Saker Cannon

Timeline

1. 1540–1575England · EnglandDuring the Tudor period, England's Royal Ordnance Establishment issued artillery regulations grading cannon by shot weight; the saker (5–6 pound shot) was formally listed among standard models alongside the falcon and cannon, with standards specified for barrel weight, length, and material; France and the Holy Roman Empire issued similar regulations at the same time.
2. 1618–1630German theater · GermanyAfter the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, the saker was widely used on the German theater as one of the standard field guns of the belligerents. The Imperial army, the Protestant Union, and foreign intervention forces (Denmark, later Sweden) all kept large numbers of sakers in their artillery establishments. At the Battle of White Mountain (1620) and during the subsequent Danish intervention, sakers provided direct fire support to infantry squares and assisted in sieges.
3. 1630–1648Sweden and the German theater · SwedenIn 1630 Swedish King Gustavus II Adolf led his army into Germany and carried out artillery reforms: supplementing sakers with light leather guns and lightened copper guns, achieving a model of artillery providing frontline support alongside infantry charges. The reform assigned 2–4 light guns to each infantry regiment, greatly increasing tactical fire density, shining at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), and laying the foundation for modern artillery-infantry combined tactics.