Artillery E-Book

John Norris

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 470

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

By the time the guns fell silent on 11 November 1918, vast tracts of the European landscape had been so utterly devastated by artillery fire that they were virtually unrecognisable. Of all the many weapons invented by man for the purpose of waging war, artillery must rank among the most destructive of all. Through detailed research, John Norris has traced the development of artillery through the ages and up to the dawn of the twenty-first century, to provide a fascinating study of this principal weapon of warfare. From its earliest recorded use in battle about a millennium ago, up to the recent Gulf War, Balkan and Afghanistan conflicts, artillery has often been the deciding factor in battle. And yet its origins are somewhat vague. The Chinese had been working with gunpowder since the tenth century, yet it was another 200 years before the compound was used to propel a projectile from a long-barrelled bamboo piece of apparatus. Not long after this, the use of artillery spread to Europe and changed the art of warfare. This book traces the development of artillery and its use in battle through the ages.

Leseprobe

ARTILLERY

A HISTORY

JOHN NORRIS

This work is dedicated to two women who have each touched my life in their own separate ways. By coincidence they are both Ethels. One is my late mother-in-law, who was firm but fair, and of whom I have many fond memories. The second Ethel is very dear and at times has proved to have a very profound outlook on life. This Ethel is my mother and I would like to say how grateful I am to her and proud to call her Mother.

First published in 2000

This paperback edition published in 2011

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© John Norris, 2000, 2011, 2013

The right of John Norris to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5323 8

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1.Whence Came the Guns? The Origins of Artillery, 1200–1400

2.Artillery Takes Shape, 1400–1500

3.Into a New Era, 1500–1600

4.The Gun Takes the Field, 1600–1700

5.The Rise of the Great Gunners, 1700–1800

6.New Developments and the Gunner’s Art, 1800–1900

7.Artillery Comes of Age, 1900–2000

8.Further into the Twenty-First Century

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the following institutions and individuals for their help and unstinting kindness in putting this work together. Without such support my task would have been much more difficult. My thanks to Ian V. Hogg who listened sympathetically and offered advice; to the staff and assistants at the Royal Armouries, Fort Nelson, Fareham, Hampshire, who allowed me to roam almost at will; to the Royal Artillery Museum at the Rotunda in Woolwich, London, whose staff I wish the best of luck in their move during 2001; and to many defence manufacturers who provided a wide range of photographic material. My thanks also to the men of the re-enactment group The Brockhurst Artillery Volunteers who lay on sterling displays of First World War events at Fort Nelson; to Simon Davey and the members of The Kynges Ordynaunce who have faithfully recreated much period artillery; and to all members of The Courteneye Household and Prince Rupert’s Blewcoats who have done excellent work in displaying historic artillery at special events.

INTRODUCTION

The word artillery probably evolved from a number of earlier terms. One school of thought believes it is a combination of the Latin arcus, meaning bow, and telum, meaning projectile. A second theory attributes the term’s origin to the Latin ars tolendi, or ars and tirare, meaning the art of catapulting or shooting. Another possible root is the Latin phrase ars telorum, which refers to the art of using long-range weapons. The great siege master and fortress builder Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707) traced the term back to the old French word artillier, meaning either to fortify or to arm. However, the German philologist Diez believed it was derived from the Provençal word artilha and that it had entered the German language as early as 1500. It seems artillery is actually an omnibus word, derived from several sources.

Whatever the true origin of the term artillery, its meaning comes down to the science of propelling a projectile at an enemy over a distance. It can be applied to machines of war fielded by the Greeks and Romans, such as the catapulta and ballista, which both used torsion power to propel their missiles and pre-date gunpowder by many centuries. During the sixteenth century, there was still some debate over how the term artillery should be interpreted. For example, in 1537 Henry VIII of England issued a charter for the Guild of St George, in which he charged its members with becoming: ‘The overseers of the science of artillery . . . to witt, long bowes, cross bowes and hand gonnes for the better encrease of the defence of our realme.’ Over 450 years later this charter is preserved by the Honourable Artillery Company, which is now raised as a regiment of the British Army and can trace its origins back to the Guild of St George and the year in which the charter was issued.

The reference to ‘hand gonnes’ in the document raises the question of when artillery and hand-held gunpowder weapons separated into two distinct types of weapon. It is very difficult to date this development with any great accuracy, but it seems likely that it came during the fourteenth century. References to ‘gunnis cum telar’ (guns with handles) appeared in the 1350s and mark the emergence of personal weapons. Certainly by the fifteenth century early hand-guns were being used by trained infantrymen alongside artillery. In 1411 John the Good, Duke of Burgundy, is recorded as having some 4,000 hand-guns in his armoury. These weapons would have had an effective range of some 200 metres, about the same as some of the smaller artillery pieces of the day, but the firer would have been considered fortunate if he hit his intended target. The Hussite troops of the Bohemian leader, Jan Ziska, used hand-held gunpowder weapons in their struggle against the Emperor Sigismund in 1419.

Gunpowder artillery was not available to ancient armies, but more than 650 years have elapsed since tubed artillery, which is to say conventional guns, was first recorded. The appearance of cannon proper on the battlefield in the fourteenth century signalled the end of single-handed combat and ushered in a new martial law. However, it was not until the seventeenth century that artillery was used with any great effect against enemy troops ranged in the open, rather than against a city or castle under siege. Since that time it has been deployed in a variety of roles from siege warfare to long-range coastal defence. Artillery has also been developed to perform highly specialized roles – examples include anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns and weapons for mountain warfare. More generally, guns have been used as field pieces in support of infantry; into this category also fall towed and self-propelled guns, which are as much part of a modern army as helicopters.

Artillery did not gain popular acceptance within the military infrastructure overnight. Its introduction was gradual. Some countries, including Japan, did try to resist the spread of gunpowder weaponry – a common reaction to any new technology, be it military or industrial. But opposition was futile and in order to survive, or at least compete on equal footing, all nations adopted artillery into their armies and navies. The motto of the Royal Artillery Regiment of the British Army is ‘Ubique’ (Everywhere). This refers to the fact that the regiment has served in all parts of the globe where the British Army has fought but can also be applied to artillery itself. Today it is ubiquitous.

This book charts artillery’s origins and outlines some of the figures who have influenced its design and advanced the science of gunnery to make it what it is today. It concentrates on conventional artillery, because the science of gunnery is completely different to that of rocketry. There is a current trend in some modern armies towards rocket systems, for example, the American-designed Multiple Launch Rocket System and Russian-built BMW-21 multiple rocket launcher. These rocket artillery systems are designed to augment rather than replace conventional tubed artillery because they allow forces to employ the shock tactic of concentrating firepower into a designated area. Their deployment is intended as a short-term opening sequence to a barrage and is limited to an indirect fire role. Guns, on the other hand, can be aimed with precise accuracy and maintain a continuous bombardment of a target; as will be seen, this was the case during the First World War. Modern advances in computer analysis and fire control have enhanced the accuracy of artillery and thus reduced the chance of collateral damage when fighting takes place close to built-up areas.

Pieces of artillery have been given various titles over the years, including howitzer, cannon, bombard and falcon. The term cannon itself is derived from the Greek word kanun and the Latin canna, both meaning ‘tube’, which describes perfectly what the barrel of a piece of artillery looks like. Ancient and medieval siege engines which relied on counterpoise, torsion or kinetic energy to launch their projectiles were also called artillery. However, within this work all artillery referred to is of the gunpowder type.

A piece that has had a long and chequered history but still remains in use today, although in a much revised role and design, is the mortar. Its basic short and stubby shape, which is believed to stem from the grinding mortar of chemists, was one of the easiest to manufacture. At various times these weapons were made from different types of metal, including bronze, brass and latten, and could be cast in one piece because of their simple shape. Although the designs for early cannon were changed and improved, the shape of the mortar remained unaltered. The cannon of the day were used to fire directly at targets, but mortars were fired at elevations of 45 degrees or more and were used to ‘lob’ projectiles over the walls of besieged castles. However, mortars have not always been restricted to siege warfare; over the years they have also been employed as defensive weapons and in coastal defence. Some mortar designs frequently exceeded 13 inches calibre and continued in use alongside normal artillery until the nineteenth century. It was not until the First World War that mortars became refined for use by the infantry as a specialized weapon of trench warfare. This work will illustrate how early mortars were used in conjunction with conventional artillery, until they eventually fell out of favour with the gunners and were replaced by the more accurate and powerful howitzers.

The tactical roles and functions of artillery throughout history will be examined, as will the way in which these roles have been adapted to the ever-changing face of the battlefield. The changes artillery made to the way in which wars were fought were gradual – partly because in its earliest days, it was not as accurate as a longbow in the hands of a well-trained and experienced archer. However, artillery’s influence did deepen the battlefield as the range of guns increased. Battles were no longer fought by armies only a few hundred metres from one another. Artillery extended the distance between them to many kilometres: new technology made the science of gunnery a precise tactic.

The introduction of gunpowder weapons on to the battlefield made it more important than ever before to train troops to a high degree of technical proficiency. Thus warfare passed from being fought by masses of relatively undrilled militia to be the occupation of more regular and better disciplined troops. Some of these sixteenth- and seventeenth-century troops were so highly skilled and experienced that they could band together and hire out their services as mercenaries to the highest bidder. This applied to all levels of troops and, of course, included gunners and their artillery. And so, it has been argued that the raison d’être for standing armies to defend sovereign territories was established.

This book will examine the size of gun crews, batteries and specific engagements but uniforms and the histories of individual artillery regiments fall outside its scope. The development of tools specific to the gunner’s trade, such as the sextant and quadrant, will be considered. No coverage is considered necessary on pieces of artillery that could be termed ‘novelty’ weapons, such as the Zalinski ‘Dynamite Gun’ or the Zippermeyer ‘Vortex Gun’, which was intended to serve as an anti-aircraft weapon by shooting down aircraft with air turbulence. The reason for the omission is not that they were experimental, but simply that such designs never stood a chance of being introduced into widespread military use. Given the number and diversity of pieces that fall under the title artillery, it is inevitable that some will not appear here; this is regrettable and apologies are proffered in advance.

The basic design of tubed artillery remains the same as it has always been, but advances in ammunition, metallurgy and better understanding of ballistics, have all served to improve the overall performance of gunnery and produce weapons of reduced weight and better accuracy. Despite the increased use of rocketry on the battlefield, both guided and free-flight, it is unlikely that missiles will ever truly supplant the traditional gun of the artillery branch of any army.

Finally, the reader will find a mixture of both imperial and metric measurements throughout this work. This follows military convention: some countries have historically referred to the weight of a shell, expressed in either pounds or kilograms, and others state calibre of shell in either inches or millimetres.

ONE

WHENCE CAME THE GUNS? THE ORIGINS OF ARTILLERY, 1200–1400

No one can say with absolute certainty when or where gunpowder was first used to propel a projectile from a tube, leading to the advent and rise of firearms and artillery. Neither is there any conclusive evidence for who made the breakthrough. Therefore, the question of where artillery began is likely to remain one of the great unanswerable military mysteries. Indeed, there is even some dispute over the origins of gunpowder. Some theorists believe it to be Arabic in origin: it could have been a by-product of early alchemy experiments. But, the hard evidence points more to its being a Chinese invention, possibly as early as the eighth century. The first known written formula for combining the three constituent compounds of gunpowder is contained in a military treatise attributed to Wu Ching Tsung Yao, written c. AD 1044. But there are earlier references to the use of the material by Chinese troops; its potential was chronicled in c. 908 when it was used to generate noise in order to unnerve the enemy and also to demolish structures.

It has also been suggested that the properties of gunpowder were accidentally discovered as a result of experiments into producing an elixir of life. Whatever its origins, one of the first recorded uses of the compound to propel a projectile from a weapon came in the form of a long-barrelled bamboo apparatus as early as c. AD 1132. The invention of this device is accredited to the Chinese General Ch’en Gui, the commander of the garrison of Anlu in the Hopei Province. The barrel is thought to have been bound with either rope or leather for additional strength. Despite the advanced technology which had obviously been applied to developing such a weapon, its accuracy and the safety of the user must have been seriously in doubt.

It was to be another 200 years before true gunpowder artillery – that is to say weapons with barrels manufactured from metal, capable of discharging projectiles – was to be used by the Chinese in battle. Joseph Needham, the noted historian, has named early Chinese gunpowder weapons ‘eruptors’. Weapons of this type could ‘pierce the heart or belly when it strikes a man or horse, and can even transfix several persons at once’. In 1341, Chang Hsien compiled a verse called ‘The Iron Cannon Affair’, in which he described the operation of a gunpowder or ‘eruptor’ weapon:

The black dragon lobbed over an egg-shaped thing

Fully the size of a peck measure it was,*

And it burst, and a dragon flew out with peals of thunder rolling

In the air it was like a blazing and flashing fire.

The first bang was like the dividing of chaos in two,

As if the mountains and rivers were all turned upside down.

Such a description tends to suggest that the Chinese were using gunpowder artillery with exploding shells long before the technique was developed in Western Europe.

The history of how gunpowder came to the European continent and was eventually used as a propellant there is clouded by uncertainty. The mystery is compounded by the fact that the story is sometimes populated by shady figures such as Berthold Schwartz, a German monk from Freiburg, and Marcus Graecus. It has come to be assumed that gunpowder probably arrived in Europe via the trade routes travelled by the Arabs and with it came the secret manufacturing formula. A second theory has it that gunpowder reached Europe by way of the Mongol invasion from the east in the first half of the thirteenth century. It is quite possible that the Mongols did bring the compound with them: during their epic raid into Europe in 1241–2 they are known to have used gunpowder and other types of incendiary devices, such as the chen t’ien lei (thunder bomb), which they had previously deployed to produce noise and confuse their enemies in lands to the east. These weapons had been acquired during the Mongol conquest of China. As they retreated to elect a new khan on the death of Ogedai in 1241, they probably left behind discarded gunpowder-based devices, such as their ‘poison and smoke ball’. This military item, known to the Mongols as tu-yao yen ch’iu, contained sulphur, nitre, aconite (a poisonous plant related to the wolf’s-bane family), oil, charcoal, resin and wax – a deadly combination that included all the constituent ingredients for gunpowder. This mixture was contained in a clay, ball-shaped receptacle. The whole weighed about 2 kilograms. It could be either hand thrown, in the manner of an early hand-grenade, or projected from a catapult siege engine using torsion energy. The writings of Miu Yu-Sun quoting Yu Wei, a minor scholar, state that in the second half of the thirteenth century a Mongol by the name of Ch’i Wu Wen, travelled into Europe taking with him the complete working knowledge of gunpowder and gunnery technology of the time.

Roger Bacon (c. 1214–94), an English Franciscan monk from Ilchester, knew of the fiery and explosive properties of gunpowder, or black powder as it came to be known, and had recorded these facts in anagrams. In 1242, when he was about twenty-eight, he wrote in cryptographic form how a portion of this mysterious powder ‘no larger than a man’s finger’, when wrapped in parchment could be ignited to explode with a loud report. He could have learned of the existence of gunpowder through stories about a new substance left behind after the Mongols’ retreat in the same year. In his Albertus Magnus, Bacon describes the method of manufacturing powder to produce ‘thunder and lightning’ and how the ingredients were to be mixed on a slab of marble, the powder to be wrapped in parchment and ignited to produce a ‘blinding flash and stunning noise’. Bacon gave proportions for mixing gunpowder, and these have been interpreted as 7:5:5, saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur.

In 1267, twenty-five years after Bacon had made his notes and still during his lifetime, a revolt erupted in London, instigated by the Earl of Gloucester. The uprising threatened to unseat the regency of King Henry III. In his attempts to quell this outbreak of dissent, Henry marched on the city to rout Gloucester and it is recorded that he may have had gunpowder artillery in his train. The exact type and nature of this artillery is not known, but Grafton’s Chronicles from the time state how the king was ‘making daily assaults when guns and other ordnance were shot into the city’. Because of the uncertainty, lack of further notes and the unreliability of this reference, it could be concluded that the artillery used during this incursion was a mixture torsion-powered siege engines, such as the catapult and mangonel, both of which were still in common use at the time to launch gunpowder-filled projectiles of the types used by the Mongols. But it is also possible that Henry was in possession of very early types of pots de fer, or pots of fire, the full reference to which has been lost to us over the years.

At this time, the Church issued anathema condemning anyone who manufactured fiery substances for purposes of war. This blanket anathematizing of incendiary material covered Greek fire, an early type of napalm which was still in limited use. But the Church’s abhorrence was reserved mainly for gunpowder. Anyone using any type of firearm was committing blasphemy by dabbling in the ‘black arts’. In 1139 under Pope Innocent II the Church had issued a similar edict against the use of crossbows, but with little or no effect: gunpowder artillery continued to be developed and its use spread. However, early written works on artillery instructed men working with ‘such devilish instruments of destruction’, never to forget their Christian responsibilities and always to have ‘the vision of God before their eyes’.

Gunpowder was termed black powder because of its colour, which was the result of the proportion of charcoal in its make-up. Another medieval name for this volatile compound was ‘serpentine’, but exactly why is not clear. The full danger of the powder was still largely misunderstood but it was considered ‘unseemly’ for gunners to stand on any that had been spilled on the ground. This was certainly not simply battlefield etiquette; it avoided the danger of accidental combustion due to the friction of the foot – the chance of explosion would have been especially high when the action was performed on a hard stony surface. An accident could result in severe burning or even the loss of a limb, depending on the quantity of powder trampled.

In his later writings during the 1260s, Roger Bacon began to refer to the existence of gunpowder more openly and mentions it as ‘the powder, known in divers places, composed of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal’. More than thirty years later, in about 1300, a book appeared claiming to have been written by Marcus Graecus (Mark the Greek). Research now supports the theory that this work, rather than being the writings of one person, is actually a compilation of many men’s work. The volume is called Book of Fires for the Burning of Enemies and contained within its pages is a reiteration of the formula given by Roger Bacon. But the Book of Fires also includes another formula which gives different proportions for the constituents of gunpowder: 6:1:2 parts, saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal. It seems likely, then, that the work is indeed by several authors, each of whom had their own ideas about the make-up of the compound.

Theories on the composition of gunpowder certainly changed over time. In the fourteenth century the mixture was composed of 41 per cent saltpetre, 30 per cent sulphur and 29 per cent charcoal. And in c. 1400 the writer Montauban gives the proportions for mixing black powder as 70:13:17 parts, saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal. So, there was no standardized rate for mixing black powder and it is possible that the formula varied from one country to another – even from one centre of production to another in the same country. This lack of consistency continued right up the Napoleonic Wars in the first part of the nineteenth century, when there was still discrepancy concerning the actual proportions of the compounds required to produce quality gunpowder. Today the formula for gunpowder is still based on these three ingredients but has been standardized as 75 per cent saltpetre, 10 per cent sulphur and 15 per cent charcoal.

Early black powder had a tendency to separate down into its constituents because of the effects of vibration during transportation. This resulted in poor burning rates, or even complete failure to ignite when the powder came to be used on the battlefield. One method of preventing separation was to mix the three ingredients on the battlefield just before the powder was required. This was a highly dangerous job because the slightest spark or lack of concentration could result in spontaneous combustion. This hazard had been recognized by Roger Bacon when he instructed that the mixture should be blended on a marble surface to prevent accidental ignition. The handling of gunpowder on the battlefield was made more dangerous by the fact that men serving the guns had to have a fire constantly burning to provide a source for ignition. This no doubt contributed to many accidents. However, techniques advanced and changes to the method of blending powder were introduced.

One of the first significant names to emerge in the manufacture of gunpowder during the Middle Ages was Merckel Gast of Frankfurt, who rose to eminence towards the end of the fourteenth century. Gast was said to be able to manufacture gunpowder that would last sixty years by using chemicals he himself had refined. He is also understood to have been capable of restoring the explosive properties of powder which had been ‘spoiled’, presumably by moisture or settling during transportation. Gast also had a working knowledge of artillery and the emerging hand-guns of the time. He was able to cast the barrels of cannon and site them during battle.

Black powder was expensive to manufacture and it has been calculated that in 1346 it cost 18 pence to produce 500 grams of the substance – the equivalent of £86 per kilogram at prices in 2000. By 1376, the price had risen to £1.20 per kilo, clearly the result of an increase in demand. It should be remembered that at this time the weekly wage for a manual labourer was paid in pennies and that the brick-built Caister Castle, near Yarmouth in Norfolk, was raised between 1432 and 1435 for £1,480. The high cost of producing gunpowder was offset by the results early cannon yielded on the battlefield. The weapons spread confusion and panic among an enemy whose troops had never before encountered such weapons. Furthermore, castles and walled settlements under siege could be forced into submission with the minimum expenditure in effort and manpower.

On ignition, 500 grams of black powder will produce some 1.1 square metres of gas, which in a confined space quickly expands to produce considerable pressure. Such expanding gases had to be allowed to vent if an explosion was to be avoided. It was known that if they were vented safely, the pressurized gases could be used to impart movement to a stone or iron projectile which fitted rather loosely into a cylindrical tube. As the gases expanded, they moved the projectile forward at increasing velocity. This phenomenon must have been noted by the early gunners which explains why the side walls of thirteenth-century cannon barrels were very thick, even if at that stage the new science was not fully understood. There was no means of accurately measuring the quantity of powder that should be loaded relative to the size of the weapon; this was still very much left to the judgement of the individual gunner.

A figure called Berthold Schwartz, sometimes referred to as Black Berthold (which is a general translation of his German name), is credited with discovering the propellant properties of black powder by igniting the compound in a vessel to discharge an object. An engraving, c. 1380, purportedly shows the moment of discovery. If one takes this as the date when the foundations of artillery were laid, the whole chronology for the development of artillery would be overturned. Some references say the experiment took place in 1320, and that Berthold Schwartz was injured when his apothecary’s grinding mortar exploded as he was preparing the gunpowder mixture. (It is generally believed that the expression of the use of the term ‘mortar’ to describe an artillery piece originated from this experiment.) However, there are a number of doubts about this mysterious figure. First, there is no conclusive evidence that Berthold Schwartz ever existed. Secondly, the term ‘mortar’ for a form of artillery was not to be coined until many years after the supposed incident in Schwartz’s workshop. If Schwartz did exist, we know of no writings about his experiments. The fact also remains that one of the first European battles in which artillery is reliably recorded as having been used was Crecy. There, in August 1346, English troops under Edward III deployed between three and five cannon. These devices are referred to either as roundelades or pots de fer. The latter name appears to be the more popular and widespread; it was commonly used to refer to early cannon and indicates that such weapons were firmly established. This first major European deployment of gunpowder weapons predates the engraving of Schwartz’s supposed experiments by thirty-four years and thereby completely dispels the theory that it was he who mastered the use of gunpowder as a propellant for artillery.

In 1852, Colonel Chesney wrote in his Observations of Firearms:

The Moors, according to Conde [whom Chesney says is a high authority on this subject], used artillery against Saragossa in 1118; and in 1132 a culverin of four pounds’ calibre, named Salamonica, was made. In 1157, when the Spaniards took Niebla, the Moors defended themselves with machines which threw darts and stones by means of fire, and Abd’almumen, the Moorish king, captured Mohadia, a fortified city near Bona, from the Sicilians, by the same means. In 1280, artillery was used against Cordova, and in 1306, or 1308, Ferdinand IV took Gibraltar from the Moors by means of artillery. Ibn Nasan ben Bia, of Granada, mentions that guns were adopted from the Moors and used in Spain in the twelfth century, and that balls of iron were thrown by means of fire in 1331.

The term artillery had been applied to siege engines that relied on either torsion or counterpoise energy to propel their projectiles. It seemed only right that gunpowder weapons should fall under the same name. After all, these new weapons were only continuing the role catapults and mangonels had played. The only real difference between the two types of weaponry was the fact that cannon used chemical energy, generated by burning a mixture of minerals, to hurl their projectiles. It is known that in the first half of the fourteenth century, small cannon were beginning to enter service with Western European armies. An arms race had begun and no country could afford to lag behind. The use of weapons harnessing the properties of gunpowder was now more widespread in Europe than in the Far East, but their effectiveness on the battlefield was not to be fully realized until the end of the Middle Ages.

EARLY WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION

The first cannon recognizable to modern eyes began to appear in Europe towards the end of the thirteenth century. They are recorded as having arrived in Flanders by c. 1314 and by 1326 cannon were in limited use in France. In 1338 a French raiding force attacked the port of Southampton, setting fire to the town and sacking it. Among the French weaponry was a single ribaud or pot de fer with forty-eight projectiles loaded with 1.362 kilograms of gunpowder – an average weight of only 28 grams of powder for each discharge if all the projectiles were fired. Documents from February 1326 record that the city of Florence had set aside sufficient funds to purchase brass cannon and iron balls and authorized the Priors, Gonfalonier and twelve others ‘for the defence of the commune, camps and territory of Florence’. It had also appointed two men to make ‘iron bullets and iron arrows for canones de metallo’. By this time the properties of black powder had been known for almost 100 years.

The earliest extant illustration of artillery in use dates from between 1326 and 1327 and appears in the manuscript De Nobilitatibus, Sapientiis et Prudentiis Regum (On the Majesty, Wisdom and Prudence of Kings) by Walter Milimete. This document may, in turn, be based on the reputed use of devices referred to as vassi, pots de feu or pots de fer at the Battle of Metz in 1324. King Alfonso of Castile is known to have made use of artillery at the siege of Algeciras, an action also fought in 1324. Only five years after the decree of Florence, weapons termed as vasa and sclopi were used in the attack against Cividale in Friaul. By 1338, the French town of Rouen was deploying iron pots in its defence in order to throw fire arrows against attackers. In his work The Origin of Artillery, H.W.L. Hime points to the fact that Edward III of England had already used artillery in his campaign against the Scots in 1327 and 1328, where the pieces were termed ‘crakys of war’. The noise these basic gunpowder weapons generated was like nothing the Scottish had ever heard before, but like every early deployment of gunpowder artillery, the tactic was not entirely conclusive for the campaign.

Within ten years of his Scottish expedition, Edward III was to enter hostilities against a different enemy in a long, drawn-out period of conflict now known as the Hundred Years War. The fighting between England and France began in 1337 when Philip VI of France declared all English-held territories south of the Loire to be forfeit and moved in to claim them. This action prompted a swift response from Edward III, who embarked on a military campaign with only fifteen pieces of artillery and a stock of less than 40 kilograms of black powder. Warfare was never to be the same again. Gunpowder weapons now reduced the chivalrous knight to the same vulnerable status as the common foot soldier; the castles and city walls of the pre-gunpowder age were rendered all but obsolete. Great innovators emerged during this war, including Bertrand de Guesclin, the Constable of France, who introduced the ‘scorched earth’ tactic as a way of denying the enemy any means of living off the land. However, despite the fact that gunpowder weapons had now begun to make an appearance on the battlefield there are remarkably few contemporary references to the presence or efficacy of such weapons.

The Battle of Crecy in 1346 was one of the most significant engagements between France and England during the Hundred Years War. At Crecy the army of Edward III of England comprised some 3,000 men-at-arms and knights, 10,000 archers and many others serving as infantrymen. The French army numbered some 60,000 troops, of whom 12,000 were heavy cavalry. Among the French troops were about 6,000 Genoese crossbowmen serving as mercenaries. It had rained briefly but intensely just before the two armies clashed. The French cavalrymen mounted one charge after another and each time they were broken by the withering fire from the longbowmen in Edward’s army. Each archer was capable of shooting at least six arrows per minute (some very experienced archers maintain a rate of ten arrows per minute), presenting at least 60,000 arrows a minute. This must have been enough to shatter any charge, no matter how determined. The Genoese crossbowmen tried to engage the English archers but the distance between the two forces was too great for their short-range crossbow bolts to carry and the strings of their weapons had been dampened by the rain, further reducing their usefulness. Coming under fire from the English archers, who had kept their bow strings dry during the storm, the Genoese troops broke file and fled. The French launched fifteen or sixteen assaults before giving up. They left behind over 1,500 dead knights and between 10,000 and 20,000 men-at-arms and infantrymen.

From this brief description the battle sounds ordinary in its conduct. However, it is generally accepted as being the engagement where the English Army deployed gunpowder artillery for the first time. An Italian chronicler, Villani, blamed the artillery in Edward’s army for prompting the Genoese crossbowmen to leave their posts. Villani states that Edward sited his artillery among his archers’ positions and describes its effect as being ‘most fearful’. Another account says that the pieces ‘with fire throw little balls to frighten and destroy horses’. But no matter how unused some of the troops may have been to gunfire, given the fact that Edward only had three or five slow-firing pieces, the Italian chronicler was probably simply making excuses for the lack of moral fibre shown by his fellow countrymen in battle. It is hardly likely that Edward III’s artillery caused even a small percentage of the deaths at Crecy.

In general, gunpowder weapons deployed at this time seem to have achieved mixed results at best, frequently making little contribution to the tactical outcome of an engagement. Despite this fact, the pattern was set by which all subsequent wars would be fought. Therefore, one has to try to ascertain why artillery, which at this time was being issued with a daily allowance of gunpowder weighing barely 300 grams and producing desultory returns for the expenditure of time, effort and money involved, should have been deployed at all. It boils down to the simple fact that if one side has such weaponry, it will use it to try to influence the outcome of a battle.

The widespread use and acceptance of gunpowder weapons on the battlefield did not to come until the mid-fifteenth century at the Battle of Castillon in 1453, the last major engagement of the Hundred Years War. Here the French employed their cannon to great effect and defeated the English, securing a conclusive end to more than a century of intermittent fighting. By this time gunpowder artillery was spreading across Western Europe and having more of an impact on warfare than in the Far East where the compound had been discovered.

Early gunpowder projectors were crude by any standards and would have been very difficult to control during firing. They were no more than simple vase- or bell-shaped devices, weighing between 12 and 15 kilograms, with a thickened base into which a small hole was bored. This part of the weapon contained the powder and came to be called the chamber. The small hole in the base allowed the firer to insert a hot iron to ignite the powder charge. The devices had wide, slightly flared openings at the muzzle and were simply placed on the ground, which would have done nothing for their accuracy. They were probably used simply to produce a loud noise to startle the enemy and his horses. It has to be remembered that the loudest noises most people heard up to this time were thunder storms and the pealing of church bells. The sound of an igniting gunpowder weapon would have been quite startling.

There is evidence that the first projectiles for these early artillery pieces were no more than large arrows, the shafts of which were bound with leather to fit the barrel, which was usually between 50 and 75mm diameter. Examples of these pots de fer were uncovered at an archaeological site at Losholt in Sweden in 1861. The site in Scania cannot be accurately dated because of the lack of other evidence, but the objects’ appearance conforms with the shape of devices shown in manuscripts. This has allowed archaeologists to set a tentative date for the site at early to mid-fourteenth century, perhaps 1350 to 1375. The weapons’ users may have been killed and because other troops were not versed in how to operate the equipment, it was left where it lay. Another possibility is that once all the gunpowder had been used, there was no point in carrying a weapon that could no longer be fired. Whatever the reason, the troops using these cannon must have been most careless with them, despite the huge manufacturing costs involved in their production. These conclusions are supported by evidence from a number of such finds unearthed during battlefield excavations.

Bigger cannon had to be strapped to a trestle and pointed in the general direction of the intended target, which was usually a castle or town under siege. Another option was to secure the barrels to a board which could be angled on an earthen rampart to provide some form of elevation in a rough aim determined by line-of-sight and the gunner’s eye – a technique known today as direct fire. The energy produced in the recoil of the discharging weapon, however, would knock the barrel askew and it would have to be repositioned after every firing.

The projectile, when fired at a target the size of a castle or city, would impact on one point of a fortification and destroy it by sheer weight and kinetic energy, if it struck hard enough. Initially, projectiles were shaped by masons, who used whatever stocks of stone were available at the site of the siege. Projectiles were approximately spherical, but their size was not consistent and they often fitted poorly. As a result, the stones frequently did not travel far enough or with sufficient energy to do significant damage to the target. Poorly fitting stone balls also resulted in a lot of powder being shot from the weapon without imparting any propellant force to the projectile. Furthermore, stones could shatter on contact with thick, unyielding walls. However, less powder was needed to propel them than heavier iron projectiles. It was only when cast-iron projectiles of a consistent calibre were introduced, along with improved gunpowder with a good rate of burn, that these deficiencies were addressed.

Early gunpowder weapons must have been inaccurate and a victim would have been counted unfortunate in the extreme to have been hit directly. But the possibility of such an incident could not be dismissed entirely. Furthermore, early cannon were not entirely fail-safe and could explode on firing. This could occur when too much black powder was used by inexperienced crews during loading, which led to a build-up of pressure inside the gun and caused the weak metal to explode with great force. Such an accident happened in 1408 during the siege of Harlech Castle, Wales, when a bombard called The King’s Daughter in the artillery train of Henry V exploded. The siege action was conducted by John Talbot in command of a force of over 1,000 men supported by several bombards, at least one of which fired stone balls of 560mm diameter.

Reference to The King’s Daughter is made again in 1415, when it was used at the siege of Harfleur between 18 August and 4 October. It is quite possible that the piece was manufactured at the beginning of the fifteenth century as Henry IV built up his artillery train. If this was the case, Henry V would surely have inherited the piece at his father’s death in 1413. The short history of this named weapon leads to the conclusion that gunpowder artillery was either so highly prized that even damaged pieces were repaired whenever possible, in order to permit continued use, or replacements were made using the same name. The theory that weapons were repaired seems the more likely because of the high cost of manufacturing new pieces.

During the 200 years after its first recorded appearance in European history, either directly or indirectly, artillery was to inflict an increasing number of notable fatalities on the battlefield. Among the prominent figures killed by gunpowder weaponry in the fifteenth century was Lord Salisbury, who was taken by cannon-ball at the the siege of Orleans in 1429. Other early high-profile casualties of cannon fire included Giovanni de Medici in 1526, and John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, whose death at the Battle of Castillon in 1453 was contributed to by a cannon-ball – his horse was killed by the ball and while he was on the ground he was attacked by a man-at-arms. The exact toll that artillery fire took of ordinary men-at-arms, such as halberdiers and archers, will never be known because their lowly status made them a peripheral battlefield statistic for the chroniclers. But in due course these infantry troops would become referred to as ‘cannon-fodder’, a term that would last well into the twentieth century.

It must be remembered that the longbow was still very much in use at the time and, with an accurate range of 200 yards, was still very much weapon to be reckoned with. However, the trend to replace the longbow with gunpowder weapons was already beginning to gather pace. The matchlock harquebus may have only been accurate to 50 yards, but it took considerably less time to train a man to use it than it did to create a skilled longbowmen. Less skilled troops could now be armed and put in the field. Light artillery pieces called sakers could fire a 5-pound projectile out to 350 yards and a medium culverin could fire a 17-pound projectile out to 350 yards, both with some degree of accuracy – which is to say, in the general direction of the target. The heavier gunpowder artillery weapons of the period had a maximum range of 1,700 yards with iron projectiles and 2,500 yards with stone balls, which far out-ranged archers. Even when these early cannon-balls landed in open ground, their slow rolling motion belied their sheer energy. Unprotected and poorly informed infantry must have suffered broken limbs and ruptured organs when struck by such a force.

MANUFACTURE

Cast bronze pots de fer may have been widely used. Examples have been uncovered at various battle and siege sites, such as the Hessian Castle at Tannenburg, which itself was destroyed by artillery fire in 1399. These discoveries show just how much the design of early pieces was influenced by the shape of bells. A number of military historians, including John Keegan in A History of Warfare, have put forward the theory that bell foundries were used to cast barrels in the early days of artillery development. Such foundries had been established as early as the eighth century. The artisans who worked in them understood the potential problems involved in casting difficult shapes and knew how to handle large quantities of molten metal – bronze at the time. Bell foundries continued to meet orders for artillery barrels until a demand developed for larger weapons. Then foundrymen could not cope with the increased amount of molten metal required in pouring a single-piece casting.

In order to overcome the problem of supply, artillery designers turned to coopers who were skilled in the art of making wooden barrels using staves, or strips, to build up a tube-like container. Using the same principles, coopers placed billets of heated iron around a wooden former, known as a mandrel, and secured them in place with outer hoops heated to white-hot temperatures before hammer-welding the whole structure to form a tube. As the outer hoops cooled they contracted around the assembly and held everything in place. Each billet or strip of iron was worked by a blacksmith and could take many hours to forge. The process of producing a cannon by this method had to be carried out in stages and could take many days. Depending on the length of the barrel, some weapons could have between twenty-four and thirty-five outer hoops shrunk on to them and hammer-welded to secure them in place. The central mandrel was then removed and the cylindrical barrel of the cannon was ready. Known as either ‘bar and bobbin’ or ‘hoop and stave’, this stackened method of manufacturing cannon probably gave rise to the term ‘barrel’ being applied to this part of the weapon.

A description from 1375 of building up a hoop-and-stave barrel appears in the writings of Jehan le Mercier, a counsellor to Philip VI of France, who was instructed to organize the manufacture of ‘un grand canon de fer’. This document is probably the earliest source to recount exactly how barrels were built. It says the work required the services of three master smiths, one common smith, eight assistants and one labourer. They erected three forges in the market-place at Caen, Normandy, and set to forging 2,300 pounds (some 1,000 kilograms) of iron. Mercier tells how the barrel of the weapon was built up using longitudinal bars of iron, which had been forged into shape and then welded together using heat and hammering. Hooped bands of wrought iron were then heated and fitted over the cylinder to secure the bars in place. After this, the whole was wrapped with 40 kilograms of rope, which was tightly bound, and leather hides were stitched on top. This outer covering would have guarded the gun against the elements, but the additional protection such a pliable layer would offer to the men serving the weapon if the barrel were to burst on firing should also be considered. This work was conducted at a time when iron cost the equivalent of 5 new pence per kilogram. This would put the bill for manufacturing this particular weapon at £50 for raw materials alone; there would, of course, have been an additional cost for the labour. This was a considerable sum for the period and one that only the richest and most influential men could afford.

The design of weapons of this period did not give a proper gas-tight seal at the breech end and to overcome this problem some were manufactured to be loaded from the breech, that is to say rear, end of the gun. Weapons made in this manner were sometimes referred to as bombards and varied in size and the weight of the projectile they could fire. An example of this type of weapon recovered from the moat of Bodiam Castle, Sussex, has been calculated to have used a charge of 1.36 kilograms of black powder to fire a projectile of 375mm diameter.

Cast bronze or wrought iron were to remain the only metals available for making barrels until the sixteenth century when brass was introduced. However, there was much variation in the way the metals were worked. These differences probably stem from the fact that local metal-working traditions were followed and the skill of blacksmiths varied. Bronze could cost up to ten times more than wrought iron and was difficult to work, but it did have the advantage of lasting longer.

At this time artillery was undergoing transition in China. One of the first cannon to come to light from this period has been dated to 1288 and consists of a cast-iron barrel surrounded by several strengthening bands. It is 1 metre in length, has a calibre of just over 25mm and may have been mounted on a pivot. From this design the Chinese then turned to the stackened or hoop-and-stave method of constructing cannon barrels. It is not entirely clear who copied whom in this arms development race. One Chinese piece was referred to as the ‘thousand-ball thunder cannon’ and illustrations of the period show such weapons being used in the same way as contemporary European ones. The Fire-Drake Artillery Manual (1412) mentions a Chinese cannon that weighed 72 kilograms and refers to it as the ‘long-range awe-inspiring cannon’. This weapon could be loaded with a single lead ball weighing 1.2 kilograms or a sack containing up to 100 small lead balls and was fired by a charge of 250 grams of powder. The latter type of projectile must have had a similar effect to grapeshot which was at the time unknown in Europe.

BOMBARDS AND CANNON

Larger pieces of gunpowder artillery, known as bombards, were often muzzle-loaded and because of their great size were only of real use during sieges of either castles or walled towns. Such weapons were transported on horse-drawn carts and placed either directly on the ground or on a specially constructed wooden platform. The rear or breech end of the weapon butted up against huge baulks of timber which had been hammered into the ground to keep the weapon steady during firing. Dragging such artillery around the battlefield was labour intensive and was not considered tactically important to the conduct of battle. Indeed, to haul such monster weapons without the aid of a proper carriage or wheels would have been counter-productive and an extravagant waste of resources. It was not uncommon for cannon only to fire several opening shots during a battle before being silenced because fighting had developed in front of their positions. In this situation the gunners would have to hold fire for fear of hitting their own troops.

Bombards were not made to a set size and examples of this type of weapon are known to have existed with lengths between 3.65 and 5.49 metres, and bore diameters ranging from 380 to 460mm. Many fine examples are held in museums around the world and manuscripts indicate that some bombards were known to be capable of firing a 500mm calibre cannon-ball out to ranges of some 3,000 metres. The bombard was a favoured weapon design and its use continued throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One of the most famous ever be manufactured is known as ‘Mons Meg’ or ‘Munce’ and can still be seen today in Edinburgh Castle, Scotland. This piece of artillery is believed to have been cast in Burgundy for Duke Philip the Good between 1449 and 1450. It is indicative of the type of weapons being manufactured at the time and in a style which had already been common some fifty to eighty years earlier.

One early method of breech-loading pieces of artillery – in use at the same time as the muzzle-loaders – required that removable pots be inserted into the breech opening. A stout wooden wedge would be hammered into place to secure the pot in position. After the pre-loaded pot had been inserted into the chamber, a hot wire was applied to the touch hole to ignite the powder. Among the earliest breech-loading weapons was a piece called a peterara, which used the pre-loaded pot method and was formed using the built-up hoop-and-stave method of construction. It was not an entirely satisfactory design because gas-proof sealing could not be achieved at the breech and the staves were prone to separate after a number of firings. But, even though the design was dangerous, it was to remain in service until the mid-fifteenth century when single-piece barrel casting became possible again after advances in the techniques of handling molten metals.

The pots de fer method of breech loading cannon is believed to have first appeared in the 1370s. The pots were pre-loaded with a charge of gunpowder and a wad between it and the cannon-ball. Such devices could be readied in advance of any actual fighting: there is a record from 1372 of a gun for which three such pre-loaded chambers, or pots, were kept in order to speed up the rate of firing. If a number of such devices were prepared in advance, and stored in dry conditions, a relatively high rate of fire could be attained – something in the order of one shot every four or five minutes, producing ten to fifteen shots per hour, which was faster than could be achieved with normal muzzle-loading types.

The pots were quite advanced castings for the day, incorporating a handle for ease of use, into which an opening for the touch hole was bored. The walls of some pre-loaded pots were as much as 1.5 times the calibre of the projectile discharged in order to prevent the breech end of the barrel from bursting, because it was at this point that the sudden build up of gas pressure would occur when the charge was fired. Another advantage of such pots was that the weapon could be unloaded for safety when not required.

Muzzle-loaded cannon were much slower to prepare for firing and required a member of the crew to place some powder into the chamber of the cannon using a long-handled wooden ladle or scoop, followed by a wad of cloth or straw. After this was rammed down, the ball, either iron or stone, was inserted and some fine priming powder poured into the vent opening. A piece of red-hot wire was inserted into the opening to fire the weapon. After firing, a member of the crew had to swab out the barrel with a bundle of wet rags or wool on a long wooden pole to remove any unburned powder and extinguish any remaining powder that might still be smouldering. The loading sequence could then be repeated. This loading and firing sequence was to remain standard practice for centuries, being refined only slightly over the years. Indeed, it was virtually unaltered when bagged charges of gunpowder were introduced at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a change that was to speed up greatly the loading process and make the handling of gunpowder much safer. However, even though breech-loaders were faster to reload, it was far more simple to make a barrel with only one opening and muzzle-loaders continued to hold sway for centuries.

Towards the end of the fourteenth century, artillery pieces were being given different names to distinguish sizes and types of gun. Some of these titles were derived from mythical beasts and others were the names of real animals, such as falcon, saker and shrimp. In England there were bombards, falcons, sakers, culverins and basilisks. In the Burgundian Army the artillery train contained weapons called veuglaries