9781422277584

innovation in nineteenth-century artillery was that of the breech-loaded shell. Meanwhile, hand firearms had begun to replace the long bow and the cross bow, which were old fashioned, though by no means extinct, by the seventeenth century. At first hand guns were clumsy, inaccurate weapons, laboriously loaded by the muzzle and fired by applying a flame to a touch-hole. But they evolved into accurate, reliable, quickfiring weapons. Spiral grooving of the barrel (rifling) gave a spin to the bullet, and greatly improved the accuracy. This device was known in the sixteenth century, for sporting purposes, but rifles did not come widely into military use until the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). The introduction of the percussion cap early in the nineteenth century provided a more reliable, weatherproof firing action.

The Ottoman Turks used enormous siege guns to capture the fortress at Constantinople in 1453, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire.

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