Small Arms | Light Weapons | Ordnance | Grenades | Ammunition

Ordnance

Ordnance covers a wide variety of heavy weapons employed by the Canadian Army for use against personnel, vehicles, aircraft, emplacements and for other purposes. Self-propelled guns are covered in the section on Vehicles.

Howitzers were a type of artillery piece distinguished from other Guns in that they delivered munitions chiefly by indirect fire, firing at high angles over intervening obstacles. Howitzers typically had shorter barrels than other types of artillery. The "gun-howitzer", a field piece capable of firing both directly and indirectly, became common during the Second World War.

The term quick-firing was applied to a gun that fired fixed ammunition, and was also equipped with a recoil mechanism.

With the introduction of the tank in the First World War came the first anti-tank weapons. The threat to Canadian infantry by German armour was very low, and infantry weapons were not developed to combat enemy tanks until the Second World War. By the second half of the century, Light Anti-Tank Weapons, Anti-Tank Guns, Improvised Weapons, Self-Propelled Guns, and Self-Propelled Missile Systems such as TUA (TOW Under Armour) or ADATS had all become highly sophisticated in design.