When did cannons come into use in Europe during the middle ages/medieval period for artillery and/or naval warfare?
Was there a period in time where gunpowder cannons were used before the implementation of smaller, individual firearms? Specifically, was there a time in Medieval Europe where cannons were used in naval warfare or for sieges or field artillery while melee weapons (lances, polearms, swords, axes, etc...) and bows/crossbows were still the main weapons of warfare and personal firearms either weren't around or weren't used much if at all?
If yes, when and why were gunpowder cannons more widely used before muskets/rifles/firearms? Were cannons easier to make and use during the early development of gunpowder weaponry or was there some other reason?
Finally, do you know of any examples of battles from the medieval period(s) where the primary means of attack was still sharp and blunt melee weapons, bows and cavalry while cannon were still used to some degree? This goes for naval engagements or land warfare.
(Age of sail stuff doesn't fit this description because the navies of the time had rifles and pistols even if they primarily relied on broadside cannons and boarding pikes/cutlasses... and it is generally not part of the medieval period)
Gunpowder weaponry pretty much started in the east and traveled westward with the Middle East building the first usage of it as we know it (then proceeded to use it to destroy the Byzantine Empire). Naturally the Europeans reverse engineered it with the first major usage of it being in the 100 year war.
handcannons (forerunners of firearms) weren't all that useful in the beginning. It couldn't pierce armor, bows had more range, crossbows were quicker, and it was a bitch to use (you didn't even have a way to aim the damn thing). In the meantime cannon was useful as fuck because you can smash through a castle easily so you don't have to wait in month long sieges, expand your troops on a suicide charge, or use awkward siege equipment that would not actually do anything.
Asher Brooks
This basically.
It started being used in the 1300s in Europe and gradually got better over time.
Bentley Thompson
and keep in mind that it isn't the firearms themselves that made the Euros have the advantage over the world.
It was their mass-production that allowed them to pump out mass numbers of them and their ammo that allowed it to happen.
Joshua Sanchez
>It couldn't pierce armor It could. musketeer.ch/blackpowder/handgonne.html > crossbows were quicker There are videos of speed shooting >it was a bitch to use Learn to aim; no shit it takes time to figure out how to work the thing.
Jeremiah Flores
I've read that at 1600 only around 10% of soldiers in Europe were equipped with firearms. By 1700 They were standard issue in virtually all armies and infantry polearms were replaced by bayonets.
Jeremiah Flores
well yeah in very close range, but please note that the first usage of "bulletproof" appeared in the reinsurance age.
Not to say that you can't aim, but look at it. That hole on it is the fuse that you have to light to shoot the thing not to mention recoil.
>There are videos of speed shooting >speedshooting handcannons post video or it didn't happen
Logan Walker
>I've read that at 1600 only around 10% of soldiers in Europe were equipped with firearms I guess it's not impossible.
Cavalry could do a lot with just swords/lances, which is also true much later.
I was trying to look at specific wars at the time, like the nine years world between ireland and england, apparently one of the failures of the irish mentioned was that they failed to see the importance of pikemen, so I doubt they knew enough to line up with guns. Also the british took down their castles with heavy artillery, while even with captured artillery the irish couldn't really return the favor since they lacked the expertise.
Landon Morgan
youtube.com/watch?v=AD6SbAzdvc8 youtube.com/watch?v=FRsNzTH-xHk >That hole on it is the fuse that you have to light to shoot the thing not to mention recoil The serpentine (first seen in 1411, so in the period) was invented exactly for that. Recoil of a charge of around 3 grams is pretty light; iirc most people using napoleonic era muskets would have used around 4 - 4.5 grams but im not totally sure. Around 70-80 yards with good accuracy isn't bad. Crossbows and bows could out range it no doubt, that's why they remained relevant as long as they did
Christian Harris
before the tercio the battlefield was pikemen/swordsmen vs bowmen/crossbowmen and cannons in the back wrecking shit
Hudson Williams
This
Technological development is only useful if it can be mass-produced.
Jordan Perez
>reinsurance age >ooooh magnifico mi insurance will cover the explozzionasso in my laboratorionni
Jack Torres
Interesting side note >The origin of the English word gun is considered to derive from the name given to a particular historical weapon. Domina Gunilda was the name given to a remarkably large ballista, a mechanical bolt throwing weapon of enormous size, mounted at Windsor Castle during the 14th century. This name in turn may have derived from the Old Norse woman's proper name Gunnhildr which combines two Norse words referring to battle.[3] In any case the term gonne or gunne was applied to early hand-held firearms by the late 14th or early 15th century.
Cooper Roberts
johan pls.
Jayden Lewis
>Domina Gunilda someone needs to make a sci-fi weapon with that name
Oliver Perez
I thought the Ottoman cannons that topped the walls of Constantinople were from Germany or Austria.
Benjamin Taylor
they were from Hungary
Jack Gomez
The barrel of the early cannons was not made of one piece, but of several pieces of wrought iron wrapped around each other and covered by rings which, when cooled, would shrink and seal them more or less tightly. Since I have never seen an individual firearm made with this process, I assume that it was harder to do on a small arm than on a cannon. From what I have seen, the barrel of the first handguns was still very short and this can only imply that they lacked in power. Therefore, I assume that individual firearms weren't viable or efficient enough to replace crossbows before further refinements of metallurgy allowed the technique of making single-piece long barrels.
Luke Nguyen
By 1326 they were in Europe.
By the 1350s they fired large arrows or a loose mixture or shards, stone and balls. Bit like a big shotgun.
By the 1370s we see handheld firearms which were basically tubes on a stick
By the 1380s the Duke of Burgundy had invested enough in cannons for it to turn into something we recognize today. It was around this time that cannons for the first time shot shot weighing as much as 100kg and threw down castle walls in Northern France. Lighter cannons firing a single roundshot were now also first used in field battles.
By the 1410-20s we see armies like the Hussites using handheld firearms alongside more numerous crossbows. Gunpowder production is also refined to the point where the wet and damp affects it less, perhaps it is no coincidence that we see anti-personal cannons being placed on the ships around this time.
From here on both cannons and handheld firearms continue to develop into the long cast bronze/iron pieces and matchlocks.
Cooper Young
Well what you read is wrong.
By the year 1600 more than two thirds were using firearms. In fact regulations had to be published to enforce the required one third pikes because soldiers preferred guns.
David Collins
The funny thing is that those freudian nightmare tier huge bombards were already becoming somewhat dated in Europe at the time.
Jordan Bennett
The big cannons of Orban were from Hungary but Ottomans used other cannons before fall of Constantinople as well
