Artillery

This development continues today; modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility generally providing the largest share of an army's total firepower.

Batteries are roughly equivalent to a company in the infantry, and are combined into larger military organizations for administrative and operational purposes, either battalions or regiments, depending on the army.

However, during the modern period, the consideration of protecting the gunners also arose due to the late-19th-century introduction of the new generation of infantry weapons using conoidal bullet, better known as the Minié ball, with a range almost as long as that of field artillery.

Another suggestion is that it originates from the 13th century and the Old French artillier, designating craftsmen and manufacturers of all materials and warfare equipments (spears, swords, armor, war machines); and, for the next 250 years, the sense of the word "artillery" covered all forms of military weapons.

Mechanical systems used for throwing ammunition in ancient warfare, also known as "engines of war", like the catapult, onager, trebuchet, and ballista, are also referred to by military historians as artillery.

These cannons varied between 180 and 260 pounders, weighing anywhere between 3–8 tons, measuring between 3–6 m.[27] Between 1593 and 1597, about 200,000 Korean and Chinese troops which fought against Japan in Korea actively used heavy artillery in both siege and field combat.

The Fall of Constantinople was perhaps "the first event of supreme importance whose result was determined by the use of artillery" when the huge bronze cannons of Mehmed II breached the city's walls, ending the Byzantine Empire, according to Sir Charles Oman.

[30] Bombards developed in Europe were massive smoothbore weapons distinguished by their lack of a field carriage, immobility once emplaced, highly individual design, and noted unreliability (in 1460 James II, King of Scots, was killed when one exploded at the siege of Roxburgh).

Gustavus Adolphus is identified as the general who made cannon an effective force on the battlefield—pushing the development of much lighter and smaller weapons and deploying them in far greater numbers than previously.

[dubious – discuss] The 1650 book by Kazimierz Siemienowicz Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima[34] was one of the most important contemporary publications on the subject of artillery.

[31] This led, among other things, to a frenzy of new bastion-style fortifications to be built all over Europe and in its colonies, but also had a strong integrating effect on emerging nation-states, as kings were able to use their newfound artillery superiority to force any local dukes or lords to submit to their will, setting the stage for the absolutist kingdoms to come.

Production started in 1855 at the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, and the outcome was the revolutionary Armstrong Gun, which marked the birth of modern artillery.

This spin, together with the elimination of windage as a result of the tight fit, enabled the gun to achieve greater range and accuracy than existing smooth-bore muzzle-loaders with a smaller powder charge.

The first radar proximity fuzes (perhaps originally codenamed 'VT' and later called Variable Time (VT)) were invented by the British and developed by the US and initially used against aircraft in World War II.

It had many disadvantages as a propellant; it has relatively low power, requiring large amounts of powder to fire projectiles, and created thick clouds of white smoke that would obscure the targets, betray the positions of guns, and make aiming impossible.

A metal case holds an integral primer to initiate the propellant and provides the gas seal to prevent the gases leaking out of the breech; this is called obturation.

The main functions in the field artillery system are: All these calculations to produce a quadrant elevation (or range) and azimuth were done manually using instruments, tabulated, data of the moment, and approximations until battlefield computers started appearing in the 1960s and 1970s.

There were also other types excluding the armament fitted to warships: After World War I many nations merged these different artillery branches, in some cases keeping some as sub-branches.

After that war, most mortars settled on the Stokes pattern, characterized by a short barrel, smooth bore, low muzzle velocity, elevation angle of firing generally greater than 45°, and a very simple and light mounting using a "baseplate" on the ground.

Two other forms of tactical propulsion were used in the first half of the 20th century: Railways or transporting the equipment by road, as two or three separate loads, with disassembly and re-assembly at the beginning and end of the journey.

Broadly they can be defined as either: Two other NATO terms also need definition: The tactical purposes also include various "mission verbs", a rapidly expanding subject with the modern concept of "effects based operations".

The extent to which the process is formal or informal and makes use of computer based systems, documented norms or experience and judgement also varies widely armies and other circumstances.

There are several ways of making best use of this brief window of maximum vulnerability: Modern counter-battery fire developed in World War I, with the objective of defeating the enemy's artillery.

In some situations the task is to locate all active enemy batteries for attack using a counter-battery fire at the appropriate moment in accordance with a plan developed by artillery intelligence staff.

Modern field artillery (post–World War I) has three distinct parts: the Forward Observer (FO), the Fire Direction Center (FDC) and the actual guns themselves.

Other parts of the field artillery team include meteorological analysis to determine the temperature, humidity and pressure of the air and wind direction and speed at different altitudes.

A technique called time on target (TOT) was developed by the British Army in North Africa at the end of 1941 and early 1942 particularly for counter-battery fire and other concentrations, it proved very popular.

[87] The Archer project (developed by BAE-Systems Bofors in Sweden) is a 155 mm howitzer on a wheeled chassis which is claimed to be able to deliver up to six shells on target simultaneously from the same gun.

The 120 mm twin barrel AMOS mortar system, joint developed by Hägglunds (Sweden) and Patria (Finland),[88] is capable of 7 + 7 shells MRSI.

This is a very effective tactic against infantry and light vehicles, because it scatters the fragmentation of the shell over a larger area and prevents it from being blocked by terrain or entrenchments that do not include some form of robust overhead cover.