If you'd like to support us, please visit our Patreon page. It's the best way to chime in. Even with as little as $1! The money goes into the artwork that you see in the videos. Link: www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhistory Get a 25% discount for Curiosity Stream with code sandrhoman! It's just $14.99 for one year! curiositystream.com/SandRhoman
I like how you take a look at things tactically as well as infrastructurally. i would love more stuff on late 17th/early 18th century warfare too. that seems to be another transitionary period where a lot if these developments ramped up.
Yeah, both Roman and I have had an eye on that time period. We just need a bit more time to really get into it. At the moment Roman is finishing up his master in history and I still have three internships to do to finish up my degree as a history teacher. So maybe next year :)
It might also be cool to look at the mechanization of early modern warfare. Maybe not the economic aspects, but at least the ability of states to go from fielding 10s of 1000s to 100s of 1000s during the napoleonic wars.
Great video. But I feel you left out two key elements -- *ROADS* and **HORSES**. Yes. Manufacturing was "difficult". But this still doesn't explain why a fleet could roll into battle with 500 or 700 or 1000 guns, and armies with 30 or 60. Or why dozens and dozens of fortresses had 50 or 100 guns each -- but USUALLY weren't used in battles nearby. Why was there such a "shortage" in FIELD BATTLES and offensive siege operations specifically? Didn't the kings WANT their armies to actually win their battles? Of course they did. So why did they send 800 guns in for a naval battle and put 100 or more guns in key fortresses... but have just 30 to 50 for a land battle? In my opinion, this difference comes down to the fact that not only was it much more difficult to transport older guns on bad gun carriages over bad roads, but the bad roads and poor gun carriages also required tremendous numbers of horses. And horses require feed. According to Dr. John Lynn, in his amazing work, "Giant of the Grand Siecle", a late 17th-century army of 60,000 men including 20,000 horses for cavalry and an extra 20,000 animals for transport required almost 20 times as many tons of grass per day as other supplies. And the amount of grass that could be gathered was limited by the range of your foraging parties (often light cavalry). So, the generals had to make their difficult decisions as to BALANCING their requirements with what was logistically possible on the campaign. Guns and their ammunition gobbled up ungodly amounts of horses to transport them, dramatically increasing the logistical requirements. But whether you have a 30,000 man army or a 100,000 man army, before the age of Napoleon (with multiple corps advancing down multiple routes) the daily range of your foraging parties is about the same. So difficult balancing decisions must be made. If I recall, Marlborough's siege train that moved to join him in southern German in 1704 (?) was almost 10 miles long -- including its escort. Let's at least say miles and miles. Though because it was so so slow, it moved independently of the army, which was probably a logistical bonus. Yes, as time went on, manufacturing became easier, but... VERY IMPORTANTLY... ROADS got better, reducing the number of horses required per gun. AND gun carriages got more advanced, also making their transport much easier. A GUN also requires ammunition to be moved. Another factor. Siege guns require staggering amounts of ammunition to be moved. In some sieges by Napoleon, three times as much shot was used as during Louis XIV's biggest sieges. This was probably a matter of cost, but also increasing resources of the state and falling prices as manufacturing methods improved. But also a matter of ease of transport with "modern" roads. Many people think "dirt paths were everywhere". A dirt path is not the same as a path with ditches. It is not the same as a path which is maintained. It is not the same as path with a camber. It is not the same as a road that is metalled (known as gravel in the USA). It is not the same as a road with cobblestones (i.e. "paved"). Those types of roads became more and more common as time went on, which might also account for the narrowing of the gap between land battle cannon deployment and naval battle cannon deployment (as referenced by this video at the battle of Leipzig... however, those Napoleonic armies also moved and concentrated in a totally different way than armies had 250 years before -- giving them a much larger area to forage and seize supplies from). Improved roads also allowed for greater range of your foraging parties, which in turn allowed for bigger armies -- and bigger artillery trains. I feel this is the best way to explain the vast differences in numbers of guns wielded by field armies versus numbers used by home fortresses or navies. The fortresses and navies seem to be able to concentrate much more and heavier firepower than the field armies through this time. As an example of these points all wrapped into one, I submit the following. Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177) Note that with navies which were a floating armada of over 700 guns (at Trafalgar there were more than 5000 cannon ... but at Austerlitz in the same year, Napoleon had maybe 150 guns... and not 24 to 36 pounders! A single broadside from Victory packed more weight of iron than all of Wellington's cannon at Waterloo), that their EASE of movement -- and of moving the ammunition -- was vastly better than armies. Bringing even a 24 pound naval gun along with its crew was not limited by the same logistical feed problems it was on land using horse transport. And those lower deck guns on ships were the BIG guns typically reserved for use as siege weapons on land (24 pounds or more). Most field guns were in the neighborhood of 6 pounders, or 12 pounders AND had shorter barrels. If I recall, some of the guns introduced by Gustavus Aldolfus were 3 pounders. Land siege guns were usually transported by river or coastal transport whenever remotely possible. As at the siege of Torun by the Swedes in 1703. That siege took 5 months. But the siege guns arrived several months into the effort, transported from Stockholm by boat and up the Vistula river as one amazing research paper I found revealed (answering the question as to why the siege took sooooo long for what was otherwise, such a capable army). Anyway, THAT is my hypothesis after reading half a wall of books on warfare of the 1600-1815 period. If anyone has any comments, I am always happy to learn. I am working on historical board games about the period so I am always ready to learn more. Indeed, I WANT to learn more and discover new corrections to this hypothesis that improve it. But a key question for me was: WHY would an army be using only 30 field guns in a field battle, when 20 miles away there was a fortress with 100 guns in it (many of those heavy, 24 pounders)? Or multiple such fortresses? One reason was because those fortress guns were not only 24 pounders, but because they also had longer barrels to stick out over the ramparts so they would not damage the ramparts with repeated firing. i.e. JUST TOO HARD TO MOVE. The number of horses required and difficulty of movement were limiting factors. It is NOT that they didn't exist in the area of operations. If it were JUST about numbers, local fortress guns could have been "checked out" for field battles all of the time. Though you can find occassional references to this (I believe I have seen a specific reference to that in a siege along the upper Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession), they rarely were.
@@mindbomb9341 I reckon it would be very involved moving cannons off the battlements of a fortress, onto a carriage to the field of battle. They would need to hoisted, possible one by one via crane which would take a long bloody time. Also the fortress would need those guns in case it comes under attack that is the whole point of fortresses, to be absolutely horrendous in cost and arduous in effort to take by force at all times. I think also the carriages for static emplacements were different from field guns right, ie lacking large wheels. Not particularly space efficient to have all the equipment for converting fortress guns lying around ready to be used at the drop of a hat. Just my thoughts on your last point.
@@WhatIsSanity Hey there. In case you are interested, I just pasted the full re-edit I did on my original post elsewhere I did on this page. It has about twice as much detail. But there's probably no big reason to re-read it. I just have a few more supporting arguments and historical details. Yes, I agree with your point.
Was also probably hard to manufacture up until the industrial revolution. As I recall, the royal navy only became dominant once it could get a supply of mass produced cannons. Napoleon i think also nationalized arms production to get the same results so he could make his grand batteries. I am not sure about russia or the other powers though.
@@abcdedfg8340 By Napoleon, cannon could be mass-produced more easily, and a mere 50-60 years later, by the time of the Wars of Unification between then 1850s and 1870s, factories had changed so much, and so much advancement had been made - since Napoleon, cartridges with both projectile and powder were commonplace, and by this time we had innovations like the Wiard, Whitworth, Armstrong, Krupp and Ordinance guns, and many other rifled cannon that dominated the battlefields of the 1860s, like the C/60 or C/64 Krupp that decimated Danish infantry at Dybbol in 1864. A lot changed in the long XIX century.
Watching your wonderful animation style grow in complexity over the years is really inspiring! I love the art style you've created for yourself, it is so unique. It reminds me of a less-absurdist Monty Python type collage. You rock man!
@@croncorcen Exactly! It is honestly fun to look at, and there are always little details to catch on a second watch. Animation is time consuming so it's a real testament to their commitment to history ❤️
The period of the supreme Ottoman artillery was the very transition from the Medieval to the Early Modern ages, an overlooked factor in the history of warfare
I mean it really is not overlooked among actual historians. If you ask anyone who knows anything about the important events that led to the early modern age the Ottomans and the fall of Constantinople will be among the first.
although certainly being a factor, i think this is an overstatement. there were many factors outside of warfare that drove that transition. sience, economics, etc.
@@croncorcen I think overlooked matter is the industrial revolution. Till the beginning of it, i suspect cannons were much more expensive and difficult to make. As i remember, the royal navy only really became dominant once the industrial revolution took hold and they could manufacture arms in large quantities. They even supplied much of the materials for the allied armies during the napoleonic wars. Napoleon also apparently nationalized the production of arms to get similar results.
@@abcdedfg8340 the second industrial Revolution had the changes required to make better and interchangeable parts based guns, the first revolution that happened before Napoleon was more consumer goods and always hand fitted
I love your art style and presentation. It feels like a professionally done lecture because most of the facts are sourced and aren't an "educated guess" - the most popular genre of history on RUclips.
Yeah, I think Sweden was the largest exporter of cannons for a good while during this period. Most because hardly anyone else produced an excess of cannons I guess. Having access to the Stora Kopparberget mine in Falun, which alone supplied like 2/3 of Europes copper in a time where casting bronze cannons was the norm surley helped.
The problem is that while firearm production can be more easily fit in one package, naval ships were all over the place as different areas built their own ships with unique philosophies based on the culture and environment surrounding the ships construction and use. Evolution of Europeon naval ships is a whole lot easier to make a video of.
Artillery in late medieval and renaissance era had no exact calibres. All the gunsmiths' thoughts were "gun big gun good" but forgot that it was too hard to move and maintain, like the dardanelles gun. What shaped it was standardised artillery (4-6-8-12-24 pounders) and horse limbers. Guns move so quick that it created infantry support guns and light artillery of today.
Tactically equal to infantry and cavalry, though it had been the most invested in arm for some time. It was one of the few military arms to receive investment in times of peace before the concept of a standing army became common.
Stumbled across this video, and channel. Love the scrutiny to historical information this video undertakes. Popular history channels vaguely mention about ambiguity of information if at all. This video takes it to a great new level. Well done! Keep this approach consistent, please. Notable mention: Fantastic bibliographic references at the end.
The switch didn't really happen at all. Cast iron was used for defensive cannons that didn't need to be moved much and it was cheaper. There are iron cannons that were smithed in the 15th century (iron pipe surrounded by iron rods surrounded by iron bands to keep it together). Bronze was more expensive but lighter and easier to handle and thus was used predominantly in stuff that had to be moved. In the middle of the 19th century cast steel became cheap and was used as the main material.
Iron was a cheaper material, but harder to cast. Cast Bronze guns could also be made with thinner walls and thus lighter. During the 17th century you progressively see more guns cast in Iron until iron becomes the dominant production method at the start of the 18th century. Part of this is the improvement in Dutch reaming machines (1690's) that were better at boring out the cast barrel, this helped with Iron castings that were more prone to honey combing than their bronze counterparts. Though Bronze guns never disappeared due to their advantages despite the cost.
@@bobemmerson1580 Also bronze guns were more resistant to barrel bursting and thus more safer. So no wonder they survived all the way up to the rifled breech-loading guns in XIX century.
Watching this the day after finishing basic training, waiting in the airport now to go to Fort Sill for AIT. Going to train to be field artillery so it’s pretty cool this video was released just a couple days ago, really enjoyed it!
Very, Very well made. And a perfect smoothing voice to listen too. You, friend, have earned a sub.
2 года назад+3
I am impressed by the improvement of the animation and the maps that you show in each video, that is why I loved the theme developed here. Now you just need to make a video talking about the evolution of naval artillery between the XV, XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries, to complete the artillery series. =D
The fact that so much fighting in this period was just people with guns and pikes standing in rows meant that there was always some poor bastard on either side who was staring directly down the barrel of the enemy guns from the start of the battle. Talk about having the short end of the stick.
@@peternystrom921 not much difference in how you die but in modern combat soldier's own decisions can increase their chance of survival considerably more than in line warfare. If you can conceal your position, place decoys and scatter or use terrain in your advantage, it at least gives you some degree of control over your fate, whereas if you are standing in formation, it's pure luck.
@@ustanik9921 its pure luck for you, but if you have a good general and your army is altogether very competent, there was a good chance youd survive. Battles werent just 2 rows shooting each other until one side is dead. Many fights were won just because one army surrendered extremely quick, before devastating casualtie counts could amass
@@XMysticHerox The Allies killed way more with aircraft in WW2, especially when you throw the nuclear bombs in the equation. Sure, most weren't soldiers, but turns out wiping out entire cities along with their population is rather effective at breaking the enemy's war machine.
nowadays it would be "god fight on the side with the best air force"
2 года назад+1
Thank you for this intersting Video. And again supply and logistics as well as industrial politics seem to be more important then tactics on the battlefield.
I think you missed on an opportunity in not bringing on the Siege of Neuss, which is just impressive in its scale of the artillery park and gun powder used. The Burgundians, who besiege the Neussians even had to build at least one powder mill. But I think it is not necessarily a representative example, since it was Charles the Bold and the Burgundians, aka the guy who wore a ruby the size of a child’s head on his helmet, so yeah, he could afford some. Still a really great video, putting some attention to the logistics
Another great video, this time going beyond the tactical and technological into the economics of war... and with a topic that would merits its own episode from a naval warfare aspect, maybe setting right the myth of the massive use of ship-smashing artillery aboard galleons of the 16th century...
Great video. But I feel you left out two key elements -- **ROADS** and **HORSES**. Yes. Manufacturing was "difficult". But this still doesn't explain why a fleet could roll into battle with 500 or 700 or 1000 guns, and armies with 30 or 60. Or why dozens and dozens of fortresses had 50 or 100 guns each -- but USUALLY weren't used in battles nearby. Why was there such a "shortage" in FIELD BATTLES and offensive siege operations specifically? Didn't the kings WANT their armies to actually win their battles? Of course they did. So why did they send 800 guns in for a naval battle and put 100 or more guns in key fortresses... but have just 30 to 50 for a land battle? In my opinion, this difference comes down to the fact that not only was it much more difficult to transport older guns on bad gun carriages over bad roads, but the bad roads and poor gun carriages also required tremendous numbers of horses. And horses require feed. (NOTE: all references to "guns" in this comment are to cannon) According to Dr. John Lynn, in his amazing work, "Giant of the Grand Siecle", a late 17th-century army of 60,000 men including 20,000 horses for cavalry and an extra 20,000 animals for transport required almost 20 times as many tons of grass per day as other supplies. And the amount of grass that could be gathered was limited by the range of your foraging parties (often light cavalry). So, the generals had to make their difficult decisions as to BALANCING their requirements with what was logistically possible on the campaign. Cannon and their ammunition gobbled up ungodly amounts of horses to transport them, dramatically increasing the logistical requirements. But whether you have a 30,000 man army or a 100,000 man army, before the age of Napoleon (with multiple corps advancing down multiple routes) the daily range of your foraging parties in un-plundered territory is about the same. So, difficult balancing decisions must be made. If I recall, Marlborough's siege train that moved to join him in southern Germany in 1704 (?) was almost 10 miles long -- including its escort. Let's at least say miles and miles. Though because it was so so slow, it moved independently of the army, which was probably a logistical bonus. Yes, as time went on, manufacturing became easier, but... VERY IMPORTANTLY... ROADS got better, reducing the number of horses required per gun. AND gun carriages and barrels got more advanced and lighter, also making their transport much easier. A GUN also requires ammunition to be moved -- another factor. Siege guns require staggering amounts of ammunition to be moved. In some sieges by Napoleon, three times as much shot was used as during Louis XIV's biggest sieges. This was probably a matter of cost, but also increasing resources of the state and falling prices as manufacturing methods improved. But also a matter of ease of transport with "modern" roads. Many people think "dirt paths were everywhere". A dirt path is not the same as a path with ditches. It is not the same as a path which is maintained. It is not the same as path with a camber. It is not the same as a gravel road. It is not the same as a road with cobblestones (i.e. "paved"). Those types of roads became more and more common as time went on, which might also account for the narrowing of the gap between land battle cannon deployment and naval battle cannon deployment (as referenced by this video at the battle of Leipzig... however, those Napoleonic armies also moved and concentrated in a totally different way than armies had 250 years before -- giving them a much larger area to forage and seize supplies from). Improved roads also allowed for greater range of your foraging parties, which in turn allowed for bigger armies -- and bigger artillery trains. Just for example, a couple of statistics. When the Austrian army departed from Vienna towards Budapest to capture it from the Ottomans in 1686, they had an army of 44,800 men, 186 cannons and mortars, 112,000 cannon balls, 5600 "Doppelzentner" gunpowder (about 560,000 kilograms it seems, but I need to check on this and it could be about half of that), and 20,000 "bombs" (p.57 Ungaria Eliberata -- a history of the Great Turkish War in German). Additionally, as revealed elsewhere on this channel, in the 1600s it took about 17 horses to tow a 24 pounder reliably on the roads of the time. As an example of these points all wrapped into one, I submit the following. Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177) Note that with navies which were a floating armada of over 700 guns (at Trafalgar there were more than 5000 cannon on both sides combined ... but at Austerlitz in the same year, Napoleon had maybe 150 guns... and not 24 to 36 pounders! A single broadside from Nelson's HMS Victory packed more weight of iron than one salvo from all of Wellington's cannon at Waterloo), that their EASE of movement -- and of moving the ammunition -- was vastly better than armies. Bringing even a 24 pound naval gun along with its crew was not limited by the same logistical feed problems it was on land using horse transport. And those lower deck guns on ships were the BIG guns typically reserved for use as siege weapons on land (24 to a whopping 36 pounders). Most field guns were in the neighborhood of 6 pounders, or 12 pounders AND had shorter barrels. If I recall, some of the guns introduced by Gustavus Aldolfus were 3 pounders. Land siege guns were usually transported by river or coastal transport whenever remotely possible. As at the siege of Torun by the Swedes in 1703. That siege took 5 months. But the siege guns arrived several months into the effort, transported from Stockholm by boat and up the Vistula river as one amazing research paper I found revealed (answering the question as to why the siege took sooooo long for what was otherwise, such a capable army). I feel this is the best way to explain the vast differences in numbers of guns wielded by field armies versus numbers used by home fortresses or navies. The fortresses and navies seem to be able to concentrate much more and heavier firepower than the field armies through this time. Anyway, that is my hypothesis after reading half a wall of books on warfare of the 1600-1815 period. If anyone has any comments, I am always happy to learn. I am working on historical board games about the period so I am always ready to learn more. Indeed, I WANT to learn more and discover new corrections to this hypothesis that improve it. But a key question for me was: WHY would an army be using only 30 field guns in a field battle, when 20 miles away there was a fortress with 100 guns in it (many of those heavy, 24 pounders)? Or multiple such fortresses? One reason was because those fortress guns were not only 24 pounders, but because they also had longer barrels to stick out over the ramparts so they would not damage the ramparts with repeated firing. i.e. JUST TOO HARD TO MOVE. The number of horses required and difficulty of movement were limiting factors. It is NOT that they didn't exist in the area of operations. If it were JUST about numbers, local fortress guns could have been "checked out" for field battles all of the time. Though you can find occassional references to this (I believe I have seen a specific reference to that in a siege along the upper Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession), they rarely were.
@@namvo3013 Yes, per unit of "capability". There were advancements in casting, drilling out the barrel, and carriage design. Of course there were some lighter 15th century guns than 18th century guns. But if the overall weight was the same, a 18th century gun would have outperformed the 16th century gun.
Very interesting! This would explain why overseas, in Brazil, even during the XVI and XVII centuries guns were considerably more common than is pictured in this video. Because of the abundance of rivers and sea routes, all of this movement of resources would have been massively facilitated; in some areas of course, the Mountainous Hinterlands and Northeastern Desert were a completely scenario. We even have reports of Cram tribal alliances acquiring gunpower weapons and defeating entire Tupi-Portuguese allied hosts with them, during the long war in the Dukedom of the Northern Rio Grande. Of course, we're talking about mostly arquebus here, cannons would still have been very rare.
Very nice done. I learned alot. Have a story at making guns where 18 gun were ordered at fortress where i lived (around 1680), All guns were test fired, and 16 were broken. King of Norway at that time, ordered the gunsmith to sit on the barrell when it was test fired at the next order.... I presume he did a much better job....
It's also interesting that while he favoured _flying batteries_ he realised that often his army didn't have the skill or equipment to carry out that tactic well, and so at times switched to _grand batteries_ . Not being fixed to rigid doctrines but adapting to the army that one has (rather than wishes to have) is a remarkable skill.
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 well I will agree that before Gustavus Adolphus cannons were not that important on the battlefield. there were cannons as early as early as early15 century in Europe and probably even earlier than that. but even primitive infantry and cavalry of that time was able to deal with them. Later when cavalry became more advanced like hussars for example the primitive cannons of 16 century were not very effective against them. it wasn't until Adolphus that cannons became truly important part of the armies. However its Napoleon who brought them to their full potential.
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 gustavus was the first great but napoleon was the greatest. Gustavus had only regimental pieces, basically huge shotguns. Napoleon made it the core element of his strategy.
This might be outside your area of expertise but it'd be really cool to take a look at how guns were manufactured and what changed in that process to allow the greater production that would eventually satisfy the needs of European armies.
Would like to see a video on the process of standardization of cannons, it'd be an interesting development of this one. Foucault said that the word "normal" was initially created to mean standardized cannons and only latter came to be applied to people
I may be going wild with my imagination, but this chronic demand of huge quantities of metal production for artillery & regular arms seem to me what ultimately sparkled industrialization
Would artillery of the romans and middle ages not count as artillery, strictly speaking? Or is it that artillery in the periods prior to 1500 was just an a nice but ultimately not that important branch sine it was mainly used in sieges and never in battles?
I do believe some of the lighter Roman torsion artillery was occasionally used in battles, someone needs to correct me though if I'm wrong, working off of a vague memory here. Still I'd say the big difference between cannons and torsion artillery, or various counterweight weapons like trebuchets, is range and power. While impressive in their own right, the various Greek and Roman torsion weapons of the classical antiquity still required you to get relatively close, and upscaling them to increase power was simply too inefficient in comparison to a cannon, where you really only need a thicker barrel to accomodate for a larger powder charge, and / or a bigger bore size to accomodate a larger projectile. Certainly in the context of Naval warfare torsion weapons were used, most notably by Syracuse, but they were perhaps more of useful for hitting things on the shore rather than hitting other ships, as the accuracy and rate of fire on a ship that might be pitching and rolling and doing all sorts of wacky things as it moves is questionable at best.
@@TheThingInMySink There is this video (ruclips.net/video/ghtEJzSKbvs/видео.html) from a smaller youtube channel that I found some years ago about a previously unknown battle in a german forest where the Romans used mainly artillery to combat the German tribes
The Romans used various types of ballistae as field artillery, sometimes mounted on waggons but the effort to bring heavier machines to a field battle outweighs their use most of the times.
For your first question, it depends on how you define artillery. Some define it strictly as team-operated gunpowder weapons, others as any team-operated range weapons. Fundamentally, this is a purely semantic question, not a history one. As for your second question, that's a topic of much debate. The Romans did, occasionally, use torsion artillery in field battles. Gaius Marius did so against Mithridates in Asia minor IIRC. Even going right back to the beginning of torsion artillery, Alexander the Great used some in the field - notably to clear the way for his army to cross the Oxus in his campaign against the Saka. However, these uses were comparatively rare, typically from static positions (like the river above, or in relation to field fortifications) and almost never decisive. Their main role, as in the cannons described in the video, was to force the enemy out of a strong defensive position: either forcing them to attack or to retreat. Essentially, they were an area denial weapon: even in sieges they were there to force the defender to keep their head down rather than to demolish stone walls. Essentially, the range, power, limited mobility, and rate-of-fire of torsion weapons was simply not great enough (relative to their cost) to inflict significant casualties in the time it would take for the enemy to close with them. Their use was therefore mostly constrained to sieges or niche field situations where their long range was more important than their shortcomings.
My appreciate & Respectful for Curiosity Stream & this channel which shared informative video about Artillery weapon as independent division besides of infantry & Cavalry
There is a ubiquitous nursery rhyme in English titled Humpty Dumpty which (by some interpretations) despairs about a cannon named _Humpty Dumpty_ being destroyed by a fall off of a wall, after which an unnamed king orders that the weapon be rebuilt from the wreckage. The rarity of heavy artillery in this period goes a long way to explaining why that one exists as it does
Don't forget that it is not simply having loads of field guns available for battle, but also having enough horses to pull them, pull their ammunition and pull the forage wagons that feed the horses - a problem Napoleon had in the later part of the Napoleonic Wars.
What is the music played around 11:45 until the end , I have heard it in many of your videos but I can't find its name anywhere. Does anybody know its name?
It's another great video but I find myself asking the question from the title even after watching it. The problem as I see it is that you made a video about the progression through history and not the reasons for the improvements. Why were the gunmakers so decentralized and inneficient? why were the logistics such a hussle? Were there any improvements to the manufacturing proces? a new alloy, method or design? I still think this video is great but it doesn't really answer the question it has asked itself. I would love to see a followup focusing on that part of artillery's rise. Thank you
Hmm It seems to me it was more a problem of scaling up cannon production, the more time you have cannon products, the more efficient and better they became at it, and thus producing more and more cannons as time went on
Metalworking is important to understand canons. Without the development of alloys, to throw a heavier ball you have to make the barrel thicker, to get velocity, it needs to be longer. The heavier the weight, the more horses and men it takes to lug the thing around. But as metal alloys and forge technology developed, you could make canons stronger without them needing to be thicker .
While I wouldn't look at it as *THE* reason for increased use of cannon, I have to think that late 1700's to early 1800's advancements in road building/engineering had something to do with it.
Great video. Yes. Manufacturing was "difficult". But this still doesn't explain why a fleet could roll into battle with 500 or 700 or 1000 guns, and armies with 30 or 60. Or why dozens and dozens of fortresses had 50 or 100 guns each -- but USUALLY weren't used in battles nearby. Why was there such a "shortage" in FIELD BATTLES and offensive siege operations specifically? Didn't the kings WANT their armies to actually win their battles? Of course they did. So why did they send 800 guns in for a naval battle, and just 50 in for a land battle? In my opinion, this difference comes down to the fact that not only was it much more difficult to transport older guns on bad gun carriages over bad roads, but the bad roads and poor gun carriages also required tremendous numbers of horses. And horses require feed. According to Dr. John Lynn, in his amazing work, "Giant of the Grand Siecle", a late 17th-century army of 60,000 men including 20,000 cavalry and an extra 20,000 animals for transport required almost 20 times as many tons of grass per day as other supplies. And the amount of grass that could be gathered was limited by the range of your foraging parties (often light cavalry). So, the generals had to make their difficult decisions as to BALANCING their requirements with what was logistically possible on the campaign. Guns and their ammunition gobbled up ungodly amounts of horses to transport them, dramatically increasing the logistical requirements. But whether you have a 30,000 man army or a 100,000 man army, before the age of Napoleon, with multiple corps advancing down multiple routes, the daily range of your foraging parties is about the same. So difficult balancing decisions must be made. If I recall, Marlborough's siege train that moved to join him in southern German in 1704 (?) was almost 10 miles long -- including its escort. Let's at least say miles and miles. Though because it was so so slow, it moved independently of the army, which was probably a logistical bonus. Yes, as time went on, manufacturing became easier, but... VERY IMPORTANTLY... ROADS got better, reducing the number of horses required per gun. AND gun carriages got more advanced, also making their transport much easier. A GUN also requires ammunition to be moved. Another factor. In some sieges by Napoleon, three times as much shot was used as during Louis XIV's biggest sieges. Probably a matter of cost, but also increasing resources of the state and falling prices as manufacturing methods improved. But also a matter of ease of transport with "modern" roads. Many people think "dirt paths were everywhere". A dirt path is not the same as a path with ditches. It is not the same as a path which is maintained. It is not the same as path with a camber. It is not the same as a road that is metalled (known as gravel in the USA). It is not the same as a road with cobblestones (i.e. "paved"). Those types of roads became more and more common as time went on, which might also account for the narrowing of the gap between land battle cannon deployment and naval battle cannon deployment (as referenced by this video at the battle of Leipzig... however, those Napoleonic armies also moved and concentrated in a totally different way than armies had 250 years before -- giving them a much larger area to forage and seize supplies from). Improved roads also allowed for greater range of your foraging parties, which in turn allowed for bigger armies -- and bigger artillery trains. I feel this is the best way to explain the vast differences in numbers of guns wielded by field armies versus numbers used by home fortresses or navies. The fortresses and navies seem to be able to concentrate much more and heavier firepower than the field armies through this time. As an example of these points all wrapped into one, I submit the following. Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177) Note that with navies which were a floating armada of over 700 guns, that their EASE of movement (and of moving the ammunition) was vastly better than armies. And those lower deck guns on ships were the BIG guns typically reserved for use as siege weapons on land (24 pounds or more). Most field guns were in the neighborhood of 6 pounders, or 12 pounders AND had shorter barrels. If I recall, some of the guns introduced by Gustavus Aldolfus were 3 pounders. Land siege guns were usually transported by river or coastal transport whenever remotely possible. As at the siege of Torun by the Swedes in 1703. That siege took 5 months. But the siege guns arrived several months into the effort, transported from Stockholm by boat and up the Vistula river as one amazing research paper I found revealed (answering the question as to why the siege took sooooo long for what was otherwise, such a capable army). Anyway, THAT is my hypothesis after reading half a wall of books on warfare of the 1600-1815 period. If anyone has any comments, I am always happy to learn. I am working on historical board games about the period so I am always ready to learn more. Indeed, I WANT to learn more and discover new corrections to this hypothesis that improve it. But a key question for me was: WHY would an army be using only 30 field guns in a field battle, when 20 miles away there was a fortress with 100 guns in it (many of those heavy, 24 pounders)? Or multiple such fortresses? One reason was because those fortress guns were not only 24 pounders, but because they also had longer barrels to stick out over the ramparts so they would not damage the ramparts with repeated firing. i.e. JUST TOO HARD TO MOVE. The number of horses required and difficulty of movement were limiting factors. It is NOT that they didn't exist in the area of operations. If it were JUST about numbers, local fortress guns could have been "checked out" for field battles all of the time. Though you can find occassional references to this (I believe I have seen a specific reference to that in a siege along the upper Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession), they rarely were.
@@mindbomb9341 I can't find fault with your reasoning. I didn't account for the logistics of acquiring and feeding the draft horses, that adds another wrinkle.
@@mindbomb9341 what you're saying makes sense, but... A few things: 1. why didn't they use more of the light guns that would be easy easier to transport? They weren't that effective? 2. There must have been at least some well maintained roads between major cities, based on Roman roads. 3. Plenty of sieges were laid to coastal cities and most historical cities are at big, navigable rivers. Why didn't they transport more heavy artillery there by ships?
@@jankoodziej877 Hi Jan. I am no doctor of history in this area, but I have done a mountain of reading and note-taking. Based on that, I would answer: 1) The lighter guns had very little effect for sieges. 24 pounders were the standard for knocking breaches in walls or field works. I guess the lightest guns I can think of in field battles were the 3 pounders Gustavus Adolfus introduced (and referenced in this video I believe). You would have to ask experts about their actual effectiveness. Without a doubt, Adolfus' overall military machine was very effective. One thing interesting to me is that during the pursuit after Waterloo, the Allies captured several fortresses by escalade (grab your ladders and over the top!) before the siege trains had caught up. But that was against small garrisons of poor troops with a population that had had it with Napoleon and leaned towards the king. In one case, a lucky shot from a field gun hit an ammunition depot (I believe in Avesnes) and this so demoralized the garrison that they surrendered. 2) Of course, the more important roads PROBABLY would have been better maintained, and hence able to support better movement and military flexibility. I don't know which Roman roads were still useable in any capacity at that point. 3) I added a reference to the 1704 siege of Torun by the Swedes in my initial comment above (as well as a few other details), it is a good example of moving a siege train from the capital (in Stockholm) to Danzig, switching it to river transport, and then moving it slowly up river. That siege took 5 months. But initially it was really just a blocking operation. The siege train tooks a few months to arrive. And then it was quickly over. I believe in "On Supplying War" by Van Creveld, he points out the fact that many of the campaigns in the Thirty Years War moved along the lines of Germany's major rivers for this logistical reason. You will also notice that the great fortresses of France's northeastern frontier defensive chain were built along rivers which would have supported offensive operations coming from "Belgium", like the Escault, Scheldt, and Sambre (of course Belgium is used anachronistically here, referring to the Spanish Netherlands or Austrian Netherlands). Of course the French logisics experts, marshalls, and fortress engineers realized these water-highways coming in from such densely populated and rich lands were that important, and built fortresses to compensate for these geographical weaknesses in their frontiers. So I guess to use more, bigger guns that were brought in by sea or river, you needed command of the sea (though not as difficult to sneek through as it is now because of lack of surveillance technology back in the day), and a target city with easy access by water. And that certainly wasn't always the case. It would be interesting to see more examples of fortresses on waterways falling to siege trains brought in by river/sea and whether during those kinds of sieges, the attackers had an average of more guns. I wish I could do a full study. LOL. Also, one more note: Remember, without docks, moving these heavy guns on to and off of ships is difficult. You can't just sail anywhere up river and have it go quickly and smoothly. I apologize for my poor answers to 1 and 2. If you know more let me know. c
@@jankoodziej877 I found a great quote wrapping a lot of this up in a book I am reading: Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177)
Cannons during that time was made using iron which are prone to blasting if used for too long. The transition to copper or bronze guns in the late 18th century allowed them to produce large number of qualified cannons. Only in 19th century was steel cannons were possible because of the advancement of technology.
so basically real scale of artillery (production, maintanace, ammunition, explosives, training and logistics) needed the support of a nation state and early modern states just were not ready. Thats like me trying to tech into fusion powered space lasers when I havent quite mastered railways.
it should not be forgotten that the total number of soldiers also increased drastically, medieval battles generally included thousands of men, sometimes hundreds early modern battles ranged from thousands to tens of thousands to sometimes over 100 000 but by the modern period armies were hundreds of thousands strong, especially in france that with it's republic had introduced nationalism and thus mass conscription of young men and trained them to be professional soldiers. an army with 40k soldiers and 100 guns, vs an army of 800k with 5k, the relative difference in number is not that extreme when looking at it that way. it can not be denied however that artillery went from a uniqum that was used against walls or dense formations to an essential component of any serious force, without which no army could hope to beat another
Gustav III had perhaps the greatest artillery commander of the 16th and 17th century; Lennart Torstensson.. A genius when it came to implementation of cannon on the battlefield, both for bombardement and as infantry support. 🙏🏾🇸🇪
I always thought the relatively small numbers of artillery in the 16-18th century was due to logistics, like they knew artillery in numbers was a good idea, but the wagon train to protect and move was a logistical nightmare and only when the stars aligned did generals have the numbers of cannon and bombard they wanted on the field
although i suspect that the reason the ottomans had shortages of guns was raids by the knights of st john on their supply lines but also the the fact that the ottomans had a major diffculted in getting a foothold on malta large enough to get large gun to shore in suffiencent numbers to prove decisive. the ottomans often had pleanty of guns avaliable but some of them where very heavy and not very useful in campaigns on small islands like malta and they were very diffcult to transport.
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 i am speciffically talking about the gunpowder revolution in other parts of the world like india, middle east, china and other asiatic nations...
Who thinks Europe invented gunpowder? I mean, I'm sure there are morons who believe that somewhere, but it's hardly a mainstream opinion amongst people with even a passing interest in early modern history. As for it being a "revolution", it was first in Europe that gunpowder was used so widely that it dictated all other tactical considerations, and it was first in Europe that it replaced all other (infantry) weapons. Other states used guns in supporting roles before this was common in Europe (China and Ottomans being obvious examples), but they made the switch to being completely gunpowder centric (as in European pike-and-shot warfare) after Europe.
@@QuantumHistorian pike and shotte warfare is mainly european the rest of the world used guns as irregular warfare or just like old times but replacing bows with guns and resulting in alot of failed wars Also Ottomans used guns waaaaay more than pther Europeans and even made the first proffessional army there (the Janissaries) and China too technically speaking just not enough of a good ratio to make it have an impact (it won't matter if you have a hundred handcannons when you are facing millions of people in one war)
@@magniwalterbutnotwaltermag1479 Guns came from China as did cannons. At least that is the modern consensus among historians. Though are you are right that the tactics that would eventually come to dominate the world did originate in Europe/the Mediterranean. But no the idea that the chinese used them irregularly or "like bows" is nonsense. They had guns, cannons, grenades, explosive shots and rockets. In fact for a long time chinese weapons were superior to a degree that Portugal employed Chinese gunsmiths. And while the Ottomans invented the matchlock it became very popular in China not just in the west. It was only during the height of the industrial revolution in the 19th century that east asia really fell behind. But before the 18th century China and Korea were easily on par with Europe. Even later these technologies were certainly known and China would start catching up again in the late 19th century. You are presenting a very outdated Euro-centric view here which has little to do with reality.
I often wonder about the 1813 battle of Leipzig what two thousand large artillery guns booming all around the same time in the same general area actually sounds like and if it’s truly as terrifying and terrific as I’m imagining in my head. Artillery still retains its King of War status to this day although I’d say it’s on it’s way out, even if that’s slowly.
![True Size of Napoleon's Army - The Infantry [c. 1808] 3D DOCUMENTARY](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qR0sODDUT8U/mqdefault.jpg)
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
If you'd like to support us, please visit our Patreon page. It's the best way to chime in. Even with as little as $1! The money goes into the artwork that you see in the videos.
Link: www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhistory
Get a 25% discount for Curiosity Stream with code sandrhoman! It's just $14.99 for one year! curiositystream.com/SandRhoman
You should cover the logistical revolution of the early modern. Ecole de Ponts et Chaussees, etc.
I like your video's. They're often very informative.
i watch this channel for months and only now i c i wasnt subed LOL
I like how you take a look at things tactically as well as infrastructurally. i would love more stuff on late 17th/early 18th century warfare too. that seems to be another transitionary period where a lot if these developments ramped up.
Yeah, both Roman and I have had an eye on that time period. We just need a bit more time to really get into it. At the moment Roman is finishing up his master in history and I still have three internships to do to finish up my degree as a history teacher. So maybe next year :)
It might also be cool to look at the mechanization of early modern warfare. Maybe not the economic aspects, but at least the ability of states to go from fielding 10s of 1000s to 100s of 1000s during the napoleonic wars.
Great video. But I feel you left out two key elements -- *ROADS* and **HORSES**. Yes. Manufacturing was "difficult". But this still doesn't explain why a fleet could roll into battle with 500 or 700 or 1000 guns, and armies with 30 or 60. Or why dozens and dozens of fortresses had 50 or 100 guns each -- but USUALLY weren't used in battles nearby. Why was there such a "shortage" in FIELD BATTLES and offensive siege operations specifically? Didn't the kings WANT their armies to actually win their battles? Of course they did. So why did they send 800 guns in for a naval battle and put 100 or more guns in key fortresses... but have just 30 to 50 for a land battle? In my opinion, this difference comes down to the fact that not only was it much more difficult to transport older guns on bad gun carriages over bad roads, but the bad roads and poor gun carriages also required tremendous numbers of horses. And horses require feed.
According to Dr. John Lynn, in his amazing work, "Giant of the Grand Siecle", a late 17th-century army of 60,000 men including 20,000 horses for cavalry and an extra 20,000 animals for transport required almost 20 times as many tons of grass per day as other supplies. And the amount of grass that could be gathered was limited by the range of your foraging parties (often light cavalry). So, the generals had to make their difficult decisions as to BALANCING their requirements with what was logistically possible on the campaign. Guns and their ammunition gobbled up ungodly amounts of horses to transport them, dramatically increasing the logistical requirements. But whether you have a 30,000 man army or a 100,000 man army, before the age of Napoleon (with multiple corps advancing down multiple routes) the daily range of your foraging parties is about the same. So difficult balancing decisions must be made. If I recall, Marlborough's siege train that moved to join him in southern German in 1704 (?) was almost 10 miles long -- including its escort. Let's at least say miles and miles. Though because it was so so slow, it moved independently of the army, which was probably a logistical bonus.
Yes, as time went on, manufacturing became easier, but... VERY IMPORTANTLY... ROADS got better, reducing the number of horses required per gun. AND gun carriages got more advanced, also making their transport much easier. A GUN also requires ammunition to be moved. Another factor. Siege guns require staggering amounts of ammunition to be moved. In some sieges by Napoleon, three times as much shot was used as during Louis XIV's biggest sieges. This was probably a matter of cost, but also increasing resources of the state and falling prices as manufacturing methods improved. But also a matter of ease of transport with "modern" roads. Many people think "dirt paths were everywhere". A dirt path is not the same as a path with ditches. It is not the same as a path which is maintained. It is not the same as path with a camber. It is not the same as a road that is metalled (known as gravel in the USA). It is not the same as a road with cobblestones (i.e. "paved"). Those types of roads became more and more common as time went on, which might also account for the narrowing of the gap between land battle cannon deployment and naval battle cannon deployment (as referenced by this video at the battle of Leipzig... however, those Napoleonic armies also moved and concentrated in a totally different way than armies had 250 years before -- giving them a much larger area to forage and seize supplies from). Improved roads also allowed for greater range of your foraging parties, which in turn allowed for bigger armies -- and bigger artillery trains.
I feel this is the best way to explain the vast differences in numbers of guns wielded by field armies versus numbers used by home fortresses or navies. The fortresses and navies seem to be able to concentrate much more and heavier firepower than the field armies through this time.
As an example of these points all wrapped into one, I submit the following. Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177)
Note that with navies which were a floating armada of over 700 guns (at Trafalgar there were more than 5000 cannon ... but at Austerlitz in the same year, Napoleon had maybe 150 guns... and not 24 to 36 pounders! A single broadside from Victory packed more weight of iron than all of Wellington's cannon at Waterloo), that their EASE of movement -- and of moving the ammunition -- was vastly better than armies. Bringing even a 24 pound naval gun along with its crew was not limited by the same logistical feed problems it was on land using horse transport. And those lower deck guns on ships were the BIG guns typically reserved for use as siege weapons on land (24 pounds or more). Most field guns were in the neighborhood of 6 pounders, or 12 pounders AND had shorter barrels. If I recall, some of the guns introduced by Gustavus Aldolfus were 3 pounders. Land siege guns were usually transported by river or coastal transport whenever remotely possible. As at the siege of Torun by the Swedes in 1703. That siege took 5 months. But the siege guns arrived several months into the effort, transported from Stockholm by boat and up the Vistula river as one amazing research paper I found revealed (answering the question as to why the siege took sooooo long for what was otherwise, such a capable army).
Anyway, THAT is my hypothesis after reading half a wall of books on warfare of the 1600-1815 period. If anyone has any comments, I am always happy to learn. I am working on historical board games about the period so I am always ready to learn more. Indeed, I WANT to learn more and discover new corrections to this hypothesis that improve it.
But a key question for me was: WHY would an army be using only 30 field guns in a field battle, when 20 miles away there was a fortress with 100 guns in it (many of those heavy, 24 pounders)? Or multiple such fortresses? One reason was because those fortress guns were not only 24 pounders, but because they also had longer barrels to stick out over the ramparts so they would not damage the ramparts with repeated firing. i.e. JUST TOO HARD TO MOVE. The number of horses required and difficulty of movement were limiting factors. It is NOT that they didn't exist in the area of operations. If it were JUST about numbers, local fortress guns could have been "checked out" for field battles all of the time. Though you can find occassional references to this (I believe I have seen a specific reference to that in a siege along the upper Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession), they rarely were.
@@mindbomb9341
I reckon it would be very involved moving cannons off the battlements of a fortress, onto a carriage to the field of battle. They would need to hoisted, possible one by one via crane which would take a long bloody time. Also the fortress would need those guns in case it comes under attack that is the whole point of fortresses, to be absolutely horrendous in cost and arduous in effort to take by force at all times. I think also the carriages for static emplacements were different from field guns right, ie lacking large wheels. Not particularly space efficient to have all the equipment for converting fortress guns lying around ready to be used at the drop of a hat. Just my thoughts on your last point.
@@WhatIsSanity Hey there. In case you are interested, I just pasted the full re-edit I did on my original post elsewhere I did on this page. It has about twice as much detail. But there's probably no big reason to re-read it. I just have a few more supporting arguments and historical details. Yes, I agree with your point.
Also Artillery especially in the late middleages required a lot of replacements of the barrel. Canons required a lot of maintanance
Was also probably hard to manufacture up until the industrial revolution. As I recall, the royal navy only became dominant once it could get a supply of mass produced cannons. Napoleon i think also nationalized arms production to get the same results so he could make his grand batteries. I am not sure about russia or the other powers though.
They still do.
@@abcdedfg8340 By Napoleon, cannon could be mass-produced more easily, and a mere 50-60 years later, by the time of the Wars of Unification between then 1850s and 1870s, factories had changed so much, and so much advancement had been made - since Napoleon, cartridges with both projectile and powder were commonplace, and by this time we had innovations like the Wiard, Whitworth, Armstrong, Krupp and Ordinance guns, and many other rifled cannon that dominated the battlefields of the 1860s, like the C/60 or C/64 Krupp that decimated Danish infantry at Dybbol in 1864. A lot changed in the long XIX century.
I thought barrel replacing is a modern compromise.
Watching your wonderful animation style grow in complexity over the years is really inspiring! I love the art style you've created for yourself, it is so unique. It reminds me of a less-absurdist Monty Python type collage. You rock man!
made my day. thanks!
using "serious" monty python style illustrations to teach history. never look at it that way but yeah, you are right! and it is great!
@@croncorcen Exactly! It is honestly fun to look at, and there are always little details to catch on a second watch. Animation is time consuming so it's a real testament to their commitment to history ❤️
The period of the supreme Ottoman artillery was the very transition from the Medieval to the Early Modern ages, an overlooked factor in the history of warfare
I mean it really is not overlooked among actual historians. If you ask anyone who knows anything about the important events that led to the early modern age the Ottomans and the fall of Constantinople will be among the first.
although certainly being a factor, i think this is an overstatement. there were many factors outside of warfare that drove that transition. sience, economics, etc.
@@croncorcen I think overlooked matter is the industrial revolution. Till the beginning of it, i suspect cannons were much more expensive and difficult to make. As i remember, the royal navy only really became dominant once the industrial revolution took hold and they could manufacture arms in large quantities. They even supplied much of the materials for the allied armies during the napoleonic wars. Napoleon also apparently nationalized the production of arms to get similar results.
@@abcdedfg8340 the second industrial Revolution had the changes required to make better and interchangeable parts based guns, the first revolution that happened before Napoleon was more consumer goods and always hand fitted
Nothing Supreme about turksy
I love your art style and presentation. It feels like a professionally done lecture because most of the facts are sourced and aren't an "educated guess" - the most popular genre of history on RUclips.
Yeah, I think Sweden was the largest exporter of cannons for a good while during this period. Most because hardly anyone else produced an excess of cannons I guess. Having access to the Stora Kopparberget mine in Falun, which alone supplied like 2/3 of Europes copper in a time where casting bronze cannons was the norm surley helped.
Nice
Weren't they also a massive ship builder thanks to their windmills?
Extremely well-made video, I've always been curious about how this part of the military 'blew' it's way to where it is now.
Thanks! Appreciate the comment a lot! Nice to see that our viewers have the same questions in mind, I guess!
Can you do the evolution of ships designed for war?
Yes this.
The problem is that while firearm production can be more easily fit in one package, naval ships were all over the place as different areas built their own ships with unique philosophies based on the culture and environment surrounding the ships construction and use. Evolution of Europeon naval ships is a whole lot easier to make a video of.
The German Bundeswehr would call Richelieu's strategy of stripping one ship to equip another "dynamic availability management".
Just In Time Optimized Assets Handling Procedure
france scavanges old limited equipment to equip new ships ---> "thats such a german thing to do"
@@jankoodziej877boink and yoink?
Artillery in late medieval and renaissance era had no exact calibres. All the gunsmiths' thoughts were "gun big gun good" but forgot that it was too hard to move and maintain, like the dardanelles gun.
What shaped it was standardised artillery (4-6-8-12-24 pounders) and horse limbers. Guns move so quick that it created infantry support guns and light artillery of today.
Great stuff! Seriously, always brightens the day when I see a new SandRhoman upload. :)
Tactically equal to infantry and cavalry, though it had been the most invested in arm for some time. It was one of the few military arms to receive investment in times of peace before the concept of a standing army became common.
If the quartermaster ever asks how much arty one needs, answer, “Yes.”
but its not a yes or no question so it will not work.
An answer worthy of l'Empereur des Français. Vive l'Empereur!
@@TheManofthecross ...... you not the sharpest tool, are you
@@TheManofthecross I bet you also think that violence is not a question.
Stumbled across this video, and channel. Love the scrutiny to historical information this video undertakes. Popular history channels vaguely mention about ambiguity of information if at all. This video takes it to a great new level. Well done! Keep this approach consistent, please.
Notable mention: Fantastic bibliographic references at the end.
Just a poor brazilian historian here... Your videos are a delight.... Thank you so much for your work mate. Soldier on.
Thanks for the comment and the nice words!
I truly enjoy and appreciate what this channel does.
How did the switch from bronze to cast iron cannons happen? How did it relate to the increase in artillery production?
The switch didn't really happen at all.
Cast iron was used for defensive cannons that didn't need to be moved much and it was cheaper.
There are iron cannons that were smithed in the 15th century (iron pipe surrounded by iron rods surrounded by iron bands to keep it together).
Bronze was more expensive but lighter and easier to handle and thus was used predominantly in stuff that had to be moved.
In the middle of the 19th century cast steel became cheap and was used as the main material.
@@etuanno and Sweden had a lot of copper for that bronze, see dalaskogen.
In fact, it is never happened.
Bronze cannons were made up to the mid-XIX.
Using certain metal depended on price and available materials.
Iron was a cheaper material, but harder to cast. Cast Bronze guns could also be made with thinner walls and thus lighter.
During the 17th century you progressively see more guns cast in Iron until iron becomes the dominant production method at the start of the 18th century.
Part of this is the improvement in Dutch reaming machines (1690's) that were better at boring out the cast barrel, this helped with Iron castings that were more prone to honey combing than their bronze counterparts.
Though Bronze guns never disappeared due to their advantages despite the cost.
@@bobemmerson1580 Also bronze guns were more resistant to barrel bursting and thus more safer. So no wonder they survived all the way up to the rifled breech-loading guns in XIX century.
Watching this the day after finishing basic training, waiting in the airport now to go to Fort Sill for AIT. Going to train to be field artillery so it’s pretty cool this video was released just a couple days ago, really enjoyed it!
Good luck. Do saint Barbara proud.
That's a really good work !
Very, Very well made. And a perfect smoothing voice to listen too. You, friend, have earned a sub.
I am impressed by the improvement of the animation and the maps that you show in each video, that is why I loved the theme developed here. Now you just need to make a video talking about the evolution of naval artillery between the XV, XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries, to complete the artillery series. =D
The fact that so much fighting in this period was just people with guns and pikes standing in rows meant that there was always some poor bastard on either side who was staring directly down the barrel of the enemy guns from the start of the battle. Talk about having the short end of the stick.
Those poor bastards
Yes, way worse then sleeping and getting a grenade in your lap from a drone.........
@@peternystrom921 War comes with its hells in every era, I suppose.
@@peternystrom921 not much difference in how you die but in modern combat soldier's own decisions can increase their chance of survival considerably more than in line warfare. If you can conceal your position, place decoys and scatter or use terrain in your advantage, it at least gives you some degree of control over your fate, whereas if you are standing in formation, it's pure luck.
@@ustanik9921 its pure luck for you, but if you have a good general and your army is altogether very competent, there was a good chance youd survive. Battles werent just 2 rows shooting each other until one side is dead. Many fights were won just because one army surrendered extremely quick, before devastating casualtie counts could amass
"God is on the side with the best artillery."
- Napoleon
true
As long as said artillery is not stuck in mud, or ambushed by cavalry, or obliterated by air strikes, or has no ammunition.
@@MichaelDavis-mk4me Artillery has remained the most deadly weapon on the battlefield for more than one hundred years now.
@@XMysticHerox The Allies killed way more with aircraft in WW2, especially when you throw the nuclear bombs in the equation. Sure, most weren't soldiers, but turns out wiping out entire cities along with their population is rather effective at breaking the enemy's war machine.
@@MichaelDavis-mk4me The king of the battlefield. Strategic bombing does not target the battlefield.
Nice documentary fam.
China : using blackpowder to create nice fireworks.
Some portuguese dude : i'll take your entire stock !
These videos get better and better, great work!
Lennart Torstensson would be proud.
"God fight on the side with the best artillery"
-Napoleon
nowadays it would be "god fight on the side with the best air force"
Thank you for this intersting Video.
And again supply and logistics as well as industrial politics seem to be more important then tactics on the battlefield.
I had to watch twice the video to realize such a incredible well done is it.... thank you very much for your time!
I think you missed on an opportunity in not bringing on the Siege of Neuss, which is just impressive in its scale of the artillery park and gun powder used. The Burgundians, who besiege the Neussians even had to build at least one powder mill. But I think it is not necessarily a representative example, since it was Charles the Bold and the Burgundians, aka the guy who wore a ruby the size of a child’s head on his helmet, so yeah, he could afford some. Still a really great video, putting some attention to the logistics
Another great video, this time going beyond the tactical and technological into the economics of war... and with a topic that would merits its own episode from a naval warfare aspect, maybe setting right the myth of the massive use of ship-smashing artillery aboard galleons of the 16th century...
"Yo ho ho, and a bottle 🍾 of rum!" 🥃 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
Great video as always!
as always, great presentation and thorough research. please never stop being so detailed in your use and mention of sources :)
"Artillery alone can't win battles"
EU4 and HOI4 players with artillery only:
Laugh in hellstorm rocket battery doomstack in warhammer.
Great video. But I feel you left out two key elements -- **ROADS** and **HORSES**. Yes. Manufacturing was "difficult". But this still doesn't explain why a fleet could roll into battle with 500 or 700 or 1000 guns, and armies with 30 or 60. Or why dozens and dozens of fortresses had 50 or 100 guns each -- but USUALLY weren't used in battles nearby. Why was there such a "shortage" in FIELD BATTLES and offensive siege operations specifically? Didn't the kings WANT their armies to actually win their battles? Of course they did. So why did they send 800 guns in for a naval battle and put 100 or more guns in key fortresses... but have just 30 to 50 for a land battle? In my opinion, this difference comes down to the fact that not only was it much more difficult to transport older guns on bad gun carriages over bad roads, but the bad roads and poor gun carriages also required tremendous numbers of horses. And horses require feed. (NOTE: all references to "guns" in this comment are to cannon)
According to Dr. John Lynn, in his amazing work, "Giant of the Grand Siecle", a late 17th-century army of 60,000 men including 20,000 horses for cavalry and an extra 20,000 animals for transport required almost 20 times as many tons of grass per day as other supplies. And the amount of grass that could be gathered was limited by the range of your foraging parties (often light cavalry). So, the generals had to make their difficult decisions as to BALANCING their requirements with what was logistically possible on the campaign. Cannon and their ammunition gobbled up ungodly amounts of horses to transport them, dramatically increasing the logistical requirements. But whether you have a 30,000 man army or a 100,000 man army, before the age of Napoleon (with multiple corps advancing down multiple routes) the daily range of your foraging parties in un-plundered territory is about the same. So, difficult balancing decisions must be made. If I recall, Marlborough's siege train that moved to join him in southern Germany in 1704 (?) was almost 10 miles long -- including its escort. Let's at least say miles and miles. Though because it was so so slow, it moved independently of the army, which was probably a logistical bonus.
Yes, as time went on, manufacturing became easier, but... VERY IMPORTANTLY... ROADS got better, reducing the number of horses required per gun. AND gun carriages and barrels got more advanced and lighter, also making their transport much easier. A GUN also requires ammunition to be moved -- another factor. Siege guns require staggering amounts of ammunition to be moved. In some sieges by Napoleon, three times as much shot was used as during Louis XIV's biggest sieges. This was probably a matter of cost, but also increasing resources of the state and falling prices as manufacturing methods improved. But also a matter of ease of transport with "modern" roads. Many people think "dirt paths were everywhere". A dirt path is not the same as a path with ditches. It is not the same as a path which is maintained. It is not the same as path with a camber. It is not the same as a gravel road. It is not the same as a road with cobblestones (i.e. "paved"). Those types of roads became more and more common as time went on, which might also account for the narrowing of the gap between land battle cannon deployment and naval battle cannon deployment (as referenced by this video at the battle of Leipzig... however, those Napoleonic armies also moved and concentrated in a totally different way than armies had 250 years before -- giving them a much larger area to forage and seize supplies from). Improved roads also allowed for greater range of your foraging parties, which in turn allowed for bigger armies -- and bigger artillery trains.
Just for example, a couple of statistics. When the Austrian army departed from Vienna towards Budapest to capture it from the Ottomans in 1686, they had an army of 44,800 men, 186 cannons and mortars, 112,000 cannon balls, 5600 "Doppelzentner" gunpowder (about 560,000 kilograms it seems, but I need to check on this and it could be about half of that), and 20,000 "bombs" (p.57 Ungaria Eliberata -- a history of the Great Turkish War in German). Additionally, as revealed elsewhere on this channel, in the 1600s it took about 17 horses to tow a 24 pounder reliably on the roads of the time.
As an example of these points all wrapped into one, I submit the following. Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177)
Note that with navies which were a floating armada of over 700 guns (at Trafalgar there were more than 5000 cannon on both sides combined ... but at Austerlitz in the same year, Napoleon had maybe 150 guns... and not 24 to 36 pounders! A single broadside from Nelson's HMS Victory packed more weight of iron than one salvo from all of Wellington's cannon at Waterloo), that their EASE of movement -- and of moving the ammunition -- was vastly better than armies. Bringing even a 24 pound naval gun along with its crew was not limited by the same logistical feed problems it was on land using horse transport. And those lower deck guns on ships were the BIG guns typically reserved for use as siege weapons on land (24 to a whopping 36 pounders). Most field guns were in the neighborhood of 6 pounders, or 12 pounders AND had shorter barrels. If I recall, some of the guns introduced by Gustavus Aldolfus were 3 pounders. Land siege guns were usually transported by river or coastal transport whenever remotely possible. As at the siege of Torun by the Swedes in 1703. That siege took 5 months. But the siege guns arrived several months into the effort, transported from Stockholm by boat and up the Vistula river as one amazing research paper I found revealed (answering the question as to why the siege took sooooo long for what was otherwise, such a capable army).
I feel this is the best way to explain the vast differences in numbers of guns wielded by field armies versus numbers used by home fortresses or navies. The fortresses and navies seem to be able to concentrate much more and heavier firepower than the field armies through this time. Anyway, that is my hypothesis after reading half a wall of books on warfare of the 1600-1815 period. If anyone has any comments, I am always happy to learn. I am working on historical board games about the period so I am always ready to learn more. Indeed, I WANT to learn more and discover new corrections to this hypothesis that improve it.
But a key question for me was: WHY would an army be using only 30 field guns in a field battle, when 20 miles away there was a fortress with 100 guns in it (many of those heavy, 24 pounders)? Or multiple such fortresses? One reason was because those fortress guns were not only 24 pounders, but because they also had longer barrels to stick out over the ramparts so they would not damage the ramparts with repeated firing. i.e. JUST TOO HARD TO MOVE. The number of horses required and difficulty of movement were limiting factors. It is NOT that they didn't exist in the area of operations. If it were JUST about numbers, local fortress guns could have been "checked out" for field battles all of the time. Though you can find occassional references to this (I believe I have seen a specific reference to that in a siege along the upper Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession), they rarely were.
Do you think 15-16th century cannons were heavier than 17-18th century cannons ?
@@namvo3013 Yes, per unit of "capability". There were advancements in casting, drilling out the barrel, and carriage design. Of course there were some lighter 15th century guns than 18th century guns. But if the overall weight was the same, a 18th century gun would have outperformed the 16th century gun.
Very interesting! This would explain why overseas, in Brazil, even during the XVI and XVII centuries guns were considerably more common than is pictured in this video. Because of the abundance of rivers and sea routes, all of this movement of resources would have been massively facilitated; in some areas of course, the Mountainous Hinterlands and Northeastern Desert were a completely scenario. We even have reports of Cram tribal alliances acquiring gunpower weapons and defeating entire Tupi-Portuguese allied hosts with them, during the long war in the Dukedom of the Northern Rio Grande.
Of course, we're talking about mostly arquebus here, cannons would still have been very rare.
Very nice done. I learned alot. Have a story at making guns where 18 gun were ordered at fortress where i lived (around 1680), All guns were test fired, and 16 were broken. King of Norway at that time, ordered the gunsmith to sit on the barrell when it was test fired at the next order.... I presume he did a much better job....
A history of cannon production would be pretty interesting
We all know who was the gunner of gunners
Napoleon - recruited a gunner, trained a gunner, commanded gunners like no other general in history
gustavus adolphus! napoleon admired him. way more important than old napeoleon.
It's also interesting that while he favoured _flying batteries_ he realised that often his army didn't have the skill or equipment to carry out that tactic well, and so at times switched to _grand batteries_ . Not being fixed to rigid doctrines but adapting to the army that one has (rather than wishes to have) is a remarkable skill.
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 well I will agree that before Gustavus Adolphus cannons were not that important on the battlefield. there were cannons as early as early as early15 century in Europe and probably even earlier than that. but even primitive infantry and cavalry of that time was able to deal with them. Later when cavalry became more advanced like hussars for example the primitive cannons of 16 century were not very effective against them. it wasn't until Adolphus that cannons became truly important part of the armies. However its Napoleon who brought them to their full potential.
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 then again I don't know enough about Gustavus Adolphus to really say.
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 gustavus was the first great but napoleon was the greatest. Gustavus had only regimental pieces, basically huge shotguns. Napoleon made it the core element of his strategy.
One of the most interesting military history videos that I've watched on RUclips. 👍
I really loved the animation this episode. Very pretty!
This might be outside your area of expertise but it'd be really cool to take a look at how guns were manufactured and what changed in that process to allow the greater production that would eventually satisfy the needs of European armies.
Another great video. Thanks for the awesome content.
I guess the breakthroughs in the field of ballistics during Napoleon's days, which made artillery more precise, didn't hurt either.
The graphics quality and artwork is unusually good for youtube. Regards from india. You're amazing.
Love your animation, very hard work
Would like to see a video on the process of standardization of cannons, it'd be an interesting development of this one. Foucault said that the word "normal" was initially created to mean standardized cannons and only latter came to be applied to people
I may be going wild with my imagination, but this chronic demand of huge quantities of metal production for artillery & regular arms seem to me what ultimately sparkled industrialization
I wouldn't mind a series on the War of Spanish Succession or any other war of Louis XIV
maybe next year or even later :P
@@SandRhomanHistory I am waiting patiently :)
Very excellent. Thank You
Would artillery of the romans and middle ages not count as artillery, strictly speaking? Or is it that artillery in the periods prior to 1500 was just an a nice but ultimately not that important branch sine it was mainly used in sieges and never in battles?
I do believe some of the lighter Roman torsion artillery was occasionally used in battles, someone needs to correct me though if I'm wrong, working off of a vague memory here. Still I'd say the big difference between cannons and torsion artillery, or various counterweight weapons like trebuchets, is range and power. While impressive in their own right, the various Greek and Roman torsion weapons of the classical antiquity still required you to get relatively close, and upscaling them to increase power was simply too inefficient in comparison to a cannon, where you really only need a thicker barrel to accomodate for a larger powder charge, and / or a bigger bore size to accomodate a larger projectile. Certainly in the context of Naval warfare torsion weapons were used, most notably by Syracuse, but they were perhaps more of useful for hitting things on the shore rather than hitting other ships, as the accuracy and rate of fire on a ship that might be pitching and rolling and doing all sorts of wacky things as it moves is questionable at best.
@@TheThingInMySink There is this video (ruclips.net/video/ghtEJzSKbvs/видео.html) from a smaller youtube channel that I found some years ago about a previously unknown battle in a german forest where the Romans used mainly artillery to combat the German tribes
The Romans used various types of ballistae as field artillery, sometimes mounted on waggons but the effort to bring heavier machines to a field battle outweighs their use most of the times.
For your first question, it depends on how you define artillery. Some define it strictly as team-operated gunpowder weapons, others as any team-operated range weapons. Fundamentally, this is a purely semantic question, not a history one.
As for your second question, that's a topic of much debate. The Romans did, occasionally, use torsion artillery in field battles. Gaius Marius did so against Mithridates in Asia minor IIRC. Even going right back to the beginning of torsion artillery, Alexander the Great used some in the field - notably to clear the way for his army to cross the Oxus in his campaign against the Saka. However, these uses were comparatively rare, typically from static positions (like the river above, or in relation to field fortifications) and almost never decisive. Their main role, as in the cannons described in the video, was to force the enemy out of a strong defensive position: either forcing them to attack or to retreat. Essentially, they were an area denial weapon: even in sieges they were there to force the defender to keep their head down rather than to demolish stone walls.
Essentially, the range, power, limited mobility, and rate-of-fire of torsion weapons was simply not great enough (relative to their cost) to inflict significant casualties in the time it would take for the enemy to close with them. Their use was therefore mostly constrained to sieges or niche field situations where their long range was more important than their shortcomings.
@@mnk9073 don't we have only like a couple sources for those claims? And for the mounted ones wasn't it just 1 source
My appreciate & Respectful for Curiosity Stream & this channel which shared informative video about Artillery weapon as independent division besides of infantry & Cavalry
ASSALAMÜ ALLEYKUM
There is a ubiquitous nursery rhyme in English titled Humpty Dumpty which (by some interpretations) despairs about a cannon named _Humpty Dumpty_ being destroyed by a fall off of a wall, after which an unnamed king orders that the weapon be rebuilt from the wreckage. The rarity of heavy artillery in this period goes a long way to explaining why that one exists as it does
Such a good video
Good analysis of logistical and technical issues hindering early use of artillery. But how were these issues overcome later on ?
Don't forget that it is not simply having loads of field guns available for battle, but also having enough horses to pull them, pull their ammunition and pull the forage wagons that feed the horses - a problem Napoleon had in the later part of the Napoleonic Wars.
7:19 "it either attacked or retreates" i guess nothing changed those 5 centuries
Great video
great work
"Now the Aztecs will think, 🤔 if Hernan Cortez is some kind of God?" "Who can summon thunder ⚡ and lightning 🌩 down 👇 from the sky?"
I love that newly added Isometric style
Spamming falconets in AOE3 be like…
Very interesting. Once again it proves that logistics and transportation are important factors in warfare.
Can you make a video about the siege of Acre in 1291 ?
Now you gave me the urge to play Empire Total War lol Very good video!
that answered my question very well
12:57 Speaking of equal branches of militaries. I wonder if the same criteria applies to aircraft when they were first weaponized.
What is the music played around 11:45 until the end , I have heard it in many of your videos but I can't find its name anywhere. Does anybody know its name?
1:04 you mean they brought 0 since you can’t put a cannon in your hand😂😂😂!
Hope there will be a video about the (r)evolution of artillery in 1800-1900
It's another great video but I find myself asking the question from the title even after watching it.
The problem as I see it is that you made a video about the progression through history and not the reasons for the improvements.
Why were the gunmakers so decentralized and inneficient? why were the logistics such a hussle? Were there any improvements to the manufacturing proces? a new alloy, method or design?
I still think this video is great but it doesn't really answer the question it has asked itself.
I would love to see a followup focusing on that part of artillery's rise.
Thank you
This video made me really want to play age of empires 3
Hmm
It seems to me it was more a problem of scaling up cannon production, the more time you have cannon products, the more efficient and better they became at it, and thus producing more and more cannons as time went on
Metalworking is important to understand canons. Without the development of alloys, to throw a heavier ball you have to make the barrel thicker, to get velocity, it needs to be longer. The heavier the weight, the more horses and men it takes to lug the thing around. But as metal alloys and forge technology developed, you could make canons stronger without them needing to be thicker .
Needs more Whamo! Blamo! in my opinion. I would also accept Wham! Blam! Alakazam! Long live the king of the battlefield.
While I wouldn't look at it as *THE* reason for increased use of cannon, I have to think that late 1700's to early 1800's advancements in road building/engineering had something to do with it.
Great video. Yes. Manufacturing was "difficult". But this still doesn't explain why a fleet could roll into battle with 500 or 700 or 1000 guns, and armies with 30 or 60. Or why dozens and dozens of fortresses had 50 or 100 guns each -- but USUALLY weren't used in battles nearby. Why was there such a "shortage" in FIELD BATTLES and offensive siege operations specifically? Didn't the kings WANT their armies to actually win their battles? Of course they did. So why did they send 800 guns in for a naval battle, and just 50 in for a land battle? In my opinion, this difference comes down to the fact that not only was it much more difficult to transport older guns on bad gun carriages over bad roads, but the bad roads and poor gun carriages also required tremendous numbers of horses. And horses require feed.
According to Dr. John Lynn, in his amazing work, "Giant of the Grand Siecle", a late 17th-century army of 60,000 men including 20,000 cavalry and an extra 20,000 animals for transport required almost 20 times as many tons of grass per day as other supplies. And the amount of grass that could be gathered was limited by the range of your foraging parties (often light cavalry). So, the generals had to make their difficult decisions as to BALANCING their requirements with what was logistically possible on the campaign. Guns and their ammunition gobbled up ungodly amounts of horses to transport them, dramatically increasing the logistical requirements. But whether you have a 30,000 man army or a 100,000 man army, before the age of Napoleon, with multiple corps advancing down multiple routes, the daily range of your foraging parties is about the same. So difficult balancing decisions must be made. If I recall, Marlborough's siege train that moved to join him in southern German in 1704 (?) was almost 10 miles long -- including its escort. Let's at least say miles and miles. Though because it was so so slow, it moved independently of the army, which was probably a logistical bonus.
Yes, as time went on, manufacturing became easier, but... VERY IMPORTANTLY... ROADS got better, reducing the number of horses required per gun. AND gun carriages got more advanced, also making their transport much easier. A GUN also requires ammunition to be moved. Another factor. In some sieges by Napoleon, three times as much shot was used as during Louis XIV's biggest sieges. Probably a matter of cost, but also increasing resources of the state and falling prices as manufacturing methods improved. But also a matter of ease of transport with "modern" roads. Many people think "dirt paths were everywhere". A dirt path is not the same as a path with ditches. It is not the same as a path which is maintained. It is not the same as path with a camber. It is not the same as a road that is metalled (known as gravel in the USA). It is not the same as a road with cobblestones (i.e. "paved"). Those types of roads became more and more common as time went on, which might also account for the narrowing of the gap between land battle cannon deployment and naval battle cannon deployment (as referenced by this video at the battle of Leipzig... however, those Napoleonic armies also moved and concentrated in a totally different way than armies had 250 years before -- giving them a much larger area to forage and seize supplies from). Improved roads also allowed for greater range of your foraging parties, which in turn allowed for bigger armies -- and bigger artillery trains.
I feel this is the best way to explain the vast differences in numbers of guns wielded by field armies versus numbers used by home fortresses or navies. The fortresses and navies seem to be able to concentrate much more and heavier firepower than the field armies through this time.
As an example of these points all wrapped into one, I submit the following. Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177)
Note that with navies which were a floating armada of over 700 guns, that their EASE of movement (and of moving the ammunition) was vastly better than armies. And those lower deck guns on ships were the BIG guns typically reserved for use as siege weapons on land (24 pounds or more). Most field guns were in the neighborhood of 6 pounders, or 12 pounders AND had shorter barrels. If I recall, some of the guns introduced by Gustavus Aldolfus were 3 pounders. Land siege guns were usually transported by river or coastal transport whenever remotely possible. As at the siege of Torun by the Swedes in 1703. That siege took 5 months. But the siege guns arrived several months into the effort, transported from Stockholm by boat and up the Vistula river as one amazing research paper I found revealed (answering the question as to why the siege took sooooo long for what was otherwise, such a capable army).
Anyway, THAT is my hypothesis after reading half a wall of books on warfare of the 1600-1815 period. If anyone has any comments, I am always happy to learn. I am working on historical board games about the period so I am always ready to learn more. Indeed, I WANT to learn more and discover new corrections to this hypothesis that improve it.
But a key question for me was: WHY would an army be using only 30 field guns in a field battle, when 20 miles away there was a fortress with 100 guns in it (many of those heavy, 24 pounders)? Or multiple such fortresses? One reason was because those fortress guns were not only 24 pounders, but because they also had longer barrels to stick out over the ramparts so they would not damage the ramparts with repeated firing. i.e. JUST TOO HARD TO MOVE. The number of horses required and difficulty of movement were limiting factors. It is NOT that they didn't exist in the area of operations. If it were JUST about numbers, local fortress guns could have been "checked out" for field battles all of the time. Though you can find occassional references to this (I believe I have seen a specific reference to that in a siege along the upper Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession), they rarely were.
@@mindbomb9341 I can't find fault with your reasoning. I didn't account for the logistics of acquiring and feeding the draft horses, that adds another wrinkle.
@@mindbomb9341 what you're saying makes sense, but... A few things:
1. why didn't they use more of the light guns that would be easy easier to transport? They weren't that effective?
2. There must have been at least some well maintained roads between major cities, based on Roman roads.
3. Plenty of sieges were laid to coastal cities and most historical cities are at big, navigable rivers. Why didn't they transport more heavy artillery there by ships?
@@jankoodziej877 Hi Jan. I am no doctor of history in this area, but I have done a mountain of reading and note-taking. Based on that, I would answer:
1) The lighter guns had very little effect for sieges. 24 pounders were the standard for knocking breaches in walls or field works. I guess the lightest guns I can think of in field battles were the 3 pounders Gustavus Adolfus introduced (and referenced in this video I believe). You would have to ask experts about their actual effectiveness. Without a doubt, Adolfus' overall military machine was very effective. One thing interesting to me is that during the pursuit after Waterloo, the Allies captured several fortresses by escalade (grab your ladders and over the top!) before the siege trains had caught up. But that was against small garrisons of poor troops with a population that had had it with Napoleon and leaned towards the king. In one case, a lucky shot from a field gun hit an ammunition depot (I believe in Avesnes) and this so demoralized the garrison that they surrendered.
2) Of course, the more important roads PROBABLY would have been better maintained, and hence able to support better movement and military flexibility. I don't know which Roman roads were still useable in any capacity at that point.
3) I added a reference to the 1704 siege of Torun by the Swedes in my initial comment above (as well as a few other details), it is a good example of moving a siege train from the capital (in Stockholm) to Danzig, switching it to river transport, and then moving it slowly up river. That siege took 5 months. But initially it was really just a blocking operation. The siege train tooks a few months to arrive. And then it was quickly over. I believe in "On Supplying War" by Van Creveld, he points out the fact that many of the campaigns in the Thirty Years War moved along the lines of Germany's major rivers for this logistical reason. You will also notice that the great fortresses of France's northeastern frontier defensive chain were built along rivers which would have supported offensive operations coming from "Belgium", like the Escault, Scheldt, and Sambre (of course Belgium is used anachronistically here, referring to the Spanish Netherlands or Austrian Netherlands). Of course the French logisics experts, marshalls, and fortress engineers realized these water-highways coming in from such densely populated and rich lands were that important, and built fortresses to compensate for these geographical weaknesses in their frontiers. So I guess to use more, bigger guns that were brought in by sea or river, you needed command of the sea (though not as difficult to sneek through as it is now because of lack of surveillance technology back in the day), and a target city with easy access by water. And that certainly wasn't always the case. It would be interesting to see more examples of fortresses on waterways falling to siege trains brought in by river/sea and whether during those kinds of sieges, the attackers had an average of more guns. I wish I could do a full study. LOL. Also, one more note: Remember, without docks, moving these heavy guns on to and off of ships is difficult. You can't just sail anywhere up river and have it go quickly and smoothly.
I apologize for my poor answers to 1 and 2. If you know more let me know. c
@@jankoodziej877 I found a great quote wrapping a lot of this up in a book I am reading: Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177)
Cannons during that time was made using iron which are prone to blasting if used for too long. The transition to copper or bronze guns in the late 18th century allowed them to produce large number of qualified cannons. Only in 19th century was steel cannons were possible because of the advancement of technology.
so basically real scale of artillery (production, maintanace, ammunition, explosives, training and logistics) needed the support of a nation state and early modern states just were not ready.
Thats like me trying to tech into fusion powered space lasers when I havent quite mastered railways.
Has any commander in history complained that he has too many heavy guns with too much ammunition at his disposal?
Yes. Peshwa Baji Rao's enemies have.
Really interesting
could you make another video on some seige please.
I love them
great stuff! indeed. just, there was no Karlsruhe during the life of Carlos V. (HRE). The city was founded in 1715.
Where can I find the explosion animation you used in this video?
"Now the Incas will think, 🤔 if Francisco Pizarro is some kind of God?" "Who can summon thunder ⚡ and lightning 🌩 bolts down 👇 from the sky?"
good stuff
it should not be forgotten that the total number of soldiers also increased drastically, medieval battles generally included thousands of men, sometimes hundreds
early modern battles ranged from thousands to tens of thousands to sometimes over 100 000
but by the modern period armies were hundreds of thousands strong, especially in france that with it's republic had introduced nationalism and thus mass conscription of young men and trained them to be professional soldiers. an army with 40k soldiers and 100 guns, vs an army of 800k with 5k, the relative difference in number is not that extreme when looking at it that way.
it can not be denied however that artillery went from a uniqum that was used against walls or dense formations to an essential component of any serious force, without which no army could hope to beat another
Gustav III had perhaps the greatest artillery commander of the 16th and 17th century; Lennart Torstensson.. A genius when it came to implementation of cannon on the battlefield, both for bombardement and as infantry support. 🙏🏾🇸🇪
I read that a substantial part of the France’s failure to mount up the guns’ production was due to the inferior quality of the ores the had
From this to killing more people than small arms fire in World War One. Quite the journey. Excellent video!
More content😊
I always thought the relatively small numbers of artillery in the 16-18th century was due to logistics, like they knew artillery in numbers was a good idea, but the wagon train to protect and move was a logistical nightmare and only when the stars aligned did generals have the numbers of cannon and bombard they wanted on the field
"Now the Mayans will think, 🤔 if Pedro de Alvarado is some kind of God?" "Who can create thunder ⚡ and lightning 🌩 bolts 🔩 down 👇 from the sky."
Use of artillery started with the ottoman army. Huge canons were very useful when they conquered Constantinople at 1453.
although i suspect that the reason the ottomans had shortages of guns was raids by the knights of st john on their supply lines but also the the fact that the ottomans had a major diffculted in getting a foothold on malta large enough to get large gun to shore in suffiencent numbers to prove decisive. the ottomans often had pleanty of guns avaliable but some of them where very heavy and not very useful in campaigns on small islands like malta and they were very diffcult to transport.
Don't forget, where are you getting cannonballs? A cannon with out ammo is a battering ram.
Can you cover the age of gunpowder in other parts of the world besides eourope? Since many think it's the eouropians who are responcible for it...
gunpowder empires or china? i think its not clear what you mean
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 i am speciffically talking about the gunpowder revolution in other parts of the world like india, middle east, china and other asiatic nations...
Who thinks Europe invented gunpowder? I mean, I'm sure there are morons who believe that somewhere, but it's hardly a mainstream opinion amongst people with even a passing interest in early modern history. As for it being a "revolution", it was first in Europe that gunpowder was used so widely that it dictated all other tactical considerations, and it was first in Europe that it replaced all other (infantry) weapons. Other states used guns in supporting roles before this was common in Europe (China and Ottomans being obvious examples), but they made the switch to being completely gunpowder centric (as in European pike-and-shot warfare) after Europe.
@@QuantumHistorian pike and shotte warfare is mainly european the rest of the world used guns as irregular warfare or just like old times but replacing bows with guns and resulting in alot of failed wars
Also Ottomans used guns waaaaay more than pther Europeans and even made the first proffessional army there (the Janissaries) and China too technically speaking just not enough of a good ratio to make it have an impact (it won't matter if you have a hundred handcannons when you are facing millions of people in one war)
@@magniwalterbutnotwaltermag1479 Guns came from China as did cannons. At least that is the modern consensus among historians. Though are you are right that the tactics that would eventually come to dominate the world did originate in Europe/the Mediterranean.
But no the idea that the chinese used them irregularly or "like bows" is nonsense. They had guns, cannons, grenades, explosive shots and rockets. In fact for a long time chinese weapons were superior to a degree that Portugal employed Chinese gunsmiths. And while the Ottomans invented the matchlock it became very popular in China not just in the west. It was only during the height of the industrial revolution in the 19th century that east asia really fell behind. But before the 18th century China and Korea were easily on par with Europe. Even later these technologies were certainly known and China would start catching up again in the late 19th century.
You are presenting a very outdated Euro-centric view here which has little to do with reality.
Where can I go to find the history of exploding shells?
1:04 A mere handful...
Hmmmmmm, how many cannons can I fit in my hand. 🤔
I often wonder about the 1813 battle of Leipzig what two thousand large artillery guns booming all around the same time in the same general area actually sounds like and if it’s truly as terrifying and terrific as I’m imagining in my head. Artillery still retains its King of War status to this day although I’d say it’s on it’s way out, even if that’s slowly.
Artillery will never not be the King of Battle
If anything, the battlefields of Ukraine confirm that the king is here to stay.
What about the ottoman grand cannon?
If catapults would have been more accurate than this trend would have started way earlier.