The Invention and Historical Development of Firearms
Although much has been said about the origin and early development of firearms, the results have always been questionable as the subject has not been adequately researched and based on real sources.
We can show the starting point in the emergence of firearms, the use of saltpeter (potassium nitrate), which is formed as a result of the decomposition of some waste organic materials, as a combustible explosive substance with some mixtures.
When the first appearance of gunpowder is examined, it is seen that it was used neither as a war tool nor as a combustible material. It emerged as a result of the efforts of alchemists to find the elixir, which is the essence of everything, with mystical beliefs.
It was unthinkable for the centralist rulers of the period, who were looking for easier attack and defense methods against their enemies from afar, to use this new invention as a war tool. It would not be wrong to say that the emergence of the first firearm, the cannon, coincided with the same period. Because the cannon is based on the system of ejecting the bullet in the tube-shaped barrel of the gases formed by combustion at a high speed.
It has been known that gunpowder was used for various purposes for a long time as a combustible and noise-maker before it emerged as a salah by the Chinese, but in the XIII century. It is known that from the 16th century, the Chinese used the first examples of gunpowder humbaras that made a terrible sound and fire, and they threw the masses consisting of various hard particles mixed with gunpowder, which they put in thick paper or hard and solid metals as bombs, on the enemy by hand or with catapults. The Chinese have known for a long time that the gases released by the expansion of gunpowder ejected various objects, as well as scattering shrapnel-like particles placed inside these objects. It was not too late to use the gunpowder and cannonball-launched mechanisms filled in metal pipes. After the Arabs, Mongols and Indians, the merchants and travelers who traveled to the exotic east told what they saw on their return to their countries. And XIV. In the centuries, it was instrumental in Europeans to recognize the flammable and explosive properties of gunpowder.
It is known that the first studies on gunpowder in Europe were made by the English priest Roger Bacon (1219-1292) and the German priest Barthold Schwantz (1310-1348). Roger Bacon, in his work "Concerning the Marveleous of art and nature and concerning the mullity of magic", which he wrote in 1252, stated the method and formula of refining the substances in the compound of black gunpowder. It is known that Barthold Sachwantz opened a workshop in Venice in 1377, designed bronze cannons and worked on black powder as well as cannon casting.
The rose rulers of the period, who threw huge stone balls at their enemies with catapults or sprayed Greek fire with such a substance with flammable and throwing properties, did not delay in using the positive results of such an innovation as a new weapon against their enemies in the military field,
In both eastern and western sources, there is no definite record of the first firearm's appearance on the stage of history, by whom it was made, and in which war it was used for the first time.
According to the documents, it is possible to date the first use of firearms in Europe to the second half of the 13th century. It is known that gunpowder guns called "sclopi" were used in the town of Forti in Italy in 1284. In 1313, it was determined that there were records of the first cannon samples used with gunpowder in the town of Ghant in France. It shows two officials of the city council of Florence using brass cannons firing iron cannons on February 11, 1326, to have cannons poured and manufactured for the protection of the republic. There is a primitive firearm miniature in the manuscript dated 1327 in England. The cannon in this miniature contains a giant arrow or spear instead of a cannonball. There is also a small ball from the same period in the state history museum in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
The first gunpowder guns were made of wrought iron or cast iron in the form of a vase. These were weapons called "potsde-fers" that launched arrow or spear-shaped objects. After the use of these first firearms, various sizes and types of iron or bronze cannons, rifles and pistols starting from archaebus, firing with wick, spring, flint, encapsulated and needle mechanisms, machine guns formed the stages in the development of firearms in parallel with the historical development of gunpowder and the needs of war technology. .