Inside the Crosshairs Read Online Free PDF Page B

and 300 meters.
    Despite continuing technical improvements, firearms remained dependent on dry weather conditions, causing battlefield commanders to continue to rely on pikes, bows, and crossbows in combat. When weather permitted, commanders still used arquebuses to fire in volley and placed little emphasis on marksmanship.
    Rifled weapons were expensive to manufacture but their primary limitation in military use was the slow process of having to tamp a leaden bullet down the barrel to ensure it would “take” to the rifling when fired. A few well-armed marksmen, however, began to display the merits of single, well-aimed shots from firearms. Leonardo da Vinci included marksmanship among his many talents. During the defense of Florence in 1520, Da Vinci fired a rifle of his own design from the city’s walls to kill enemy soldiers at ranges up to 300 meters.
    Another Italian artist, metalsmith, inventor, and marksman,Benvenuto Cellini, also displayed the merits of accurate gunfire and the spirit of future snipers. During the siege of Rome in 1527, Cellini fired the shot that killed the opposing commander and ended the battle. In his autobiography, Cellini outlined mental characteristics of a good shooter and commented on the “relaxation” produced by engaging a target at long range. Cellini stated, “I will give but one particular, which will astonish good shots of every degree; that is, when I charged my gun with powder weighing one-fifth of the ball, it carried two-hundred paces point-blank. My natural temperament was melancholy, and while I was taking these amusements, my heart leaped with joy, and I found I could work better and with far greater mastery than when I spent my whole time in study and manual labor.”
    Cellini would not be the last man to experience the satisfaction of skilled marksmanship. As the development of weapons continued, so did individual mastery of their use.
    * All of these dates are, of course, approximate and dependent on subsequent archaeological discoveries. Also, the use of weapons and metals in one part of the world does not indicate that they were universal. For instance, the use of iron did not reach Africa until centuries after iron became common in Europe, and iron did not penetrate the New World until introduced to it by European explorers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

CHAPTER 3
 
Marksmanship in the New World
    A
T the same time that the advancements in the uses and delivery systems of gunpowder were expanding the capabilities of expert marksmen, European explorers were adding to the potential territories where lone shooters would impact history. Hernando Cortés, with a force of fewer than 600 men—supported by twenty horses and ten cannonlike arquebuses—conquered more than five million people by defeating the Aztecs of Central America in 1519. In 1533, another Spaniard, Francisco Pizarro, defeated the Incas in South America with an army of 200 and less than half a dozen firearms.
    Both Cortés and Pizarro depended on crossbows as their primary weapons, but the surprise and firepower of their few arquebuses directly influenced their victories over far larger forces. In less than two decades, with only a few hundred men and less than two dozen firearms, they had delivered Central and South America to the Spanish Empire. The culture, language, and religion of the entire region remains today mostly Spanish—a direct result of the introduction of firearms into the New World.
    North American explorers and settlers also used firearms to occupy land where native inhabitants, initially armed only with bows and arrows, vastly outnumbered them. French explorer Samuel de Champlain used matchlocks against the Iroquois in July 1609. This account appears in Champlain’s diary: “We took, each of us, an arquebus and went ashore. I saw the enemy come out of their barricade to the number of 200, in appearance strong and robust men. I marched on until Iwas within 30 yards of the