Cannon
[17][20] The cannon may have appeared as early as the 12th century in China,[1] and was probably a parallel development or evolution of the fire-lance, a short ranged anti-personnel weapon combining a gunpowder-filled tube and a polearm.
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.
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.
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.
[61] Needham argued that the term midfa, 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.
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.
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).
[38] 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.
[101] While previous smaller guns could burn down structures with fire, larger and more powerful cannons forced engineers to develop stronger castle walls from enemy attacks.
[102] In The Art of War, Niccolò Machiavelli opined that field artillery forced an army to take up a defensive posture and opposed a more ideal offensive stance.
[125] Believing that war was as much a science as an art,[126] his explanations focused on triangulation, arithmetic, theoretical mathematics,[127] and cartography[125] as well as practical considerations such as the ideal specification for gunpowder or slow matches.
[128] His book acknowledged mathematicians such as Robert Recorde and Marcus Jordanus as well as earlier military writers on artillery such as Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia and Thomas (or Francis[129]) Malthus (author of A Treatise on Artificial Fire-Works[130]).
[131] In the latter half of the 17th century, the French engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban introduced a more systematic and scientific approach to attacking gunpowder fortresses, in a time when many field commanders "were notorious dunces in siegecraft".
[136] 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 90 m (300 ft), and could dismast even the largest ships at close range.
[138] The carronade 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.
He ordered Joachim Murat 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.
[155] 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.
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.
[161] Realising that iron was more difficult to pierce with breech-loaded cannons, Armstrong designed rifled muzzle-loading guns,[162] which proved successful; The Times 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.
For example, in the First Opium War in China, during the 19th century, British battleships bombarded the coastal areas and fortifications from afar, safe from the reach of the Chinese cannons.
[164] The cynical attitude towards recruited infantry in the face of ever more powerful field artillery is the source of the term cannon fodder, first used by François-René de Chateaubriand, in 1814;[165] however, the concept of regarding soldiers as nothing more than "food for powder" was mentioned by William Shakespeare as early as 1598, in Henry IV, Part 1.
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.
The warhead, which weighed 24 pounds (11 kg), had a circular error of probability of 50 m (160 ft), and was mounted on a rocket, to increase the effective range to 100 nmi (190 km), further than that of the Paris Gun.
[190] 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.
[191] While there is no minimum bore for autocannons, they are generally larger than machine guns, typically 20 mm (0.79 in) or greater since World War II and are usually capable of using explosive ammunition even if it is not always used.
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.
Gun in this context specifically refers to a type of cannon that fires projectiles at high speeds, and usually at relatively low angles;[169] they have been used in warships,[198] and as field artillery.
The "Quaker Gun trick" was used by Colonel William Washington's Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War; in 1780, approximately 100 Loyalists surrendered to them, rather than face bombardment.
[212] A recording of that song has accompanied the firing of an authentic reproduction of a M1857 12-pounder Napoleon during Columbus Blue Jackets goal celebrations at Nationwide Arena since opening night of the 2007–08 season.
[216] The Pittsburgh Steelers used one only during the 1962 campaign but discontinued it after Buddy Dial was startled by inadvertently running face-first into the cannon's smoky discharge in a 42–27 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
