Artillery

In modern parlance Artillery is an engine of war that uses stored energy, whether mechanical, chemical, or electromagnetic, to project munitions far beyond the effective range of personal weapons. The earliest forms of artillery were in large measure employed as stationary devices designed to breach fortifications or reduce a single obstacle. The destructive capabilities of early gunpowder siege weapons led to development of mobile versions suitable for employment on the battlefield. This development continues such that today artillery comprises highly mobile weapons of great flexibility in which repose most of a modern army's firepower.

In its earliest sense the word artillery referred to any group of soldiers primarily armed with some form of manufactured weapon or armour. Since the introduction of gunpowder andcannon the word "artillery" has largely meant cannon and in contemporary usage it usually refers to shell-firing guns, howitzers, mortars, and rockets. In common speech the word artillery is often used to refer to individual devices along with their accessories and fittings; although these assemblages are more properly called equipments(sic). By association artillery may also refer to the arm of service that customarily operates such engines.

Artillery is arguably the most lethal form of land-based armament currently employed and has been since at least the early industrial revolution. The vast majority of combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II were caused by artillery.^[1] In 1944,Joseph Stalin said in a speech that artillery was "the God of War".^[1]