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Bronze Cannon Casting
By the mid-15th century, bronze cannon casting became a core military technology for sieges in Europe and the Ottoman Empire, with bell founders appl…
Timeline
- 1441–1445Western European casting centers (Venice, Namur, and elsewhere) · ItalyFrom the mid-14th century Europe had applied bell-casting techniques to bronze gun barrels; muzzle-loading bronze cannons were safer and more durable than iron-hooped guns, and from the 1440s arsenals across Western Europe continuously expanded stocks of bronze cannon of various calibers to meet siege and field battle needs.
- 1446–1450Battlefield of the Hexamilion siege · GreeceMurad II employed cast bronze cannons in the 1446 siege of the Hexamilion; Hungarian cannon founder Urban (Urban/Orban) applied large bell-casting techniques to giant bronze siege cannons, laying the technical foundation for the 1453 siege of Constantinople.
Sources
- Ottoman artillery and European military technology in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries — Gábor Ágoston (1994) https://www.reenactor.ru/ARH/PDF/Agoston_01.pdf
- A Turkish Bronze Cannon in the Tower of London (1986) https://doi.org/10.3989/gladius.1986.122