1.
Cannon
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A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellants to launch a projectile, which may or may not be explosive. The word cannon is derived from languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as tube, cane. The Greeks invented the first type—a steam cannon—designed by Archimedes during the Siege of Syracuse, ctesibius built a steam cannon in Alexandria and in the fifteenth century Leonardo da Vinci designed another, the Architonnerre, based on Archimedes work. The earliest form of artillery was developed in Song China, over time replacing siege engines. In the Middle East, the first use of the cannon is argued to be during the 1260 Battle of Ain Jalut between the Mamluk Sultanate and Mongol Empire. The first cannon in Europe were in use in the Iberian Peninsula by the mid-13th century and it was during this period, the Middle Ages, that cannon became standardised, and more effective in both the anti-infantry and siege roles. After the Middle Ages most large cannon were abandoned in favour of greater numbers of lighter, Cannon also transformed naval warfare in the early modern period, as European navies took advantage of their firepower. In World War I, the majority of fatalities were caused by artillery. Most modern cannon are similar to those used in the Second World War, Cannon was widely known as the earliest form of a gun and artillery, before early firearms were invented. The word has been used to refer to a gun since 1326 in Italy, both Cannons and Cannon are correct and in common usage, with one or the other having preference in different parts of the English-speaking world. Cannons is more common in North America and Australia, while cannon as plural is more common in the United Kingdom, Cannon in general have the form of a truncated cone with an internal cylindrical bore for holding an explosive charge and a projectile. The thickest, strongest, and closed part of the cone is located near the explosive charge, as any explosive charge will dissipate in all directions equally, the thickest portion of the cannon is useful for containing and directing this force. Field artillery cannon in Europe and the Americas were initially made most often of bronze, though later forms were constructed of cast iron and eventually steel. However, cast iron cannon have a tendency to burst without having any previous weakness or wear. The following terms refer to the components or aspects of a classical western cannon as illustrated here. In what follows, the words near, close, and behind will refer to those parts towards the thick, closed end of the piece, and far, front, in front of, and before to the thinner, open end. Bore, The hollow cylinder bored down the centre of the cannon, including the base of the bore or bottom of the bore, the diameter of the bore represents the cannons calibre. Chamber, The cylindrical, conical, or spherical recess at the nearest end of the bottom of the bore into which the gunpowder is packed
2.
Pillbox (military)
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Pillboxes are concrete dug-in guard posts, normally equipped with loopholes through which to fire weapons. The originally jocular name arose from their similarity to the cylindrical and hexagonal boxes in which medical pills were once sold. They are in effect a trench firing step hardened to protect against small-arms fire and grenades, the concrete nature of pillboxes means that they are a feature of prepared positions. They were probably first used in the Hindenburg Line and this is likely to have been the time when they acquired their incongruous English name. The Oxford English Dictionarys earliest record of the use of the word pillbox in connection with a defensive post is from 13 September 1917, some pillboxes were designed to be prefabricated and transported to their location for assembly. During World War I, Sir Ernest William Moir produced a design for concrete machine-gun pillboxes constructed from a system of interlocking precast concrete blocks, around 1500 Moir pillboxes were eventually produced and sent to the Western Front in 1918. Pillboxes are often camouflaged in order to conceal their location and to maximize the element of surprise. The French Maginot Line built between the world consisted of a massive bunker and tunnel complex, but as most of it was below ground little could be seen from the ground level. The exception were the concrete blockhouses, gun turrets, pillboxes, between the Abyssinian Crisis of 1936 and World War II, the British built about 200 pillboxes on the island of Malta for defence in case of an Italian invasion. Less than 100 pillboxes still exist, and most are found on the eastern part of the island. A few of them have been restored and are cared for, some pillboxes are still being destroyed nowadays as the authorities do not consider them to have any architectural or historic value, despite heritage NGOs calling to preserve them. About 28,000 pillboxes and other hardened field fortifications were constructed in England in 1940 as part of the British anti-invasion preparations of World War II, about 6,500 of these structures still survive. Pillboxes for the Czechoslovak border fortifications were built before the Second World War in Czechoslovakia in defence against a German attack, none of these were actually used against their intended enemy during the German invasion, but some were used against the advancing Soviet armies in 1945. The Japanese also made use of pillboxes in their fortifications of Iwo Jima, pillboxes were hard to defeat and required artillery, anti-tank weapons or grenades to overcome. Notes Bibliography CBA staff, A Review Of The Defence of Britain Project, Council for British Archaeology, retrieved 30 May 2006 Hellis, John, Pillbox Study Group, retrieved 10 September 2009 OED staff, pillbox, n
3.
Taunton Stop Line
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The Taunton Stop Line was a World War II defensive line in south west England. It was designed to stop an advance from the west. Stop Lines used a combination of geography and construction to make continuous defences, the innermost and longest was the GHQ Line. They were constructed as part of a package of field fortifications planned under the leadership of General Sir Edmund Ironside, highbridge was also the starting point for the east-west GHQ Line. Other armaments used included Boys Anti-tank Rifle and mobile QF2 pounder guns and these included Bridgwater and Creech St Michael. Two divisions from GHQ Home Forces Reserve were originally assigned to man the line, many pillboxes can still be seen along the length of the line. pillboxes-somerset. com Somerset pillboxes http, //www. pillboxesuk. co
4.
Fortifications of Mdina
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The fortifications of Mdina are a series of defensive walls which surround the former capital city of Mdina, Malta. The city was founded as Maleth by the Phoenicians in around the 8th century BC, the ancient city was surrounded by walls, but very few remains of these have survived. Most of the extant fortifications were built by the Order of Saint John between the 16th and 18th centuries, the city has withstood a number of sieges, and it was defeated twice – first by the Aghlabids in 870 and then by Maltese rebels in 1798. Today, the city walls are still intact except for some outworks, Mdina has been on Maltas tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1998. The city of Mdina occupies the tip of a plateau located on ground in the northern part of the island of Malta. The site has been inhabited since prehistory, and by the Bronze Age it was a place of refuge since it was naturally defensible, the Phoenicians colonized Malta in around the 8th century BC, and they founded the city of Maleth on this plateau. It was taken over by the Roman Republic in 218 BC, the Punic-Roman city was about three times the size of present-day Mdina, extending into a large part of modern Rabat. Melites walls had a thickness of around 5 m and were surrounded by a 700 m -long ditch, very little remains of the Punic-Roman walls of Melite still survive. The remains of a city gate or tower were discovered in Saqqajja in modern Rabat, parts of the ditch have survived under present-day St. Rita Street and the Church of St. Paul. The lower foundations of some Punic-Roman ramparts, consisting of rusticated ashlar blocks three courses high still in situ, were found near the Magazine Curtain in the part of Mdina. The only other remains of the ancient walls are Punic-Roman masonry blocks which were reused in the medieval period and these include a wall around Greeks Gate, and some stones which were discovered in excavations at Inguanez Street and the Xara Palace. At some point following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and this was done to make the citys perimeter more easily defensible, and similar reductions in city sizes were common around the Mediterranean region in the early Middle Ages. In 870, Melite was captured by the Aghlabids, who massacred its inhabitants, the Byzantines besieged Medina in 1053–54, but were repelled by its defenders. The fortifications of Mdina were rebuilt and modified a number of times over the following centuries. A castle known as the Castellu di la Chitati or the castrum civitas was built on the southeast corner of the city near the main entrance, the city withstood a siege by Hafsid invaders in 1429. By the 15th century, most of Mdinas enciente had a system of double walls, a barbican was built near Mdinas main entrance sometime after 1448. In the 1450s there were fears of a Barbary or Ottoman attack, the main ditch was completed, and the Castellu di la Chitati was partially demolished by royal licence in 1453, due to its ruinous state and the excessive cost for its upkeep. By 1474, cannons had been introduced in Mdina, other extensive preparations for an attack were made in the 1480s, when the fortifications were once again improved under the direction of Sicilian military engineers
5.
Malta
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Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km south of Italy,284 km east of Tunisia, the country covers just over 316 km2, with a population of just under 450,000, making it one of the worlds smallest and most densely populated countries. The capital of Malta is Valletta, which at 0.8 km2, is the smallest national capital in the European Union, Malta has one national language, which is Maltese, and English as an official language. John, French and British, have ruled the islands, King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the George Cross to Malta in 1942 for the countrys bravery in the Second World War. The George Cross continues to appear on Maltas national flag, the country became a republic in 1974, and although no longer a Commonwealth realm, remains a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004, in 2008, Catholicism is the official religion in Malta. The origin of the term Malta is uncertain, and the modern-day variation derives from the Maltese language, the most common etymology is that the word Malta derives from the Greek word μέλι, meli, honey. The ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη meaning honey-sweet, possibly due to Maltas unique production of honey, an endemic species of bee lives on the island. The Romans went on to call the island Melita, which can be considered either as a latinisation of the Greek Μελίτη or the adaptation of the Doric Greek pronunciation of the same word Μελίτα. Another conjecture suggests that the word Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth a haven or port in reference to Maltas many bays, few other etymological mentions appear in classical literature, with the term Malta appearing in its present form in the Antonine Itinerary. The extinction of the hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on Malta. Prehistoric farming settlements dating to the Early Neolithic period were discovered in areas and also in caves. The Sicani were the tribe known to have inhabited the island at this time and are generally regarded as being closely related to the Iberians. Pottery from the Għar Dalam phase is similar to found in Agrigento. A culture of megalithis temple builders then either supplanted or arose from this early period, the temples have distinctive architecture, typically a complex trefoil design, and were used from 4000 to 2500 BCE. Animal bones and a knife found behind an altar stone suggest that temple rituals included animal sacrifice. Tentative information suggests that the sacrifices were made to the goddess of fertility, the culture apparently disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC. Archaeologists speculate that the builders fell victim to famine or disease
6.
Battlement
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These gaps are termed crenels, and the act of adding crenels to a previously unbroken parapet is termed crenellation. The solid widths between the crenels are called merlons, a wall with battlements is said to be crenelated or embattled. Battlements on walls have protected walkways behind them, on tower or building tops, the roof is used as the protected fighting platform. The term originated in about the 14th century from the Old French word batailler, the word crenel derives from the ancient French cren, Latin crena, meaning a notch, mortice or other gap cut out often to receive another element or fixing, see also crenation. In medieval England a licence to crenellate granted the permission to fortify their property. The castles in England vastly outnumber the licences to crenellate, royal pardons were obtainable, on the payment of an arbitrarily determined fine, by a person who had fortified without licence. The surviving records of such licences, generally issued by letters patent, there has been academic debate over the purpose of licensing. The view of military-focused historians is that licensing restricted the number of fortifications that could be used against a royal army and they indicated to the observer that the grantee had obtained royal recognition, acknowledgment and compliment. The crown usually did not charge for the granting of such licences, battlements have been used for thousands of years, the earliest known example is in the fortress at Buhen in Egypt. Battlements were used in the walls surrounding Assyrian towns, as shown on bas reliefs from Nimrud, traces of them remain at Mycenae in Greece, and some ancient Greek vases suggest the existence of battlements. The Great Wall of China has battlements, late merlons permitted fire from the first firearms. From the 13th century, the merlons could be connected with wooden shutters that provided added protection when closed, the shutters were designed to be opened to allow shooters to fire against the attackers, and closed during reloading. The Romans used low wooden pinnacles for their first aggeres, in the battlements of Pompeii, additional protection derived from small internal buttresses or spur walls, against which the defender might stand so as to gain complete protection on one side. Loop-holes were frequent in Italian battlements, where the merlon has much greater height, Italian military architects used the so-called Ghibelline or swallowtail battlement, with V-shaped notches in the tops of the merlon, giving a horn-like effect. This would allow the defender to be protected whilst shooting standing fully upright, the normal rectangular merlons were later nicknamed Guelph. In Muslim and African fortifications, the merlons often were rounded, the battlements of the Arabs had a more decorative and varied character, and were continued from the 13th century onwards not so much for defensive purposes as for a crowning feature to the walls. They serve a similar to the cresting found in the Spanish Renaissance. European architects persistently used battlements as a decorative feature throughout the Decorated
7.
Merlon
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A merlon is the solid upright section of a battlement or crenellated parapet in medieval architecture or fortifications. Merlons are sometimes pierced by narrow, vertical embrasures or slits designed for observation, the space between two merlons is called a crenel, and a succession of merlons and crenels is a crenellation. Crenels designed in later eras, for use by cannons, were also called embrasures. The word comes from the French language, adapted from the Italian merlone, possibly a form of mergola, connected with Latin mergae, or from a diminutive moerulus. An alternative etymology suggests that the medieval Latin merulus functioned as a diminutive of Latin merle, as an essential part of battlements, merlons were used in fortifications for millennia. The best-known examples appear on buildings, where battlements, though defensive, could be attractively formed. Some buildings have false decorative battlements, other shapes include, three-pointed, quatrefoil, shielded, flower-like, rounded, pyramidal, etc. depending either from the type of attacks expected or aesthetic considerations. In Roman times, the merlons had a sufficient to shelter a single man. As new weapons appeared in the Middle Ages, the merlons were enlarged and provided with loop-holes of various dimensions and shapes, the shutters could be opened by hand, or by using a pulley. Battlement Embrasure, also called a crenel Defensive walls Balestracci, D, I materiali da costruzione nel castello medievale. Luisi, R. Scudi di pietra, I castelli e l’arte della guerra tra Medioevo e Rinascimento
8.
Bow and arrow
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The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures. Archery is the art, practice, or skill of applying it, a bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles called arrows. A string joins the two ends of the bow and when the string is drawn back, the ends of the bow are flexed, when the string is released, the potential energy of the flexed stick is transformed into the kinetic energy of the arrow. Archery is the art or sport of shooting arrows from bows, today, bows and arrows are used primarily for hunting and for the sport of archery. Someone who makes bows is known as a bowyer, and one who makes arrows is a fletcher —or in the case of the manufacture of arrow heads. The bow and arrow appears around the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, at the site of Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, obsidian bladelets found embedded in a skull and within the thoracic cavity of another skeleton, suggest the use of stone-tipped arrows as weapons. After the end of the last glacial period, use of the bow seems to have spread to every inhabited continent, including the New World, the oldest extant bows in one piece are the elm Holmegaard bows from Denmark which were dated to 9,000 BCE. High-performance wooden bows are made following the Holmegaard design. Microliths discovered on the south coast of Africa suggest that arrows may be at least 71,000 years old, the bow was an important weapon for both hunting and warfare from prehistoric times until the widespread use of gunpowder in the 16th century. Organised warfare with bows ended in the mid 17th century in Europe, the British upper class led a revival of archery from the late 18th century. Sir Ashton Lever, an antiquarian and collector, formed the Toxophilite Society in London in 1781, under the patronage of George, the basic elements of a bow are a pair of curved elastic limbs, traditionally made from wood, joined by a riser. Both ends of the limbs are connected by a known as the bow string. By pulling the string backwards the archer exerts compressive force on the section, or belly, of the limbs as well as placing the outer section, or back. While the string is held, this stores the energy released in putting the arrow to flight. The force required to hold the string stationary at full draw is used to express the power of a bow. Other things being equal, a draw weight means a more powerful bow. The various parts of the bow can be subdivided into further sections, the topmost limb is known as the upper limb, while the bottom limb is the lower limb. At the tip of each limb is a nock, which is used to attach the bowstring to the limbs, the riser is usually divided into the grip, which is held by the archer, as well as the arrow rest and the bow window
9.
Aigues-Mortes
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Aigues-Mortes is a French commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region of southern France. The medieval city walls surrounding the city are well preserved, the inhabitants of the commune are known as Aigues-Mortais or Aigues-Mortaises. Aigues-Mortes is located in the Petite Camargue some 90 km northwest of Marseilles, by road, Aigues-Mortes is about 33 km southwest of Nîmes, and 20 km east of Montpellier in a direct line. Access to the commune is by route D979 coming south from Saint-Laurent-dAigouze to Aigues-Mortes town, route D979 continues southwest through the commune to Le Grau-du-Roi. Route D62 also starts from Aigues-Mortes heading southwest parallel to D979 before turning eastwards, route D62A continues to Plan dEau du Vidourie. The commune is composed of a portion of the wet plains and it is separated from the Gulf of Lions by the town of Le Grau-du-Roi, however Aigues-Mortes is connected to the sea through the Canal du Rhône à Sète. There is only one other hamlet in the commune called Mas de Jarras Listel on the western border, a rail branch line from Nîmes passes through Aigues-Mortes from north-east to south-west, with a station in the town of Aigues-Mortes, to its terminus on the coast at Le-Grau-du-Roi. This line also transports sea salt, the communes of Saint-Laurent-dAigouze and Le Grau-du-Roi are adjacent to the town of Aigues-Mortes. Its inhabitants are called Aigues-Mortais or Aigues-Mortise, in Occitan they are aigamortencs, Aigues-Mortes is one of 79 member communes of the Schéma de cohérence territoriale of South Gard and is also one of 34 communes in the Pays Vidourle-Camargue. Aigues-Mortes is one of the four communes of the Loi littoral of SCoT in the South of Gard, attested in the Latinized form Aquae Mortuae in 1248. The name comes from the Occitan Aigas Mortas meaning dead water, or stagnant water equivalent to toponymic types in the Morteau Oil dialect cf. Morteau, mortua Aqua and Morteaue, mortua Aqua. The name comes from the Aigues-Mortes marshes and ponds that stretch around the village, Grau comes from the Occitan grau meaning pond with extension. Grau du Roy in French means pond of the King, the foundation of the city is said to have been by Gaius Marius, around 102BC but there is no documentary evidence to support this. A Roman by the name of Peccius fitted out the first salt marsh, salt mining started from the Neolithic period and was continued in the Hellenistic period, but the ancient uses of saline have not resulted in any major archaeological discovery. It is likely any remains were destroyed by modern saline facilities. In 791, Charlemagne erected the Matafère tower amid the swamps for the safety of fishermen and salt workers. Some argue that the signaling and transmission of news was not foreign to the building of tower which was designed to give warning in case of arrival of a fleet. This monastery still existed in 812, as confirmed by an act of endowment made by the Badila from Nîmes at the abbey
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Embrasure". Encyclopædia Britannica. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 309.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
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