130-462: A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armoured structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification , warship , or armoured fighting vehicle . When referring to antiquity , the term " casemate wall " means a double city wall with the space between the walls separated into chambers, which could be filled up to better withstand battering rams in case of siege (see § Antiquity: casemate wall .) In its original early modern meaning,
260-473: A four-month siege , when the garrison led by general Louis François Jean Chabot , being short of provisions and having lost the key island of Vido at the entrance of the port, surrendered and was allowed passage back to France. The Military Revolution thesis originally proposed by Michael Roberts in 1955, as he focused on Sweden (1560–1660) searching for major changes in the European way of war caused by
390-408: A 6-inch gun, and had a 4-to-6-inch (100 to 150 mm) front plate (forming part of the side of the ship), with thinner armor plates on the sides and rear, with a protected top and floor, and weighed about 20 tons (not including the gun and mounting). Casemates were similar in size to turrets; ships carrying them had them in pairs, one on each side of the ship. The first battleships to carry them were
520-415: A casemate gun, which could be worked by hand. The use of casemates enabled the 6-inch guns to be dispersed, so that a single hit would not knock out all of them. Casemates were also used in protected and armored cruisers, starting with the 1889 Edgar class . and retrofitted to the 1888 Blake class during construction. In the pre-dreadnought generation of warships, casemates were placed initially on
650-525: A combined Florentine and French army. With the original medieval fortifications beginning to crumble to French cannon fire, the Pisans constructed an earthen rampart behind the threatened sector. It was discovered that the sloping earthen rampart could be defended against escalade and was also much more resistant to cannon fire than the curtain wall it had replaced. The second siege was that of Padua in 1509. A monk engineer named Fra Giocondo , trusted with
780-493: A core, with the first drilled bore ordnance recorded in operation near Seville in 1247. They fired lead, iron, or stone balls, sometimes large arrows and on occasions simply handfuls of whatever scrap came to hand. During the Hundred Years' War , these weapons became more common, initially as the bombard and later the cannon . Cannons were always muzzle-loaders . While there were many early attempts at breech-loading designs,
910-471: A ditch was dug in front of them. The earth used from the excavation was piled behind the walls to create a solid structure. While purpose-built fortifications would often have a brick fascia because of the material's ability to absorb the shock of artillery fire, many improvised defences cut costs by leaving this stage out and instead opting for more earth. Improvisation could also consist of lowering medieval round towers and infilling them with earth to strengthen
1040-408: A field carriage, immobility once emplaced, highly individual design, and noted unreliability (in 1460 James II , King of Scots, was killed when one exploded at the siege of Roxburgh). Their large size precluded the barrels being cast and they were constructed out of metal staves or rods bound together with hoops like a barrel, giving their name to the gun barrel . The use of the word "cannon" marks
1170-521: A formative influence on the patterning of the Renaissance ideal city : "The Renaissance was hypnotized by one city type which for a century and a half—from Filarete to Scamozzi—was impressed upon all utopian schemes: this is the star-shaped city". In the nineteenth century, the development of the explosive shell changed the nature of defensive fortifications. Elvas , in Portugal is considered by some to be
1300-515: A hollow iron ball filled with pitch and fuse, designed to be fired at close range and burst on contact. The most popular in Portuguese arsenals was the berço , a 5 cm, one pounder bronze breech-loading cannon that weighted 150 kg with an effective range of 600 meters. A tactical innovation the Portuguese introduced in fort defense was the use of combinations of projectiles against massed assaults. Although canister shot had been developed in
1430-471: A lack of engineering knowledge rendered these even more dangerous to use than muzzle-loaders. In 1415, the Portuguese invaded the Mediterranean port town of Ceuta . While it is difficult to confirm the use of firearms in the siege of the city, it is known the Portuguese defended it thereafter with firearms, namely bombardas , colebratas , and falconetes . In 1419, Sultan Abu Sa'id led an army to reconquer
SECTION 10
#17328554749881560-469: A mid-19th-century 12-pounder gun , which fired a 4.1 kg (9.0 lb) round, with a kinetic energy of 240 kilojoules, or a 20th-century US battleship that fired a 1,225 kg (2,701 lb) projectile from its main battery with an energy level surpassing 350 megajoules . From the Middle Ages through most of the modern era , artillery pieces on land were moved by horse-drawn gun carriages . In
1690-657: A month. Eventually it fell, but the Ottoman casualties were very high, and it bought time for the relief force which arrived from Sicily to relieve the rest of the besieged island. The star fort therefore played a crucial and decisive role in the siege. After the fall of Venice to Napoleon, Corfu was occupied in 1797 by the French republican armies. The now ancient fortifications were still of some value at this point. A Russian–Ottoman–English alliance led at sea by Admiral Ushakov and with troops sent by Ali Pasha retook Corfu in 1799 after
1820-470: A new scheme of fortifications to protect their eastern border, which became known as the Maginot Line . The main element of this line were large underground forts based on the feste principle, whose main armament was in turrets, however the countryside between them was defended by smaller self-sufficient works based on the earlier casemates de bourges , housing either light field guns or anti-tank guns . As
1950-490: A prelude to a decisive infantry and cavalry assault. Physically, cannons continued to become smaller and lighter. During the Seven Years War, King Frederick II of Prussia used these advances to deploy horse artillery that could move throughout the battlefield. Frederick also introduced the reversible iron ramrod, which was much more resistant to breakage than older wooden designs. The reversibility aspect also helped increase
2080-405: A role in the numerous Mediterranean wars, slowing down the Ottoman expansion. Although Rhodes had been partially upgraded to the new type of fortifications after the 1480 siege, it was still conquered in 1522 ; nevertheless it was a long and bloody siege, and the besieged had no hope of outside relief because the island was close to the Ottoman power base and far from any allies. On the other hand,
2210-470: A rotating turret as much as offensively used tanks, while assault guns were mainly used against fortified infantry positions and could afford a longer reaction time if a target presented itself outside the vehicle's gun traverse arc. Thus, the weight and complexity of a turret was thought to be unnecessary, and could be saved in favor of more capable guns and armor. In many cases, casemate vehicles would be used as both tank destroyers or assault guns, depending on
2340-556: A sixth of all rounds used by the Portuguese in Morocco were of the fused-shell variety. The new Ming Dynasty established the "Divine Engine Battalion" (神机营), which specialized in various types of artillery. Light cannons and cannons with multiple volleys were developed. In a campaign to suppress a local minority rebellion near today's Burmese border, "the Ming army used a 3-line method of arquebuses/muskets to destroy an elephant formation". When
2470-556: A strong integrating effect on emerging nation-states, as kings were able to use their newfound artillery superiority to force any local dukes or lords to submit to their will, setting the stage for the absolutist kingdoms to come. Modern rocket artillery can trace its heritage back to the Mysorean rockets of Mysore . Their first recorded use was in 1780 during the battles of the Second , Third and Fourth Mysore Wars . The wars fought between
2600-551: A turret for the main gun, the structure that accommodates the gun is also called a casemate. First recorded in French in the mid-16th century, from the Italian casamatta or Spanish casamata , perhaps meaning a slaughterhouse , although it could derive from casa (in the sense of " hut "), and matta ( Latin matta ), "done with reeds and wickers", thus a low-roof hut without windows or other openings set in marshy place. It could also come from casa matta with matta in
2730-482: A very low freeboard and their guns on the main deck ('Casemate deck') protected by a sloped armoured casemate, which sat atop the hull. Although both sides of the Civil War used casemate ironclads, the ship is mostly associated with the southern Confederacy , as the north also employed turreted monitors , which the south was unable to produce. The most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads between
SECTION 20
#17328554749882860-457: Is a fortification in a style that evolved during the early modern period of gunpowder when the cannon came to dominate the battlefield . It was first seen in the mid-fifteenth century in Italy . Some types, especially when combined with ravelins and other outworks, resembled the related star fort of the same era. The design of the fort is normally a polygon with bastions at the corners of
2990-421: Is a widely used generic term for a projectile, which is a component of munitions . By association, artillery may also refer to the arm of service that customarily operates such engines. In some armies, the artillery arm has operated field , coastal , anti-aircraft , and anti-tank artillery; in others these have been separate arms, and with some nations coastal has been a naval or marine responsibility. In
3120-750: The British East India Company and the Kingdom of Mysore in India made use of the rockets as a weapon. In the Battle of Pollilur , the Siege of Seringapatam (1792) and in Battle of Seringapatam in 1799, these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British. After the wars, several Mysore rockets were sent to England, but experiments with heavier payloads were unsuccessful. In 1804 William Congreve, considering
3250-707: The Napoleonic Wars , the industrialist William Armstrong was awarded a contract by the government to design a new piece of artillery. Production started in 1855 at the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich , and the outcome was the revolutionary Armstrong Gun , which marked the birth of modern artillery. Three of its features particularly stand out. Bastion fort A bastion fort or trace italienne (a phrase derived from non-standard French, literally meaning 'Italian outline')
3380-598: The Royal Navy to subdue the casemated Russian forts at Kronstadt were unsuccessful, while a casemated gun tower at Sevastopol , the Malakoff Tower , could only be captured by a surprise French infantry attack while the garrison was being changed. In the early 1860s, the British, apprehensive about a possible French invasion , fortified the naval dockyards of southern England with curved batteries of large guns in casemates, fitted with laminated iron shields tested to withstand
3510-734: The SU-100 or the ISU-152 . Both Germany and the Soviet Union mainly built casemate AFVs by using the chassis of already existing turreted tanks, instead of designing them from scratch. While casemate AFVs played a very important role in World War II (the Sturmgeschütz III for example was the most numerous armored fighting vehicle of the German Army during the entire war), they became much less common in
3640-517: The Union turreted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia (built from the scuttled remains of USS Merrimack ). "Casemate ship" was an alternative term for " central battery ship " (UK) or "center battery ship" (US). The casemate (or central battery) was an armored box that extended the full width of the ship protecting many guns. The armored sides of
3770-849: The World War II approached, similar casemate designs were adopted by other European nations as they offered protection from attacking aircraft. The German Organisation Todt undertook the development of casemates for the large coastal guns of the Atlantic Wall . Built of concrete up to 10 metres (33 ft) thick, they were thought to be able to withstand any form of attack. Work by the Western Allies to develop countermeasures that could defeat casemates and other types of bunker resulted in weapons such as tank-mounted spigot mortars , rocket-assisted projectiles , recoilless rifles , various types of demolition charge and earthquake bombs . In warship design
3900-407: The catapult , onager , trebuchet , and ballista , are also referred to by military historians as artillery. During medieval times, more types of artillery were developed, most notably the counterweight trebuchet. Traction trebuchets, using manpower to launch projectiles, have been used in ancient China since the 4th century as anti-personnel weapons. The much more powerful counterweight trebuchet
4030-531: The contemporary era , artillery pieces and their crew relied on wheeled or tracked vehicles as transportation. These land versions of artillery were dwarfed by railway guns ; the largest of these large-calibre guns ever conceived – Project Babylon of the Supergun affair – was theoretically capable of putting a satellite into orbit . Artillery used by naval forces has also changed significantly, with missiles generally replacing guns in surface warfare . Over
Casemate - Misplaced Pages Continue
4160-604: The siege of Constantinople in 1453 weighed 19 tons , took 200 men and sixty oxen to emplace, and could fire just seven times a day. The Fall of Constantinople was perhaps "the first event of supreme importance whose result was determined by the use of artillery" when the huge bronze cannons of Mehmed II breached the city's walls, ending the Byzantine Empire , according to Sir Charles Oman . Bombards developed in Europe were massive smoothbore weapons distinguished by their lack of
4290-442: The 15th century. The development of specialized pieces—shipboard artillery, howitzers and mortars —was also begun in this period. More esoteric designs, like the multi-barrel ribauldequin (known as "organ guns"), were also produced. The 1650 book by Kazimierz Siemienowicz Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima was one of the most important contemporary publications on the subject of artillery. For over two centuries this work
4420-551: The 16th century unequalled by contemporary European neighbours, in part due to the experience gained in intense fighting in Morocco, which served as a proving ground for artillery and its practical application, and made Portugal a forerunner in gunnery for decades. During the reign of King Manuel (1495–1521) at least 2017 cannon were sent to Morocco for garrison defense, with more than 3000 cannon estimated to have been required during that 26-year period. An especially noticeable division between siege guns and anti-personnel guns enhanced
4550-440: The 16th century, cannon were largely (though not entirely) displaced from the battlefield—the cannon were too slow and cumbersome to be used and too easily lost to a rapid enemy advance. The combining of shot and powder into a single unit, a cartridge, occurred in the 1620s with a simple fabric bag, and was quickly adopted by all nations. It speeded loading and made it safer, but unexpelled bag fragments were an additional fouling in
4680-736: The 1990s, favoring it over contemporary turreted designs. Other casemate design ideas, such as the projected German Versuchsträger 1–2 with two main guns, were developed even later. Artillery Artillery are ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms . Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges , and led to heavy, fairly immobile siege engines . As technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery cannons developed for battlefield use. This development continues today; modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility generally providing
4810-431: The 20th century, target acquisition devices (such as radar) and techniques (such as sound ranging and flash spotting ) emerged, primarily for artillery. These are usually utilized by one or more of the artillery arms. The widespread adoption of indirect fire in the early 20th century introduced the need for specialist data for field artillery, notably survey and meteorological, and in some armies, provision of these are
4940-478: The British Royal Sovereign class laid down in 1889. They were adopted as a result of live-firing trials against HMS Resistance in 1888. Casemates were adopted because it was thought that the fixed armor plate at the front would provide better protection than a turret, and because a turret mounting would require external power and could therefore be put out of action if power were lost – unlike
5070-527: The Detachment Commander, and the highest number being the Coverer, the second-in-command. "Gunner" is also the lowest rank, and junior non-commissioned officers are "Bombardiers" in some artillery arms. Batteries are roughly equivalent to a company in the infantry, and are combined into larger military organizations for administrative and operational purposes, either battalions or regiments, depending on
5200-559: The English-held towns of Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency, all with the support of large artillery units. When she led the assault on Paris, Joan faced stiff artillery fire, especially from the suburb of St. Denis, which ultimately led to her defeat in this battle. In April 1430, she went to battle against the Burgundians, whose support was purchased by the English. At this time, the Burgundians had
5330-617: The Iron Age and peaking in Iron Age II (10th–6th century BC). However, the construction of casemate walls had begun to be replaced by sturdier solid walls by the 9th century BC , probably due the development of more effective battering rams by the Neo-Assyrian Empire . Casemate walls could surround an entire settlement, but most only protected part of it. The three different types included freestanding casemate walls, then integrated ones where
Casemate - Misplaced Pages Continue
5460-670: The Javanese were considered excellent in casting artillery, and in the knowledge of using it. In 1513, the Javanese fleet led by Pati Unus sailed to attack Portuguese Malacca "with much artillery made in Java, for the Javanese are skilled in founding and casting, and in all works in iron , over and above what they have in India ". By the early 16th century, the Javanese had already started locally-producing large guns, which were dubbed "sacred cannon[s]" or "holy cannon[s]" and have survived up to
5590-633: The Mysorian rockets to have too short a range (less than 1,000 yards) developed rockets in numerous sizes with ranges up to 3,000 yards and eventually utilizing iron casing as the Congreve rocket which were used effectively during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 . With the Napoleonic Wars, artillery experienced changes in both physical design and operation. Rather than being overseen by "mechanics", artillery
5720-602: The Ottomans failed to take Corfu in 1537 in no small part because of the new fortifications, and several attempts spanning almost two centuries (another major one was in 1716 ) also failed. Two star forts were built by the Order of Saint John on the island of Malta in 1552, Fort Saint Elmo and Fort Saint Michael . Fort Saint Elmo played a critical role in the Ottoman siege of 1565 when it managed to hold out heavy bombardment for over
5850-525: The Portuguese and Spanish arrived at Southeast Asia, they found that the local kingdoms were already using cannons. Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion. Duarte Barbosa ca. 1514 said that the inhabitants of Java were great masters in casting artillery and very good artillerymen. They made many one-pounder cannons (cetbang or rentaka ), long muskets, spingarde (arquebus), schioppi (hand cannon), Greek fire , guns (cannons), and other fire-works. In all aspects
5980-469: The ability to fire point-blank. The lower the angle of elevation, the higher the stopping power. The first key instance of a trace Italianate was at the Papal port of Civitavecchia , where the original walls were lowered and thickened because the stone tended to shatter under bombardment. The first major battle which truly showed the effectiveness of trace Italienne was the defence of Pisa in 1500 against
6110-515: The addition of an embrasure through the scarp face of the rampart, it could be used as a protected gun position. In bastion forts , artillery casemates were sometimes built into the flanks of bastions , but in action they quickly filled with smoke making them inoperable and for that reason, had fallen out of favor during the 17th century. In the late 18th century, Marc René, marquis de Montalembert (1714–1800) experimented with improved casemates for artillery, with ventilation systems that overcame
6240-483: The appearance of the trace Italienne in early modern Europe, and the difficulty of taking such fortifications, is what resulted in a profound change in military strategy, most importantly, Parker argued, an increase in army sizes necessary to attack these forts. "Wars became a series of protracted sieges", Parker suggests, and open-pitch battles became "irrelevant" in regions where the trace Italienne existed. Ultimately, Parker argues, "military geography", in other words,
6370-521: The army. These may be grouped into brigades; the Russian army also groups some brigades into artillery divisions, and the People's Liberation Army has artillery corps. The term "artillery" also designates a combat arm of most military services when used organizationally to describe units and formations of the national armed forces that operate the weapons. During military operations , field artillery has
6500-463: The arrival of "all-big gun" battleship, pioneered by HMS Dreadnought in 1906, but were reintroduced as the increasing torpedo threat from destroyers forced an increase in secondary armament calibre. Many battleships had their casemates plated over during modernization in the 1930s (or after the Attack on Pearl Harbor , in the case of US vessels) but some, like HMS Warspite carried them to
6630-533: The attacker should they be overcome, but also to allow the large volumes of smoke that the defending cannon would generate to dissipate. Fortifications of this type continued to be effective while the attackers were armed only with cannon, where the majority of the damage inflicted was caused by momentum from the impact of solid shot . Because only low explosives such as black powder were available, explosive shells were largely ineffective against such fortifications. The development of mortars , high explosives , and
SECTION 50
#17328554749886760-498: The best surviving example of the Dutch school of fortifications. When the newly-effective manoeuvrable siege cannon came into military strategy in the fifteenth century, the response from military engineers was to arrange for the walls to be embedded into ditches fronted by earthen slopes (glacis) so that they could not be attacked by destructive direct fire and to have the walls topped by earthen banks that absorbed and largely dissipated
6890-421: The box were the sides or hull of the ship. There was an armored bulkhead at the front and rear of the casemate, and a thick deck protecting the top. The lower edge of the casemate sat on top of ship's belt armour . Some ships, such as HMS Alexandra (laid down 1873), had a two-story casemate. A "casemate" was an armored room in the side of a warship, from which a gun would fire. A typical casemate held
7020-608: The bronze "thousand ball thunder cannon", an early example of field artillery . These small, crude weapons diffused into the Middle East (the madfaa ) and reached Europe in the 13th century, in a very limited manner. In Asia, Mongols adopted the Chinese artillery and used it effectively in the great conquest . By the late 14th century, Chinese rebels used organized artillery and cavalry to push Mongols out. As small smooth-bore barrels, these were initially cast in iron or bronze around
7150-581: The capability to take up the roles and tasks which in the past had to be diverted between several different classes of vehicles. However, vehicles such as the German Kanonenjagdpanzer of the 1960s still let the casemate concept live on, while the Swedish Army went as far as employing a casemate tank design, the Stridsvagn 103 , or "S-Tank", as their main armored fighting vehicle from the 1960s until
7280-450: The century, Imperial Germany had developed a new form of fortification called a feste ( German article: Festung#Feste ), in which the various elements of each fort were more widely dispersed in the landscape. These works, the first of which was Fort de Mutzig near Strasbourg , had separate artillery blocks, infantry positions and underground barracks, all built of reinforced concrete and connected by tunnels or entrenchments. Although
7410-538: The consequent large increase in the destructive power of explosive shells and thus plunging fire rendered the intricate geometry of such fortifications irrelevant. Warfare was to become more mobile. It took, however, many years to abandon the old fortress thinking. Bastion forts were very expensive. Amsterdam 's 22 bastions cost 11 million florins , and Siena in 1544 bankrupted itself to pay for its defences. For this reason, bastion forts were often improvised from earlier defences. Medieval curtain walls were torn down, and
7540-431: The course of military history, projectiles were manufactured from a wide variety of materials, into a wide variety of shapes, using many different methods in which to target structural/defensive works and inflict enemy casualties . The engineering applications for ordnance delivery have likewise changed significantly over time, encompassing some of the most complex and advanced technologies in use today. In some armies,
7670-425: The covered way, or covert way. Defenders could move relatively safely in the cover of the ditch and could engage in active countermeasures to keep control of the glacis, the open slope that lay outside the ditch, by creating defensive earthworks to deny the enemy access to the glacis and thus to firing points that could bear directly onto the walls and by digging counter mines to intercept and disrupt attempts to mine
7800-559: The crew has to rotate the entire vehicle if an enemy target presents itself outside of the vehicle's limited gun traverse arc. This can prove very disadvantageous in combat situations. During World War II , casemate-type armored fighting vehicles were heavily used by both the combined German Wehrmacht forces, and the Soviet Red Army . They were mainly employed as tank destroyers and assault guns . Tank destroyers, intended to operate mostly from defensive ambush operations, did not need
7930-455: The current context originated in the Middle Ages . One suggestion is that it comes from French atelier , meaning the place where manual work is done. Another suggestion is that it originates from the 13th century and the Old French artillier , designating craftsmen and manufacturers of all materials and warfare equipments (spears, swords, armor, war machines); and, for the next 250 years,
SECTION 60
#17328554749888060-480: The defence of the Venetian city, cut down the city's medieval wall and surrounded the city with a broad ditch that could be swept by flanking fire from gun ports set low in projections extending into the ditch. Finding that their cannon fire made little impression on these low ramparts, the French and allied besiegers made several bloody and fruitless assaults and then withdrew. The new type of fortification also played
8190-404: The defences could not be directed around curved walls. To prevent this, what had previously been round or square turrets were extended into diamond-shaped points to eliminate potential cover for attacking troops. The ditches and walls channelled the attackers into carefully constructed zwinger , bailey , or similar " kill zone " areas where the attackers had no place to shelter from the fire of
8320-466: The defenders. A further and more subtle change was to move from a passive model of defence to an active one. The lower walls were more vulnerable to being stormed, and the protection that the earthen banking provided against direct fire failed if the attackers could occupy the slope on the outside of the ditch and mount an attacking cannon there. Therefore, the shape was designed to make maximum use of enfilade (or flanking) fire against any attackers on
8450-560: The defense in a siege was lost. Cannons during this period were elongated, and the recipe for gunpowder was improved to make it three times as powerful as before. These changes led to the increased power in the artillery weapons of the time. Joan of Arc encountered gunpowder weaponry several times. When she led the French against the English at the Battle of Tourelles, in 1430, she faced heavy gunpowder fortifications, and yet her troops prevailed in that battle. In addition, she led assaults against
8580-408: The definition was widened to include a protected space for guns in a ship, either within the hull or in the lower part of the superstructure . Although the main armament of ships quickly began to be mounted in revolving gun turrets , secondary batteries continued to be mounted in casemates; however, several disadvantages eventually also led to their replacement by turrets. In tanks that do not have
8710-415: The development of artillery ordnance, systems, organizations, and operations until the present, with artillery systems capable of providing support at ranges from as little as 100 m to the intercontinental ranges of ballistic missiles . The only combat in which artillery is unable to take part is close-quarters combat , with the possible exception of artillery reconnaissance teams. The word as used in
8840-453: The early 15th century, the Portuguese were the first to employ it extensively, and Portuguese engineers invented a canister round which consisted of a thin lead case filled with iron pellets, that broke up at the muzzle and scattered its contents in a narrow pattern. An innovation which Portugal adopted in advance of other European powers was fuse-delayed action shells, and were commonly used in 1505. Although dangerous, their effectiveness meant
8970-583: The end of World War II. The last ships built with casemates as new construction were the American Omaha -class cruisers of the early 1920s and the 1933 Swedish aircraft cruiser HSwMS Gotland . In both cases the casemates were built into the forward angles of the forward superstructure (and the aft superstructure as well, in the Omahas). In regards to armored fighting vehicles, casemate design refers to vehicles that have their main gun mounted directly within
9100-414: The end of the 14th century, cannons were only powerful enough to knock in roofs, and could not penetrate castle walls. However, a major change occurred between 1420 and 1430, when artillery became much more powerful and could now batter strongholds and fortresses quite efficiently. The English, French, and Burgundians all advanced in military technology, and as a result the traditional advantage that went to
9230-552: The enemies. The enemies' hope was to either ram the gate or climb over the wall with ladders and overcome the defenders. For the invading force these fortifications proved quite difficult to overcome and, accordingly, fortresses occupied a key position in warfare. Passive ring-shaped ( Enceinte ) fortifications of the Medieval era proved vulnerable to damage or destruction when attackers directed cannon fire on to perpendicular masonry wall. In addition, attackers that could get close to
9360-433: The enemy by obscuring their view. Fire may be directed by an artillery observer or another observer, including crewed and uncrewed aircraft, or called onto map coordinates . Military doctrine has had a significant influence on the core engineering design considerations of artillery ordnance through its history, in seeking to achieve a balance between the delivered volume of fire with ordnance mobility. However, during
9490-590: The energy of plunging fire . Where conditions allowed, as in Fort Manoel in Malta , the ditches were cut into the native rock, and the wall at the inside of the ditch was simply unquarried native rock. As the walls became lower, they also became more vulnerable to assault. The rounded shape that had previously been dominant for the design of turrets created "dead space", or "dead zones", which were relatively sheltered from defending fire, because direct fire from other parts of
9620-466: The existence or absence of the trace Italienne in a given area, shaped military strategy in the early modern period . This is a profound alteration of the Military Revolution thesis. Parker's emphasis on the fortification as the key element has attracted substantial criticism from some academics, such as John A. Lynn and M. S. Kingra, particularly with respect to the claimed causal link between
9750-498: The fact that lower walls were easier to climb, the ditch was widened so that attacking infantry were still exposed to fire from a higher elevation, including enfilading fire from the bastions. The outer side of the ditch was usually provided with a glacis to deflect cannonballs aimed at the lower part of the main wall. Further structures, such as ravelins , tenailles , hornworks or crownworks , and even detached forts could be added to create complex outer works to further protect
9880-410: The fallen city, and Marinids brought cannons and used them in the assault on Ceuta. Finally, hand-held firearms and riflemen appear in Morocco, in 1437, in an expedition against the people of Tangiers . It is clear these weapons had developed into several different forms, from small guns to large artillery pieces. The artillery revolution in Europe caught on during the Hundred Years' War and changed
10010-551: The first fully developed example being Castle Williams in New York Harbor which was started in 1807. In the early 19th century, French military engineer Baron Haxo designed a free-standing casemate that could be built on the top of the rampart, to protect guns and gunners from the high-angle fire of mortars and howitzers . The advantages of casemated artillery were proved in the Crimean War of 1853–1856, when attempts by
10140-592: The following three centuries. Italian engineers were heavily in demand throughout Europe to help build the new fortifications. The late-seventeenth-century architects Menno van Coehoorn and especially Vauban , Louis XIV 's military engineer, are considered to have taken the form to its logical extreme. "Fortresses... acquired ravelins and redoubts , bonnettes and lunettes , tenailles and tenaillons, counterguards and crownworks and hornworks and curvettes and faussebrayes and scarps and cordons and banquettes and counterscarps ..." The star-shaped fortification had
10270-437: The fort walls. Compared to medieval fortifications , forts became both lower and larger in area, providing defence in depth , with tiers of defences that an attacker needed to overcome in order to bring cannon to bear on the inner layers of defences. Firing emplacements for defending cannon were heavily defended from bombardment by external fire, but open towards the inside of the fort, not only to diminish their usefulness to
10400-435: The ground breaking legs and ankles. The development of modern artillery occurred in the mid to late 19th century as a result of the convergence of various improvements in the underlying technology. Advances in metallurgy allowed for the construction of breech-loading rifled guns that could fire at a much greater muzzle velocity . After the British artillery was shown up in the Crimean War as having barely changed since
10530-423: The gun barrel and a new tool—a worm —was introduced to remove them. Gustavus Adolphus is identified as the general who made cannon an effective force on the battlefield—pushing the development of much lighter and smaller weapons and deploying them in far greater numbers than previously. The outcome of battles was still determined by the clash of infantry. Shells, explosive-filled fused projectiles, were in use by
10660-454: The gun except at the moment of firing. Casemates for secure barrack accommodation and storage continued to be built; the 1880s French forts of the Séré de Rivières system for example, had a central structure consisting of two stories of casemates, buried under layers of earth, concrete and sand to a depth of 18 metres (59 ft), intended to defeat the new high explosive shells. Towards the end of
10790-399: The hull and lack the rotating turret commonly associated with tanks. Such a design generally makes the vehicle mechanically simpler in design, less costly in construction, lighter in weight and lower in profile. The saved weight can be used to mount a heavier, more powerful gun or alternatively increase the vehicle's armor protection in comparison to regular, turreted tanks. However, in combat
10920-486: The inner wall was part of the outer buildings of the settlement, and finally filled casemate walls, where the rooms between the walls were filled with soil right away, allowing for a quick, but nevertheless stable construction of particularly high walls. In fortifications designed to resist artillery, a casemate was originally a vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart . It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores. With
11050-418: The introduction in the 15th century of a dedicated field carriage with axle, trail and animal-drawn limber—this produced mobile field pieces that could move and support an army in action, rather than being found only in the siege and static defenses. The reduction in the size of the barrel was due to improvements in both iron technology and gunpowder manufacture, while the development of trunnions —projections at
11180-470: The introduction of a gun shield necessary. The problems of how to employ a fixed or horse-towed gun in mobile warfare necessitated the development of new methods of transporting the artillery into combat. Two distinct forms of artillery were developed: the towed gun, used primarily to attack or defend a fixed-line; and the self-propelled gun, intended to accompany a mobile force and to provide continuous fire support and/or suppression. These influences have guided
11310-430: The introduction of portable firearms . Roberts linked military technology with larger historical consequences, arguing that innovations in tactics, drill and doctrine by the Dutch and Swedes (1560–1660), which maximized the utility of firearms, led to a need for more trained troops and thus for permanent forces ( standing armies ). According to Geoffrey Parker in his article, The Military Revolution 1560–1660: A Myth? ,
11440-486: The largest share of an army's total firepower. Originally, the word "artillery" referred to any group of soldiers primarily armed with some form of manufactured weapon or armour. Since the introduction of gunpowder and cannon, "artillery" has largely meant cannon, and in contemporary usage, usually refers to shell -firing guns , howitzers , and mortars (collectively called barrel artillery , cannon artillery or gun artillery ) and rocket artillery . In common speech,
11570-659: The latest projectiles. However, in the American Civil War (1861–1865), the exposed masonry of casemate batteries was found to be vulnerable to modern rifled artillery ; Fort Pulaski was breached in a few hours by only ten such guns. In contrast, hastily constructed earthworks proved much more resilient. This led to casemates for artillery again falling out of favor. In continental Europe, they were often replaced by rotating gun turrets, but elsewhere large coastal guns were mounted in less expensive concrete gun pits or barbettes , sometimes using disappearing carriages to conceal
11700-469: The main armament of these forts was still mounted in armored turrets, local defense was provided by separate protected positions for field guns ; these concrete structures were copied by the French who called them casemates de Bourges ( French article: Casemate de Bourges ) after the proving ground where they had been tested. Following experience gained in the World War I , French engineers began to design
11830-512: The main deck, and later on the upper deck as well. Casemates on the main deck were very close to the waterline. In the Edgar -class cruisers, the guns in the casemates were only 10 feet (3.0 m) above the waterline. Casemates that were too close to the waterline or too close to the bow (such as in the 1912 Iron Duke -class dreadnoughts ) were prone to flooding, making the guns ineffective. Shipboard casemate guns were partially rendered obsolete by
11960-457: The main wall from artillery , and sometimes provide additional defensive positions. They were built of many materials, usually earth and brick , as brick does not shatter on impact from a cannonball as stone does. Bastion fortifications were further developed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, primarily in response to the French invasion of the Italian peninsula . The French army
12090-447: The modern period, the consideration of protecting the gunners also arose due to the late-19th-century introduction of the new generation of infantry weapons using conoidal bullet , better known as the Minié ball , with a range almost as long as that of field artillery. The gunners' increasing proximity to and participation in direct combat against other combat arms and attacks by aircraft made
12220-533: The new fortress design and increases in army sizes during this period. In the nineteenth century, with the development of more powerful artillery and explosive shells, star forts were replaced by simpler but more robust polygonal forts . In the twentieth century, with the development of tanks and aerial warfare during and after the First World War, fixed fortifications became and have remained less important than in previous centuries. Star forts reappeared during
12350-462: The nuts, bolts and screws made their mass production and repair much easier. While the Gribeauval system made for more efficient production and assembly, the carriages used were heavy and the gunners were forced to march on foot (instead of riding on the limber and gun as in the British system). Each cannon was named for the weight of its projectiles, giving us variants such as 4, 8, and 12, indicating
12480-603: The outer edge of the ditch and also any who should reach the base of any of the walls. The indentations in the base of each point on the star sheltered cannons. Those cannons would have a clear line of fire directly down the edge of the neighbouring points, while their point of the star was protected by fire from the base of those points. The evolution of these ideas can be seen in transitional fortifications such as Sarzana in northwest Italy. Thus forts evolved complex shapes that allowed defensive batteries of cannon to command interlocking fields of fire . Forward batteries commanded
12610-588: The post-war period. Heavy casemate tank destroyer designs such as the US T28 and the British Tortoise never went beyond prototype status, while casemate vehicles of a more regular weight, such as the Soviet SU-122-54 , saw only very limited service. The general decline of casemate vehicles can be seen in the technological progress which resulted in the rise of universal main battle tanks , which unified in them
12740-697: The present day - though in limited numbers. These cannons varied between 180 and 260 pounders, weighing anywhere between 3–8 tons, measuring between 3–6 m. Between 1593 and 1597, about 200,000 Korean and Chinese troops which fought against Japan in Korea actively used heavy artillery in both siege and field combat. Korean forces mounted artillery in ships as naval guns , providing an advantage against Japanese navy which used Kunikuzushi (国崩し – Japanese breech-loading swivel gun ) and Ōzutsu (大筒 – large size Tanegashima ) as their largest firearms. Bombards were of value mainly in sieges . A famous Turkish example used at
12870-497: The problem of smoke dispersal found in earlier works. For coastal fortifications , he advocated multi-tiered batteries of guns in masonry casemates, that could bring concentrated fire to bear on passing warships. In 1778, he was commissioned to build a fort on the Île-d'Aix , defending the port of Rochefort, Charente-Maritime . The outbreak of the Anglo-French War forced him to hastily to build his casemated fort from wood but he
13000-468: The rate of fire, since a soldier would no longer have to worry about what end of the ramrod they were using. Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval , a French artillery engineer, introduced the standardization of cannon design in the mid-18th century. He developed a 6-inch (150 mm) field howitzer whose gun barrel, carriage assembly and ammunition specifications were made uniform for all French cannons. The standardized interchangeable parts of these cannons down to
13130-634: The resistance of the outer wall against battering rams. Originally thought to have been introduced to the region by the Hittites , this has been disproved by the discovery of examples predating their arrival, the earliest being at Ti'inik (Taanach) where such a wall has been dated to the 16th century BC . Casemate walls became a common type of fortification in the Southern Levant between the Middle Bronze Age (MB) and Iron Age II, being more numerous during
13260-406: The responsibility of the artillery arm. The majority of combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars , World War I , and World War II were caused by artillery. In 1944, Joseph Stalin said in a speech that artillery was "the god of war". Although not called by that name, siege engines performing the role recognizable as artillery have been employed in warfare since antiquity. The first known catapult
13390-548: The role of providing support to other arms in combat or of attacking targets, particularly in-depth. Broadly, these effects fall into two categories, aiming either to suppress or neutralize the enemy, or to cause casualties, damage, and destruction. This is mostly achieved by delivering high-explosive munitions to suppress, or inflict casualties on the enemy from casing fragments and other debris and from blast , or by destroying enemy positions, equipment, and vehicles. Non-lethal munitions, notably smoke, can also suppress or neutralize
13520-549: The sense of "false". However, it may have been ultimately derived from the Greek chásmata ( χάσματα ), a gap or aperture. The term casemate wall is used in the archaeology of Israel and the wider Near East , having the meaning of a double wall protecting a city or fortress, with transverse walls separating the space between the walls into chambers. These could be used as such, for storage or residential purposes, or could be filled with soil and rocks during siege in order to raise
13650-668: The sense of the word "artillery" covered all forms of military weapons. Hence, the naming of the Honourable Artillery Company , which was essentially an infantry unit until the 19th century. Another suggestion is that it comes from the Italian arte de tirare (art of shooting), coined by one of the first theorists on the use of artillery, Niccolò Tartaglia . The term was used by Girolamo Ruscelli (died 1566) in his Precepts of Modern Militia published posthumously in 1572. Mechanical systems used for throwing ammunition in ancient warfare, also known as " engines of war ", like
13780-460: The side of the cannon as an integral part of the cast—allowed the barrel to be fixed to a more movable base, and also made raising or lowering the barrel much easier. The first land-based mobile weapon is usually credited to Jan Žižka , who deployed his oxen-hauled cannon during the Hussite Wars of Bohemia (1418–1424). However, cannons were still large and cumbersome. With the rise of musketry in
13910-468: The siege of Roxburgh Castle in 1460. The able use of artillery supported to a large measure the expansion and defense of the Portuguese Empire , as it was a necessary tool that allowed the Portuguese to face overwhelming odds both on land and sea from Morocco to Asia. In great sieges and in sea battles, the Portuguese demonstrated a level of proficiency in the use of artillery after the beginning of
14040-454: The siege sixty-nine guns in fifteen separate batteries and trained them at the walls of the city. The barrage of Ottoman cannon fire lasted forty days, and they are estimated to have fired 19,320 times. Artillery also played a decisive role in the Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs of 1444. Early cannon were not always reliable; King James II of Scotland was killed by the accidental explosion of one of his own cannon, imported from Flanders, at
14170-405: The slopes which defended walls deeper in the complex from direct fire. The defending cannon were not simply intended to deal with attempts to storm the walls, but to actively challenge attacking cannon and deny them approach close enough to the fort to engage in direct fire against the vulnerable walls. The key to the fort's defence moved to the outer edge of the ditch surrounding the fort, known as
14300-602: The strongest and largest gunpowder arsenal among the European powers, and yet the French, under Joan of Arc's leadership, were able to beat back the Burgundians and defend themselves. As a result, most of the battles of the Hundred Years' War that Joan of Arc participated in were fought with gunpowder artillery. The army of Mehmet the Conqueror , which conquered Constantinople in 1453, included both artillery and foot soldiers armed with gunpowder weapons. The Ottomans brought to
14430-414: The structures. It was also often necessary to widen and deepen the ditch outside the walls to create a more effective barrier to frontal assault and mining. Engineers from the 1520s were also building massive, gently sloping banks of earth called glacis in front of ditches so that the walls were almost totally hidden from horizontal artillery fire. The main benefit of the glaces was to deny enemy artillery
14560-456: The tactical situation. The Wehrmacht employed several casemate tank destroyers, initially with the still- Panzerjäger designation Elefant with an added, fully enclosed five-sided (including its armored roof) casemate atop the hull, with later casemate-style tank destroyers bearing the Jagdpanzer (literally 'hunting tank') designation, with much more integration of the casemate's armour with
14690-669: The tank hull itself. Examples are the Jagdpanzer IV , the Jagdtiger and the Jagdpanther . Assault guns were designated as 'Sturmgeschütz', like the Sturmgeschütz III and Sturmgeschütz IV . In the Red Army, casemate tank destroyers and self-propelled guns bore an "SU-" or "ISU-" prefix, with the "SU-" prefix an abbreviation for Samokhodnaya Ustanovka , or "self-propelled gun". Examples are
14820-490: The term "casemate" has been used in a number of ways, but it generally refers to a protected space for guns within a ship's hull or superstructure. The first ironclad warship, the French ironclad Gloire (1858), was a wooden steamship whose hull was covered with armored plating, tested to withstand the largest smoothbore guns available at the time. The response by the British Royal Navy to this perceived threat
14950-406: The term "gunners" for the soldiers and sailors with the primary function of using artillery. The gunners and their guns are usually grouped in teams called either "crews" or "detachments". Several such crews and teams with other functions are combined into a unit of artillery, usually called a battery , although sometimes called a company. In gun detachments, each role is numbered, starting with "1"
15080-432: The term referred to a vaulted chamber in a fort , which may have been used for storage, accommodation, or artillery which could fire through an opening or embrasure . Although the outward faces of brick or masonry casemates proved vulnerable to advances in artillery performance, the invention of reinforced concrete allowed newer designs to be produced well into the 20th century. With the introduction of ironclad warships,
15210-634: The use and effectiveness of Portuguese firearms above contemporary powers, making cannon the most essential element in the Portuguese arsenal. The three major classes of Portuguese artillery were anti-personnel guns with a high borelength (including: rebrodequim , berço , falconete , falcão , sacre , áspide , cão , serpentina and passavolante ); bastion guns which could batter fortifications ( camelete , leão , pelicano , basilisco , águia , camelo , roqueira , urso ); and howitzers that fired large stone cannonballs in an elevated arch, weighted up to 4000 pounds and could fire incendiary devices, such as
15340-420: The wall were able to conduct undermining operations in relative safety, as the defenders could not shoot at them from nearby walls, until the development of machicolation . In contrast, the bastion fortress was a very flat structure composed of many triangular bastions , specifically designed to cover each other, and a ditch. To counteract the cannonballs, defensive walls were made lower and thicker. To counteract
15470-413: The walls. These outcroppings eliminated protected blind spots, called "dead zones", and allowed fire along the curtain wall from positions protected from direct fire. Many bastion forts also feature cavaliers , which are raised secondary structures based entirely inside the primary structure. Their predecessors, medieval fortresses , were usually placed on high hills . From there, arrows were shot at
15600-487: The way that battles were fought. In the preceding decades, the English had even used a gunpowder-like weapon in military campaigns against the Scottish. However, at this time, the cannons used in battle were very small and not particularly powerful. Cannons were only useful for the defense of a castle , as demonstrated at Breteuil in 1356, when the besieged English used a cannon to destroy an attacking French assault tower. By
15730-580: The weapon of artillery is the projectile, not the equipment that fires it. The process of delivering fire onto the target is called gunnery. The actions involved in operating an artillery piece are collectively called "serving the gun" by the "detachment" or gun crew, constituting either direct or indirect artillery fire. The manner in which gunnery crews (or formations) are employed is called artillery support. At different periods in history, this may refer to weapons designed to be fired from ground-, sea-, and even air-based weapons platforms . Some armed forces use
15860-421: The weight in pounds. The projectiles themselves included solid balls or canister containing lead bullets or other material. These canister shots acted as massive shotguns, peppering the target with hundreds of projectiles at close range. The solid balls, known as round shot , was most effective when fired at shoulder-height across a flat, open area. The ball would tear through the ranks of the enemy or bounce along
15990-629: The word "artillery" is often used to refer to individual devices, along with their accessories and fittings, although these assemblages are more properly called "equipment". However, there is no generally recognized generic term for a gun, howitzer, mortar, and so forth: the United States uses "artillery piece", but most English-speaking armies use "gun" and "mortar". The projectiles fired are typically either " shot " (if solid) or "shell" (if not solid). Historically, variants of solid shot including canister , chain shot and grapeshot were also used. "Shell"
16120-441: Was able to prove that his well-designed casemates were capable of operating without choking the gunners with smoke. The defenses of the new naval base at Cherbourg were later constructed according to his system. After seeing Montalembert's coastal forts, American engineer Jonathan Williams acquired a translation of his book and took it to the United States, where it inspired the Second and Third Systems of coastal fortification;
16250-491: Was developed in Syracuse in 399 BC. Until the introduction of gunpowder into western warfare, artillery was dependent upon mechanical energy which not only severely limited the kinetic energy of the projectiles, it also required the construction of very large engines to accumulate sufficient energy. A 1st-century BC Roman catapult launching 6.55 kg (14.4 lb) stones achieved a kinetic energy of 16 kilojoules , compared to
16380-406: Was equipped with new cannon and bombards that were easily able to destroy traditional fortifications built in the Middle Ages . Star forts were employed by Michelangelo in the defensive earthworks of Florence , and refined in the sixteenth century by Baldassare Peruzzi and Vincenzo Scamozzi . The design spread out of Italy in the 1530s and 1540s. It was employed heavily throughout Europe for
16510-454: Was invented in the eastern Mediterranean region in the 12th century, with the earliest definite attestation in 1187. Early Chinese artillery had vase-like shapes. This includes the "long range awe inspiring" cannon dated from 1350 and found in the 14th century Ming dynasty treatise Huolongjing . With the development of better metallurgy techniques, later cannons abandoned the vase shape of early Chinese artillery. This change can be seen in
16640-410: Was to build an iron-hulled frigate, HMS Warrior (1860) . However, it was realised that to armor all of the hull to fully withstand the latest rifled artillery would make it unfeasibly heavy, so it was decided to create an armored box or casemate around the main gun deck, leaving the bow and stern unarmored. The American Civil War saw the use of casemate ironclads : armored steamboats with
16770-501: Was used in Europe as a basic artillery manual. One of the most significant effects of artillery during this period was however somewhat more indirect—by easily reducing to rubble any medieval-type fortification or city wall (some which had stood since Roman times), it abolished millennia of siege-warfare strategies and styles of fortification building. This led, among other things, to a frenzy of new bastion -style fortifications to be built all over Europe and in its colonies, but also had
16900-423: Was viewed as its own service branch with the capability of dominating the battlefield. The success of the French artillery companies was at least in part due to the presence of specially trained artillery officers leading and coordinating during the chaos of battle. Napoleon , himself a former artillery officer, perfected the tactic of massed artillery batteries unleashed upon a critical point in his enemies' line as
#987012