Early Artillery Piece

The early artillery piece of the Industrialization era embodies the first successful attempt to combine true explosive power with battlefield mobility — a heavy howitzer mounted on large-spoked wooden wheels with iron tires, drawn by teams of draft horses and firing explosive shells at steep angles that dropped them almost vertically onto targets hidden behind ridges and earthworks no direct-fire cannon could reach. Rifled barrels introduced during this period spun elongated shells for greater accuracy and range; the copper driving band engaged the rifling and sealed propellant gases. At the siege of Sebastopol and in the American Civil War, such howitzers dismantled brick fortifications and forced troops out of defilade positions at ranges that earlier artillery could never threaten. In the game it is the first true indirect-fire artillery piece, devastating against fortifications and entrenched infantry. Its wooden wheels and large crew make it slow to redeploy and vulnerable to cavalry overruns or counter-battery fire.