During both world wars, the devastating firepower of artillery resulted in a huge number of casualties, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of people. How did the gun become such a powerful weapon of war? Here are ten facts about the origin of guns you (probably) didn’t know, taken from the Casemate Short History book Big Guns by Angus Konstam.
Once considered a black art
- At first, those who created and fired the strange new weapons later known as guns were seen as practitioners of a ‘black art’ and were accused of witchcraft.
Originates in Europe from Florence
- The first evidence of artillery used in Europe was in Florence, Italy, where records show that gun founders were hired to produce bronze guns for the Florentine arsenal.
The Church didn’t want Christians using them on each other
- The Church disliked the idea of Christians waging war against each other when there were hordes of Muslims and Mongols to fight. So, to limit the scale of warfare it banned the use of such weapons within Europe.
The legendary 1,500lb bombard of Constantinople
- At the siege of Constantinople in 1453 a total of 70 guns battered the walls of the Byzantine capital, including 19 large bombards. One of them was reputedly so enormous that it fired a stone ball weighing 1,500 pounds. If this were true, this made it the largest bombard in existence.
Early artillery was too heavy and slow to haul around
- Machiavelli once wrote that Italian artillery of the late 15th and early 16th century was pulled by oxen, and usually arrived too late for a battle. Even if they did turn up, then he claimed they rarely fired more than a shot or two before the two armies clashed.
As it grew more powerful, so did the danger
- In 1879 a 12-inch RML on board HMS Thunderer was accidentally double-loaded, and it burst, killing ten men and injuring many more.
One-piece ammunition was the biggest technological breakthrough
- The creation of the Quick Firer was the real breakthrough that transformed the world of artillery. The use of fixed one-piece ammunition made loading and firing much faster, and this, combined with other developments like hydraulic buffers, reliable breech mechanisms and new types of ammunition all added to the gunnery revolution that took place at the end of the 19th century.
William Armstrong improved the powder used for guns
- It was William Armstrong who first tried to find a powder that burned more slowly than regular black powder, which in turn would make the engaging of his shells in a barrel’s rifling more effective. His solution was to introduce large grain powder, which burned at a slightly slower rate, and therefore developed its full explosive power a little more gradually.
Big guns led to some big arms races
- The appearance of the Dreadnought, with larger guns than had ever been seen before, ushered in an Anglo-German naval arms race that heightened international tension, and arguably led indirectly to the outbreak of the world war.
Even by WWI nobody knew how many shells were needed
- Before August 1914 nobody could have predicted just how many shells would be needed in combat. It was later calculated that during the first months of the war German guns averaged a thousand rounds per day.
For more fascinating facts and anecdotes on the history of artillery, read Big Guns: Artillery on the Battlefield, part of the brand new Casemate Short History series.
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