Albert C. Manucy

“ Like many men before him, Müller sought to increase the caliber of cannon without increasing weight. He managed it in two ways: he modified exterior design to save on metal, and he lessened the powder charge to permit shortening and lightening the gun. Müller's guns had no heavy reinforces; the metal was distributed along the bore in a taper from powder chamber to muzzle swell. But realizing man's reluctance to accept new things, he carefully specified the location and size for each molding on his gun, protesting all the while the futility of such ornaments. ”

“ For until the outworks could be finished, the castillo was vulnerable to the siege guns and scaling ladders of any large force. Worse, at this crucial time, Quiroga found himself out of provisions. The heavy labor of quarrying, lumbering, and hauling had to be discontinued. With the royal slaves and a few of the Indians, work on the castillo went along in desultory fashion until finally there was “not one pound of maize, meat nor any other thing” to feed the workmen. Fortunate indeed was it that the English did not choose this moment to attack. ”

“ In 1712 came la Gran Hambre—the Great Hunger—and in those dark days the starving people ate 29 even the dogs and cats until the storms isolating the colony finally abated.
But the work was done, and when in 1728 another South Carolinian, Colonel Palmer, marched against the presidio, the sight of the grim walls of the fort, the unwinking readiness of the heavy guns, and the needle-sharp points of the yucca plants lining the town palisades were a powerful deterrent. He “refrained” from taking the town. For their part, the Spaniards set off their artillery, but they made no sorties. ”

“ Sights on cannon were usually conspicuous by their absence in the early days. A dispart sight (an instrument similar to the modern infantry rifle sight) , which compensated for the difference in diameter between the breech and the muzzle, was used in 1610, but the average artilleryman still aimed by sighting over the barrel. The Spanish gunner, however, performed an operation that put the bore parallel to the gunner's line of sight, and called it "killing the vivo" (matar el vivo) . How vivo affected aiming is easily seen: with its bore level, a 4-pounder falconet ranged 250 paces. ”

“ A baseball describes a "flat" trajectory every time the pitcher throws a hard, fast one. Youngsters tossing the ball to each other over a tall fence use "curved" or "high" trajectory. In artillery, where trajectory is equally important, there are three main types of cannon: (1) the flat trajectory gun, throwing shot at the target in relatively level flight; (2) the high trajectory mortar, whose shell will clear high obstacles and descend upon the target from above ”

“ A smallpox epidemic made Indian labor out of the question, so there were no peons to bear heavy timbers on their shoulders from the forests. No silver lay in the King’s chest: the Florida colony existed almost solely by means of a subsidy of money and provisions from New Spain, whose commerce it protected, and the reluctance of the New Spain Viceroy to pay that subsidy meant that the usual condition of St. Augustine was one of direst poverty and extreme want.
Yet, if ever Florida needed a strong fort, it was now. Year by year the corsairs were becoming bolder. ”

“ Looking at an old-time cannon, most people are sure of just one thing: the shot came out of the front end. For that reason these pages are written; people are curious about the fascinating weapon that so prodigiously and powerfully lengthened the warrior's arm. And theirs is a justifiable curiosity, because the gunner and his "art" played a significant role in our history.
THE ANCIENT ENGINES OF WAR
To compare a Roman catapult with a modern trench mortar seems absurd. Yet the only basic difference is the kind of energy that sends the projectile on its way. ”

“ A fort, however, can never win a victory. Primarily a defensive weapon, it protects vital points and delays the invader. It can also be, as was the case with the historic fort in Florida, a citadel and a pivot of maneuver for colonial troops.
For most defense problems, there was an answer in the book, though the brilliance of the engineer might well be measured by his ingenious use of natural defenses, as was the case at Castillo de San Marcos. ”

“ In spite of new infantry weapons that forced cannon ever farther to the rear, artillery was to become so deadly that its fire caused over 75 percent of the battlefield casualties in World War I.
Many of the vital changes took place during the latter years of the 1800's, as rifles replaced the smoothbores. Steel came into universal use for gun founding; breech and recoil mechanisms were perfected; smokeless powder and high explosives came into the picture. Hardly less important was the invention of more efficient sighting and laying mechanisms. ”

“ The Indian peon was cheap labor—1 real (121⁄2¢) per day, plus rations of maize—but he was not good labor, for by nature the Indian was unfit for heavy work on a European-style fortification. A brave might play the bone-breaking game of Indian ball for a full day, but he could not stand up under the “day-in, day-out,” grinding, back-straining labor of the quarries. ”

“ On the battlefield, Napoleon's artillery tactics were no longer practical. The infantry, armed with its own comparatively long-range firearm, was usually able to keep artillery beyond case-shot range, and cannon had to stand off at such long distances that their primitive ammunition was relatively ineffective. The result was that when attacking infantry moved in, the defending infantry and artillery were still fresh and unshaken, ready to pour a devastating point-blank fire into the assaulting lines. ”

“ To attack a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century fort, the enemy had first to cross natural barriers, advance over level ground where he was exposed to fire from almost every part of the fortification, drive the defenders from the outer works, cross the moat, and then, if there were any of him left, scale the main walls and fight the rest of the defenders hand to hand. It was no easy job. His approach to within striking distance generally involved the laborious digging of zigzag trenches up to the outworks. Meanwhile, his artillerymen tried to get their guns close enough to breach the walls. ”

“ The greater efficiency of the iron ball, together with an improvement in gunpowder, further encouraged the building of smaller and stronger guns. Before 1500 the siege gun had been the predominant piece. Now forged-iron cannon for field, garrison, and naval service—and later, cast-iron pieces—were steadily developed along with cast-bronze guns, some of which were beautifully ornamented with Renaissance workmanship. The casting of trunnions on the gun made elevation and transportation easier, and the cumbrous beds of the early days gave way to crude artillery carriages with trails and wheels. ”

“ Some of the most formidable bombards were those of the Turks, who used exceptionally large cast-bronze guns at the siege of Constantinople in 1453. One of these monsters weighed 19 tons and hurled a 600-pound stone seven times a day. It took some 60 oxen and 200 men to move this piece, and the difficulty of transporting such heavy ordnance greatly reduced its usefulness. The largest caliber gun on record is the Great Mortar of Moscow. Built about 1525, it had a bore of 36 inches, was 18 feet long, and fired a stone projectile weighing a ton. ”

“ Very little masonry had ever been done in the presidio, and, with the exception of the imported artisans, the workmen had to be trained. Even the imported ones had much to learn about coquina, the natural shellrock peculiar to this section of Florida. Coquina is nothing more than broken sea shells cemented together by their own lime. Where the layer of shells has been under great pressure, the rock is solid and hard; where pressure has been less, the stone is coarse and easily crumbled. ”

“ Essentially, the ladle is merely a scoop, a metal cylinder secured to a wooden disk on a long staff. But before the introduction of the powder cartridge, cutting a ladle to the right size was one of the most important accomplishments a gunner had to learn. Collado, that Spanish mathematician of the sixteenth century, used the culverin ladle as the master pattern (fig. 45) . It was 4-1/2 calibers long and would carry exactly the weight of the ball in powder. Ladles for lesser guns could be proportioned (that is, shortened) from the master pattern. ”

“ The matter of building a permanent fort had been broached as early as 1586, soon after the discovery of the native shellrock called coquina, and before the turn of that century Governor Canço reported not only the successful construction of a stone powder magazine but a renewed enthusiasm for a masonry fort. The sandy, unstable coastal soil provided the engineers with a problem, but the real obstacles to accomplishment were the poverty of the presidio and the feeling of the Madrid officials that Florida did not require strong military defenses. ”

“ Some late eighteenth century field and siege carriages had a second pair of trunnion holes a couple of feet back from the regular holes, and the cannon was shifted to the rear holes where the weight was better distributed for traveling. The United States siege carriage of the 1860's had no extra trunnion holes, but a "traveling bed" was provided where the gun was cradled in position 2 or 3 feet back of its firing position. A well-drilled gun crew could make the shift very rapidly, using a lifting jack, a few rollers, blocks, and chocks. ”

“ For England, the seventeenth century opened an era of commercial and colonial expansions, when the great trading companies were active on the coasts of four continents and powerful English nobles strove for possessions beyond the seas. To this era belong the origins of the Carolinas, the Jerseys, Penn’s Colony, and the famous Hudson’s Bay Company. A vast, rich territory stretched from the James River region to the Spanish Florida settlements, and in 1665 the British Crown granted a patent for its occupation. ”

“ It was during the sixteenth century that the science of ballistics had its beginning. In 1537, Niccolo Tartaglia published the first scientific treatise on gunnery. Principles of construction were tried and sometimes abandoned, only to reappear for successful application in later centuries. Breech-loading guns, for instance, had already been invented. They were unsatisfactory because the breech could not be sealed against escape of the powder gases, and the crude, chambered breechblocks, jammed against the bore with a wedge, often cracked under the shock of firing. ”

“ These citations of economies were timely, for 34,298 pesos had already been spent upon the new fort, and still it was no more protection than a haphazard pile of stone. Nor was the old fort any defense. If an artilleryman had the temerity to touch his match to a cannon, the sparks from the explosion might well set the timber walls afire. The enemy at Charleston was not 70 leagues away; his 200 fighting men outnumbered the effectives in the Spanish garrison, while, according to the reports of English deserters, Charleston was rather well defended by a stockade fort mounting about 20 guns. ”

“ Effective range is the distance at which effective results may be expected, and is usually not the same as maximum range, which means the extreme limit of range.
Rotating band—a band of soft metal, such as copper, which encircles the projectile near its base. By engaging the lands of the spiral rifling in the bore, the band causes rotation of the projectile. Rotating bands for muzzle-loading cannon were expansion rings, and the powder blast expanded the ring into the rifling grooves.
Train—to aim a gun. ”