"question to LeBreton (horse gun crew)" Topic
12 Posts
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Osage2017 | 16 Aug 2017 3:54 p.m. PST |
Hello, Some time ago you gave an EXTREMELY detailed info on the Russian gun crew of foot artillery (6pdr cannon , 1/4 pud unicorn). Do you have this kind of information on the crew of horse gun ? I'm especially interested in the number and positions of the horse holders. I wish you nice day. |
Le Breton | 17 Aug 2017 4:14 a.m. PST |
No problem. For Russian horse artillery …. 2x identical pieces form a Взводъ (Vzvod, Platoon) under the command of an officer : captain, lieutenant or sub-lieutenant, with : --- Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) and Фурлейтъ (Furleyt, Driver) with artillery cart for tools and equipment --- Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) and Фурлейтъ (Furleyt, Driver) with provisions cart for supplies for the men --- 2x Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) with provisions cart for fodder for horses --- 1x or 2x Денщикъ (Denshchik, Batman) officer's personal servant (2 for a captain, 1 for a lieutenant or sub-lieutenant) 6-lber gun and 1/4-pud unicorn Экипаж (Ekipazh, Team) for foot artillery --- Фейерверкеръ (Feyerverker, Gunnery Sergeant) [Фельдфебель (Fel'dfebel', Sergent Major) for the 1st piece in the artillery company] (commanded and aimed the piece) No. 1 Бомбардиръ (Bombardir, Gunnery Corporal) with rammer No. 2 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) with munitions bag No. 3 Бомбардиръ (Bombardir, Gunnery Corporal) with match No. 4 Бомбардиръ (Bombardir, Gunnery Corporal) with pricker and primer cartouche No. 5 Бомбардиръ (Bombardir, Gunnery Corporal) with spare match No. 6 Бомбардиръ (Bombardir, Gunnery Corporal) with spare primer cartoche No. 7 Бомбардиръ (Bombardir, Gunnery Corporal) with handspike No. 8 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) with munitions bag (the crew stood on either side of the piece from front to rear, with the odd numbers on the right and the even on the left – No. 8 stepping up to repace No. 2 after each shot) --- Юнкеръ (Yunker, Officer Aspirant NCO) (commanded movement/transport and ammunition supply) No. 9 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) with limber at front No. 10 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) with limber at axle No. 11 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) with 1st caisson No. 12 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) with 2nd caisson No. 13 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) horseholder No. 14 Канониръ (Kanonir, Gunnery Lance Corporal) horseholder |
Le Breton | 17 Aug 2017 5:38 a.m. PST |
Header should be : "6-lber gun and 1/4-pud unicorn Экипаж (Ekipazh, Team) for horse artillery" Sorry. |
Osage2017 | 17 Aug 2017 7:32 a.m. PST |
I see several differences between the Vzvod/Platoon of foot art. and Vzvod/Platoon of horse art. The latter has no Gandlangers, instead it has more Kanonirs and Bombardirs. And it has a cart for fodder for horses. What surprised me is the fact there are only 2 horseholders. Usually one horseholder was assigned for every three gunners when dismounted and serving the piece. In this case there were 1 NCO + 8 men serving the gun + 2 men with the limber = 11 men. It would require rather 3-4 horseholdres than only 2. But probably my calculation is wrong. Anyway, BIG Thank You ! |
von Winterfeldt | 17 Aug 2017 9:18 a.m. PST |
great information, thank you very much |
Le Breton | 17 Aug 2017 10:56 a.m. PST |
Yes – all Kanonir and Bombardir. And all paid like infantry corporals and sergeants, respectively. Foot artillery was selected for size, strength and intelligence from general recruits, durng their intial 6 months intake training at regional depots. Allowing time for some large distance marching (it's a big country), the recruits arrive to the Foot artillery after about 9-12 month sof service. Then it is 2-3 years as a Gandlanger before you can get promoted to vacancy among the Kanonir. Horse artillery was selected from foot artillery Kanonir, so no "entry level" positions (except the officers' servants and maybe the drivers, although the former might be brought to the army by the officer, and the latter tended to be older former soldiers no longer fit for more active service). For both horse and foot artillery, 2-3 years as a Kanonir and you might be selected as a Bombardir. A Feyerverker was a selected Bombardir who was sent to Petersburg to an NCO school called an "Instructional Company" with the guards artillery. They were paid like infantry Fel'dfebel. They would have at least 10 years service (and more likely 12+ years) at this time. Also, they were literate and numerate. If these guys were French, we would be treated to many "It should be noted …." instructions about how elite, trained, experienced, etc, etc. they were. A Fel'dfebel would have 15-20 years service when promoted. But enlistment was for life, so there was no rush. Actually, it wasn't enlistment – it was a change from serf class to soldier class. You never "retired" or "went home". You ended up in an invalid or garrison unit or as a military settler. You died in an army hospital and were buried in a military cemetary, the service performed by a regimental or batallion priest. If you married, your son would be inducted into a military school at about age 6, and upon graduation, he would be a soldier too. If you had a daughter, she would marry a soldeir or NCO, unless she became a lady monk. And the same for your grandchildren and great grandchildren and so on ….. until the autumn of 1917. Artillery NCO's (and engineer – both combat and lines-of-communication – and quartermaster suite NCO's) had some chance at being selected for promotion to officer or of landing a job in the Russian civilian government. If an officer, or a sufficiently senior civilian post, the former NCO would leave soldier class and become noble. But it would take getting to artillery captain (or equivalent civilian rank) to make the nobility hereditary. Very unlikely. But if his son and grandson also made it to life nobility, then the family became hereditary nobles. And that was more possible. ================= No. 9 through No. 12 rode their vehicles or the lead horse of the team. No. 13 and No. 14 had their own horses. An officer's servant would hold the officer's mount. The officer's pack horse would be tied to a vehicle or handled by the second servant if the officer was a captain. So the total the total is 11 , as you say. 22 per platoon. But there were 3 extra men with the platoon vehicles, so that make 7 men to handle 22 horses. Probably enough. They would take out stakes and rope from the supplies cart and make a sort of peg line (I think that's correct in English), preferably in a sheltered piece of ground, to tie off the riderless horses. So they really only had to wrangle the horses to and from the peg line. |
18CTEXAN | 17 Aug 2017 12:53 p.m. PST |
WOW! "Le Breton" That is a great explanation! Thank you very much…and with no "fake" info or propaganda! Cheers from Texas! |
Le Breton | 17 Aug 2017 1:52 p.m. PST |
Thank you so much, Texan! I really appreciate the kind words. I try very very hard to make detailed factual answers without "spin" and with any of my own opinions or conclusions clearly labelled as such. I provide the explicit sources as links or full academic citations for French, English, Spanish, etc. works. For Russian it is a little pointless, as few non-Russians can read period Russian (and because of spelling, vocabualry and alphabet reform, period Russian doesn't machine translate). But the full set of imperial laws and orders are on-line, as well as most of the ministerial records and lots of personal records and service records for officers. So if you would like to read ПСЗ 28.097 от 25.IV.809. (a typical citation form for an imperial ukase), I can point you to it. Thanks again! P.S. I *love* Texas! I was born in the northeast of the USA, spent most of my childhood in Brittany (hence the forum name) and most of my mis-spent life in various foreign countries for the Navy and then for civilian work. But I love Texas – the food, the women, the music, the cars, the skies, the cities and the countryside – everything! Most places i have been, even the nice ones, seem like prisons compared to Texas – where you can feel the idea of freedom in the air itself and see it in the faces of the people there. Cheers to you, Texan! |
18CTEXAN | 17 Aug 2017 3:03 p.m. PST |
Thanks Le Breton….Your language skills are a real blessing when studying this…or any period. I have a friend that immigrated from Russia.. and he even served in the Russian Army so he is familiar with military terms. I use him from time to time to translate Russian re-enactors publications…wow what a wealth of info…thru his language skills and my computer skills I even have a "Russian-to-English" compilation of the 1802-1805ish infantry facings. The first thing that struck me is the differences in color schemes. No matter how much one studies and researches the first thing one learns is how little we really know. The difference between the "actual" and the "regulation" can be as great as the difference between the color "red" and "black". The ability to read the journals, unit histories, etc. in conjunction with what the administrative board wrote…can give a more complete picture. Even so the regulation should be the standard. So thanks again. And Texas my not be "Heaven", but one must be careful how you tell a Texan that! LOL! Keep up the good work! |
Le Breton | 17 Aug 2017 5:37 p.m. PST |
My wife, who has the Russian equivalent of a PhD in each of English and French language and literature, says I am illiterate in several languages. She says that our daughter and I speak "English-ish", or pidgen English. Our daugher may be more Russian than American, but I am a natural-born English-speaking American! At least I *think* I can speak English. Could be wrong. I try to read both sides of the record, in contemporary sources, in original language, to avoid propaganda, "spin" and "fake news". And the Russians left lots of paperwork, memoirs, letters, unit histories and so on. The opening of all the main archives after the end of the Soviet Union has also spawned a new generation of Russian researchers, many of whom (as you have found) are avid reenactors, with an eye to the details of interest to gamers and figure painters. On the French side, they are scanning and publishing lots of primary source information, while the unit histories, staff studies and local antiquarian society publications of the years 1880-1930 are falling out of copyright and being digitized. The regional or stadt libraries in Germany are no slouches either, and like to focus on what was their own prior German minor state's history. So when someone, on another thread, was crowing about the veteran status and excellent individual records of the French old guards, I could go look at the actual personel records and check, soldier by soldier. Some met the iconic image of a French guardsman, but more and more (as the years went by) were quite young and had little campaign experience. An interesting result, I thought. You could also see that old guardsmen did desert, did die of non-combat causes and did get taken as un-wounded prisoners in large numbers in the Russian campaign. "No matter how much one studies and researches the first thing one learns is how little we really know." I agree 100%. But looking for new info is a fun part of the overall hobby for me. It is like a treasure hunt, especially if a colleague here poses a question for which I do not have a ready answer. |
Osage2017 | 18 Aug 2017 5:53 a.m. PST |
"the Russians left lots of paperwork, memoirs, letters, unit histories" --> I hope we see, in near future, a lot of this stuff translated into English. It sounds fascinating. I am sure some of the memoirs are as entertaining and interesting as Sir Robert Wilson's and Yermolov's. "The opening of all the main archives after the end of the Soviet Union" --> I am surprised that the archives were not destroyed during the WW1 and WW2. Really surprised . . . "Texas" ---> the real, wild, wild west :-) |
Le Breton | 18 Aug 2017 6:23 a.m. PST |
Russians protected archives and libraries very well during the war. They had a huge seed and plant collection in the botany department of Saint-Petersburg University. During the siege of Leningrad, not only did the archivists protect the collection, but they didn't eat any of it. Some died of starvation watching over their archives. Russian academics are like that – insanely dedicated. Trust me, I know the type – I married one (whose mother's and father's families refused evacuation …. so that my father-in-law, a mild-mannered skinny theorectical mathematics genius, ended up a child soldier running ammunition up to the men in the front-line trenches) |
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