The pistols have already flashed
The hammer rattles on the ramrod.
Bullets go into the faceted barrel
And snapped the trigger for the first time.
Here is gunpowder in a trickle of grayish
Pours onto the shelf. Serrated, Securely screwed in flint
Cocked again.
A. S. Pushkin. Eugene Onegin
The history of firearms. Not so long ago, an article about "Greek fire" appeared on VO, and materials on the history of firearms appear regularly. But … and how did it all begin? This is a question that was not covered very well in our country, and yet it is from him, like from a stove, that we should all "dance". Why exactly this way, and not otherwise, which directions of development of firearms were given to us by the past, and which ones appeared later - in a word, everything is about it from the very beginning. This is what our story will go to, which will be devoted to several articles.
So, let's start with the question of gunpowder, because without it, firearms are simply impossible. But here we enter the shaky ground of conjectures and assumptions, because where it came from, no one knows for sure. For example, the British arms magnate V. Griner once wrote the book "Shotgun" and there he cited an excerpt from the ancient Indian law that a commander in war should not use dastardly techniques, be it poisoned arrows or fire-fighting weapons. In his opinion, "fire-fighting weapons" were just firearms. And if so, then … gunpowder, they say, was invented in India. The fact is that there are areas where saltpeter deposits come to the surface. The specific properties of this substance could have attracted the attention of the ancients - so, they say, they made gunpowder on the basis of saltpeter. But the same is true with saltpeter in China. No wonder the Arabs called it "Chinese salt". It is known that the Arabs knew a mixture of 60 parts of saltpeter and 20 parts of sulfur and coal. In fact, such a mixture is gunpowder, which was used by the Arabs as early as 690 during the siege of Mecca. However, many believe that they did not come up with this mixture initially, but borrowed it again from the Chinese.
Those, by the way, made a significant contribution to the development of gunpowder weapons, although they used the nitrate mixture itself rather as a fuel for primitive missiles, and not as an explosive and propellant. So, in 682, the alchemist Sun Si-miao described how, by combining saltpeter and sulfur with vegetable charcoal, to obtain an intensely burning composition. Alchemists Chin Hua-tung and Qing Xu-tzu also wrote somewhere in 808 or so that sulfur, saltpeter, and powdered kokornik plant can be used to obtain a combustible composition very similar to gunpowder in its proportions.
Then, in 904, Zheng Fang uses some kind of "flying fire" to set fire to the gates of the Yuchkhang fortress, but there, most likely, powder shells were fired from ordinary throwing machines. In 969, Yui Fang, and in 970, Feng Ji-shen offered "fire arrows" ho jian, which had tubes with gunpowder, which, when fired, were set on fire with a wick and gave these arrows additional acceleration.
In the future, it came to the use of the explosive power of gunpowder. So, on October 15, 1000, an officer of the Imperial Guard Tang Fu proposed for testing a projectile ji li ho qiu ("fireball with a thorn") - apparently, a ball of powder pulp, with a shell of metal thorns that flew in all directions during the explosion. It can be considered that it was the world's first high-explosive incendiary projectile, although information about it is very scarce.
On September 15, 1132, Chen Tui, who defended the Chinese fortress of Zan, used the Ho Qiang weapon - "bamboo fire pipes" capable of throwing fire. Cheng Gui's flamethrower tubes can be considered the forerunners of barreled firearms, although the question of what exactly they threw besides fire remains open. One way or another, this terrified the unprepared adversary. But the Chinese had already used missiles in 1232, defending Beijing, and in the city of Luoyang, with the help of catapults, they threw iron vessels with gunpowder at the Mongol warriors.
Accordingly, in 1258, the Mongols used the same weapon during the siege of Baghdad, and in 1259, defending Shauchun, the Chinese threw out certain objects called zike from a bamboo pipe using gunpowder. That is, we can talk about something like a cannon, but only for now a wooden one!
However, today the main thing is not known - who, when, and where invented the metal barrel. And what is known? It is known that in the manuscript of Walter de Milimet (or Walter Milimetsky - whoever likes it - author's note), which is something like a children's encyclopedia for the young King of England Edward III, you can see the image of the oldest European "fire-fighting" weapon. This "tool" resembles a jug and is clearly made of bronze. It lies on a kind of goat, directed at the gate of the castle, and a feathered arrow sticks out of it. The knight standing behind him, and this is precisely the knight, since he is dressed in surcoat and wears heraldic aylets on his shoulders, brings the wick to the ignition hole. This manuscript was written between 1326 and 1330. That is, it is obvious that something like this already existed then!
In 1861, in Sweden, near the village of Loshult, a bronze barrel of a flask-shaped shape and 30 cm long was found. Today this artifact is considered the most ancient example of a barrel firearm that has come down to us. True, it is not clear how it was used and what it was fixed on, but the fact that it was “this” was fired upon - undoubtedly!
Another completely unique artifact was also found in Sweden. This hexagonal bronze barrel is a real work of foundry art, and it is not clear why it is decorated with a man's bearded head. Manufacturing time - the second half of the XIV century. This barrel was put on with its rear end on a wooden "stick", which, most likely, was clamped under the arm when firing. It is interesting that the cone-shaped ignition hole is located on top of it, has a side, but for some reason it is in front of the head, and not behind it, which would certainly be more logical. The hook with which this kind of weapon clung to the wall is molded together with the barrel, right under the head.
This type of weapon with hooks on the barrel was called gakovnits (from the word "gak" - "hook"). The very name of the trunk in different countries has a different origin. In England, the barrel is called barrel, which also means barrel, but in languages such as Italian, French and Spanish, the word barrel comes from the word pipe. The Czech word "wrote" means "pipe", and it was from him that the word pishchal took root in the Slavic-speaking countries. Interestingly, in the same Italy, short barrels for hand-held firearms were called bombardellas, that is, they were called diminutive "cannons", indicating their small size, in contrast to massive bombards - "big guns". Which, however, is not at all surprising, since the length of many of these barrels was only 25-35 cm.
Nevertheless, even then, a gradual increase in the length of the trunk was observed. For example, the barrel of the so-called "cannon from Tannenberg" is known, which was found during excavations of the Tannenberg castle, destroyed in 1399. That is, this barrel could not have been made later than this date, but earlier - as much as necessary.
This barrel is also made of bronze. It is cast and has a length of 80 cm, and its caliber is about 14.5 mm. The barrel is octahedral, the ignition hole is on top, and the powder chamber is very unusually arranged: at the exit from it there is a narrowing, beyond which the projectile does not pass inside.
One of the very serious problems of the then gunpowder weapon was the specific consistency of the gunpowder itself, which looked like a black and very sticky powder. Such gunpowder was hygroscopic, when poured into the barrel it adhered to its walls, but most importantly, it was difficult to ignite it in a confined space, although this seems surprising. However, the fact is that the gunpowder was compacted in the barrel of the then gunpowder guns, there was no access of oxygen to the charge, and it was difficult to make coal grains burn so that the nitrate would start to release oxygen from heating. It often happened that such gunpowder burned out in the ignition hole, but it was not possible to set it on fire in the barrel. A solution was found in the use of a red-hot metal rod, which was inserted into the ignition hole. By the way, that is why it was first made from above … But such an "ignition system" was inconvenient, since it required a brazier with coals, which had to be carried behind the shooter.
Therefore, very soon they began to grain the gunpowder. In any case, it is known that in 1421 in the Czech city of Znaimo it was already granulated. Now there was air between the individual powder grains, and they flared up much faster and burned with greater recoil. Now it was already possible to set it on fire not with a hot rod, but with a slowly smoldering wick, which turned out to be much more convenient.
How effective such a weapon was, say tests carried out in the 30s of the last century in Sweden in Stockholm. A copy of an old hand barrel 200 mm long and 23 mm caliber was tested. The lead bullet weighed 52 grams, the gunpowder was made according to the recipe of 1380 from six parts of saltpeter, one sulfur and one coal. When firing, this bullet at a distance of 28 meters pierced a board 5 cm thick, and at a distance of 46 m - 2, 54 cm, that is, one inch. Naturally, not a single chain mail and not a single shell would have protected the owners of this armor at these distances, if such a bullet had hit them!
P. S. The author and the site administration sincerely thank Sarah Dixon, Communications Department of the Historical Museum in Copenhagen, for her assistance in obtaining illustrative and informative material for this article.
