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Another small-bore cannon of the 14th century was the culverin, whose name derives from the snake-like handles attached to it. [36] It was transitional between the handgun and the full cannon, and was used as an anti-personnel weapon. [36] The culverin was forged of iron and fixed to a wooden stock, and usually placed on a rest for firing. [37]
The result was a projectile weapon in the shape of a cylinder that fired projectiles using the explosive pressure of gunpowder. Cannons were used for warfare by the late 13th century in the Yuan dynasty and spread throughout Eurasia in the 14th century.
According to Joseph Needham, fire lances or proto-guns were known to Muslims by the late 13th century and early 14th century. [26] However the term midfa, dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, cannot be proven to be true hand-guns or bombards, and contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world do not occur until 1365 ...
Artillery began to be used in France in the 14th century. The first depiction of a cannon in Europe appeared in Walter de Milemete's 1326 De nobilitatibus, sapientiis, et prudentiis regum. Small rudimentary weapons such as the pot-de-fer or the portable bâton à feu were introduced. At this early stage, cannon would fire either stone balls or ...
The cannon may have appeared in the Islamic world in the late 13th century, with Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century stating that cannons were used in the Maghreb region of North Africa in 1274, and other Arabic military treatises in the 14th century referring to the use of cannon by Mamluk forces in 1260 and 1303, and by Muslim forces at the 1324 ...
In China, cannons started playing a significant role in siege battles during the mid 14th century. For example, in 1358 during the Siege of Shaoxing the Ming army attacked the city and the defenders "used ... fire tubes to attack the enemy's advance guard". [7]
Cannon operation required specialised crew and gunners, who were first enlisted by the Spanish in the 14th century. [1] The nature of cannon operation often depended on the size of the cannon and whether they were breech-loading or muzzle-loading .
Breech-loading swivel gun with mug-shaped chamber and wedge to hold it in place. Although breech-loading is often considered a modern innovation which facilitated the loading of cannons, [1] breech-loading swivel guns were invented in the 14th century, [2] and used worldwide from the 16th century onward by numerous countries, many of them non-European.