"Battalion guns and ranges of light artillery pieces?" Topic

OK, the might and reason rules don't show battalion guns as they are incorpirated into the brigade units.
But just what kind of guns were they, i'm guessing 3-4 pounders. Amd just what range did they have, I'm sure that a 3pdr gun would go out sevral houndred yards which would give a battalion a lot longer range then a musket.
But just how much damige would a 3pdr do against a enemy battalion of 500+ soldiers.

And how much more firepower would a battery of 6pdr horse guns give

I believe the battalion guns greatest service came in firing canister, which I want to say they could out to about 200 yards or more.

To my knowledge, there is no such thing called a horse battery in this period. They were all pulled by horse, but not in the Napoleonic sense. Battalion guns were most likely moved by hand once on the field of battle.

Almost all alrtillery was moved by hand on the battlefield in the 18th Century. Drivers were hired civilians, and often the owners of the teams. since the latter were a substantial investment and the reimbursement rates for lost animals were often absurdly low, the tendency of the drivers was to not expose them (or themselves) to combat situations. The only army in 18th Century Eurpoe to have a militarized artillery train was the Ottoman Empire.

You are right about the preponderance of battalion guns being 3 or 4-pdrs (depending on the system of the country), though often howitzers were used (light, larger bore, meaning better canister). The Russian 'sekretni gaubitze' (secret howitzer) was specificaly designed as a battalion acompanying piece.

I am reminded of the discussion of artillery pieces in WRG which, if I correctly recall, points out that a little cannon ball will cut its way through a line of men just as effectively as a bigger cannon ball (I`m para-phrasing) and that in any event, if there is a benefit from having a bigger ball (apart from greater effective range) the little cannon will compensate by being able to get more shots off in a given time. The max effective range for a very light piece in those rules is 1,000 paces which would be something under 1,000 yards.

This, of course, doesn`t apply to canister where the bigger tube will always inflict much more damage.

Looking at the smallest pieces,I think Swedes were supposed to have 2 pdr bn pieces and Croats 1pdrs.

The impression from other sources (none of which I can quote off hand) is that the bn pieces were mainly of morale enhancing effect.

Savory remarks that in the Allied army bn guns weren`t even included in the reported total of guns for the army.

I try to keep an open mind on it. Maybe the perceived lack of effectiveness came from the fact that the pieces were by definition being employed in small packets as opposed to the size of the pieces.

I just know that one of the table top differentiators from Napoleonics is having them and that they look good.

Prussian instructions on the eve of the 7YW advised for the battalion guns a max range of 12.000 paces. At this distance the guns were unlimbered and would continue advancing manhandled. At around 400 paces caninster was to be employed. Effective range of canister varied to some extend. First depending on the guns calibre, but also on the size/weight of the balls employed. Scharnhorst's "Handbook for officers", Hanover 1787 provides the below figures for the Hannoverian artillery, that employed 2 ranges for each calibre of canister.
A = calibre of the gun, B = ball weight in "Loth" (the German "ounce" scale), C = max effective range
A-12-pdr – B 15 to 18 – C 900 paces
A- 6-pdr – B 7 to 9 – C 750 (this being a heavy 6-pdr, not a battalion gun)
A- 3-pdr – B 3.5 to 4 – C 600
The second range employed balls with half the above weight
A- 12-pdr – C 600 paces
A- 6-pdr – C 400 paces
Link is:
link

If you proceed to page 231, you'll find a table that gives you an average hit performance on stationary enemy to your front. It's in German, but not so difficult to decypher.
The guns are assumed to employ roundshot at a rate of 3 rounds a minute over a period of 12 minutes (or each piece doing 36 rounds)
First column gives the distance, the four other the gun employed incl. the light 7-pdr howitzer in the 5th col. Each col seperates between Infantry and Cavalry being targeted. The figures indicate the number of files hit.
They are best perfomance figures, assumed the distance is rightly estimated and the fall of the shot can be observed. The figures dropped if not.
It should be noted, Scharnhorst takes the 7-pdr howitzer as near as devasting as the heavy 12-pdr cannon. Heavy class howitzers (8 inch upwards) are left out of account as they were regarded as insignificant in open field or moving combat, for being too crumbersome to load.

Are we intereted in maximum range, or maximum effective range?

It's all very well having a gun that will hurl a roundshot 1,200 yards or so, but if you can't see the point of first impact (becuase it's too far away to see with the naked eye or even with a perspective glass and a roundshot doesn't explode and give you a nice puff of smoke, then you have no means of telling whether your fire is taking effect, and given the lack of limbers, thus a limited ammuniiton supply, would you want to risk wasting your fire?

So, while acknowledging that different guns have different maximum ranges, depending on weight of shot, weight of powder charge, barrel length, etc., I suggest that very little firing took place at over say, 700-800 yards. Just a thought.

Hi

Crogge, I don't know I have sources at hand abut those guns, but as a shooter, I can say that in this case "pace" cannot mean "yard"…evenif the pace is, say 18", 12000 paces for roundball of this size is a fantasy.

It is counter intuitive, but part of the issue is round ball is very high drag and has poor sectional density. These things have a rainbow like trajectory, windage on the rounds means hitting anything smaller than a city becomes a matter of "God really hates you" sort of bad luck.

And the bigger and heavier the round, the better that it carries.

My mind has 12pounder napoleons having a max range in the real world of 1200yds. Plunging shrapnel at 300-400 and cannister at, effective, musket range, say 150.

As for 3 rounds a minute, I cnnnot think of anyone claiming this in a real fight.

So, grain of salt?

Rocky

@RockyRusso

I forwarded this raw material, to see what else figures others would come up with. I didn't have a thorough read of this book. just picked up the lines dealing with the above ranges. However, they do roughly match with the ranges given with other contemporary source. The above pace employed is the CalenbergIHanover pace – somewhat less then a yard or approx. 70 cm. My problem isn't so much the range, but more the hit ratio. No need to ever have to invent nuces, so to say. I recently did read in French source dealing with the battle of Bergen, April 1759, the Hannaoverians fired grape at astonishing ranges with murderous effect of which the French had no idea it would be possible. Thats what the relation says. Distances at this battle for the general cannonade were rather formidable if you have a look at the maps. Average was well upwards 2.000 paces for roundshot. Those canister brooms would certainly refer to the combats around Bergen town with the French being a lot closer to the Hannoverian batteries.

As to the rate of fire, his figures certainly assume rapid fire conditions. Elsewhere in his book he states these rates are usually employed for short periods once the ennemy has approached to rather short range of 400 paces and below. No idea why he employs them for long range fire.

accoring to Kriegspiel written by officers who fought in the Napoleonic wars and used the weapons.

12lber max 2000 paces (prussian paces which 2000 is stated to be a mile)

at this range on average one would use the bad effect table and with a battery firing get an average of 2 men of casualties per 2 minutes of time.

If i remember the max range of the gun was 2,500 paces just over 2000 yds.

6lber Max1,800 paces

at max range both guns table are the same with the 6lber just being shorter at closer range bands the 6lber is about 80 as effective.

at 500 paces or less for 12 good effect average of 44 casualties per 2 minuties
at 400 paces or less for 6lber good effect table average of 35 casualties per two minutes per battery

Lord Ghee

Horse artillery

Fredrick the great took a battery of light 12lber guns (they seem to be shorter) and mounted all the soldiers on horse and created the first horse artillery battery the syw ended and everyone took note.

In French service in 1791 the french created 2 batteries of 8lber horse artiller which fought in the battle of Neerlinden which over the next year casued 2 more to be created.

1805 with the creatation of the cavarly division some of thease go horse artillery so that by 1807 all French cavarly had scrounge up some artillery (6lber and 3lber austrin or prussian) to form Horse artillery for all cavarly divisons. this was most annoying to the Russians as it met that when the light cavarly met the French would have artillery and win the recon fight.

in the 1640's some cavarly would have galluper guns 1,2 or 3 lber

with most countries stanardizing on 3, 6 12

The French did not have battalion guns per say but used lot of 4lbers sort of inbetween the 3lber battalion guns and the 6 lber army guns (later in rev and Napoleonic times) divisional guns.

so at Cuneo in 1748

French 90 4lbers and 8 12

vs

Austrains 60 3lbr 36 6lber and 6 12lbers

about same number but used slightly differen.

Lord Ghee

Gunfreak and others,

There is good coverage of artillery; employment, effectiveness and development throughout the SYW period at Kronoskaf.com.

link

Covers also the demise of the artillerie l้g่re or volante at Kunersforf and again at Maxen.

Contibuting authors: Digby Smith and Christian Rogge.

cheers,
Robert
18thcenturysojourn.blogspot.com

BATTALION GUN TARGETS
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The purpose of a SYW battalion gun was to protect and/or assist its battalion.
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1. Versus a foe attacking the parent battalion.
2. Or to assist the parent battalion by shooting at the foe the parent battalion is attacking.
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It would be considered poor form in our group for a battalion gun to do anything else though something else might be extremely enticing. Like shooting at the flank of an enemy battalion or squadron of cavalry far away.
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Good Form
Prussian IR #10 fires muskets and its battalion guns at an Austrian Bn. attacking IR #10.
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Poor Form
Prussian IR #10 fires muskets at that same Austrian Bn. but its battalion guns fire at a foe not threatening IR#10. A juicy target elsewhere on the tabletop just because it offers a good shot – in the flank perhaps.
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There are perhaps historical exceptions but when you consider the amount of ground a battalion in line occupied and the almost insignificant nature of battalion gun effects,….
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Bn. guns might also be in front of its battalion though I think on the flanks was common. This would limit the gun to firing straight ahead.
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Also when one uses battalions of 12-24 miniatures, one can understandably be tempted to fire a battalion gun at a target far away. At this scale, one might want to simply incorporate the Bn. gun as part of musketry fire and not have a gun at all. But I like Bn. guns and if you like them, you should have them.
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Votre serviteur,
Bill

Bill,good points.I remember when we first started using WRG with the SYW amendments all of a sudden we had up to a dozen guns on the field inclu bn pieces instead of just 3 or 4 batty pieces.How to use them? For counter battery fire!Something that used to be statistically improbable became much more deadly because of the sheer number of dice now being rolled.One side would lose the artillery duel and then get pummelled- but the infantry and cavalry lines didn`t move because there was no sense going closer to danger until you knew where the artillery advantage lay.Only problem was , dodn`t make for good SYW type games. So, we limited bn gun ranges to just close range and banned bn guns engaging in counter-battery fire and all became well on the tabletop again.

I reading somewhere of Prussian Bn guns moving somewhat ahead of their parent unit ( but still to the left flank). They fired a bit and then the parent unit would catch up.
Then they roll forward a bit more…
Not entirely sure what would happen when the enemy Bn gets close. Mind you, just standing there upright whilst your unit exchanges shots with the enemy only 40 to 50 yards away must have been a very sobering experience.

They're definitely a bit of an odd thing to represent.

Towards the end of the SYW isn't Frederick supposed to have replaced a lot of the 6pdr Bn guns with 7pdr How?

Weren't the French mostly "swedish" 4pdr?

One thing most rules, and more importantly wargamers, ignore or forget is the issue of ammunition. As the guns are manhandled forward the amount of ammunition must have been very limited. What I have read indicates that the gun would have been used to provide additional fire support to the parent battalion and would have been used at quite close range (below 500m?). The number of rounds available would also suggest that the wargamer's normal "I'll shoot because I can regardless of the chance of a hit" would have been unlikely. It is worth noting that when Napoleon looked at reintroducing battalion artillery it was to compensate for the reduced moral of the more recently raised troops, not the more efficient use of the guns!

Also a note on effectiveness. The difference in calibre of a 3pdr and 12 pdr is about 4cm (approx. 7.5cm and 11.5cm). The extra mass of a round shot contributes momentum, which equates to additional range and penetration of solid obstacles. When firing round shot both would have the ability to cause casualties in a very narrow corridor, measured in cm not metres. Hitting troops would not cause too much reduction in momentum or deflection in path, so the number of casualties would depend on how many people the path crossed.

The accuracy of most artillery pieces was very good in terms of line (a few metres left or right of where it was aimed) and poor for length (maybe 10s or 100s of metres). At close range the path would have been below man-height, so length errors are not very important, and as battalion lines are quite long, line errors would also not be relevant. So if fired directly at a line, a round shot would be unlikely to cause no more than 5 casualties. Canister would have several dozen balls, of a size so that the total weight would equal or slightly exceed that of a round shot. Heavier balls would go further, but be fewer in number. As with musketry, most would miss the target completely anyway.

I think it is very difficult to asses the actual effectiveness of these guns, but it is worth noting that everyone gave them up soon after the start of the 19th century. Having said all that, they do look good on a table!

Yes indeed.
They look cool, so I'm having them!

The evolution of firepower is an intresting issue. Flintlocked armed armies took 100 years to learn how to get the most out of the weapon. Not surprisingly it has taken the US Army 50 years to get the most out of the M-16. Battalion guns first used by Gustavus Adolphus in the thirity years war. So not only do you have an equiment issue but an tatics issue. the Prussian used battalion guns but from accounts it seems that when the prussians attacked the guns got left behind (and seem to be a a rallying point fot the battalion).

the first problem with gun use is getting the max out of it range. For those of use who never serve and fought in a conflict the best example is golf where a 5ooyard hole you might see the pin. granted flat fields give great sightlines and during the reign of Fredrick the Great the quest for greater range in artillery is appearant.

Battalion guns where issued to the units becasue the leaders at the time felt that with out them their units would lose.

From a gaming view i take a capabilites approach.

2 battalion guns that open fire on an enemy battalion at 600 paces that is approaching at 60 paces a minute have eight minutes of fire or 32 shots ith the last 8 shots being canister. if each shot accounts for 1 man and one of his buddies carries him off on avarge then thats 10 percent of the unit that is gone (campain strength average of 600 man uints). Now this is a almost perfect defensive (the perfect situation is where the enemy just stands there and dies) view but the point is this capability should be shown, just as a morder machine gun is used differnt than a m 16.
I seems to me that skermishers and fast movement on the battlefield did away with the battalion guns. this transformation accuring in around 1812.
As far a gaming the capabilty of the 3lber to reach out to 1200 paces where the musket was good out to 200 at the level (400 max range) give the battalions that have them a greater zone of influnce. Considering that the enemies of the Prussian understood that thier infantry where going to get out shot (greater volume of fire) the battalion gun help to readdress this problem. e
example the Russians at Zorndorf with the prussian attacking over open ground the Russian infantry did not seem to be out classed.

thoughts
Lord Ghee