Gunpowder, and the Range of Ballistic Possibilities Thereof
It can be said with reasonable certainty that modern, industrial warfare began with the introduction of gunpowder. The simple chemical combination of powdered charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate, achieved at the hands of an anonymous Chinese alchemist in the ninth century, set the world on a course of destruction and bloodletting unprecedented in history.
The discovery of gunpowder, according to accepted history, was achieved in a quest for the Elixir of Life, and it came to be known as the ‘Fire Potion’, and while life was not extended by its ingestion, it was soon discovered that life could easily be extinguished by its use in ballistics.
This discovery followed on from the more benign use of gunpowder in fireworks, which was also a signature Chinese contribution to the world, but such is the fiendish nature of human intelligence that before long rockets and fire arrows began to appear on the battlefield.
By the Middle Ages, gunpowder manufacture had spread to the Muslim world, and then to Europe, with textual evidence of gunpowder manufacture in England appearing for the first time in the mid-fourteenth century. Rudimentary cannon appeared in the ranks of English and French armies at about the same time, and in Ottoman armies soon afterwards, or perhaps even before. Who precisely put together the deadly combination of explosive and projectile to produce the first mortar type cannon is now lost in history, but it certainly changed the game radically.
The first noticeable effect of gunpowder ballistics on the battlefield was the almost immediate redundancy of the traditional walled fortress, which could now be reduced to rubble in a matter of days. The next major advance came in scaling the technology down, and producing hand-held cannon, which appeared for the first time in the mid-fifteenth century. This put firearms into the hands of the individual soldier, producing modern infantry.
From then to the arming of a modern soldier with rifles and machine guns became simply a matter of chronology. The first identifiable firearm in the modern pattern was the Arquebus, which was essentially a miniature cannon with a glowing match firing system and a crude wooden stock. The limitations of this system this are obvious, and the evolution of ignition devices progressed from matchlocks to wheel locks, and then flintlocks and percussion caps. These, however, were all muzzleloaders, and with the development of the paper cartridge, modern ammunition was born, as was the modern breechloader.
As the hand-held firearm was developing, so too was cannon, and before long, cartridge and canister technology led to shells and breechloading artillery. The heyday of modern artillery, of course, was the attritive warfare in the trenches of Western Europe during WWI.
Certainly that anonymous Chinese alchemist could hardly have imagine the power that unleashed with that quest for the Elixir of Life.