Swivel gun - WikiHQ

right|thumb|250px|Three examples of 18th-century swivel guns

A swivel gun (or simply swivel) is a small cannon mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rotated along their axes to allow the shooter to switch between either the rifled or the smoothbore barrels.

Swivel guns should not be confused with pivot guns, which were far larger weapons mounted on a horizontal pivot, or screw guns, which are a mountain gun with a segmented barrel.

An older term for the type is peterero (alternative spellings include "paterero" and "pederero"). The name was taken from the Spanish name for the gun, pedrero, a combination of the word piedra (stone) and the suffix -ero (-er), because stone was the first type of ammunition fired.

It had a high rate of fire, as several chambers could be prepared in advance and quickly fired in succession and was especially effective in anti-personnel roles. It was used for centuries in Europe, Asia and Africa.

History

thumb|left|Breech-loading swivel gun with mug-shaped chamber, and wedge to hold it in place.

Although breech-loading is often considered a modern innovation which facilitated the loading of cannons, breech-loading swivel guns were invented in the 14th century, and used worldwide from the 16th century onward by numerous countries, many of them non-European. They have been called by many names, sometimes "Murderer", "Base", "Sling", "Port-Piece", "Serpentine", "Culverin", "Pierrier", "Stock Fowler", and "Patterero" in English; "Pierrier à boîte" in French; "Berço" in Portuguese; "Verso" in Spanish; "Prangi" in Turkish; "Kammerschlange" (lit. "chamber snake", properly means "breech-loading falconet") in German; "Folangji" (佛郎机, from Turkish "Prangi" or Turkic "Farangi"), in Chinese; "Bulang-kipo" ("불랑기포[佛郞機砲]") in Korean; "Furanki" (仏郎機砲, "Frankish gun") or 子砲 ("Child cannon") in Japanese; and "Bedil" or "bḍil" (ꦧꦣꦶꦭ) in Javanese. Some of them were used until the 20th century. An early description of a swivel gun puts the weight of the gun at , equipped with three chambers for rotations, each in weight, and firing a lead shot. The guns had a disadvantage: they leaked and lost power around the chambers, but this was compensated by the high rate of fire as multiple chambers could be prepared in advance. A swivel gun could fire either cannonballs against obstacles, or grapeshot against troops.

thumb|A Japanese breech-loading swivel gun of the time of the 16th century, obtained by [[Ōtomo Sōrin. This gun is thought to have been cast in Goa, Portuguese India. Caliber: , length: .]]

thumb|A [[Ming Dynasty|Ming bronze cannon with open breech.]]

During the Middle Ages, breech-loading swivel guns were developed by the Europeans also partly as a cheaper alternative to the very expensive bronze cast muzzle-loading cannons, as bronze was many times more expensive than iron. As cast iron was not yet technologically feasible for the Europeans, the only possibility was to use wrought iron bars hammered together and held with hoops like barrels. With this method, a one-piece design was very difficult, and a fragmental structure, with separated chamber and barrel, was then selected.

thumb|left|Breech-loading swivel cannon, left by [[Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden|Gustavus Adolphus at Munich, 1632.]]

Around 1500, Europeans learnt how to cast iron, and shifted their cannon productions to one-piece iron muzzleloaders. China started to adopt European swivel guns from 1500 onward, limiting at the same time the production of their own muzzleloaders, because of the high effectiveness of the swivel gun as an anti-personnel gun, which to them was more interesting than the sheer power of a cannonball.

Use

thumb|left|[[Bali Museum breech-loading swivel gun (Cetbang). Length: 1833 mm. Bore: 43 mm. Length of tiller: 315 mm. Widest part: 190 mm (at the base ring).]]

thumb|upright|[[United States 30 mm 1890 steel rifled breech-loading swivel gun, brought from Madagascar to France in 1898. Length 230 cm.|alt=]]

Breech-loading swivel guns were used to advantage at the bow and stern on warships, but were also used in fortifications. These weapons would spread eastward to Indian ocean, eventually reaching Southeast Asia in c. 1460 AD.

In China and Japan, breech-loading swivel guns were brought after China defeated the Portuguese in the 16th century. At the Battle of Xicaowan in 1522, after defeating the Portuguese in battle, the Chinese captured Portuguese breech-loading swivel guns and then reverse engineered them, calling them "Folangji" or "Fo-lang-chi" Views diverge on whether the origin of the cannon is Portuguese or Turkish. There was a confusion whether folangji was supposed to be the name of a people (the Portuguese) or name of a weapon. In fact the word folangji represent 2 different words with different etymology. The term folangji as a weapon is related to the prangi carried in Ottoman galleys and farangi used by Babur. The word folangji as an ethnonym (Frankish or Portuguese) is unrelated. In the History of the reign of Wan Li (萬厲野獲編), by Shen Defu, it is said that "After the reign of Hong Zhi (1445–1505), China started having Fu-Lang-Ji cannons, the country of which was called in the old times Sam Fu Qi". In volume 30 about "The Red-Haired Foreigners" he wrote "After the reign of Zhengtong (1436–1449) China got hold of Fu-Lang-Ji cannons, the most important magic instrument of foreign people". He mentioned the cannons some 60 or 70 years prior to the first reference about Portuguese. It was impossible for the Chinese to get hold of the Portuguese cannons prior to their arrival. Pelliot viewed that the folangji gun reached China before Portuguese did, possibly by anonymous carriers from Malaya. Needham noted that breech-loading guns were already familiar in Southern China in 1510, as a rebellion in Huang Kuan was destroyed by more than 100 folangji. In early 20th century, Chinese junks were armed with old-fashioned swivel guns, both muzzleloader and breechloader. The breech-loading guns were called "breech loading culverin" by Cardwell, they were long with bore. These guns were fired using percussion cap mechanism. Dyer c. 1930 noted the use of cannon by Makassan trepanger in Northern Australia, in particular the bronze breechloader with bore.

Steel rifled breech-loading swivel guns are known which were manufactured by the United States towards the end of the 19th century, and used in colonial theaters such as in Madagascar.

Configuration

Swivel guns are among the smallest types of cannon, typically measuring less than long and with a bore diameter of up to . They can fire a variety of ammunition but were generally used to fire grapeshot and small caliber round shot. They were aimed using a wooden or metal handle similar to a broom handle, attached to the breech of the weapon.

Most swivel guns were muzzleloaders, but there were some breech-loading swivel guns as early as 1410, making them among the first such examples of this type of weapon (see berços).

Applications

thumb|A swivel gun mounted on the American topsail schooner [[Lynx (tall ship)|Lynx]]

Swivel guns were used principally aboard sailing ships, serving as short-range anti-personnel ordnance. They were not ship-sinking weapons, due to their small caliber and short range, but could do considerable damage to anyone caught in their line of fire. They were especially useful against deck-to-deck boarders, against approaching longboats bearing boarding parties, and against deck gun crews when ships were hull to hull.

Due to their relatively small size, swivel guns were highly portable and could be moved around the deck of a ship quite easily (and certainly much more easily than other types of cannon). They could be mounted on vertical timbers (pillars) which were either part of the ship's structure or were firmly bolted to that structure along either side, which provided the gunner with a reasonably steady platform from which to fire. Their portability enabled them to be installed wherever they were most needed; whereas larger cannon were useless if they were on the wrong side of the ship, swivel guns could be carried across the deck to face the enemy.

The small size of swivel guns enabled them to be used by a wide variety of vessels, including those too small to accommodate larger cannons, and also permitted their use on land; they were commonly issued to forts in North America in the 18th century, and Lewis and Clark took one with them on their famous expedition into the American interior in 1804. Swivel guns also had peaceful uses. They were used for signalling purposes and for firing salutes, and also found uses in whaling, where bow-mounted swivel guns were used to fire harpoons, and fowling, where swivel guns mounted on punts were used to shoot flocks of waterfowl (see also punt gun).

Swivel guns were extensively used by the kingdoms and empires of Asia, particularly Ottoman, China, Korea, and Nusantara. The Ottomans used the prangi from the mid-15th century onwards in field battles, aboard their ships, and in their forts, where prangis often comprised the majority of the ordnance. These weapons would spread eastward to Indian ocean, eventually reaching Southeast Asia in c. 1460 AD.

The Chinese knew breech-loading swivel guns since at least 1507, when it was brought to Fujian by a man named Wei Sheng and used in quelling a pirate incident in 1507. Korea followed suit by the 1560s. During the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), Korean naval forces used swivel guns and larger cannon to great effect in interdicting the invading Japanese forces.

References

</references>

Bibliography

Perrin, Noel 1979 Giving up the Gun, Japan's reversion to the Sword, 1543–1879 David R. Godine, Boston

External links

Swivel Guns and Swivel Gun Harpoons
Lewis and Clark's swivel cannon
Swivel Guns or Paterero