Modern Warfare Author:Henry Smith Williams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: n THE DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL ARMS WHILE the improvements in cannon were being made, a corresponding improvement in small arms was in progress. The first o... more »f such weapons was the " gonne," or hand cannon, which was simply a short metal tube fastened to the end of a straight stick, the whole being light enough so that it could be carried by the foot soldier or horseman. In firing this hand gun the soldier held the stick under his right arm, supporting and pointing it with the left, and touching it off with the match held in the right hand. The horseman, whose weapon had a much shorter stick, held the end of this against his shoulder and rested the end of the piece in a forked iron fastened upright to the pommel of the saddle. 3 During the reign of Henry VII (1457-1509) the method of firing the hand gun was improved by the introduction of the fire-lock or match-lock. This lock was simply a mechanical improvement of the older method of touching off the piece by a lighted match. The " match " of this lock was carried in a curved lever fastened at the side of the gun and arranged so that by pulling its lowerend, or trigger, the match descended into a small cup-shaped receptacle, or firing pan, which was placed at the side of the gun, allowing the soldier to obtain a more or less accurate aim by sighting along the top of the barrel. About this same time an improvement in the shape of the stock was made also, and a stock resembling that of the modern gun, although much heavier, came into use. By these two improvements better marksmanship was possible than with the weapon with the stock made of a straight piece of wood; and with the lengthened barrel which soon came into use, a very effective weapon was produced. These early guns, however, were so clumsy and heavy t...« less