"Tactical differences between ACW & Napoleonic warfare" Topic

Opps Bottom Dollar, I think you are wrong here.

Not to forget that both Yank and Reb were in love with 12 pd Napoleons, NOT TO BE FOUND DURING THE NAPOLEONIC WARS, which were spraying lethal doses of canister well beyond the range of a level aimed rifle-musket

I am pretty sure that the prevailing view is that the minie ball rifled musket far outranged the big or small canister and this was one of the difference makers in the change of tactics that needed to be discovered between Napoleonic and ACW times. I'll get back to you later in more detail- for now just thing about the effectiveness of shooting small .50 shot from a cannon versus shooting the same size out of a rifled musket. 92 round spread out over a wide area versus 92 rounds of aimed fire…

billsfan,
The 12pd Nap was lethal/effective w/ canister beyond 200 or 250 yards. I've read numbers out to 350-400. A carefull historical study of Nap battery deployment and use sort of bears it out also.

Bottom Dollar wrote:
"But closed-order tactics during the ACW were the same as during the Napoleonic Wars? I don't think so.

BD:
Okay. How were they different? The regulations, drill, and military treatises all laid out Napoleonic close-order operations and tactics. When deploying to line, when moving, when attacking when defending, the same methods were used. If you look at the deployment of the Rebels on the second day of Gettysburg, or Pickett's Charge, then the deployment of a corps of Napoleonic British, or even, French divisions, you will see the same layout, though the French will often have their lines of battalions in column rather than lines like the British.

Developing an attack or setting up a defensive position appears to be the same for both periods. If anything is different, the American infantry lines had 'loose files' compared to the British, but that had been the practice since the American Revolution.

I'll be glad to provide some detailed examples, depending on what you are thinking of.

BD wrote:

Not to forget that both Yank and Reb were in love with 12 pd Napoleons, NOT TO BE FOUND DURING THE NAPOLEONIC WARS, which were spraying lethal doses of canister well beyond the range of a level aimed rifle-musket.

12 lbers weren't used during the Napoleonic wars? The Napoleons during the ACW were much lighter than the 12 lbers of Napoleon's time…more mobile. But the the canister they fired wasn't any more lethal or different than the canister fired by French 12 lbers. The cansiter range for the French 12 lber during the Napoleonic wars was 600 yards, 850 if you count grape/case shot. Even the Russians were giving those ranges. Whether that was 'effective range' is another question altogether. However you read it, it wasn't any different from the ACW gun, from my understanding.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

Interesting thread. A couple comments:
1. Mcladdie wrote that "It wasn't clear whether the rifle was *more* deadly" based on casualty rates from several battles, which were consistent across the horse and musket era. Casualty rates aren't an indicator of the destructiveness of the hardware, but of the will of the army to absorb casualties. His conclusion isn't supported by the evidence he provided.
2. One thing I've noticed is how much more often the destructiveness of the minie ball is mentioned compared to the musket ball, especially by surgeons. Since the minie ball is heavier for the same diameter bore (being basically a cylinder vice a globe), it makes sense that it would be more destructive. This is just hearsay, I haven't got any statistical evidence to prove it.
3. The most significant advantage to a breechloading weapon was that the soldiers no longer had to stand up to reload. That's why they stood up in two lines blazing away at each other in the first place. It's no coincidence that uniforms went to earth tones in the years after armies adopted breechloaders, camouflage is useless when you're standing there waving around a ramrod.
4. I think the fact that artillery ranges hadn't changed while rifle ranges had has been alluded to. This did have a significant effect on the aggressive use of artillery, as did the increase in the use of exploding shells and entrenchments. Rifled cannon helped, but not until the invention of the telephone and radio (allowing reliable indirect fire) did artillery regain its edge.

Murvihill wrote:
Mcladdie wrote that "It wasn't clear whether the rifle was *more* deadly" based on casualty rates from several battles, which were consistent across the horse and musket era. Casualty rates aren't an indicator of the destructiveness of the hardware, but of the will of the army to absorb casualties. His conclusion isn't supported by the evidence he provided.

I wrote the first sentence, but I didn't write the italized sentence. And no, the italized statement isn't supported by the evidence I provided.

My view is that such things aren't clear at all. For instance, the author of an 1863 artilce in the Army and Navy Journal noting that 499 rifle shots out of 500 did not cause a casualty, concluded that if this analysis was even an "approximate truth",

it certaily robs war of some of its presumed fatality. As I have refore remarked the escape of so large a majority of the men amid such storms sweeping and yelling around their ears, has always been the greatest mystery.

This is 1 in 500 shots is very close to the same conclusions reached by the Quartermaster General of the British Army in 1812, the numbers arrived at by the same method: The number of shots fired in a battle compared to the casualties caused. However, in the same year as the article, 1863, another article in Harper's described the new reality of war, the deadly results of the rifled musket. And of course, from just Scharnhorst's trials of smoothbores and rifles, a rifled musket like the Springfield, as quick to load as a smoothbor musket, should do twice the damage as the Napoleonic smoothbore.

The contemporary military men of the time weren't certain about the real impact of the new rifled musket.

Bill H.

McLaddie,

That British Quartermasters figures actually don't add up. He decides, for example, that all troops emptied their ammunition pouches, even those not engaged. In fact my best estimate is that the British at Vittoria expended 116 musket rounds per hit (including hits from other weapons): link

This is a relatively low figure. In the Crimea hit rates at Inkermann and Balaklava were around 1 in 16 according to Strachan.

However, neither side in the ACW shoots well. They typically expend 200 rounds per hit in battle. The ACW firefight was much less deadly than a European firefight of the time.

For wargamers the real difference is that you have to spend inordinate hours sifting through and selecting figures and flags for the different Napoleonic armies… with American civil war you just buy loads of figures and paint them up for either side…

You can model a balloon with it's crew too :o)

67thtigers:

They might not, depending on the numbers he had. My point is that even for the combatants, the 'new effectiveness' of the Rifled Musket was so obvious that contemporaries 'learned' new tactics. You don't see 'new' tactics for the most part, and you certainly don't see clear learning.

Even the advent of 'Trench Warfare' in the ACW is more a product of the first photographs of the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg, as well as Vicksburg, looking like WWI photos. However, I suspect if we had photos of the trenches and parallels around Cuidad Rodrigo we woul hail that as the advent of Modern trench warfare.

It is interesting that the year-long siege around Sevastapol isn't hailed as the advent of Trench Warfare, but Richmond is--and there are early photos of that conflict too.

Bill H.

McLaddie wrote:
"12 lbers weren't used during the Napoleonic wars?"

12pd Napoleons were not used during the Napoleonic Wars.

My understanding was that the French didn't fire case with any success during the Napoleonic Wars, only the British did it well.

The differences between Napoleonic and ACW pre-battle deployments were almost like night and day… or concealed and unconcealed.

And yep, both Reb and Yank loved their 12pd Napoleons.

In the ACW.

First: The 12lb Napoleon of the ACW refers to a 12lb muzzle loader acquired/developed by Napoleon III for his armies. IIRC – it was more like an howitzer than a cannon, which is why it was so lightweight, but I do not have my books handy. Also, one must remember that initially both armies had a lot of 6lb guns and got the 12s ASAP. There is a recorded incident where Gen Lee (in a letter to Pres Davis) lamented the preponderance of 6lb guns and the lack of 12lb guns in the ANV.

Second: There were virtually no differences in the ethnic/national characteristics of the ACW armies. They both used Hardee's Light Infantry tactics and the officer corps of both armies were filled with Westpointers, which means they all virtually thought alike.

Third: The geography in the ACW offered more undeveloped land and a bigger area. In the west, water was not easy to find, the early campaigns in Kentucky are a great example of two armies chasing each other around while slowly dying of thist. Get a bit further west and food/water are practically non-existent.

Fourth: Railroads were used by both sides to move troops across theaters and quickly. Railroads were also used to move supplies.

Fifth: The cavalry/infantry firearms of the ACW were not standard until late in the war. Some units at Gettysburg still had smoothbore muskets. The europeans were only too happy to clear their arsenals of everything old. That meant the regiments of each brigade were not all capable of uniform firepower at the same ranges. The ACW saw the use of everything from flintlock conversions to centerfire metallics, even Winchester provided Henrys in a lever action
repeater that fired a .44 rimfire cartridge.

Sixth: The medical corps was much improved, and post wound care made some fantastic improvements.

Seventh: The use of the electric telegraph expedited communication in the chain of command.

Eigth: After the initial phases of the war, when the troops stopped for the day the troops "dug-in." They prepared defensive positions as best they could ASAP. In the ACW, blazing away at one another in an open field at 30 yards was considered suicidal (the distance from home to first). Linear obstacles became desirable as defensive positions.

Just some thoughts.

BD:
The French did fire case. Uxbridge lost a leg at Waterloo because of a case round.

And the point to my question [attempted irony, sorry]about 12lbers was that the basic ammo at close range, canister and case/grape was no different in form or function, weight or range between the Napoleonic and ACW. The ACW Napoleon 12 lber Howitzer was far more mobile and versatile because of the shell they could fire.

Bill H.

Just an additional thought…

Ninth: Though both sides during the ACW shared a land border, it still took four intensive years of regular operations to bring the war to a close. When people fight for national survival, entrenchments & fortifications seem to just spring up on the battlefields of history.

DJCoaltrain:

I agree with most of your points. The RR and telegraph did change strategic warfare where it was used. [More the Union than the Confederates]

I am not sure about this statement:

Eigth: After the initial phases of the war, when the troops stopped for the day the troops "dug-in." They prepared defensive positions as best they could ASAP. In the ACW, blazing away at one another in an open field at 30 yards was considered suicidal (the distance from home to first). Linear obstacles became desirable as defensive positions.

What time period constitutes "the initial stages" Who are you talking about when you say troops dug in at the end of a day. You don't see that in 1863, and I can't think of an instance where that was SOP or common practice in '64 or '65.

And when do ACW troops and officers come to The Realization that "blazing away at one another in an open field at 30 yards was considered suicidal?" Who says that, and where do you see that effecting tactics?

Bill H.

McLaddie, I'd be interested in seeing your sources on 12lb canister effective out to 600 yards and case/grape out to 850 during the Napoleonic Wars. But doesn't case=canister or no ? Isn't grape or shell something different?

The Napoleon 12pd Howitzer ? Never heard of it. Source?

The 12der Napoleon was a so called Gun-Howitzer

La Canon-obusier de 12 (taken into US service as the M1857 Light Gun-Howitzer) is indeed a heavy 12 pdr howitzer. It used a considerably reduced charge compared to existing 12 pdrs to get the weight down.

The canister round used thus was much less effective than that used in the "proper" 12 pdr. The gun had traded some firepower for mobility.

The US issued the following natures of munition for the M1857:

Solid
Spherical Case (78 musket balls and a bursting charge, aka "Shrapnel")
Shell (just a bursting charge, for special purposes only)
Grape (9 balls)
Canister (27 balls, this equates to "heavy canister", no light canister was ever issued)

The US (and CS) infantry had developed an unhealthy obsession with canister and grape, using it far beyond effective range. However, it required a lot less skill to use….

McLaddie

It has been recorded that by the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, most troops would throw up "light" works if they thought they were going to be there for a while or if action was likely soon! Digging in is another matter and not quite so common for sure. Light works usually consisted of fence rails, small to medium tree limbs and some rocks, and some dirt if there was time! In the West the terrain made most of the stuff needed for light works very easy to utilize!

It is only one example I admit, but nearly the entire front of the Army of the Cumberland by the 2nd day at Chickamaugua had light works, and they had been manuvering and engaged pretty hard the day before! Trenches and serious earthworks are a different matter altogether, and you are right on to doubt that!!

The instructions for firing the model 1857 12 pounder were glued to the inside of the limber chest cover:

"Use SHOT at masses of troops and to batter, from 600 up to 2,000 yards. Use SHELL for firing buildings, at troops posted in woods, and to produce a moral rather than a physical effect; greatest effective range 1,500 yards. Use SPHERICAL CASE SHOT at masses of troops, at not less then 500 yards; generally up to 1,500 yards. CANISTER is not effective at 600 yards; it should not be used beyond 500 yards, and but very seldom and over the most favorable ground at that distance; at short ranges, (less then 200 yards) in emergency, use double canister, with single charge. Do not employ RICOCHET at less distance than 1,000 to 1,100 yards"

I'm sure there was some deviation from tactical doctrine, but I would imagine this was followed more often then not. Most accounts give canister being employed at around 350 yards.

The greater use of Spherical Case and Shell at range instead of round shot used in Napoleons time made the artillery more deadly against targets in the open.

Kim

An interesting quote from link

"Explosive projectiles were not new in the Civil War. The armies at Austerlitz used them, but their use was confined to howitzers; cannons fired solid shot. At Gettysburg, however, solid shot was seldom used, and because every piece could fire explosive rounds, specialized howitzers to fire them all but disappeared: the ratio of howitzers to cannon at Austerlitz was 1:3; at Gettysburg, it was 1:15. While it might be thought that the switch from solid shot to shell represented a major improvement in firepower, the reality was less impressive. The main problem with explosive rounds was the need to get the round to explode at the right distance, which required not only accurate ranging technology but also accurate fuses, and Civil War artillery had neither. The result was often impressive looking bombardments that did surprisingly little actual damage to the target. Solid shot, on the other hand, if well-fired, could skim along the ground like a rock skipping across a pond, and a ball fired in such a manner had much less need for accurate ranging, though it was of course less damaging that an accurately placed shell blast."

And a final interesting conclusion below….which in fact I buy into. Note that Simmon's games do not include the chrome that we miniatures players are often looking for (which may well be pointless in a grand tactical battle anyway!!!) but maybe more desireable to reflect in smaller actions. It maybe a good answer to this question is Grand TActically (outside of the trench warfare that was more frequent later in the civil war post Gettysburg) there is no real difference in the fighting methods. Just more artillery in this comparison.

Quote:
"All in all, too much difference should not be made between the 12-pounder smooth-bores and 3-inch rifles at Gettysburg. The tactical uses of the pieces were very similar, and while differences existed, for the most part where one could be used the other could be used as well. From a game design perspective, what is significant is the general increase in artillery hitting power. There were not only more guns at Gettysburg (as shown by the "Total pieces" line in the table), they were bigger guns, resulting in a heavier ‘broadside', so to speak, if you multiply the number of guns by the weight of their ammunition, as shown in the "Throw weight" line. Finally, if you adjust for the increased range of the heavier guns and the increased accuracy of the rifles, it could be reasonably estimated that the artillery at Gettysburg was about five times as powerful as that of Austerlitz. "

"All in all, too much difference should not be made between the 12-pounder smooth-bores and 3-inch rifles at Gettysburg. The tactical uses of the pieces were very similar, and while differences existed, for the most part where one could be used the other could be used as well."

That's about as a preposterous and uninformed statement issued by a wargame designer as I've ever heard if you ask me. But play it your way.

Call it a light-howitzer, call it a cannon-howitzer, call it the hybrid apogee of smoothbore artillery technology or just call it a 12pd Napoleon. Napoleon the First didn't have them and after the first few encounters of a very long war every field officer with the authority to do so was incorporating them into their artillery formations.

And yes, their canister/case rounds were particularly effective and lethal beyond level-aimed RM range.

BD wrote:
McLaddie, I'd be interested in seeing your sources on 12lb canister effective out to 600 yards and case/grape out to 850 during the Napoleonic Wars. But doesn't case=canister or no ? Isn't grape or shell something different?

The Napoleon 12pd Howitzer ? Never heard of it. Source?

BD:
Well, two things, I said range and specifically noted that whether that 600 yards was 'effective range' or not. I was also talking about the range of the Napoleonic 12lber, not the AWC gun. Kim found the reference for the Union practices I was thinking of in the comparison. 67thtigers has already has provided the differences between case and canister: same delivery system, different sized balls.

The six hundred yard range for canister can be found any number of places, but Rothenberg notes it in his book The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon page 78. I think some of the confusion over case/grape shot is that Shrapnel's invention was called 'Spherical Case' and grape shot was also called case and some writers make no distinction between canister and case/grape. Rothenburg says that the French used canister out to 600 yards because they didn't have the British 'Spherical Case' which doesn't make much sense to me as Shrapnel could be used out further and the French [and most nations didn't know about the British secret weapon.]

The point being that when looking at the ability of Napoleonic 12 lbers and ACW 12 lbers to use canister, there wasn't much if any difference.

Bill H.

McLaddie wrote: "The point being that when looking at the ability of Napoleonic 12 lbers and ACW 12 lbers to use canister, there wasn't much if any difference."

How can you be so sure? What was the canister round compostion of Canon de 12 Gribeauval ? The 12 pound Napoleon canister round contained 27 iron balls each nearly 1 1/2 inches in diameter and nearly 1/2 a pound in weight.

Moreover, the few Napoleonic War sources I've seen point to the fact that canister was used at under 200 yards, preferrably 120.

Senarmont at Friedland, 1807

‘The artillery arrived at 300 yards from the enemy, there fired one or two rounds, after which the guns, up to the end of the action, were kept constantly at 200 yards and at 120 yards and then fired nothing but case, till the enemy had effected his retreat, after an immense loss of men. Next day the pieces remained in position on the brink of the ravine, on our left, and near the town.'

‘In the précis of the operations of his corps, Victor, speaking of Senarmont's artillery at Friedland, disposed in two grand batteries, says, ‘The general of artillery perceiving the terrible effect of his fire and wishing to decide the enemy's retreat, gave the order to fire no more on the enemy's guns, equal in number to ours, and of which some took us obliquely. He advanced to within 120 yards of the Russian front, the two batteries, which had approached each other till they only formed one battery, and from that moment on they only fired case.'

link

Whether canister effectivity was the same for both would depend on the composition of the canister round, size and weight of individual projectiles, etc… I've seen nothing you've presented which convincingly says their effective canister ranges were necessarily equal and I've seen more evidence to suggest that they weren't. Many ACW sources/writers point to 350 for effective 12pd Nap range, such as B. Nosworthy. You're right, Rothenburg's 600 yards doesn't make sense. Either way, my point was that the ACW 12 pd. Napoleon had a greater anti-personnel capability than the 12 lbers from the Napoleonic Era, its spherical case capability alone made it so, and its canister range may very well have been greater in practice than the Canon de 12 Gribeauval. I saw somewhere that the French carried both light and heavy canister rounds for their 12 lbers Unfortunately, there was no compositional information about weight, size of those canister components. Given the KNOWN weighty dimensions of 12pd Napoleon canister projectiles, it is fairly easy to see how so many during the ACW simply called it "Grape". In fact, the Feds discontinued their grape for 12pd Napoleons cause its canister was so effective.

Jim

Well, two things, I said range and specifically noted that whether that 600 yards was 'effective range' or not. I was also talking about the range of the Napoleonic 12lber, not the AWC gun.

Bill

The fact that Union doctrine for the employment of canister specifies NOT to use canister at 600 yards would seem to indicate that in fact 600 yards was NOT effective range, though clearly there may have been a tendency to use it at that range since it is specifically stated not to do so.

Perhaps a thorough study of the battles of the Napoleonic wars led them to this conclusion if there was no evidence of fire being effective when employed at this range. I have no evidence to support this, but there must have been a reason to direct artillery crews not to use canister at 600 yards.

That's about as a preposterous and uninformed statement issued by a wargame designer as I've ever heard if you ask me. But play it your way.

Bottom Dollar

Not sure I agree with this being preposterous, though it certainly should be clarified. Rifle ordinance was certainly more accurate at longer ranges then smoothbore pieces, and could easily out range them with effective fire. At close range when employing canister the smoothbores with their 50% larger bore size where much more deadly and dispersed their projectiles in a larger spread.

That said, there is no evidence (except for the larger 20 lb Rifles) that batteries of artillery had different roles on the battlefield based upon whether they where smoothbore or rifles. The Confederates utilized lots of batteries organized with a mix of both and employed them on the battlefield to perform the same function at the same time.

The federal guns were usually formed into batteries of the same type, but both rifles and smoothbores were deployed for the same tactical functions. At Gettysburg, accounts of the third day show that the Union employed both rifles and smoothbores for both the long range artillery bombardment and at close range as the infantry closed with no distinction to utilize one type of gun over the other for a specific role.

I don't believe the statement implied the two types of ordinance performed the same, only that they where in fact deployed on the battlefield based upon the need for guns, regardless of type.

Kim

Kim, give a good close look at Federal tactical artillery deployment during the Battle of Gettysburg. There was special importance assigned to the placement of 12 pd Napoleon batteries and they played critical roles in checking/holding back Confederate infantry assaults at key points where the ground permitted or was favorable. Both sides recognized the differing capabilities of their artillery pieces and made every effort to deploy them accordingly. Though the Confederate batteries were mixed, that shouldn't give the false impression that pieces weren't swapped in and out of other batteries/positions based on tactical need. To argue that the differences were so slight as to not matter IS preposterous.

Major General B.P. Hughes in his book "Firepower" states the lethal range of canister to be a maximum of 500 yards. He describes both a heavy and light version of canister for a British 6 pounder, 85 1 ½ – ounce for the light round and 41, 3 ¼ ounce for the heavy round. Larger calibers had proportionally fewer and larger bullets.

The larger bullets ranged further then the light and he states instances both in battle and in trials of such fire being delivered with heavy case at ranges up to 600 yards. He does make the point that British practice limited canister to 350 yards for all calibers, while French artillery seem to have used it at rather longer ranges..

It would seem that from this, 350 yards was a good effective range for that era as well as the Civil War, 500 yards a maximum range for both, with perhaps up to 600 yards being possible, but certainly not effective.

Jim's point about the 12 lb Napoleons Spherical Case, being able to range to 1500 yards,Certainly makes it more deadly then 12 lb guns of 50 years previous.

Bill's point of canister being possible to extend to 600 yards appears to be correct. ACW instructions NOT to do so would corroborate this as though it is theoretically possible, it certainly was not effective and should not be employed as such.

Kim

Kim, the ACW 12pd Napoleon had individual canister projectiles of nearly 8 ounces EACH. They were double the size of British "heavy" canister projectiles. According to your own logic, there's no way they could've had similar effectivity ranges. Moreover, all I've seen is evidence that the French used canister at shorter ranges during the Napoleonic Wars. If "heavy" French canister projectiles were anything similar to the British, then I think the evidence leans even more heavily for the case that ACW 12pd Napoleons canister even outclassed canister for the same class of guns during the Napoleonic Wars.

Jim

Jim,

I didn't say that there was never any consideration given when it was possible to do so, but guns where employed when they needed them whatever type was available. Both Cushing's battery and Rorty's guns were rifled pieces, yet held key positions in the front line to repulse Picketts charge with canister fire. Rorty's men even used triple canister in their Parrot rifles as the confederates poured over the stonewall.

My point is clear, yes there where differences, but you used the guns you had available whatever their type in whatever role you needed them whether it was the optimal type for the job or not. In the chaos of battle fresh guns were put into the fight regardless of type, whenever and wherever they where needed the most.

I believe the original point was not that there where no differences, but that they both ended up being used pretty much in the same role throughout the war.

Kim

Jim,
I'm not real familiar with Napoleonic artillery which is why I cited Hughes book. I don't think I said anything to contradict what you said, only that projectiles could in fact reach out to 600 yards. Clearly they are not at all effective at that range and that is why Union specifically NOT to use canister at that range. 350 yards is the 'typical' engagement range for both eras it seems.

I would agree the a ACW 12 lb gun would outclass a Nap 12# gun so I don't disagree. My main point her is I don't think either you or Bill is wrong on this issue.

Kim

Kim,

There were a lot of other units around Cushing's and Rorty's guns. That they fired canister, I don't dispute. Whether they would've been relied upon to turn back an infantry assault alone with canister, I would very much doubt. Batteries of 12 pd Napoleons could and did turn back infantry assaults alone during the ACW and both sides knew it. So, to say that rifles and smoothbores were used in pretty much the same role and were placed in position prior to battle--or moved/repositioned during battle--regardless of their differing capabilities is really to miss their tactical importance and to misundertand the battle itself.

Jim

Kim wrote "350 yards is the 'typical' engagement range for both eras it seems."

Again, based upon your own findings of relative canister projectile weights for British 6 pds., your assertions that both eras had similar engagement ranges for canister is, pardon the French, absurd :)

Jim

Larger balls + lighter charge = greater range?
??

Scholar's Choice has/had some good military history books. One was 'battle Tactics of the Civil War by Griffith by Yale University Press. You might see if it available through your local libraries exchange program. That is how I got to see it.

docdennis1968 11 Jul 2010 7:29 a.m. PST
McLaddie

It has been recorded that by the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, most troops would throw up "light" works if they thought they were going to be there for a while or if action was likely soon! Digging in is another matter and not quite so common for sure. Light works usually consisted of fence rails, small to medium tree limbs and some rocks, and some dirt if there was time! In the West the terrain made most of the stuff needed for light works very easy to utilize!

It is only one example I admit, but nearly the entire front of the Army of the Cumberland by the 2nd day at Chickamaugua had light works, and they had been manuvering and engaged pretty hard the day before! Trenches and serious earthworks are a different matter altogether, and you are right on to doubt that!!

*NJH: Docdennis has the right of it, I was much too liberal in my use of the phrase "dig-in." The fault is mine, I did not mean trenches, or heavy fortifications.

67thtigers 11 Jul 2010 7:14 a.m. PST
La Canon-obusier de 12 (taken into US service as the M1857 Light Gun-Howitzer) is indeed a heavy 12 pdr howitzer. It used a considerably reduced charge compared to existing 12 pdrs to get the weight down.

The canister round used thus was much less effective than that used in the "proper" 12 pdr. The gun had traded some firepower for mobility.

*NJH: Thank you.

Jim:

Von Pivka in Armies of the Napoleonic Period on page 46 gives the following characteristics for canister for a 12 lber: [This is France and most Allied Nations]

7 1/2 oz balls---1000 paces effective range [@800 yards]
4 oz balls---800 paces [@600 yards]
2 oz balls---600 paces [@450 yards]

Zhmodikov's Tactics of the Russian Army in the Npaoleonic Wars , vol. 2 page 57 says this for the Russian army:

The maximum range of the new cannister of a medium 12pdr was 400 sazhen (853.6 m); that of 6pdr was 200 sazhen (426.8m)

Major General Kutaisov, in General Rules for Artillery in a Field Battle 1812 wrote:

In a field battle, fire at a range of more than 500 sazhen is ineefective; at 300 it is effective enough; at 200 and 100 it is murderous; at the three latter ranges our new cannister can be used.

A.L. Tousard, in his Artilleriest's Companion vol. II, writes in 1811: [section IV, Of canister and grape shot firing, page]

After what has been said with respect to the range of large canister shot [i.e. 7.5 to 8 oz shot], it will not be surprising that it was agreed to prefer this kind of ball to the caliber, at a distance of about eight hundred yeards for twelve pounders; at about seven hundred yards for eight pounders; and at about six hundred yards for four pounders….Thanks, therefore, to this new cartouch[casing for the canister introduced @1790], artillerists are enabled now to fire canister shot at a distance which had been hitherto reckoned uncertain even for claiber shot firing; and at such distances, at which small canister shot can be used, they can do three times the exectuion that was formerly done by the old grape shot.

I can provide more examples if you want.

The weight and number of canister balls were the same for Napoleonic 12lbers and Napoleon howitzers. The range was about the same. ACW soldiers certainly could love their Napoleons. It was a lighter and more versatile weapon, but as far as canister was concerned, they were identical.

And the ACW's artilleriests' average or preferred range for using canister could well be 150 to 350 yards, but that is similar to the Napoleonic period. That is the whole, and limited comparison I was making.

Bill H.

Kim wrote:

The fact that Union doctrine for the employment of canister specifies NOT to use canister at 600 yards would seem to indicate that in fact 600 yards was NOT effective range, though clearly there may have been a tendency to use it at that range since it is specifically stated not to do so.

Kim:
Howdy. Yes, it could mean that. Obviously canister could reach out that far, but it was an issue of effectiveness. See my quotes to Jim on that issue.

Perhaps a thorough study of the battles of the Napoleonic wars led them to this conclusion if there was no evidence of fire being effective when employed at this range. I have no evidence to support this, but there must have been a reason to direct artillery crews not to use canister at 600 yards.

Yep, I agree. I am sure there were reasons. They could have been to curb the tendency of artilleriests to waste shots. Note that the instructions for do's and don't's include all types of ammo. It could also be that from the uniformity of charges in Union artillery limited each type of ammo. It could also be that with all the new troops, such exacting instructions were felt to be necessary.

I am sure that the Americans did their own testing of ordinance. [Nosworthy describes several] and following European guidelines were also consulted.

Again, it comes back to what the military men thought were the 'effective ranges' of the weapons. Most firefights today are still within 300 yards, but that doesn't mean that is the 'effective range' of the small arms.

The only thing that is obvious is what the Union artilleriests were told to do, not why.

Bill H.

Bill,

Sure. You can provide some eyewitness accounts of Napoleonic canister being used at those ranges. 200 sazhen sounds about right at max. Maybe a little more extreme for 12 pounders. I just read another eyewitness account of a 12pd artillery officer at Ligny opening up on a line skirmishers at 300 paces. According to von Pivka that might be more like 250 yards and maybe that was extreme. I will find that one though. Osprey puts British canister & grape of the period maximum effective range at 300 yards.

Jim

I disagree with the ranges quoted by some authorities above. The maximum ranges give are about right for the maximum range that the projectiles would carry but not an effective range to use them. ACW doctrine in several published manuals of the time say that the transition between roundball and canister is about 350 yards at most. For example, Harpers, a common magazine of the time syas

cf: link

Explains the impact of the rifled musket on the ability of the artillery to deploy into canister range of a line of infantry and shoot up the line of infantry. Smoothbore muskets had an effective range of little more than 100 yards. Canister was of high effectiveness at 250 yards with an extreme range of 350-450 yards. Rifled muskets could lay down effective aimed fire at these ranges (and even out to 700yards for an area fire) and would decimate a artillery battery that was not in an emplacement.

and

The Instructions for Field Artillery, by the united States War Dept, WH French, WF Barray et al.
link

Also suggests that round shot be used down to ranges of 350 yards and at that point to switch over to canister.

What I think is lacking in many of the postings in this thread is a lack of appreciation of the ballistic limitations of canister and how it was used and "thrown" at targets. First, the long range canister is large balls and not very many of them (the ACW number is typically 27 I belive). They are round balls which have a terrible ballistic shape, slow down rapidly because the are not streamlined (they have to push the air out of the way and the vacumn they make in moving tries to suck them backwards) and they are not very heavy for their cross sectional area (unlike a long cylinder minie ball). The best way to use them is to fire them to hit the ground right before the enemy. This changes the cone of projectiles into a fan shape and assures that the balls are skipping about at man height rather than punching holes in the air. At long range it is harder to get this effect because the range is hard to estimate. Fortunately you can see the dust of the splatter of shots hitting the ground at long range, but unfortuately most units will be moving and changing the range on you if they are attacking. The trajectory of the balls is the bigger problem. Imagine a an arc as a flexible rainbow starting from the gun and ending beyond the target. Now on this figure, nail down the gun end of the arc, but move the other end in to the target. The target end of the arc comes much more straight down. There is the bad thing, the balls are coming down at a 30 to 60 degree angle, rather than no more than 5 to 10 degrees. Guess what? They don't bounce and zip through the formation. They rain down and then stick in the ground. (Exaggerating), you gotta hit the top of their heads AND be lined up with that soldier, rather than just be lined up with that soldier or the guy behind him or the guy behind him. That is why they suggest that you shoot round shot at 350 yards. You can fire it at a lower angle and it travels horizontaly through the enemy formation and continues to skip along endangering many more soldiers.

Now the situation on the relative usefulness of canister in the Napoleonic versus the ACW era is not really about the range of canister, but about the RELATIVE effective ranges of the roundball musket (firing a ball of generally less than 1.1 oz) and the roundball cannon canister (firing a 1.5 or 2.0 oz) and the rifled musket. Smoothbore muskets were ineffective below 150 yards, Smoothbore Cannon Canister was effective from 350 yards down, and Rifled muskets were effective beyond 350 yards. Its not all that hard to figure out. No surprise that in the ACW, regiments of infantry were always placed "in support" of artillery batteries.

Hey, I am only quoting what the contemporaries said and said quite consistently, I might add. What constitutes 'effective' range is up for grabs. Obviously, heavier canister balls had it going further.

If the ACW military men were giving canister the limit of canister ranges of between 250-450 yards, that is still well within the stated limits of Napoleonic canister and use. I would assume that both ACW and Napoleonic War artilleriests would use canister at it's optimum ranges.

The bottom line is that in every respect, from ammo construction, the weight of the ball and powder, there is little, if any difference in effect between 12pdr canister in 1805 and 1865.

The Harper's article quoted was published in 1855. I am struck by their claim that "Rifled muskets could lay down effective aimed fire at these ranges (and even out to 700 yards for an area fire) and would decimate a artillery battery that was not in an emplacement."

That Harper's was published in 1855. John Gibbon's book on Artillery published in 1860 says no such thing, though does talk about 400 yards. Neither does the 1863 Instructions that billfan quotes.

Bill

Speculation on the lose of artillery at long ranges was after the British (notably the 88th Regiment) smashed Russian batteries at ca. 800 yds at Inkermann. In Europe this proved to be true, but not in America.

I was surveying the OR's to determine the average firefight range at Antietam (see link ) and it appeared that at 150 yards the artillery suffered from fire, but at 300 yds they could operate with impunity. This actually isn't any different to a Napoleonic battlefield. The famed "artillery charge" at Friedland was a freak result, the lack of Russian artillery and skirmishers meant they couldn't reply effectively. Nothing similar happens in the rest of the Napoleonic wars.

However, as light as the 12 pdr Napoleon was, it was much heavier than than 6 pdrs that were used to deliver close support in the Napoleonic wars (the Napoleon is slightly heavier than the Canon de 8 Gribeauval, which the Napoleonic French considered too heavy to support infantry, which is why they developed the 6 pdr An XI to replace the Canon de 4 Gribeauval in that role).

As much as we may stress that for a 12 pdr the Napoleon was more maneouvrable, compared to the close support weapons Napoleon used it is a lot less maneouvable.

uccr.tripod.com/cwrt/musket.doc

……………"When we look at the Minie rifle, I think that the most striking thing is the extent of the improvement that it represented, over everything that had preceded it. It was possible for a marksman to hit a target the size of a man at a range of 1,000 yards, and on page 571 of "The Bloody Crucible of Courage", Brent Nosworthy describes how Union sharpshooters suppressed the fire of a Confederate artillery battery at 1,500 yards with it. This was a drastic improvement, not only over the smoothbore musket, but even over the rifles that had been used in the Napoleonic period"

Okay, not an everyday situation, but the point is that a battalion or two of two deep line infantry in extended order in the ACW, could concentrate their fire on a battery at 250 to 350 yards and drop down enough accurate rounds to wipe out the crews and husses (a Maine pronuncation). They would be firing 900 men x 2 rounds/minute= 1800 rounds and dropping most of them down on the battery area. In reply, the artillerymen would be firing 6 guns x 2 rpm x 37? balls =888 rounds. The infantry is laying down as much as possible and might have some barricade. The battery is standing up, the husses are standing up and imagine what happens with a double-6 roll when you hit a cassion.

In the Napoleonic era, the artilerymen would be safe as being at home in their bed. Not so in the ACW.

67thtigers,
Your blog post was very interesting. Did you factor in the terrain to your calcuations? Some of those fire fights under 100 yards undoubtedly took place in the woods or in wood lots. Cover--such as stonewalls, rail fences, farms w/ outbuildings, orchards--and even terrain that was simply an obtruction to LOS like standing corn all seem to have had a very high tactical value ascribed to them by the combatants and allowed for sustained firefights under 100 yards. It doesn't appear that that many units attempted a stand up fire fight under a 100 yards in the open with no cover such as one might have seen more frequently during the Napoleonic Wars.

Brig. Gen. George Greene references one of those 70 yard volleys in his report on pg. 505.

"While in this position the enemy formed in strong force in the woods to the right of the white brick church and advanced on our line. The line was advanced to the axle-trees of the guns, and delivered their fire when the enemy were within 70 yards. They immediately fell back having suffered immense loss. The division advanced, driving the enemy from the woods near the church and occupying the woods."

I think the most telling words that Gen. Greene uses above are "immediately" and "immense loss" According to Greene's recollection there was no sustained fire fight with the Reb line that advanced to 70 yards in the open, just that they sustained "immense loss". Maybe the un-hit Rebs gave a scattering of shots or a ragged volley before heading back to the woods, but Gen. Greene as a division commander didn't recall that as being very important. Either way, Greene pushed his division right into the woods where the REbs had just fallen back (the West Woods) and gained its protective cover for his own troops.

An example of a sustained firefight at 100 yards in the open was one on South Mountain where the Yank attackers made it to (and went for) a stonewall 100 yards distant from the Reb lines pg. 470.

My understanding of the Napoleonic Wars is that two lines of infantry could engage in a fire fight (an exchange of fire between two lines) at under a 100 yards without necessarily seeking or needing cover to do so.

Anyway, that for me is a major difference between the two eras.

Jim

The quote is wrong. It was not a Confederate Battery. It was a Confederate Signals Station, and the shooters hit nothing, but the fact they were being (ineffectually) shot at had the flaggies move. The troops did not have Minies, but target rifles equipped with telescopic sights.

900 men is a brigade in ACW terms. After the first volley they wouldn't be able to see the guns…

Statistically in the ACW at extended ranges (i.e. 300m-500m) rounds per hit dropped to around 1 in 1,000. At this range about half of artillery shots were properly aimed and took effect. The riflemen would drop 1.8 men/ horses a minute, the guns would drop 27-54 riflemen per minute.

Just another two thoughts on this:

One is the difference between suggested canister ranges between the Napoleonic [600 yards] and the ACW [300-500 yards].

I wrote: Rothenburg says that the French used canister out to 600 yards because they didn't have the British 'Spherical Case' which doesn't make much sense to me as Shrapnel could be used out further and the French [and most nations didn't know about the British secret weapon.]

It does if he is speaking from many years later. Both sides in the ACW had spherical case, which could well be why, like the British, they chose not to use canister and grape out to 600+ yards. A change of ammo and it's uses.

The other point about entrenchments. Dennis Har Mahan was a significant figure among Military theorists in the U.S. He taught at West Point from 1832 until 1870. He wrote Field Fortifications and Out-Posts around 1847.

In the later, he recognized the superior firepower of the minie ball and rifled musket, suggesting that instead of columns, skirmish lines be used to attack entrenchments, but did not advocate entrenchments for American troops except under particular situations: The defenders are inexperienced troops or heavily outnumbered.

As that was taught by him for over a decade, and ACW officers were either taught by Mahan or read his works [ far more read him, but commanding Generals were all taught by him], it wouldn't be surprising that they would follow his recommendations concerning entrenching. The American Civil War and the ORigines of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command by Deward Hagerman pages 11-14, but there are any number of references to these ideas throughout the book.

In every case, the trench warfare in the ACW identified as 'modern' are called sieges by the combatants which involve protectin strategic cities in every case, as have sieges in earlier wars. Parallels and approaches are dug in accordance to Napoleonic siege practices, and the tactics remain the same. Wellington's trench lines at Torres Vedras is far more 'modern' in strategic and tactical terms than anything in the ACW. And the French didn't even try to storm Wellington's trenches. Even the 1870 war sees trenches and sieges only around Metz, Sedan and Paris…

As Hagerman argues, the ACW may be seen as the origin or starting point of modern warfare--but it wasn't modern, but transitional at best and far more napoleonic than the European wars of 1866 and 1870.

billfan:

Keep in mind that this discussion was one of changes in tactics, not a question of what actual ranges could be achieved by various weapons. No one is suggesting that the Rifled Musket couldn't be used successfully at ranges far exceeding the smoothbore musket. The question was whether the tactics--how battles were fought and won--between Napoleonic and AC wars.

How weapons are used can be and often are quite different from their optimum or 'effective' uses. You would think that the Prussians would recognize the effect of using columns in battle after defeating the Austrians in 1866. Yet in Chapter One of the Prussian Army's response to Captain May's critique of the war, entitled "One the fundamental principles for adtermining tactical forms" the last sentence says:

Thus it never can be said that the comlumn is no longer a battle formation.

And they continue to use columns right up through 1914. I gave some examples. Yet there were machine guns and rifles with far superior qualities than the rifled musket. In otherwords, tactics didn't change simply because the weapons did. There lots of reasons for that. I thought is that any impact of new weapons were as crystal clear to the participants as it is to us more than a century later. There are lots of very reasonable causes for this apparent blindness of contemporary military men.

Bill

Okay, not an everyday situation, but the point is that a battalion or two of two deep line infantry in extended order in the ACW, could concentrate their fire on a battery at 250 to 350 yards and drop down enough accurate rounds to wipe out the crews and husses (a Maine pronuncation). They would be firing 900 men x 2 rounds/minute= 1800 rounds and dropping most of them down on the battery area. In reply, the artillerymen would be firing 6 guns x 2 rpm x 37? balls =888 rounds. The infantry is laying down as much as possible and might have some barricade. The battery is standing up, the husses are standing up and imagine what happens with a double-6 roll when you hit a cassion.

Billsfan,

I know of no such firefight as you described in which an artillery crew being wiped out by rifle fire ever occurred in the Civil War, yet there are volumes of accounts of artillery sweeping the field clear of infantry at those ranges.

Only an isolated battery with no other supporting guns or infantry around would even be caught in such a situation, and if so they certainly would not be "wiped out", but would limber and move to a new location more favorable to them and reopen fire on the infantry. This is exactly the position Miller's Battery E was in at Seven Pines and how they reacted to the situation (Naisawald, pg. 72).

Also, batteries under direct fire unless planning an immediate move would remove the limbers and caissons to the rear out of direct fire. And just what in the world would you expect a minie' bullet to do if it struck a caisson anyway? Wargames seem to have more in common with Hollywood then reality.

Kim

KimRYoung 12 Jul 2010 4:01 p.m. PST

Only an isolated battery with no other supporting guns or infantry around would even be caught in such a situation, and if so they certainly would not be "wiped out", but would limber and move to a new location more favorable to them and reopen fire on the infantry.

*NJH: Please note the fate of Griffen's Battery at First Manassas.

I would like to say, in this whole Napoloenic/ACW tactics debate which seems to stretch further back than I was born, Americans might be ignornant but they ain't dumb which seems to be the partially inverse trejectory of those "same tactics, different results" proponents. Paddy Boy Griffith himself said the results were the SAME when one bunch of numbskulls tried to clobber another bunch of numbskulls :)

Bottom Dollar wrote:
I would like to say, in this whole Napoloenic/ACW tactics debate which seems to stretch further back than I was born, Americans might be ignornant but they ain't dumb.

BD:
Yep, I agree. If the combatants and those after in the next 50 years couldn't come to some agreement about how 'modern' or tactically different the ACW was--let alone some clear cut proof, are we going to? I don't think so…

Bill