"terrain, troops visibility, and . . . howitzer fire" Topic

Let me describe our recent problem.
Because some infantry was deployed behind a hill, and couldn't be seen by the enemy, we left this force off the table.

The enemy, however, opened fire from howitzers throwing numerous grenades over the hill and hitting the unseen infantry.

So, how to calculate the casualties from artillery fire if the troops were off the table.

How did the dastardly enemy deduce the presence of your troops?

Are you asking if you should add a modifier to the targeting (I like) or to the results of the fire?

Do your rules plot fall of shot, or just record "hits" or something similar? Those I use specify the use of average dice to determine the point at which the round bounces, and then apply a penetration (or ‘bounce factor') in a straight line from the firing point through there. Anything in the way before the bouncing stops gets hit. So this could be done easily enough within the rules and wouldn't be so different to work out.

What about if you put a marker down where the units are, mark off six points along the front of the hill, roll a D6 for the artillery, and whatever they roll, that number is the aiming point they take each turn. Would that work?

So if the target is in line with mark #5, but the artillery rolls a 2, they shoot behind the hill in line with the #2 marker, meaning they fire wide. If the artillery happens to roll a 5, they are on target for line at least and then you resolve the howitzer fire as normal under your rules. Of course the firer isn't told (until he moves and can see) what the effects are.

As I recall, doing this was actually a thing. It is not indirect fire per se; it is direct fire, unobserved. So there's no feedback to the shooters on their accuracy, but that in itself needn't inhibit fire. If a unit in view marches out of sight behind a couple of buildings and doesn't come out the other side, an artillery battery can plaster the area behind the obstacle, in the supposition that the unit is there. Of course, it could have moved back or forward in line with the obstacle, so the gunners would have direction but not range, and might still miss; but it could be and was done.

Somebody more knowledgeable about artillery will probably be along to shed light on what an actual battery commander would have done.

If you're playing British, use rockets instead of howitzers. The chances of hitting don't appear to have been much affected by whether the target could be seen…

Hmm. This is under Napoleonic Discussion. You use a lot of grenades in Napoleonic field battles? And how do you calculate casualties from grenades and howitzers when you the troops are on the table? Some sort of burst circle?

Figuring burst circle, work out an average and a range of results. Then you need a "to hit" die cast, and a casualty die cast based on that average and range.

I have noticed folk using the term "Grenades" to apply to howitzer shells on this forum. It is a term that does work in some languages (eg German) I believe and does not have to mean a thing that a big strapping grenadier chucks.

Agree that it is really dependent on how the rules in use would generate hits on visible troops. To many variables for us to comment meaningfully otherwise.

If the questions is should this sort of thing be allowed, then yes although you might want to have some sort of gunner fatigue/ammunition limits to prevent howitzers blindly firing just because they can.

Bob

I played in a Napoleonic game once where one player put a marker down behind a hill which represented an unseen unit which struck me as funny because, once you put the marker down, the enemy knows you are there.
And the enemy proceeded to drop shells over the hill and causing damage.
I think if you are hiding troops from sight, you shouldn't put them on the table until they are discovered by either scouts or their own choice to move from their position. I am of the opinion that an artillery officer would not waste ammunition firing on what he thinks might be there rather than firing on what he knows and can see.I also have a problem with games that have unlimited ammunition…..but that's just me.

His mistake was to only put down one marker. Put down several more as dummies and let the poor opponent try to work out which is genuine, without direct vision.

Especially important if fatigue and ammo limits enter in to the game.

I personally would not allow it unless the target was a town or redoubt.

our rules required the target to be in los of some other unit at some point if target didn't move after being sighted it was legit target but then again our howitzers were very inacurate

Some rules have a blanket clause that troops (via the player) can only respond to things they are aware of.

So if the shooting player can't demonstrate why his troops are firing over a hill 'just in case' the shots would not be allowed.

Regards

David F Brown

If hits are determined mechanically with templates or similar casualties should be the same as for an identical target in sight (provided that he selected an accurate point of impact); if hits are determined probabilistically then there should probably be a hefty negative modifier for blind fire.

Ammunition supply limits should help-- let your opponent search every bush and hill with shells. What a waste of ammunition.

I think you should be able to drop shells/grenades/bombs behind a crest or into dead ground – but only when shooting-in an attack on that particular feature by infantry.

I'm thinking of the scouring of the lee-slope of Cemetery Ridge in support of Pickett's charge. Ditto the allied line at Waterloo.

Unobserved fire should still be of lesser effect. Even modern artillery was nearly useless in interdiction roles…as an old artillery man.i can tell you we did not think it would be worth the ammo.

The battery commander would have been cashiered on the spot for wasting ammo.

Regardless of what mechanism is used to calculate this, was indirect fire actually employed during the Napoleonic era? If the artillerists of the time didn't have the capacity/skill/knowhow to do it, the rules shouldn't allow it. Examples from the ACW are not relevant here; it's nearly 50 years later.

John Edmundson that is a very interesting question you pose. In the past two years since I became interested in the period, I have read plenty of books on military tactics of the Napoleonic era but I cannot recall one instance where indirect fire is discussed other than the use of mortars in sieges.
But then, what else are howitzers for with their relatively high angle trajectories? And wouldn't they be used to unsettle formed troops which are obviously arrayed behind the crest of a hill as were the allied lines at Waterloo? I always thought it was a French oversight that they were not engaged, at least in the lead up to d'Erlon's assault. Maybe there was a reason for that.

@ John

Depends on what we mean by "indirect".

The French bombardment that preceded d'Erlon's assault at Waterloo, probably the most famous bombardment of the era, was arguably an example of "indirect" fire. Although as I suggested above, there is a difference between genuinely indirect and direct-but-unobserved. Strictly, the grand battery's fire would be the latter.

Actual indirect fire, where the shooter at a target he couldn't see had his fall of shot corrected by an observer who could see, must have been rare, and confined to sieges or bombardments of harbours. There is a description of this in Forester's The Commodore although that is of course shot'n'sail fiction.

Firing in the general direction of a concealed enemy was commonplace. All fire from defilade would meet this description.

@ HairiYetie

Adkin's Waterloo book goes into some detail on the Waterloo cannonade. In effect all rounds had to be fired with elevation to clear the ridge. Guns could do this to the extent required but as nobody knew how far behind the crest Wellington's men were it's not clear that howitzers would have been at much advantage, if indeed any.

Two thing on firing over a hill. If the artillery unit was not adjacent to the hill and was just firing over a hill hoping to hit something, I would say this is not on, it is like speculative fire but an artillery unit adjacent to a hill firing at units that are not near the hill is OK. This type of artillery fire could be directed by artillery officers who went slight forward of the units.

Hi Cuirassier, yes, I see what you mean. Shot can be lobbed with long cannon to some degree although, with a relatively flat trajectory, the gunner would have had to skim the crest of the hill to ensure that the balls would not fly over the enemy heads. Surely, the steeper angle of the howitzer trajectory would have made it more useful for the purpose of clearing the crest and placing the rounds behind it.

But then I guess the French would have been firing in support of d'Erlon's columns with just about every barrel they had, whether cannon or howitzer.

I find this type of discussion fascinating. I always had the impression that the French long cannon could not reach the allied lines at all on the reverse slope. Of course, if the reverse slope is just a gentle gradient the gravitational drop of the shot at that distance would make it possible to engage targets behind the crest. Thank you.

Before mocking people working on howizter fire, consider the following: Most batteries had 4 cannon and 2 howitzers. The artillery part was about 1/4 to 1/3 howitzers. link

For the war with Russia in 1812 Napoleon took mostly the guns of the new system.
Of the captured by Russians artillery pieces
- 16.4 % were 12pdr cannons
- 52 % were 6pdr cannons
- 7.4 % were 4pdr cannons
- 24 % were 24pdr howitzers
The absence of 8pdr cannons from the list of captures
suggests that none were taken on the Russian campaign.

At Leipzig in 1813 most of the guns were the new 6pdrs.
In April 1813 the artillery of the French army in Germany consisted of ( one third )
- 144 12pdr cannons
- 646 6pdr cannons
- 44 6inch howitzers
- 246 5.6inch howitzers
- 4,000 caissons

Does anyone really think that the people back there were so stupid as to bring along useless howitzers that had no purpose? So they didn't use their feature of being able to drop shells behind things at all.

That may be a rhetorical question, but I imagine the answer would be 'no.'

I don't think anyone has suggested that, have they? The scenario under discussion is but one potential area of use.

@ HairiYetie

Exactly. A cannon round that fell short would hit the front slope of the ridge and either bury itself or not bounce very far, going uphill. One which hit the crest would be bouncing into the air as the crest dropped away, and would thus fly over the heads of troops immediately beyond the crest, hitting only those much further back. One angled to fall just beyond the crest would be optimal, but as you can't see exactly where it's falling or if there's even anything there to hit in its path, the effects are uncertain in both senses, i.e. there may not be any, and if there are you won't know anyway. If the defenders lie down, they stood a better chance of avoiding harm from roundshot altogether.

This is what I recall from Adkins I should add.

Against howitzers, whose shell fuses could be made to air-burst beyond the crest, lying down would not help. But a howitzer shell exploding would create a localised cone of fire and would damage only those units within it. It would not, unlike a roundshot, go bouncing down the slope injuring people hundreds of yards further on. Individual shell fragments might ricochet off hard ground, but the area of harm would be confined to the blast radius, whereas a roundshot would be lethal until it stopped rolling.

I think if you are fairly sure there are troops behind a terrain feature, the inference is that you need a lot of guns firing for a long time if you want results and they are doing so blind.

The front that d'Erlon attacked at Waterloo was about 1,200 yards, which was bombarded by 80 guns at 600 yards' range for about an hour. That's one gun per 15 yards of front. If you figure each gun fired once a minute, that's four rounds per yard of front over the hour (assuming none of the grand battery fired at La Haye Sainte or at Papelotte). Given the many ways for these rounds to miss, that was probably not enough to make a difference, as the intact state of Picton's division and the heavy cavalry attest.

Interesting note in Zhmodikov's "Tactics of the Russian Army…"
'At the same time, Russian artillery had a significant disadvantage: the unicorn was not well-adapted to plunging fire, because its barrel could not be elevated at such a high angle as the barrel of the howitzer, and Russian artillerymen were not well-trained in plunging fire. Ermelov wrote that, at Borodino, the enemy placed eighty howitzers into the ravines of the Kolotcha River and Semenovskii Brook, so that only the heads of the enemy artillerists were seen, and Russian artillery was unable to silence or dislodge them." There was a huge unicorn vs howitzer thread back in the day on TMP--I imagine a lot of that would apply here as well.

Iirc, howitzers main advantage was against targets in wood, redoubts and towns. Incendiaries being very useful but also because even though the target was known direct fire of guns was of limited use against the protected terrain. Indirect fire was very very rudimentary and not the primary purpose of the howitzers presence in a battery.

Firing at the forces behind the hill, while possible was nearly impossible due to the need to judge fuse length required and putting rounds on the correct azimuth as well as elevation. The biggest conundrum for the gamer is not that it couldn't happen but whether the gamer with his omniscient perspective of the target, who can avoid the basic fatigue and ammunition losses because his rules don't track it, thusfiring at any possible target no matter the odds, should do it. If it is to be allowed at all, it should be of extremely small effect, and there really needs to be a cost to the firer in terms of ammo and fatigue.

@ Mick

I'm not sure there was more ammo and fatigue in blind fire than any other type, but maybe one should assume that within x turns, a furious order arrives from the army commander ordering the battery to stop wasting powder and shot immediately.

No it wouldn't use more…but as you said, it wouldn't have been allowed.

Ammo supply is one of those things most rules typically just ignore. One reason I am so impressed with the Bluecher rules. It cuts the willingness of a player to waste shots on low probability targets (and this doesn't get much lower). Even the Paris gun required fire correction inadvertently supplied by the allied newspapers of the day.

I have lectured on this before. Howtizers were not mortars. They shot large diameter shells at very low velocities. [1] Large diameter mean that there was a lot of "wind resistance" and the forward velocity decreased rapidly. (Try throwing a BB across the room. Then try throwing a same-weight ping pong ball across the room. Notice a difference?). [2] A fact of physics, which 90% of people do not gut-feel understand is the nature of the acceleration of gravity. (includes graduate science students). The movement downward of the big shell is
described by:

Acceleration = (32ft/sec*sec)
velocity downward= (32ft/sec*sec) x time
so the shell moves downward
1 second time of flight…….32 feet/sec
2 seconds time of flight……64 feet/sec
3 second time of flight…….96 feet/sec
distance moved downward 1/2 a t *t
during first one second 16 feet……..1/2 x 32 x 1 x 1
second second 64 feet……..1/2 x 32 x 2 x 2
third second 144 feet…….1/2 x 32 x 3 x 3

Okay, try to get the picture. You try to fire a cannon at some people who are marching towards you and just went into a hollow. It takes one second for the cannon ball to get to their location and over it. From the muzzle, it gradually sunk 16 feet, so it wooshes over the enemy's heads, maybe sinking 3 or 4 feet from the time it just passes the lip of the hollow until it gets pass the enemy to the other side.

Now the Howitzer fires. Big shell, small powder charge. It takes 2 seconds to get to the lip of the hollow. At that time it is sinking at the rate of 64 feet a second. During the time it is passing over the heads of the enemy it sinks maybe 30 feet and gets right amoung the enemy. Oh, and it is loaded with powder, you can cut the fuze with relative accuracy and it explodes right above their heads.

By the way, Russian licornes were longer barreled than western European howitzers, so that they had a longer range but less "sink". This was a better match to the flatter and gently rolling plans of most of Russia/Beolus/Ukraine but wasn't as good in close country with short ranges and deeper hollows.

Remember. 1/4 to 1/3 of the artillery was howitzers. Are today's armchair generals smarter than those people of the times, whose lives depended upon getting it right?

Billsfan,
Thats a bit of a strawman there. The issue is not one of them failing to take advantage of plunging fire, but the inability of true indirect and unobserved fire. the Russian example shows the perfect place for them, able to fire out of a defile in a "hulldown" posture, but not able to be fired back at in reply for lack of plunging fire capability.. The targets in both cases here being observed directly by the artillery involved.

>you can cut the fuze with relative accuracy and it explodes right above their heads.

Relative being the key word…the cutting was hardly alsways accurate or else we would not be reading about whizzing bombs landing at the horses' feet or burying themselves in the mud. Even modern artillery has problems with this, as this old artilleryman can attest.. Howitzers were not nearly so effective at a marching target because the time to get the second shot off could still see a dramatic change of parameters. It also is not just the fuze that needs to be accurate, but elevation and charge size not to mention azimuth changes, or changes in the height of the target. And that's a target they can see!

Howitzers needed a more or less stationary and an observed target area to be able to hit things. If howitzer accuracy had been better…they would not have needed to have the other 2/3 of the battery being guns. After all they were smarter than we armchair generals. ;)

It is easier to set a fuze to explode at from 4-5 seconds than it is to set a fuze to explode at 0.4 to 0.5 seconds.

"Plunging fire" is what mortars do. You haven't got the memo.
The case of the "Russian example" was that the French guns had two physics advantages. #1, they were lower muzzle velocity guns so they had more "sink" at the target, and #2 They were firing uphill so gravity was slowing rather than speed the forward velocity, thereby giving a longer time of flight to the target and more "sink".

Plunging fire means to use the backside of the round's arc after apogee. Guns could do it too, but howitzers more effectively so, mortars nothing else…I have used it on long range 50 cal MGs. I got the memo.

Accuracy of fuse cutting is no easier at 4 seconds if a half second error means missing the target and half a second can translate to quite a distance. The consistancy of fuzes in that day we're not very high. Powder quality, windage of barrel, wind conditions, temperature of barrel, and propellant, range estimation skills are all highly variable and they didn't even have a slide rule. Why else was friendly infantry so pissed if fired over if not for premature fuzes going off.

"….Howitzers needed a more or less stationary and an observed target area to be able to hit things. If howitzer accuracy had been better…they would not have needed to have the other 2/3 of the battery being guns. After all they were smarter than we armchair generals. ;)….."

Well it is nice to present unjustified opinion as fact, unless you can provide some expert documentation for it. " ________" ?……………………………………………………………………..
You still seem not to understand not only howitzer but also cannon was used. I agree that hitting enemy people with a relatively flat trajectory cannonball was the more effective way to kill enemy. Cannon were set up to fire (most of the time) with the top surface of the barrel horizontal to the ground. (the bore was then designed to be 1-2 degrees tilted upwards). The ball rose to the no more than head height and slowly sunk with range (going thu the height where men would be standing) to its first graze (striking the ground) and would then bounce, continue on thu the "man height" to the second graze and onwards. What did you need from the terrain to do this? The killing zone had to be a flat hard surface, with no obstructions. If the range was greater, you would elevate the barrel a bit and have the initial flight of the ball above head height but below man height in the killing zone. Much of the skill of generals was to identify where to put the cannon so that it could fire at these useful flat killing zones. The "gunners tables" consisted of matrices of gun barrel elevation verus first and second grazes. …………. The first priority in gun placement was to place the (mixed) battery where it could place its fire into long cannonball-bouncing killing zones. (that is the reason for more cannon than howitzers). Not all of the view would be so nice. A good bit would be hindered by stone fences, buildings, tree lines, hills, or hidden behind rises in the ground. Cannonball do not bounce when they hit large rocks or soft ground or the down side of a hill. In those places they have a limited effectiveness because the length of their path is limited. Some generals might even delay the start of a battle until the ground dried out, so that the majority of their artillery (cannon) would be more effective. The get-behind-the-obstruction howitzer was used to complement the cannon.

Yes. Get behind the obstruction howitzers were indeed used for that purpose. But not against targets that could not be detected at all such as on the other side of a significant hill It also suffered from accuracy problems that were not so easily addressed as by the cannon. particularly against a moving target.

I have professionallyfired and targeted black powder cannon as well as modern howitzers. I think I have some insight on how they work and can be used.

It is interesting that the teams and weight of the gun&carriage is essentially the same for the cannon and howitzer in the same battery. So they basically took along the biggest howitzer they could.

Another thing that the howitzer is greatly superior is the size of the cannister round. For the French 4,8,&12 pound cannon cannister round held 41 large balls (of 1.05", 1.398" and 1.509"). The 6" howitzer held 60 1.509" balls.

Obviously, you can not hit what you don't know is there and can not see. Blind indirect fire, or fire called in by radio or spotting planes was not common in the Napoleonic era. Firing over an obstruction at a unit that disappeared into a small area and did not reappear is a different thing………………………. Another piece to this puzzle is that we might consider if cannon themselves could ALWAYS or maybe only SOMETIMES fire at things that they could see. Consider the following: you are at the foot of a hill with the hill behind you. In front there is a moderate slope, with scattered trees and buildings and a series of fieldstone walls. The enemy is on a steeper slope of the next hill at moderately long range. The ground is soggy from 2 days of rain. How effective are you bouncy cannon balls going to be?

@1968

Wonder which is more effective at spewing out canister – gun or howitzer?

I'd have thought the gun – flat trajectory – smaller spread – fewer balls – would hit a small frontage but with some depth.

The normal short-barrelled howitzer – higher trajectory – larger spread – more balls – larger frontage but less depth.

Russian Unicorn gun/howitzer/grenade-launcher combo – probably more like a gun.

If you assume that the Russians were more geared to fighting the Turkish/Persian hordes then you'd want to keep them at bay by hitting deep into their formations.

If your enemy is acting in thin lines/shallow columns then you might want more frontage.

The spread of cannister is not really know that much. There is a recent 12 pounder ACW napoleon test that suggested "At 100 yards, the spread is 11 yards wide, and at 300 yards the spread is over 25 yards wide." link

see also TMP link

I did some calculations on the angle between the "back left to the right front end" of a 12 pounder barrel and that angle was ~ 4 degrees- so one BB going from that corner and another going from the other corner would give an arc of 8 degrees, and the angle suggested from other sources is ~ 23 degrees. I gotta guess that the howitzer, with a 5 -8" verus 2-3" wide muzzle AND a shorter barrel would give a much wider spread? 45 degrees? Don't know of any data or period results.

I think the maths is a little more complex.

See hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/traj.html#tra4

"Will it clear the fence" and "Where will it land".

Warning, this ignore air resistance.

We need the muzzle velocity to work this further. I will have a dig around. If anyone has any numbers it would be a great help.

One data point (from the ACW) is "the Napoleon fired a 12.30 lb. solid shot to a range of 1,619 yards at 5 degrees elevation. the muzzle velocity is 1,485 feet per second (F.P.S.)."

Anther point is "Effective firing range 1,480 m at 5° elevation (1,440 yd) which may allow a little calibration between theory and actual results.

Partially answering my own question

See link
Chuvak, 20 March 2010 12:56

No, that is the same basic math. The many demostrations do not include the "height" as a function of initial velocity at a given angle of firing. But you can use the "calculators" to work out a series of such curves. But those calculations do, ignore the effect of "wind resistance", which is signficant and goes as the 4th power of velocity. A high speed but heavy cannonball is quite different than a light, large shell. The cross section of a 12pounder is ~ 33 square inches whereas a 7" howitzer is ~77 squaare inches. (Can't find the weight of a non-solid shell). There are tables of shell fuse settings (seconds to cut fuse) verus range of burst and these can be used to estimate muzzle velocity, if nothing else can be found.

Getting back to the very first posting, if you never saw the troops behind the hill, you shouldn't be allowed to fire at them. Sometimes you could see troops or have seen them go into a small area and not come out, and in those cases you should be able to fire at them with some effect. Often the same factors that make them not that visible would be the same ones that would make cannon very ineffective and howitzers of some use. ….. In some articles that I've read recently they offer the view that howitzers were useful at long range. There would be many barriers to kinetic energy cannonball being effective at long range but the explosive shell would still be useful. That would give the howitizer three envelopes of effectiveness:. Long range harassing fire,,,,, medium range sinking fire at targets not vulnerable to bowling ball cannon fire,,,,,, short range mega-cannister fire.