BLACK POWDER
Gunpowder, also known since the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid-1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate (saltpeter)—with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpetre works as an oxidizer.[2][3] Because of its burning properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks.
Gunpowder was, according to prevailing academic consensus, invented in the 9th century in China,[4] and the earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song Dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao.[5] This discovery led to the invention offireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China. In the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Arab world, Europe, and India. The technology spread from China through the Middle East, and then into Europe.[6]The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century.[7]
Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn) at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic wave. Gunpowder's burning rate increases with pressure, so it will burst containers if contained but otherwise just burns in the open. Ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications. Gunpowder was widely used to fill artillery shells and in mining and civil engineering to blast rock roughly until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives (nitro-explosives) were discovered. Gunpowder is no longer used in modern explosive military warheads, nor is it used as main explosive in mining operations due to its cost relative to that of newer alternatives such as ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO).[8] Black powder is still used as a delay element in various munitions where its slow-burning properties are valuable.
Formulations used in blasting rock (such as in quarrying) are called blasting powder.
CONTENTS
1 History
1.1 China
1.2 Middle East
1.3 Mainland Europe
1.4 Britain and Ireland
1.5 India
1.6 Indonesia
2 Manufacturing technology
3 Composition and characteristics
4 Serpentine
5 Corning
6 Modern types
7 Other types of gunpowder
8 Sulfur-free gunpowder
9 Combustion characteristics
9.1 Advantages
9.2 Disadvantages
9.3 Transportation
10 Other uses
11 See also
12 Notes
13 References
14 External links
HISTORY
Gunpowder was invented in China. Chinese military forces used gunpowder-based weapons (i.e. rockets, guns, cannons) and explosives (i.e. grenades and different types ofbombs) against the Mongols when the Mongols attempted to invade and breach city fortifications on China's northern borders. After the Mongols conquered China and founded the Yuan Dynasty, they used the Chinese gunpowder-based weapons technology in their attempted invasion of Japan; they also used gunpowder to fuel rockets.
The mainstream scholarly consensus is that gunpowder was invented in China, spread through the Middle East, and then into Europe,[6] although there is a dispute over how much the Chinese advancements in gunpowder warfare influenced later advancements in the Middle East and Europe.[4][9] The spread of gunpowder across Asia from China is widely attributed to the Mongols. One of the first examples of Europeans encountering gunpowder and firearms is at the Battle of Mohi in 1241. At this battle the Mongols not only used gunpowder in early Chinese firearms but in the earliest grenades as well.
A major problem confronting the study of the early history of gunpowder is ready access to sources close to the events described. Often enough, the first records potentially describing use of gunpowder in warfare were written several centuries after the fact, and may well have been colored by the contemporary experiences of the chronicler.[10] It is also difficult to accurately translate original alchemy texts, especially medieval Chinese texts which employ metaphor to describe unexplained phenomena, into contemporary scientific language with its rigidly defined terminology. The difficulty in translation has given rise to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence.[11][12] Early writings potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where old words acquired new meanings.[13] For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphta to denoting gunpowder, and the Chinese word pao evolved from meaning catapult to referring to cannon.[14] According to science and technology historian Bert S. Hall: "It goes without saying, however, that historians bent on special pleading, or simply with axes of their own to grind, can find rich material in these terminological thickets."[15]
CHINA
Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations.[16] A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 noted saltpeter burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques; the earliest Latin accounts of saltpeter purification are dated after 1200.[17]
The first mention of a mixture resembling gunpowder appeared in Taishang Shengzu Danjing Mijue by Qing Xuzi (c. 808); it describes mixing six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part birthwort herb (which would provide carbon).[18] The first reference to the incendiary properties of such mixtures is the passage of the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe, a Taoist text tentatively dated to the mid-9th century AD:[17] "Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."[19] The Chinese word for "gunpowder" isChinese: 火药/火藥; pinyin: huŏ yào /xuou yɑʊ/, which literally means "Fire Medicine";[20] however this name only came into use some centuries after the mixture's discovery.[21] By the 9th century Taoist monks or alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality had serendipitously stumbled upon gunpowder.[6][22] The Chinese wasted little time in applying gunpowder to the development of weapons, and in the centuries that followed, they produced a variety of gunpowder weapons, including flamethrowers, rockets, bombs, and land mines, before inventing guns as a projectile weapon.[23] Archaeological evidence of a hand cannon has been excavated in Manchuria dated from the late 1200s[24] and the shells of explosive bombs have been discovered in a shipwreck off the shore of Japan dated from 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan.[25]
The Chinese "Wu Ching Tsung Yao" (Complete Essentials from the Military Classics), written by Tseng Kung-Liang between 1040–1044, provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures which included petrochemicals, as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets are mentioned. The mixture formulas in this book do not contain enough saltpeter to create an explosive however; being limited to at most 50% saltpeter, they produce an incendiary.[26] The Essentials was however written by a Song Dynasty court bureaucrat, and there's little evidence that it had any immediate impact on warfare; there is no mention of gunpowder use in the chronicles of the wars against the Tanguts in the eleventh century, and China was otherwise mostly at peace during this century. The first chronicled use of "fire spears" (or "fire lances") is at the siege of De'an in 1132.[27]
Formula for gunpowder in 1044 Wujing zongyaopart I vol 12
Instruction for fire bomb in Wujing zongyao
Fire bomb
Fire grenade
Proto-cannon from the Ming Dynasty textHuolongjing
Land mine from the Ming Dynasty textHuolongjing
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Fire arrow rocket launcher from theWujing zongyao
MIDDLE EAST
The Muslims acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time between 1240 and 1280, by which time the Syrian Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. Gunpowder arrived in the Middle East, possibly through India, from China. This is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow", fireworks as "Chinese flowers" and rockets as "Chinese arrows".[28] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth".[29]
Al-Hassan claims that in the Battle of Ain Jalut of 1260, the Mamluks used against the Mongols in "the first cannon in history" gunpowder formula with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder.[29] Other historians urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204-1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, that they used for an earlier incendiary naptha.[10][14] Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world[30] and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early musketeers in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.[31] Similarly, the refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514.[31]
The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the hand cannon, considered the oldest type of portable firearm and a forerunner of the handgun, are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century.[32] Al-Hassan argues that these are based on earlier originals and that they report hand-held cannons being used by the Mamluks at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.[29]
Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his text al-Furusiyyah wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulfur, and 15.94% carbon), it is nearly identical to the modern reported ideal gunpowder recipe of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% carbon.[29]
The state-controlled manufacture of gunpowder by the Ottoman Empire through early supply chains to obtain salpeter, sulfur and high-quality charcoal from oaks in Anatolia contributed significantly to its expansion the 15th and 18th century. It was not until later in the 19th century when the syndicalist production of Turkish gun powder was greatly reduced, which coincided with the decline of its military might.[33]
MAINLAND EUROPE
Several sources mention Chinese firearms and gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at theBattle of Mohi in 1241.[34][35][36] Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry.[37]
C. F. Temler interprets Peter, Bishop of Leon, as reporting the use of cannon in Seville in 1248.[38]
In Europe, one of the first mentions of gunpowder use appears in a passage found in Roger Bacon's Opus Maius and Opus Tertium in what has been interpreted as being firecrackers. The most telling passage reads: "We have an example of these things (that act on the senses) in [the sound and fire of] that children's toy which is made in many [diverse] parts of the world; i.e. a device no bigger than one's thumb. From the violence of that salt called saltpetre [together with sulphur and willow charcoal, combined into a powder] so horrible a sound is made by the bursting of a thing so small, no more than a bit of parchment [containing it], that we find [the ear assaulted by a noise] exceeding the roar of strong thunder, and a flash brighter than the most brilliant lightning."[7] In early 20th century, British artillery officer Henry William Lovett Hime proposed that another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder. This claim has been disputed by historians of science including Lynn Thorndike, John Maxson Stillman and George Sarton and by Bacon's editor Robert Steele, both in terms of authenticity of the work, and with respect to the decryption method.[7] In any case, the formula claimed to have been decrypted (7:5:5 saltpeter:charcoal:sulfur) is not useful for firearms use or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.[39][40]
The Liber Ignium, or Book of Fires, attributed to Marcus Graecus, is a collection of incendiary recipes, including some gunpowder recipes. Partington dates the gunpowder recipes to approximately 1300.[41] One recipe for "flying fire" (ingis volatilis) involves saltpetre, sulfur, and colophonium, which, when inserted into a reed or hollow wood, "flies away suddenly and burns up everything." Another recipe, for artificial "thunder", specifies a mixture of one pound native sulfur, two pounds linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter.[42] Another specifies a 1:3:9 ratio.[42]
Some of the gunpowder recipes of De Mirabilibus Mundi of Albertus Magnus are identical to the recipes of the Liber Ignium, and according to Partington, "may have been taken from that work, rather than conversely."[43] Partington suggests that some of the book may have been compiled by Albert's students, "but since it is found in thirteenth century manuscripts, it may well be by Albert."[43]Albertus Magnus died in 1280.
A common German folk-tale is of the German priest/monk named Berthold Schwarz who independently invented gunpowder, thus earning it the German name Schwarzpulver or in English Schwarz's powder. Schwarz is also German for black so this folk-tale, while likely containing elements of truth, is considered problematic.
A major advance in manufacturing began in Europe in the late 14th century when the safety and thoroughness of incorporation was improved by wet grinding; liquid, such as distilled spirits or perhaps the urine of wine-drinking bishops[44] was added during the grinding-together of the ingredients and the moist paste dried afterwards. (The principle of wet mixing to prevent the separation of dry ingredients, invented for gunpowder, is used today in the pharmaceutical industry.[45]) It was also discovered that if the paste was rolled into balls before drying the resulting gunpowder absorbed less water from the air during storage and traveled better. The balls were then crushed in a mortar by the gunner immediately before use, with the old problem of uneven particle size and packing causing unpredictable results.
If the right size particles were chosen, however, the result was a great improvement in power. Forming the damp paste into corn-sized clumps by hand or with the use of a sieve instead of larger balls produced a product after drying that loaded much better, as each tiny piece provided its own surrounding air space that allowed much more rapid combustion than a fine powder. This "corned" gunpowder was from 30% to 300% more powerful. An example is cited where 34 pounds of serpentine was needed to shoot a 47 pound ball, but only 18 pounds of corned powder.[44] The optimum size of the grain depended on its use; larger for large cannon, finer for small arms. Larger cast cannon were easily muzzle-loaded with corned powder using a long-handled ladle. Corned powder also retained the advantage of low moisture absorption, as even tiny grains still had much less surface area to attract water than a floury powder.
During this time, European manufacturers also began regularly purifying saltpeter, using wood ashes containing potassium carbonateto precipitate calcium from their dung liquor, and using ox blood, alum, and slices of turnip to clarify the solution.[44]
The art of gunpowder-making and metal-smelting and casting for shot and cannon was closely held by skilled military tradesmen, who formed guilds which collected dues, tested apprentices, and gave pensions. "Fire workers" were also required to craft fireworks for celebrations of victory or peace. During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nuremberg, Germany. The Italian school of pyrotechnics emphasized elaborate fireworks, and the German school stressed scientific advancement. Vannoccio Biringuccio, born in 1480, was a member of the guild Fraternita di Santa Barbara but broke with the tradition of secrecy by setting down everything he knew in a book titled De la pirotechnia, written in vernacular. The first printed book on either gunpowder or metalworking, it was published posthumously in 1540, with 9 editions over 138 years, and also reprinted byMIT Press in 1966.[44] By the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens.[46]
In 1774 Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France at age 20. After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established; to head it, the lawyer Antoine Lavoisier was appointed. Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby.[47]
Without access to cheap Indian saltpeter (controlled by the British), for hundreds of years France had relied on saltpetermen with royal warrants, the droit de fouille or "right to dig", to seize nitrous-containing soil and demolished walls of barnyards, without compensation to the owners.[48] This caused farmers, the wealthy, or entire villages to bribe the petermen and the associated bureaucracy to leave their buildings alone and the saltpeter uncollected. Lavoisier instituted a crash program to increase saltpeter production, revised (and later eliminated) the droit de fouille, researched best refining and powder manufacturing methods, instituted management and record-keeping, and established pricing that encouraged private investment in works. Although saltpeter from new Prussian-style putrefaction works had not been produced yet (the process taking about 18 months), in only a year France had gunpowder to export. A chief beneficiary of this surplus was the American Revolution. By careful testing and adjusting the proportions and grinding time, powder from mills such as at Essonne outside Paris became the best in the world by 1788, and inexpensive.[48] [49]
BRITAIN AND IRELAND
Gunpowder production in Britain appears to have started in the mid 14th century AD with the aim of supplying The English Crown.[50]Records show that gunpowder was being made, in England, in 1346, at the Tower of London; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there.[50] Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other Royal castles, such as Portchester. By the early 14th century, according to N.J.G. Pounds's study The Medieval Castle in England and Wales, many English castles had been deserted and others were crumbling. Their military significance faded except on the borders. Gunpowder had made smaller castles useless.[51]
Henry VIII of England was short of gunpowder when he invaded France in 1544 AD and England needed to import gunpowder via the port of Antwerp.[50]
The English Civil War, 1642–1645, led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.[50]
Two British physicists, Andrew Noble and Frederick Abel, worked to improve the properties of black powder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for internal ballistics.[52]
The introduction of smokeless powder in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of World War I, the majority of the United Kingdom gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited"; and number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited; and in 1926 became a founding member of Imperial Chemical Industries. The Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of Permitted Explosives; and shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former Curtis & Harvey's Glynneath gunpowder factory at Pontneddfechan, in Wales, closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932.[53]
The last remaining gunpowder mill at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened.[54] This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Chorley, the section was closed and demolished at the end of World War II; and ICI Nobel's Roslin gunpowder factory which closed in 1954.[54][55]
This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in Scotland; it too closed in October 1976.[54] Since then gunpowder has been imported into the United Kingdom. In the late 1970s / early 1980s gunpowder was bought from eastern Europe, particularly from what was then the East Germany and former Yugoslavia.
INDIA
It was written in the Tarikh-i Firishta (1606–1607) that Nasir ud din Mahmud the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate presented the envoy of the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in Delhi in 1258 AD. Nasir ud din Mahmud tried to express his strength as a ruler and tried to ward off any Mongol attempt similar to the Siege of Baghdad (1258).[56] Firearms known astop-o-tufak also existed in many Muslim kingdoms in India by as early as 1366 AD.[56] From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the "Siege of Belgaum" in 1473 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.[57]
The shipwrecked Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali Reis is known to have introduced the earliest type of Matchlock which were utilized against the Portuguese during the Siege of Diu (1531). And ever since a diverse variety of firearms; large guns in particular, became visible in Tanjore, Dacca, Bijapur and Murshidabad.[58] Guns made of bronze were recovered from Calicut (1504)- the former capital of the Zamorins[59]
But it was the Mughal Emperor Akbar who mass-produced matchlocks in the Mughal Army. Akbar is personally known to have shot a leading Rajput commander during the Siege of Chittorgarh.[60] The Mughals then began to utilize Bamboo rocket (mainly used for signalling) and Sappers were special units that laid gunpowder under heavy stone fortifications.
The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is known to have introduced much more advanced Matchlocks, their designs were a combination ofOttoman and Mughal designs. Shah Jahan also countered the British and other Europeans in his province of Gujarāt, which supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.[61] Bengal and Mālwa participated in saltpeter production.[61]The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used Chhapra as a center of saltpeter refining.[62]
Ever since the founding of the Sultanate of Mysore by Hyder Ali, French military officers were employed to train the Mysore Army. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan were the first to introduce modern Cannons and Muskets, their army was also the first in India to have official uniforms. During the Second Anglo-Mysore War Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan unleashed the Mysorean rockets at their British opponents effectively defeating them on various occasions. The Mysorean rockets inspired the development of theCongreve rocket, which the British widely utilized during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.[63]
INDONESIA
The Javanese Majapahit Empire was arguably able to encompass much of modern day Indonesia due to its unique mastery of bronze smithing and use of a central arsenal fed by a large number of cottage industries within the immediate region. Documentary and archeological evidence indicate that Arab or Indian traders introduced gunpowder, gonnes, muskets, blunderbusses, and cannon to the Javanese, Acehnese, and Batak via long established commercial trade routes around the early to mid 14th century CE.[64]Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and occasionally even outgunned on occasion.[65] The resurgentSinghasari Empire overtook Sriwijaya and later emerged as the Majapahit whose warfare featured the use of fire-arms and cannonade.[66] Circa 1540 CE the Javanese, always alert for new weapons found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Javanese bronze breech-loaded swivel-guns, known as meriam, or erroneously as lantaka, was used widely by the Majapahit navy as well as by pirates and rival lords. The demise of the Majapahit empire and the dispersal of disaffected skilled bronze cannon-smiths to Brunei, modern Sumatra, Malaysia and the Philippines lead to widespread use, especially in theMakassar Strait.
A Chinese pirate or commercial shipwreck site[where?] yielded a paired swivel gun, for rapid firing: one barrel would fire whiles its opposite was being reloaded, though this remains a rare find. Other archaeological finds have unearthed triple-barrel and double-barrel swivel-guns, though they were not widely duplicated.
Saltpetre harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of unpermitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation.[67][unreliable source?] Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers.[64] According to a colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, The History of Java (1817), the purest sulphur was supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of Bali.[66]
MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
For the most powerful black powder meal, a wood charcoal is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific willow,[68] but others such as alder or buckthorn can be used. In Great Britain between the 15th to 19th centuries charcoal from alder buckthorn was greatly prized for gunpowder manufacture; cottonwood was used by the American Confederate States.[69] The ingredients are reduced in particle size and mixed as intimately as possible. Originally this was with a mortar-and-pestle or a similarly operating stamping-mill, using copper, bronze or other non-sparking materials, until supplanted by the rotating ball mill principle with non-sparking bronze orlead. Historically, a marble or limestone edge runner mill, running on a limestone bed was used in Great Britain; however, by th