"Guns with Wurst Seats" Topic

Wurst seats with seated gunners add a neat touch of detail and character to a limbered gun on the tabletop. But do you bother? I mean, do you replace a gun and crew base with a gun and seated crew when the gun is limbered? Is this an unnecessary detail on the tabletop?

Depends on how you want it to look. Personally I have guns and detachments in action models and guns and detachments limbered up and marching/riding along models. The limbers and teams are one and the same for both roles. It makes it clear what the gun's status is and is fun to model.

Gordon,
Do you have both Austrian and Bavarian models?
I was thinking that having two models for every model used on the tabletop puts these guns in a pretty unique position in Napoleonic gaming.
Michael

I have Austrians. Basically for each detachment there is a limber and its horses. For the gun in action there is a gun and four gunners on a base. For the gun limbered up the base is removed and there is a separate gun with gunners on the wurst seat which can be hooked on to the limber when the gun was out of action or moving. It is not really necessary in most rules but it looks good. I do the same with other artillery except of course there are no gunners on the gun but a base for them marching or on horseback (4 figures and 2 figures respectively).

For my foot artillery I have always just had the gun crew (they march behind the gun in action poses, but I can live with that). For horse artillery I have always had separate mounted and dismounted (action) figures, including some limber mounted if that was appropriate to their nation.

I have planned some Austrians, bought the figures, but not yet painted them. My Cavalry Artillery will have "wurst" gun carriage riders as well as action figures.

As Artilleryman says it is not necessary in most, if any, rules but it looks good.

Rod

Thanks, gentlemen. I'm guessing Bavarian wurst-ridden guns are rare on the tabletop.

Michael, I suspect that is because the figures are rare. The Perrys were talking about Bavarians as part of their Rheinbund range. There may be wurst riders there.

I think the Bavarian wursts were exclusively caissons; the guns never had them in the way that the Austrian cavallerie batteries did.

An example (HaT conversions from French wurst):-

link

How about these? 15mm Austrian "wurst wagens" I built these up from a Bavarian limber and scratch-built body to go with my cavalry batteries.

Bavaria receieved two batteries of Cavalry Wurst guns in 1809 but did not mount gunner on the wursts. They and the Wurtemburger rode on wurst wagons like those shown above.

The Austrians never rode on wurst caissons, this is anoter fiction of Tousard.
Stephen

Who is Tousard?

Actually, you don't need two guns, only a few artillery riders. Placed on the gun, it is limbered, off, it is unlimbered.

Tousard was a French artillery officer who wrote a two volume artillery manual for the U.S. Army in 1811. I *think* it available from Google for free….

It's my understanding that the Bavarian and Wurttemberg artillery equipment was built to the same pattern as the Austrian artillery due to their mountainous nature, hence my attempt at the wurst wagens. I'm quite happy to accept Tousard's word as they are simply representations for unlimited ammunition during games.
Given that Bavaria and Wurttemberg both used them, and even France, I can't see why the Austrians would have done any other as their army was arguably the best equipped in Europe in terms of design and build quality.
The purpose of a horse battery is to keep up with cavalry and move rapidly to bolster endangered sections of the line. If you look at almost any nation's horse artillery, there are never enough horses attached to a battery to allow all the gunners and handlanger to be mounted -even allowing for 3 or 4 to ride on the guns themselves so it makes sense that some, no matter what army, would ride on the caissons and support wagons. What's the point of horse batteries if some of the gunners are on foot.
That's my view anyway.
Mal

Dear Mal
The answer is no the Bavarians and Wurttemberg artillery was not the same as the Austrian. The Bavarian M1800 Manson system was a development of the Gribeauval system. The designer had done the carriages for the French system. The 6-pdr was a Gribeauval 4-pdr bored to 6-pdr calibre.

You can see details of the Wurttemberg system in the SOJ
PDF link
Stephen

Mal Sabreur

Dr. Summerfield is correct, the Bavarians received two Austrian horse batteries – but then designed their own ammunition waggons – and used their own guns.

In the Austrian Army the gunners rode on the "sausage" that was placed on the gun trail – they did not ride on the ammunition waggon – in contrast to the early artillerie legere in the French army.

Hi Stephen.
What I meant was similar,not the same. It's a useful article that one. All 3 states had artillery and equipment that was specifically designed for mountainous country, with narrow wheel guages and a preponderance of pine rather than oak construction. It's the barrels that are of French pattern.
I wish I could show you some of the chasing up I did on these but my PC packed up a couple of weeks ago and I lost everything on it. I satisfied myself that the Austrians did use this style of caisson. It's not something worth falling out over.
I might have a go at the Wurttemburg guns! They obviously didn't get as pally as the Austrian gunners!
The caisson is interesting in that only the front part is padded with the rear having an apex top.
Mal

Here a Bavarian ammunition waggon of a light battery

narrow wheel gauges – I have my doubts, hopefully you can restore your hard drive.

I am positive that the Perrys will do a waggon like this

All comments have been very helpful so far. Thanks!

the Bavarians received two Austrian horse batteries – but then designed their own ammunition waggons – and used their own guns.

Given the rarity of models of some of this equipment, what substitutes can be used? (I have to commend Mal's inventive scratch-build!)

Austrian guns, for example, are often supplied with Bavarian crews. What limbers can Bavarians utilise?

As with my OP regarding detail, I'm guessing some manufacturers would produce more specific equipments if they knew for sure what they actually were.

Hoping this is the proper place to do this, I would like to reveal my ignorance on this subject and ask if any of the very knowledgable contributers to the TMP site know if the gunners actually rode on the wurst wagons as they were galloping across the battle field. I assume thats what they were designed for but it appears that it would have been a very exciting, not to mention painfull and dangerous ride. I've wondered about this for years.

Thanks, John Miller

It would depend on the terrain, on difficult terrain I can think of no 4 wheeled ammuniton waggon to go at gallop otherwise it would brake apart.
Here some contemporary views.

the last one is form the ASK Brown collection

As to scratch build, difficult, I would suggest a Prussian limber with the rear part of a 4 wheeled ammunition waggon, and then convert the lid with green stuff.

Dear von Winterfeldt
I have scale drawings of both the Wurttemberg and Bavarian systems some of which have been published in the paper versions of the Smoothbore Ordnance Journal.

The Bavarian Wurst Wagon is almost exactly as you describe.
Stephen

And following on from John Miller, did they have anything to hold on to, or put their feet in. From the picture of Bavarians above it doesn't look like it.

Von W. The narrow guage was because of mountain and forest tracks. Having less distance between the wheels made movement easier. presumably the wheels were also slightly smaller to maimtain the centre of balance. I read about this many, many years ago

The question of limber/gun/caisson riders at the gallop is a pretty good one John. As Von W says, it would depend on the terrain, but I don't think it would have been a very comfortable ride at the best of times.
It's unlikely the caissons would have charged into action. The guns and some limbers carried ready supplies of ammunition, with, in the Austrian cavalry batteries, some carried on pack horses (something I'm going to have to make). The caissons would move up at a more sedate pace and take up position well behind the battery.
The waggons I built used Minifigs Bavarian limbers which have a back-rest and curved sides with what appears in 15mm scale as a close diamond mesh filling, but I have seen an illustration where the infill looks like tongue and groove board running horizontally. The hard part is the wagon body. A normal caisson body is too wide for someone to sit astride comfortably. It needs to be no wider than the seat on a wurst gun- call it the same width as a horse.

This is from my venerable (French) copy of Funken, bought in '69!
It shows the seat backs clearly.
Could you put on a link to those scale drawings please Stephen? it would be really helpful!

for the body, you can use balsa for the wagon body with detail built up with card/plasticard or the whole thing using plasticard with milliput/greenstuff seat. There are links somewhere on here to a HAT (how do you get umlauts?)French-Bavarian conversion that has build diagrams for 1:72 scale.
Mal

So Funcken is not bad for a start, contemporary pictures are better, there was no solid wooden back panel as shown by Funcken but some contemporary pictures show just metal bars.

As to the narrow wheel gauge – I cannot confirm this by the prints nor written text.

For good schematic pictures follow the advise of Dr. Summerfield and check out his prints.

I've seen the models for the Wurttemberg stuff but can't find the plans for the Bavarian.
As I said, I learned about the wheel guage many years ago. I can't even remember where now, but the book was very definite in the details and the explanation as to why and was complete with gun plans. It could have been Von Pivka.
It certainly seems plausible.

von Winterfeldt, Mal sabreur, ColonelToffeeApple:
Thank you all for the information, also for the pictures!!!
John Miller

Here a ammunition waggon – of Württemberg artillery, maybe Dr. Summerfield can elaborate

Bavarian limber, 1814, showing metal rails. Also shown in von Winterfeldt's images above.
Was this the only Bavarian limber design?
Rails not apparent on wagons.

'It would depend on the terrain, on difficult terrain I can think of no 4 wheeled ammuniton waggon to go at gallop otherwise it would brake apart.'

Source(s)?

Do you include the Prussian four-wheeled caisson as well as the Austian model in this assertion or are you only referring to the French caisson?

B

I would also submit that riding a gun limber at anything faster than a slow trot would be something to accomplish.

B

And I would submit they need something to hold on to.

Agree. I read somewhere lately and I have forgotten where, that artillery in the American Civil War, with better gun limbers and caissons and the seat made to be sat upon, had a very hard time keeping their 'seats' at anything over a trot.

Guns, limbers, and caissons tend to bounce along uneven terrain at speed (trot or above). Without something to hold onto, gunners would probably be tossed off.

There was a reason that Civil War horse artillery had all of the gunners mounted on individual horses, just as the French did post-1800. They could travel at speed without anyone falling off unless they were just poor horsemen or weren't paying attention.

B

That said, with either method, your gunners are constricted by the speed of the vehicles.

(So to answer the original question, the guns with the worst seats are the ones with the wurst seats…..)

That is a logical conclusion.

However, horse artillery with individually mounted gunners can move faster than foot artillery as well as displace and emplace much more quickly.

Austrian cavalry batteries moved faster than foot artillery, but not as quickly as regular horse artillery (which they were not).

B