Eastern Europe Artillery in the 16th century?

I've been doing some research for PoP regarding artillery, yet I'm severely lacking knowledge of types of artillery that were saw, used by the Jagiellona or perhaps even the Muscovites. I know cannons for defense were used for fortresses and battles as early as the 14th and 15th century involve Muscovy using artillery for sieges. I know the west developed an array of cannonry, with each nation having own sizing of artillery.

What kind of artillery was used in the east (discounting the Ottomans). Were designs for culverins, falconets, sakers, field guns, and bombards merrely produced by copying other designs? How wide spread was the use in warfare and sieges? I've been unable to find zero info, with most information focusing on France or England.

not sure about muscovi but poles probably used western style arty....hussites vere big in to gunpowder they used gun called houfnice (howitzer derives from that) and tarasnice on top hand held hakovnice and pistala ...hakovice

sirharryflashman said:

not sure about muscovi but poles probably used western style arty....hussites vere big in to gunpowder they used gun called houfnice (howitzer derives from that) and tarasnice on top hand held hakovnice and pistala ...hakovice

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Great info, thanks. Essentially the Jagiellons sell some artillery to a certain member and I wanted it to be correct. I imagine the Muscovites c. 1580s had cannonry, but they were nothing like western style cannons.

Well, i came recently (during the discussion over russian armies) on the Battle of Kazan.

During the Battle of Kazan, Russians used this tower siege.



12 metres high, but it was pretty anecdotic.

Apparently, during the XVI century, the artillery seems to have been unused before the reign of Ivan IV that welcomed foreigners with knowledge of the subject. So more western based canon than eastern ones in this period.

He created the Streltsy corps (arquebuses) as well, so they had also hand guns.

Hussites mercenaries later on served In Hungary, Germany, Poland and Russia.

KACKO said:

Hussites mercenaries later on served In Hungary, Germany, Poland and Russia.

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Yes, the bratríks. Though, despite their nickname, their remnants weren't purely Hussite by the end of the 15th century, since various other mercenaries and former bandits joined their ranks as well. After the battle at Veľké Kostoľany, most remaining bratríks were integrated into the Bandera Nerra regiments of Matthias I. Corvinus.

sirharryflashman said:

not sure about muscovi but poles probably used western style arty....hussites vere big in to gunpowder they used gun called houfnice (howitzer derives from that) and tarasnice on top hand held hakovnice and pistala ...hakovice

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As for artillery... Another small type of field cannon was the rychlica ("fastgun"), typical in Hungary during the late 15th century and the early-to-mid 16th century. It's a very light and simple, thin, straight-barrelled gun on a two-wheeler gun-carriage. (It is actually kind of visually reminescent of the future horse artillery guns, just not as advanced, of course.) A houfnica was a kind of howitzer slash forward-firing field cannon. It was frequently used to fire grapeshot at attackers and was primarily a defensive cannon. I think the French fauconneau is by far the best comparison. Over time, houfnice and their name (meaning roughly "swarmgun"/"swarmer" or "gagglegun"/"gaggler") indeed evolved linguistically into Haubitze and the English howitzer. Besides that, we have plentiful evidence that Hungarian, Polish and Czech armies all used bombards of varying sizes during the entire 15th century. We have written records about Sigismund of Luxembourg ordering a few new cannons, including a bombard, from craftsmen in Košice while he was setting off for a certain military campaign during the 1420s.

Píšťala ("pipe", "flute") referred to an early, light, rifle-like arquebus. The one you'd see carried and fired by gunners in an open field battle. It's kind of like the culverin or caliver, but many of them already had rifle-like stocks. Hákovnica ("hookgun") is the larger, cannon-like type of arquebus, the one that supposedly got the name because of the hook, bill or other apparatus used for hooking it down onto a fortified wall before firing. It was used primarily in sieges (of castles, forts, camps), especially in the defensive role.

A good article on 14th and 15th century firearms and artillery in the Czech lands can be found here :
http://www.valka.cz/clanek_12053.html
(Unfortunately, it's in Czech, so you'll probably have to resort to GT.)

As for other projectile weapons, the Hussites had a fetish for crossbows. Typical melee weapons included flails, maces, morgensterns, war scythes, halberds, spears, falchions, various shields and pavises. Hussite cavalry, particularly the nobles who joined their cause, had pretty typical 15th century medium and heavy cavalry equipment.

LSCatilina said:

Apparently, during the XVI century, the artillery seems to have been unused before the reign of Ivan IV that welcomed foreigners with knowledge of the subject. So more western based canon than eastern ones in this period.

He created the Streltsy corps (arquebuses) as well, so they had also hand guns.

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Thats not quite it. In fact artillery and arquebusiers corps were developing much earlier. The first evidence of massive arquebusiers corps goes down to 1510 ( "1000 state pischalniks were sent to Pskov from Moscow" where pischal is arquebuse and pischalnik is arquebusier). Before Ivan IV military reformes arquebusier were a sort of town militia - everey town had to arm a constant number of them. Say Pskov had 1000 pischalniks, Novgorod- 2000 ets. Streltsy are reformed pischalniks that were not militia but regular troops( one of the first in Europe) who had to serve constantly, got salary had tactical exercises, had military uniform ets. During Ivan IV reign there were at least 15000 Streltsy, and a lot more pischalnik who unlike Streltsy were not field troops but garrison troops.

Russian artillery was massive and quite effective. It had not less than 2000 canons of all types( including garrison ones). The pushkari( artillerists) were not mercenaries but national semi-regular troops. They had one review per year during which they had too make several shots. There also were maneuvres with Streltsy during which the coordination with artillery was trained.

Field fortifications "Gulyay-Gorod" were also used a least since 1522.

Artillery was self made in Pushechniy Dvor in Moscow. Artillery was divided into field artillery and siege artillery. Field artillery consisted of 6-8 pound cannons with caliber 3-3.5 inches. Siege artillery had caliber up to 10 inches (effectively; there were some unique cannons with greater caliber- say Tsar Pushka in moscow had caliber 89 sm.) Balls were also calibred.

Russian artillery was quite effective. In 1514 Russian artillery was decisive in capturing Smolensk. In 1521 artillery made besieging tartar forses lift the seige of Ryazan. In 1552 during siege of Kazan there were used 150 heavy cannons ( and guns on siege tower were more like arquebuses; the picture in the previous post is in fact from a prime-school textbook - I'm not joking I had such a book). In 1558-1560 effective artillery was crutial for initial Ruusian successes in Livonian war.

Fletcher writes that in the end of XVI centurey there were 4300 mercenaries in Russian army. But 4000 of them were Ukranian cossacs and can hardly be considered as mercenaries. So 300 remaining mercenaries hardly can have a lot of influence in Russian army.

In fact Russian army in XVI century was a lot like Ottoman troops- the same pometye/sipahi sistem, Streltsy/Janissary corps ets.

What Shnurre said. During Battle of Orsha in 1514, for example, Muscovites used 150-300 cannons.

thrashing_mad said:

What Shnurre said. During Battle of Orsha in 1514, for example, Muscovites used 150-300 cannons.

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To quote the wiki article itself:

"The size of the Russian army remains an unsolved question."

And given how many men it takes to operate a cannon, the count has to be disputed too.

That being said, artillery is still apparently present - this is just pointing out the issues with the quantity aspect.

http://www.xenophon-mil.org/rushistory/battles/ivanbook.htm This might be worth reading.

http://www.xenophon-mil.org/xenindex.htm for a general list of what they have available.

In the late 16th c. Russians actually exported guns to Persia and iirc at least once to the Seven Provinces during the revolts in the Spanish Netherlands. This tells me the Cannon Yards could actually produce excess guns.

Guns were divided into Field (usually under a detached command, i.e. the nariad), Siege, and Garrison (zatynniye), the last of which were smaller calibre pieces fixed to walls (of course some could be very big but were generally distinguished from field pieces by not having a movable carriage of any kind). Those were pretty common and numerous.

Specialised large-caliber cannons existed specifically for siege defense, usually shooting rocks and shrapnel of all kinds like a giant shotgun at a specific point, such as a breached gate. There's some speculation the Tsar Cannon was one of such because of its thin walls.

Mortars were used from the early-middle 16th c.

Smaller calibre guns were also used widely in the Gulay-Gorod (Russian/Cossack version of a Tabor) or on Gorodnitsas/Gorodyniyas (seige towers, the most famous of which is the one Khmelnistki's forces built at the siege of Zbarazh). In the Muscovite armies, mobile fortifications were serviced by a specialised engineering corps.

Positional earthworks would have been dug partly by the Cannoneers themselves, but also potentially assisted by the conscripted logistical force of the Musovite army (datochniye lyudi/pososhnaya rat')

Pischal (literally: 'a thing that squeals', similar to the Czech word that eventually became Pistol) is both a handgun and a light artillery piece, depending on the precise usage of the word. Was replaced by muskets and carabines by the middle of 17th c.

The first mention of guns in general is from the late 14th c. (1382) and the first Russian world for cannon (tufyak) is of Persian, not European origin, but by the 16th c. though there's considerable amounts of similarities between Russians and their western neighbours in terms of cannon technology. Ivan III had lots of contacts with Italy and definitely imported Italian architects and probably cannon-masters. There may have been some in Sofia's retinue. Vasili III definitely continued his father's policy. You can also see how all the period Kremlins are now designed with lower walls and zones of cross-fire, nothing nearly as impressive as trace italienne but still with some common design principles.

Samopal -> matchlock
Ruchnitsa -> hand-gun, later came to mean a type of pistol

EDIT: Schnurre compared Muscovite army to the Ottoman: a most apt comparison if you ask me. Much more similar to the Ottomans than any Western Power, at least until the New Model Regiments were brought in.

RGB said:

Samopal -> matchlock

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Yes. Sounds anachronistic at first glance, but isn't. The early Russian heavy matchlocks were really called like that.

RGB said:

Ruchnitsa -> hand-gun, later came to mean a type of pistol

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Or ručnica/ručnice, as we and the Czechs say. It literally means "hand-gun" (since ruky = "hands") and is an archaism for any obsolete rifle-like firearm.