"Artillery declination - how common an issue?" Topic

I'm working on a topo map and trying to figure out situations where an artillery battery would actually have a problem aiming at an enemy unit because it can't decline its gun far enough. American Kriegspiel gives a 6 degree declination limit to most "unprepared" gun carriages, which I assume means guns that are not dug into position.

With the math I'm doing, this equates to over a 5:1 run/rise ratio, or more than a 100 foot drop over 560 feet. Other than if the artillery is literally set up on a cliff side, I can't see too many normal situations in the Horse and Musket period where this would become an issue (which I'm thankful for because it simplifies what I'm trying to do . . .).

For the rules I'm working on I was thinking about just given players the above information, and telling them that declination of artillery was usually not a major issue, but that if they place their artillery in a position where there are more than 40 x 10' falling contour lines between them and the target they they shouldn't sweat the issue. At my scale a mile is 9", so this shouldn't be too common.

It got me wondering though, if this was much of a consideration at all during most maneuver battles? Since they generally took place on flat, open terrain I don't see too many instances where guns would have a serious problem depressing, unless, like I said, they were set up on a cliff side.

At 9" per mile I would ignore it entirely. I would just assume the artillery commander on the ground had found a suitable spot somewhere in the vicinity of where the base is actually located.

I think prepared means the gun carriage was braced forward or the barrel moved forward on the carriage so it could fire down slope. There is a slow 'shadow' that keeps the artillery from firing at troops in that shadow. Artillerist Robe at Talavera IIRC describes that problem in the advance of French columns. He was afraid he would lose his guns when the columns passed into that shadow as they approached, meaning they could close with him without his being able to hit them. Only the intervention of British infantry saved him. And we are talking about a particularly steep slope, just that Robe's guns were sitting on top of the rise, not down on the slope…which had its own problems.

Remember that cannonballs don't fly in a straight line, they fly in a ballistic parabola.

And also, things like a deep ditch would provide shelter from cannonfire except at extreme range (when the balls are dropping quite steeply).

Where I live, there are lots of places where battles were fought that cannons (well, Gatling guns) couldn't depress far enough to hit anyone from the top of the hill, nor could a cannon at the bottom of the hill elevate enough! link for one example.

McLaddie,

Interesting example. I used Google Earth to get to the bottom of it:

Medellin Hill drops 198 feet over about 500 feet, which is twice my estimate. I'm actually rather heartened because this is pretty close to what I had calculated. The 12 % grade is not the same as a 12 degree angle. I'm not exactly sure what the % means.

There is also a rounfing at the top of the hill, so, like most hills the highest elevation is not the military crest. If they set back from the militsry crest then they simply would not be sble to see the French as they approached; they'd have no LOS.

I need to re-read on this battle. AK also says that infantry firing upwards at over a 10 degree angle are ineffective, which would be the case on this slope as well.

That said, this hill is extremely steep for a Napoleonic battlefield feature. Compare that to the Pratzen Heights coming from Puntowitz:

Its about 346 feet over 1.25 miles; in other words, a much more gentle slope than Medellin Hill.
I'm tempted to make Google Earth an official part of my war-game rules now…..

Lion in the Stars-

Ditches are easy- I've got that down pat in my rules. Some very simple techniques are used to determine what artillery can see, in 90% of cases in the H&M period:

To get LOS when looking uphill:
1: Measure the distance from your unit to the nearest contour line.
2: Measure the distance to the contour line beyond that.
3: Compare.
4: If the distance between you and the first contour line is less than or equal to the distance between the first contour line and the second contour line, you have LOS to the second contour line.
5: If the distance between the second contour line and the third contour line is less than or equal too the distance between the first contour line and the second contour line, you have LOS to the third contour line.
6: … and so on, until the next contour line is wider than the contour line before it. Then you lose LOS, although you probably should get a "grazing" LOS for units that are only slightly above the final contour line you can see to. You should at least be able to see cavalry within a few meters of that final contour point.

To get LOS when looking downhill (its the same but the contours must get longer):
1: Measure the distance from your unit to the nearest contour line.
2: Measure the distance to the contour line beyond that.
3: Compare.
4: If the distance between you and the first contour line is greater or equal to the distance between the first contour line and the second contour line, you have LOS to the second contour line.
5: If the distance between the second contour line and the third contour line is greater or equal too the distance between the first contour line and the second contour line, you have LOS to the third contour line.
6: … and so on, until the next contour line is shorter than the contour line before it. Then you lose LOS, although you probably should get a "grazing" LOS for units that are only slightly above the final contour line you can see to. You should at least be able to see cavalry within a few meters of that final contour point.

Note that this doesn't tell you your entire LOS, just what you can see in the closest unbroken stretch of your LOS. As soon as your LOS is blocked, if you want to find out where it begins again, there is a quick process that can be done on graph paper in a few moments. That is the only way to figure out complex LOS questions.

I was more talking about whether they could mechanically aim at what they saw due to declination. It seems like only when on a feature "like the Medellin Hill" at Talavera, did this become an issue.

Percentage grades are basically 'number of measurement units rise or fall in 100 measurement units' – so long as the measurement unit is the same it gives you a percentage gradient.

The other problem for artillery is that if they are firing at a sufficient depression the recoil forces may be enough to snap the cap squares free of the carriage and dismount the barrel – most pre-QF carriages did not have the rear of the trunnion cutout noticeably higher than the trunnion axis.

An Austrian LT. wrote home that during the battle of Neerwinden 1793 his artillery battery on a hill could not shoot at the French at the bottom of the hill and that they used howitzers to shell them all day. It was quite unfiar.

Neerwinden great battle to game, used google earth to understand the terrian. room to move around and covered approach gives the French attacker choice to move to either flank.

Hi LORDGHEE

Sounds gret with Neerwinden a battle I have had a hard time finding good info on – do you have anything you could share that could help in making a scenario.

Love to, unfortunately I just move and stuffed got packed so might take a week. should have T.O.E. ,maps and photos of our battle.

The 12 % grade is not the same as a 12 degree angle. I'm not exactly sure what the % means.

A 12% slope means that you go up 12 feet vertically for every 100 feet horizontally. It's about 7 degrees.

And that's considered to be really steep for going straight up and over.

Ok-
I'm on a roll with contour maps, which are a main feature of my new set of rules.

An even easier, bullet-proof and quite fun way to read a map is by drawing the contour profile directly from the map. You can make a profile like you see on google maps on your own map. All you need in graph paper (but lined paper would also work.

Here's how you do it.
First, the map. Here's a part of the above map without terrain on it:

Woof, man, that's ugly, right. How can you tell what your artillery can see? Can I see across the river? Can my officers see up that steep rise on the left side of the stream when their at the bottom??

Here's all you have to do:

You place the graph paper on, the board (which can be tricky when you have figures on the board, but still quite doable), and you draw the profile of the terrain exactly as it appears on the map. You basically draw a line up your page to the correct elevation mark on the right, corresponding to exactly where the contour ring is. This profile is exactly what the the 3d version of the map would look like. So, you can now see exactly what a figure anywhere along that line would be able to see. You can also figure out what the slope would be, if any negative terrain modifiers would apply, or if certain troops types could deploy in certain areas. This trick is definitely going to be adopted for the rules I've got brewing…

It might be worth analysing the use of artillery at Bussaco with the French unable to fire up onto the ridge and with the British using pairs (sections) of guns for local support to the line.

I suggest this forms one extreme or limiting example. with a flat plain being the other extreme (Marchfeld).

At Busaco could French howitzers lob their shells high enough too cause casualties to the British, did some battalions suffer losses where these battalions are not considered to have been involved in a fight against French infantry?

An aside, I think that the Krieggspiel in the 1824 original suggests that firing above or below 15 % (or is that degrees) the the fire is considered at bad effect. The later amendment dropped this to 10%. Unfortunately there is no indication of an upper percentage at which fire is totally ineffective.
Consider also that ineffective fire make a lot of noise and smoke that may have a morale effect even if the physical effect is limited.

Unless you know how to shoot up or down a slope (which is NOT intuitive, I might add), up or down doesn't make much difference, they're both equally bad.

Isn't it a case for using the right tool in the right situation, rather than insisting that a certain tool has to be used in all cases?

If you had to defend a line that included a bunch of cliffs, you would not put the cannons on top of the cliff. Maybe somewhere that they could fire across the base of the hill. You would use the cannon where they had the most effective killing zone and work from there with the infantry.

It is called "an eye for the terrain".

But it's not just a line of cliffs that would cause problems with cannon fire.

Even a 12foot-drop-per-hundred-feet-horizontal would put cannons at the lower limit of their ability to put fire on targets!

That's artillery on a hill 360 feet above the predominant terrain being unable to fire on targets at 1000 yards or closer.

If artillery is emplaced on any type of high ground, those that emplace have to ensure that there isn't any, or very little, dead ground in front of it. That inherently puts the artillery into danger of being overrun.

Agreed- as I'm learning with my new style of game (working title is Forward March Kriegspiel). It isn't an issue that ever seems to come up in traditional model wargames, but if you use a map its a serious concern. I'm working on rules that reduce the power of artillery to a function of time under fire. If infantry suddenly appear 100 meters out from the gun there is no reason to give the battery some kind of mighty close range/cannister modifier. Like you said, the guns will be lucky to escape capture.

Then Lt.Charles Totten, an artillery officer, developed the training wargame STRATEGOS in 1880 for the US Army. It was vetted by a committee of veteran officers.

In it he wrote for his rules, Table C Slopes and the Fire Tables:

Artillery;

5 Degree Slope:
Can move with order. Has more effectual fire down than up hill.

10 Degree Slope:
Moves with difficulty. Its effectual and constant fire ceases. He has fire decreased by half up and down slope.

15 Degree Slope:
Moves with great difficulty. The fire totally ceases for fire down slope, fire up slope is considered decreased by 75%.

JUst FYI. Totten has an interesting commentary on the history of Kriegspiel and training wargames up until his time from his Introduction in the first volume:

* In its earliest form, chess was played by four persons, and the moves were governed by the toss of a die. It was undoubtedly the War Game of its day, and perhaps a very truthful representation of the relations it undertook to illustrate.

In the reign of Louis XV two distinct games—" Le Jeu de la Guerre " and "Le Jeu de la Fortification "—appeared, and were played in French military circles. These two games, however, do not seem to have borne any resemblance to the German Kriegsspiel. They were played with cards, upon which certain military symbols were depicted, and it is said that some copies of these cards still exist in the English War Office.

The history of the modern Game of War is a very difficult one to trace, and we shall not attempt it, further than to submit the following list of the more important publications, both previous and subsequent to that of Von Reisswitz, that have come to our notice:
1. "Essay of a Tactical Game based upon the Game of Chess." 2 vols. 1780-'8'2.
2. "The Kriegsspiel; an Essay to represent in a Social Game the Different Rules of the Science of War." By Dr. C. L. Hedwig. 17.. (?)
3. Vcnturini, " A New Kriegsspiel." Schlcswijr, 1798 and
4. Venturini, " A New Kriegsspiel for Use in Military Schools." Leipsie, 1804.
5. "The Rules for the Kriegsspiel." By Opitz. At Halle, 1807.
6. "The Rules for the Kriegsspiel." By Gloden. Hamburg, 1817.
7. "The Rules for the Kriegsspiel." By Perkuhn. Hamburg, 1818.
8. "The Kriegsspiel." By Major-General Baron Pidoll.
9. "The Kriegsspiel." By Captain Fischer v. Sec.
10. "Instructions for representing Military Alancruvrcs by the Apparatus of the Kriegsspiel." By. Aron Reisswitz. Berlin, 1824.

First Lieutenant in the Prussian Guard-Artillery, more or less perfected the details of the game, and in 1824 published it at Berlin under the title of "Instructions for representing Military Manoeuvres by the Apparatus of the Kriegsspiel." This was followed in 1825 by a supplement, and by

11. Supplements to above. Berlin, 1825 and 1828.
12. "The Rules for the Kriegsspiel." By Von Planer. Vienna, 1835.
13. "Military Manoeuvres, with the Assistance of the Kriegsspiel Apparatus." Second edition; five plates. 1855.
14. "Instructions for Kriegsspiel." By W. Tschischwitz. Neisse, 1862. Fourth edition, 1874.
15. "Military Manoeuvres with the Assistance of the Kriegsspiel Apparatus." "Austrian Military Gazette." 1865.
16. "Directions for Fortification Kriegsspiel." By Major von Neumann. Berlin, 1872.
17. "The Kriegsspiel Apparatus, with the Rules pertaining thereto." By Captain Carl Zipser, of the Austrian army.
18. "Instructions in Formation of Battle Tableaux, with the Apparatus of the Kriegsspiel." By Von Th. v. Throtha. Berlin. ,
19. "Rules for the Conduct of the War Game" (English). Compiled and translated from Von Tschischwitz's "Kriegsspiel," by CaptainE. Baring, R. A. • London, 1872.
20. "Studies of the Kriegsspiel." By Captain Meckel. Berlin, 1873.
21. Third edition of Von Throtha. Berlin, 1874.
22. Fourth edition of Von Tschischwitz. Ncissc, 1874.
23. "Studies of the Kriegsspiel." By Captain Edmund v. Mayer. Vienna, 1874.
24. "Fortification Kriegsspiel." By Lieutenant-Colonel Makowiczka. Vienna, 1875.
25. "Directions for the Kricgsspiel." By Captain Meckel, lS76-'78.
26. "The Kriegsspiel." By Colonel I. von Verdy du Vernois. Berlin, 1876.
27. "Collection of Problems for Tactical Exercises." By Skugarcwski. 1876.
M. "The Kriegsspiel." By Captain CarlZinner, Fourth Artillery. Josefstadt. 18—.
29. "Regimental Kriegsspiel." By First Lieutenant von Xaumann. Berlin, 1877.

In addition to the above are many translations of the same, with more or less of alteration, into the French, Austrian, Italian, and Belgian. Moreover, in Berlin there has been published a regular journal devoted to the interests of this game, "The Berlin Kriegsspiel Journal." At Magdeburg, thirty odd years ago, a society was formed for the special object of playing the game, Von Moltke himself being its first president. The published proceedings of this society are understood to be very valuable. In our own country, several elementary Tactical Games have appeared from time to time, the earliest " set of blocks" of which we have any authentic information being that described in Robert Smirk's "Review of a Battalion of Infantry," published in New York in 1811, and copyrighted in America from the London edition (1803) of the same.

During the late war three several sets of Tactical Blocks appeared, the invention of Captain G. Douglass Brewerton, United States Army. They were called, respectively, "The Automaton Regiment," "Company," and " Battery," and became quite generally known throughout the country, until they fell into disuse by reason of a change from the tactic* upon which they were based.

The most complete of this class of "dummy" Regiments is the automatic "Drilling Apparatus for Demonstrating Upton's U. S. Infantry Tactics," by Colonel Brownell, of the Forty-seventh Regiment, N. Y. N. G., published in 1878.

From several veteran officers and soldiers we have also had brief mention of a game called "Royal Chess," that was once played to some extent in "the old army." Two to four sets of chess-men were employed upon each side, and several officers would take part in the play. This was, no doubt, a military game, based upon and perhaps identical with the earliest form of Kriegs another in 1828, both by the same author. It is on this account that the name of Von Reisswitz has become so particularly identified with the game, and with its introduction and growth into importance in European armies.

The game thus brought before the public was flatteringly noticed in the "Hilitar-Wochenblatt" as early as March 6, 1824, and since that time, though more especially during the last twenty years, numerous codes of rules for conducting it have appeared on the Continent. These various systems, however, are all based more or less upon the same original, and differ only in minor details. So, likewise, the game lately (1872) published by the English War Office, and sometimes known as "Aldershot," is merely a free translation, with some improvement and tactical alteration of one of these Prussian codes. This translation of Von Tschischwitz's code of rules marks the introduction of Kriegsspiel, properly so called, to English-speaking armies, and, if we overlook the translations of Colonel Vernois's " Studies in Troop Leading," is, thus far, perhaps, the only attempt to interest English soldiers in this highly scientific form of military study.

It is but just, then, to claim here for "Strategos," that it is the first independent study that has appeared in the English language of the same problems that have been so long investigated in the various foreign codes of Kriegsspiel. Nor should its broader claim, that of having systemstized the whole subject covered by these games, be overlooked. Not only does "Strategos" attempt each elementary problem that has heretofore formed a separate study, but it combines them all, for the first time in the history of the War Game, into such a gradual series as to afford a progressive teacher in every branch of practical military study.

If so, it [Kriegspiel] was probably studied from the original, as no translation or English book of rules to this game has been met with.*

In 1866 C. B. Richardson & Co. published an elementary game called " War Chess, or the Game of Battle," some copies of which are yet extant in American army circles, and in 1876 J. B. Lippincott & Co. published another, called "Militaire," the invention of Rev. Dr Wilhelm, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

* It is understood that the first set of the more modern Kriegsspiel was introduced into this country by Captain William R. Livcrmore, of the Engineers, some six or eight years ago, and soon after its translation into English by Captain Baring, R. E. This game was played at Willett's Point for several years, and was from thence introduced at West Point, from which latter post, however, it has found its way to but few others. "Strategos" is the result of several years of private study, unassisted by reference to any foreign code until it had become a finished system. This avoidance of foreign methods was not, of course, an intentional one, but was due to what now can not but be regarded as having been a fortunate inability to procure copies of such rules. It was, in fact, this inability that originally induced the author of " Strategos" to attempt the problem independently. Since, however, its completion, and during the considerable delay that has unavoidably surrounded its publication, a great many copies of foreign codes have been fortunately procured, a study of, and comparison with, which has proved of inestimable value in its revision. The Game is thus privileged to bring many new and valuable features to the study of war on the map, which could hardly have resulted from a mere compilation from such foreign codes at the outset.
The need of some such game has long been felt in this country, and in offering " Strategos" to the military public, it is confidently believed that it will meet the wants of the American soldier, with special reference to whose necessities its several independent studies of gradually increasing importance and complexity have been arranged, far better than the mere translation of even the very best of the foreign games could ever do.'

SPARTAAAA!

Sorry, just could not resist. Found the information on Neerwinden. but off to a boardgame con in Tucson AZ. So I will start a thread with the information early next week.

no photos yet but all the toe information I dug up.

found old thread with a lot of the information