Cannon

                                         

 You may have heard about the word  'cannon'. A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellants to launch a projectile. Now the question is what is artillery? Artillery is a class of large military weapons built to fire munitions far beyond the range of infantry's small arms. Early artillery was used to seize extensive fortifications like walls. But as technology grew seize weapons like catapults and trebuchets were replaced by field guns like cannons to even fight against the infantry in the field. The most deaths were caused by the Cannons in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, World War II.

                                     But the question is when did the evolution of the cannons came to this world? The earliest forms of cannon was found in China but it was not used there. Don't you think it was silly. Actually at that time the cannons had a range of only 8 meters! Chinese had fantastic ranged artillery at that time rather than a cannon having 8 meter range. Chinese had the pieces of artillery like 'The Flying Crow' , 'The Flamethrower', etc. 

'Hand Cannon' of Chinese

                        It is often argued that the first use of cannon as a small 'Hand Cannon' was noticed in the battle of Ain Jalut which was fought between the Mongols and the Mamluks in around AD  1260. The 'Hand Cannon' developed by the Chinese were stoled by the Mongols when they conquered the Chinese. In the battle of Ain Jalut the Mongols used the hand cannons thus the Mamluks also learned the technology. But they acquired the technology of cannons by AD 1320. It is said that being near to the Ottomans, Mamluks taught them this technology. But a Hungarian Cannon engineer is largely credited in introducing Cannon to the Ottomans.

Great Turkish Bombard
( Both joined together )

                                          With this introduction there came a huge evlolution in the Cannons. Even the walls of Constantinople in AD 1453 came down when Mehmed II attacked it with sixty-eight super sized Great Turkish Cannons. These Cannons could fire rocks weighting around a ton a mile away and its noise could be heard around 10 miles away! It was so huge that it took a day for this Cannon to move a mile with the help of  60 oxen and about 100 men! Fathullah Shirazi, a Persian-Indian who worked for Akbar the Great in the Mughal Empire, developed a volley gun in the 16th century. 

                                       In Europe the cannons were kept very secretive. Many say that in the 11th and the 12th century they were found in Iberia and some say England had many cannons installed in their fort. Anyway the most clear evidence of cannons were found in the Middle Ages which proved that they were used as anti-infantry and the most important in seize roles. The evolution of cannons in Europe changed the way of defense. Walls and forts were nowhere to be found in front of cannons. Thus Star Forts developed to withstand the cannons. Now there was a fight started between attack and defense. And guess who won? Cannons! The cannons became so extensively developed that even Star Forts were easily seized by the Cannons. Many type of Cannons like Falconets, Culverins and Howitzers developed.

Cannons even got place in the ships to develop the naval warfare. As the time went by Cannons lost their importance. Cannons went out of the world and got replaced by missiles after causing several fatalities in World War I and II.