"Books on Napoleonic Artillery?" Topic

I'm sure I've read in memoirs and accounts of cannon balls knocking down rows of men when they hit the target. If they didn't fly straight then surely that wouldn't happen? They would hit one lot and then continue in a downward direction, rather than knocking them out of the way if flying fairly straight. There is of course, the bounce effect. Perhaps, every time we come across an account or a report describing the effects of artillery fire, we can write it down. Perhaps the words of those who were there and took part and saw and suffered the damage caused by artillery fire, might throw some light on the subject argued by 'theoretical experts'?

I think one problem here is the definition of the word "flat".

If I recall correctly, Kevin (10th Marines) described cannon fire as "relatively" flat compared to howitzers and mortars.

Dave Hollins seems to have taken this as Kevin saying they flew perfectly flat, which even the non-artillerists amongst us can see was not the case.

Kevin is correct: cannon fire IS relatively flat compared to howitzers and mortars. Even Dave says that the dispart only provides a few feet rise – which in the realm of this comparison is miniscule and therefore still "relatively" flat.

However, that miniscule few feet could mean the difference between life and death.

One thing I have not heard about here is the effect of balls flying close overhead. I'm sure I read somewhere that you did not have to be actually hit by a ball to be killed or injured by the shock wave of its close passing?

Gazzola,
Yes you are right. If a ball landed on target, it could pass through a dozen men and/or injury many more by stuff blown from them. What I think we are getting to is that hitting was very "hit or miss" and it was real easy to miss. My contension is that the terrain had a lot of influene on this and theoritical effects were rarely achieved.

I agree, 1968billsfan. As Dave says, the number of actual hits was very small, even though theoretically with Kevin's quoted French methodology of overshot, undershot and then hitting the target, they should've been a lot higher. I think your contention of the many "big picture" factors outweighing any small effect of differing aiming accuracy is … er … accurate.

Some aspects of hitting a formed unit with cannon fire can be extracted from Tousards pirated book (cf link and I've given them some thought and present the following.

The use of cannonballs to fire beyond canister range at troops is discussed and Tousards touts the use of careful attention to the elevation of the cannon and its aiming. From his approach, I am sure that he is not just restating the completely accepted and unconsciously applied practice of the times, but is trying to reinforce the ideas that the specialists are trying to get people to follow. It is critical to get the cannonballs bouncing at the feet of the enemy.

An "Elevator" (a.k.a. adjustable rear elevation sight) is described and it is suggested that in practice, the inches of elevation of the rear sight (rather than using units of degrees-of-elevation-of-the-barrel) would be more trainable for the non-math savy artilleryman.
The "zero elevation" is 58 minutes, the full elevation is 2deg 5' (12 pounder) 2deg 23' (8 pounder, 2 deg 34' (4 pounder). The "elevator" is different for different weight guns.

At zero elevator a 12 pounder has a point blank range of 810 yards. (#8 at 640 yards). some experiments by Douay 1778 show how you can increase the PointBlankRange by changing the inclination of the gun tube by adjusting the height of the Elevator: (60 minutes is one degree). Remember this is for a 12 pound gun. The best and longest range field gun. A 8 or 9 pound gun is about 2/3 as good and worse a the longer ranges!!

Setting of the Elevator……angle ………….DISTANCE of PointBlankRange
0.0 inch………………… 58 minutes…..………..639 yards
0.18 inch……………1 degree..5 minutes ……..745 yards
0.89 inch……………1 degree..34 minutes……….852 yards
1.24 inch……………1 degree 50 minutes ……….958 yards
1.42 inch……………1 degree 57 minutes…….1000 yards

Now lets get real about how really fine and unrealistic getting these aiming reproduced was and are. Do our war gamers and armature historians actual realize how impractically fine these distinctions in angles are?

For a sanity check, lets look at current astronomy web sites, where they give practical advise about how to estimate angles between stars. (cf : link
"To get a rough estimate of the angular size of objects in space, you can go out on clear night when the moon is up. Extend your arm towards the sky. Your fist, at arms length, covers about 10 degrees of the sky, your thumb covers about 2 degrees, and your little finger covers about 1 degree. If you look at the Moon, it should take up about 1/2 a degree in the sky. The Big Dipper should be about 20 degrees (two fists at arms length) from one end to the other."
So if the gun sergeant, is off ONE BLOODY THIRD of a pinkie finger width at arms length in setting up his 12 pound cannon before firing (~24 minutes of elevation), the cannon ball will hit the ground about 150 yards short of the feet of an advancing battalion at 1000 yards. Give me a break!!

And as I say, do it w/ a regt of dragoons coming to cut you into hamburger. I'm thinking all this gunnery range stuff is great knowledge, but when it comes down to it, its point and shoot.

I would think that the ground on which the battery is placed would have MUCH of an effect on accuracy then the dispat (or whatever its called) of the barrel. Even for individual guns in that battery for that mater!!!

If the ground is not dead flat then all this crud that hollins is talking about really amounts to nothing. The main point is to aim and shoot as best as you can as fast as you can. I think this is why gunners spent so much time in artillery schools to understand theory but once on the field and under pressure, practicality takes over to a large extent. If a battery fires and seems not to hit their target on the first salvo I am sure they would adjust their angle very quickly to gain accuracy. This would build tacit knowledge for next time when the battery commander would know what happened previously and thus account for it from that point on. I am also sure that these experiences would have been passed on from gun commander to gun commander over time to ensure they understand the realities of battlefield fire and can adjust for such occurances in battle.

Take for example cars, they all do the same thing, transport you from A to B but every car design is different and feels different when you drive one. So when you get used to a particular car design you learn over time how to drive it efficiently. When you are forced to drive a different car suddenly you still know how to drive but all of the mechanisms are slightly different and thus your driving ability is lessened. But once again, time and exposure will compensate while you build tacit knowledge of the new car and learn to drive it just as efficiently as the previous one.

I am sure gun commanders felt the same about their guns, they knew the idiosyncrasies of each gun and knew how to compensate for them to ensure the effectiveness of the guns under their command. Simply saying that the dispat of a French gun is not zero degrees and therefor less accurate is NOT taking into account that (if true) built up tacit knowledge oand understanding over time, the commanders would have eventually compensated for it when firing.

Here is an excerpt from Coignet about the Guard infantry standing and taking an artillery bombardment at Essling in May 1809:

'The fifty guns of the Austrians thundered upon us without our being able to advance a step, or fire a shot. Imagine the agony we endured in such a position, for I can never describe it…The balls fell among our ranks, and cut down our men three at a time; the shells knocked the bearskin caps twenty feet in the air. As each file was cut down, I called out, 'Right dress, close up the ranks!' And the brave grenadiers closed up without a frown…A ball struck a whole file, and knocked them all three head over heels on top of me. I fell to the ground…'

K

How anything got done through the carnage is the most amazing thing to comprehend. Theres the story of N. being asked to hit a target, does so, then is asked to do it again and doesn't.

What were the casaultiy figures for the Guard Infantry at Aspern-Essling?

Regards

If the ground is not dead flat then all this crud that Hollins is talking about really amounts to nothing. The main point is to aim and shoot as best as you can as fast as you can.

Surely Dave Hollins' assertion is of the utmost importance, if true? He has never said that those environmental factors aren't important. He is saying that artillery even without all those environmental factors will often miss because of the basic accuracy problems of hitting anything at all with these weapons and that must have an effect on our understanding.

Regards

Whirl,

It is the way he goes about it that is frustrating. He got a poor book review from another person years ago and that person has had to pay for it for the last god knows how many years now.

Now, as for hollin's assertions about the dispat is true then do you think the French gun designers and gunners would not have seen this in battle or tests and accounted for it? I doubt very much that they would have missed this little gem, if true…. that is my point.

I doubt that hollins has found some holy grail that shows that French guns had some inherent problem that was not identified by those that designed, built and fired those guns. History tells us just how good French artillery actually was, so I doubt that he can accurately declare some superiority of Austrian over French gun designs here. And I am not being biased to the French here, I am being brutally honest.

He is saying that artillery even without all those environmental factors will often miss because of the basic accuracy problems of hitting anything at all with these weapons and that must have an effect on our understanding.

While the two sources that Dave quotes can indeed have an effect on our understanding through what they saw/experienced (or at least what they said they saw/experienced), neither proves that it was inherent accuracy problems rather than environmental (or personnel) factors that primarily caused what they saw/experienced.

My feeling is that those latter 'global' factors are of much more importance than small national differences in the details of aiming the first shot or so.

However, I am neither a ballistics expert, nor a historian, so take my opinion any way you want. Anyway, overall I think this whole issue is a storm in a teacup that is not worth the acrimony being bandied about from either side.

The point blank range is important, because this is the only elevation of the barrel that allows the aimer to line up with the target, any elevation up or down will lose the line and target (when elevated up)
so point blank should be the most accurate setting, the Austrian & French had different point blanks due to the dispart of the barrel and hence were most accurate at different ranges, the French being better at the longer point blank, so if the target is beyond or less than the point blank more estimation and guesswork is required to hit the target.

I think this is the point Dave is trying to make, this should perhaps be part of artillery rules, like Grant's bounce stick but one band should be the most effective (the point blank).

nice to see this thread has recovered itself.

It is important because it represents the difference between laser artillery and Grant's bounce sticks on a gaming table and also explains partially why just 5-10% of rounds are hitting anything in a real battle. It thus gives the lie to claims of very accurate French guns/superior training above. the weaponm itself is inaccurate – the Fahnrich demonstrates that the ball did not fly flat (ie: close to the horizontal), but that of course did not stop that silly claim by Nosworthy that the Austrians should have fired a ball over the bridge at Lodi due rather than the canister they actually used (this kind of thing being the basis of the "stupid Allies and theoir reaction" thesis).

The national characteristics are important here, because they will determine the employment of the guns – the guns are different in having different angles and different propellant charges. The Austrians need to close the range when often on the defensive, whereas the French should prefer to keep the range open when often on the offensive. They have that "dead zone" to cross, where Austrian gunners are getting a better hit rate, before both sides resort to canister. This was one factor in the French failures as the enemy deployed more guns later in the wars. If you take Kevin's example above, many of those Austrian guns were probably around 500 paces (350m) out and of course firing at a static target.

As I have also mentioned above, much depends on the idea of "flat", but imparting sufficient height within 100m to pass over a line of troops cannot be flat in the laser artillery, but that laser artillery (much like the exploding cannonballs in various films) dominates thinking entirely falsely. That laser artilelry means there is no "dead zone" for the French – they simply hit targets in the same way to a greater distance.

However, there is also a [erception problem here. As I said and Bill notes, that angle can be stated as 0.18in, but you still have to measure it and a small error will mean a complete miss. If the laser artillery were right, it would not matter. I gather one US general artillery author (Jeff Kincaid I think) is claiming a barrel manufacturing precision down to 1/1000th of an inch! That would be hard enough today, let alone 200 years ago. What has happened is that the desired size has been stated and then a percentage tolerance has been allowed, which has been stated down to a degree of precision, which could not be achieved. A minor error of 10 paces over 5-700 would result in a miss – that is just 1.4-2% and the kit was not precise enough to do that.

Ultimately, this matters because this is the time when artillery went from an infantry supporting pop gun to a weapon, which inflicted serious carnage on the battlefield, but our perception is probably more shaped by familiar images of WW1 than what happened on a Napoleonic battlefield.

Let me just add a definition & some perspective here. "Dispat" is defined as:

"By dispat is meant the dividing difference of the diameters of the breech and muzzle by two; and if a sight of that half difference were placed on the muzzle of the gun,a line of sight would be created perfectly parallel to the cylinder of the bore of the piece"

The reason for doing this is it allows the gunner to accurately control the angle of the gun's bore elevation and to hit targets that are further or closer away. It sort of implies that they are planing to use an adjustable rear sight for elevation and range.

The quote above is from a book that I find the writing and timing of to be interesting. The title of the book is
"The Naval Gunner, containing a correct method of disparting any piece of ordinance- of finding and adapting to any gun a tangent scale".
The book was written in 1827 and was address to the Royal Navy in an attempt to introduce elevation sights to the navy. Read the first couple of pages at least where he immediately starts selling the use of this. I find it amazing that it wouldn't be in common use half a century earlier!! It is true that the details of gunnery was considered beneath the attention of naval officers (Hornblower to the contrary) and tells why getting yardarm-to-yardarm for battle was such an effective tactic compared to longer range shooting.

Anyway the book at
link
is a good read as an introduction to gunnery topics.

One of the problems seems to be that everyone but Mr. Hollins is talking about artillery in action, the performance of the guns themselves in action, the quality of the gunners, the terrain and the weather, the range of the target near or distant. These factors would all have an effect on the destructive power of the artillery plus how the cannonballs actually flew in the air. The more distant the enemy then obviously the gunners would have to account for it, the barrels raised etc and the ball's path would probably have an arched trajectory. It seems pretty straightforward really. But Mr. Hollins appears to be going by the book and talking theory all the time, what should and shouldn't be, based on paper calculations etc, which, from what I've read and military experience, often goes out of the window when in the field. In theory a cavalry charge would never break a square, but in reality, it did happen, etc, etc. Some people get accused of basing their rules etc on fantasy, but it seems others live in a 'paper' world, far, far away from reality. But what a great debate and hopefully it won't be spoilt by becoming personal again.

Gazzola,

I'm not sure that's right. Hasn't Dave Hollins been explaining why some Austrian primary source (the Fahnrich of IR42) was saying that cannonballs were missing a formed body of troops at a range where we would have expected them to hit (according to some understandings of Napoleonic artillery).

I'm not sure the point about Mr Hollins 'paper world' is quite fair either. He is clearly very learned about what actual German-speakers who served in the Napoleonic Wars had to say. It is people like myself (and maybe some others), some military experience notwithstanding, who live in a 'paper world' when it comes to many aspects of the Napoleonic Wars, because I can't understand sufficient of the primary literature so I'm ofrced to rely on the secondary or tertiary. And perhaps more importantly, if a weapon cannot be that accurate even in theory, there is no way it is going to be more accurate in a battlefield environment.

Regards

Unfortunately, it is addressing very different issues. Naval gunnery as the book says was ideally conducted at 100 fathoms – 600 ft – 200 yards, which is the PB of a UK 6pdr with a ZE down the bore. In other words, the book is talking about very short ranges where you do need a straight line shot. Small size canister is effective out to 250m (275 yds), so you would rarely use ball on land at that range.

OK, if this accuracy issue is indeed accurate then does anyone have the ranges where each French gun (by calibre) would be more accurate and also at what ranges the Austrian guns would be more accurate? and also at which ranges these guns are "least" accurate?

Do I dare ask; since I've read accounts of "mad" guns what could be the inaccuracies between guns of same manufacture, could this be barrel wear, or poor tolerances,
could gunpowder quality effect ranges (moisture, mixture) or is this going to far?

P.S. Excuse me if you will, but I've been couped up with these questions by myself with just books for 25 years and no one to ask or bounce my theories, until I got here.

Also added to my 7:25 post, on v. Winterfeldt's link on water supply,cannon ball manufacture would appear to be erratic

Dear Whirlwind

Maybe I have been a bit too 'basic' in my assumption of Dave's contributions. Apologies if I sounded a bit harsh. And a lot of his stuff is very helpful and interesting. I wouldn't buy his Osprey titles otherwise. It is just when he turns great debates into one man wars against the same target. I hope he stops doing that from now on and I can enjoy reading his posting, as much as I enjoy reading the others.

There could be a variety of reasons for "mad" guns, but the worst general problem would probably be excess windage caused by a small ball going down a worn barrel. French production methods were so poor that they had to use go/no go rings. All the kit (contrary to yet more rubbish about a fixed value windage and production down to 1/1000th inch) had stated tolerances and so, as the guns wore down, thois was more problematic.

There may have been individual casting problems (although claims about defects in Austrian guns due to them throwing in scrap metal are just fantasy, based on poor translation or just ionvention again), so individual guns did split or more likely develop muzzle droop due to excess heating. Then of course, there would be the skill of the crew – the French may well have been more aggressive in putting guns forward (such as at Wagram), but the heavy casualties would have led to a marked drop off in crew proficiency. An individual carriage might have defects in it too, which could also cause problems with the aiming or elevating or it might be an accumulation of small defects.

produciton of 1 / 1000 inch, I don't know if this was at those times even posible in practise – the question is – was it done?

As for muskets the French had to drop form 18 lead balls per pound of lead to 20 – to decrease the diameter of the ball and to increase the windage – to make loading easier – due to high production demands.

Is there any research comparing the real "bores" of French guns compared to what is written about it.

Is the 1/1000th inch a typo? Kevin has hinted as much.

Roly,

It's in Jeff Kinnard's book on artillery. It can't be a serious statement as it isn't logical with the technology available during the period.

The production standards for tolerances in the Gribeauval System was 1/100th of an inch, which is in the manuals. And that applies to the vehicles, not the gun tubes. The tolerances were measured with graduated calipers, so for vehicles it was indeed possible. Gunfounding was something else again.

I have the book in question and it is a good overview, but it isn't one that I'd use as a reference. It was published by ABC-CLIO if I'm not mistaken, a publisher that produces reference books of many types. I do believe that they are associated with Praeger.

Sincerely,
Kevin

'Is there any research comparing the real "bores" of French guns compared to what is written about it.'

Tousard covers the casting of both British and French gun tubes. You might want to start there.

K

The American Artillerist puts cannon ball tolerance + – .07", I got Keven"s book last wk and read it (in 54 hrs). Gun tubes I believe would be very close tolerances considering manufacturing shown in book. It would all being down to drill bit hardness wearing away during drilling bores. Bronze in soft and if bits were hard enough or were replaced whenever worn why not tolerances of .001"?

'Do I dare ask; since I've read accounts of "mad" guns what could be the inaccuracies between guns of same manufacture, could this be barrel wear, or poor tolerances,
could gunpowder quality effect ranges (moisture, mixture) or is this going to far?'

No two artillery pieces of the same caliber shoot the same way. They never have, even if they are produced exactly the same way, by the same gunfounder, on the same day, with exactly the same alloy. It just doesn't happen unless there is divine intervention.

The same is exactly true today, even with the modern technology in production methods. I have never seen a modern howitzer with the same muzzle velocity, which is why those are measured before firing on an exercise or in combat and the adjustments for the difference in range that the different muzzle velocities produce. The muzzle velocities are measured electronically firing rounds in the field and the data derived is applied to the gunnery solutions for the battery. If you don't measure the muzzle velocities, the rounds fired will not all land at the exact same range-you'll have long and short shooters. Applying the muzzle velocity measurements gives the ability of having all of the rounds land at the same range.

During the Napoleonic period, each gun crew had to adjust their individual field piece to applied ranges based on the performance of the field piece. Some pieces would have inherent flaws that the gun crews adapted to and were able to employ their assigned field piece effectively in combat.

K

I am in agreement all along guns will all shoot differently, even two modern rifles will not be same. my point is many factors factor in this shell, powder,angle of bore, wear, settings, windage ect

All those factors have an impact when the piece is fired, along with weather, etc.

However, the main point is that merely by the process of manufacture of the gun tube, no two guns will fire alike in perfect conditions.

K