Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Selective Chronology of the Civil Wars
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Of Guns and Gunners
- 2 ‘England's Vulcan’: Artillery Supply under the Early Stuarts
- 3 A Scramble for Arms: The War of Ordnance Logistics
- 4 Artillery Fortifications
- 5 Artillery and Sieges
- 6 Battle
- Conclusions
- Appendix I: Ordnance Types 1634–1665
- Appendix II: Shot Finds
- Appendix III: The Parliamentarian Artillery Train of 1642 details extracted from PRO WO 528/131/2, PRO WO 55/387, and the ‘Catalogue of the Names’, BL E 83 (9)
- Appendix IV: The Establishment of the King's ‘Trayne of Artillery’ (Oxford Army), June 1643 extracted from Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 208-9
- Appendix V: The Equipment and Personnel for One Gun and One Mortar, and Infantry Munitions, dispatched from Oxford in May 1643: PRO WO 55/458.65, ff 7–8
- Appendix VI: Guns captured by the King's army at Bristol, July 1643 as Listed in Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 138–139, ‘Survey’ by Samuel Fawcett
- Appendix VII: The Artillery and Officers of the New Model Army Details extracted from PRO WO 47/1, ff 108–118; CSPD DIII, 1644, pp 499, 500, 517; House of Lords Journal, 10, p 71, and J. Sprigge Anglia Rediviva, London, 1647, pp 329–330
- Appendix VIII: The Ideal Artillery Train according to BL Harleian Ms 6844, ‘A Short Treatise Concerning All Things Needfull in an Armye According to Modern Use’, c. 1660
- Appendix IX: The Masters and Officers of the Ordnance c. 1610–1660 extracted from Ordnance Quarter Books, DNB and State Papers
- Appendix X: Typical Firing Sequence for a Small to Medium Sized Gun using a crew of three: reconstructed from passages in various sections of William Eldred's Gunner's Glasse, London, 1646, and other manuals of the period 1620–1650
- Glossary
- Illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Selective Chronology of the Civil Wars
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Of Guns and Gunners
- 2 ‘England's Vulcan’: Artillery Supply under the Early Stuarts
- 3 A Scramble for Arms: The War of Ordnance Logistics
- 4 Artillery Fortifications
- 5 Artillery and Sieges
- 6 Battle
- Conclusions
- Appendix I: Ordnance Types 1634–1665
- Appendix II: Shot Finds
- Appendix III: The Parliamentarian Artillery Train of 1642 details extracted from PRO WO 528/131/2, PRO WO 55/387, and the ‘Catalogue of the Names’, BL E 83 (9)
- Appendix IV: The Establishment of the King's ‘Trayne of Artillery’ (Oxford Army), June 1643 extracted from Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 208-9
- Appendix V: The Equipment and Personnel for One Gun and One Mortar, and Infantry Munitions, dispatched from Oxford in May 1643: PRO WO 55/458.65, ff 7–8
- Appendix VI: Guns captured by the King's army at Bristol, July 1643 as Listed in Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 138–139, ‘Survey’ by Samuel Fawcett
- Appendix VII: The Artillery and Officers of the New Model Army Details extracted from PRO WO 47/1, ff 108–118; CSPD DIII, 1644, pp 499, 500, 517; House of Lords Journal, 10, p 71, and J. Sprigge Anglia Rediviva, London, 1647, pp 329–330
- Appendix VIII: The Ideal Artillery Train according to BL Harleian Ms 6844, ‘A Short Treatise Concerning All Things Needfull in an Armye According to Modern Use’, c. 1660
- Appendix IX: The Masters and Officers of the Ordnance c. 1610–1660 extracted from Ordnance Quarter Books, DNB and State Papers
- Appendix X: Typical Firing Sequence for a Small to Medium Sized Gun using a crew of three: reconstructed from passages in various sections of William Eldred's Gunner's Glasse, London, 1646, and other manuals of the period 1620–1650
- Glossary
- Illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A common body of tactics for the use of artillery on the battlefield existed long before 1642. During the decades leading up to the English Civil Wars, a number of key European texts containing tactical theory were translated and circulated, in either manuscript or book form. English and Scottish commentators also added their opinions, or reassessed artillery tactics in the light of their own experience. Unsurprisingly – given its recent dominant position and the military adventures of Spain at the end of the sixteenth century – many ideas came from the Iberian peninsula, or from soldiers who had fought in the service of the Hapsburgs. Different versions of Don Bernadino de Mendonca’s Theorica y Practica de Guerra, originally published in Madrid in 1595, appear to have been especially influential in highlighting the importance of battlefield artillery. As he explained,
Amongst other things (in my opinion) you are to consider, that the fury of gunpowder is such, with the artillery, muskets and arcabuses, that it not only breaks, as slings did the phalangs and legions, before they came to handy blowes, but it tears, breaks and opens the squadrons and battalions, and destroys them; and so the most part of the victoryes which have been gayned in these times, hath beene with artillery, or dispatch of the arcabusiers by their ready force disordering the squadrons of the enemy, soe that they putt them to rout, and ruine them, and you seldome see squadrons or bodyes of pykes to come to the push.
Whilst Mendoca lumps together the effects of great guns and small arms in this passage his observation that gunpowder weapons were tending to reduce the numbers of hand to hand melees between opposing armies is an important one. Moreover, from the remarks which follow, it is obvious that he saw artillery proper, as opposed to firearms in general, as an important contributor to success in battle.
For this reason, it is a matter much disputed, in what place the artillery is to bee in a day of battayle: some being of the opinion that it should march before all the squadrons, for to offend the enemy afar off, by much shott, and to save the squadrons behind it from shott, who at closing are to open and pass by; the artillery being now noe futher usefull.
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- `The Furie of the Ordnance'Artillery in the English Civil Wars, pp. 137 - 160Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008