Name: A History of Gun Salutes | Operation London Bridge | British Army
Uploaded: 2025-02-08T11:35:46.000Z
Duration: 1 min 52 s
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So the tradition of the gun salute goes back to the 16th century when the ships of the Royal Navy on entering a friendly port would fire off all their cannons to show that they had no loaded guns and therefore weren't a threat.

In response the friendly port would then fire their guns to show that they acknowledged the salute and also weren't a threat to the ship coming in.

Adverbs of degree

That's evolved over the last few hundred years and now it's just a more general mark of respect and we fire a different number of guns depending on who we're paying our respects to.

The most common salute you'll come across is the 21 gun salute which is reserved for members of the Royal Family and is the Royal Salute.

So across the country down in London you'll see King Street Royal Horse Artillery firing the salute in Hyde Park.

You'll also see the Honourable Artillery Company firing from the Tower of London.

You'll see ourselves 105 Regiment Royal Artillery firing Hillsborough Castle and Edinburgh Castle and lastly you'll see 104 Regiment Royal Artillery firing in Cardiff.

So we use the 105 millimetre L118 light gun.

It will look very familiar to you it's also the guns that we use on operations and on exercise and was most recently deployed in Afghanistan.

It's exactly the same gun that we use here and we'll use three of them for a gun salute.

So it's obviously a very sad day however it's also a huge honour for us to be able to play our part in it and kind of represent the entire nation as it shows its sadness of the day.

So all of our reservists are trained for an event such as this.

As Royal Artillery soldiers the guns that they're firing today are exactly the same as what they're trained on to use on exercise and on operations so actually the shift into doing it in ceremonial whilst the uniform changes the actual firing of the gun is exactly the same so they're very ready for today.

The Royal Regiment of Artillery is very proud to be playing our part in this sad day and hope to provide gun salutes worthy of the occasion.