Weaponry varies by a very wide degree between AFVs-lighter vehicles for infantry carrying, reconnaissance or specialist roles may have only a machine gun for self-defence ( or no armament at all ), whereas heavy self propelled artillery will carry large guns, mortars or rocket launchers.

This features a main artillery gun, mounted in a fully rotating turret atop a tracked automotive hull, with various additional machine guns throughout.

One of the more successful German tank destroyers was actually designed as a self-propelled artillery gun, the Sturmgeschütz III.

Based on the Panzer III tank chassis, the Sturmgeschütz III was originally fitted with a low-velocity gun, and was assigned to the artillery arm for infantry fire support.

Between the wars the British developed the Birch gun, a general purpose artillery piece on an armoured tracked chassis capable of maintaining formation with their current tanks.

The actions involved in operating the piece are collectively called " serving the gun " or " detachment " by the gun crew, constituting either direct or indirect artillery fire.

* Self-propelled artillery: typically guns, mortars or gun howitzers mounted on a vehicle.

Moreover, the Polish cavalry brigade order of battle of 1939 included, apart from the mounted soldiers themselves, light and heavy machine guns ( wheeled ), Anti-tank rifle, model 35, anti-aircraft weapon, artillery like Bofors 37 mm anti tank gun or light and scout tanks, etc.

Although the modern term " gun " is often used as a synonym for firearm, in specialist or military use it has a restricted sense referring only to an artillery piece with a relatively high muzzle velocity, such as a field gun, a tank gun, or a gun used in the delivery of naval gunfire ; or in sporting use for a shotgun.

In the taxonomies of artillery pieces used by European ( and European-style ) armies in the eighteenth, 19th, and 20th centuries, the howitzer stood between the " gun " ( characterized by a longer barrel, larger propelling charges, smaller shells, higher velocities, and flatter trajectories ) and the " mortar " ( which was meant to fire at even higher angles of ascent and descent ).

Undoubtedly, Cetshwayo and his war leaders faced a tough and extremely daunting task-overcoming the challenge of concentrated rifled, machine gun ( Gatling gun ), and artillery fire on the battlefield.

The Katyusha was inexpensive and could be manufactured in light industrial installations which did not have the heavy equipment to build conventional artillery gun barrels.

In small arms, a long gun is designed to be fired braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun, while in artillery a long gun would be contrasted with a howitzer or carronade.

The Maginot Line (, ), named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defenses, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in light of its experience in World War I, and in the run-up to World War II.

It was composed of an intricate system of strong points, fortifications, and military facilities such as border guard posts, communications centres, infantry shelters, barricades, artillery, machine gun, and anti-tank gun emplacements, supply depots, infrastructure facilities, observation posts, etc.

Recently the South African Army has trained the Namibian Army's artillery corps in the use of the G2 ( 140mm ) medium gun.

In most armed forces the term " gun " is incorrect when referring to small arms ; in military parlance, the word " gun " refers to an artillery piece or crew-served machine gun.

Since the development of cannon, the word " artillery " in practice has largely meant cannon ; in contemporary usage it usually refers to shell-firing guns, howitzers, mortars, and rockets.

Artillery is the most lethal form of land-based armament ; in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II the vast majority of combat deaths were caused by artillery.

Many other formulations were developed in the following decades, generally trying to find the optimum characteristics of a good artillery propellant ; low temperature, high energy, non corrosive, highly stable, cheap, and easy to manufacture in large quantities.

The depth of the battlefield has also increased in modern warfare with inclusion of the supporting units in the rear areas ; supply, artillery, medical personnel etc.

Key elements in the " blitzkrieg warfare " at the decisive Battle of Megiddo included concentration, surprise and speed ; success depending on attacking only in favourable terrain, where the terrain favoured the movement of large formations around the battlefield, and tactical improvements in the British artillery and infantry attack.

" Addressing the faster rate at which defenders could reinforce an area than attackers could penetrate it during the First World War, Guderian wrote that " since reserve forces will now be motorized, the building up of new defensive fronts is easier than it used to be ; the chances of an offensive based on the timetable of artillery and infantry co-operation are, as a result, even slighter today than they were in the last war.

Accounts of the Ethiopian artillery deployed at Adwa differ ; Russian advisor Leonid Artamonov wrote that it comprised 42 Russian mountain guns supported by a team of fifteen advisers, but British historians suggest that the Ethiopian guns were Hotchiss and Maxim pieces captured from the Egyptians or purchased from French and other European suppliers.

Pic 01. jpg | Arsenal of ancient mechanical artillery in the Saalburg, Germany ; left: polybolos reconstruction by the German engineer Erwin Schramm ( 1856-1935 )

In addition, new technologies and tactics were developed, making most defences obsolete ; this led to the construction of star forts, specifically designed to withstand artillery bombardment though these too ( along with the Martello Tower ) would find themselves rendered obsolete when explosive and armour piercing rounds made even these types of fortifications vulnerable.

In World War I, the majority of combat fatalities were caused by artillery ; they were also used widely in World War II.

Gun specifically refers to a type of cannon that fires projectiles at high speeds, and usually at relatively low angles ; they have been used in warships, and as field artillery.

He ordered Joachim Murat to bring the guns from the Sablons artillery park ; the Major and his cavalry fought their way to the recently captured cannon, and brought them back to Napoleon.

Realizing that iron was more difficult to pierce with breech-loaded cannon, Armstrong designed rifled muzzle-loading guns, which proved successful ; The Times reported: " even the fondest believers in the invulnerability of our present ironclads were obliged to confess that against such artillery, at such ranges, their plates and sides were almost as penetrable as wooden ships.

The cynical attitude toward recruited infantry in the face of ever more powerful field artillery is the source of the term cannon fodder, first used by François-René de Chateaubriand, in 1814 ; however, the concept of regarding soldiers as nothing more than " food for powder " was mentioned by William Shakespeare as early as 1598, in Henry IV, Part 1.

The bargaining sides agreed to an exchange of land areas ; an artillery base, Ino, located in the Karelian Isthmus, was transferred to Russia, while Finland received Petsamo in north-eastern Lapland.

In 1875 DuPont introduced Hexagonal powder for large artillery, which was pressed using shaped plates with a small center core ; about 1. 5 inches diameter, like a wagon wheel nut, the center hole widened as the grain burned.

The IISS listed equipment in 2007 as including 35 T-54 / 55 main battle tanks, 70 reconnaissance vehicles ( 20 Panhard AML-60, 40 Panhard AML-90, 10 Alvis Saladin ) 25 wheeled APCs ( estimate 20 Panhard M3 and 5 Alvis Saracen ), 194 artillery pieces ( 80 towed: 36 HM-2 / M-101, 20 D-30, 24 D-74 ; 114 mortars ( 60 60-mm, 30 Brandt 120-mm ), 24 MILAN ATGM, 114 recoilless rocket launchers ( est.

Its equipment consisted of fifty-six ballistic missile defenses ; seventy-seven armored personnel carriers and sixty-seven " look-alikes ;" eighteen 122 mm and fifty-three 152 mm towed artillery units ; nine 120 mm combined guns / mortars ; seventy AT-4 Spigot, nineteen AT-5 Spandrel, and twenty-seven AT-6 Spiral anti-tank guided weapons ; a 73 mm SPG-9 recoilless launcher, forty-five MT-12 100 mm anti-tank guns ; and thirty ZU-23 23 mm and twelve S-60 57 mm air defense guns.

Individual shots were unlikely to hit, but a platoon firing repeatedly could produce a ' beaten ground ' effect similar to light artillery or machine guns ; but experience in World War I showed that long-range fire was best left to the machine gun.

The South African army was using older weapons, notably the British WWII Ordnance QF 25 pounder, that were completely outperformed by Soviet-supplied artillery during the Operation Savannah in 1975 – 1976, which completely shut down their offensive and resulted in a rout.

The monotony between battles, the constant threat of artillery fire and bombardments, the struggle to find food, the lack of training of young recruits ( meaning lower chances of survival ), and the overarching role of random chance in the lives and deaths of the soldiers are described in detail.

In 2007 the Land Forces consisted of 29, 600 soldiers ( 6th Guards Mechanised Brigade ( Grodno ), 11th Guards Mechanised Brigade ( Slonim, the former 11th Guards Tank Division ) the 120th Guards Mechanised Brigade ( Minsk ), 38th and 103rd Mobile Brigades ( organized similarly to Soviet airborne regiments, not all of them are equipped with BMD-1 ), 5th Separate Spetznaz Brigade ( Maryina Horka ), five artillery brigades and four regiments, two MRL regiments, 15th, 29th, 115th, 120th and 302nd SAM Brigades, two SSM brigades, two brigades and one regiment of engineers, 8th NBC independent brigade, two signals brigades, 40th independent NBC battalion.

General Edmund Allenby used infantry, to successfully attack the strong Ottoman front line, under cover of an artillery barrage. This creeping barrage lifted and moved forward at a rate of between 50 yards ( 46 m ), 75 yards ( 69 m ) and 100 yards ( 91 m ) per minute, while 4. 5-inch howitzers fired on points beyond the barrage augmented by the guns of two destroyers firing from the Mediterranean Sea.

In Poland, fast moving armies encircled Polish forces ( blue circles ), but the blitzkrieg idea never really took hold – artillery and infantry forces acted in time-honoured fashion to crush these pockets.

The First Military Region controlled the concentration of forces in and around Abidjan, its principal units there being a rapid intervention battalion ( airborne ), an infantry battalion, an armored battalion, and an air defense artillery battalion.

As of 2012, major equipment items reported by the IISS included ten T-55 tanks ( marked as potentially unserviceable ), 5 AMX-13 light tanks, 34 reconnaissance vehicles, 10 BMP-1 / 2 armoured infantry fighting vehicles, 41 wheeled APCs, and 36 + artillery pieces.

Ancient mechanical artillery: Catapults ( standing ), the chain drive of Polybolos ( bottom center ), Gastraphetes ( on wall )

From 1882 until his capture, Samori Ture, ruler of the Wassoulou Empire, fought the French colonial army, defeating them on several occasions, including a notable victory at Woyowayanko ( 2 April 1882 ), in the face of French heavy artillery.

The Italian commander ordered his battalions to fight their way out independently but the Ariete lost 531 men ( about 350 were prisoners ), 36 pieces of artillery, six ( or eight?

Machine guns fire small-caliber ammunition ( generally (. 50 Cal ) or smaller ), and many machine guns are crew-served infantry support weapons, requiring the services of more than one crewman, just like artillery guns.

* On July 25, 1993, following Hezbollah's killing of seven Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon, Israel launched Operation Accountability ( known in Lebanon as the Seven Day War ), during which the IDF carried out their heaviest artillery and air attacks on targets in southern Lebanon since 1982.

Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon that damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport ( which Israel said that Hezbollah used to import weapons and supplies ), an air and naval blockade, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

At the Second Battle of Bull Run ( Second Manassas ), Stuart's cavalry followed the massive assault by Longstreet's infantry against Pope's army, protecting its flank with artillery batteries.

The army's organisation consists of two armoured brigades, four infantry brigades, one engineer brigade, one armoured reconnaissance battalion ( 76th ), three artillery battalions, three engineer battalions, one independent air cavalry battalion with 35 armed helicopters ( Embakasi ), five infantry battalions, one parachute battalion and one ranger battalion for low-intensity warfare.

Three batteries were combined into a devizion ( company ), and three divizions into a separate mine-firing regiment of rocket artillery.

Forces included nearly 1000 infantry ( US and New Mexican volunteers ), hundreds of horses and mules, a supply train, 55 Pueblo scouts, and four artillery guns.

The core of the Lithuanian Land Force structure is the Iron Wolf Mechanised Infantry Brigade ( MIB " Iron Wolf ") consisting of two mechanized infantry battalions ( King Mindaugas and Lithuanian Grand Duke Algirdas battalions ), two motorized infantry battalions ( Grand Duchess Birutė and Lithuanian Grand Duke Kestutis battalions ), artillery battalion and Lithuanian Duke Vaidotas Forward support battalion.