"SYW Artillery Effectiveness" Topic

As usual, I am crafting a set of rules for SYW to my liking. Many borrowed ideas from other sets and a few original thoughts. I did some play testing the other day with my my son and I realized that while I feel like I have a good understanding of the national differences in performance for infantry and cavalry units, I do not have the same appreciation for artillery.

I know there are probably many differences but I am looking for ones significant enough that you would differentiate artillery in the game. My sense is that whether Austrian or Prussian that you might differentiate for the size of the gun represented but not the effectiveness or efficiency of its crew based on nationality.

Also, I'm curious if folks can site any SYW battles where artillery was instrumental in either blunting or turning back an attack.

Thoughts?

Conventional wisdom holds that artillery batteries were relatively static during SYW battles but in any reasonable account of Leuthen you cant help but note the frequent references to the Prussian "Brummers" manouvering forward and really hammering the Austrians.

The Prussian artillery flexibility at Leuthen seems almost French Napoleonic in its description.

Not sure that I've ever seen this well represented in a set of rules.

Have a look at Christian Rogge's 'My Seven Years War' blog which discusses some aspects of Prussian artillery design and about a quarter of the way down deal with the 'Brummers' at Leuthen. There is a lot of useful discussion concerning different nations artillery elsewhere on the blog.

link

Frederic himself said the Austrian artillery was the best and the most dangerous part of their army. (which speaks a lot about a famous ruleset that advises in "buying" your army to leave them out as useless!)

To " help" motivate the civilian teams to move the guns at Leuthen he had parties of hussars with them.

For quality I use best to lowest:
Austrians
British/ Hannover/French,
Prussians/ Russian, Saxons…

Still not sure that once emplaced the guns were or not only pushed forward / back with the help of supporting infantry.

Indeed, you may find more information with my numerous dedicated artillery articles (on Prussian and French for the most – some on English, and two more discussing Hesse-Cassel and 1756 Saxon battalion guns) Though, I was more concerned for looks and dimensions and deliberately avoided getting too deep into the effectiveness issue. A complicated subject, I'm inclined to believe.

Are you concentrating on Austrians vs Prussians or do you intend to include all engaged nations artillery. The letter, would end up with more complex rules (or tables) as you would arrive at a wide range of ordnance found fielded with the different armies.
Not sure if the average gamer would be happy with such a prospect.
I found most gamers are happy with a distinction between light-medium-heavy, all with their distinctive ranges, select from among their gun models what they think looks best, and start playing. Fine enough.

Cheers,
Christian
crogges7ywarmies.blogspot.de

I have been through similar debates and playtests in the evolution of the rules I use, which are based on Rank and File, and thus need to be tempered with the fact it is a D6 game, so every +/-1 means a fairly large 16.67% difference.

For SYW artillery, I have settled on two aspects, one of which was relatively easy. I typically rate the Russian artillerists as Veteran. This does not change the effectiveness of their fire in R&F (we tried a variant where we had Troop Quality as a fire mod, but it made long-range fire too effective). It obviously does mean they are less likely to go unsteady/rout. From somewhere I can't remember (maybe an old Courier article?), I noted the following quote: "The [Russian] gunners themselves were apparently exceptionally brave. We read accounts of gunners staying by their guns long enough to be over-run not only by Prussian cavalry but even by Prussian infantry."

Austrian artillery is tougher to quantify. Again, from somewhere I can't remember, I noted the following quote: "…Austrian artillery which was throughout the Seven Years War the best in Europe… " The question is, what does that mean? More maneuverable (e.g. because their guns are lighter), they shoot better, both? At present, admittedly purely from a wargames perspective, I have gone with the shooting perspective, and allow Austrian artillery to re-roll one natural '1'.

I cannot recall the title of the book and I am at work, but I think it was the book that Christopher Duffy published on the army of Maria Theresa that spoke about the Austrian artillery arm. It's powder and train were better kept, the arm was well paid and had a large number of professional engineers leading it to get the best use from it.

I would advise also reading through the particular chapters in Duffy's The Army of Frederick the Great and The Army of Maria Teresa for information on how he rates their artillery.

The battalion guns (3 and 4 lbrs, then light 6 lbrs) were designed and manned to be moveable with the infantry formations. IIRC from Duffy, the Austrians were very good at this since they had a "separate" artillery handling corps which provided the man-power to man-handle the guns on the battlefield. I think that the Russians did the same. The Prussians, IIRC, used infantry seconded from the supported units.

The British guns, especially at Minden, were used with audacity, being pushed forward in support of the famous British attack that resulted in the French cavalry counterattack.

Some of the French artillery, especially the light Swedish battalion guns, were handled very well in some of their battles.

Just my nickel's worth.

Jim

Well, I must say that the SYW commanders seemed to like artillery, because I don't recall any of them giving up theirs very easily!

I think the fact that the Austrian artillery officers were almost all professionals promoted by merit and the quality of their powder had a lot to do with their reputation

Interesting… I hadn't thought of it from the standpoint of battalion guns. One of the things we like about R&F is their mechanic of simply throwing another die for the battalion guns.

Thank you all for your thoughtful replies!

Christian – Thank you for sharing your exceptional work on artillery. I look forward to finish reading your blog.

ColCampbell – Just reread both Duffy's The Army of Frederick the Great and The Army of Maria Teresa as well as Military Experience in the Age of Reason (the battle section). Very good back ground but not quite enough substance to make judgmental calls. As Codiver states – what does it mean in terms of effectiveness & mobility in comparison to one another.

So, my thoughts currently…
Since battalion guns seem to be the norm in any army, I had rationalized simply including them in the infantry unit fire mechanics. Presently, I have just two categories for Artillery. Field Artillery (6-8lbs) and Positional Artillery (>12lbs). I'm decided on giving the Austrian Artillery an extra inch of movement and a +1 in fire.

I think this is an interesting and historical way of offsetting the Prussian Infantry movement advantages to make for a balanced game.

By the bye, Dr. Summerfield's book on Austrian 7YW Cavalry and Artillery is also a splendid reference.

I think that the Austrian cannon were considered to be the best of their day (period) from a technology point of view. Liechtenstein had overhauled the Austrian artillery prior to the start of the SYW. Presumably this means that they were lighter than their Prussian counterparts and probably cast better as well.

As noted above, the Austrians had a regiment of Artillery fusiliers who were broken down into smaller penny packets to support the field guns (presumably to man handle the cannon into position and to a lesser extent, to provide protection for the battery with their muskets).

Coming late to an extremely interesting thread. OW – thank you for raising these questions!

On the strength of the above, greater mobility for the Austrian guns would indeed seem in order. Rather than a +1 to fire though, their more reliable powder could perhaps be reflected by a re-roll for misfires if you have such a thing, or narrow misses?

A balancing rule for the Prussians might then be to let them move 12pdrs as field guns, the way they did at Leuthen? Historically, that seems to have been the counter they came up with.

Musketier,
Thank you for your suggestions. They are interesting options. I'll have to think about the re-roll vs the +1 in the context of my game mechanics but I conceptually like the idea. Maybe you can re-roll if the fire die result is a 1…example.

The Prussian movement option for Positional guns is a nice idea. Sounds like it would be available for games which occur after Leuthen 1757. I think this was the first recorded demonstration of this technique -- correct?

Christian is the expert, but to the best if my knowledge, yes. It was a bit of a desperate measure, after the lighter, chambered 12pdrs introduced just before the war had fallen short of expectations, and many had been captured at Breslau. So the older, full-bore 12pdrs originally intended for fortress duty were brought into the field.

Those "Brummer" required twelve horses to move, so must have been absolute beasts to move cross-country. Still not convinced they could be manhandled. Did frost make the ground at Leuthen firmer perhaps? In any case keep up they did, closely supporting the first infantry attack and later the fight for the village, where the deep formations of Austrian reinforcements provided perfect targets.

In the absence of any intermediate calibre above the 6pdr battalion guns, the Brummer were then kept on as field guns, later supplemented by another type of 12pdr model copied from captured Austrian guns.

Well, those heavy Prussian 12-pounder battery guns called "brummers" fielded at Leuthen and later were certainly never manhandled moving on a battlefield. The same would apply for the Valličre type French and the heavy Hannoverian 12-pdr ordnance, which were all of the same class of gun – and with a much similar weight. Much bigger then the now popular short barrel new 12-pdr field guns Austrians, Prussians and the British had at around 1759. All position guns fielded by Austria and Prussia were not manhandled in action, as well as I don't believe the British 12-pdrs of capt. Macbean's right wing parc artillery were manhandled at any given time during the battle of Minden. It was only the light battalion guns, including the Austrian 6-pdr, as well as the 7-pdr howitzers.
None of the 12-pdrs.

Apart from other comments here, you need to be aware that Prussians clearly outgunned all opponents from 1759 on. Prussia fielded heavy position guns in far greater numbers then any of her opponents (namely Austria and Russia).
The naked figures tell the true story. The 1759 Austrian Grand Army under maréchal Daun encamped in Marklissa near the Neisse river south of Görtitz in Lower Silesia had no more then 38 6-pdrs, 24 12-pdrs and 16 7-pdr/5.5 inch howitzers as so entitled "position guns" plus some 6 24-pdrs "battery guns" in reserve. All the remainder was 3-pdrs. Compare this to Frederick's Silesian army opposing him in his camp of Sagan during much of the summer keeping Daun in due distance. He had no less then 30 Brummers 12-pdrs, 60 mostly new cast Austrian type 12-pdrs and 40 more light 12-pdrs, plus 32 7 and 10-pdr howitzers. This may be the true reason why Daun avoided a direct clash. The quality of these two armies guns should have been much the same. Possibly an edge for the Austrians, but not of so much concern, to my understanding. From the reading of contemporary accounts, I only know that Prussians loved the Austrian 6-pdr model. The distribution of captured pieces to Prussian units could end up in duels on the side of battalion commanders, at times. Otherwise. Prussians preferred their own guns, melting Austrian guns to supply the metal for their own ordnance rather then to field captured Austrian pieces. In professional terms, the Austrian gunners should have been better then the Prussians, but the letter fielded so much more fire power.

It seems, Russian artillery wasn't all so formidable as it is believed by some of the afore accounts here. Again, Prussians outgunned the Russians in the 1758 battle of Zorndorf as well as with 1759 Kunersdorf in terms of the number of heavy guns. In both battles the Russian ranged fire is said to have been completely ineffective, causing close to no damage at all. Russians had very few heavy guns with them. The bulk of its admitted superior number pieces were light or medium gun-howitzer class pieces (unicorns etc.) that were poor with ranged fire but devasting when firing grape or canister at closer ranges. The gunners were certainly brave men, but is was said that the gun carriages were poorly manufactured so that many became inoperative during action. This was observed during the 1759 campaign were many Russian guns were found damaged after the battle of Kay/Paltzig and could not be fielded at the battle of Kunsersdorf only some weeks later. With this battle, the Prussians had the misfortune that the funny terrain with its two prominent ravines made it near impossible for the heavy artillery to follow the attack of the infantry. Most guns had to be left behind in their initial bombardment positions, really. That is why the Prussian superior artillery didn't pay off this day, I guess.

Cheers,
Christian
crogges7ywarmies.blogspot.com

Hop, hop.