Ancient Artillery: with Some Notes on Mons Meg. 191

ANCIENT ARTILLERY: WITH SOME NOTE MONN O S S MEG1 19 . I. ANCIENT ARTILLERY. WITH SOME NOTE MONON S S MEG. BY SIR JAMES BALFOUR PAUL, C.V.O., LL.D., F.S.A.ScoT. Artillery in the widest sense of the word—that is, offensive projectiles— is coeval with the beginnings of man: the first heing who picked up a ston thred ean wt witi h hostile inten t soma t e bird, beast r enemo , s ywa using artillery. Graduall e camh y o desirt e e greater forcd prean e- s missilescisiohi r ninventefo d ,an d bow arrowsd san , chipping flint heads for the latter, as we very well know. The sling was also an early piece of artillery, and was employed in its primitive form long after the Stone Age, witness the celebrated combat of David and Goliath. Later the sling was developed into a very formidable weapon in the shape of the catapultce d balistcee Romans—than th f o e former throwing dartsd an , the latter large stones, weighing, it is said, sometimes as much as three hundredweight. We are ignorant of their precise appearance, but there is little doubt tha Frence tth h trebuchet, use earln di y medieval timed san down to the middle of the fifteenth century, was a lineal descendant of the balista. It was a kind of sling, consisting of a long beam turning on a horizonta counterweighta s l axiwa d s en mountingborns it e n on ,eo t A . othee anth t poucra da h mad stronf eo g nettin leather go whicn ri h were placed heavy stones sometimes armed with an incendiary match. They were quite formidable weapone b o t s s the e a d timefo th t yha r bu ; firmly fixed in the ground, their range was limited and could not easil alterede yb thao s , t onc e rang eth s know ewa e enemnth y could take measure counteraco t s t their worst effects. But artillery in the modern acceptation of the word was not possible till after the invention of gunpowder. Now, it is usually stated that gun- powde knows Chinese rwa th o nt e centuries befor Christiae eth n erat bu ; latese th t authoritie f opinioo e sar n that this ide withous ai t foundation. No doub e Chinesth t e manufactured incendiary compositions \vhich burned fiercel d weran yt eout pu har ;o t dthe y alsoo t knew who make liquid fire, stink-pots othed ,an r abominations whic e Germanhth s presene usine th ar t ga t gunpowder t no day t bu ; . They had shortn i , o n , knowledg whatf eo cale w l explosives. Gunpowder, indeed, could not have been invented before the discovery f refinino t ar ge osaltpetreth f . Thi believes i s havo dt e been found out, accordin Coloneo gt l Hime latese th , t e subject,writeth n o Rogery b 1 r Hime'e 1Se s Origin f Artilleryo (London, 1915) wora , whico kt presene hth t write indebtes ri d for much of the information contained in the early part of this paper. 2 19 PROCEEDING E SOCIETYTH F O S , MARC , 1916H13 . Bacon in the middle of the thirteenth century. Its explosive property when mixed with sulphu charcoad an r s probablwa l y discovered accidentally. Bacon did not publish his discovery to the world at large, for reasons which need not be entered on here, but wrapped it up in a maze of cryptic writings only to be understood by alchemical adepts like himself. practicae th t Bu l applicatio gunpowdef no explosivn a s ra e force capable of expellin gprojectila e from some chambe r receptaclo r t takno ed edi place till long after the discovery of the substance itself. It is not till the year 1313 tha catce tw firse hth t glimps rudimentare th f eo ya gun n I . memorandum boo f thako t date belongin cite f Ghenth yo o gt t thers ei Fig . Ancien.1 t Gun, illustrate . (A.DMS . a 1327) n di . (Reproduce kiny db d permission of the authorities of Christ Church, Oxford.) an entry to the effect that " bussen" were first discovered in Germany by followine th monka n i d gan , yeanotes i t ri d that busse gunpowded nan r (or "s calledkruyt,i t i )s " a were exporte Englando t d . Bussen were originally a kind of hand grenade, and had long been known, so that nobody could possibly have said that they were first discovere 1313n di . The wor therefors di e evidentl believes sensei w d yne an ,usea o dt n di mea nkina f t gunmaythai e do B s a .t , fourteen years after thie w s librare havth n actuai f n y. eo a t occurI MS (fig l n . a pictur 1) .gu n s i a f eo Christ Church, Oxford, of date 1327. Whether it represents the gun sent Englano t 131n dknoi e 4 w archais i w t i not t c,bu enoug l conscienceal hn i . Imagine a large vase—a fat pot-bellied vase (indeed, the Italians called e earlth y guns vasi)— s nec it sides fitteks it n i laid I projectilee n . do th , consisting of a kind of magnified cross-bow quarrel or dart armed with a ANCIENT ARTILLERY: WITH SOME NOTES ON MONS MEG. 193 four-sided iron hea metal—probabld dan y brass—feathers tampioA . r no stopper must have been fitted projectile betweeth f o d e butd nth an e en t charge th f powdereo s otherwisa , e arroeth w would only have gonea few yards. It was fired from a touch-hole on the upper side of the vase, and we see the gunner applying his match. Flanders became the seat of the new industry of gun manufacture. The vase-shaped guns were soon improved upon. Small tubes of iron were next made throwing leaden projectiles: they were use groupsn di , t thebu y evidentl t provno d e ydi ver y satisfactory e gunmakerth d an , s then went to the other extreme and began to manufacture huge pieces of ordnance called bombards. These were made of longitudinal bars of forged iron arranged lik stavee ecaskth a f so , welded togethe held an rd in position by external hoops of wrought iron driven or shrunk on. Mons Meg is a good specimen of this kind of gun. These bombards—o t leasa r e smalleth t r size f them—wero s e th r efo most part breechloaders; that is, the barrel or chase of the gun was open at both ends, the powder and projectile being put in a separate chamber ope frontn i e chasy b th joined , t f i adjusteean o buto e d t th en t o t d iron wedges driven into an external case which enclosed the whole of the breech end of the gun. At first these bombards were simply laid on the ground on beams of wood and fired there. But the early gunners had to contend against several formidable disadvantages. In the first place, their gunpowder was of very poor quality, igniting with comparative slowness and fouling the gun terribly. It required, too, very careful ramming rammes homewa t loosi o df to i : t losei t mucexpulsivs it f ho e powerd an , t explodno tighd o t t allsilentldi ieto a f t ,bu ti y fizzley an d awayn i d an , cas elarga e volum escapes ga f eo d throug touch-holese hth . When, about 1419, corned powder was invented, the quality was much improved, but for long its use was confined to small pieces, as the large ones were not able withstano t shoce werdth d kan e liabl bursto et . In the second place, the early gunners were much handicapped by their total want of knowledge of recoil. In modern artillery this is overcome morn gu r les eo othey e b smord yth r yieldin an ro e, it scientifi o gt c methods into which it is unnecessary to enter. But in the old days all that coul mako t don e gunde s b eth e wa s overcom shoce eth resistin y kb g it. So they were banked up with planking and wedges and made immovable. This, of course, imposed a tremendous strain on the guns, and they burs frequentlo s t y that they were almos s greaa t sourca t e of dange enemye gunnertheio n rt th metho e ow o rTh t . s f firina sdo g increased this danger t firse gunneA th .t r approache e touch-holdth e with a red-hot wire, and he was not infrequently blown to bits. Then, to obviate this melancholy occurrence, a train of slow-burning powder VOL. L. 13 194. PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, MARCH 13, 1916. e wagunth s. f laio Thidp to alons e beinth gd en g e igniteth t a d furthest from the touch-hole, the gunners took cover, and after the explosion the n weryf hidin o gu cam et e stilgou eth f andli there, , proceede e laboriouth o t d s tas f cleaninko loadind an t gi t witgi a h new charge. A third disadvantage which the early artillery possessed was the want of change of elevation and range.

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