The Artillery

The Artillery
Gunpowder originated in China in the seventh or eight century AD and arrived in western Europe towards the end of the thirteenth century.

The first cannon appeared in Flanders around 1314, England in 1321 and France in 1326, but artillery did not play an important role in battle until Castillon in 1453.

Around 1460 in France, cast bronze barrels replaced the old welded and bound iron guns – by 1543, iron cannon were cast in England.

Charles VIII of France took 266 cannon to Italy in 1494, and at Marignano (1515) Francis I assembled 40 cannon, a ratio of five guns per 1,000 men.

Learning from the lessons of the battle of Marignano, La Bicocca (1522) and Pavia (1525), monarchs generally improved their artillery.

The army raised in 1544 y King Ferdinand of Hungary and Bohemia to fight the Turks included 60 siege cannon, 80 field guns, 200,000 cannon balls and 500 tons of gunpowder, transported by 1,000 horses.

During the second half of the sixteenth century, a ratio of at least one cannon half of the sixteenth century, a ratio of at least one cannon per 1,000 men was considered essential.

Prince Maurice of Orange-Nassau reduced the Dutch artillery to four calibers (6-, 12-, 24- and 48 pounders) which could be mounted interchangeably on standardized carriages.

This provoked little imitation until the Thirty Years Way; Spain continued to fight the Dutch with fifty models divided amongst twenty calibers.

Gustavus Adolphus further improved the manufacture and application of artillery. His Swedish army possessed one gun per 400 men, whereas its imperial opponents in Germany had one per 2,000. He also reduced the length and weight of barrels to enhance mobility.

The infantry guns, some of which were the famous ‘leather guns’, cast copper barrels reinforced with leather and rope, were extremely light (625 pounds.

After his death at Lutzen (1632), however, many of Gustavus’s artillery reforms lapsed and were not extensively imitated until the 1690s.
The Artillery