page_title: Limbers and caissons
section_title: Before the 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Limbers and caissons / Before the 19th century
caption_attribution_description: Engraving of a limber ca. 1461
context_page_description: A limber is a two-wheeled cart designed to support the trail of an artillery piece, or the stock of a field carriage such as a caisson or traveling forge, allowing it to be towed. The trail is the hinder end of the stock of a gun-carriage, which rests or slides on the ground when the carriage is unlimbered.
  A caisson is a two-wheeled cart designed to carry artillery ammunition; the British term is "ammunition waggon". Caissons are also used to bear the casket of the deceased in some state and military funerals in certain Western cultures, including the United States.
context_section_description: As artillery pieces developed trunnions and were placed on carriages featuring two wheels and a trail, a limber was devised.  This was a simple cart with a pintle.  When the piece was to be towed, it was raised over the limber and then lowered, with the pintle fitting into a hole in the trail.  Horses or other draft animals were harnessed in single file to haul the limber.  There was no provision for carrying ammunition on the limber, but an ammunition chest was often carried between the two pieces of the trail.
caption: Limber (left) and gun, ca. 1461
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