Petard

For other uses, see Petard (disambiguation).
A petard, from a seventeenth-century manuscript of military designs
A 19th-century British army petard (in center, projecting from the copper circle), mounted on a madrier, with braces

A petard is a small bomb used for blowing up gates and walls when breaching fortifications, originally invented in France in 1579.[1] A typical petard was a conical or rectangular metal device containing 5–6 pounds (2–3 kg) of gunpowder, with a slow match for a fuse.

  1. ^ Curtis, Thomas (1829). The London Encyclopaedia: Or Universal Dictionary Of Science, Art, Literature, And Practical Mechanics, Comprising A Popular View Of The Present State Of Knowledge, Volume 3. p. 15.