Rise and development of the artillery
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the artillery developed into a weapon capable of destroying stone walls. The roundels in Maastricht are a first answer to this. After this stormy development, spectacular improvements were not made until the nineteenth century, such as the recoilless gun mount, the high-explosive grenade and better gun barrels.
The oldest reliable source mentions the manufacture of bronze cannons and iron bullets in 1326 for the defense of Florence. In the second half of the 15th century and also in the first decade of the 16th century, wrought iron cannons and bombards were indispensable in the application of warfare.
• The firing of the very first cannons mainly causes noise and panic. In that time, the damage behind the barrel may also be greater than before.
• Cannons are so special at first that they get names. In Maastricht we know: Langh Greet, Royen Hont, Maeght van Triecht and Busse Bart. They have all been lost, but in Ghent we still find this Dulle Griet. The greatest of all, the chicks, were usually used for sieges, not for the defense of a city. In military terms, brill comes from brill, which means to crush or crush. Other derivations are: grut and barley. So you could shoot something to pieces with the cannon.
• The artillery, like fortification, is developing into a kind of science about which many textbooks are written.
• Maastricht is regularly under fire during sieges - such as here in 1579. Cannonballs and mortar bombs often end up in the city itself.
• Mortar bombs that explode in the middle of a city can cause great damage and of course lead to great panic among the population.
• The Maastricht Historical Artillery Association performs inside and outside the city and shows how historical cannons function.
• Historical cannons have been set up on the roundels of Haat en Nijd and De Vijf Koppen. Cannons on so-called roller horses are located in Fort Sint Pieter.
The defense used guns on gun carriages.
The trend of ever-expanding guns was broken when explosive cast iron bullets became possible and battlefields required much more maneuverable cannons.
Loading and firing guns was a very specialized part of warfare. Small guns on land were already operated by five men
This is how you prepare a cannon with a front loader:
• The barrel is dampened with a sponge to extinguish sparks and remove gunpowder residue and dirt.
• The gunpowder enters the barrel, followed by a preload of wool or twine that holds the gunpowder in place.
• The bullet is applied with a ramrod. Then follows a second preload and the whole is tamped.
• The suction hole is punctured with a clearing needle to clear the way to the powder charge.
• With a matchstick the gunpowder is ignited through the sun hole. The bullet shoots forward due to released gases.