Artillery

23 Aug 2022 67 minutes

'The Artillery is Like a Stormy Tide' - Edward Thomas

1. Today & Ukraine 2. Classical & Biblical Times 3. Medieval Artillery 4. Eighteenth & Nineteenth Century 5. Naval Gunnery 6. World War I & II 7. Back to Today ps The Super Gun

Artillery has been around for millennia. Even Philip of Macedonia and his son, Alexander the Great, were early exponents of artillery on the battlefield, and their techniques and technology were avidly copied and improved apon by the Romans. Whether hurling giant bolts or basilisk rocks, torsion catapults had a devastating effect from the Bible lands to the Iron Age forts of southern England. There was too the use of naphtha, the terrifying heat and flame of wildfire and incendiary ordnance at distances of several hundred yards. Such weapons were even used at sea, with the Greeks deploying ancient flame-throwers.

Later there were trebuchets and mangonels, and eventually the invention of black powder. Siege warfare and then the battlefield itself were to be transformed for ever. Today, we have witnessed the effects of the high mobility rocket system in Ukraine, terminally-guided munitions, and the importance of target spotting drones. Artillery is as integral to the combined arms battle as it ever was.

So it goes,

Tom Assheton and James Jackson

Amazon Podcast

Reference:

Now All Roads Lead to France, The Last Years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis

Despatch by Samuel Wilkeson from the Battle of Gettysburg 1863

Artillery

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