"How to group Batteries of French Artillery OOB " Topic

In what manner should I link or assign French Artillery Artillery Batteries to either Battalion , Regiments or at Brigades level or their own Reserve ?
I will have 6 x 6pdr/Howitzer Line Artillery and 3 Imperial Guard Artillery 8/12 pdr Barrels from 3 packets of Victrix .
My French Corp is 3 Brigades of 1 Line ( 2 Line,1 x Light Regiments ) , 1 Guard (Guard ,artillery and cav Regt) , 1 cavalry ( 4 groups of 2 squadrons ) .
They are 28mm , using Black Powder

French artillery was usually grouped at the divisional and corps level. Numbers varied but as an example, Davout's 3rd Corps had 3 btys of 12 pdrs at the corps level and 2-3 btys of 8 or 6 pdrs at the divisional level. (The latter could include a horse bty even for an infantry division.) Strictly speaking your artillery support is very heavy with enough line for 2 divisions (up to six brigades) and about the right amount (albeit Guard) for corps level support. I do not know how many pieces you have in each bty but you might want to combine them to have three line 6 pdr btys and one 12 pdr bty as the divisional 'slice'. Hope that helps.

I'd go back to historical proportions myself.

Something to bear in mind is the "guns-per-thousand-men ratio" ["gp1km"], which I don't think was actually contemporary, but is a handy way to think about this.

What this was varied in practice according to locale, army size, and so on, but something like 2 to 4.5 would be about the usual bounds. So an army of 76,000 men with a guns-per-thousand-men ratio of say 3.25 would have 3.25 x 76 = 246 guns, i.e. Napoleon at Waterloo (at Borodino it was more).

If you work out how many men your force approximates to, you can estimate how many guns would be proportionate to that.

Your French Corps is, as I understand it, 3 brigades of 3 regiments, plus one Guard foot and horse regiment, plus four 2-squadron cavalry regiments.

If we take your foot regiments as having 2 battalions each of 600 men (wearyingly, all these values vary by era too) then you're representing 20 battalions = about 12,000 men. A French line cavalry squadron was let's say 150 men and you say you have eight of those, so that's 1,200 more men. Chuck in the Guard cavalry – usually these squadrons were stronger – and let's say you have 2,000 cavalry overall for a total of 14,000 men.

14,000 men are 14 thousands so 14 times 2.0 gp1km gives 28 guns, and 14 times 4.0 gp1km gives 56 guns.

You would therefore have somewhere between 28 and 56 guns for a historically proportionate artillery arm.

This is, of course, assuming your Corps-size formation is an autonomous one. If it were one Corps among three or four, its organic artillery strength would quite likely be less because there's an artillery reserve elsewhere which taken together with the Corps' artillery parcs would give you your overall guns-per-thousand-men ratio. It wouldn't often have any horse artillery either, as this would usually be with the various cavalry corps, though no doubt exceptions exist.

I don't know how many gun models per artillery unit your rules specify. But if it's say two pieces per battery, then your nine model guns give you four or perhaps 4.5 batteries, which is 32 guns or 36 guns, i.e. a correct and plausible ratio.

Where you are perhaps a bit heavy is on your 12-pounders which are 25% of the artillery you have. 10% of so was more common so I'd be tempted to make the Guard artillery unit an 8-pounder one.

Two guns in a French foot battery were howitzers, so you could justify having two howitzer models on the table if you like such things.

Our rule of thumb when creating a scenario is 1 model battery for every 3 real batteries. Heavy guns are usually corps guns.

I believe horse artillery were assigned differently than line but it has been awhile since I looked at it and I don't have my references with me at the moment.

I have long focused on Spain for my Napoleonics, and have 12 36-figure 18mm "battalions" as a composite division of I Corps. I have an 8-gun foot battery attached, using 2 men and 1 gun to represent a section of 2 real guns. So 3 8pdr models with 6 men, and a Howitzer with 2 men, allow me to spread the guns, or "mass them."

My composite of the composite division for the IVth Corps has 36 figures of the 4th Baden with 4 gunners and 2 gun figures. I also have 4 gunners and 2 guns with the Hessen Darmstadt 36 figure battalion.

Thus, reality allows you to use guns at divisional level for "pure" French units, and at battalion/regiment level for some allies in Spain.

I understand that the Polish Division of IV Corps had 2 battalions each of the 4th, 7th and 9th Polish, with both horse and foot guns attached, so still another variation.

GdeP

A typical French artillery allocation was in Victor's I Corps at Friedland in 1807. There were 36 field pieces, 6 of them being 12-pounders.

On campaign, every French artillery company would not have its full complement of guns (6 guns and 2 howitzers for a foot artillery company, 4 guns and 2 howitzers, or 6 guns for a horse artillery company). This was because of losses not being replaced in men or horses or both.

In 1805 Davout, en route to Ulm, had to leave some of his artillery at Mainz because of a shortage of horses.

Napoleon's intent, beginning in 1806 was to give every infantry division in the Grande Armee two companies of artillery. He wanted one of the companies to be horse artillery but that wasn't always possible. These companies were to be armed with 6-pounder guns and 5.5-inch howitzers.

Each corps would have three companies in the corps artillery reserve. Two of them would be foot artillery, one to be armed with 12-pounders, and one would be horse artillery and the corps would have its own artillery parc.

Each corps artillery chief with very few exceptions was an artillery general officer. A very few would be artillery colonels, but the idea of a corps artillery chief as a general officer was vital for the proper employment of the corps' artillery. Most of the corps commanders were either infantry and cavalry officers, and may not have had an appreciation or any expertise in artillery employment.

The division artillery chiefs were senior field grade artillery officers.

If you have the opportunity of reading Davout's combat journal of the III Corps from 1805-1807 an excellent picture can be seen of how artillery was employed on the tactical level. After Senarmont's artillery attack at Friedland in 1807 French artillery tactics changed and became even more aggressive.

Napoleon also established an artillery reserve at army level and after the foot artillery of the Guard was organized in 1808 the army artillery reserve was largely if not exclusively Guard artillery, foot and horse, Old and Young Guard.

Generally speaking, there was no standard organization for a corps d'armee in that it could range from two to five infantry divisions, so that would change its artillery allocation. Napoleon did this because of the different talent levels of the corps commanders as well as to confuse enemy intelligence.

Thank You for your replies . I have a lot more understanding now and I just have to re-allocate the 6pdrs to Divisional level with the Howitzers and position a 12pdr in my Guard and call them Corps reserve and buy a Artillery Commander Chief .