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Artillery designers are always searching for means of improving a gun’s external and internal ballistic properties and this resulted in both new theories surrounding gun construction based on the properties of materials and new methods of building guns capable of firing heavier projectiles to greater ranges. The concept of the accelerator gun sought to achieve the same result without the need for larger and heavier guns and reducing recoil through the use of multiple propellant charges fired sequentially, thus accelerating the projectile without the need for a single high-pressure discharge. It was a quest initiated in France, pursued in the United States and then adopted by a desperate Germany during the latter years of World War 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde is the property of Schwabe Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to reconstruct and compare the technical developments of Italian ordnance production during the second half of the fifteenth century. The analysis will particularly focus on novelties and changes induced by the appearance and the assimilation of French royal cannons into Italian warfare, before and after the famed French Neapolitan campaign of 1494. Data have been collected from numerous contemporary chronicles and several critical editions of documents. Moreover, archival sources have been used for the examination of the significant Florentine case study. The results of the research demonstrate that the Italian states had for some time been engaged in the traditional manufacture of heavy guns, and so were skilled at adopting original practices, searching out innovations, and encouraging effective ideas, in the lively context of a Renaissance technological efflorescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Safavids benefiting from Akkoyunlu development of artillery, advanced it due to their conflicts with the Ottomans. The Safavids made the decision to establish an artillery class following their victory in Chaldiran. They sought solutions to issues artillery exhibited during conflicts in an effort to increase the cannons' utility over time. In the area of artillery, the Safavids were heavily inspired by the Ottomans. The primary driving force has always been to balance the Ottoman artillery's firepower during battle. One of the clearest indications of the Ottomans' influence on Safavid artillery is the fact that nearly all of the Safavid related words were adopted from the Ottomans. The Safavids made an effort to build the guns they need while using a variety of cannon types. However, a significant barrier to further development was the scarcity of raw materials. They bought guns and hired artillery masters from European nations that were Ottoman rivals using diplomacy as a solution. In order to meet their need for cannons, a significant resource was provided by the war booty. From the time of Shah Tahmasb until the time of Shah II. Abbas, the Safavid artillery class followed a path of development, but the prolonged period of peace and the economic crises during the last years of the state forced the class to enter a condition of immobility. The Safavids' reform initiatives to resuscitate the artillery class were therefore ineffective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of this account ended as Lt-Colonel Thomas Desaguliers of the Royal Artillery returned in 1761 to his regimental base at Woolwich.1 He had distinguished himself at the Siege of Belle Isle, a campaign of the Seven Years' War. The capture of the island from the French was Desaguliers's last active military engagement but he still had an important part to play in the Artillery. Ordnance was supplied to the whole British army, new ideas were developed in the Royal Laboratory, and reviews demonstrated the work of the regiment. For Desaguliers all now had to be fitted in with his new and important role as equerry to George III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archaeologia Lituana is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum is the property of Consolidated Medieval Studies Research Group Space, Power & Culture and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Archeologia Postmedievale is the property of Edizioni all'Insegna del Giglio and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While the importance of European-style artillery, also called "red-barbarian cannon" by the people of the time, to the Ming-Qing transition (1618-1683) is generally recognized, much less is known about the actual performance of the weapon on the battlefield. Such a dearth of knowledge hinders historians from evaluating the extent of its impact on the Manchu conquest of China. Hoping to fill this gap, this article examines the actual performance of red-barbarian cannon through reconstructing the siege of Jiangyin (1645). Close examination of this episode reveals that, although the Qing army possessed abundant European-style artillery, the absence of appropriate and effective artillery siege tactics greatly constrained the effectiveness of these weapons in siege warfare. Hence, the importance of artillery in the early stage of the Ming-Qing transition (1618-1645) is likely to have been minimal. However, the siege of Jiangyin witnessed a reform of siege tactics in the Qing artillery corps. These newly devised siege tactics enabled the Qing army to capture the city with efficiency by fully utilizing the red-barbarian cannon. The reform greatly enhanced the siege ability of the Qing forces and paved the way for the Qing conquest of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new method of metaheuristic optimization, the algorithm of the innovative gunner (AIG), inspired by the choice of artillery parameters that sends a shot precisely to a target. The applied correction of the cannon's setting parameters differs from that defined by classic artillery theory. The innovativeness of the AIG results from the fact that at each step of the iterative process, the previous solution is corrected by means of specially selected multiplication factors. This is a major difference from most methods in which, at each successive step, a corrective element is added to the previous solution. The AIG is characterized by high efficiency and speed in solving various optimization problems having nothing to do with ballistics. It is extremely simple in description and implementation. The algorithm was tested on several known test-optimization tasks. The results are noticeably better than those achieved by other methods and prove the practical usefulness of the AIG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firth's were the first of the Sheffield steel makers to enter the field armaments. Their involvement with Colt has been outlined in an article in the journal of the Colt Collectors Association in America and their activities as steelmakers to the small-arms industries has been covered in a previous issue of this Journal. This article gives a brief overview of their involvement as manufacturers in the field of heavy armaments, being the first to make all-steel guns and their evolving role in the use of steel for ordnance, culminating in the displacement of wrought iron by the adoption of steel for ordnance manufacture by the Royal Gun Factory in the 1880s. It also highlights their development of stainless steel in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is focused on use of artillery intelligent ammunition in the Army of Czech Republic with aim on possibility of use of guided shells in weapon systems currently used. The article discuss types of artillery intelligent ammunition available on current market usable for standard and modernized 152mm self-propelled howitzer M-77 according to main goals set in strategic defense documents of the Czech Republic. The goal of this article is to characterize possible options of use of 152mm laser guided artillery shell Krasnopol-M in artillery of Czech armed forces. Each option is based on statistic calculation of number of rounds needed to hit the target. Ability to use intelligent ammunition in artillery systems would significantly increase effectiveness of maneuver unit's fire support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the history of creation of the mathematical theory and operation of artillery pieces intended for driving piles or other construction elements by shooting them into the ground. The historical background section covers the period since the 30th to the middle 90th of the 20th century. The article gives a brief description of FSA-2 - the facility for driving (shooting) anchors into the ground - which was successfully used in Tyumen, Russia when laying pipelines for preventing them from floating-up in swamps, and the multipurpose facility for shooting anchors and piles FSAP-2; the article also presents photos of the FSAP-2 driving piles vertically and horizontally puncturing embankments or hummocks. The article describes the method of impulse indentation of piles into the ground offered in the mid-nineties and gives numerical characteristics of efficiency and productivity of the FSAP-2 obtained as a result of commercial use of the facility at oil and gas fields in Western Siberia and industrial construction in Ural. The article describes features of the design of single-barrel guns which can be applied for construction works at water objects and also substantiates application of impulse indentation of long construction (structural) elements into the ground by artillery pieces located on a water surface. Also the article provides general results of modern investigations starting from 2000. In particular, the schematic design diagram and mathematical models of multibarrel construction cannons are given. Numerical experiments performed on the basis of mathematical models of multibarrel construction guns allow us to assume that multibarrel artillery pieces are as effective as single-barrel cannons applied for solving problems of construction. For instance, the numerical experiments have demonstrated a possibility of shooting piles into the moderately firm ground from multibarrel guns over 30 m deep. The article presents mathematical models and results of numerical experiments concerning the use of gas-dynamic artillery pieces for driving piles by shooting them into the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of developing the new methods of pile installation arises due to the necessity of erection of pile basement in difficult climatic/environmental conditions. The present paper describes the way of driving piles by shooting them into the ground from a specially redesigned single-barrel combat artillery piece. Also the paper presents main technical solutions dedicated to this retrofitting. For shooting piles into the soil we offer the method of pulse indentation and artificial increase of a pile weight, both of them together provide a 2.5-fold increase in penetration compared to a conventional shot. This paper describes the basic configuration and gives a schematic diagram of the piston rammer design as an important part of construction ordnance. The final part of the paper presents the results of practical use of the described patents in building construction and industrial construction at the facilities of Western Siberia, and gives a brief description of the problems currently being solved by the developers of construction artillery in Perm (Russia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little attention has been paid by historians to the production of firearms in the Tower of London in the fifteenth century before the reign of Henry VII. This is due to the lack of surviving records for the office of the ordnance prior to the 1490s. The discovery of the earliest surviving set of accounts by a Master of the Ordnance based at the Tower, however, means that it is now possible to examine the manufacture and refurbishment of guns at the Tower in the early 1470s. This evidence demonstrates that Edward IV was responsible for the re-establishment of the Tower as the principle facility for the production and storage of firearms in England, which laid important foundations that his Tudor successors built upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the authors, in 2030, the use of the Internet will become a commonplace, which will result in interconnectivity. It can be a benefit for the Allied countries in terms of the opportunities for online education/training, exercises, as well as of the switch from one network to another in a secure manner and the transmission of classified information. On the other hand, it can also be a threat, as the opponent has the opportunity to influence public opinion, to recruit people or to exploit them in order to serve own interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An early modern Mediterranean galley carried its main piece of artillery on a wheelless mount inside the raised centreline gangway (the corsia). The gun mount stood on two well-lubricated rails that sloped downwards from fore to aft. In its firing position, the gun was in the bows and when fired recoil propelled it all the way to the mainmast, where it collided with a stout buffer placed there to prevent damage to the mast. After reloading the gun in that position, the crew hauled it back to the bows. Several tons of bronze and wood travelled more than io metres back and forth with every shot. Yet instead of breeching ropes to restrain the motion, galleys had lubricated and tilted rails that expedited it. A functional examination of the fire-load-fire cycle and a technical analysis of the recoil mechanism provide the rationale for this apparently peculiar mode of operation and expose the purposes for the lubrication and slope of the rails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of trench warfare on the Western Front proved to be fertile ground for the development of the mortar. Yet for all their worth, trench mortars struggled to compete with more traditional forms of artillery in the British Army, their crews often working other duties, and full integration with infantry units was lacking even as late as 1918. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Oceánide is the property of Spanish Society for the Study of Popular Culture (SELICUP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The fragmentary remains of a sixteenth century bronze gun discovered in Kilrenny, Scotland, are discussed. Although the recovered fragments comprise only a small proportion of the gun a consideration both of the findspot and the fragments together can provide a substantial understanding of the weapon when complete. Stylistically, the fragments are suggestive of a continental import intended to augment local production, and analysis suggests a poor choice of alloy on the part of the founder may have contributed to the weapon's destruction. The archaeological and historical landscape in which the fragments were found in turn offers a context in which to analyse the weapon's use and importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No later than 1620, the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty started to cast muzzle loading smooth bore bronze cannons following European models. After two decades of effort, the Ming army was able to manufacture in 1642 high quality “Dingliao grand general” cannons, which combined the advantages of advanced cast-iron technology developed in southern China and iron-bronze composite barrels invented in northern China more than a century before. Later on, Han craftsmen in the Qing army also began to mass-produce cannons with a similar structure, the “Shenwei grand general” cannons, in 1644. The quality of these composite cannons was considered unsurpassed in the 17th century because they were not only lighter and cheaper than bronze cannons, but their barrels could also endure stronger explosive pressure. Yet, this advanced cannon-casting technology was forgotten in the long peaceful period after Qing’s unification of China. The Qing army was forced to cast cannons in large quantities when the First Opium War erupted in 1840. Composite-metal technology became valued again, and cannons that weighed as heavy as six tons, such as the “Yaowei grand general,” were made. However, because the inner barrels were not homogeneous and the metal quality was unsatisfactory, these new cannons were no match against Western artillery, and the Qing army could not resist the Western invasion. Although muzzle loading smooth bore cannons reached their peak in the mid-19th century, they finally faded from history because of the rise of rifled artillery. This article will introduce forty-four extant Ming-Qing composite-metal cannons which have been neglected by historians, as well as attempt to compare them with similar cannons in the Netherlands and India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the conversion of the garden of the Colegio de San Gregorio in Mexico City, Mexico, which served as the headquarters of architect and sculptor Manuel Tolsá, into a cannon foundry during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It explains that the school was founded in 1586 by Jesuits, who until their expulsion in 1767 used it to educate the local indigenous population. The article notes that Tolsá set up his workshops on the property in 1796 by order of viceroy Miguel de la Grúa Talamanca in order to construct an equestrian statue of Spanish king Carlos IV. The property was later used by Tolsá to manufacture cannons to serve Mexico during its war with France and its struggle for independence from Spain, the article states.

Copyright of Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları is the property of Turk Dunyasi Arastirmalari Vakfi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers a fact sheet from the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in Washington, D.C. concerning munitions storage. The reports "Major Ammunition Accidents--1916 to 2008" by U.S. Army (Retired) Colonel George Zahaczewsky and "Recent Explosive Events in Ammunition Storage Areas" from the South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons are mentioned.

During his expedition to the Holy Land in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte needed to transport his heavy siege artillery for the siege of Acre. Over 200 years later, what happened to the guns remains an enigma. The heavy cannon (24-pounders) were transported from Egypt by sea. One shipment was captured by a British squadron commanded by Sidney Smith, and used in Acre's defence against the French army. The other cannon were safely disembarked, and were used by the French to bombard the town. After lifting the siege, the French army retreated southwards, abandoning weapons at Tantura. This article deals with the transportation of the heavy artillery to Acre, and its subsequent fate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on Lake Ontario Ordnance Works with emphasis on its history as well as on the facility's implications to its immediate environment. The author argues that the facility has secluded form the public by reason of its crucial role to national security. The Lake Ontario Ordnance Works offers significant information on the political as well as on the socio-political cost of the Cold War and the second world war. Moreover, the facility also offers information on the ways and means employed by the United States government on nuclear waste management.

A rig for shooting anchors and piles into the ground, and the range its practical application are described. Fundamentals of the theory of the impulsive impression of structural components are presented. A method is proposed for approximate determination of the force exerted by the soil in resisting the movement of structural components embedded from artillery cannons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares artillery and ordnance reform in 1750s Austria and 1760s France. Although the reform programmes were very similar technologically, they assumed considerably different significance in the context of their respective militaries and societies. In France, Gribeauval's system became part of the larger intellectual project of recasting French government and society in a technocratic mould, a project that persisted (against opposition) into the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. In Austria, the different structure and organizational culture of the 'technical arms', a military culture with different assumptions about knowledge and expertise, and a more narrowly based political culture made the Liechtenstein reforms part of a considerably less radical centralizing policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An effort to improve the performance of ordnance has led to the consideration of the use of folding elliptical fins for projectile stabilization. A second order differential equation was used to model elliptical fin deployment history and accounts for: deployment with respect to the geometric properties of the fin, the variation in fin aerodynamics during deployment, the initial yaw effect on fin opening, and the variation in deployment speed based on changes in projectile spin. This model supports tests conducted at the Transonic Experimental Facility, Aberdeen Proving Ground examining the opening behavior of these uniquely shaped fins. The fins use the centrifugal force from the projectile spin to deploy. During the deployment, the fin aerodynamic forces vary with angle-of-attack changes to the free stream. Model results indicate that projectile spin dominates the initial opening rates and aerodynamics dominate near the fully open state. The model results are examined to explain the observed behaviors, and suggest improvements for later designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the modern battlefield, fighting capabilities, such as speed, target detection range, target identification capabilities, and shooting effectiveness, of short-range artillery rocket sets (ARSs) are constantly being improved. Problems arise when attempting to successfully fire such kits in the face of disruption from both the cannon and the moving platform on which the cannon is mounted. Furthermore, the set is a variable mass system since it can fire anywhere from a few to dozens or even hundreds of missiles in a brief period of time, implying that the ARS is a highly nonlinear system of variable parameters (non-stationary). This work shows how to control such a system. If the ARS is placed on a moving basis where there is both a system and measurement noise, the state variables must be restored, and the ARS data must be filtered. Therefore, in addition to the LQR regulator, an extended Kalman filter was used. As a consequence of this synthesis, an LQG (linear quadratic Gaussian) regulator of ARS was obtained, which was used to follow the target along the line of sight. The key goal of this paper is to develop control algorithms that will increase the performance of ARS control in elevation and azimuth, as well as the accuracy of achieving and eliminating maneuverable air targets. Moreover, through the quality criterion adopted, we hope to affect control energy costs while maintaining control precision. Graphical representations of certain computational simulation results are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]