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The average weights 18 quintals and is xii pans long. Its cannonball weighs eight or 9 pounds and its load is six pounds of powder. The breech is three cannonballs thick and the front is two. It is more appropriate against cities’ defence rather than in battery. It is however sometimes used either to break a barricade or to support the battery after cannons have shot, in order to prevent the assailled from rebuilding after the cannons have played and shot. Four horses can carry it. It has a range of eight or nine hundreds paces and almost as many as the bastarde.
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To cannons and big pieces we give as much powder as a cannonball and a half’s diameter in proportion to the escusson. For medium pieces, such as campaign pieces, and the ones smaller, we provide them with powder the equivalent of two cannonballs have a quantity of powder equivalent to two cannonballs thick in proportion to the passevolant and smaller ones are given three cannonballs thick of powder. Usually, all pieces are loaded up to the escusson. We load all pieces under 4 quintals with the linstock, two linstocks of cannon powder or one and a half lantern of arquebus powder. For smaller ones, we only use one linstock. The pieces of one quintal as loaded with a little charge.
A battlefield piece weighs ten or twelve quintals and is ten or 12 pans long. Its cannonball weights 6 or 7 pounds and its loaded is 4 pounds of powder. The breech is three cannonballs thick and the front is two, like all the pieces under the mid—sized. The breech is thicker for they are in proportion longer and also because they are more frequently used than big pieces against houses or elsewhere. Their caliber is also small, so we give their breech a thickness of three cannonballs. They are used to follow immediately a camp and for the defence of cities and houses, settling them on walls or in a tower. Three good horses are required to carry it.
The passevolant weighs 6 quintals and is eight or nine pans long. Its cannonball weighs two pounds, and its load is a pound and a half of powder. The breech is three cannonballs thick and the front two. Two horses can carry it because one single horse can’t carry a piece. It is used for houses’ defence or to be brought amongst the infantry to break a horsemen rank.
A faulconneau weighs 4 quintals and is 10 pans long. Its cannonball weighs a pound and a quarter, its load is half a pound of powder. The breech is three cannonballs thick and the front two. To carry it, two horses, altough these pieces are seldom moved since they are manly used to defend houses. The ones which are carried over for battery or a fight, or a siege, are culverines, medium—sized bastardes and pieces
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