"Capturing Guns" Topic
7 Posts
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LesCM19 | 27 May 2015 1:09 p.m. PST |
I was chatting to some re-enactors at Newark the other month and they said that when guns were captured the artillerymen were considered extremely valuable skilled manpower in terms of operating the gun and so were captured part & parcel with the piece. The captured gun & crew was often/sometimes then used against their original comrades, I assume at the point of the sword. I was not able to find out where the re-enactor got this information but I have been thinking that I never saw this happen in a wargame of any period and wondered if it was actually the case or if we just do not do this in a game and assume the guns got spiked before being overrun. The chap I was talking to said that not destroying/spiking the guns was the crews get out of jail free card to escape being put to the sword and the guns themselves were kind of priceless to both sides. Just -as usual- curious! |
Cerdic | 27 May 2015 1:31 p.m. PST |
I don't know if it was still the practice by the time of the ECW, but in earlier times artillery crews were viewed more like hired contractors than soldiers. A change of sides was just a change of employer…. |
LesCM19 | 27 May 2015 1:41 p.m. PST |
Cerdic, yes that's what came across to me from what he said. Easier to press the crew into service with the artillery they knew how to use than train a new team and being able to operate your captured gun granted you a certain amount of clemency. Seemed to work for all concerned. Curious to know if captured guns were ever used in the same battle by the other side… |
Korvessa | 27 May 2015 2:27 p.m. PST |
Curious to know if captured guns were ever used in the same battle by the other side… Didn't this happen In Gustavus' battles in 30YW? |
Wargames Designs | 27 May 2015 4:48 p.m. PST |
From what I have read the battle of Roundway Down 1643. The Royalist cavalry captured Parliamentarian guns and turned them on their former owners infantry. |
David Taylor | 28 May 2015 5:49 p.m. PST |
At Lutzen, one of the Imperial batteries chnaged hands several times and was used by both sides. |
Elenderil | 01 Jul 2015 5:37 a.m. PST |
IIRC at Breitenfeld the swedes re-crewed captured Imperial Guns and turned them to fire enfilade into the Imperial infantry. I'm reasonably sure that this was possible because the Swedes had a number of men in the Infantry cross trained in the rudiments of gunnery. When all is said and done a 17th century artillery piece is essentially a very big musket! If you don't need to calculate trajectory and powder weights to shot weights then treating them as a huge shotgun and firing on a flat trajectory when the enemy is at Musket shot range is pretty straight forward. Like other posters I am aware of circumstances where guns were turned against their previous owners during the ECW but I don't know of any case where it is clear that the crew changed sides during the battle. Of course I would be happy to be proved wrong. |
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