"Napoleonic Artillery - Howitzers" Topic

The quotation states that Ermelov wrote the information. Unless the Zhmodikov's were incorrect in their writing and translation, I suggest the information will have to stand.

I'm not 'cherry-picking' anything-that is the material in the work. And I'm not being careless either, as I believe that I have quoted from the work correctly.

What kind of 'bias' am I showing? I merely quoted from the text of the cited work. It isn't taken out of context, but demonstrating a disadvantage of the Russian unicorn against the French howitzer.

By definition a gun-howitzer, which is what the unicorn was, has a longer gun tube and a lower trajectory than a howitzer-and that has also been shown in the thread has it not?

Perhaps we should agree to disagree as both of us have stated our cases here, and we evidently don't agree, and leave it at that?

Sincerely,
K

Gentlemen, I think it was summed up best earlier in the post:

"I'm sure they would have muddled through and improvised what was necessery- get creative, children and adults are laking creative teaching."

Not much left to say.

Can someone explain for me how Howitzers were used tactically on the Napoleonic battlefield. (Not so much in sieges) I know there was probably a lot of variation.

Why did the French usually parcel out, at most, 1 howitzer to each tactical battery? Obviously not all batteries got one but they were spread out among batteries. Were they used to fire at targets that were difficult to hit accept by dropping fire? They must have added some additional capability to the battery.

I know Howitzers fired both shot and canister as well as exploding shells and rarely they fired specialized shells such as light emitting and fire starting.

I know that shells were sometimes used with dropping fire against targets like forces on a reverse slope, or inside a stone walled area or fortification.

I know that very very rarely they were combined into batteries to fire at such targets.

I get the impression that most of the time they were just one more tube firing like the rest of the cannon in the tactical battery. When used in this fashion how did they materially differ. When firing shot did they have a better bounce or worse? Did they have roughly the same rate of fire as 4lb thru 8lb guns? Or, was the Howitzer and its crew often help back as a reserve or for special use?

I know there was no indirect fire but there was "falling/dropping" fire at partially sited somewhat protected targets. Was this their chief purpose.

French foot artillery companies had six guns and two howitzers.

French horse artillery companies either had four guns and two howitzers or six guns.

Napoleon, at times, massed howitzers into batteries, as at Borodino and Waterloo.

Howitzers fired common shell or canister, the latter for anti-personnel work.

Even though howitzers fired at 'high angle' they were still direct fire weapons as you had to see your target to hit it. They were used to drop rounds inside of fortifications. They could also fire common shell so that it ricocheted before detonating.

Howitzers differ from guns. I believe that a mixed battery, with mainly guns and some howitzers would use similar weight carriages and horse teams so as to have similar traveling and transportation profiles.

Guns have longer and thicker barrels in order to have higher muzzle velocity than howitzers. They are meant to have a ball trajectory for a long range of target distances that is under the height of a man for a long range. For much the same reason, a low angle of incidence to the ground, (think of the optimum case for flat ground), to avoid burying themselves into the ground or bouncing high on very hard ground. You want a flat flightpath.

Howitzers that are paired in a battery with their corresponding guns, are meant to fire smaller gunpowder charges, at lower muzzle velocity. They can send a larger weight of projectiles per weight of gun&carriage but the important thing is the lower muzzle velocity. I posted above that in the ~ 1 second of flight a projectile sinks 32 feet but in the 2nd second of flight it sinks 128 feet. (d= vo x t + 1/2 32ft/sec x time x time). So in a tactical situation, they gunners would see and appreciate the following in surveying their zone of fire. There would be some nice level beaten zones where the gun could knock down a body of men for a good length of distance. There would also be areas where a swale, hollow, house, or tree would either hide the target below the gun's trajectory or block the cannonball from getting to the target. There is where the gun-howitzer came into play, because its trajectory would dip down into, or over and into these hidden areas. Three other virtues of the howitzer are that: it sends a heavier weight of ordinance downrange. the fuze time settings are longer (more accurate) and need to be less precise, as a shell spend more flight time on-target because it is traveling slower, and it can fire more delicate ordinance such as incendiaries.

I wonder if some of problem for modern people in understanding the usage (as I perceive) is due to the differences that modern weapons are less involved in delivering kinetic energy pieces of metal to the target as they are in delivering high explosives blast and high explosive augmented shrapnel/fragments to the target. A modern howitzer has very well machined barrels, shells and reproducible propellant so it can fire accurately at a high aspect elevation. This enables long ranges to be reached with heavy, large diameter shells by lighter howitzers. It is operating in a completely different weapon envelope that the Napoleonic howitzer.

A question or two about the matched guns and howitzers in a Napoleonic battery. (I could search for this but I'm sure other posters have accurate information at their fingertips).
#1 What is the comparison of the teams, weights of barrel and weight of barrel&carrage of the guns and howitzers in a mixed battery?
#2 What is the comparison of the bore diameter and throw-weight of the gun and howitzer in a mixed battery?
#3 Is there any overlap in the ammunition between howitzer and gun? This might not be within the same battery.

thanks

Dear Alex
Some interesting questions.

#1. The number of horse teams was kept the same for howitzers and guns in the same battery.

#2. Bore diameters. The throw weight of a shell to a ball was about double or more.
A 6-pdr (95mm) and 5.5in/24-pdr howitzer (150mm)
12-pdr (120mm) and either 24-pdr (150mm) or 6 pouce (165mm)

#3. A 24-pdr could fire 24-pdr (5.5in) shells. British 4-2/5" howitzer shell were fired from 12-pdrs. Hence the origins of the Shrapnell shell.

No there would be no overlap within the same battery unless you were dealing with Shell Guns / gun howitzers. The only onces that were in period would be the Russian Unicorns. The 10-pdr unicorn could fire a 12-pdr ball. Often to the confusion of the French advanceguard who thought they were being fired at by a Position Battery. Even so the Russian Position battery had Mediuma and Light 12-pdrs plus 20-pdr Howitzer. Alas the later was not the same calibre.

Stephen