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Large culverines are for battery & piercing
are forty quintals & eighteen pans long.
Their ball, of the King's caliber & for
battery, is 30 lb and thus lighter than that of the cannon. And
thus, it does not carry so much ammunition for fifteen lb
suffices for its charge. The cannon makes a bigger opening due to the
size of its ball, but the culverine hits more fiercely & propels
faster, having greater force due to its length. At the breech it carries
the thickness of two of its balls & the esathreethirds part of a ball, at the front the
thickness of one ball & two thirds. Culverines serve to
batter defenses from afar when one cannot easily make an approach, and
cannons approach more closely. They also serve to support the battery.
One needs fifteen or sixteen horses for moving it. They are
tout of the same alloy as the cannon, as are all
pieces that exceedsmaller than average, for to
these, one adds a little more metal in order to make the melt run
better. And for two quintals of rosette, one
adds six twenties lb of metal for the smaller pieces.
They shoot at point blank 8 or 9 hundred paces & up to
a thousand paces if the powder is strong & at range
half a league.



Some invented the loading of cannons with cartouches.



Some po do not put the powder in the cannon
all in one go but in two & ramming each time, saying that each
ramming raises & gives a further thumb. But this
is not certain for large pieces which are loaded with a lot of
powder.



The bastarde, which is a culverinemoyenne middle-sized piece,
weighs thirty quintals and its ball weighs xx
lbxv lb and carries as its charge x
or xii lb of powder. Its proportion is at the breech the
thickness of two of its balls & thethe
threeird part of of a ball. At the front, the
thickness of a ball & two thirds. or
They serve to batter defences of little importance such as
gabions and garrets topped with a tower &
similar things. It is thirteen or xiiii pans long like
the large cannon. Ten horses can move it. It accompanies well
the large culverine for point blank because it carries small
ammunition.



Some give it the thickness of three balls at the breech & at the
front of two balls.



The culverine bastarde weighs 35 quintals & is xxv
pans long. It carries three balls at the breech &
two in front. Its ball is like that of the bastarde piece,
weighing xv lb. These are fixed pieces which cannot be moved by
carriage, but are for city defences. Some make these xxvii or
xxviii pans long, like the Cow of La
Rochelle. But to such pieces one gives reinforcement at the breech
as of three balls. At range, they can shoot around one league,
& a half league at point blank. Its charge is like the
bastarde. And if one wants to shoot at some cavalry
quite far off, one increases the powder a little. A tail of smoke
follows the ball which de guides your
sight to where the cannonball is going. This goes for the
cannon and for the culverine, and not for small pieces.

