Ian Hogg was an undoubted expert in artillery, finishing a 27 year career as Master Gunner at the Royal Military College of Science. He published this book the year he retired, launching a second career as a military historian. This is a breezy stroll through the history of gunnery. Everything from the 13th century up to the Crimean War gets about a dozen pages, and then Hogg launches into his love of breach mechanisms, recoil control, and some of the art of fire direction. He talks about trends towards light airborne guns and self-propelled cannons. The text is very much in the idiom of the British crank expounding on his collection of butterflies, or sailor's knots, or heavy siege howitzers.

But where this book shines is in the illustrations by John Batchelor, who was knighted for his contribution to technical drawing (no seriously). In oil and ink, Batchelor makes his machine subjects come to life in beautiful detail. The loading mechanism of the M51 is enough to make a grown man weep. Well, that might be an exageration, but I recommend this book as a general guide to gunnery pre-1970.