rdnance of a 1578 list, which
gives a fair idea of the armament for an important frontier
fortification: three reinforced cannon, three demiculverins, two
sakers (one broken), a demisaker and a falcon, all properly mounted on
elevated platforms in the fort to cover every approach. Most of them
were highly ornamented pieces founded between 1546 and 1555. The
reinforced cannon, for instance, which seem to have been cast from the
same mold, each bore the figure of a savage hefting a club in one hand
and grasping a coin in the other. On a demiculverin, a bronze mermaid
held a turtle, and the other guns were decorated with arms,
escutcheons, the founder's name, and so on.

In the English colonies during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, lighter pieces seem to have been the more prevalent; there
is no record of any "cannon." (In those days, "cannon" were a special
class.) Culverins are mentioned occasionally and demiculverins rather
frequently, but most common were the falconets, falcons, minions, and
sakers. At Fort Raleigh, Jamestown, Plymouth, and some other
settlements the breech-loading half-pounder perrier or "Patterero"
mounted on a swivel was also in use. (See frontispiece.)

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. Neither is spiral rifling new. It appeared
in a few guns during the 1500's.

Mobile artillery came on the field with the cart guns of John Zizka
during the Hussite Wars of Bohemia (1419-24). Using light guns, hauled
by the best of horses instead of the usual oxen, the French further
improved field artillery, and maneuverable French guns proved to be an
excellent means for breaking up heavy masses of pikemen in the Italian
campaigns of the early 1500's. The Germans under Maximilian I,
however, took the armament leadership away from the French with guns
that ranged 1,500 yards and with men who had earned the reputation of
being the best gunners in Europe.

Then about 1525 the