ABSTRACT
Data found in Western narrative sources and travel books on the large number of European craftsmen who worked in the state cannon-foundry at Istanbul were treated by earlier scholars as a rarity or often used to demonstrate, by exaggerating the presence of European craftsmen, the great dependence of the Ottomans on Western military technology. Though European cannon founders and artillerymen played an important role in creating the Ottoman artillery, their contribution should not be exaggerated. In the fifteenth century, the Ottomans, like their European contemporaries, possessed many giant guns. These monstrous guns made a very big impression on some Western scholars. The Ottomans were largely self-sufficient in all the basic war materials, and they were able to keep pace with the developments, and supply their war machine using mainly domestic sources and work force, at least till the end of the seventeenth century.
