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Also Artillery especially in the late middleages required a lot of replacements of the barrel. Canons required a lot of maintanance

I like how you take a look at things tactically as well as infrastructurally. i would love more stuff on late 17th/early 18th century warfare too. that seems to be another transitionary period where a lot if these developments ramped up.

Watching your wonderful animation style grow in complexity over the years is really inspiring! I love the art style you've created for yourself, it is so unique. It reminds me of a less-absurdist Monty Python type collage. You rock man!

Extremely well-made video, I've always been curious about how this part of the military 'blew' it's way to where it is now.

I love your art style and presentation. It feels like a professionally done lecture because most of the facts are sourced and aren't an "educated guess" - the most popular genre of history on UKposts.

Can you do the evolution of ships designed for war?

Yeah, I think Sweden was the largest exporter of cannons for a good while during this period. Most because hardly anyone else produced an excess of cannons I guess. Having access to the Stora Kopparberget mine in Falun, which alone supplied like 2/3 of Europes copper in a time where casting bronze cannons was the norm surley helped.

The German Bundeswehr would call Richelieu's strategy of stripping one ship to equip another "dynamic availability management".

If the quartermaster ever asks how much arty one needs, answer, “Yes.”

Artillery in late medieval and renaissance era had no exact calibres. All the gunsmiths' thoughts were "gun big gun good" but forgot that it was too hard to move and maintain, like the dardanelles gun. What shaped it was standardised artillery (4-6-8-12-24 pounders) and horse limbers. Guns move so quick that it created infantry support guns and light artillery of today.

Tactically equal to infantry and cavalry, though it had been the most invested in arm for some time. It was one of the few military arms to receive investment in times of peace before the concept of a standing army became common.

Stumbled across this video, and channel. Love the scrutiny to historical information this video undertakes. Popular history channels vaguely mention about ambiguity of information if at all. This video takes it to a great new level. Well done! Keep this approach consistent, please. Notable mention: Fantastic bibliographic references at the end.

Great stuff! Seriously, always brightens the day when I see a new SandRhoman upload. :)

How did the switch from bronze to cast iron cannons happen? How did it relate to the increase in artillery production?

as always, great presentation and thorough research. please never stop being so detailed in your use and mention of sources :)

I truly enjoy and appreciate what this channel does.

I am impressed by the improvement of the animation and the maps that you show in each video, that is why I loved the theme developed here. Now you just need to make a video talking about the evolution of naval artillery between the XV, XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries, to complete the artillery series. =D

Very, Very well made. And a perfect smoothing voice to listen too. You, friend, have earned a sub.

I had to watch twice the video to realize such a incredible well done is it.... thank you very much for your time!

These videos get better and better, great work! Lennart Torstensson would be proud.

Watching this the day after finishing basic training, waiting in the airport now to go to Fort Sill for AIT. Going to train to be field artillery so it’s pretty cool this video was released just a couple days ago, really enjoyed it!

The period of the supreme Ottoman artillery was the very transition from the Medieval to the Early Modern ages, an overlooked factor in the history of warfare

Thank you for this intersting Video. And again supply and logistics as well as industrial politics seem to be more important then tactics on the battlefield.

The fact that so much fighting in this period was just people with guns and pikes standing in rows meant that there was always some poor bastard on either side who was staring directly down the barrel of the enemy guns from the start of the battle. Talk about having the short end of the stick.

One of the most interesting military history videos that I've watched on UKposts. 👍

"God is on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon

Great video. But I feel you left out two key elements -- **ROADS** and **HORSES**. Yes. Manufacturing was "difficult". But this still doesn't explain why a fleet could roll into battle with 500 or 700 or 1000 guns, and armies with 30 or 60. Or why dozens and dozens of fortresses had 50 or 100 guns each -- but USUALLY weren't used in battles nearby. Why was there such a "shortage" in FIELD BATTLES and offensive siege operations specifically? Didn't the kings WANT their armies to actually win their battles? Of course they did. So why did they send 800 guns in for a naval battle and put 100 or more guns in key fortresses... but have just 30 to 50 for a land battle? In my opinion, this difference comes down to the fact that not only was it much more difficult to transport older guns on bad gun carriages over bad roads, but the bad roads and poor gun carriages also required tremendous numbers of horses. And horses require feed. (NOTE: all references to "guns" in this comment are to cannon) According to Dr. John Lynn, in his amazing work, "Giant of the Grand Siecle", a late 17th-century army of 60,000 men including 20,000 horses for cavalry and an extra 20,000 animals for transport required almost 20 times as many tons of grass per day as other supplies. And the amount of grass that could be gathered was limited by the range of your foraging parties (often light cavalry). So, the generals had to make their difficult decisions as to BALANCING their requirements with what was logistically possible on the campaign. Cannon and their ammunition gobbled up ungodly amounts of horses to transport them, dramatically increasing the logistical requirements. But whether you have a 30,000 man army or a 100,000 man army, before the age of Napoleon (with multiple corps advancing down multiple routes) the daily range of your foraging parties in un-plundered territory is about the same. So, difficult balancing decisions must be made. If I recall, Marlborough's siege train that moved to join him in southern Germany in 1704 (?) was almost 10 miles long -- including its escort. Let's at least say miles and miles. Though because it was so so slow, it moved independently of the army, which was probably a logistical bonus. Yes, as time went on, manufacturing became easier, but... VERY IMPORTANTLY... ROADS got better, reducing the number of horses required per gun. AND gun carriages and barrels got more advanced and lighter, also making their transport much easier. A GUN also requires ammunition to be moved -- another factor. Siege guns require staggering amounts of ammunition to be moved. In some sieges by Napoleon, three times as much shot was used as during Louis XIV's biggest sieges. This was probably a matter of cost, but also increasing resources of the state and falling prices as manufacturing methods improved. But also a matter of ease of transport with "modern" roads. Many people think "dirt paths were everywhere". A dirt path is not the same as a path with ditches. It is not the same as a path which is maintained. It is not the same as path with a camber. It is not the same as a gravel road. It is not the same as a road with cobblestones (i.e. "paved"). Those types of roads became more and more common as time went on, which might also account for the narrowing of the gap between land battle cannon deployment and naval battle cannon deployment (as referenced by this video at the battle of Leipzig... however, those Napoleonic armies also moved and concentrated in a totally different way than armies had 250 years before -- giving them a much larger area to forage and seize supplies from). Improved roads also allowed for greater range of your foraging parties, which in turn allowed for bigger armies -- and bigger artillery trains. Just for example, a couple of statistics. When the Austrian army departed from Vienna towards Budapest to capture it from the Ottomans in 1686, they had an army of 44,800 men, 186 cannons and mortars, 112,000 cannon balls, 5600 "Doppelzentner" gunpowder (about 560,000 kilograms it seems, but I need to check on this and it could be about half of that), and 20,000 "bombs" (p.57 Ungaria Eliberata -- a history of the Great Turkish War in German). Additionally, as revealed elsewhere on this channel, in the 1600s it took about 17 horses to tow a 24 pounder reliably on the roads of the time. As an example of these points all wrapped into one, I submit the following. Grouchy's grandson quoted his grandfather in his notes on the Waterloo campaign indicating events on June 17th, 1815, one day after Ligny -- one day before the battle of Waterloo: "... several corps had not been able to find rations for their soldiers nor forage for their artillery horses in the devastated and partly burned-down villages that were close to their bivouacs; they had been forced to send large detachments considerable distances to try and procure some." (source: Grouchy's Waterloo by Andrew Field p.177) Note that with navies which were a floating armada of over 700 guns (at Trafalgar there were more than 5000 cannon on both sides combined ... but at Austerlitz in the same year, Napoleon had maybe 150 guns... and not 24 to 36 pounders! A single broadside from Nelson's HMS Victory packed more weight of iron than one salvo from all of Wellington's cannon at Waterloo), that their EASE of movement -- and of moving the ammunition -- was vastly better than armies. Bringing even a 24 pound naval gun along with its crew was not limited by the same logistical feed problems it was on land using horse transport. And those lower deck guns on ships were the BIG guns typically reserved for use as siege weapons on land (24 to a whopping 36 pounders). Most field guns were in the neighborhood of 6 pounders, or 12 pounders AND had shorter barrels. If I recall, some of the guns introduced by Gustavus Aldolfus were 3 pounders. Land siege guns were usually transported by river or coastal transport whenever remotely possible. As at the siege of Torun by the Swedes in 1703. That siege took 5 months. But the siege guns arrived several months into the effort, transported from Stockholm by boat and up the Vistula river as one amazing research paper I found revealed (answering the question as to why the siege took sooooo long for what was otherwise, such a capable army). I feel this is the best way to explain the vast differences in numbers of guns wielded by field armies versus numbers used by home fortresses or navies. The fortresses and navies seem to be able to concentrate much more and heavier firepower than the field armies through this time. Anyway, that is my hypothesis after reading half a wall of books on warfare of the 1600-1815 period. If anyone has any comments, I am always happy to learn. I am working on historical board games about the period so I am always ready to learn more. Indeed, I WANT to learn more and discover new corrections to this hypothesis that improve it. But a key question for me was: WHY would an army be using only 30 field guns in a field battle, when 20 miles away there was a fortress with 100 guns in it (many of those heavy, 24 pounders)? Or multiple such fortresses? One reason was because those fortress guns were not only 24 pounders, but because they also had longer barrels to stick out over the ramparts so they would not damage the ramparts with repeated firing. i.e. JUST TOO HARD TO MOVE. The number of horses required and difficulty of movement were limiting factors. It is NOT that they didn't exist in the area of operations. If it were JUST about numbers, local fortress guns could have been "checked out" for field battles all of the time. Though you can find occassional references to this (I believe I have seen a specific reference to that in a siege along the upper Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession), they rarely were.

Another great video. Thanks for the awesome content.

Just a poor brazilian historian here... Your videos are a delight.... Thank you so much for your work mate. Soldier on.

Another great video, this time going beyond the tactical and technological into the economics of war... and with a topic that would merits its own episode from a naval warfare aspect, maybe setting right the myth of the massive use of ship-smashing artillery aboard galleons of the 16th century...

Great video as always!

"God fight on the side with the best artillery" -Napoleon

I really loved the animation this episode. Very pretty!

My appreciate & Respectful for Curiosity Stream & this channel which shared informative video about Artillery weapon as independent division besides of infantry & Cavalry

Love your animation, very hard work

That's a really good work !

Nice documentary fam.

Hope there will be a video about the (r)evolution of artillery in 1800-1900

I think you missed on an opportunity in not bringing on the Siege of Neuss, which is just impressive in its scale of the artillery park and gun powder used. The Burgundians, who besiege the Neussians even had to build at least one powder mill. But I think it is not necessarily a representative example, since it was Charles the Bold and the Burgundians, aka the guy who wore a ruby the size of a child’s head on his helmet, so yeah, he could afford some. Still a really great video, putting some attention to the logistics

Very interesting. Once again it proves that logistics and transportation are important factors in warfare.

Very nice done. I learned alot. Have a story at making guns where 18 gun were ordered at fortress where i lived (around 1680), All guns were test fired, and 16 were broken. King of Norway at that time, ordered the gunsmith to sit on the barrell when it was test fired at the next order.... I presume he did a much better job....

Good analysis of logistical and technical issues hindering early use of artillery. But how were these issues overcome later on ?

"Artillery alone can't win battles" EU4 and HOI4 players with artillery only:

Such a good video

Very excellent. Thank You

Great video

The graphics quality and artwork is unusually good for youtube. Regards from india. You're amazing.

great work

that answered my question very well

We all know who was the gunner of gunners Napoleon - recruited a gunner, trained a gunner, commanded gunners like no other general in history

Now you gave me the urge to play Empire Total War lol Very good video!

It's another great video but I find myself asking the question from the title even after watching it. The problem as I see it is that you made a video about the progression through history and not the reasons for the improvements. Why were the gunmakers so decentralized and inneficient? why were the logistics such a hussle? Were there any improvements to the manufacturing proces? a new alloy, method or design? I still think this video is great but it doesn't really answer the question it has asked itself. I would love to see a followup focusing on that part of artillery's rise. Thank you

I think you greatly understate the prominence of gunpowder weapons in the 16th century. The inventory of Henry VIII showed in 1548 that JUST in the tower of London was stored dozens of artillery pieces and 6500(!) hand guns. For comparison, the same inventory lists only 360 bows at the Tower. Greenwhich had a further 100 guns and Westminster 380 guns in stock. Every fort and castle listed in the inventory had at least a handful of artillery-sized cannons, with the more recently constructed artillery forts having two dozen each. Here's an example from the same inventory, this time from the English holdings in France: Boulogne, recently besieged; totals: 4 cannons; 5 demi-cannons; 10 culverins; 14 demi:-culverins; 18 sakers; 21 falcons, falconets, and chamber falcons; 25 great brass mortars; 19 small brass mortars; 9 iron mortars; 3 iron bombards; 3 iron cannon-perrier; 16 port-pieces; 24 fowlers; 7 slings; 12 double bases; 54 shrimp bases; 114 privy bases; 2 robinets; 73 brass hagbuts. Memo., most of the wheels and stocks are rotten and decayed. As far as I can tell, all these are different types of guns. Additionally in the store house: (Mostly non-firearms but gives a point of reference) High Boulogne store house; 80 handguns; 900 longbows; 3500 Moorish pikes; 400 demi-lances; 450 Northern staves; 1200 black bills; 300 Northern stave heads; 2000 horseshoes; 200 reap-hooks alias sickles; 205 hedging bills; 200 Almain rivets (light German armours); 4 double bases; 4 new Bohemian hacks; etc.

China : using blackpowder to create nice fireworks. Some portuguese dude : i'll take your entire stock !

Would like to see a video on the process of standardization of cannons, it'd be an interesting development of this one. Foucault said that the word "normal" was initially created to mean standardized cannons and only latter came to be applied to people

could you make another video on some seige please. I love them

Spamming falconets in AOE3 be like…

This might be outside your area of expertise but it'd be really cool to take a look at how guns were manufactured and what changed in that process to allow the greater production that would eventually satisfy the needs of European armies.

Where can I find the explosion animation you used in this video?

Really interesting

I love that newly added Isometric style

I guess the breakthroughs in the field of ballistics during Napoleon's days, which made artillery more precise, didn't hurt either.

good stuff

From this to killing more people than small arms fire in World War One. Quite the journey. Excellent video!

The rule for the 17th to 19th centuries is:"Artillery kills morale and small arms kills people."--Bob Bailey in Maine

What is the music played around 11:45 until the end , I have heard it in many of your videos but I can't find its name anywhere. Does anybody know its name?

I wouldn't mind a series on the War of Spanish Succession or any other war of Louis XIV

Can you make a video about the siege of Acre in 1291 ?

Don't forget, where are you getting cannonballs? A cannon with out ammo is a battering ram.

This video made me really want to play age of empires 3

great stuff! indeed. just, there was no Karlsruhe during the life of Carlos V. (HRE). The city was founded in 1715.

7:19 "it either attacked or retreates" i guess nothing changed those 5 centuries

12:57 Speaking of equal branches of militaries. I wonder if the same criteria applies to aircraft when they were first weaponized.

I may be going wild with my imagination, but this chronic demand of huge quantities of metal production for artillery & regular arms seem to me what ultimately sparkled industrialization

This made me think of a cool video you could do about patron saints like St.Barbera the patron saint of field artillery.....redleg biatches

Would artillery of the romans and middle ages not count as artillery, strictly speaking? Or is it that artillery in the periods prior to 1500 was just an a nice but ultimately not that important branch sine it was mainly used in sieges and never in battles?

Don't forget that it is not simply having loads of field guns available for battle, but also having enough horses to pull them, pull their ammunition and pull the forage wagons that feed the horses - a problem Napoleon had in the later part of the Napoleonic Wars.

so basically real scale of artillery (production, maintanace, ammunition, explosives, training and logistics) needed the support of a nation state and early modern states just were not ready. Thats like me trying to tech into fusion powered space lasers when I havent quite mastered railways.

Gustav III had perhaps the greatest artillery commander of the 16th and 17th century; Lennart Torstensson.. A genius when it came to implementation of cannon on the battlefield, both for bombardement and as infantry support. 🙏🏾🇸🇪

While I wouldn't look at it as *THE* reason for increased use of cannon, I have to think that late 1700's to early 1800's advancements in road building/engineering had something to do with it.

"Now the Incas will think, 🤔 if Francisco Pizarro is some kind of God?" "Who can summon thunder ⚡ and lightning 🌩 bolts down 👇 from the sky?"

Hmm It seems to me it was more a problem of scaling up cannon production, the more time you have cannon products, the more efficient and better they became at it, and thus producing more and more cannons as time went on

I read that a substantial part of the France’s failure to mount up the guns’ production was due to the inferior quality of the ores the had

More content😊

Not heard about wear & tear on the guns. Older models would be prone to exploding themselves, at least that is the general idea. Also guns being lost while crossing rivers, mountains, forests and marshes might sufficiently keep numbers down, because they did not have heavy machines to recover them. Not to be underestimated: when an army was beaten and fled, the artillery would often be left behind, but how many would be spiked or blown up to prevent them from being captured?

Cannons during that time was made using iron which are prone to blasting if used for too long. The transition to copper or bronze guns in the late 18th century allowed them to produce large number of qualified cannons. Only in 19th century was steel cannons were possible because of the advancement of technology.

Where can I go to find the history of exploding shells?

1:04 A mere handful... Hmmmmmm, how many cannons can I fit in my hand. 🤔

I often wonder about the 1813 battle of Leipzig what two thousand large artillery guns booming all around the same time in the same general area actually sounds like and if it’s truly as terrifying and terrific as I’m imagining in my head. Artillery still retains its King of War status to this day although I’d say it’s on it’s way out, even if that’s slowly.

although i suspect that the reason the ottomans had shortages of guns was raids by the knights of st john on their supply lines but also the the fact that the ottomans had a major diffculted in getting a foothold on malta large enough to get large gun to shore in suffiencent numbers to prove decisive. the ottomans often had pleanty of guns avaliable but some of them where very heavy and not very useful in campaigns on small islands like malta and they were very diffcult to transport.

"Now that the Arawak tribe, Mixtecs, Olmecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs, Mapuche tribe, and the Muisca will think, 🤔 if the spanish, 🇪🇸 conquistadors are some kind of God?" "Who can summon thunder ⚡ and lightning 🌩 down 👇 from the sky?"

Anyome wants to see a early usefull cannons on battlefield, may look to battle of ridaniya and marj Dabiq it was suprime line fire of own time before cannons show itself in battlefield...

I always thought the relatively small numbers of artillery in the 16-18th century was due to logistics, like they knew artillery in numbers was a good idea, but the wagon train to protect and move was a logistical nightmare and only when the stars aligned did generals have the numbers of cannon and bombard they wanted on the field

informative.

Has any commander in history complained that he has too many heavy guns with too much ammunition at his disposal?

Use of artillery started with the ottoman army. Huge canons were very useful when they conquered Constantinople at 1453.

Nice

it should not be forgotten that the total number of soldiers also increased drastically, medieval battles generally included thousands of men, sometimes hundreds early modern battles ranged from thousands to tens of thousands to sometimes over 100 000 but by the modern period armies were hundreds of thousands strong, especially in france that with it's republic had introduced nationalism and thus mass conscription of young men and trained them to be professional soldiers. an army with 40k soldiers and 100 guns, vs an army of 800k with 5k, the relative difference in number is not that extreme when looking at it that way. it can not be denied however that artillery went from a uniqum that was used against walls or dense formations to an essential component of any serious force, without which no army could hope to beat another

If catapults would have been more accurate than this trend would have started way earlier.