatih'' (prime minister)
Gajah Mada
Gajah Mada (c. 1290 – c. 1364), also known as JirnnodharaMunandar, 2010: 77 was, according to Old Javanese manuscripts, poems, and inscriptions, a powerful military leader and '' Mahapatih'' (the approximate equivalent of a modern Prime ...
(in office 1331–1364) utilized gunpowder technology obtained from
Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...
for use in naval fleet. One of the earliest references to cannon and
artillerymen
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, ...
in Java is from the year 1346.
![Bedil kuno atau meriam kuno Jawa cetbang, nomor 2, dengan dudukan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Bedil_kuno_atau_meriam_kuno_Jawa_cetbang%2C_nomor_2%2C_dengan_dudukan.png)
Mongol-Chinese gunpowder technology of Yuan dynasty resulted in eastern-style cetbang which is similar to Chinese cannon. Swivel guns however, only developed in the archipelago because of the close maritime relations of the Nusantara archipelago with the territory of West India after 1460 AD, which brought new types of gunpowder weapons to the archipelago, likely through Arab intermediaries. This weapon seems to be cannon and gun of Ottoman tradition, for example the
prangi
The prangi, paranki, piranki, pirangi, farangi, firingi, or firingiha was a type of cannon produced by Ottoman Empire. It was subsequently copied and produced in other place such as by Mughal empire under Babur. Prangi was a breech-loading swivel g ...
, which is a breech-loading swivel gun. A new type of cetbang, called the western-style cetbang, was derived from the Turkish prangi. Just like prangi, this cetbang is a breech-loading swivel gun made of bronze or iron, firing single rounds or scattershots (a large number of small bullets).
Cannons derived from western-style cetbang can be found in Nusantara, among others were
lantaka
The ''Lantaka'' (Baybayin: pre virama: ''ᜎᜆᜃ'': post virama: ''ᜎᜈ᜔ᜆᜃ'') also known as ''rentaka'' (In Malay) was a type of bronze portable cannon or swivel gun, sometimes mounted on merchant vessels and warships in Maritime So ...
and lela. Most lantakas were made of bronze and the earliest ones were
breech-loaded
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle).
Modern firearms are generally breech ...
. There is a trend toward muzzle-loading weapons during colonial times. A
pole gun () was recorded as being used by Java in 1413.
Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion. Circa 1540, the Javanese, always alert to new weapons, found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Majapahit-era cannon were further improved and used in the
Demak Sultanate
The Demak Sultanate (کسلطانن دمق) was a Javanese Muslim state located on Java's north coast in Indonesia, at the site of the present-day city of Demak. A port fief to the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit kingdom thought to have been founded in ...
period during the Demak invasion of
Portuguese Malacca
Portuguese control of Malacca, a city on the Malay Peninsula, refers to the 130 year period (1511–1641) when it was a possession of the Portuguese East Indies. It was conquered from the Malacca Sultanate as part of Portuguese attempts to ...
. During this period, the iron, for manufacturing Javanese cannon was imported from
Khorasan
Khorasan may refer to:
* Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
* Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
in northern
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. The material was known by Javanese as (
Khorasan
Khorasan may refer to:
* Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
* Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
iron). When the
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
came to the archipelago, they referred to it as , which was also used to refer to any breech-loading swivel gun, while the
Spaniards
Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance peoples, Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of National and regional identity in Spain, national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex Hist ...
called it .
Duarte Barbosa c. 1514 said that the inhabitants of Java were great masters in casting artillery and very good artillerymen. They made many one-pounder cannon ( or ), long muskets, (arquebus), (hand cannon),
Greek fire
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman Empire beginning . Used to set fire to enemy ships, it consisted of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon. Some historians believe it could be ignited on contact w ...
, guns (cannon), and other fireworks. Every place was considered excellent in casting artillery, and in the knowledge of using it. In 1513, the
Javanese fleet led by Pati Unus sailed to attack
Portuguese Malacca
Portuguese control of Malacca, a city on the Malay Peninsula, refers to the 130 year period (1511–1641) when it was a possession of the Portuguese East Indies. It was conquered from the Malacca Sultanate as part of Portuguese attempts to ...
"with much artillery made in Java, for the Javanese are skilled in founding and casting, and in all works in iron, over and above what they have in India".
By early 16th century, the Javanese already locally-producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180- and 260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3 and 8 tons, length of them between .
Cannons were used by the
Ayutthaya Kingdom
The Ayutthaya Kingdom (; th, อยุธยา, , IAST: or , ) was a Siamese kingdom that existed in Southeast Asia from 1351 to 1767, centered around the city of Ayutthaya, in Siam, or present-day Thailand. The Ayutthaya Kingdom is conside ...
in 1352 during its invasion of the
Khmer Empire. Within a decade large quantities of gunpowder could be found in the
Khmer Empire. By the end of the century firearms were also used by the
Trần dynasty
The Trần dynasty, (Vietnamese: Nhà Trần, chữ Nôm: 茹陳)also known as the House of Trần, was a Vietnamese dynasty that ruled over the Kingdom of Đại Việt from 1225 to 1400. The dynasty was founded when emperor Trần Thái T ...
.
Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation.
Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers.
[Dipanegara, P. B. R. Carey, ''Babad Dipanagara: an account of the outbreak of the Java war, 1825–30: the Surakarta court version of the Babad Dipanagara with translations into English and Indonesian'' volume 9: Council of the M.B.R.A.S. by Art Printing Works: 1981.] According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir
Thomas Stamford Raffles
Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...
' ''
The History of Java
''The History of Java'' is a book written by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, and published in 1817. It describes the history of the island of Java from ancient times.
It was reprinted from a digital master by the Cambridge University Press in 2010. ...
'' (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from
a crater from a mountain near the straits of
Bali
Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...
.
Africa
In Africa, the
Adal Sultanate
The Adal Sultanate, or the Adal Empire or the ʿAdal or the Bar Saʿad dīn (alt. spelling ''Adel Sultanate, ''Adal ''Sultanate'') () was a medieval Sunni Muslim Empire which was located in the Horn of Africa. It was founded by Sabr ad-Din ...
and the
Abyssinian Empire
The Ethiopian Empire (), also formerly known by the exonym Abyssinia, or just simply known as Ethiopia (; Amharic and Tigrinya: ኢትዮጵያ , , Oromo: Itoophiyaa, Somali: Itoobiya, Afar: ''Itiyoophiyaa''), was an empire that historica ...
both deployed cannons during the
Adal-Abyssinian War. Imported from
Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...
, and the wider Islamic world, the Adalites led by
Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi ( so, Axmed Ibraahim al-Qaasi or Axmed Gurey, Harari: አሕመድ ኢብራሂም አል-ጋዚ, ar, أحمد بن إبراهيم الغازي ; 1506 – 21 February 1543) was an imam and general of the Adal Sultana ...
were the first African power to introduce cannon warfare to the African continent. Later on as the
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the l ...
entered the war it would supply and train the Abyssinians with cannons, while the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
sent soldiers and cannon to back Adal. The conflict proved, through their use on both sides, the value of
firearms
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes c ...
such as the
matchlock
A matchlock or firelock is a historical type of firearm wherein the gunpowder is ignited by a burning piece of rope that is touched to the gunpowder by a mechanism that the musketeer activates by pulling a lever or trigger with his finger. Before ...
musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...
, cannon, and the
arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...
over traditional weapons.
Offensive and defensive use
While previous smaller guns could burn down structures with fire, larger cannons were so effective that engineers were forced to develop stronger castle walls to prevent their keeps from falling.
Nonetheless, cannons were used other purposes than battering down walls as fortifications began using cannons as defensive instruments such as an example in India where the fort of Raicher had gun ports built into its walls to accommodate the use of defensive cannons. In ''
The Art of War
''The Art of War'' () is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Late Spring and Autumn Period (roughly 5th century BC). The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu ("Master Sun"), is com ...
'', Niccolò Machiavelli opined that field artillery forced an army to take up a defensive posture and this opposed a more ideal offensive stance. Machiavelli's concerns can be seen in the criticisms of Portuguese mortars being used in India during the sixteenth century as lack of mobility was one of the key problems with the design. In Russia the early cannons were again placed in forts as a defensive tool. Cannon were also difficult to move around in certain types of terrain with mountains providing a great obstacle for them, for these reasons offensives conducted with cannons would be difficult to pull off in places such as Iran.
Early modern period
By the 16th century, cannons were made in a great variety of lengths and bore diameters, but the general rule was that the longer the barrel, the longer the range. Some cannons made during this time had barrels exceeding in length, and could weigh up to . Consequently, large amounts of gunpowder were needed to allow them to fire stone balls several hundred yards. By mid-century, European monarchs began to classify cannons to reduce the confusion.
Henry II of France
Henry II (french: Henri II; 31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I and Duchess Claude of Brittany, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder bro ...
opted for six sizes of cannon, but others settled for more; the Spanish used twelve sizes, and the English sixteen. They are, from largest to smallest: the cannon royal, cannon, cannon serpentine, bastard cannon, demicannon, pedrero, culverin, basilisk, demiculverin, bastard culverin, saker, minion, falcon, falconet, serpentine, and rabinet.
Better powder had been developed by this time as well. Instead of the finely ground powder used by the first bombards, powder was replaced by a "corned" variety of coarse grains. This coarse powder had pockets of air between grains, allowing fire to travel through and ignite the entire charge quickly and uniformly.
The end of the Middle Ages saw the construction of larger, more powerful cannon, as well as their spread throughout the world. As they were not effective at breaching the newer fortifications resulting from the development of cannon,
siege engine
A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some are immobile, constructed in place to attack enemy fortifications from a distance, while other ...
s—such as
siege tower
A Roman siege tower or breaching tower (or in the Middle Ages, a belfry''Castle: Stephen Biesty's Cross-Sections''. Dorling Kindersley Pub (T); 1st American edition (September 1994). Siege towers were invented in 300 BC. ) is a specialized siege ...
s and
trebuchet
A trebuchet (french: trébuchet) is a type of catapult that uses a long arm to throw a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weigh ...
s—became less widely used. However, wooden "battery-towers" took on a similar role as siege towers in the gunpowder age—such as that used at
Siege of Kazan
The siege of Kazan in 1552 was the final battle of the Russo-Kazan Wars and led to the fall of the Khanate of Kazan. Conflict continued after the fall of Kazan, however, as rebel governments formed in Çalım and Mişätamaq, and a new khan wa ...
in 1552, which could hold ten large-calibre cannon, in addition to 50 lighter pieces.
Another notable effect of cannon on warfare during this period was the change in conventional fortifications.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( , , ; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527), occasionally rendered in English as Nicholas Machiavel ( , ; see below), was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. ...
wrote, "There is no wall, whatever its thickness that artillery will not destroy in only a few days."
Although castles were not immediately made obsolete by cannon, their use and importance on the battlefield rapidly declined.
Instead of majestic
tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
s and
merlon
A merlon is the solid upright section of a battlement (a crenellated parapet) in medieval architecture or fortifications.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 202. Merlons are sometimes ...
s, the walls of new fortresses were thick, angled, and sloped, while towers became low and stout; increasing use was also made of earth and brick in
breastworks
A breastwork is a temporary fortification, often an earthwork thrown up to breast height to provide protection to defenders firing over it from a standing position. A more permanent structure, normally in stone, would be described as a parapet o ...
and
redoubt
A redoubt (historically redout) is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks, although some are constructed of stone or brick. It is meant to protect soldi ...
s. These new defences became known as
bastion fort
A bastion fort or ''trace italienne'' (a phrase derived from non-standard French, literally meaning ''Italian outline'') is a fortification in a style that evolved during the early modern period of gunpowder when the cannon came to domin ...
s, after their characteristic shape which attempted to force any advance towards it directly into the firing line of the guns.
A few of these featured
cannon batteries, such as the
House of Tudor
The House of Tudor was a royal house of largely Welsh and English origin that held the English throne from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd and Catherine of France. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and it ...
's
Device Forts
The Device Forts, also known as Henrician castles and blockhouses, were a series of artillery fortifications built to defend the coast of England and Wales by Henry VIII. Traditionally, the Crown had left coastal defences in the hands of local ...
in England.
Bastion forts soon replaced castles in Europe and, eventually, those in the Americas as well.
By the end of the 15th century, several technological advancements made cannons more mobile. Wheeled gun carriages and
trunnion
A trunnion (from Old French "''trognon''", trunk) is a cylindrical protrusion used as a mounting or pivoting point. First associated with cannons, they are an important military development.
Alternatively, a trunnion is a shaft that positions a ...
s became common, and the invention of the
limber further facilitated transportation.
[Manucy, p. 5.] As a result, field artillery became more viable, and began to see more widespread use, often alongside the larger cannons intended for sieges.
Better gunpowder, cast-iron projectiles (replacing stone), and the standardisation of calibres meant that even relatively light cannons could be deadly.
In ''
The Art of War
''The Art of War'' () is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Late Spring and Autumn Period (roughly 5th century BC). The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu ("Master Sun"), is com ...
'', Niccolò Machiavelli observed that "It is true that the
arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...
es and the small artillery do much more harm than the heavy artillery."
This was the case at the
Battle of Flodden
The Battle of Flodden, Flodden Field, or occasionally Branxton, (Brainston Moor) was a battle fought on 9 September 1513 during the War of the League of Cambrai between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, resulting in an English ...
, in 1513: the English
field gun
A field gun is a field artillery piece. Originally the term referred to smaller guns that could accompany a field army on the march, that when in combat could be moved about the battlefield in response to changing circumstances ( field artille ...
s outfired the Scottish siege artillery, firing two or three times as many rounds. Despite the increased maneuverability, however, cannon were still the slowest component of the army: a heavy
English cannon
The first usage of cannon in Great Britain was possibly in 1327, when they were used in battle by the English against the Scots. Under the Tudors, the first forts featuring cannon batteries were built, while cannon were first used by the ...
required 23 horses to transport, while a culverin needed nine. Even with this many animals pulling, they still moved at a walking pace. Due to their relatively slow speed, and lack of organisation, and undeveloped tactics, the combination of
pike and shot
Pike and shot was a historical infantry tactical formation that first appeared during the Italian Wars of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and was used until the development of the bayonet in the late 17th century. This type of formation ...
still dominated the battlefields of Europe.
Innovations continued, notably the German invention of the
mortar, a thick-walled, short-barrelled gun that blasted shot upward at a steep angle. Mortars were useful for sieges, as they could hit targets behind walls or other defences. This cannon found more use with the Dutch, who learnt to shoot bombs filled with powder from them. Setting the bomb fuse was a problem. "Single firing" was first used to ignite the fuse, where the bomb was placed with the fuse down against the cannon's propellant. This often resulted in the fuse being blown into the bomb, causing it to blow up as it left the mortar. Because of this, "double firing" was tried where the gunner lit the fuse and then the touch hole. This, however, required considerable skill and timing, and was especially dangerous if the gun misfired, leaving a lighted bomb in the barrel. Not until 1650 was it accidentally discovered that double-lighting was superfluous as the heat of firing would light the fuse.
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
Gustavus Adolphus (9 December Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">N.S_19_December.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Old Style and New Style dates">N.S 19 December">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="/now ...
emphasised the use of light cannon and mobility in his army, and created new formations and tactics that revolutionised artillery. He discontinued using all 12 pounder—or heavier—cannon as field artillery, preferring, instead, to use cannons that could be handled by only a few men. One obsolete type of gun, the "
leatheren", was replaced by 4 pounder and 9 pounder demi-culverins. These could be operated by three men, and pulled by only two horses. Gustavus Adolphus's army was also the first to use a cartridge that contained both powder and shot which sped up reloading, increasing the rate of fire. Finally, against infantry he pioneered the use of
canister shot
Canister shot is a kind of anti-personnel artillery ammunition. Canister shot has been used since the advent of gunpowder-firing artillery in Western armies. However, canister shot saw particularly frequent use on land and at sea in the various ...
—essentially a tin can filled with musket balls. Until then there was no more than one cannon for every thousand infantrymen on the battlefield but Gustavus Adolphus increased the number of cannons sixfold. Each regiment was assigned two pieces, though he often arranged them into batteries instead of distributing them piecemeal. He used these batteries to break his opponent's infantry line, while his cavalry would
outflank their heavy guns.
At the
Battle of Breitenfeld, in 1631, Adolphus proved the effectiveness of the changes made to his army, by defeating
Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly. Although severely outnumbered, the Swedes were able to fire between three and five times as many volleys of artillery, and their infantry's
linear
Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship (''function'') that can be graphically represented as a straight line. Linearity is closely related to '' proportionality''. Examples in physics include rectilinear motion, the linear r ...
formations helped ensure they did not lose any ground. Battered by cannon fire, and low on morale, Tilly's men broke ranks and fled.
In England, cannons were being used to besiege various fortified buildings during the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
.
Nathaniel Nye
Nathaniel Nye (baptised 1624 – after 1647) was an England, English mathematician, astronomer, cartographer and infantry support weapon, gunner.
Biography
Nye was baptised in St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham on 18 April 1624, and was proba ...
is recorded as testing a
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
cannon in 1643 and experimenting with a
saker
Saker may refer to:
* Saker falcon (''Falco cherrug''), a species of falcon
* Saker (cannon), a type of cannon
* Saker Baptist College, an all-girls secondary school in Limbe, Cameroon
* Grupo Saker-Ti, a Guatemalan writers group formed in 1947
* ...
in 1645.
From 1645 he was the master gunner to the
Parliamentarian garrison at
Evesham
Evesham () is a market town and parish in the Wychavon district of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. It lies within the Vale of Evesha ...
and in 1646 he successfully directed the artillery at the
Siege of Worcester
The second and longest siege of Worcester (21 May – 23 July 1646) took place towards the end of the First English Civil War, when Parliamentary forces under the command of Thomas Rainsborough besieged the city of Worcester, accepting the cap ...
, detailing his experiences and in his 1647 book ''The Art of Gunnery''.
Believing that war was as much a science as an art, his explanations focused on
triangulation
In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points.
Applications
In surveying
Specifically in surveying, triangulation involves only angle me ...
,
arithmetic
Arithmetic () is an elementary part of mathematics that consists of the study of the properties of the traditional operations on numbers— addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and extraction of roots. In the 19th ...
, theoretical mathematics, and
cartography
Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...
as well as practical considerations such as the ideal specification for gunpowder or
slow match
Slow match, also called match cord, is the slow-burning cord or twine fuse
Fuse or FUSE may refer to:
Devices
* Fuse (electrical), a device used in electrical systems to protect against excessive current
** Fuse (automotive), a class of fuses ...
es. His book acknowledged mathematicians such as
Robert Recorde
Robert Recorde () was an Anglo-Welsh physician and mathematician. He invented the equals sign (=) and also introduced the pre-existing plus and minus signs, plus sign (+) to English speakers in 1557.
Biography
Born around 1512, Robert Recorde w ...
and
Marcus Jordanus
Marcus Jordanus (* ca. 1531 in Krempe (Steinburg), Krempe; † 1595 in Krempe) was a Danish cartographer and mathematician.
Jordanus studied at the University of Copenhagen, where in 1550 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics. Among other thin ...
as well as earlier military writers on artillery such as
Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia
Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (; 1499/1500 – 13 December 1557) was an Italian mathematician, engineer (designing fortifications), a surveyor (of topography, seeking the best means of defense or offense) and a bookkeeper from the then Republi ...
and Thomas (or Francis
) Malthus (author of ''A Treatise on Artificial Fire-Works''
).
Around this time also came the idea of aiming the cannon to hit a target. Gunners controlled the range of their cannons by measuring the angle of elevation, using a "gunner's quadrant". Cannons did not have
sights
A sight is an aiming device used to assist in visually aligning ranged weapons, surveying instruments or optical illumination equipments with the intended target. Sights can be a simple set or system of physical markers that have to be aligne ...
; therefore, even with measuring tools, aiming was still largely guesswork.
In the latter half of the 17th century, the French engineer
Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban
Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, Seigneur de Vauban, later Marquis de Vauban (baptised 15 May 163330 March 1707), commonly referred to as ''Vauban'' (), was a French military engineer who worked under Louis XIV. He is generally considered the ...
introduced a more systematic and scientific approach to attacking gunpowder fortresses, in a time when many field commanders "were notorious dunces in siegecraft".
Careful
sapping
Sapping is a term used in siege operations to describe the digging of a covered trench (a "sap") to approach a besieged place without danger from the enemy's fire. (verb) The purpose of the sap is usually to advance a besieging army's positio ...
forward, supported by
enfilading
Enfilade and defilade are concepts in military tactics used to describe a military formation's exposure to enemy fire. A formation or position is "in enfilade" if weapon fire can be directed along its longest axis. A unit or position is "in de ...
ricochet
A ricochet ( ; ) is a rebound, bounce, or skip off a surface, particularly in the case of a projectile. Most ricochets are caused by accident and while the force of the deflection decelerates the projectile, it can still be energetic and almost ...
s, was a key feature of this system, and it even allowed Vauban to calculate the length of time a siege would take.
He was also a prolific builder of bastion forts, and did much to popularize the idea of "depth in defence" in the face of cannon. These principles were followed into the mid-19th century, when changes in armaments necessitated greater depth defence than Vauban had provided for. It was only in the years prior to
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
that new works began to break radically away from his designs.
Image:TheTsarCannonJuly2004.jpg , The Tsar Cannon
The Tsar Cannon (russian: Царь-пушка, ''Tsar'-pushka'') is a large early modern period artillery piece (known as a ''bombarda'' in Russian) on display on the grounds of the Moscow Kremlin. It is a monument of Russian artillery casting ar ...
, the largest 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 ot ...
ever made, cast by Andrey Chokhov
Image:Youghal Battery.JPG , Remains of a post-medieval cannon battery, mounted on a medieval town wall
A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...
, although without carriages.
File:Fotothek df tg 0000132 Ballistik ^ Quadrant ^ Kanone.jpg , Contemporary illustration on how a cannon could be used with the aid of quadrants
Quadrant may refer to:
Companies
* Quadrant Cycle Company, 1899 manufacturers in Britain of the Quadrant motorcar
* Quadrant (motorcycles), one of the earliest British motorcycle manufacturers, established in Birmingham in 1901
* Quadrant Privat ...
for improved precision.
File:Sixteenth Century Cannon2.jpg , The use of gabion
A gabion (from Italian ''gabbione'' meaning "big cage"; from Italian ''gabbia'' and Latin ''cavea'' meaning "cage") is a cage, cylinder or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building, ...
s with cannon was an important part in the attack and defence of fortifications.
Image:Fortbourtange.jpg , Fort Bourtange
Fort Bourtange ( nl, Vesting Bourtange) is a fort in the village of Bourtange, Groningen, Netherlands. It was built under orders of William the Silent and completed in 1593. Its original purpose was to control the only road between Germany and the ...
, a bastion fort
A bastion fort or ''trace italienne'' (a phrase derived from non-standard French, literally meaning ''Italian outline'') is a fortification in a style that evolved during the early modern period of gunpowder when the cannon came to domin ...
, was built with angles and sloped walls specifically to defend against cannon.
18th and 19th centuries
The lower tier of 17th-century English
ships of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colum ...
were usually equipped with demi-cannons, guns that fired a solid shot, and could weigh up to . Demi-cannons were capable of firing these heavy metal balls with such force that they could penetrate more than a metre of solid oak, from a distance of , and could dismast even the largest ships at close range. Full cannon fired a shot, but were discontinued by the 18th century, as they were too unwieldy. By the end of the 18th century, principles long adopted in Europe specified the characteristics of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
's cannon, as well as the acceptable defects, and their severity. The
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
tested guns by measuring them, firing them two or three times—termed "proof by powder"—and using
pressurized water to detect leaks.
The
carronade
A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century. Its main func ...
was adopted by the Royal Navy in 1779; the lower muzzle velocity of the round shot when fired from this cannon was intended to create more wooden splinters when hitting the structure of an enemy vessel, as they were believed to be more deadly than the ball by itself.
The carronade was much shorter, and weighed between a third to a quarter of the equivalent
long gun
A long gun is a category of firearms with long barrels. In small arms, a ''long gun'' or longarm is generally designed to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun, which can be fired being held with a single ...
; for example, a 32-pounder carronade weighed less than a
ton
Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses.
Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean
* the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds
...
, compared with a 32-pounder long gun, which weighed over 3 tons. The guns were, therefore, easier to handle, and also required less than half as much gunpowder, allowing fewer men to crew them. Carronades were manufactured in the usual
naval gun
Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for naval gunfire support, shore bombardment and anti-aircraft roles. The term generally refers to tube-launched projectile-firi ...
calibre
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore match ...
s, but were not counted in a ship of the line's rated number of guns. As a result, the classification of Royal Navy vessels in this period can be misleading, as they often carried more cannons than were listed.
Cannons were crucial in
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
's rise to power, and continued to play an important role in his army in later years. During the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, the unpopularity of the
Directory
Directory may refer to:
* Directory (computing), or folder, a file system structure in which to store computer files
* Directory (OpenVMS command)
* Directory service, a software application for organizing information about a computer network's u ...
led to riots and rebellions. When over 25,000 royalists led by General Danican assaulted Paris,
Paul Barras
Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (, 30 June 1755 – 29 January 1829), commonly known as Paul Barras, was a French politician of the French Revolution, and the main executive leader of the Directory regime of 1795–1799.
Early ...
was appointed to defend the capital; outnumbered five to one and disorganised, the Republicans were desperate. When Napoleon arrived, he reorganised the defences but realised that without cannons the city could not be held. He ordered
Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat ( , also , ; it, Gioacchino Murati; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French military commander and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the ...
to bring the guns from the Sablons artillery park; the Major and his cavalry fought their way to the recently captured cannons, and brought them back to Napoleon. When Danican's poorly trained men attacked, on
13 Vendémiaire
13 Vendémiaire Year 4 in the French Republican Calendar (5 October 1795 in the Gregorian calendar) is the name given to a battle between the French Revolutionary troops and Royalist forces in the streets of Paris. This battle was part of the ...
1795 (5 October in the
calendar used in France at the time), Napoleon ordered his cannon to fire grapeshot into the mob,
[Asprey, pp. 112–13.] an act that became known as the "
whiff of grapeshot". The slaughter effectively ended the threat to the new government, while, at the same time, making Bonaparte a famous—and popular—public figure.
Among the first generals to recognise that artillery was not being used to its full potential, Napoleon often massed his cannon into batteries and introduced several changes into the French artillery, improving it significantly and making it among the finest in Europe.
[Baynes, p. 669.] Such tactics were successfully used by the French, for example, at the
Battle of Friedland
The Battle of Friedland (14 June 1807) was a major engagement of the Napoleonic Wars between the armies of the French Empire commanded by Napoleon I and the armies of the Russian Empire led by Count von Bennigsen. Napoleon and the French obtai ...
, when 66 guns fired a total of 3,000
roundshot
A round shot (also called solid shot or simply ball) is a solid spherical projectile without explosive charge, launched from a gun. Its diameter is slightly less than the bore of the barrel from which it is shot. A round shot fired from a l ...
and 500 rounds of grapeshot,
inflicting severe casualties to the Russian forces, whose losses numbered over 20,000 killed and wounded, in total. At the
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...
—Napoleon's final battle—the French army had many more artillery pieces than either the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
or
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
ns. As the battlefield was muddy,
recoil
Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...
caused cannons to bury themselves into the ground after firing, resulting in slow rates of fire, as more effort was required to move them back into an adequate firing position; also, roundshot did not
ricochet
A ricochet ( ; ) is a rebound, bounce, or skip off a surface, particularly in the case of a projectile. Most ricochets are caused by accident and while the force of the deflection decelerates the projectile, it can still be energetic and almost ...
with as much force from the wet earth. Despite the drawbacks, sustained artillery fire proved deadly during the engagement, especially during the
French cavalry attack. The British infantry, having formed
infantry square
An infantry square, also known as a hollow square, was a historic combat formation in which an infantry unit formed in close order, usually when it was threatened with cavalry attack. As a traditional infantry unit generally formed a line to adva ...
s, took heavy losses from the French guns, while their own cannons fired at the
cuirassier
Cuirassiers (; ) were cavalry equipped with a cuirass, sword, and pistols. Cuirassiers first appeared in mid-to-late 16th century Europe as a result of armoured cavalry, such as men-at-arms and demi-lancers, discarding their lances and adoptin ...
s and
lancer
A lancer was a type of cavalryman who fought with a lance. Lances were used for mounted warfare in Assyria as early as and subsequently by Persia, India, Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome. The weapon was widely used throughout Eurasia during the M ...
s, when they fell back to regroup. Eventually, the French ceased their assault, after taking heavy losses from the British cannon and musket fire.
In the 1810s and 1820s, greater emphasis was placed on the accuracy of long-range gunfire, and less on the weight of a broadside. Around 1822,
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry ...
wrote ''Marshall's Practical Marine Gunnery''. The book was used by cannon operators in the United States Navy throughout the 19th century. It listed all the types of cannons and instructions.
The carronade, although initially very successful and widely adopted, disappeared from the Royal Navy in the 1850s after the development of wrought-iron-jacketed steel cannon by
William Armstrong and
Joseph Whitworth
Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet (21 December 1803 – 22 January 1887) was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for scr ...
. Nevertheless, carronades were used in the American Civil War.
Western cannons during the 19th century became larger, more destructive, more accurate, and could fire at longer range. One example is the American wrought-iron, muzzle-loading rifle, or
Griffen gun
The Phoenix Iron Works (1855: Phoenix Iron Company; 1949: Phoenix Iron & Steel Company; 1955: Phoenix Steel Corporation), located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was a manufacturer of iron and related products during the 19th century and early 20th ...
(usually called the 3-inch Ordnance Rifle), used during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, which had an effective range of over . Another is the smoothbore
12-pounder Napoleon
The M1857 12-pounder Napoleon or Light 12-pounder gun or 12-pounder gun-howitzer was a bronze smoothbore muzzleloading artillery piece that was adopted by the United States Army in 1857 and extensively employed in the American Civil War. The gun ...
, which originated in France in 1853 and was widely used by both sides in the American Civil War. This cannon was renowned for its sturdiness, reliability, firepower, flexibility, relatively lightweight, and range of .
![De Bange 90 mm Mikkeli](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/De_Bange_90_mm_Mikkeli.JPG)
The practice of
rifling
In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the pro ...
—casting spiralling lines inside the cannon's barrel—was applied to artillery more frequently by 1855, as it gave cannon projectiles
gyroscopic
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rotat ...
stability, which improved their accuracy. One of the earliest rifled cannons was the
breech-loading
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle).
Modern firearms are generally breech ...
Armstrong Gun
An Armstrong gun was a uniquely designed type of Rifled breech-loader, rifled breech-loading field and heavy gun designed by William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, Sir William Armstrong and manufactured in England beginning in 1855 by the ...
—also invented by William Armstrong—which boasted significantly improved range, accuracy, and power than earlier weapons. The projectile fired from the Armstrong gun could reportedly pierce through a ship's side and explode inside the enemy vessel, causing increased damage and casualties. The British military adopted the Armstrong gun, and was impressed;
the Duke of Cambridge
Duke of Cambridge, one of several current royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom , is a hereditary title of specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. The title (named after the city of Cambridge in England) is heritable by male de ...
even declared that it "could do everything but speak". Despite being significantly more advanced than its predecessors, the Armstrong gun was rejected soon after its integration, in favour of the muzzle-loading pieces that had been in use before. While both types of gun were effective against wooden ships, neither had the capability to pierce the armour of
ironclads
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. Th ...
; due to reports of slight problems with the breeches of the Armstrong gun, and their higher cost, the older muzzle-loaders were selected to remain in service instead. Realising that iron was more difficult to pierce with breech-loaded cannons, Armstrong designed rifled muzzle-loading guns, which proved successful; ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' reported: "even the fondest believers in the invulnerability of our present ironclads were obliged to confess that against such artillery, at such ranges, their plates and sides were almost as penetrable as wooden ships."
The superior cannon of the Western world brought them tremendous advantages in warfare. For example, in the
First Opium War
The First Opium War (), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of the ...
in China, during the 19th century, British battleships bombarded the coastal areas and fortifications from afar, safe from the reach of the Chinese cannons. Similarly, the shortest war in recorded history, the
Anglo-Zanzibar War
The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history. The immediate ca ...
of 1896, was brought to a swift conclusion by shelling from British cruisers. The cynical attitude towards recruited infantry in the face of ever more powerful field artillery is the source of the term ''
cannon fodder
Cannon fodder is an informal, derogatory term for combatants who are regarded or treated by government or military command as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where combatants are forced to deliberatel ...
'', first used by
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (4 September 1768 – 4 July 1848) was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian who had a notable influence on French literature of the nineteenth century. Descended from an old aristocrati ...
, in 1814; however, the concept of regarding soldiers as nothing more than "food for powder" was mentioned by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
as early as 1598, in ''
Henry IV, Part 1
''Henry IV, Part 1'' (often written as ''1 Henry IV'') is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the battle at ...
''.
20th and 21st centuries
![Bundesarchiv DVM 10 Bild-23-61-35, Vergleich Geschützanzahl 1888-1913](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Bundesarchiv_DVM_10_Bild-23-61-35%2C_Vergleich_Gesch%C3%BCtzanzahl_1888-1913.jpg)
Cannons in the 20th and 21st centuries are usually divided into sub-categories and given separate names. Some of the most widely used types of modern cannon are howitzers, mortars, guns, and autocannon, although a few very
large-calibre cannon, custom-designed, have also been constructed.
Nuclear artillery
Nuclear artillery is a subset of limited- yield tactical nuclear weapons, in particular those weapons that are launched from the ground at battlefield targets. Nuclear artillery is commonly associated with shells delivered by a cannon, but in ...
was experimented with, but was abandoned as impractical. Modern artillery is used in a variety of roles, depending on its type. According to
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
, the general role of artillery is to provide fire support, which is defined as "the application of fire, coordinated with the manoeuvre of forces to destroy, neutralize, or suppress the enemy".
When referring to cannons, the term ''gun'' is often used incorrectly. In military usage, a gun is a cannon with a high muzzle velocity and a
flat trajectory, useful for hitting the sides of targets such as walls,
as opposed to howitzers or mortars, which have lower muzzle velocities, and fire indirectly, lobbing shells up and over obstacles to hit the target from above.
![British 39th Siege Battery RGA Somme 1916](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/British_39th_Siege_Battery_RGA_Somme_1916.jpg)
By the early 20th century,
infantry weapons had become more powerful, forcing most artillery away from the front lines. Despite the change to
indirect fire
Indirect fire is aiming and firing a projectile without relying on a direct line of sight between the gun and its target, as in the case of direct fire. Aiming is performed by calculating azimuth and inclination, and may include correcting aim by ...
, cannons proved highly effective during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, directly or indirectly causing over 75% of casualties. The onset of
trench warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became a ...
after the first few months of World War I greatly increased the demand for howitzers, as they were more suited at hitting targets in trenches. Furthermore, their shells carried more explosives than those of guns, and caused considerably less barrel wear. The German army had the advantage here as they began the war with many more howitzers than the French. World War I also saw the use of the
Paris Gun, the longest-ranged gun ever fired. This calibre gun was used by the Germans against Paris and could hit targets more than away.
The Second World War sparked new developments in cannon technology. Among them were
sabot rounds
A sabot (, ) is a supportive device used in firearm/artillery ammunitions to fit/patch around a projectile, such as a bullet/ slug or a flechette-like projectile (such as a kinetic energy penetrator), and keep it aligned in the center of the ...
, hollow-charge projectiles, and
proximity fuse
A proximity fuze (or fuse) is a Fuze (munitions), fuze that detonates an Explosive material, explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value. Proximity fuzes are designed for targets such ...
s, all of which increased the effectiveness of cannon against specific target. The proximity fuse emerged on the battlefields of Europe in late December 1944. Used to great effect in
anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
projectiles, proximity fuses were fielded in both the
European
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
and
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
Theatres of Operations; they were particularly useful against
V-1 flying bomb
The V-1 flying bomb (german: Vergeltungswaffe 1 "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Ministry of Aviation (Nazi Germany), Reich Aviation Ministry () designation was Fi 103. It was also known to the Allies as the buz ...
s and
kamikaze
, officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to d ...
planes. Although widely used in naval warfare, and in anti-air guns, both the British and Americans feared unexploded proximity fuses would be reverse engineered, leading to them limiting their use in continental battles. During the
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...
, however, the fuses became known as the American artillery's "Christmas present" for the German army because of their effectiveness against German personnel in the open, when they frequently dispersed attacks.
Anti-tank gun
An anti-tank gun is a form of artillery designed to destroy tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, normally from a static defensive position. The development of specialized anti-tank munitions and anti-tank guns was prompted by the appearance ...
s were also tremendously improved during the war: in 1939, the British used primarily
2 pounder and
6 pounder 6-pounder gun or 6-pdr, usually denotes a gun firing a projectile weighing approximately .
Guns of this type include:
*QF 6 pounder Hotchkiss, a 57 mm naval gun of the 1880s; a similar weapon was designed by Driggs-Schroeder for the US Navy ...
guns. By the end of the war,
17 pounders had proven much more effective against German tanks, and 32 pounders had entered development.
Meanwhile, German tanks were continuously upgraded with better
main guns, in addition to other improvements. For example, the
Panzer III
The ''Panzerkampfwagen III'', commonly known as the Panzer III, was a medium tank developed in the 1930s by Germany, and was used extensively in World War II. The official German ordnance designation was Sd.Kfz. 141. It was intended to fight oth ...
was originally designed with a 37 mm gun, but was
mass-produced
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...
with a 50 mm cannon.
To counter the threat of the Russian
T-34
The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank introduced in 1940. When introduced its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was less powerful than its contemporaries while its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against Anti-tank warfare, anti-tan ...
s, another, more powerful 50 mm gun was introduced,
only to give way to a larger 75 mm cannon, which was in a fixed mount as the
StuG III, the most-produced German World War II armoured fighting vehicle of any type. Despite the improved guns, production of the Panzer III was ended in 1943, as the tank still could not match the T-34, and was replaced by the
Panzer IV
The ''Panzerkampfwagen'' IV (Pz.Kpfw. IV), commonly known as the ''Panzer'' IV, was a German medium tank developed in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation was Sd.Kfz. 161.
The Panze ...
and
Panther
Panther may refer to:
Large cats
*Pantherinae, the cat subfamily that contains the genera ''Panthera'' and ''Neofelis''
**'' Panthera'', the cat genus that contains tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards.
*** Jaguar (''Panthera onca''), found in So ...
tanks. In 1944, the
8.8 cm KwK 43 and many variations, entered service with the
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
, and was used as both a tank main gun, and as the
PaK 43
The Pak 43 (''Panzerabwehrkanone 43'' and ''Panzerjägerkanone 43'') was a German 88 mm anti-tank gun developed by Krupp in competition with the Rheinmetall 8.8 cm Flak 41 anti-aircraft gun and used during World War II. The Pak 43 was the ...
anti-tank gun. One of the most powerful guns to see service in World War II, it was capable of destroying any
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
tank at very long ranges.
![Uss iowa bb-61 pr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Uss_iowa_bb-61_pr.jpg)
Despite being designed to fire at trajectories with a steep angle of descent, howitzers can be fired
directly, as was done by the
11th Marine Regiment at the
Battle of Chosin Reservoir
The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, also known as the Chosin Reservoir Campaign or the Battle of Lake Changjin (), was an important battle in the Korean War. The name "Chosin" is derived from the Japanese pronunciation "''Chōshin'', instead of t ...
, during the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
. Two
field batteries fired directly upon a
battalion
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are ...
of Chinese infantry; the Marines were forced to brace themselves against their howitzers, as they had no time to dig them in. The Chinese infantry took heavy casualties, and were forced to retreat.
The tendency to create larger calibre cannons during the World Wars has reversed since. The
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
, for example, sought a lighter, more versatile howitzer, to replace their ageing pieces. As it could be towed, the M198 was selected to be the successor to the World War II–era cannons used at the time, and entered service in 1979.
Still in use today, the M198 is, in turn, being slowly replaced by the
M777
The M777 howitzer is a British towed 155 mm artillery piece in the howitzer class. It is used by the ground forces of Australia, Canada, Colombia, India, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and the United States. It was first used in combat during the US ...
Ultralightweight howitzer, which weighs nearly half as much and can be more easily moved. Although land-based artillery such as the M198 are powerful, long-ranged, and accurate, naval guns have not been neglected, despite being much smaller than in the past, and, in some cases, having been replaced by
cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhe ...
s.
However, the 's planned armament included the
Advanced Gun System
The Advanced Gun System (AGS) is a naval artillery system developed and produced by BAE Systems Armaments & Services for the ''Zumwalt''-class destroyer of the United States Navy. Designated the 155 mm/62 (6.1") Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AG ...
(AGS), a pair of 155 mm guns, which fire the
Long Range Land-Attack Projectile. The warhead, which weighted , had a
circular error of probability of , and was mounted on a rocket, to increase the effective range to , further than that of the Paris Gun. The AGS's barrels would be water cooled, and fire 10 rounds per minute, per gun. The combined firepower from both turrets would give a ''Zumwalt''-class destroyer the firepower equivalent to 18 conventional M198 howitzers.
The reason for the re-integration of cannons as a main armament in United States Navy ships was because satellite-guided munitions fired from a gun would be less expensive than a cruise missile but have a similar guidance capability.
Autocannon
![USSVixenMaximMachineGun](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/USSVixenMaximMachineGun.1898.ws.jpg)
Autocannons have an automatic firing mode, similar to that of a machine gun. They have mechanisms to automatically load their ammunition, and therefore have a higher rate of fire than artillery, often approaching, or, in the case of
rotary autocannons, even surpassing the firing rate of a machine gun.
While there is no minimum bore for autocannons, they are generally larger than machine guns, typically 20 mm or greater since World War II and are usually capable of using explosive ammunition even if it is not always used. Machine guns in contrast are usually too small to use explosive ammunition;
such ammunition is additionally banned in international conflict for the parties to the
Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868
The Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 or in full Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight is an international treaty agreed in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, November 29 / December 1 ...
.
Most nations use rapid-fire cannon on light vehicles, replacing a more powerful, but heavier, tank gun. A typical autocannon is the
25 mm "
Bushmaster"
chain gun
A chain gun is a type of autocannon or machine gun that uses an external source of power to cycle the weapon's action, rather than diverting excess energy from the cartridges' propellant as in a typical automatic firearm, and does so via a cont ...
, mounted on the
LAV-25 and
M2 Bradley
The M2 Bradley, or Bradley IFV, is an American infantry fighting vehicle that is a member of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle family. It is manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments, which was formerly United Defense.
The Bradley is designed for ...
armoured vehicles
Military vehicles are commonly armoured (or armored; see spelling differences) to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured fight ...
. Autocannons may be capable of a very high rate of fire, but ammunition is heavy and bulky, limiting the amount carried. For this reason, both the 25 mm Bushmaster and the 30 mm
RARDEN
The L21A1 RARDEN ("Royal Armament, Research and Development Establishment" and "Enfield") is a British 30 mm autocannon used as a combat vehicle weapon. The Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) and the Royal Small Arms ...
are deliberately designed with relatively low rates of fire. The typical rate of fire for a modern autocannon ranges from 90 to 1,800 rounds per minute. Systems with multiple barrels, such as a rotary autocannon, can have rates of fire of more than several thousand rounds per minute. The fastest of these is the
GSh-6-23
The Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-23 (russian: Грязев-Шипунов ГШ-6-23) (GRAU designation: 9A-620 for GSh-6-23, 9A-768 for GSh-6-23M modernized variant) is a six-barreled 23 mm rotary cannon used by some modern Soviet/Russian military ...
, which has a rate of fire of over 10,000 rounds per minute.
Autocannons are often found in aircraft, where they replaced machine guns and as shipboard anti-aircraft weapons, as they provide greater destructive power than machine guns.
Aircraft use
The first documented installation of a cannon on an aircraft was on the Voisin Canon in 1911, displayed at the Paris Exposition that year. By World War I, all of the major powers were experimenting with aircraft-mounted cannons; however their low rate of fire and great size and weight precluded any of them from being anything other than experimental. The most successful (or least unsuccessful) was the SPAD 12 Ca.1 with a single 37mm Puteaux mounted to fire between the cylinder banks and through the propeller boss of the aircraft's Hispano-Suiza 8C. The pilot (by necessity an ace) had to manually reload each round.
The first autocannon were developed during World War I as anti-aircraft guns, and one of these, the
Coventry Ordnance Works
Coventry Ordnance Works was a British manufacturer of heavy guns particularly naval artillery jointly owned by Cammell Laird & Co of Sheffield and Birkenhead, Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan, Glasgow and John Brown & Compa ...
"
COW 37 mm gun
The COW 37 mm gun was a British automatic cannon that was developed during First World War as a large-calibre aircraft weapon. It was tested in several installations and specified for the Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter for attacking bombers. Th ...
", was installed in an aircraft. However, the war ended before it could be given a field trial, and it never became standard equipment in a production aircraft. Later trials had it fixed at a steep angle upwards in both the
Vickers Type 161
The Vickers Type 161 was an unusual 1930s pusher biplane interceptor, designed to attack aircraft from below with a single upward-angle large calibre gun. The aircraft flew well but the concept was abandoned and only one was built.
Development
...
and the
Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter
The Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter was an attempt to produce a fighter aircraft armed with a heavy calibre gun. The Coventry Ordnance Works (COW) 37 mm automatic gun was used, which had been developed for this purpose some years earlier.
Design a ...
, an idea that would return later.
During this period autocannons became available and several fighters of the German and the
Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service
The was the Naval aviation, air arm of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). The organization was responsible for the operation of naval aircraft and the conduct of aerial warfare in the Pacific War.
The Japanese military acquired their first air ...
were fitted with 20 mm cannons. They continued to be installed as an adjunct to machine guns rather than as a replacement, as the rate of fire was still too low and the complete installation too heavy. There was a some debate in the RAF as to whether the greater number of possible rounds being fired from a machine gun, or a smaller number of explosive rounds from a cannon was preferable. Improvements during the war in regards to rate of fire allowed the cannon to displace the machine gun almost entirely.
The cannon was more effective against armour so they were increasingly used during the course of World War II, and newer fighters such as the
Hawker Tempest
The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the ''Typhoon II'', was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to ...
usually carried two or four versus the six
.50 Browning machine guns for US aircraft or eight to twelve
M1919 Browning machine gun
The M1919 Browning is a .30 caliber medium machine gun that was widely used during the 20th century, especially during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The M1919 saw service as a light infantry, coaxial, mounted, aircraft, and ...
s on earlier British aircraft. The
Hispano-Suiza HS.404
The HS.404 is an autocannon originally designed and produced by Spanish/French company Hispano-Suiza in the mid-1930s. It was widely used as an aircraft, naval and land-based weapon by French, British, American and other military services, par ...
,
Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German Becker Type M2 20 mm cannon design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models emplo ...
,
MG FF
The MG FF was a drum-fed, blowback-operated, 20 mm aircraft autocannon, developed in 1936 by Ikaria Werke Berlin of Germany. It was a derivative of the Swiss Oerlikon FF F cannon (its ''FF'' suffix indicating ''Flügel Fest'', for a fixed ...
, and their numerous variants became among the most widely used autocannon in the war. Cannons, as with machine guns, were generally fixed to fire forwards (mounted in the wings, in the nose or fuselage, or in a
pannier
A pannier is a basket, bag, box, or similar container, carried in pairs either slung over the back of a beast of burden, or attached to the sides of a bicycle or motorcycle. The term derives from a Middle English borrowing of the Old French '' ...
under either); or were mounted in
gun turret
A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...
s on heavier aircraft. Both the Germans and Japanese mounted cannons to fire upwards and forwards for use against heavy bombers, with the Germans calling guns so-installed . This term derives from a German colloquialism for jazz music (the German word means "off-key").
Preceding the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
the high speeds aircraft were attaining led to a move to remove the cannon due to the mistaken belief that they would be useless in a
dogfight
A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Dogfighting first occurred in Mexico in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. Until at least 1992, it was a component in every majo ...
, but combat experience during the Vietnam War showed conclusively that despite advances in missiles, there was still a need for them. Nearly all modern
fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...
are armed with an autocannon and they are also commonly found on
ground-attack aircraft
An attack aircraft, strike aircraft, or attack bomber is a tactical military aircraft that has a primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers, and is prepared to encounter strong low-level air defenses while pres ...
. One of the most powerful examples is the 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling-type rotary cannon, mounted exclusively on the
Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 1976, it is named for the Republ ...
.
The
Lockheed AC-130
The Lockheed AC-130 gunship is a heavily armed, long-endurance, ground-attack variant of the C-130 Hercules transport, fixed-wing aircraft. It carries a wide array of ground-attack weapons that are integrated with sophisticated sensors, naviga ...
gunship (a converted transport) can carry a 105 mm howitzer as well as a variety of autocannons ranging up to 40 mm. Both are used in the
close air support
In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and moveme ...
role.
File:Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter.jpg , Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter
The Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter was an attempt to produce a fighter aircraft armed with a heavy calibre gun. The Coventry Ordnance Works (COW) 37 mm automatic gun was used, which had been developed for this purpose some years earlier.
Design a ...
with 37mm C.O.W. gun mounted to fire upwards
File:Supermarine Spitfire Mk XVI.jpg, Supermarine Spitfire
The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...
with 20 mm cannon protruding from the leading edge of the wing
File:GSh-23 on MiG-23.jpg , GSh-23
The Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23 ( rus, ГШ-23) is a twin-barreled 23 mm autocannon developed in the Soviet Union, primarily for military aircraft use. It entered service in 1965, replacing the earlier Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23 and Rikhter R-23.
...
autocannon mounted on the underside of a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-23; NATO reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is a third-generati ...
File:GAU-8 in A-10.jpg , The GAU-8/A Avenger
The General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger is a 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-style autocannon that is primarily mounted in the United States Air Force's Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. Designed to destroy a wide variety of g ...
rotary cannon, mounted in a Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II
The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 1976, it is named for the Republ ...
Materials, parts, and terms
Cannons in general have the form of a truncated cone with an internal cylindrical bore for holding an
explosive charge
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...
and a projectile. The thickest, strongest, and closed part of the cone is located near the explosive charge. As any explosive charge will dissipate in all directions equally, the thickest portion of the cannon is useful for containing and directing this force. The backward motion of the cannon as its projectile leaves the bore is termed its
recoil
Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...
, and the effectiveness of the cannon can be measured in terms of how much this response can be diminished, though obviously diminishing recoil through increasing the overall mass of the cannon means decreased mobility.
Field artillery cannon in Europe and the Americas were initially made most often of
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
, though later forms were constructed of
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
and eventually steel.
Bronze has several characteristics that made it preferable as a construction material: although it is relatively expensive, does not always alloy well, and can result in a final product that is "spongy about the bore",
[ bronze is more flexible than iron and therefore less prone to bursting when exposed to high pressure; cast-iron cannon are less expensive and more durable generally than bronze and withstand being fired more times without deteriorating. However, cast-iron cannon have a tendency to burst without having shown any previous weakness or wear, and this makes them more dangerous to operate.
The older and more-stable forms of cannon were ]muzzle-loading
A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel). This is distinct from the modern (higher tech and harder to make) design ...
as opposed to breech-loading
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle).
Modern firearms are generally breech ...
—to be used they had to have their ordnance packed down the bore through the muzzle rather than inserted through the breech.
The following terms refer to the components or aspects of a classical western cannon (c. 1850) as illustrated here.[ In what follows, the words ''near'', ''close'', and ''behind'' will refer to those parts towards the thick, closed end of the piece, and ''far'', ''front'', ''in front of'', and ''before'' to the thinner, open end.
]
Negative spaces
* Bore: The hollow cylinder bored down the centre of the cannon, including the ''base of the bore'' or ''bottom of the bore'', the nearest end of the bore into which the ordnance
Ordnance may refer to:
Military and defense
*Materiel in military logistics, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment.
**The military branch responsible for supplying and developing these items, e.g., the Unit ...
(wadding
Wadding is a disc of material used in guns to seal gas behind a projectile (a bullet or ball), or to separate the propellant from loosely packed shots.
Wadding can be crucial to a gun's efficiency, since any gas that leaks past a projectile as it ...
, shot
Shot may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Shot'' (album), by The Jesus Lizard
*''Shot, Illusion, New God'', an EP by Gruntruck
*'' Shot Rev 2.0'', a video album by The Sisters of Mercy
* "Shot" (song), by The Rasmus
* ''Shot'' (2017 f ...
, etc.) gets packed. The diameter of the bore represents the cannon's calibre
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore match ...
.
* Chamber: The cylindrical, conical, or spherical recess at the nearest end of the bottom of the bore into which the gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). ...
is packed.
* Vent: A thin tube on the near end of the cannon connecting the explosive charge inside with an ignition source outside and often filled with a length of fuse
Fuse or FUSE may refer to:
Devices
* Fuse (electrical), a device used in electrical systems to protect against excessive current
** Fuse (automotive), a class of fuses for vehicles
* Fuse (hydraulic), a device used in hydraulic systems to protect ...
; always located near the ''breech''. Sometimes called the ''fuse hole'' or the ''touch hole''. On the top of the vent on the outside of the cannon is a flat circular space called the ''vent field'' where the charge is lit. If the cannon is bronze, it will often have a ''vent piece'' made of copper screwed into the length of the vent.
Solid spaces
The main body of a cannon consists of three basic extensions: the foremost and the longest is called the ''chase'', the middle portion is the ''reinforce'', and the closest and briefest portion is the ''cascabel
Cascabel may refer to:
* Cascabel (artillery), a subassembly of a muzzle-loading cannon
* Cascabel chili, a small, round chili pepper
* Cascabel, a Shuttle Loop roller coaster at Chapultepec Park in Mexico City
* Spanish common name for ''Crotalu ...
'' or ''cascable''.
* The chase: Simply the entire conical part of the cannon in front of the ''reinforce''. It is the longest portion of the cannon, and includes the following elements:
** The ''neck'': the narrowest part of the chase, always located near the foremost end of the piece.
** The '' muzzle'': the portion of the chase forward of the ''neck''. It includes the following:
*** The ''swell of the muzzle'' refers to the slight swell in the diameter of the piece at the very end of the chase. It is often chamfered on the inside to make loading the cannon easier. In some guns, this element is replaced with a wide ring and is called a ''muzzle band''.
*** The ''face'' is the flat vertical plane at the foremost edge of the muzzle (and of the entire piece).
*** The ''muzzle mouldings'' are the tiered rings which connect the face with the rest of the muzzle, the first of which is called the ''lip'' and the second the ''fillet''
*** The ''muzzle astragal
An astragal is a moulding profile composed of a half-round surface surrounded by two flat planes ( fillets). An astragal is sometimes referred to as a miniature torus. It can be an architectural element used at the top or base of a column, b ...
and fillets'' are a series of three narrow rings running around the outside of the chase just behind the neck. Sometimes also collectively called the ''chase ring''.
** The ''chase astragal and fillets'': these are a second series of such rings located at the near end of the chase.
** The ''chase girdle'': this is the brief length of the chase between the chase astragal and fillets and the ''reinforce''.
* The reinforce: This portion of the piece is frequently divided into a ''first reinforce'' and a ''second reinforce'', but in any case is marked as separate from the chase by the presence of a narrow circular ''reinforce ring'' or ''band'' at its foremost end. The span of the reinforce also includes the following:
** The ''trunnions
A trunnion (from Old French "''trognon''", trunk) is a cylindrical protrusion used as a mounting or pivoting point. First associated with cannons, they are an important military development.
Alternatively, a trunnion is a shaft that positions a ...
'' are located at the foremost end of the reinforce just behind the reinforce ring. They consist of two cylinders perpendicular to the bore and below it which are used to mount the cannon on its carriage.
** The ''rimbases'' are short broad rings located at the union of the trunnions and the cannon which provide support to the carriage attachment.
** The ''reinforce band'' is only present if the cannon has two reinforces, and it divides the first reinforce from the second.
** The ''breech'' refers to the mass of solid metal behind the bottom of the bore extending to the ''base of the breech'' and including the ''base ring''; it also generally refers to the end of the cannon opposite the ''muzzle'', i.e., the location where the explosion of the gunpowder begins as opposed to the opening through which the pressurized gas escapes.
** The ''base ring'' forms a ring at the widest part of the entire cannon at the nearest end of the reinforce just before the ''cascabel''.
* The cascabel: This is that portion of the cannon behind the reinforce(s) and behind the ''base ring''. It includes the following:
** The ''knob'' which is the small spherical terminus of the piece;
** The ''neck'', a short, narrow piece of metal holding out the knob; and
** The ''fillet'', the tiered disk connecting the neck of the cascabel to the ''base of the breech''.
** The ''base of the breech'' is the metal disk that forms the most forward part of the cascabel and rests against the breech itself, right next to the ''base ring''.
To pack a muzzle-loading cannon, first gunpowder is poured down the bore. This is followed by a layer of wadding (often nothing more than paper), and then the cannonball itself. A certain amount of windage
Windage is a term used in aerodynamics, firearms ballistics, and automobiles.
Usage
Aerodynamics
Windage is a force created on an object by friction when there is relative movement between air and the object. Windage loss is the reduction in e ...
allows the ball to fit down the bore, though the greater the windage the less efficient the propulsion of the ball when the gunpowder is ignited. To fire the cannon, the fuse located in the vent is lit, quickly burning down to the gunpowder, which then explodes violently, propelling wadding and ball down the bore and out of the muzzle. A small portion of exploding gas also escapes through the vent, but this does not dramatically affect the total force exerted on the ball.
Any large, smoothbore
A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.
History
Early firearms had smoothly bored barrels that fired projectiles without signi ...
, muzzle-loading gun—used before the advent of breech-loading
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle).
Modern firearms are generally breech ...
, rifled guns—may be referred to as a cannon, though once standardised names were assigned to different-sized cannon, the term specifically referred to a gun designed to fire a shot, as distinct from a demi-cannon
The demi-cannon was a medium-sized cannon, similar to but slightly larger than a culverin and smaller than a regular cannon, developed in the early 17th century. A full cannon fired a 42-pound shot, but these were discontinued in the 18th centur ...
– , culverin
A culverin was initially an ancestor of the hand-held arquebus, but later was used to describe a type of medieval and Renaissance cannon. The term is derived from the French "''couleuvrine''" (from ''couleuvre'' "grass snake", following the La ...
– , or demi-culverin
The demi-culverin was a medium cannon similar to but slightly larger than a saker and smaller than a regular culverin developed in the late 16th century. Barrels of demi-culverins were typically about long, had a calibre of and could weigh up t ...
– . ''Gun'' specifically refers to a type of cannon that fires projectiles at high speeds, and usually at relatively low angles; they have been used in warships, and as field artillery
Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, short range, long range, and extremely long range target engagement.
Until the early 20t ...
. The term ''cannon'' is also used for autocannon
An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber ( or more) armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bull ...
, a modern repeating weapon firing explosive projectiles. Cannon have been used extensively in fighter aircraft since World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Operation
In the 1770s, cannon operation worked as follows: each cannon would be manned by two gunners, six soldiers, and four officers of artillery. The right gunner was to prime the piece and load it with powder, and the left gunner would fetch the powder from the magazine and be ready to fire the cannon at the officer's command. On each side of the cannon, three soldiers stood, to ram and sponge the cannon, and hold the ladle. The second soldier on the left was tasked with providing 50 bullets.
Before loading, the cannon would be cleaned with a wet sponge to extinguish any smouldering material from the last shot. Fresh powder could be set off prematurely by lingering ignition sources. The powder was added, followed by wadding of paper or hay, and the ball was placed in and rammed down. After ramming, the cannon would be aimed with the elevation set using a quadrant and a plummet. At 45 degrees, the ball had the utmost range: about ten times the gun's level range. Any angle above a horizontal line was called random-shot. Wet sponges were used to cool the pieces every ten or twelve rounds.
During the Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
, a British gun team consisted of five gunners to aim it, clean the bore with a damp sponge to quench any remaining embers before a fresh charge was introduced, and another to load the gun with a bag of powder and then the projectile. The fourth gunner pressed his thumb on the vent hole, to prevent a draught that might fan a flame. The charge loaded, the fourth would prick the bagged charge through the vent hole, and fill the vent with powder. On command, the fifth gunner would fire the piece with a slow match
Slow match, also called match cord, is the slow-burning cord or twine fuse
Fuse or FUSE may refer to:
Devices
* Fuse (electrical), a device used in electrical systems to protect against excessive current
** Fuse (automotive), a class of fuses ...
. Friction primer A friction primer is a device to initiate the firing of muzzle-loading cannon. Each friction primer consists of a copper tube filled with gunpowder. The tube fits into the cannon touch hole burying its lower end in the gunpowder chamber. The top end ...
s replaced slow match ignition by the mid-19th century.
When a cannon had to be abandoned such as in a retreat or surrender, the touch hole of the cannon would be plugged flush with an iron spike, disabling the cannon (at least until metal boring tools could be used to remove the plug). This was called "spiking the cannon".
A gun was said to be ''honeycombed'' when the surface of the bore had cavities, or holes in it, caused either by corrosion or casting defects.
Legal considerations
In the United States, muzzleloading cannons are not subject to any regulations at the federal level. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, muzzleloading cannons made before 1899 (and replicas) that are unable to fire fixed ammunition are considered antiques. They are not subject to the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 or National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. Muzzleloading cannons may be subject to state of local rules in some jurisdictions, however.
Deceptive use
Historically, logs or poles have been used as decoys to mislead the enemy as to the strength of an emplacement. The " Quaker Gun trick" was used by Colonel William Washington
William Washington (February 28, 1752 – March 6, 1810) was a cavalry officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, who held a final rank of brigadier general in the newly created United States after the war. Primarily ...
's Continental Army
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...
during the American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
; in 1780, approximately 100 Loyalists surrendered to them, rather than face bombardment. During the American Civil War, Quaker guns were also used by the Confederates, to compensate for their shortage of artillery. The decoy cannon were painted black at the "muzzle", and positioned behind fortifications to delay Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
attacks on those positions. On occasion, real gun carriages were used to complete the deception.
In popular culture
Cannon sounds have sometimes been used in classical pieces with a military theme. One of the best known examples of such a piece is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
's ''1812 Overture
''The Year 1812, Solemn Overture'', Op. 49, popularly known as the ''1812 Overture'', is a concert overture in E major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to commemorate the successful Russian defense against Napoleon ...
''. The overture is to be performed using an artillery section together with the orchestra, resulting in noise levels high enough that musicians are required to wear ear protection
Ear protection refers to devices used to protect the ear, either externally from elements such as cold, intrusion by water and other environmental conditions, debris. High levels of exposure to noise may result in noise-induced hearing loss
N ...
. The cannon fire simulates Russian artillery bombardments of the Battle of Borodino
The Battle of Borodino (). took place near the village of Borodino on during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The ' won the battle against the Imperial Russian Army but failed to gain a decisive victory and suffered tremendous losses. Napoleon ...
, a critical battle in Napoleon's 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 block ...
, whose defeat the piece celebrates. When the overture was first performed, the cannon were fired by an electric current triggered by the conductor. However, the overture was not recorded with real cannon fire until Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...
and conductor Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti (, , ; 9 April 1906 – 13 November 1988) was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1943.
Biography
Antal Doráti was born in Budapest, where his father Alexander Doráti was a vi ...
's 1958 recording of the Minnesota Orchestra
The Minnesota Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded originally as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, the Minnesota Orchestra plays most of its concerts at Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall.
History
Em ...
. Cannon fire is also frequently used annually in presentations of the ''1812'' on the American Independence Day, a tradition started by Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler (December 17, 1894 – July 10, 1979) was an American conductor known for his association with both the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops orchestras. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one o ...
of the Boston Pops
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's current music director is Keith Lockhart.
Founded in 1885 as an offshoot of the Boston Symp ...
in 1974.
The hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
band AC/DC
AC/DC (stylised as ACϟDC) are an Australian Rock music, rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm Young, Malcolm and Angus Young. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and Heavy metal ...
also used cannon in their song "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
"For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)" is a song by the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. The song was first released on AC/DC's eighth studio album ''For Those About to Rock We Salute You'' in 1981, and later as a single in 1982. The single' ...
", and in live shows replica Napoleonic cannon and pyrotechnics
Pyrotechnics is the science and craft of creating such things as fireworks, safety matches, oxygen candles, explosive bolts and other fasteners, parts of automotive airbags, as well as gas-pressure blasting in mining, quarrying, and demolition. ...
were used to perform the piece.[
]
Restoration
Cannon recovered from the sea are often extensively damaged from exposure to salt water; because of this, electrolytic reduction treatment is required to forestall the process of corrosion. The cannon is then washed in deionized water to remove the electrolyte
An electrolyte is a medium containing ions that is electrically conducting through the movement of those ions, but not conducting electrons. This includes most soluble salts, acids, and bases dissolved in a polar solvent, such as water. Upon dis ...
, and is treated in tannic acid, which prevents further rust and gives the metal a bluish-black colour. After this process, cannon on display may be protected from oxygen and moisture by a wax sealant. A coat of polyurethane may also be painted over the wax sealant, to prevent the wax-coated cannon from attracting dust in outdoor displays. In 2011, archaeologists say six cannon recovered from a river in Panama that could have belonged to legendary pirate Henry Morgan are being studied and could eventually be displayed after going through a restoration process.
Notes
References
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* Hadden, R. Lee. 2005
"Confederate Boys and Peter Monkeys."
Armchair General. January 2005. Adapted from a talk given to the Geological Society of America on 25 March 2004.
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* Schmidtchen, Volker (1977a), "Riesengeschütze des 15. Jahrhunderts. Technische Höchstleistungen ihrer Zeit", ''Technikgeschichte'' 44 (2): 153–73 (153–57)
* Schmidtchen, Volker (1977b), "Riesengeschütze des 15. Jahrhunderts. Technische Höchstleistungen ihrer Zeit", ''Technikgeschichte'' 44 (3): 213–237 (226–28)
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External links
Artillery Tactics and Combat during the Napoleonic Wars
* – ''Patent for a Casting ordnance''
* – ''Cannon patent''
* – ''Muzzle loading ordnance patent''
Historic Cannons Of San Francisco
{{Authority control
Cannon,
Chinese inventions
Articles containing video clips