page_title: Gunpowder artillery in the Middle Ages
section_title: Byzantine and Ottoman Empires
hierarchical_section_title: Gunpowder artillery in the Middle Ages / Use in Eastern Europe / Byzantine and Ottoman Empires
caption_attribution_description: English: The Dardanelles Gun&#160;: is a siege gun dating from soon after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It is cast in bronze and was made in two parts: the barrel which holds the shot and the chamber which holds the charge. The two parts screw together and there is a ring of sockets at the ends of each section, these take levers to facilitate screwing and unscrewing the parts. Overall length is 5.2 m and it weighs 16.8 tonnes. It fires a stone ball of about 300 kg some 1600 m. The rate of fire was very slow - about 15 rounds per day. Currently in the Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth, England. Deutsch: Das Dardanellengeschütz ist ein osmanisches Belagerungsgeschütz aus Bronze aus der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Es ist das größte und schwerste erhaltene Geschütz dieser Zeit und befindet sich in der Ausstellung der Royal Armouries in Hampshire. Das zweiteilige Rohr hat ein Gewicht von 16,8 t bei einer Gesamtlänge von 518 cm und einer Kammerlänge von 215 cm. Es konnte Kugeln von 63 cm Durchmesser und 340 kg Gewicht verschießen. Zum einfacheren Transport und zur Ladung sind Lauf und Kammer durch eine Schraubverbindung trennbar. Dabei war die gegossene Schraubverbindung so exakt gearbeitet, dass sie gasdicht abschloss.
context_page_description: Artillery in the Middle Ages primarily consisted of the introduction of the cannon, large tubular firearms designed to fire a heavy projectile over a long distance. Guns, bombs, rockets and cannons were first invented in China during the Han Chinese Song Dynasty and then later spread to Europe and the Middle East during the period.
  Although gunpowder was known in Europe during the High Middle Ages due to the usage of guns and explosives by the Mongols and the Chinese firearms experts employed by the Mongols as mercenaries during the Mongol conquests of Europe, it was not until the Late Middle Ages that European versions of cannons were widely developed. The first cannons introduced into Europe were probably used in Iberia, during the Christian wars against Muslims in the 13th century; their use was also first documented in the Middle East around this time. English cannons first appeared in 1327, and later saw more general use during the Hundred Years' War, when primitive cannons were engaged at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. By the end of the 14th century, the use of cannons was also recorded in Sweden, Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duchy of Moscow, Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire.
context_section_description: During the 14th century, the Byzantine Empire began to accumulate its own cannon to face the Ottoman threat, starting with medium-sized cannon 3 feet (0.91 m) long and of 10" calibre. Only a few large bombards were under the Empire's control. The first definite use of artillery in the region was against the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1396. These loud Byzantine weapons, possibly operated by the Genoese or "Franks" of Galata, forced the Turks to withdraw.
  The Ottomans had acquired their own cannon by the siege of 1422, using "falcons", which were short but wide cannon. The two sides were evenly matched technologically, and the Turks had to build barricades "in order to receive… the stones of the bombards." Because the Empire at this time was facing economic problems, Pope Pius II promoted the affordable donation of cannon by European monarchs as a means of aid. Any new cannon after the 1422 siege were gifts from European states, and aside from these, no other advances were made to the Byzantine arsenal.
  In contrast, when Sultan Mehmet II laid siege to Constantinople in April 1453, he used 68 Hungarian-made cannon, the largest of which was 26 feet (7.9 m) long and weighed 20 tons. This fired a 1,200 pound stone cannonball, and required an operating crew of 200 men. Two such bombards had initially been offered to the Byzantines by the Hungarian artillery expert Urban, which were the pinnacle of gunpowder technology at the time; he boasted that they could reduce "even the walls of Babylon". However, the fact that the Byzantines could not afford it illustrates the financial costs of artillery at the time. These cannon also needed 70 oxen and 10,000 men just to transport them. They were extremely loud, adding to their psychological impact, and Mehmet believed that those who unexpectedly heard it would be struck dumb.
  The 55-day bombardment of Constantinople left massive destruction, as recounted by the Greek chronicler Kritovoulos:
  And the stone, borne with enormous force and velocity, hit the wall, which it immediately shook and knocked down and was itself broken into many fragments and scattered, hurling the pieces everywhere and killing those who happened to be nearby.
  — 
  Byzantine counter artillery allowed them to repel any visible Turkish weapons, and the defenders repulsed any attempts to storm any broken points in the walls and hastily repaired any damage. However, the walls could not be adapted for artillery, and towers were not good gun emplacements. There was even worry that the largest Byzantine cannon could cause more damage to their own walls than the Turkish cannon. Gunpowder had also made the formerly devastating Greek fire obsolete, and with the final fall of what had once been the strongest walls in Europe on May 29, "it was the end of an era in more ways than one".
caption: the Dardanelles Gun, a heavy bronze cannon, similar to those at the Siege of Constantinople in 1453
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