"captuered guns? what to with them?" Topic

Hi,Gents
Just want know this bring them to the rear? or turn them! best to you al serge joe

Very rare occasions, mostly in fortifications can you re use them on the spot.
If field artillery is taken, the first ones to run are the limbers etc. even easier as they are ordered to do so!
If it makes historical sense, do have a rare event card that allows a few clumsy rounds of captured artillery.
Mind me, if I remember well at Shiloh the Csa " exchanged" their sb light guns against better bigger Union. Mostly armies just cannot move them in numbers. It works a bit like captured tanks. It takes a while to re use or just use what is valuable. In napy time probably mostly the tube to melt and anything that can be jury- rigged.

Plenty of examples of a single shot fired from a captured gun, presumably already loaded…….or at least the story is often told. However, just loading a gun without blowing yourself up is a highly trained job and I wonder how easily the average infantryman, in those days, could do that. Also assumes ready use ammo and implements etc still there

Take them home and stick them in front of the Tower of London or piled against the walls inside the Kremlin……….unless of course you press them into your own service en masse later on.

Usually, leave them sit to be collected later. If there were friendly artillery near by, one might borrow a few gunners to put them into action, but it was unusual.

I think I read somewhere that some units scratched their regimental number on the barrel of captured guns before moving on.

You drag them back to the Arsenal in the Kremlin--park'em outside--and show the taxpayers what they bought…

Captured guns? What to do with them?

Not a lot, since in all probability they would have been spiked by their own crews before they ran off.

Sell em on ebay

No traction
Few spare people to use them properly
If different from yours, very little ammo left unless in redoubt.

Yes very nice trophy.

use them

use them

Few spare people to use them properly
If different from yours, very little ammo left unless in redoubt.

- difference of opinion here?

look into history, they were used, even taken over into the army, as Hannoverian , Austrian and Prussian guns in the French case, of French guns later into Prussian service

Yes use them. But not in the same battle they were captured, which was the question… Initially.
Or it was so rare, beyond a few shots that, as with most extraordinary cases, it better be left off The Rules.
In battles with turns of 15-30 minutes.
Skirmish would be different.

Ok if that was the first question I agree

At Wagram, much of the artillery on Lobau Island was captured Austrian ordinance, crewed by French artillerists. So on the field where they were captured, no – they cannot be used. But in a campaign context, definitely yes. Of course, there had to ammo available as well, which the French found plentiful in Vienna.

depends on the war in question

I believe that there were instances during the Thirty Years War where captured artillery was turned and used on it's original owners. However, this was also a period where many infantry regiments had light regimental artillery attached to the unit and therefore would have had some gunners with them who would have the necessary knowledge to re-use captured guns.

In Spain, the French used Gribeauval pattern guns because the Spanish Army used that pattern. So any guns captured by the French already fit into their system. Even better, the infrastructure to support those guns (facilities to make guns, carriages, ammunition, etc.) already existed in Spain. With the loss of guns in Russia and the need to re-equip the new Grande Armee, I don't think many of the more modern pattern made it to Spain.

The Russians took the French guns and lined the Kremlin gardens with them.

In a solo game (Napoleonics) there was a cavalry skirmish that as they go ebb and flow. The Russians slowly were forced back leaving a abandoned battery. A Prussian (there opponents) horse battery supporting the advance decided to go capture them and leaving there guns rode up with just their limbers and brought them back to were there guns were. Try that on a live opponent.

Take them home and get town councils to bury the barrels spot upwards across narrow roads, glue a cannon ball in the mouth and call them bollards. Alternatively, melt them down and make medals from them for years..and years…and years.

"The Russians took the French guns and lined the Kremlin gardens with them."

Actually, the Russians did think to try to use them, and collected a bunch (in Tver, I think) for this purpose. But when they tried using them, the decided they actually didn't like them enough and decided to await their own production to complete their reserve and replacement artillery brigades.

They melted down some of the French pieces, but that also seemed like more trouble than it was worth ….. so they mostly sent the French around to various cities and towns as trophies to raise moral ….and to decorate gardens.

So much for the highly vaunted supposed "superiority" of French artillery.

- Sasha

So much for the highly vaunted supposed "superiority" of French artillery

Well, your story only proves that the Russians preferred their own system. It could have been because they believed inferior to their own model, but perhaps they could have thought that the advantages weren't enough to justify the investment necessary to adapt part of their artillery train to the French model; or that they hadn't time enough to train artillerymen to use the French weapons; or that their own system was already adapted to their tactics; or dozen of other explanations.

When Afghan tribesmen destroyed an Anglo-Indian column at Maiwand, they captured dozens of British small arms; however only a few were later used against the British as the tribesmen were more comfortable -and had the ammo!- with their own weapons, even if they were obsolete compared with the British guns. Cultural bias plays a role in the adoption of new weapons and tactics, not just the perceived technical advantages.

basileus,

Well, one cannot really disagree with your comments, and my comment might have been less snarky. But there is so much vaunting about the great French artillery, it is hard to resist being a little snarky, I must sheepishly admit.

Maybe a few details would be of interest ….

For the cannons, the French pieces could have taken Russian rounds "as is". For each model, the French piece had a very slightly greater diameter of the bore, but not enough to cause excess windage :

Russian 6-lber cannon 3.530 French inches
French 6-lber cannon 3.542 French inches
designed difference between the diameter of roundshot and the diameter of the bore of the Russian piece : 0.121 French inches
the same if a Russian roundshot is used in the French barrel : 0.133 French inches

Russian 12-lber cannon 4.448 French inches
French 12-lber cannon 4.479 French inches
designed difference between the diameter of roundshot and the diameter of the bore of the Russian piece : 0.151 French inches
the same if a Russian roundshot is used in the French barrel : 0.182 French inches

The Russians found the French caissons just plain un-usable (too heavy, 4-wheel design too unweildy).
The actual cannon barrels did not get too much negative comment, but the carriages and the limbers were thought to be insufficiently robust for their weight compared to the Russian designs. Also, the need to move the 12-lber barrels to/from the traveling and firing positions was deemed unacceptable.
One problem with the French barrels was that they would need re-machining for the Kabanov sights (the Russians used two sights, one similar to the French, and the Kabanov sight that adjusted for uneven ground but which slowed the rate of firing – the sights could be changed in a few minutes). Another issue was that the French pieces were, of course, used and not new.
Given that the regular Russian sight was about the same as the French one, and assuming re-mounting the barrels, crew training would not have been an issue.
Overall, it appears that re-mounting the French cannon barrels was more trouble and/or delay that just awaiting the deliveries already in process from the Russian arsenals.

The French 24-lber howitzers could not take the rounds intended for the Russian 1/2-pud unicorn. But the Russians had long before chosen the longer barrelled unicorns over shorter howitzers for field artillery. The trials around Tver did not change this opinion, but here adoption of the French pieces would have required substantial additional logistics efforts to make up appropriate rounds.

It was not, in my opinion, a case of "not invented here" or cultural bias. The Russians really liked the British Brown Bess muskets (they bought well over 100,000 of them and would have bought more) and Baker rifles (the few they could buy) just as much as their own obr. 1808 muskets and obr. 1805 jäger rifles. They did not mind using captured Swedish long arms. They thought captured French muskets were OK for second-line or garrison units, along with thier own older, used weapons. They expressed real dis-satisfaction with Austrian long-arms (regiments issued them in two cases requested permission to take up captured French muskets in place of the issued Austrian arms). I have never understood exactly why these preferences developed, but at least there was no general hesitation about using foreign equipment.

Other examples …. The Russians loved British clothe for uniforms, and would accept clothe made in north Germany, but otherwise used their own. They would use captured French knapsacks and shakos (with changed decorations) if their own were unavailable, but greatly preferred their own short campaign boots to any foreign shoes.

- Sasha

Further comparisons :

Russian 12-lber cannon : length 17.2 calibres, weight 1654 livres
Russian short 12-lber cannon : length 14.2 calibres, weight 956 livres
French Gribeauval 12-lber cannon : length 18.9 calibres, weight 1808 livres
French An XI 12-lber cannon : length 18.8 calibres, weight 1530 livres
--- The French An XI 12-lber compares favorably, except for the issue of finding a way of mounting it in a way that avoid having to move from a traveling to a firing position, as it is both lighter and longer than the standard Russian 12-pounder. The Gribeauval 12-lber looks just plain heavy. The Russian short 12-lber is rather interesting : a compromise of lower weight and somewhat lower accuracy. But I really don't know why the Russians did not just adopt a single design of, for example, a bit over 16 calibres length and weighing about 1400 livres (to be used in battery companies with the shorter 1/2-pud unicorns of 24-lber calibre and the same weight).
--- The Saxon design of 1810 might have been the best : 19 calibres long and only 1475 livres weight, but this did rely on using a conical charge for a (lower weight) conical firing chamber.

Russian 6-lber cannon : length 17.5 calibres, weight 743 livres
French 6-lber cannon : length 18.8 calibres, weight 790 livres
--- The French piece is a little heavier, but also a little longer (and perhaps thus a very little bit more accurate, although the relationship between length and accuracy tails off above a length of 16 calibres).
--- Overall, rather similar designs.

Russian 1/2-pud unicorn (for battery companies) : diameter of the round 5.56 French inches, length 11.4 calibres, weight 1400 livres
Russian 1/4-pud unicorn (for light companies) : diameter of the round 4.38 French inches, length 11.4 calibres, weight 723 livres
Russian 1/4-pud unicorn (for horse companies) : diameter of the round 4.38 French inches, length 10.4 calibres, weight 656 livres
French An-XI 24-lber howitzer : diameter of the round 5.48 French inches, length 6.7 calibres, weight 600 livres
--- You see the larger Russian rounds for the 1/2-pud unicorn are too big to be used "as is" in the French howitzer. The problem extends to the shape of the powder charge (conical in the case of the Russian weapon).
--- Overall, this is an apples/oranges comparison.

- Sasha

Sasha

Yeah, I agree with you in the absurdity of making too much fuss about the supposed French artillery technical superiority. I don't really believe that any belligerant had a significant weapon advantage over its opponents, if any. In my opinion, those endless debates only serve to massage the egos of historians and dilettantes.

My only point was that Russians could have had many reasons to prefer to wait for their weapons. It wouldn't be unthinkable that after investing in the production of their own cannons they did want to use what they had already paid for.

When I pointed to "cultural bias" I wasn't referring to a generalized "hate" for anything foreign -odd that they liked the Brown Bess, when British soldiers themselves weren't precisely fond of the weapon… some of them even liked the French Charleroi better; may be it was that anything British acted like a prestige item and thus the preference for Brown Besses? Dunno… Anyway, my point is that military organizations are rather conservative and only accept changes -in organization or weaponry- when it is evident beyond doubt that those changes provide them with a net operative or tactical advantage.

By the way, thank you for the comparative. It is very interesting.

Rule #1.

Make sure that if, in the ebb and flow of battle, you have to retreat (and of course are not often going to have limbers and horses to drag these things off), make sure that the other side will not be able to use them.

Rules #2.

Make sure that you get credit for taking the guns.

#2 is probably more important then #1.

The British captured a lot of French guns at Wuebec in 1759.
The tubes sat in storage , minus the carriages until the AWI.
When Burgoyne went south the artillery was mostly the French tubes on new British carriages.
They were captured at Saratoga. The surrender terms would have precluded spiking them v
These guns were then distributed on the Continental army, with some being captured by the British and then recaptured at Yorktown.
The guns captured by Arnold and Allen at Ticinderoga had a similar history.

Dear All
Captured guns were
1. Re-used, e.g. French using Austrian guns 1793-1812.
2. Sold to other countries, e.g. French sold Prussian guns to Duchy of Warsaw. Saxony bored these out to French calibres in 1807-09. Brunswick purchased two Westphalian horse artillery batteries after Leipzig.
3. Put trophies on display e.g. Kremlin, Borodino, Tower of London.
4. Melted down to make more guns was a common practice in C18th. More tin was added for the Bronze. Most of the Wealden guns were melted down and blended with iron with high sulphur content by Wilkinson to make his guns for the RN in 1790s.
5. Used as balast for ships
6. Bollards that can still be seen in London

Stephen