GUNS, NAVAL. Neither gunpowder nor guns were invented in the modern sense of the word. They were developments that, in their earlier forms, were scarcely distinguishable from previous types. Greek fire (q.v.) and other ancient in eendiary compositions contained all of the es sential ingredients of gunpowder, and it was discharged through tubes, the prototypes of guns, placed in the bows of galleys. The force with which the flame and gas issued from the tubes may have led to placing darts or hard substances in the tubes so that they might be thrown out as projectiles. The earliest guns of which we have knowledge were certainly very crude affairs, and their immediate predecessors were probably cruder still, so that the importance of the im pending change was not realized. If we regard the incendiary tubes as the prototypes of the gun, the latter seems to have been first developed in naval warfare.
The earliest record of the use of guns on ship board is derived from an old Japanese painting of the repulse of the Mongol fleet off the shores of Japan in A.D. 1281, the fleet being shown wreathed in smoke from its guns. Kublai Khan, the Mongol-Chinese Emperor, certainly had an ordnance department at this time, and it fa not unlikely that he mounted some guns on the vessels of his fleet. The first recorded use of guns on European ships is in the thirteenth cen tury. In 1350 the Moors of Spain are said to have used cannon in a sea fight with the Moors of Tunis, and in 1837 the French and English fleets fought at sea with guns. Up to this time the pieces were fired over the rail of the ship, but early in the fourteenth century gun-ports were invented—a suggestion of Descharges, a ship builder of Brest—and the number of pieces car ried rapidly increased, so that toward the end of the century the Queen of Louis XII. made a present to the French people of the Cordeliere, a ship carrying 60 guns; and the English im mediately built a very similar vessel, the Regent, to oppose her. The guns carried on these ships were mostly breech-loaders, and we are struck by the fact that they still retained a removable chamber for the powder, similar to the charging piece of the incendiary tubes used in the old gal leys. The inefficient closing of the breech made
the guns very ineffective, and breech-loading was very generally abandoned in the early part of the seventeenth century. The metal of the earlier guns was wrought iron or brass, but after the general introduction of muzzleloaders it was either cast iron or cast brass. Some of the early guns were rifled; at the Woolwich Arsenal there is a barrel dated 1547 which is rifled with six grooves, of a twist of one turn in 26 inches. • By the year 1600 rifled small arms firing spherical lead bullets were common, but the disuse of heavy breech-loading guns prevented the development of rifled artillery. Guns of very large size were made in the fifteenth century. those used by Mohammed II. in the siege of Con stantinople in 1453 having a calibre of about 25 inches, and firing a stone ball of over 600 pounds weight (see ARTILLERY) ; and still larger ones with a calibre of 30 inches, and firing stone halls of 1100 pounds weight, are yet to be seen in some of the old batteries on the Dardanelles. iron shot began to be used about the middle of the fifteenth century, though stone shot were not wholly given up for many decades after this. By the end of the sixteenth century the batteries of ships had become formidable. The Spanish Armada of 1588 was composed of 130 ships car rying 3165 guns, most of which were 4, 6, and 10 pounders, but the two largest ships, the Salt Lorenzo and Nuestra Senora del Rosario, were better armed. The former carried four 60-pound ers, eight 30-pounders, six 18-pounders, six 9-pounders, ten 6-pounders, and sixteen small guns-50 guns in all; the latter mounted three 30-pounders, seven 24-pounders, four 18-pound ers, one 9-pounder, and 26 small guns, or 41 guns in all. The Triumph, the largest English ship in the fleet which opposed the Armada, carried four 60-pounders, three 30-pounders, seventeen 18 pounders, eight 9-pounders, six 6-pounders, and 30 small guns, or 68 guns in all.