The guns that were intended to arm Fort Pike when it was first built would have likely been smoothbore 24-pounder guns on garrison carriages...these were essentially naval guns, which were pretty dinky compared to those that would come thereafter. While Fort Pike was more than fully armed during operational history, few other American starforts ever were! Once the lengthy and expensive process of starfort construction was finally complete, Congress generally balked at what they thought of as the additional, huge expenditure necessary to arm it...plus the guns these forts had been designed to mount were almost always outdated by the time a fort was ready for them.