Cork (material)
Cork is an impermeable buoyant material, the phellem layer of bark tissue, harvested for commercial use from Quercus suber, endemic to southwest Europe and northwest Africa. Cork is composed of a hydrophobic substance; because of its impermeable, buoyant and fire retardant properties, it is used in a variety of products, the most common of, wine stoppers. The montado landscape of Portugal produces half of cork harvested annually worldwide, with Corticeira Amorim being the leading company in the industry. Cork was examined microscopically by Robert Hooke, which led to his discovery and naming of the cell. There are about 2,200,000 hectares of cork forest worldwide. Annual production is about 200,000 tons. Once the trees are about 25 years old the cork is traditionally stripped from the trunks every nine years, with the first two harvests producing lower quality cork; the trees live for about 300 years. The cork industry is regarded as environmentally friendly. Cork production is considered sustainable because the cork tree is not cut down to obtain cork.
The tree continues to grow. The sustainability of production and the easy recycling of cork products and by-products are two of its most distinctive aspects. Cork oak forests prevent desertification and are a particular habitat in the Iberian Peninsula and the refuge of various endangered species. Carbon footprint studies conducted by Corticeira Amorim, Oeneo Bouchage of France and the Cork Supply Group of Portugal concluded that cork is the most environmentally friendly wine stopper in comparison to other alternatives; the Corticeira Amorim’s study, in particular, was developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, according to ISO 14040. Results concluded that, concerning the emission of greenhouse gases, each plastic stopper released 10 times more CO2, whilst an aluminium screw cap releases 26 times more CO2 than does a cork stopper; the cork oak is unrelated to the "cork trees", which have corky bark but are not used for cork production. Cork is extracted only from early May to late August, when the cork can be separated from the tree without causing permanent damage.
When the tree reaches 25–30 years of age and about 24 in in circumference, the cork can be removed for the first time. However, this first harvest always produces poor quality or "virgin" cork. Bark from initial harvests can be used to make flooring, shoes and other industrial products. Subsequent extractions occur at intervals of 9 years, though it can take up to 13 for the cork to reach an acceptable size. If the product is of high quality it is known as "gentle" cork, ideally, is used to make stoppers for wine and champagne bottles; the workers who specialize in removing the cork are known as extractors. An extractor uses a sharp axe to make two types of cuts on the tree: one horizontal cut around the plant, called a crown or necklace, at a height of about 2–3 times the circumference of the tree, several vertical cuts called rulers or openings; this is the most delicate phase of the work because though cutting the cork requires significant force, the extractor must not damage the underlying phellogen or the tree will be harmed.
To free the cork from the tree, the extractor pushes the handle of the axe into the rulers. A good extractor needs to use a firm but precise touch in order to free a large amount of cork without damaging the product or tree; these freed portions of the cork are called planks. The planks are carried off by hand since cork forests are accessible to vehicles; the cork is stacked in piles in the forest or in yards at a factory and traditionally left to dry, after which it can be loaded onto a truck and shipped to a processor. Cork's elasticity combined with its near-impermeability makes it suitable as a material for bottle stoppers for wine bottles. Cork stoppers represent about 60% of all cork based production. Cork has an zero Poisson's ratio, which means the radius of a cork does not change when squeezed or pulled. Cork is an excellent gasket material; some carburetor float bowl gaskets are made for example. Cork is an essential element in the production of badminton shuttlecocks. Cork's bubble-form structure and natural fire retardant make it suitable for acoustic and thermal insulation in house walls, floors and facades.
The by-product of more lucrative stopper production, corkboard is gaining popularity as a non-allergenic, easy-to-handle and safe alternative to petrochemical-based insulation products. Sheets of cork often the by-product of stopper production, are used to make bulletin boards as well as floor and wall tiles. Cork's low density makes it a suitable material for fishing floats and buoys, as well as handles for fishing rods. Granules of cork can be mixed into concrete; the composites made by mixing cork granules and cement have lower thermal conductivity, lower density and good energy absorption. Some of the property ranges of the composites are density, compressive strength and flexural strength; as late as the mid-17th century, French vintners did not use cork stoppers, using instead oil-soaked rag
Italy
Italy the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Austria and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 and has a temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe. Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Italy has been home to a myriad of peoples and cultures. In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout modern-day Italy, the most famous of which being the Indo-European Italics who gave the peninsula its name, beginning from the classical era and Carthaginians founded colonies in insular Italy and Genoa, Greeks established settlements in the so-called Magna Graecia, while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively; the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People.
The Roman Republic conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the peninsula, in some cases through the establishment of federations, the Republic expanded and conquered parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became the leading cultural and religious centre of Western civilisation, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's technology, economy and literature flourished. Italy remained the metropole of the Roman Empire; the legacy of the Roman Empire endured its fall and can be observed in the global distribution of culture, governments and the Latin script. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy endured sociopolitical collapse and barbarian invasions, but by the 11th century, numerous rival city-states and maritime republics in the northern and central regions of Italy, rose to great prosperity through shipping and banking, laying the groundwork for modern capitalism.
These independent statelets served as Europe's main trading hubs with Asia and the Near East enjoying a greater degree of democracy than the larger feudal monarchies that were consolidating throughout Europe. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science and art. Italian culture flourished, producing famous scholars and polymaths such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Machiavelli. During the Middle Ages, Italian explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot and Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Italy's commercial and political power waned with the opening of trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean. Centuries of infighting between the Italian city-states, such as the Italian Wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, left the region fragmented, it was subsequently conquered and further divided by European powers such as France and Austria.
By the mid-19th century, rising Italian nationalism and calls for independence from foreign control led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. After centuries of foreign domination and political division, Italy was entirely unified in 1871, establishing the Kingdom of Italy as a great power. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Italy industrialised, namely in the north, acquired a colonial empire, while the south remained impoverished and excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite being one of the main victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading to the rise of a fascist dictatorship in 1922. Participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat, economic destruction and the Italian Civil War. Following the liberation of Italy and the rise of the resistance, the country abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, enjoyed a prolonged economic boom and, despite periods of sociopolitical turmoil became a developed country.
Today, Italy is considered to be one of the world's most culturally and economically advanced countries, with the sixth-largest worldwide national wealth. Its advanced economy ranks eighth-largest in the world and third in the Eurozone by nominal GDP. Italy owns the third-largest central bank gold reserve, it has a high level of human development, it stands among the top countries for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military and diplomatic affairs. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union and a member of numerous international institutions, including the UN, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the WTO, the G7, the G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, the Schengen Area and many more; as a reflection
45th Infantry Division (United States)
The 45th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the United States Army, part of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, from 1920 to 1968. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, the guardsmen fought in both World War II and the Korean War; the 45th Infantry Division guardsmen saw no major action until they became one of the first National Guard units activated in World War II in 1941. They took part in intense fighting during the invasion of Sicily and the attack on Salerno in the 1943 Italian Campaign. Advancing through Italy, they fought in Anzio and the Beachhead breakout to the liberation of Rome. After landing in France during Operation Dragoon, they joined the 1945 drive into Germany that ended the War in Europe. After brief inactivation and subsequent reorganization as a unit restricted to Oklahomans, the division returned to duty in 1951 for the Korean War, it joined the United Nations troops on the front lines during the stalemate of the second half of the war, with constant, low-level fighting and trench warfare against the People's Volunteer Army of China that produced little gain for either side.
The division remained on the front lines in such engagements as Old Baldy Hill and Hill Eerie until the end of the war, returning to the U. S. in 1954. The division remained a National Guard formation until its downsizing in 1968. Several units were activated to carry on its lineage. Over the course of its history, the 45th Infantry Division sustained over 25,000 battle casualties, its men were awarded ten Medals of Honor, twelve campaign streamers, the Croix de Guerre and the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation. With the outbreak of World War I, troops of the National Guard were formed into the units which exist today, with the Colorado Guard forming the 157th Infantry Regiment, the Arizona Guard forming the 158th Infantry Regiment, the New Mexico Guard forming the 120th Engineer Regiment; these units were attached to the 40th Infantry Division and deployed to France where they were used as "depot" forces to provide replacements for front-line units. They returned home at the end of the war.
The Oklahoma Guard units that would become the 179th Infantry Regiment and 180th Infantry Regiment were assigned to the 36th Infantry Division and would earn a combat participation credit during the Meuse-Argonne Campaign in France as the 142nd Infantry. On 19 October 1920, the Oklahoma State militia was organized as the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, manned with troops from Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma; the division was formed and federally recognized as a National Guard unit on 3 August 1923 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was assigned the 89th Infantry Brigade of the Colorado and Arizona National Guards, the 90th Infantry Brigade of the Oklahoma National Guard; as a consequence of these militia roots, when the division was properly organized, many of its members were marksmen and outdoorsmen from the remote frontier regions of the Southwestern United States. The division's first commander was Major General Baird H. Markham; the 45th Infantry Division engaged in regular drills but no major events in its first few years, though the division's Colorado elements were called in to help quell a large coal mining strike.
The onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s curtailed its funding for training and equipment. Major General Roy Hoffman took command in 1931, followed by Alexander M. Tuthill, Alexander E. McPherren in 1935, William S. Key in 1936. In 1937, the division's troops were once again called up, this time to help manage a locust plague affecting Colorado; the division's original shoulder sleeve insignia, approved in August 1924, featured a swastika, a common Native American symbol, as a tribute to the Southwestern United States region which had a large population of Native Americans. However, with the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, with its infamous swastika symbol, the 45th Division stopped using the insignia. After a long process of reviewing design submissions, a design by Woody Big Bow, a Kiowa artist from Carnegie, was chosen for the new shoulder sleeve insignia; the new insignia featured the Thunderbird, another Native American symbol, was approved in 1939. In August 1941, the 45th Infantry Division took part in the Louisiana Maneuvers, the largest peacetime exercises in U.
S. military history. The division was assigned to VIII Corps with the 2nd Infantry Division and the 36th Infantry Division, camped near Pitkin, Louisiana. Still operating with outmoded equipment from World War I, the division did not perform well during these exercises. With poor weather and bad equipment, the undertrained 45th Infantry Division was criticized by officers who considered it "feeble." In spite of these deficiencies, less than one month the men were recalled to the active duty force, much to their chagrin, because of concerns of an impending American entry into World War II. On 16 September 1940, the 45th Infantry Division, under Major General William S. Keys, was federalized from state control into the regular army force, it was one of four National Guard divisions to be federalized, alongside the 30th, the 41st and 44th Infantry Divisions for a one-year period. Its men began basic combat training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Throughout 1942, it continued this training at Camp Barkeley, before moving to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, to undergo amphibious assault training in preparation for an invasion of Italy.
It moved to Pine Camp, New York for winter warfare training, but was hampered by continuously poor weather. In January 1943 it moved to Fort Pickett, for its final training; the division, now commanded by Major General Troy H. Middleton, a Regular Army soldier and distinguished World War I vetera
Mountain range
A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills ranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form and alignment that have arisen from the same cause an orogeny. Mountain ranges are formed by a variety of geological processes, but most of the significant ones on Earth are the result of plate tectonics. Mountain ranges are found on many planetary mass objects in the Solar System and are a feature of most terrestrial planets. Mountain ranges are segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not have the same geologic structure or petrology, they may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, volcanic landforms resulting in a variety of rock types. Most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earth's land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt.
The Pacific Ring of Fire includes the Andes of South America, extends through the North American Cordillera along the Pacific Coast, the Aleutian Range, on through Kamchatka, Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, to New Zealand. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the world's longest mountain system; the Alpide belt includes Indonesia and Southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, Caucasus Mountains, Balkan Mountains fold mountain range, the Alps, ends in the Spanish mountains and the Atlas Mountains. The belt includes other European and Asian mountain ranges; the Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, 8,848 metres high and traverses the border between China and Nepal. Mountain ranges outside these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Great Dividing Range, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a mountain range is stretched to include underwater mountains the Ocean Ridges form the longest continuous mountain system on Earth, with a length of 65,000 kilometres.
The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, where mountain ranges can contain sub-ranges. The sub-range relationship is expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains. Equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians; the parent-child expression extends to the sub-ranges themselves: the Sandwich Range and the Presidential Range are children of the White Mountains, while the Presidential Range is parent to the Northern Presidential Range and Southern Presidential Range. The position of mountains influences climate, such as snow; when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the leeward side, it warms again and is drier, having been stripped of much of its moisture.
A rain shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are subjected to erosional forces which work to tear them down; the basins adjacent to an eroding mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted until the mountains are reduced to low hills and plains; the early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example. As the uplift was occurring some 10,000 feet of Mesozoic sedimentary strata were removed by erosion over the core of the mountain range and spread as sand and clays across the Great Plains to the east; this mass of rock was removed as the range was undergoing uplift. The removal of such a mass from the core of the range most caused further uplift as the region adjusted isostatically in response to the removed weight. Rivers are traditionally believed to be the principal cause of mountain range erosion, by cutting into bedrock and transporting sediment.
Computer simulation has shown that as mountain belts change from tectonically active to inactive, the rate of erosion drops because there are fewer abrasive particles in the water and fewer landslides. Mountains on other planets and natural satellites of the Solar System are isolated and formed by processes such as impacts, though there are examples of mountain ranges somewhat similar to those on Earth. Saturn's moon Titan and Pluto, in particular exhibit large mountain ranges in chains composed of ices rather than rock. Examples include the Mithrim Montes and Doom Mons on Titan, Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes on Pluto; some terrestrial planets other than Earth exhibit rocky mountain ranges, such as Maxwell Montes on Venus taller than any on Earth and Tartarus Montes on Mars, Jupiter's moon Io has mountain ranges formed from tectonic processes including Boösaule Montes, Dorian Montes, Hi'iaka Montes and Euboea Montes. Peakbagger Ranges Home Page Bivouac.com
Cannon
A cannon is a type of gun classified as artillery that launches a projectile using propellant. In the past, gunpowder was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder in the 19th century. Cannon vary in caliber, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, firepower; the word cannon is derived from several languages, in which the original definition can be translated as tube, cane, or reed. In the modern era, the term cannon has fallen into decline, replaced by guns or artillery if not a more specific term such as mortar or howitzer, except for high calibre automatic weapons firing bigger rounds than machine guns, called autocannons; the earliest known depiction of cannon appeared in Song dynasty China as early as the 12th century, however solid archaeological and documentary evidence of cannon do not appear until the 13th century. In 1288 Yuan dynasty troops are recorded to have used hand cannons in combat, the earliest extant cannon bearing a date of production comes from the same period.
By 1326 depictions of cannon had appeared in Europe and immediately recorded usage of cannon began appearing. By the end of the 14th century cannon were widespread throughout Eurasia. Cannon were used as anti-infantry weapons until around 1374 when cannon were recorded to have breached walls for the first time in Europe. Cannon featured prominently as siege weapons and larger pieces appeared. In 1464 a 16,000 kg cannon known as the Great Turkish Bombard was created in the Ottoman Empire. Cannon as field artillery became more important after 1453 with the introduction of limber, which improved cannon maneuverability and mobility. European cannon reached their longer, more accurate, more efficient "classic form" around 1480; this classic European cannon design stayed consistent in form with minor changes until the 1750s. Cannon is derived from the Old Italian word cannone, meaning "large tube", which came from Latin canna, in turn originating from the Greek κάννα, "reed", generalised to mean any hollow tube-like object.
The word has been used to refer to a gun since 1326 in Italy, 1418 in England. 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; the cannon may have appeared as early as the 12th century in China, was a parallel development or evolution of the fire-lance, a short ranged anti-personnel weapon combining a gunpowder-filled tube and a polearm of some sort. Co-viative projectiles such as iron scraps or porcelain shards were placed in fire lance barrels at some point, the paper and bamboo materials of fire lance barrels were replaced by metal; the earliest known depiction of a cannon is a sculpture from the Dazu Rock Carvings in Sichuan dated to 1128, however the earliest archaeological samples and textual accounts do not appear until the 13th century. The primary extant specimens of cannon from the 13th century are the Wuwei Bronze Cannon dated to 1227, the Heilongjiang hand cannon dated to 1288, the Xanadu Gun dated to 1298.
However, only the Xanadu gun contains an inscription bearing a date of production, so it is considered the earliest confirmed extant cannon. The Xanadu Gun weighs 6.2 kg. The other cannon are dated using contextual evidence; the Heilongjiang hand cannon is often considered by some to be the oldest firearm since it was unearthed near the area where the History of Yuan reports a battle took place involving hand cannon. According to the History of Yuan, in 1288, a Jurchen commander by the name of Li Ting led troops armed with hand cannon into battle against the rebel prince Nayan. Chen Bingying argues there were no guns before 1259 while Dang Shoushan believes the Wuwei gun and other Western Xia era samples point to the appearance of guns by 1220, Stephen Haw goes further by stating that guns were developed as early as 1200. Sinologist Joseph Needham and renaissance siege expert Thomas Arnold provide a more conservative estimate of around 1280 for the appearance of the "true" cannon. Whether or not any of these are correct, it seems that the gun was born sometime during the 13th century.
References to cannon proliferated throughout China in the following centuries. Cannon featured in literary pieces. In 1341 Xian Zhang wrote a poem called The Iron Cannon Affair describing a cannonball fired from an eruptor which could "pierce the heart or belly when striking a man or horse, transfix several persons at once."By the 1350s the cannon was used extensively in Chinese warfare. In 1358 the Ming army failed to take a city due to its garrisons' usage of cannon, however they themselves would use cannon, in the thousands on during the siege of Suzhou in 1366; the Korean kingdom of Joseon started producing gunpowder in 1374 and cannon by 1377. Cannon appeared in Đại Việt by 1390 at the latest. During the Ming dynasty cannon were used in riverine warfare at the Battle of Lake Poyang. One shipwreck in Shandong had a cannon dated to 1377 and an anchor dated to 1372. From the 13th to 15th centuries cannon-armed Chinese ships travelled throughout Southeast Asia; the first of the western cannon to be introduced were breach-loaders in the early 16th century which the Chinese began producing themselves by 1523 and began improving on.
Japan did not acquire a cannon until 1510 when a monk brought one back from China, did not produce a
Les Issambres
Les Issambres is the seaside and holiday destination of the commune of Roquebrune-sur-Argens, France. It stretches along 8 km of fine sandy beaches, its incarnation as a resort took place in the 1930s with the development of Hotel La Résidence above La Garonette Beach. Conspicuous from the sea, it is located in the Val d' Esquieres, which Les Issambres shares with the commune of Sainte Maxime. Eastwards on the beach is the sailing center with boat rentals and a sailing school, a protected boat harbour with some marine shops, dive center and restaurants. There is a ferry that takes passengers to Saint Tropez. On August 15, 1944, the beaches of Saint Tropez, Sainte Maxime and Les Issambres were at the center of Operation Dragoon, the invasion and liberation of Southern France during World War II. US Delta Force from 93rd Evac landed there. Near the entrance to La Garonette beach is a memorial of the landing honoring US troops; the sailing centre is named La Batterie. Further to the east is the village San-Peïre sur mer that has grown after WW2.
This is the centre of the destination with shops, hotels, village beach and a town square with a Monday outdoor market and tourist office. Continuing eastwards there is a winding coastline with creeks, rocks and "calanques" versus Saint- Aygulf. There are numerous nature trails including a coastline trail leading to a 2000-year-old Roman fishpond. Many private houses are climbing up the mountain hills; however all buildings – including hotels – keep a low profile to the contrary to locations further east on the French Riviera. Communes of the Var department Roquebrune sur Argens commune website Les Issambres and Roquebrune Tourist Office website The harbour of Les Issambres official site
Artillery battery
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of artillery, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface to surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles etc. so grouped to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems. The term is used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. Artillery battery origins from a Grand Duchy of Lithuania bajoras and artillery expert Kazimieras Simonavičius' book Artis Magnae Artilleriae published in 1650, which contains a large chapter on caliber, construction and properties of rockets, including multistage rockets, batteries of rockets, rockets with delta wing stabilizers; the term "battery" referred to a cluster of cannon in action as a group, either in a temporary field position during a battle or at the siege of a fortress or a city. Such batteries could be a mixture of howitzer, or mortar types. A siege could involve many batteries at different sites around the besieged place.
The term came to be used for a group of cannon in a fixed fortification, for coastal or frontier defence. During the 18th century "battery" began to be used as an organizational term for a permanent unit of artillery in peace and war, although horse artillery sometimes used "troop" and fixed position artillery "company", they were organised with between six and 12 ordnance pieces including cannon and howitzers. By the late 19th century "battery" had become standard replacing company or troop. In the 20th century the term was used for the company level sub-unit of an artillery branch including field, air-defence, anti-tank and position. Artillery operated target acquisition emerged during the First World War and were grouped into batteries and have subsequently expanded to include the complete intelligence, target acquisition and reconnaissance spectrum. 20th-century firing batteries have been equipped with mortars, howitzers and missiles. During the Napoleonic Wars some armies started grouping their batteries into larger administrative and field units.
Groups of batteries combined for field combat employment called Grand Batteries by Napoleon. Administratively batteries were grouped in battalions, regiments or squadrons and these developed into tactical organisations; these were further grouped into regiments "group" or brigades, that may be wholly composed of artillery units or combined arms in composition. To further concentrate fire of individual batteries, from World War I they were grouped into "artillery divisions" in a few armies. Coastal artillery sometimes had different organizational terms based on shore defence sector areas. Batteries have sub-divisions, which vary across armies and periods but translate into the English "platoon" or "troop" with individual ordnance systems called a "section" or "sub-section", where a section comprises two artillery pieces; the rank of a battery commander has varied, but is a lieutenant, captain, or major. The number of guns, mortars or launchers in an organizational battery has varied, with the calibre of guns being an important consideration.
In the 19th century four to 12 guns was usual as the optimum number to maneuver into the gun line. By the late 19th century the mountain artillery battery was divided into a gun line and an ammunition line; the gun line consisted of 12 ammunition mules. During the American Civil War, artillery batteries consisted of six field pieces for the Union Army and four for the Confederate States Army, although this varied. Batteries were divided into sections of two guns apiece, each section under the command of a lieutenant; the full battery was commanded by a captain. As the war progressed, individual batteries were grouped into battalions under a major or colonel of artillery. In the 20th century it varied between four and 12 for field artillery, or two pieces for heavy pieces. Other types of artillery such as anti-tank or anti-aircraft have sometimes been larger; some batteries have been "dual-equipped" with two different types of gun or mortar, taking whichever was more appropriate when they deployed for operations.
From the late 19th century field artillery batteries started to become more complex organisations. First they needed the capability to carry adequate ammunition each gun could only carry about 40 rounds in its limber so additional wagons were added to the battery about two per gun; the introduction on indirect fire in the early 20th century necessitated two other groups, firstly observers who deployed some distance forward of the gun line, secondly a small staff on the gun position to undertake the calculations to convert the orders from the observers into data that could be set on the gun sights. This in turn led to the need for signalers, which further increased as the need to concentrate the fire of dispersed batteries emerged and the introduction fire control staff at artillery headquarters above the batteries. Fixed artillery refers to guns or howitzers on mounts that were either anchored in one spot, or on carriages intended to be moved only for the purposes of aiming, not for tactical repositioning.
Historical versions closely resembled naval cannon of their day, "garrison carriages," like naval carriages, were short and had four small wheels meant for rolling on
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