Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

employment of ordnance, the men working the guns and the transport drivers were still civilians. The actual commander of the artillery was indeed, both in Germany and in England, usually a soldier, and Lennart Torstensson, the commander of Gustavus' artillery, became a brilliant and successful general. But the transport and the drivers were still hired, and even the gunners were chiefly concerned for the safety of their pieces, the latter being often the property, not of the king waging war, but of some "master gunner" whose services he had secured, and the latter's apprentices were usually in entire charge of the material. These civilian "artists," as they were termed, owed no more duty to the prince than any other employes, and even Gustavus, it would appear, made no great improvement in the matter of the reorganization of artillery trains. Soldiers as drivers do not appear until 150 years later, and in the meanwhile companies of "firelocks" and "fusiliers" (q.v.) came into existence, as much to prevent the gunners and drivers from running away as to protect them from the enemy. A further cause of difficulties, in England at any rate, was the age of the "gunners." In the reign of Elizabeth, some of the Tower gunners were over ninety years of age. Complaints as to the inefficiency of these men are frequent in the years preceding the English Civil War. Gustavus, however, has the merit of being the first to make the broad classification of artillery, as mobile or non-mobile, which has since been almost universally in force. In his time the 12-pounder was the heaviest gun classed as mobile, and the "feildpeece" _par excellence_ was the 9-pounder or _demi-culverin_. After the death of Gustavus at Lutzen (1632), his principles came universally into practice, and amongst them were those of the employment of field artillery.