Artillery Through the Ages | Page 3

with hoops.]
The ponderosity of the large bombards held them to level land, where they were laid on rugged mounts of the heaviest wood, anchored by stakes driven into the ground. A gunner would try to put his bombard 100 yards from the wall he wanted to batter down. One would surmise that the gunner, being so close to a castle wall manned by expert Genoese cross-bowmen, was in a precarious position. He was; but earthworks or a massive wooden shield arranged like a seesaw over his gun gave him fair protection. Lowering the front end of the shield made a barricade behind which he could charge his muzzle loader (see fig. 49).
In those days, and for many decades thereafter, neither gun crews nor transport were permanent. They had to be hired as they were needed. Master gunners were usually civilian "artists," not professional soldiers, and many of them had cannon built for rental to customers. Artillerists obtained the right to captured metals such as tools and town bells, and this loot would be cast into guns or ransomed for cash. The making of guns and gunpowder, the loading of bombs, and even the serving of cannon were jealously guarded trade secrets. Gunnery was a closed corporation, and the gunner himself a guildsman. The public looked upon him as something of a sorcerer in league with the devil, and a captured artilleryman was apt to be tortured and mutilated. At one time the Pope saw fit to excommunicate all gunners. Also since these specialists kept to themselves and did not drink or plunder, their behavior was ample proof to the good soldier of the old days that artillerists were hardly human.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY CANNON
After 1470 the art of casting greatly improved in Europe. Lighter cannon began to replace the bombards. Throughout the 1500's improvement was mainly toward lightening the enormous weights of guns and projectiles, as well as finding better ways to move the artillery. Thus, by 1556 Emperor Ferdinand was able to march against the Turks with 57 heavy and 127 light pieces of ordnance.
At the beginning of the 1400's cast-iron balls had made an appearance. The greater efficiency of the iron ball, together with an improvement in gunpowder, further encouraged the building of smaller and stronger guns. Before 1500 the siege gun had been the predominant piece. Now forged-iron cannon for field, garrison, and naval service--and later, cast-iron pieces--were steadily developed along with cast-bronze guns, some of which were beautifully ornamented with Renaissance workmanship. The casting of trunnions on the gun made elevation and transportation easier, and the cumbrous beds of the early days gave way to crude artillery carriages with trails and wheels. The French invented the limber and about 1550 took a sizable forward step by standardizing the calibers of their artillery.
Meanwhile, the first cannon had come to the New World with Columbus. As the Pinta's lookout sighted land on the early morn of October 12, 1492, the firing of a lombard carried the news over the moonlit waters to the flagship Santa María. Within the next century, not only the galleons, but numerous fortifications on the Spanish Main were armed with guns, thundering at the freebooters who disputed Spain's ownership of American treasure. Sometimes the adventurers seized cannon as prizes, as did Drake in 1586 when he made off with 14 bronze guns from St. Augustine's little wooden fort of San Juan de Pinos. Drake's loot no doubt included the ordnance of a 1578 list, which gives a fair idea of the armament for an important frontier fortification: three reinforced cannon, three demiculverins, two sakers (one broken), a demisaker and a falcon, all properly mounted on elevated platforms in the fort to cover every approach. Most of them were highly ornamented pieces founded between 1546 and 1555. The reinforced cannon, for instance, which seem to have been cast from the same mold, each bore the figure of a savage hefting a club in one hand and grasping a coin in the other. On a demiculverin, a bronze mermaid held a turtle, and the other guns were decorated with arms, escutcheons, the founder's name, and so on.
In the English colonies during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, lighter pieces seem to have been the more prevalent; there is no record of any "cannon." (In those days, "cannon" were a special class.) Culverins are mentioned occasionally and demiculverins rather frequently, but most common were the falconets, falcons, minions, and sakers. At Fort Raleigh, Jamestown, Plymouth, and some other settlements the breech-loading half-pounder perrier or "Patterero" mounted on a swivel was also in use. (See frontispiece.)
It was during the sixteenth century that the science of ballistics had its beginning. In 1537, Niccolo Tartaglia published the first scientific treatise on gunnery. Principles of construction were tried and sometimes abandoned, only to reappear