"New Fife & Drum British Artillery & Crew Pix" Topic

Here are some pictures of the 3-pound Galloper gun, suitable for both sides, as well as the British 6-pounder with crews loading and firing the cannon.

Galloper gun:

Galloper gun deployed with British crew (not included with the gun set).

British 6-pounder and AE-11 loading crew:

British 6-pounder and AE-12 firing crew:

There's something wrong with that galloper gun, it is impossible for that horse to pull it. This is how it is supposed to be:

link
link

Are things going to be at Historicon? I'd like to see them in the metal so to speak…

I will bring my sets to show you at Historicon. I am picking up an order from you and dropping off some painted perry figures. I will drop these off with you to look at Friday around 11. I'll have to leave them with you since the game I am running starts at noon.

I have both types of crew for Americans and British and the 6lb guns.

Matthew Grove

I won't be at Historicon this year, but plan on attending as a dealer next year.

Fonzie: good point, I will have to look into this. I think that what we have is 3-pounder (Verbruggen tube on a Congreve carriage), also called a 'grasshopper' rather than the 'galloper gun' shown in your pictures. We got our information from the Carauna book. It may be a simple matter of me not assembling the model in the correct manner.

Any help on this is appreciated so that we get it right.

The equipment is shown in Plate No. 15 of the Adrian Caruana book on British 3 Pounders and Grasshoppers and titled, "The manner of travelling with Lord Townsend's Light 3-pounder as a galloper". Presumably, the gun trail is fastened securely enough to the Townsend frame so that the frame and the carriage act as one solid piece during transit when drawn by the horse. I should actually move the horse a little further forward going left in the picture.

So in a word, yes, it is possible for the horse to pull the cannon as shown in the picture.

There are any number of different "galloper" variations, of which one is the example shown in the Royal Artillery Museum (link courtesy of Fonzie), and another example is the one that we have manufactured, modeled after Lord Townsend's system. The term "Galloper" merely refers to the ability to draw the cannon utilizing the gun trail as a limber.

I can't attach the scan that I have at work, but will post it on my blog this evening (which enables me to then post the scan here on TMP).

Thanks Fritz for clearing that up. :-)

Fons

Here is the drawing of the Lord Townsend system for light artillery pieces.

So thank you to Fonzie for raising the question. As a result, I now know a little bit more about Galloper Guns. BTW, you should click on his links as he has some fascinating pictures that he shot at the Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich and of the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.