Kartouwe

Kartouwen were developed from bombards.[1] A kartouwe has a caliber of 8 inches (200 mm), weighs about 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg), and is designed to fire cannonballs weighing up to 52 pounds (24 kg).[6] As a minimum, twenty horses or oxen were needed to move a kartouwe.[6]

In addition to "whole" ("hele") kartouwen, there were also double,[7] half ("halve")[8] and quarter kartouwen.[4] The barrel of a whole kartouwen has a length of 18 to 19 times the caliber, weighs 300 kilograms (660 lb) to 350 kilograms (770 lb) and was transported on a special wagon by 20 to 24 horses, another four to eight horses were needed to transport the mount (lafette).[9] The barrel length of a half-kartouwen is 32 to 34 times the caliber, which ranges between 105 millimetres (4.1 in) and 115 millimetres (4.5 in).[9] Its barrel weighs 110 kilograms (240 lb) to 150 kilograms (330 lb), the whole gun 170 kilograms (370 lb) to 240 kilograms (530 lb).[9] Half-kartouwen fired cannonballs weighing between 8 pounds (3.6 kg) and 10 pounds (4.5 kg), and for the transport of its barrel, 10 to 16 horses were needed.[9]

Kartouwen were used for example in the Livonian War by the Russian[5] and Swedish forces.[7] During the Battle of Narva (1581), the besieging Swedish forces destroyed the walls of Narva, 5.5 metres (18 ft) strong, within two days using twenty-four double and half-kartouwen.[7]

Kartouwen were also the characteristic of the Thirty Years' War.[10] As such, they were featured in contemporary poems,[10] e.g. in Am liebsten bey der Liebsten by Sibylla Schwarz ("grausame Kartaune", "gruesome kartouwe").[11] In his 1844 poem Die Tendenz, Heinrich Heine used kartouwen to symbolize loudness.[12]