Free Silent Witnesses by Nigel McCrery Page B

flames and maximize the weapon’s killingpotential. An account of the siege of De’an in 1132 records that Song defenders used fire-lances very successfully against the Jurchen attackers.
    There are a few theories as to how gunpowder came to Europe. One is that it made its way from China along the Silk Road, another that it came with the Mongols during their thirteenth-century invasion. The first recorded account of firearms being used in Russia states that during the defense of Moscow from Tokhtamysh’s Golden Horde in 1382, the defenders used firearms called
tiufiaks.
During the fourteenth century in Europe, smaller and more portable handheld cannons were developed. Such was the speed of development that by the late fifteenth century the Ottoman Empire was equipping its infantry with their own firearms.
    Outside of warfare, however, guns tended to be owned only by the rich, mainly for hunting—after all, they were very expensive. It took several more centuries before they became the preferred weapon of criminals. The numerous wars in the seventeenth century, where firearms replaced more traditional weapons such as the longbow and crossbow, not only taught numerous less well-off people how to use guns, it also flooded Europe with an accessible supply of them. This in turn led to a dramatic increase in crimes involving guns, especially the now much-romanticized highway robbery.
    However, early guns were by no means without their operating problems: they were slow to load and only fired one shot, after which the whole laborious loading process had to begin again. A traditional longbowman could have fired off half a dozen arrows and an experienced crossbowman considerably more bolts in the time that it took to reload a firearm. There is a famous accountwritten about an encounter between a highwayman and a young tailor during the eighteenth century. The tailor was crossing Hounslow Heath in the London borough of Hounslow—a dangerous place at that time, infamous for highwaymen. Sure enough, he was attacked by an armed highwayman who demanded his purse. The tailor handed it over and then, thinking quickly, asked the highwayman to put a shot through his hat, so that it looked as though he had put up some sort of a struggle and would not be labeled a coward. The highwayman obligingly did as requested. His single shot fired, he was now, in essence, unarmed. The clerk then drew his own pistol and pointed it at the highwayman. He not only got his purse back, but also those of the other people the highwayman had already robbed.
    When looking at forensic ballistics, it is useful to understand the principles that lie behind the operations of a firearm. From slow and unreliable beginnings, they soon developed into the efficient modern killing machines available today. Matchlocks were the first and simplest firing mechanisms developed for small arms. They were also slow to use. Gunpowder had to be poured down the barrel; this was followed by a lead ball, and then by some sort of paper wadding to keep the ball in place. All these then had to be rammed home with a ramrod. The weapon was then primed by pouring powder into a pan at the back of the barrel. In the middle of the pan was a small touch-hole, which connected to the powder in the barrel. The powder in the pan was then ignited by touching it with a lit match or piece of saltpeter-soaked string. A flame from the exterior gunpowder then raced inside the weapon through the touch-hole to ignite the gunpowder in the barrel. This burned extremely rapidly, creating a large volume of hot gas that blewthe ball out along the barrel, along with clouds of smoke. It was not uncommon for there to be so much smoke on the battlefield that it was impossible to see your enemy.
    The successor to the matchlock mechanism was the wheel lock, which was first seen in Europe around 1500. Its invention is sometimes attributed to Leonardo da Vinci because of some drawings he made of such a