-
Sometimes the sling is attached to a staff or truncheon, about three or four feet in length, wielded with both hands, and charged with a stone of no small magnitude. Those slings appear to have been chiefly used in besieging of cities, and on board of ships in engagements by sea. The following engraving represents a sling of this kind, from a drawing supposed to have been made by Matthew Paris, in a MS. at Bennet College, Cambridge.
83 visits
-
This engraving is made from a manuscript of the tenth century in the Cotton Library. The bow is curiously ornamented having the head and tail of a serpent carved at the ends; and was, probably, such a one as was used by the nobility. In all these bows we may observe one thing remarkable, that is, the string not being made fast to the extremities, but permitted to play at some distance from them. How far this might be more or less advantageous than the present method, I shall not presume to determine.
66 visits
-
In other instances we see it depicted with both the ends held in the hand, the figure being placed in the action of taking his aim, and a bird is generally the object of his exertion, as in the following engraving from a parchment roll in the Royal Library, containing a genealogical account of the kings of England, to the time of Henry III.
44 visits
-
A fighting aeroplane
A. Machine-gun projecting from opening in bow
B. Gunner’s position
C. Pilot’s seat
D.D. Side windows for observation
E. Engine and propeller.
99 visits
-
A coastal sea-plane, as now planned, is a craft having, say, two engines, each devolving 120 h.p., with a wing span of some 80 feet, and an accommodation in its hull for three men—the pilot, a combatant with a machine-gun, and an observer with an installation of wireless. But types are changing constantly, and the tendency is to build larger craft. A machine weighing a couple of tons is shown, and a novelty in regard to it is that it has wheels upon either side of its boat-shaped car, upon which it can move on land, and which fold upward when it rests upon the water.
A. Hull upon which the machine floats when in the sea
B.B.B. Wheels upon which it may move when on land, and which fold upward when it is on the water
C. Pilot’s controlling wheel
D.D. Main sustaining planes
E. Four-bladed propeller driven by chain-gearing from engine within the hull.
90 visits
-
A. Lower part of aeroplane’s hull
B. Revolving barrel to which bombs are clipped
C. Bombs
D. Releasing mechanism operated by marksman in machine.
76 visits
-
Airships, like aeroplanes, are being armed with guns and bombs; and their power of raising weights enables them to carry heavy weapons. Large and highly destructive bombs have been tested in the German airships, being released over the sea and aimed at targets in the form of rafts. Latest-type airships also carry guns in their cars; and the Zeppelins have a platform upon the tops of their hulls, reached by a ladder through the middle of the ship, from which a machine-gun can be fired upward. This is a very necessary precaution, and is intended to frustrate the attack of an aeroplane. It would be the aim of the latter, whenever possible, to manœuvre above its big enemy—as suggested in figure —and drop a bomb upon its hull. Hence the construction of the top platform of the airship, from which her gunners can direct a vigorous fire aloft.
95 visits
-
Bullet Mold
87 visits
-
From the Museum of Mitau in Courland
116 visits
-
Fig. 7. Norwegian Sword. The pommel and cross-piece are of iron.
Figs. 8 to 11. From Livonian graves : the originals are in the British Museum. Fig. 10 is single-edged : its pommel and the chape of the scabbard are of bronze. Fig. 11 has its pommel and guard ornamented with silver
121 visits
-
Fig. 1. Found in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Fairford. It measures upwards of 2 ft. 11 inches, and is one of the finest examples extant.
Fig. 2. In the Hon. Mr. Neville's collection : found in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire. Length of blade, 2 ft. 7 in. It retains the bronze mountings of the sheath, which have been gilt.
Fig. 3. Same collection and find • a specimen re-markable for the cross-piece at the hilt.
Fig. 4 Ancient-. Irish Sword of the same period : length, 30 inches. From Mr. Wakeman's paper in vol. iii. of Colleetanea Antigua.
Fig. 5. Danish sword with engraved runes : in the Copenhagen Museum.
Fig. 6. Danish : from the Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed. Remarkable for the form of its cross-piece
101 visits
-
Mechanical Bombs.
Hand Grenade No. 5, known as Mills’ Hand Grenade. Mills’ Hand Grenade No. 5 weighs about one and one-half pounds and is in constant and steady use at the front, being the best known of all grenades. It consists of an oval cast iron case, containing explosives and serrated to provide numerous missiles on detonation. In the center is a spring striking pin, kept back by a lever or handle, which, in its turn, is held in position by a safety pin.
146 visits
-
There are three kinds of bombs: (1) percussion; (2) ignition;, and (3) mechanical. It is not possible to describe every bomb in use under these three headings, but the most typical are selected for description, although it does not follow that they are all in use at the present time, but will give a fairly good idea of what is required.
Percussion Bombs.
1. Hand Grenade No. 1.
2. Hand Grenade No. 2, formerly known as Mexican Hand Grenade.
3. Rifle grenade No. 3, formerly known as Hale’s Rifle Grenade.
Hand Grenade No. 1 consists of a brass case screwed on to a block of wood, to which is fixed a small cane handle about half way up the case. Outside it is a cast iron ring serrated into 16 parts. The upper end is covered by a moveable cap with a striker pin in the center. On the cap are the words “Remove,” “Travel,” and “Fire” in duplicate. These are marked in red and can be made to correspond with red pointers painted on case. To prepare a bomb, turn cap so that pointer is at “Remove,” take off cap, insert detonator in hole and turn it to the left until the spring on the flange is released and goes into position under the pin; replace cap and turn to “Travel,” which is a safety position. When the bomb is to be thrown, turn cap to “Fire” and then remove safety pin. This bomb explodes on impact, and to insure its falling on the head, streamers are attached. Care should be taken that streamers do not get entangled. The bomb must be thrown well into the air.
155 visits
-
Ignition Bombs.
Hand Grenade No. 7—Grenade heavy friction pattern.
Hand Grenades Nos. 6 and 7 consist of metal cases filled with T.N.T and a composite explosive and are exactly alike, except that No. 7 contains shrapnel bullets or scrap iron, while No. 6 contains only explosive. At the top of each case is a place to fix the friction igniter, which is supplied separately. When these bombs are to be used, detonator fuse and igniter are put in and firmly fixed. Before throwing the becket on, head of igniter should be pulled smartly off.
Ball Hand Grenade.
The Ball Hand Grenade consists of a cast iron sphere, 3 inches in diameter, filled with ammonal and closed by a screwed steel plug which has attached to it a covered tube to take detonator in the center of grenade. It is also lighted by a Brock lighter.
155 visits
-
Battleplanes convoying photographing aeroplanes
180 visits
-
An aeroplpane in war
161 visits
-
Image 3081
440 visits
-
Image 3080
424 visits
-
Image 3079
400 visits
-
Image 3078
404 visits
-
Gardner Five-Barrel Machine Gun, on portable tripod, adapted for Naval use. Weight of gun 235 lbs; of mounting 134 lbs. ; calibre .045 ; rapidity of fire, maximum, 1200 shots per minute
418 visits
-
Gardner Two-Barrel Machine Gun, on cone mounting, for Naval use. Weight of gun 103 lbs; of mounting 153 lbs. ; calibre .045 ; rapidity of fire, maximum, 680 shots per minute
402 visits
-
The archers of the castle found shelter behind the merlons of the battlements, and had the windows from which they shot screened by movable shutters; as may be seen in the next woodcut of the assault on a castle. It would have put the archers of the assailants at a great disadvantage if they had had to stand out in the open space, exposed defenceless to the aim of the foe; all neighbouring trees which could give shelter were, of course, cut down, in order to reduce them to this defenceless condition, and works were erected so as to command every possible coigne of vantage which the nooks and angles of the walls might have afforded. But the archers of the besiegers sought to put themselves on more equal terms with their opponents by using the pavis or mantelet. The pavis was a tall shield, curved so as partly to envelop the person of the bearer, broad at the top and tapering to the feet.
632 visits
-
Seizing that moment, a party of camp followers run forward with a couple of planks, which they throw over the moat to make a temporary bridge. They are across in an instant, and place scaling-ladders against the walls. The knights, following close at their heels, mount rapidly, each man carrying his shield over his head, so that the bare ladder is converted into a covered stair, from whose shield-roof arrows glint and stones roll off innocuous. It is easy to see that a body of the enemy might thus, in a few minutes, effect a lodgment on the castle-wall, and open a way for the whole party of assailants into the interior.
489 visits
-
In the monumental effigy of Sir Robert Shurland, who was made a knight-banneret in 1300, we seem to have a curious and probably unique effigy of a knight in the gameson. We give a woodcut of it, reduced from Stothard’s engraving. The smaller figure of the man placed at the feet of the effigy is in the same costume, and affords us an additional example.
2564 visits
-
Of the quilted armours we know very little. In the illuminations is often seen armour covered over with lines arranged in a lozenge pattern, which perhaps represents garments stuffed and sewn in this commonest of all patterns of quilting; but it has been suggested that it may represent lozenged-shaped scales, of horn or metal, fastened upon the face of the garments. In the wood-cut here given from the MS. Caligula A. vii., we have one of the clearest and best extant illustrations of this quilted armour.
1115 visits
-
Picture represents very clearly the half-armour worn by the pikeman and the weapon from which they took their name.
367 visits
-
We have specially to call attention to the two men who are throwing shells, which are probably charged with Greek fire. This invention, which inspired such terror in the Middle Ages, seems to have been discovered in the east of Europe, and to have been employed as early as the seventh century. We hear much of its use in the Crusades, by the Greeks, who early possessed the secret of its fabrication. They used it either by ejecting it through pipes to set fire to the shipping or military engines, or to annoy and kill the soldiers of the enemy; or they cast it to a distance by means of vessels charged with it affixed to javelins; or they hurled larger vessels by means of the great engines for casting stones; or they threw the fire by hand in a hand-to-hand conflict; or used hollow maces charged with it, which were broken over the person of the enemy, and the liquid fire poured down, finding its way through the crevices of his armour.
518 visits
-
The other great invention of this period was that of armorial bearings, properly so called. Devices painted upon the shield were common in classical times. They are found ordinarily on the shields in the Bayeux tapestry, and were habitually used by the Norman knights. In the Bayeux tapestry they seem to be fanciful or merely decorative; later they were symbolical or significant. But it was only towards the close of the twelfth century that each knight assumed a fixed device, which was exclusively appropriated to him, by which he was known, and which became hereditary in his family.
2090 visits
-
The cross-bowman is winding up his weapon with a winch, his shield is slung at his back.
616 visits
-
The engravings of Hans Burgmaier, in the Triumphs of Maximilian and the Weise Könige contain numerous authorities very valuable for the clearness and artistic skill with which the armour is depicted. We have given an illustration which represents a combat of two knights, on foot. The armour is partly covered by a surcoat; in the left-hand figure it will be seen that it is fluted. The shields will be noticed as illustrating one of the shapes then in use.
1539 visits
-
The man on the right of the cut wears a visored helmet, but it has no amail; his body is protected by a skirt of mail, which appears at the shoulders and hips, and at the openings of his blue surcoat; the legs are in brown hose, and the feet in brown shoes. The centre figure has a helmet and camail, sleeves of mail, and iron breastplate of overlapping plates; the upper plate and the skirt are of red spotted with gold; his hose and shoes are of dark grey. The third man has a helmet with camail, and the body protected by mail, which shows under the arm, but he has also shoulder-pieces and elbow-pieces of plate; his surcoat is yellow, and his hose red. The artist has here admirably illustrated the use of the crossbow. In one case we see the archer stringing it by help of a little winch; in the next he is taking a bolt out of the quiver at his side with which to load his weapon; in the third we have the attitude in which it was discharged.
489 visits
-
In the cut we give a representation of the battering-ram It contains curious contrivances for throwing up scaling-ladders and affixing them to the battlements, from which the inventors of our fire-escapes may have borrowed suggestions; and others for bridging wide moats and rivers with light scaffolding, which could be handled and fixed as easily and quickly as the scaling-ladders. The drawing of the ram only indicates that the machine consists of a heavy square beam of timber, provided, probably, with a metal head, which is suspended by a rope from a tall frame, and worked by manual strength. The cut is especially interesting as an illustration of the style of armour of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It gives the back as well as the front of the figure, and also several varieties of helmet.
533 visits
-
The illustration, from a fourteenth-century manuscript, represents a siege. A walled town is on the right, and in front of the wall, acting on the part of the town, are the cross-bowmen in the cut, protected by great shields which are kept upright by a rest. The men seem to be preparing to fire, and the uniformity of their attitude, compared with the studied variety of attitude of groups of bowmen in other illustrations, suggests that they are preparing to fire a volley.
968 visits
-
Greek Sea Fight, 550 B.C.
95 visits
-
5 inch Rapid-fire gun (Pedestal Mount.)
345 visits
-
5 Inch R.F. gun (showing breech mechanism)
351 visits
-
4.7 inch. Breech closing and firing gear
354 visits
-
Firing a demiculverine from a bastion at “James Fort.” (Conjectural sketch by Sidney E. King.)
3443 visits
-
Jamestown soldiers carrying polearms (a halberd and a bill). (conjectural sketch by Sidney E. King.)
2234 visits
-
A Jamestown sentry on duty shouldering his heavy matchlock musket. (Conjectural sketch by Sidney E. King.)
1949 visits
-
Like Miles Standish, some of the soldiers had swords at their sides, and all carried either flintlock or matchlock muskets so big and heavy that, before they could fire them off, they had to rest them upon supports stuck into the ground for the purpose.
334 visits
-
Brewster's and Standish's Swords
298 visits
-
Sword maker
451 visits
-
Warrior of Java
447 visits
-
Image 416
461 visits
-
Image 414
370 visits
-
Image 412
400 visits
-
Staff slings, Longbows, Crossbows and Flail
385 visits
-
The Chinese of the present day make use of a species of matchlock revolvers, and also of another matchlock, consisting of several barrels, placed on a common stock, diverging from each other, and fired simultaneously.
979 visits
-
At Dover there is a culverine, presented to Queen Elizabeth, by the States General of Holland, and called Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket-pistol. It is 24 feet long, diameter of bore 4 1⁄2 inches, weight of shot 12lbs.; it was manufactured in 1544, and is mounted on an ornamented iron carriage made in 1827, at the Royal Carriage Department, Woolwich Arsenal.
958 visits
-
The three ingredients are now ground separately to a very fine powder. The mills which effect this, and incorporate, are so similar, that a description will be given under the head of “Incorporation.” Screening.After being ground in this way, the saltpetre is passed through a slope cylindrical reel, covered with copper sieving wire of 60 meshes to the inch, which, as it revolves, sifts it to the required fineness, being then received in a box or bin underneath. The charcoal and sulphur are likewise passed through similar reels of 32 and 60-mesh wire respectively, and that which remains without passing through, is ground again under the runners.
976 visits
-
Of machines formed on the sling principle, that called Onager may be regarded as typical of all the rest. Its force entirely depended upon the torsion of a short thick rope, acting upon a lever which described an arc of a vertical circle. The lever had attached to its free extremity a sling, or sometimes it merely terminated in a spoon-shaped cavity. When bent back, it was secured by a catch or trigger, and charged with a stone. On starting the catch by a blow with a mallet, the lever described its arc of a circle with great velocity, and projected the stone to a considerable distance.
325 visits
-
The only real use of these eprouvettes is to check and verify the uniformity of a current manufacture of powder, where a certain course of operations is intended to be regularly pursued, and where the strength, tested by means of any instrument, should therefore be uniform.
960 visits
-
Image 384
349 visits
-
Image 380
594 visits
-
The Chinese of the present day make use of a species of matchlock revolvers, and also of another matchlock, consisting of several barrels, placed on a common stock, diverging from each other, and fired simultaneously.
931 visits
-
Breech loading Gingal (Chamber out)
1101 visits
-
Image 369
347 visits
-
The Scythian bow unstrung.
350 visits
-
The Scythian bow strung
965 visits
-
Image 363
463 visits
-
Sighting through the pantel, the gunner positions the aiming post by extending his left hand.
479 visits
-
Top view of M102 105 mm Howitzer attached to truck
462 visits
-
Image 358
457 visits
-
Image 357
478 visits
-
French Garrison Gun (1650-1700). The gun is on a sloping wooden platform at the embrasure. Note the heavy bed on which the cheeks of the carriage rest and the built-in skid under the center of the rear axletree.
1003 visits
-
Gustavus abandoned the leather gun, however, in favor of a cast-iron 4-pounder and a 9-pounder demiculverin produced by his bright young artillery chief, Lennart Torstensson. The demiculverin was classed as the "feildpeece" par excellence, while the 4-pounder was so light (about 500 pounds) that two horses could pull it in the field.
1065 visits
-
Under the Swedish warrior Gustavus Adolphus, artillery began to take its true position on the field of battle. Gustavus saw the need for mobility, so he divorced anything heavier than a 12-pounder from his field artillery. His famous "leatheren" gun was so light that it could be drawn and served by two men. This gun was a wrought-copper tube screwed into a chambered brass breech, bound with four iron hoops. The copper tube was covered with layers of mastic, wrapped firmly with cords, then coated with an equalizing layer of plaster. A cover of leather, boiled and varnished, completed the gun. Naturally, the piece could withstand only a small charge, but it was highly mobile.
938 visits
-
The trebuchet was another war machine used extensively during the Middle Ages. Essentially, it was a seesaw. Weights on the short arm swung the long throwing arm.
802 visits
-
The catapult was the howitzer, or mortar, of its day and could throw a hundred-pound stone 600 yards in a high arc to strike the enemy behind his wall or batter down his defenses. "In the middle of the ropes a wooden arm rises like a chariot pole," wrote the historian Marcellinus. "At the top of the arm hangs a sling. When battle is commenced, a round stone is set in the sling. Four soldiers on each side of the engine wind the arm down until it is almost level with the ground. When the arm is set free, it springs up and hurls the stone forth from its sling." In early times the weapon was called a "scorpion," for like this dreaded insect it bore its "sting" erect.
410 visits
-
The ballista had horizontal arms like a bow. The arms were set in rope; a cord, fastened to the arms like a bowstring, fired arrows, darts, and stones. Like a modern field gun, the ballista shot low and directly toward the enemy.
618 visits
