Bombarda The bombard, considered the oldest portable firearm, was a primitive artillery piece precursor to the cannon The first use in combat documented in the Crown of Aragon was in 1359 during the War of the Two Peters (1356–1375) in the naval battle of Barcelona when the troops of Peter IV of Aragon fired a bombardment of which he had mounted on the Catalan galleys, making useless one of the attacking galleys and destroying the castles and the tree.