For much of artillery's history during the Middle Ages and the Early modern period the artillery pieces on land were moved with the assistance of horse teams. During the more recent Modern era and in the Post-Modern period the artillery piece crew has used wheeled or tracked vehicles as a mode of transportation. Artillery used by naval forces has changed significantly also, with missiles replacing guns in surface combat.

The process of firing the artillery piece is called gunnery. The act of discharging the projectile from the weapon is called servicing the gun by the gun crew to produce artillery fire, and can be either direct artillery fire, or indirect artillery fire. The manner in which artillery units or formations are used is called artillery support, and may at different periods in history refer to weapons designed to be fired from ground, naval and even air weapons platform. Although the term also describes soldiers and sailors with the primary function of using artillery weapons, the individuals who operate them are called gunners irrespective of the rank, the gunner being the lowest rank in Artillery Arm. The weapons gunners use, are collectively referred to as ordnance, and individually as an artillery piece, while its projectiles are referred to as munitions, in both cases regardless of the specific type in use.

The term is also applied to a combat arm of most military services when used organizationally to describe units and formations of the national armed forces that operate the weapons. The gunners and their ordnance are usually grouped for combat into gun crews, with several such crews combined into a unit of artillery commonly referred to as a battery. Batteries are roughly equivalent to a company in the infantry, and are combined into larger military organizations for administrative and operational purpose.

During military operations the purpose of Artillery is to support the other Arms in combat through delivery of its munitions onto the target, usually at the request of troops in combat contact or gunners may be expected to come into direct combat contact with the enemy to by delivering either High Explosive munitions to inflict casualties on the enemy from casing fragments and other debris, blast, and burn injuries, or by demolition of enemy positions and piercing of enemy armour. The artillery fire may be directed by an Artillery observer.

Military doctrine has played a significant influence on the core engineering design considerations of Artillery ordnance through its history, in seeking to achieve a balance between delivered volume of fire with ordnance mobility. However, during the modern period the consideration of protecting the gunners also arose due to the late-19th century introduction of the new generation of infantry weapons using conoidal bullet, better known as the Minié ball, with a range almost as long as that of field artillery. The gunners' increasing proximity to, and participation in direct combat against other combat Arms and attacks by the aircraft made it the introduction of substantial amounts of armour necessary , leading to the development of the tank, and the evolution of armoured warfare. These influences have guided the development of artillery ordnance, systems, organisations and operations until the present, with artillery systems capable of providing support at ranges from as little as 100m to the intercontinental ranges of ballistic missiles. The only combat in which artillery is unable to take part in is the close quarters combat.