"FIELD ARTILLERY FRONTAGES" Topic

Picked up a point of interest (and some perplexity) while doing some background reading on Pickett's Charge. Some accounts state that certain Union artillery batteries had gone into battery with intervals between guns as tight as 14 FEET versus the standard 14 YARDS. That is 3x the fire density per unit of frontage (although I think that fire in any direction other than straight ahead would be precluded).

How can this be reflected in rules?

Reminds me a bit of dealing with the issue of multiple regiments of infantry 4 to 6 ranks deep delivering fire by file (or loading and passing muskets to the shooters up front) over a single regiment frontage. It's not found in the official manuals, but it was nevertheless done.

B

Well, rules are meant to be broken and that's true for military regulations, too. If the circumstances demand it, the standard frontages could be decreased or increased.

For a game rule, I'd say allow a smaller frontage with the same firepower, but make the artillery more vulnerable to fire since they'd be a much denser target. Of course the narrower frontage becomes a problem if your battery is represented by a single stand. With multiple stands you could stack them up (sort of an artillery column) to get the narrower frontage, but with a single gun, you are of out of luck :)

Shouldn't the rules also impose a movement penalty if the artillery sought to limber up?

Yes it should. Those batteries were put into that position as a sort of "last stand" decision. There was no way that the guns could be limbered up and withdrawn in case the Confederates broke through the line.

As Scott mentioned above, it becomes a very dense target at that frontage, and if it were me running the game, those batteries would have been treated as infantry in column because of both the frontage and the depth.

Not just the men and guns, but the horses as well. They gun's teams had to be pulled up in order to provide ammunition fr the guns, and when that ran out, the Caissons would have had to have been pulled up close as well, since there's no way for the original gun's team to pull around and withdraw to replace the limber chest with a fresh one.

By tradition, if nothing else, weren't the Union batteries at Malvern Hill described as being "hub-to-hub" for Lee's final assault?

That might be an exaggeration, but the point is well taken. Halve the frontage of multiple batteries, double the fire effects down range, but also double the effects of incoming artillery rounds on the batteries so compressed--plus doubling the time required to limber up and move off in any subsequent turn.

Arbitrary, to be sure, but it would address a legitimate issue in most/all games with 19th Century and earlier Field Artillery.

TVAG

As Scott mentioned above, it becomes a very dense target at that frontage, and if it were me running the game, those batteries would have been treated as infantry in column because of both the frontage and the depth.

Is that realistic? The Confederates don't seem to have done damage to the Union artillery at Gettysburg that a dense formation would suggest. Even less noticeable at Mulvern Hill.

Well, it was pretty rare for a a battery to be smashed to bits by counterbattery fire (driven off, yes, but rarely destroyed) or even hurt all that badly by rifle fire, and yet Cushing's battery at The Angle was pretty well annihilated.

Read "Grape and Canister" by Naisawald(??) to get a sense of the effects of counter-battery fire suffered by Union artillery.

B

Is that realistic? The Confederates don't seem to have done damage to the Union artillery at Gettysburg that a dense formation would suggest. Even less noticeable at Mulvern Hill.

A great deal of damage was averted due to the quality control problems the CS Laboratories had in producing artillery fuses. Powder and shell, everything else, was pretty good, but the confederates seemed to have some serious issues with fuses.

In fact, problems got so bad that by Gettysburg, Lee had prohibited his own batteries from firing in support of his infantry while the guns were behind the troops. Too many rounds were going off short and endagering their own troops.

At Gettysburg, as Scott mentions above, federal batteries were driven off. However, they resupplied and returned to help repulse the confederate waves. YET……. they did suffer some serious casualties among both the crews and horses. It was a result of not only accurate (even with the poor fuses) CS artillery counter-battery fire, but also infantry fire when the confederate lines moved close enough to engage with small arms. The batteries were very close to the federal infantry to their front, and somewhat above them. Thus, CS infantry fire directed at the federal infantry, which overshot it's mark, tended to find the artillery instead.

All in all a bloody mess. Harry Pfanz' books on Gettysburg talk about this and he goes into some detail about what happened to the federal batteries when Pickett's troops went in.

2nd Corps Artillery Brigade essentially ceased to exist under the Confederate bombardment before Pickett's charge, with only 5 guns left in service, all lacking most of their crews and ammunition (one of those was simply charged with canister and a guy left with a lanyard for one last shot for example).

As the attack stepped off one 6 gun battery dropped trail in that area and was in action during the fight. Another dropped trail after the rebs started to retreat and gave them a lot of "good news".

The problem with the Bormann fuse was systemic to the fuse, and not reb manufacturing – it was designed for rifled guns with 1 lb charges, and the 2.5 lb charge of the light 12 pdr tended to dislodge the fuse making the round detonate less than 50 ft in front of the gun. Federal guns had the same problem.

qBy tradition, if nothing else, weren't the Union batteries at Malvern Hill described as being "hub-to-hub" for Lee's final assault?

That may be a colorful exaggeration. How do you serve the guns if you can't move past the wheels to load and swab? You certainly don't stand IN FRONT of the guns when they are fired that close to each other…

2nd Corps Artillery Brigade lost 149 out of 605 (27 Killed – 119 wounded and 3 missing) or 24.6%

Only other unit that came close to this was McGilvery's 1st Volunteer Brigade from the Artillery Reserve. Which lost 24.2% – 93 out of 385, mostly while pulling the Army's rear end out of the fire, after the III Corps collapsed.

I believe that the 14 yard standard distance was that distance because it was the turning radius of the gun, limber and horse team as well as the cassion, limber and horse team. In going into battery, the unit would make a "J" path, stop, lift the pintle, load and start shooting. Any replacement, resupply, or retreat would need the same distance spacing to be convenient. The gun(cassion)/limber/horse transport unit was not constructed to be able to back up or do "K-turns". Note that it was more manearuvable than a wagon, because the limber (in front and connected to the pole and traces to the horses) was connected to the gun or cassion by a "swivel" connection (pintle into the lunette).

If you used a closer spacing, it was more difficult and took a longer time to resupply or remove.

Could the accounts you refer to have simply confused feet and yards? The repeat of the number 14 sounds suspicious, in that regard.

Could be, donlowry. But then why make the remark at all? 14 yards between guns was a standard interval.

B

1968Billsfan

Indeed, you are quite correct. In addition, after the gun was unhooked and dropped into place, the team kept driving back, then turned around and trotted back up behind the gun, the horses facing in the same direction, towards the enemy. This allowed the team to move forward and hook up the gun and either advance to support the infantry when it moved out, or wheel about and retire to a new position.

Napoleon at War does this idea for napoleonics. You contract the frontage by placing half the guns behind the other half. Almost like a gun line. When fired upon, it is far more deadly and makes counter battery fire even more dangerous. The rear rank is considered to be in the front rank for firing purposes, but the density is shown in the way I have described.

Not a new idea. 'Empire' used to do it back in the 1980s.

Looks awful.