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Eventually Gunners realised the advantages of a gun which could be fired from its carriage as well as merely being transported upon it. The first two-wheeled travelling carriage embodying the same basic features as a modern field artillery carriage , ie trail, axletree and wheels, appeared in France in 1461. Until about 1450, guns had no trunnions so the piece had to be secured to the trunk as explained above, while the trunk itself was hinged to the front of the trail so it could be elevated or depressed. The elevating gear shown on the carriage in the figure consisted of a wooden arc (or pair of arcs), with holes through which a pin could be inserted to adjust the trunk to somewhere near the required elevation. There appears to be no means of fine adjustment!
With the adoption of trunnions there appeared in Germany a type of carriage in which the trunk alone formed both trail and mounting. Still a solid baulk of timber, it was laboriously shaped and hollowed to take the piece. Elevating arrangements resembled those above. Maximillian (or his technicians) also produced a light field gun on a similar carriage in which the shafts provided for draught purposes also acted as the trail in action. |
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WL Ruffell Issue 78 June 1993 |
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