With the casting of cannons, the social and social role of the caster increased. This happened after the invention of gunpowder and the advent of firearms.
Gunpowder, based on a number of studies, was invented in China in the 9th century. and already in the X century. used for firearms. The Arabs used it at the end of the 13th-beginning of the 14th centuries, they also brought it to Europe in the 14th century. through Spain. In the 20-40s of the XIV century. the first samples of firearms appeared in Italy, France, Germany, England. The earliest known mention of the use of artillery in Rus' refers to 1382 (the defense of Moscow from the hordes of Khan Tokhtamysh).
The first guns were smooth-bore tubes with a blind breech, in which there was a seed hole. They were loaded from the muzzle. This design lasted until the second half of the 19th century.
The gun barrel was originally obtained by welding with lead forged iron strips, then fastened with copper hoops. The breech was made separately. This technique was suitable for the manufacture of only tools small size and could not ensure their reliable operation.
From these positions, a solid-cast cannon, even made of bronze, was preferable. At the same time, the production process was significantly accelerated and simplified, it became possible to more accurately reproduce the caliber of the gun, improve its design. Structural improvements include trunnions, which made it easier to change the angle of inclination of the gun when firing, brackets on the barrel for easy carrying, and simple sighting devices (front sight and slot).
Rice. 159. Pishchal "Bear". Bronze. Foundry master Semyon Dubinin. 1590, Moscow, Kremlin
The first steps in the development of artillery in the West and in the Muscovite state were characterized by the fact that each foundry master created his own special type of gun, assigned the length, thickness and other dimensions of the product at his own discretion. Before the emergence of general requirements for guns,30 it was common to decorate cannons with ornaments, inscriptions, and distinctive sculptures, from which they often got their name: "Aspid", "Lion", "Bars", "Gamayun", etc. (Fig. 159). In this, as in other differences, a kind of rivalry between the casters was manifested. It is characteristic that the oldest of the Russian cast cannons that have survived to this day (1492) does not have trunnions and brackets, but its muzzle and butt are decorated with ornaments. At first, the gun carriages that appeared later were also richly decorated (Fig. 160). So guns can also be classified as artistic castings for applied purposes.
Rice. 160. Pishchal with a "twisted" barrel. Bronze. Foundry master Yakov Osipov. 1671 Cast iron gun carriage. 19th century
By the time firearms appeared, the casting technique had been sufficiently developed, this was facilitated by the manufacture of large bells. From a technological point of view, as N. N. Rubtsov writes, the shape of a cannon is a simplified form of a bell. As a result, mastering the production of cannons did not present too serious difficulties for bell craftsmen. For example, such well-known foundry masters as A. Chokhov, Motorins, cast both bells and cannons. On ancient engravings showing foundries, you can see the image of bells and cannons at the same time.
Casters quickly realized that the good-sounding, but fragile "bell bronze" is not suitable for making cannons. Traditional cannon bronze contains two times less tin than bell bronze, which makes it much more plastic, i.e. more suitable for use under shock loads.
Although, unfortunately, for military purposes, but it was the mass casting of cannons that marked the beginning of the creation of the first large foundry enterprises. Already in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the famous architect, engineer and artilleryman A. Fiorovanti, invited from Italy, expanded foundries in Moscow and created the cannon foundry Cannon Hut (1478) on their basis. Soon on the river Neglinnaya, in the area of Pushechnaya Street, where the building " children's world”, a factory was built - the famous “Cannon Yard”, which worked for several centuries (“Cannon Hut” burned down 10 years after construction).
When creating regimental artillery, the technological process is streamlined, the main elements of the classification of guns are being developed. They were divided
into groups depending on the size of the nucleus charged in them. In 1540, a table of calibers was developed in Nuremberg, indicating the diameters of stone and cast iron cores. For example, in Russia the three-pounder was 2.8 inches (70 mm) in caliber; twelve-pound - 4.7 inches (120 mm), etc.
Cannon molding, established in the 14th century. - the so-called "slow molding", by analogy with the production of bells, was used for a relatively long time. It was based on the ancient method of making bells according to a pattern with a horizontal axis of rotation (according to Theophilus).
Rice. 161. Step-by-step production of a casting mold for a gun using the “slow molding” method
First of all, a clay model of the cannon body was prepared. A straw bundle was placed on a wooden round or faceted core of a slightly conical shape, repeating approximately the outer outline of the cannon barrel (Fig. 161, b). Next, the molder applied layers of clay by hand, after drying the previous layer in air. The first layers consisted of oily wet clay mixed with ground bricks, the last layers consisted of finely ground oily clay mixed with hair (wool) and horse manure. Excess clay was cut off with a template that repeated the configuration of the outer surface of the trunk (Fig. 161, c).
On the resulting clay model, they nailed wooden models trunnions, fixed models of handles and jewelry (Fig. 161, d, Fig. 162). The latter were made from a mixture of wax, lard and crushed charcoal in special plaster molds (Fig. 163).
After receiving the model, they proceeded to the manufacture of the mold casing. To do this, gun models were lubricated with a release agent consisting of lard with vegetable oil. Then applied several layers of a wet mixture, similar to that used in the last layers of the model. Each layer was dried in air. And then layers of thick clay were applied to them until a casing with a thickness of 175 to 300 mm was obtained (depending on the size of the gun). Then the trunnion models were removed, and the resulting holes were sealed with clay. Iron hoops, longitudinal strips (Fig. 161, e) and again iron hoops (Fig. 161, f) were placed on top of the casing for strength. The intersections of the transverse and longitudinal bandages were fastened with wire. After that, the form was dried on the goats, kindling a fire under it (Fig. 161, e, Fig. 164). The dried form was removed from the goat, the core was knocked out of the model, which pulled the straw bundle behind it, as a result of which it could be easily removed from the model by unwinding the bundle.
Rice. 162. The method of "slow molding": fixing models of trunnions, handles and ornaments on a clay model of a cannon. ill. to the "Encyclopedia" by J. L. d'Alembert and D. Diderot
The form with the clay shirt of the model remaining in it was placed vertically in a pit on iron linings and a fire was lit inside the barrel to melt the separating layer between the casing (mould) and the shirt of the model, as well as to melt the wax models of handles and jewelry.
Rice. 163. Plaster molds for making wax parts of a cannon model
Rice. 164. "Method" of slow molding. Drying and firing of the gun casting mold. Illustration for the "Encyclopedia" by J. L. d'Alembert and D. Diderot
The remaining clay jacket of the model became brittle from heating and could be easily removed. To facilitate the removal of the shirt, especially from the shape of small-caliber guns, during the manufacture of the model, a groove was cut along a helix to a depth of a straw bundle, then the groove was filled with rosin or resin. Thus, after the removal (destruction) of the clay model, there remained a casting mold for the gun barrel with imprints on inner surface all decorations, inscriptions, etc.
The rod for the shape of the gun was made in the same way as the model, with the difference that an iron rod served as the core; instead of a straw rope, a hemp rope was taken, and the template, according to which the rod was turned, had the configuration of the internal channel of the gun.
Then the casting mold was assembled: a rod was installed inside, unfastening it with special devices - foals, and a mold for the breech was attached to the barrel shape. The longitudinal section of the mold is shown in fig. 161, a.
The assembled form was placed vertically in the filling hole with the breech side down. The space around the mold was filled with dry earth and a gating cup was made on it, from which the metal entered the mold. The pouring of molds, as for all other large castings, was carried out directly from the furnace through channels in the floor of the foundry. This is how bronze cannons were cast in the Western European feudal states and Muscovite Rus'. During the reign of Ivan III, the production of cast artillery pieces was launched in Moscow, the foundry master Yakov, his students Vanya-da-Vasyuk, Fedka the gunner, Pavlin Fryazin Debbosis and others worked there.
During the time of Ivan the Terrible, Russian artillery was not inferior in power and strength to the artillery of Western European countries, and in some ways even surpassed them. This was reported by the ambassadors of Byzantium, Venice, England, who visited Moscow. English Ambassador J. Fletcher wrote in the late 80s of the 16th century. "... none of the Christian sovereigns had such a good supply of military shells as the Russian Tsar" . Thus, 150 firearms took part in the siege of Kazan in 1552.
In the 70s of the 16th century, preparing for a new campaign in Livonia, Ivan the Terrible decided to significantly increase the power of siege artillery. In the siege of Polotsk in 1563, only 4 battering rams were used, but the effect of their use was colossal. It was then that the Moscow Cannon Yard, which had just been rebuilt after the devastating raid of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey in 1571, received an order to make several heavy battering ram guns. The work was supervised by the famous Russian caster A. Chokhov (c. 1545-1629).
At that time in Rus', casting large-caliber guns was not a new thing for foundry workers. Back in 1554, more than twenty years before the Livonian campaign of 1575, at the Cannon Yard Kashpir Ganusov, A. Chokhov's teacher, cast a large cannon, called the Kashpir Cannon. She had a length of 448 cm, weighed 1200 pounds (19.65 tons) and fired stone balls of 20 pounds (327.6 kg); its caliber was 53 cm. A similar tool - the Peacock mortar - was cast by Stepan Petrov in 1555. She weighed 1020 pounds (16.7 tons) and fired stone cannonballs weighing 15 pounds (245.7 kg). But these tools also had a predecessor: in 1488, under Ivan III in Moscow, P. Debbosis cast, apparently, no less formidable tool, which the historian N. M. Karamzin called the “Tsar Cannon”. Later, in the XVII century. it was called "Peacock", like the gun cast later by S. Petrov.
Only under the leadership of A. Chokhov at the Cannon Yard about a dozen and a half ram cannons were cast, not counting short-barreled mortars "and squeakers32 of small caliber. Some large cannons of A. Chokhov have survived to this day. In the Moscow Kremlin there are Aspid and Troil ram guns "(1590). In the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps of St. Petersburg, 4 A. Chokhov's wall-beating cannons are stored: "Inrog" (1577), "Lion" and "Scorpio" (1590 ) and "Tsar Achilles" (1617). Each of them has a special history. For example, the cannon "Tsar Achilles" (Fig. 165) was used during the siege of Dorogobuzh, Novgorod-Seversky and other cities in 1632. In the same year it was captured by the Poles near Smolensk, and was taken by the Swedes during the siege of Elbing in 1703. Russian merchants bought the cannon and returned it to their homeland in 1723. Gun caliber 152 mm, barrel length 6080 mm, weight 3603 kg, gun carriage made of cast iron, apparently, much later.However, the crowning achievement of the outstanding master is the "Tsar Cannon", cast by him in the prime of his creative powers and which is today one of the most famous museum exhibits of the Moscow Kremlin (Fig. 166).
Rice. 165. Pishchal "King Achilles". Bronze. Foundry master A. Chokhov. 1617 Cast iron carriage - cast iron, XIX century, St. Petersburg
Rice. 166. "Tsar Cannon" in the Kremlin (photo of the beginning of the XX century). Bronze. Foundry master A. Chokhov. 1585 Cast iron gun carriage. Author A.P. Bryulov, 1835, Moscow
Rice. 167. Tsar Fedor Ioannovich (image on the Tsar Cannon)
Saying the words "Tsar Cannon" we think, first of all, about the size of this gun. Meanwhile, the name of this mortar was given by the cast image of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, during whose reign it was cast (Fig. 167). Nevertheless, the unknown author of the so-called “Piskarevsky chronicler”, noting the casting of the mortar as an event of extreme importance, wrote: “... by order of the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Theodore Ioannovich of All Rus', a large cannon was drained, such was not the case in Rus' and other lands, and her name is "King". In fairness, it should be noted that at that time there was a larger bronze cannon weighing 57 tons, cast in the city of Akhmandagar in India in 1548. It still stands on the wall of the city fortress near the famous Gol-Gumbaz mausoleum, but neither A. Chokhov, nor his contemporaries could not know about it. This fact is not particularly advertised even now.
The dimensions of A. Chokhov’s Tsar Cannon, this magnificent example of foundry art, are still impressive today: the length of the mortar is 5.34 m, the barrel diameter is 120 cm, the waist diameter is more than 134 cm, the mass of the gun is 39.3 tons, the mass of the stone kernels 52 pounds (352 kg).
It cannot be said that the design of the Tsar Cannon was technologically advanced, given the casting techniques used. The traditional form of mortars, including those made by A. Mokhov (Fig. 168, a), is characterized by a stepped outer contour, repeating the internal shape of the barrel. This allows you to reduce the difference in the thickness of the walls of the barrel and breech.
Rice. 168. The design of the barrels of ancient mortars by A. Chokhov: a - Mortar "The Pretender", 1605; b - "Tsar Cannon", 1585
Apparently, this tradition was first violated by K. Ganusov (1554) when casting a large-caliber mortar, known to us as the “Kashpir Cannon”. In an effort to make the breech more durable, so that the thick walls of the chamber could withstand the pressure of gases when firing a 20-pood cannonball, he made a cannon barrel with a constant outer diameter. The Tsar Cannon has the same design (Fig. 168, b). The average wall thickness of its barrel in the muzzle is about 15 cm, the powder chamber is 38 cm, the back wall is 42 cm thick. in massive parts of the casting. To avoid this, you should turn the mold with the breech up and put a profit on the bottom of the gun33 to eliminate possible shrinkage defects in back wall and walls of the breech. However, there are additional difficulties in molding and assembling such a large mold. The conditions for the removal of gases from the core during the pouring of the mold and the solidification of the casting worsen. In addition, at that time it was hardly possible to cut off a profit with a diameter of almost 1.5 m from a cannon.
Nevertheless, everything went well. In any case, no major outward defects that could significantly reduce the strength of the gun metal were found. A positive role, apparently, was played by relatively thin handles (brackets) on the breech, which served as refrigerators.
The giant cannon was not created for props, so it was installed without a carriage on Red Square, near the Moskvoretskaya ferry, next to the Peacock mortar by S. Petrov, which had been there for 30 years. From Cannon Yard to Red Square, the Tsar Cannon was transported on skating rinks made of thick logs. It was dragged by at least 200 horses. In 1626, special "peals" were built for these guns, and with great difficulty in 1627 they were moved to the Execution Ground.
In 1701, Peter I, creating new artillery, issued a decree according to which the Peacock cannon and the Kashpir cannon were melted down along with other old guns. However, realizing the historical value of the Tsar Cannon, he ordered to keep it. In 1765, the Tsar Cannon was transported to the Kremlin and placed under a specially built stone tent near the Resurrection Monastery. In 1835, for the Tsar Cannon, according to the project of the academician of the Russian Academy of Arts A.P. Bryullov in St. Petersburg, a cast-iron carriage was cast at the Byrd factory and a cannon was installed on a carriage at the main gate of the Moscow Arsenal.
In 1843, the "Tsar Cannon" was transported from the main gate of the Arsenal to the old building of the Armory (the building was dismantled in 1960 in connection with the construction of the Palace of Congresses on this site). In front of the cannon, a pyramid of four hollow (decorative) cast-iron cores was laid down, the mass of each core was 1000 kg. On either side of the gun, two more pyramids of smaller nuclei were laid down (Fig. 166). They put up a board with the inscription: "Shotgun Russian Lit 1586. The weight of the core is 120 pounds." The weight of the core is erroneously doubled, hence the well-known version of the sham purpose of the cannon, since with the indicated weight of the projectile the cannon would have been torn apart.
In 1960, the cannon was finally installed near the Church of the Twelve Apostles, next to the Tsar Bell, where it is still located. It should be noted that the proximity to a giant bronze bell is disadvantageous for a cannon. According to Montferrand's project, the Tsar Cannon was among other ancient cannons of the Kremlin exposition, against which its power was more strongly felt. The rest of the guns are now located at the other end of the square, near the Arsenal building, where access to the Kremlin visitors is limited.
Further improvement of the cannon casting process was associated with the need to increase their reliability, service life, mobility, and increase their number. The requirement to reduce the mass of guns led to a strict standardization of their sizes, a reduction, and then the elimination of decorations. The latter also simplified their production.
In the 17th century in many countries, the technology of casting tools and shells from cast iron begins to spread. This material appeared in China according to one source in the 6th century. BC, according to others - at the turn of the old and new eras. In any case, the aforementioned giant cast-iron casting "Tsar-Lion" already dates back to 954 (see Fig. 50). In Europe, the appearance of cast iron dates back to the 14th century, which served as the basis for a number of researchers to associate the invention of cast iron with Germany in the 14th century.
In fact, this is a vivid example of a multi-temporal, but almost independent emergence of innovation due to poor dissemination of information.
How iron was smelted in the Middle Ages is not exactly known. Apparently it happened by accident. With an increase in the amount of blast in shaft furnaces, which were used at that time to obtain iron bloom from ore, it was noticed that a substance unlike slag flows out of the blast furnace along with slag. When hardened, it had a metallic luster in the fracture, was as strong and heavy as iron, but differed from it in brittleness and could not be forged. Since its appearance during melting reduced the yield of finished iron, this substance was considered undesirable. It is no coincidence that the old, very unflattering name of pig iron is still preserved for cast iron in England, i.e. "pig iron".
Casters began to use cast iron for guns as a material that is more durable, technologically advanced34, and most importantly, less scarce. But its application required a more advanced metallurgical base. Therefore, until the XVIII century. in some countries cannons were still cast from bronze, in others from cast iron.
The growing need for cannons is in conflict with the process of their "slow molding". Making a one-time, destroyable clay model for each casting was clearly irrational, especially after the standardization of the sizes of guns of the same caliber. The process of obtaining a puff form from clay was also laborious. In essence, the revolution in this area was carried out by the famous French scientist, engineer and politician Gaspard Monge (1746-1818), the author of the method of so-called rapid casting of cannons.
G. Monge was the creator of descriptive geometry, without which technical drawing is impossible, co-author of the modern decimal metric system of measurement and much more. An active supporter of the Great French Revolution, he was in 1792-1793. was the minister of the sea, in 1793 he was in charge of gunpowder and cannon affairs in the republic. Based on the results of his activities, he published the once popular book "The Art of Cannon Casting", translated into Russian in 1804. Grateful descendants, noting his merits, in 1849 installed on the house where he was born, his bust and four tricolor banners with the inscriptions: “Descriptive Geometry”, “Political School”, “Cairo Institute”, “Cannon Casting”.
At the suggestion of G. Monge, the permanent model of the cannon is divided into parts that are molded separately (similar to the division of a statue into parts). On fig. 169 shows a longitudinal section of the form with parts of the model not extracted. A hollow brass or cast-iron cannon model consists of six separate, tightly fitted one to the other parts: four annular barrel models, one ring - a profitable extension and one breech. The protrusions on the model at the joints reproduce the belts on the body of the gun. Each of the six parts of the model has hooks on the inside to facilitate assembly and disassembly. The upper part of the model forms a profit, which is then cut off from the body of the gun.
The mold was made in a collapsible metal jacket (opoke3"1), consisting of annular parts corresponding to the parts of the model and additionally divided along the axis of symmetry, i.e. 6 parts of the model accounted for 12 parts of the jacket. Separate parts of the jacket were fastened with a check and pins ( wedges).
Rice. 169. The method of "quick casting" guns. General view and section of the form
This design of the jacket facilitates molding, and most importantly, the removal of the finished casting from the mold.
The mold was made in a vertical position: first, the lower part of the model was molded in the lower part of the annular jacket. It was previously lubricated with a release agent. Then the space between the wall of the model and the jacket was filled with molding sand, consisting of greasy sand mixed with horse manure, and compacted. After that, both the model and the casing were gradually increased. The contact surface of the individual parts of the form was covered with a release agent. The molded parts were removed (the mold was dismantled), the models were removed from them, and the parts of the mold were dried separately from one another. After that, the inner surface of the mold parts was painted with molding ink and dried. The rod for decorating the inner surface of the gun was made in the same way as in the "slow molding" method.
The form was assembled, the rod was installed, all parts of the jacket were fastened together. The mold was poured in a vertical position. Later, a modernized method of rapid casting of guns was used to produce cast iron water and sewer pipes (before centrifugal casting was widely used for these purposes).
It is necessary to dwell on the quality of the cast guns. Long rods made of clay had poor gas permeability, so it was difficult to obtain castings without gas pockets on the inner surface of the tools. While the quality requirements were not very strict, minor defects were patched up. However, when a relationship was established between the presence of gas pockets in the channel and the service life of the gun, the requirements for the cleanliness of the internal channel became more stringent. As a result, from 40 to 90% of cast iron guns began to be rejected)
