The Jaigarh Fort and its cannon ...

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Returning to the Jaigargh cannon, it does not seem surprising this huge cannon was fired only once. While it seemed an impressive and formidable weapon,it does not seem that viable as a siege weapon due to its size and lack of maneuverability despite the ingenious oxen power device.
It would be no problem to redirect an attack on the fortress from another direction before this could be moved.

At least it went bang! once. The Russians like to say that the Tsar Pushka, or Emperor Cannon, standing in the Moscow Kremlin is the largest artillery piece cast in pre-industrial times. Be that as it may, it is humongous. And it has never been fired. It was more likely intended as a visual reminder that the country's ruler had some big toys and that other kids on the block must take heed. (The Russians also have the world's biggest bell, the Tsar Kolokol, which tradition says was never rung; a fire that broke out before it was ready for use caused it to fall and break, it's on display in Moscow with the detached chunk lying beside it; s child could crawl through the gap as I recall from seeing it.)

I agree that Jaivana was likely intended to be an intimidating piece of garrison artillery and not a siege gun due to the mobility issue. Keep in mind that gun carriages of the 17th cent. were ponderous, and that roads in many parts of the world were dicey. Accounts of European military campaigns during that time and prior do contain mention of road quality (along with the effects of seasonal weather) as a factor in logistics, especially the movement of heavy guns. This was one of the reasons that commanders preferred to limit their campaigning to when the ground dried after spring rains, and onward til before the climate turned problematic in later fall.

A comparison of the two Ottoman sieges of Vienna (1529 and 1683) is instructive. The earlier effort was marked by the extensive use of artillery by the Turks in an attempt to breach the city walls. The Ottos had to haul their big guns up through Rumelia and the Balkans to reach the theater of operations, and the siege was lifted because the invaders could not take the city as fall approached and their troops were getting restive.

In 1683, the Turks tried something else, realizing that the now-stronger defenses required even heavier guns which had to be laboriously transported north. So they relied instead on their fabled engineer corps to supervise teams of sappers to dig an extensive network of approach trenches, and tunnels going under the moat and thick ramparts to penetrate deep under what is now central Vienna. The tunneling endeavor was ultimately stymied because the defenders developed ingenious methods for detecting underground activity, and in most cases were able to dig counter-mines to neutralize the threat.

[Jim McDougall]

Philip, in answer to your question on Mexican powder and arms logistics in the Alamo period, during my research on that fell short as no specific mention of the source of their powder was found.
I can only presume that the British, who supplied most of their arms also provided black powder as well.
The main issue in the powder that remained in the Alamo among numbers of captured arms and cannon, was (as described by Mrs Dickson in her account) 'damaged'.
It was March in Texas, known for damp, cold conditions, and it is not hard to imagine the powder becoming unreactive or insufficient for normal use.

The Mexican army rifles were notably insufficient in firing, and extra charge as well as buck and ball were used to compensate. While the Mexican army was said to have steadily bombarded the Alamo for over a week before the attack, it was noted that none of the fire had caused notable damage or casualties. The powder charges were apparently inadequate to effectively reach their target.

I agree that the Jiavana cannon was probably an intimidating element, despite the fact that its maneuvering was not particularly expeditious.
Its rather like, if they've got that huge thing up there, who knows how many other pieces are about.
Your notes on moving huge siege guns through horrible transporting conditions remind me of the movie "The Pride and the Passion" with the troops struggling with ropes and oxen etc. trying to move one through muck and mire.

These insights into the artillery aspects of warfare are fascinating, and provide great overall context and dimension in understanding the logistics of these weapons and battles.

Fernando, looking back at the chart of guns in the Portuguese report, it is fascinating to see the different terminology used in the variant types. I had not been aware of differences between a bombard and other guns, nor what a howitzer was exactly.

These discussions make me appreciate more the profound contributions our late friend Matchlock made here, and wish I had paid more attention then.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Philip, in answer to your question on Mexican powder and arms logistics in the Alamo period...
I can only presume that the British, who supplied most of their arms also provided black powder as well.

It was March in Texas, known for damp, cold conditions, and it is not hard to imagine the powder becoming unreactive or insufficient for normal use.

The Mexican army rifles were notably insufficient in firing, and extra charge as well as buck and ball were used to compensate. While the Mexican army was said to have steadily bombarded the Alamo for over a week before the attack, it was noted that none of the fire had caused notable damage or casualties. The powder charges were apparently inadequate to effectively reach their target.

Hey Jim, muchas gracias por esta información. My knowledge of a lot of New World military history is quite thin, so this is helpful. You are teaching me new things. The British supplying Gen. Santa Ana's army, for instance. So, would his troops be armed mostly with Brown Besses, and English-made cannon? If the Brits provided the powder, I can imagine what it went through on the sea voyage across the Pond, then goodness knows the storage conditions in Mexican depots (and for how long), then the damp of Texas spring (this is an eye opener for me since I have no experience with that state except for changing planes at Dallas/Ft.Worthj airport, and I never stepped out of the terminal.).

Regarding small arms in the 1820-30s Mexican service, were there many rifles in use? In the US and the advanced European armies of those decades, smoothbore muskets were the norm, since arms with rifled barrels were issued to special units like sharpshooters who had more advanced training and justified the additional cost of producing the weapons.

My interest in firearms of the Iberian Peninsula has sparked my curiosity about military and sporting small arms used in the Spanish colonies and their successor states shortly after gaining independence. My impression is that the firearms of that region and time were, like swords, primarily imports from Spain, or local copies thereof. Eudaldo Graells, in Les Armes de Foc de Ripoll, includes excerpts from documents that demonstrate a thriving export trade from the gunmaking town of Ripoll in Cataluña to Mexico and Cuba in the 18th cent.

Miquelet pistols with a colonial Mexican or American Southwest provenance do show up in collections and at gun shows; mostly they are low- to medium-grade, some are now composite thanks to period overhauls, and they tend to be in well-worn condition. Signed work by Latin American gunsmiths is rare, as are top-flight Spanish imports for the carriage trade -- there is a gorgeous pair in the collection depot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the stocks overlaid with filigree and chased silver undoubtedly done by a Mexican artisan in the 18th cent. Also a rare Ripoll miquelet pistol stocked in the Brescian manner, probably end 17th cent but stylistically earlier, with pierced brass overlay depicting Aztec-looking warrior figures battling sea monsters and playing music, sold at Czernys auction house 8 June 2008, lot 1899.

Finally, do you have Howard L Blackmore's Guns and Rifles of the World? Photoplate # 67 shows a curious matchlock, of a form clearly derived from 16th cent. Spanish musket (including the tiller trigger), though with insufficient patina to be that old, with Latin American folk motifs inlaid in brass and a crude inscription with the improbable date 1844 on the lockplate whose lower contour has a bulge reminiscent of the shape of a wheellock (Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, inv. no. 1894.133). A real oddball!


If you have info on what models of British military long arms and pistols were supplied to newly-independent Mexico, please share that info -- maybe a new thread would be nice since we seem to be drifting away from India, and cannons in particular with this discussion.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Fernando, looking back at the chart of guns in the Portuguese report, it is fascinating to see the different terminology used in the variant types. I had not been aware of differences between a bombard and other guns, nor what a howitzer was exactly.

.

Jim, the names of artillery pieces is a fascinating subject in itself. First off, our term "gun" is derived from the word "gonne" which was first applied during the late Middle Ages to mechanical catapults.

The "falconet" in Fernando's museum table was a common term for a very light artillery piece, its long but slender barrel having a bore as small as about an inch or slightly bigger. The names of birds were often applied to artillery pieces, generally of lighter caliber. Thus, the "robinet" which incidentally was earlier used to identify another type of catapult. And there's the "saker" which is, as I recall, a species of hawk.

Reptilian names, of real or mythical beasts, were used for some larger bore weapons. There was the "culverin" , from culebra or serpent. And the "basilisk".

To answer your question, a howitzer (Ger. Haubitz) is a gun of large enough bore to shoot an explosive shell, but of fairly short barrel length, mounted to fire at medium elevations (around 20 to 45 degrees), usually for the purpose of breaking up enemy formations in the open field with bursts of shapnel.

At the extreme are mortars, very short large bore guns shooting bombs at very high elevations, designed to drop their bursting shells behind enemy fortifications, to clear or penetrate the decks of ships, or to hit troop formations behind hillocks or other obstacles. (small hand-held versions in shoulder stocks and fitted with flintlocks were even made to launch grenades)

[fernando]

It is undeniable that, the first efficient component in artillery was not its wished purpose but the noise, that imposed fright among the enemy's hordes.
Aside from the first registered use of artillery in the Peninsula, which took place in the siege of Algeciras (1342-1344) where Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada, "fired iron projectiles from primitive gunpowder bombards, which caused extensive damage*, we have the Battle of Aljubarrota (1385), in which the Spaniards were equipped with 16 trons**, which only managed to kill two Portuguese and a British (ally) in the in the defenders right wing, with one of the volleys; however the trons fuss causing great consternation among the Portuguese horde, as our men of arms did not know such weapon.
* I am not certain of the type of the damage; a plausible inferrement would contextually be the psycho impact, rather than physical.
** Trom is the onomatopoeic name given after the noise caused by these devices (troooom).
In the Portuguese Navy museum, there is a device called Aljubarrota Trom, recognized as neither having being in the Aljubarrota battle, contrary to tradition, nor being a whole trom, but a loading chamber for one of the trom kind. With 1.7 yards in length and weighing 1.5 ton, must have served a 5 to 6 yards gun, basically due for beating walled fortification gates.

In a timeline as from then, artillery pieces were given a countless series of names, from those of birds, beasts, and other, until they ended up being named after their caliber (six pounder, twelve pounder), still not forgetting that, before a caliber 'standardization' was 'imposed', yet long after it was 'idealized', calibers existed for all tastes, through all such timeline, which caused great difficulty to check on what ammunition to introduce in each barrel.
It is amazing to see a (Portuguese, for one) list (never complete) of early cannon variants:
Besides gross an small bombards, bombardetas, and cradles we had ...
Eagles ... large and small,
Falcons and falconetes,
Lions (large cannon),
Camels and cameletes (ex-Moroccan wars and after in India),
1/4 cannon (circa 1/2 ton, for field use by King Dom Sebastião)
Bears,
Dogs (small bronze piece),
Serpentines (short culverins),
Serps,
Culverins and half culverins,
Culverins, bastards and legitimate,
Basiliscs (for siege),
Sacres and half sacres (1/4 and 1/8 culverin, used by Dutch),
Aspides,
Esperas (waits) and half esperas (short cannons),
Espalhafatos (fusses; threw stone balls 5 to 7 spans around ),
Selvagens (savages),
Roqueiras or forneiras,
Pedreiros (after stone projectiles),
Passa-volantes (Italian inspired).
Passa muros (one in Arzila thew 127 pound balls)
Mortars (from Latin mortarium=pestle),
Trabucos,
Esmerilhão (like a falconete, used in Alcacer Quibir)

To be continued ...


.

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Philip,
I have been fascinated with weapons of the Spanish colonial era for as long as I can remember, but as I have noted it has been with focus on edged weapons.
With the Mexican Independence of 1821, they had of course huge stockpiles of Spanish weaponry.
What I recall is that the use of the lance as a primary weapon as well as for hunting etc. in 18th century New Spain was due to poorly maintained guns and lack of powder.
With that it does not seem that Mexico had the necessary facilities or resources for producing black powder, and this extended apparently into the 19th c.
While they acquired considerable numbers of British arms in the mid 1820s it is unclear whether the powder was also from them.
With its poor substance it sounds more like they were attempting to produce their own powder, but lacked the necessary skill and materials to do so.
One Texian grumbled that the Mexican powder was 'like ground charcoal'.

The Mexican army did use rifles in degree, which were India pattern Baker rifles, but the bulk of their weapons were India pattern British muskets. There were some French Charleville muskets I believe and of course varying Spanish weapons.

While this subject matter is of course some deviation from the OP cannon in Rajasthan, but the topic concerning powder has led indirectly to this course in discussion. I totally agree that a new thread on the arms of Mexico would be in order, and I will try to put together notes to do that.

Again, I wanted to thank you for the great further insight into the terms used for various guns and artillery, and Fernando for the detailed supporting material on these. I am always intrigued by the terms used in Portuguese parlance in weapons which he always furnishes in these discussions.

Fernando, thank you, and to be continued, YES!!!
Learning a lot here, and I hope to continue much further.

[Jim McDougall]

From most of what I have been able to find online, there seems to be a lot of myth and hyperbole on this gun. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it seems to have inspired the 1933 CS Forester novel "The Gun", which later was made into a movie in 1957, "The Pride and the Passion", about the travails of trying to transport such a huge cannon.

While most accounts say this gun was fired only once in 1720, others claim it was fired numerous times, as evidenced by fire marks inside the barrel. The disputes over the actual range have apparently been largely exaggerated in accord with the huge size of the gun.

It also seems that a water tank was often placed near guns, particularly large ones, for gunners to literally dive into to avoid the shock wave and it seems the heat from the explosion. I would think more research would be necessary on the validity of that perspective.

With the huge gun, it would seem the very noise of firing it would be a profound declaration of power, and disconcerting to any potential attackers as well as the surrounding populace. We have at times been located near Ft. Hood here in Texas, and often we would hear resounding report booming in the distance, and a sense of concussion almost as the practice firing of their artillery took place. It is very convincing!

Though this is a huge cannon, firing 110 lb ball, it is hard to imagine the explosion from 220 pounds of powder! I would not wish to be standing next to this kind of explosion as these poor gunners must have. Another account claimed the gunner was killed by the detonation of this huge gun before he could make the water tank. Naturally it is hard to determine the truth from the lore in these things.

[fernando]

Jim, just an intermediate note to say that, it was already established that, the 220 pounds gunpowder load is definitely unreal data, in the best, a miswriting flaw from the article author or of the article text itself.
More to come .

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

It also seems that a water tank was often placed near guns, particularly large ones, for gunners to literally dive into to avoid the shock wave and it seems the heat from the explosion. I would think more research would be necessary on the validity of that perspective.

With the huge gun, it would seem the very noise of firing it would be a profound declaration of power, and disconcerting to any potential attackers as well as the surrounding populace.

So true, Jim. Consider that when guns appeared at the close of the Middle Ages, their mechanical inefficiency, slow rate of fire, and general unreliability was more than offset by their psychological power. Think noise, smoke, flames, and the stink of sulphur -- just the way that the clergy had been describing Hell from the pulpit for centuries, to an impressionable and superstitious populace. It is not hard to imagine the poor Turkish women miscarrying their babies from sheer fright after a test shot from the bombard that Orban made for Sultan Mehmet II's assault on Constantinople.

The water tank idea is worth researching. I can imagine its utility for gun emplacements in confined quarters within a system of fortifications, such as covered casemates in bastions and towers, or from embrasures located at the base of adjoining ramparts that would confine the effects of muzzle blast on the gun crews. (Recalling, from previous posts, that cannons recoiled some distance when fired and black powder emits a tremendous amount of flame and smoke which open air can only partially dissipate)

Siege narratives from the period describe the hellish conditions to be expected. Especially graphic are the memoirs of knights and soldiers who defended Malta during the Ottoman siege of 1565, where the impact of incoming cannonballs and the detonations of return fire made it feel like the massive walls of Fort Sant' Angelo were rocking like a boat at sea. Losing one's hearing for days afterward was probably just the beginning of some men's misfortunes after enduring this and other privations, especially in a siege which lasted for many weeks, in the heat of a Mediterranean summer no less.