"ACW Artillery – Arc of Fire?" Topic

For miniature wargaming purposes, say regimental- or brigade-level simulations, where a base represents a battery or section of field artillery:

if game turns are intended to represent about 15 minutes to 30 minutes of time, what would be a fair arc of fire for a section or battery?

JRIII allows 45 degrees off of normal to facing. I'm not sure what F&F allow.

Is this fair? Just curious.

We had some threads going in the Napoleonic forum about the actual depth of batteries due to the limbers and artillery train behind the guns. The thread briefly touched on this subject.

I think in the heat of battle gunners likely tried to turn their guns to defend themselves but I don't think it is as common as games make it feel. Realigning a whole battery would take quite a bit of work. I think it is more likely a new battery is pulled from the reserve and the old one is traded out. That said, in JR2 I don't find the realigning of a single section to be that hard to believe, realigning a battery requires the whole battery to wheel vs turning a gun or two.

Look at the batteries laid out on Seminary Ridge in the movie Gettysburg, seems to match their deployment on the maps quite well. If that is accurate, wheeling a battery would be tough, lots of men have to move lots of guns that are spread a bit and they don't just turn the guns, some have to move forward while others backward because the center axis of the battery is what has to change.

I believe F&F also allows 45º.

Cheers,

The Bandit

I agree with Bandit. An artillery battery has dozens of horses and hundreds of men serving it (not just the crew). Turning all that equipment and flesh is quite a job.

A black powder battery is not a gun turret.

One thing to remember guns took up about 50' (15m) This is not the rim to rim deployment from Hollywood. This allows you to have the 45 degree arc without difficulty. Turn a battery to face a flank is another matter entirely.

F&F artillery gets a 30 degree arc of fire for a 30 minute turn, infantry gets 45. Which is why it has that lopsided fire template.

I have experience working on several full scale guns in ACW reenactments. They are heavy. There are usually 4-6 in a battery. Turning 4-6 guns so that one does not endanger another is not trivial.

If the turn length were just several minutes, I would probably not let artillery fire and I would only let them fire straight ahead.

However 15+ minutes is quite a long time. If you are really moving, you can attain a 1 round per minute rate of fire. I believe the National Park service ( yes they regulate such things. I don't know why) recommends 1 round/3minutes for safety reasons.

Given the time constraints, it is an easier task to face a battery in any direction. In 15 minutes, you could face your battery to the front 45 degrees and then fire several rounds with ease. You could probably limber up and then move top speed in that time too. you could probably move a fair distance unlimber and fire in a relatively short amount of time. In the few battles I fought where the gun had to be limbered, we never towed the equipment. Likely, that is how our contemporaries would have done it too if they were just repositioning.

So, if we are talking about a single battery, 45 degrees is fair…maybe even a little restrictive. You do have to contend with the limbers to the rear but a limited turn, you don't really have to move the limbers. If the player wants to actually change the artillery facing, that is a whole different story. Limbers have to be moved and repositioned and that takes more time.

John

PS. Sorry for the long post.

John,

Not to hijack the thread but can you ramble on a bit more about your experiences with this as I am quite interested.

For instance, depth of the battery with limber and such included? How far behind it would the caissons be?

When you describe turning 45º is that for ad-hoc or for a sustained change of direction?

Thoughts on large batteries (Russian batteries during the Napoleonic Wars were often 12 guns)?

Cheers,

The Bandit

For instance, depth of the battery with limber and such included? How far behind it would the caissons be?

When you describe turning 45º is that for ad-hoc or for a sustained change of direction?

Thoughts on large batteries (Russian batteries during the Napoleonic Wars were often 12 guns)?

For protection of the munitions (I believe this is the case during the ACW as well) the horses face the battlefield and are stationed behind the battery. There has to be enough room between the trail and the first horse for the gunner (#5), #3 and #4 man to operate safely. You don't want the limber so far away that the runner (#6 or #7 can't remember) has so far to travel. I think we stationed ours about 10 yards away. If horses were attached, they would be There might be 6-7 yards of separation between the trail and the first horse. The limber from front to back is not more than 3-4 yards long. So the runner is probably traveling from the back to the #2 man (that's me!) with a round at perhaps 12-15 yards total. Now, what we did not have is another ammo wagon. I am not sure how many there would be per battery but there would be at least one carrying extra rounds. That would add more depth…another 10 or more yards at least.

Turning would be for ad hoc. I would guess that any more than that, the battery commander would simply reposition the battery. The limbers would always prove to be more problematic to move than the gun. If horses are attached, they don't do complex maneuvering well. We did not have horses attached so it was a matter of doing a multi-point turn with the limber.

If what I've read is correct then the Russian gunners were not that good. Hence the large batteries. :-) They would probably have some trouble maneuvering I'd imagine but for game terms, I'd keep that equal to other batteries.

Games like Volley and bayonet or Grande Armee have a battery on a 1.5" X 3" deep base. That's about 8 guns on a 150 yard front and up to 300 yards deep. The depth is probably a lot deep. A 150 yard square is probably plenty of depth for these figures.

Hope that helps.

John

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Third try now, hopefully I got the formatting correct this time.

I cannot recall the source but I have read that a battery could deploy in an oblique formation. Thus to change facing each gun would simply have to pivot in place.

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From facing forward to facing right or left.

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The only direction that would be masked would be at 45 degrees to the left. This could be taken care of by moving two guns forward and two guns back.

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In all cases the basic footprint of the battery would remain the same.

OK, here's how large a battery is.

Federal batteries were almost always 6-gun batteries, further divided into 3 sections of 2 guns each. If a flank were severely threatened, normally only 1 section would be turned to face the new threat. Infantry were supposed to be stationed in support to deal with any enemy approach to the battery, and the flank defense would fall upon their shoulders, and not the battery's,

Each gun had a limber drawn by 6 horses. Horses were always used in preference to mules, because mules were unpredictable. The limber chest held an assortment of ammunition based upon the type of piece it was to serve. Limber chests were of a standard pattern, and used various slot arrangements to hold the various rounds. Additionally, the chest held porte-fires, slow match, and friction primers.

Each gun also had a caisson, again drawn by 6 horses and holding 2 limber chests plus a spare wheel.

Behind the caisson line were the battery wagon(s), which held spare parts, tools, etc, and a traveling forge for doing field repairs, shoeing horses, etc. Each of these was also pulled by a 6-horse team.

That gives you 20, 6-horse teams, not including the officer's horses, bugler and guidon, etc.

A couple of points: The space between guns had to be sufficient for the limber to pass through, as when the gun was limbered, the limbers were driven through the gaps between the guns, the guns rotated by had 180 degrees, and mounted and locked onto the rear of the limber. The entire battery would then advance in line to the new position, with the caissons and support vehicles following likewise. There was to be sufficient room between the guns so that the entire battery could turn by either flank when on the march so as to form a single column, or a column of sections, 2 guns wide.

Lastly, one thing that is rarely seen on artillery figures these days is this: Gunners also were issued with knapsacks, canteens and haversacks. These were to be carried by the men, as there wasn't sufficient room or weight capacity to carry them in the battery wagon(s). In French's artillery manual, he permits some of the crew to strap their knapsacks onto the limbers, so long as none were placed upon the pole, and access to the chest was not infringed.

There was a large white canvas paulin strapped onto the top of each limber chest. This was used to cover the gun in inclement weather when not on the march, and was also often used by the crew as a shelter, along with their dog tents.

Respects,

Here's a link to a wartime image of a deployed battery. Keep in mind that only half the unit is in the image, and that the guns are actually closer together than they normally would be in order to fit more into the field of view for the photographer.

link

I think the experience of John Acar says a lot – Civil War field pieces are heavy and hard to move

At the start of the war, teams and limbers were often only 30 to 50 metres behind the guns – it only took a little experience with counter-battery fire for gunners to keep the horses back 200 metres or so – Thomas Keneally writes about this in "Confederates", which while fiction is one of the best researched ACW books around

We play Fire and Fury and allow 45 degree arc, which I think is plenty generous

Hi all,

Read through my posts again and wanted to clear up some things due to typos and not being clear.

Assuming a long turn length, 45 degrees is fine. Limbering, unlimbering and moving short distances should not prove to be a large problem for shooting. I think fire and fury says you can't move artillery, unlimber and shoot in a 30 minute turn. Horse hockey! I think diminishing the effect of fire by half would have been better.

The picture that TKindred posted sort of backs up what I've been saying. One ting about deployment. Batteries were deployed anywhere between 5 yards and 15 yards apart. The distance is measured frm hub to hub. The picture shows a battery deployed close…probably about 5 yards.

Thank you, everybody. I appreciate your insights.

I'm concluding that 45 degrees is a good rule of thumb given the assumptions (a playable wargame, a battery of four to six guns, and 15 to 30 minutes per turn.) Noting, however, that local topography, and batteries arrrayed into longer lines, might restrict the effective arc of fire.

TKindred: Thank you especially for the link to "The Artillery Battery" article. I liked the Frederick the Great quote that "artillery lent dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl," and the observation that General Henry Hunt, a Federal artillery commander, positioned each of his more than 300 artillery pieces at Gettysburg so advantageously that every one was used during the battle.

As I have stated on other threads concenring the amount of rounds fired into the target area, the concept of angled fire can be heavily debated. The most effective area to fire (in order to reach the amount of chance to hit numbers listed for that battery) is directly down range in front of the battery. So I have not used angled fire in high troop ratio time ground or troop ratio systems.

The firing kill zone extends in a straight line forward of measured fron the edges of the battery. Batteries may have been able to rapidly deploy but the ability changed once they unlimbered then had the horses removed to a safe location plus ammo boxes and support equipment laid out. Not to mention in detail about troop movements in front of the battery from one angle with no friendlies in the area to one with some possibly in the zone. You have to aim around them.

Batteries of the 1800s once deployed did not constantly swing on an axis. The amount of time to deploy recalculate and reaim the guns to REACH THE EFFECTIVE FIRE level is considerable.

Allow a change of direction for the battery with a reduced fire hit capability. OR allow for angled fire with a reduced chance to hit.

Thank you, RudyNelson. Well taken.

If a battery is in line, deployed with normal spacing, would it be possible to aim the guns individually to hit a target 30 degrees or 45 degrees off their frontage, without wheeling the entire battery? I think this would have the effect that Ryan Toews describes above, and is what I visualize/imagine by the arc of fire in JR and FnF rules. How difficult would this be to accomplish in real life, compared to wheeling the battery frontage?

The problem isn't with physically moving the guns. the problem is when they fire. The shock wave from the guns to the side & rear of you would likely cause serious injuries by itself.

Then there is the wooden sabot and metal straps that hold the round to the powder charge. The reason artillery doesn't fire over the heads of troops is because when the round leaves the barrel, the sabot and metal tie-down straps separate from the round, and also go flying downrange where they can (and do) fall within about 100yards of the guns and can also cause injuries or death.

Then there is the ever-present risk of a bad fuze and have the round burst as it leaves the muzzle. That sort of thing can make for a VERY bad day for other crews nearby.

In cases where rounds needed to be sent to one flank or the other, the most common drill was to turn either a single gun, or a section of two guns to face the new target, not the entire battery. Otherwise, the entire battery would limber up and deploy to a new position.

Again, though, let me say that after Fredericksburg, when Hunt took over the command of the Artillery in the AOP, he stripped all the firearms from the gunners. The pistols, carbines, etc, and left them with only 2-4 pieces for guarding the camp and foraging for food. Officers and chiefs of pieces kept their revolvers, but that was mainly to shoot horses with.

Hunt rightly explained that the gunner's were to defend their pieces with the pieces, and it was up to the Infantry to provide sufficient troops to protect the flanks of the guns when in action. Unsupported artillery was an easy target for the enemy, as they could easily flank a battery and kill the animals and crew. Therefore, it was incumbent upon the officers in command of Brigades and Divisions to see that batteries firing in support were themselves adequately supported by infantry.

respects,

Very good comments T Kindred on Some aspects of the affects of gun blasts to nearby troops.

Yes… the "bang" is the shockwave caused by the expanding gas as it exits the muzzle and exceeds the speed of sound. Anyone who has crewed a gun with a wartime charge has felt the 'thump" that strikes a millisecond before you hear the blast and can suck the air our from your lungs if you aren't behind the muzzle.

Yes, Tom i agree. When I was in the ArmyI worked with both artillery and tank rounds. On more than one occasion during gunnery training when we fired the 155mm short barrel Sheridan main gun, we had to remove TCs and drivers then take them to the hospital because of concussions bursting ear drums and causing ear and nose bleeds. And that was with helmet protection!

The aspectsof similar direct fire injuries plus those cause by close range 'excess' shrapel could wound and reduce effectiveness of adjacent crews due to an overlap (angle fire) situation.

What if the 15 – 30 minute GT were an abstraction, but the game mechanics played more liek 5 – 10 minute Game Turns ? Still 45 degrees ? Just a thought.

OK, while we are here with so many informed folks chiming in, how often did they keep the limber,caisson, and wagons hitched up to the teams and how often did they "un hitch"the horses , remove them to a "safer "spot?? Was there a tactical doctrine or regulation, or was it usually a decision made by battery or Arty Btn commanders relating to local conditions??

Along the same lines, how many times in the ACW or Napoleonic wars did a battery in a battle deploy onto the field, unlimber, establish a firing position (place equipment and horse in the firing order) and then relimber and redeploy onto another part of the battlefield (not just limber and leave the field)?

While you may find isolated examples of that situation, (I think I read about Gallant John Pelham of Alabama doing it before he was killed in about 1862) the percentage of that action based on the total number of batteries employed would be low.

Most deployment of batteries in the middle of a battle tended to come from the artillery reserve park.

The smaller the battle with fewer guns and troops the more likely the redeployment action may have occurred. By the ACW i am not even sure how common the tactic of prolonging ( with ropes men pushing and horses pulling)occurred.

Doc,

The limbers and caissons only had their animals unhitched when in bivouac. When in action, or in reserve, the teams were always hitched and ready to move at a moment's notice. Dead or wounded animals would have been cut out of their traces, but aside from that, they were right there, behind the gun line, and listening for the bugle calls.

respects,

I tend to cite only sources (and get critized for it on some threads) which the average wargamer/researcher can find on their own.

In the back of the 'Artillery through the Ages' by Albert Manucy and is available at most east coast historic military sites are some good comments on gunnary in the ACW era. he goes through step by step as to the actions of the seven man crew during the firing of a single round. he also specifically lists the various types of crew tools and where they are to be placed by the gun for action. he cites the 1860s 'US Heavy Ordance manual'. So these comments are for heavier than average in the field guns.

He comments that it took ten horses and five drivers to handle the horses and caissons for each 24pdr gun. The rate of fire with limited overheating was only twelve rounds and hour (often an aspect that many rules designers do not take into account) with 20 rounds an hour capable but with drawbacks.

I thought that it was a point of interest that guns of the 1500s-1600s were expected to fire only 8 rounds a daywithout damage to the tube. By the 1700s and early 1800s this was up to 100 rounds a day for light guns (6pdr or less??) and 30 rounds for heavier guns (12pdr+)

TK Thanks, I am always a little puzzeled how animals could get used to the "sound and the fury" and not bolt like most herd animals do due to shock and noise. Guess lots of training and good control by the men help a lot, also explains,a little, why so many drivers were used ( 2 horses /1 driver) for arty and only one for a non combat supply wagon!

I posted this on another artillery firing thread.
DocDennis, let me clarify that when I talk about unlimbering it is not the process of unhitching horses. The horses do remain in the straps but unlimbering is a process for the entire battery and crews not just the horses. But I can see where confusion on terms can exist.

Too many times it seems that gun batteries zoom accross the battle-board and act more like tanks than artillery. You cannot ignore the time aspect as a game mechanic designer when designing a playable and realistic set of rules.

Doc the first paragraph in my opinion applies to arc of fire as you are redirecting fire to a target that may not be the closest to the firing gun.

For example a gun battery is deployed firing at infnatry. When do they stop and redeploy? It does take orders from above? How many levels from above? Time is needed from each level to send the orders to the single battery. (This is even time needed to redirect fire to a NEW target at the same position. The idea that battery commanders were aware enough of the entire battlefield situation to fire at anything other than the closest target is also a game mechanic fallacy.

Then the process of packing equipment lashing the horse to ALL the guns and wagons. Picking the right route to the new position as not to interfere with other formation movements. Then selecting the right firing position (and being in the correct place) considering clearance to set up the guns at the location and having good firing ability. Then you have to rre-deploy the equipment and place horses and support equipment in the proper position. You are now at the point to lay the guns on the new target. this is a lengthy process in itself.

Is the new assigned target even still there!

Rudy No confusion here on the unhitching teams and unlimbering guns question. I was just wondering if the horses were likely to be removed to "safer ground" often or hardly ever! I take it that the limbers, caisons, and wagons teams were rarely "unhitched" despite the danger of being a very deep target for counter battery fire, mostly to maintain quicker mobility!! Lots of good info on this thread as usual!

What usually happened when a battery was redeployed, at least in the ACW period, was that the order came from the Division commander, or even Corps commander. He saw the need to redeploy the battery, and sent an aide to give the orders, and then also to guide the battery to it's new location. The aide had to be familiar with the new location, and also the best route for it to get to that point.

Many times, it was nigh impossible to redeploy to a new location, or to get there quickly, because of the difficulties in maneuvering the battery and it's attendant vehicles, especially on congested roads, through fenced-in fields, small gates, and other bodies of troops maneuvering or passing through the same area(s).

Battery locations were scouted out as quickly as possible, with an eye to two things: The best field of fire, and the ease of retiring (avenue of retreat) in case things went bad.

Keep in mind that a single gun, limbered up takes up approximately 40 feet of space on the road. It takes a good amount of ground to turn that thing around. Indeed, if a battery is advancing in line, over open ground, it's going to need an area of about 100 yards width to deploy, and to turn around 180 degrees, if it needs to retire or redeploy.

In other words, it takes a lot of time, and especially space, to maneuver a battery.