Kartaune

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Reconstruction of a wall mount with a half-charter from 1669 in Magdeburg
Scharfmetze " Greif " on the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress , cast in 1524, the largest cannon in Europe in its time
Austrian Kartaune, cast in 1669, Army History Museum in Vienna

The kartouwe is a muzzle loader - gun from the period of 15-16. Century. The term Kartaune is a German version of the Italian quartana bombarda , quarter rifle , whose iron ball weighed a quarter of a hundred pound main rifle ball. Cartoons resembled a harvester in their outward form , but were of smaller caliber and weight. They were divided into long kartaune (so-called "Singerin") and short kartaune (so-called "nightingale") according to the length of the pipe . The name Cannon was common in England .

The average bullet weight of the singers created from the quarter cans was 12 to 20 kg, that of the nightingales created from the short emergency cans was up to 25 kg. A carton in a wall mount weighed about 1.5 to 2 tons and it took twelve horses to pull it.

Origin and development

In the Alliance Wars, the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I had ammunition problems for his guns due to the large number of different calibers and bullet weights and therefore aimed for a standardization on the basis of the weight of the bullet in relation to the iron ball.

In the 15th century, guns could be divided into the following types:

  • Main rifles
  • Emergency rifles
  • Snake boxes
  • Chamber Snakes (split gun / breech loader precursor)
  • basilisk
  • Quarter rifles and
  • Mortar .

The heavy and medium-weight stone rifles were grouped under the term main rifles . Emergency rifles had long barrels and a medium caliber and fired iron balls, while the quarter rifles fired iron balls weighing a quarter of the weight of a main rifle stone.

Based on the old emergency and quarter rifles , Maximilian I created a new type of gun: the Kartaune.

Maximilian's new division for siege guns provided for four sexes according to iron ball weight:

designation Ball weight (iron)
Main rifles 40-50 kg
Sharpers 25-35 kg
Cartoons 12-25 kg
Basilisk 8-12 kg

But there were still guns that could not be clearly assigned to the four sexes mentioned, for example the Dorndrel . Charles V unified the entire artillery again in 1550, he switched to the caliber system . He reduced the heavy siege artillery and kept only the cartoons in three different forms:

designation caliber Bullet weight total weight Pipe length
Double cartons 20-22 cm 30-40 kg 3–4 t 17 caliber
Cartoons 16-18 cm 18 kg 1.8 t 17 caliber
Half cartons 12-14 cm 7-14 kg 1.5-2.5 t 17 caliber

After Mieth there was also:

designation caliber Bullet weight total weight Pipe length
Three-quarter cartons 16-17 cm 15-25 kg 2.5-3 t 17 caliber
Quarter cartons 11.4 cm 6 kg ? t 24 caliber
Hawks 9.1 cm 3 kg ? t 27 caliber

In England the cartoons (cannons) were divided as follows:

(all dimensions and weights are approximate values )

English types caliber Bullet weight total weight Powder charge
Cannon-Royal 21.6 cm 30 kg 3.6 t 13.5 kg
Cannon 17.7 cm 27 kg 2.7 t 12 kg
Cannon serpentine 17.5 cm 11 kg 2.5 t 11 kg
Bastard cannon 17.5 cm 19 kg 2.1 t 9 kg
Demi-Cannon 16.5 cm 15 kg 1.8 t 8 kg
Cannon-Petro 15 cm 11 kg 1.8 t 6.5 kg

The use of the Cannon-Royal and Cannon-Serpentine on warships of the English fleet has not been proven.

In the middle of the 16th century the double cartoons were the heaviest siege guns. At this time, the usage of the bullet changed to become a gun designation, for example cartoons became "40-pounders" and half cartons became "24-pounders".

Museum reception

The gun barrel collection of the Museum of Military History in Vienna, which comprises over 550 guns and barrels , also contains several cartoons, including half a carton "Singerin", cast in 1579 by Martin II. Hilger (1538–1601). Belonging to the genus "Singerin" is reflected on the pipe, where a songbird was depicted on the long field.

Use of the term in modern times

The term "Kartaune" was occasionally used for modern breech- loading guns. During the First World War , for example, a gun that was created from the carriage of the famous Dicken Bertha and a new (smaller and longer) barrel was called a heavy kartaune or "β-M device" .

literature

  • Michael Mieth : Artilleria Recentior Practice. Frankfurt / Leipzig 1684 ( scan in Google book search).
  • Gerhard Kurzmann: Emperor Maximilian I and the warfare of the Austrian states and the empire (= military history dissertations of Austrian universities. Volume 5). Österreichischer Bundesverlag Ges.mbH, Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-215-06067-1 .
  • Volker Schmidtchen: Bombards, fortifications, gunsmiths - from the first wall breakers of the Middle Ages to the siege artillery of the Renaissance. Droste Verlag, 1977, ISBN 3-7700-0471-X .
  • Wendelin Boeheim : The stuff books of the emperor Maximilian I. 1892. In: Year book of the art historical collection. 13, pp. 94-201.
  • U. Israel, J. Gebauer: Sailing warships. Military publishing house of the GDR, 1982 (Chapter: The tube artillery on sailing warships ).

Web links

Wiktionary: Kartaune  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Emergency rifles , historical illustration, approx. 1502 (year), Bavarian State Library.
  2. Snake boxes , historical illustration, approx. 1502 (year), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
  3. ↑ Chamber snakes, historical illustration, approx. 1502 (year), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
  4. ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner , Manfred Litscher (Ed.): The Army History Museum in Vienna. Styria Verlag, Graz / Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-222-12834-0 , p. 95.
  5. Franz Kosar: The heavy guns of the world. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-613-02204-4 , p. 88 f.