"Man at War French Horse Artillery Limber Assembly Question" Topic

I'm at a loss on how to put this piece together, and none of the photos I could find really show how it works. Does anyone have a photo of one of the Man at War French Horse Artillery limbers from a top down view they could share (or any manufacturers if it is similar in design), or going from the photos I have, perhaps someone could lend some assembly advice?

You are pretty close. 3 pairs of horses with the riders on the left side. The center and rear pair are lined up directly in front of the cross tees. The front pair were connected to the end of the tongue by a triangular system of chains. It is difficult to tell from your photos, but if 1 pair have the cross tees cast onto the rear of the horse, these are your front pair. 1 ammo box went on the limber, the other on the trails of the gun.

Cold Steel--where did you get the second pic?

link

About halfway down the page.

Thanks, Steel. Yeah, piperider, they molded the ammo boxes with the attachable handles on. I would probably cut them off, unless doing a diorama of a setup battery.

Always easy to tell left from right indeed,as postillions or drivers rode the on the left side. The challenge can be to tell front from rear. Notice even on the simplified harness shown above (said to be medieval but surely later) the chains from the pole connecting to the front of the rear horses? That was to allow reversing.

Only the rear pair could exert any pull backwards; now there is no point in that pull being applied to the collar, it would just come straight off over his head! Instead the rearmost pair had a much more elaborate harness around their rear ends, than their fellows did. A wide strap would pass beneath the tail and, usually some vertical straps (only one in the drawing above) rising from this to the midline, to spread the load across his backside! Look at Perry or Westfalia British or French teams on their sites and you will see how rear and leading horses differed.

Of course I forgot to mention that braking was more important than reversing! Those rear horses were hard worked and, in the British system, where only the right rear horse was between poles, he had to be very well trained and tough (but the system allowed tighter radius turns it seems)