Ammunition in the context of "Royal Arsenal"

Arsenic is a chemical element; it has symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is notoriously toxic. It occurs naturally in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. It has various allotropes, but only the grey form, which has a metallic appearance, is important to industry.

The primary use of arsenic is in alloys of lead (for example, in car batteries and ammunition). Arsenic is also a common n-type dopant in semiconductor electronic devices, and a component of the III–V compound semiconductor gallium arsenide. Arsenic and its compounds, especially the trioxide, are used in the production of pesticides, treated wood products, herbicides, and insecticides. These applications are declining with the increasing recognition of the persistent toxicity of arsenic and its compounds.

Artillery consists of ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and led to heavy, fairly immobile siege engines. As technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery cannons were developed for battlefield use. This development continues today; modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility generally providing the largest share of an army's total firepower.

Originally, the word "artillery" referred to any group of soldiers primarily armed with some form of manufactured weapon or armour. Since the introduction of gunpowder and cannon, "artillery" has largely meant cannon, and in contemporary usage, usually refers to shell-firing guns, howitzers, and mortars (collectively called barrel artillery, cannon artillery or gun artillery) and rocket artillery. In common speech, the word "artillery" is often used to refer to individual devices, along with their accessories and fittings, although these assemblages are more properly called "equipment". However, there is no generally recognized generic term for a gun, howitzer, mortar, and so forth: the United States uses "artillery piece", but most English-speaking armies use "gun" and "mortar". The projectiles fired are typically either "shot" (if solid) or "shell" (if not solid). Historically, variants of solid shot including canister, chain shot and grapeshot were also used. "Shell" is a widely used generic term for a projectile, which is a component of munitions.

An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly regarded as synonyms, although subtle differences in usage exist.

A sub-armory is a place of temporary storage or carrying of weapons and ammunition, such as any temporary post or patrol vehicle that is only operational in certain times of the day.

A spitzer bullet (from German Spitzgeschoss 'point shot') is a munitions term, primarily regarding fully-powered and intermediate small-arms ammunition, describing bullets featuring an aerodynamically pointed nose shape, called a spire point, sometimes combined with a tapered base, called a boat tail (then a spitzer boat-tail bullet), in order to reduce drag and obtain a lower drag coefficient, resulting in an aerodynamically superior torpedo shaped projectile, which decelerates less rapidly and has improved external ballistic behaviour, at the expense of some potential weight and kinetic energy relative to blunter ogive/round/flat-nose flat-base projectiles.

The type was developed for military purposes in the late 19th and early 20th century and was a major design improvement compared to earlier rounder or flatter-tipped bullets in terms of range and accuracy. Its introduction, along with long-range volley sights for service rifles, changed military doctrines. Area targets at ranges up to 1,420–2,606 m (1,550–2,850 yd) could be subject to rifle fire. With improvements in machine guns at the turn of the 20th century, the addition of clinometers meant that fixed machine gun squads could deliver plunging fire or indirect fire at more than 3,000 m (3,280 yd). The indirect firing method exploits the maximal effective range, that is defined by the maximum range of a small-arms projectile while still maintaining the minimum kinetic energy required to put unprotected personnel out of action, which is generally believed to be 15 kilogram-meters (147 J / 108 ft⋅lbf).

A bullet is a kinetic projectile, a component of firearm ammunition that is shot from a gun barrel. They are made of a variety of materials, such as copper, lead, steel, polymer, rubber and even wax; and are made in various shapes and constructions (depending on the intended applications), including specialized functions such as hunting, target shooting, training, and combat. Bullets are often tapered, making them more aerodynamic. Bullet size is expressed by weight and diameter (referred to as "caliber") in both imperial and metric measurement systems. Bullets do not normally contain explosives but strike or damage the intended target by transferring kinetic energy upon impact and penetration.

The chamber of a firearm is the cavity at the back end of a breechloading weapon's barrel or cylinder, where the ammunition is inserted before being fired. The rear opening of the chamber is the breech, and is sealed by the breechblock or the bolt.

Stopping power is the supposed ability of a weapon — typically a ranged weapon such as a firearm — to cause a target (human or animal) to be incapacitated or immobilized. Stopping power contrasts with lethality in that it pertains only to a weapon's ability to make the target cease action, regardless of whether or not death ultimately occurs. Which ammunition cartridges have the greatest stopping power is a much-debated topic.

Stopping power is related to the physical properties and terminal behavior of the projectile (bullet, shot, or slug), the biology of the target, and the wound location, but the issue is complicated and not easily studied. Although higher-caliber ammunitions usually have greater muzzle energy and momentum and thus traditionally been widely associated with higher stopping power, the physics involved are multifactorial, with caliber, muzzle velocity, bullet mass, bullet shape and bullet material all contributing to the ballistics.

Canister shot is a kind of anti-personnel artillery ammunition. It has been used since the advent of gunpowder-firing artillery in Western armies, and saw particularly frequent use on land and at sea in the various wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Canister is still used today in modern artillery.