"Rifled artillery - battle effect on heavy batteries" Topic

I have recently become very interested in the hyphen wars, especially the FPW. I am trying to model the battles with a tactical ruleset. One thing that is particularly challenging is the effect of artillery. Some of the points I have concluded so far is:

-The maximum range of rifled artillery was somewhere between 3000 and 3500 mters.
- The most effective range was < 1500 meters
- French fuses of the imperial phase hampered their artillery a lot
- The pussians performed a lot better. Pontentially due to better tactics, but perhaps simply because the breachloaders allowed better percussion grenades – opinions were divided at the time about the inherent supremacy of breachloaders.

But what was the effect of heavy rifled artilley – that is fx 6 vs 4 pdr Krupp or 4 vs 12 pdr la Hitte. It is never mentioned as particulary effective, in battle descriptions from that time, to have the heavy guns, in the way that it is highlighted during the reports from the Napoleonic era. I am wondering whether the heavy guns mainly had extra punch for breaking up entrenchments and houses as opposed to a better effect in field battles?

Any opinions (also if you disagree with my first points)

There were quite a few article sin the early issues of Wargames Illustrated and some in Miniature Wargames if you can get hold of those. Also Absinthe Press re-printed 'Tactical Deductions from the War 1870-1871' which was first published in 1872 if you want a period view on how it worked.

These issues of Wargames Illustrated may be of use:
No. 8, Apr. 1988: "Artillery Effect in the Reisswitz Kriegspiel" by Bill Leeson.
No. 10, June, 1988: "Rules for the Use of the Prussian Artillery 1870- 1871" by Martin Tomczak.
No. 14, Oct. 1988: "Organization of the Prussian Artillery 1870- 1871" by Martin Tomczak.

First caveat – none of the nominal "weights" has anything to do with actual projectile weight. The Krupp 4 and 6-pdr guns are called that because that is the weight of a spherical solid shot that would fit the bore (i.e., they have the same bore diameter as 4 and 6-pdr smoothbores). And the Canon de 12 fires a 12 kilogram round.

Second caveat – the rifling and loading system has a lot to do with accuracy and, therefor, effectiveness. The Krupp guns were breechloaders and thus the projectile almost always took the rifling. The French guns were muzzleloaders using a shunt system involving studs on the projectile. There was a lot of trouble with the studs shearing off during firing, leading to inadequate spin on the projectile and resulting in poor accuracy.

Thx for the replies. I have studied tactical deductions and Hohenloes letters on artillery. It is interesting – especially in the last – that there is no mention at all of any different deployment or effect between heavy and ligt rifled artillery.

"rmaker" it is interesting that the Krupp were so much more effective, considering that the austrian artillery did so well against the prussians in 1866, where the austrians had rifled muzzleloaders and the prussians had 2/3 Krupp. What fuzes did the austrians use, they must have been better than the french in 1870!!

The Austrian guns (bronze rifled) had a choice of projectiles, common shell, schrapnel, incendiary and canister. The cast iron casing of the projectile was shaped to fit the rifling male/female and was seated using a clockwise rotation. Austrian projectiles (not case) were coated in a zinc/tin alloy 1:1 to reduce friction.
Prussian guns (steel rifled breech loading) fired only shell or case, the shells were lead sheathed (bleimantel). Prussian shells were fitted with percussion fuzes, essentially a nosecone plunger which hit a fulminated mercury detonator on impact – simple and effective.
The Austrian shell was more complex, the battlefield archeologist at Trautenau reckons around 30% of the Austrian shells didn't detonate, not surprising as the mechanism was overcomplicated. Two little nascelles on the nosecone were covered with very thin aluminium and brazed in place; when the shell was fired the propellant flame melted the foil and ignited the fuze in the nosecone, when the shell hit a solid object a heavy ball bearing running in a metal tube was displaced downwards allowing the nosecone flame to communicate with the main charge.
Austrian schrapnel rounds had a brass/white metal nosecone with a graduated scale allowing the gunner to set his bursting range, quite advanced for its time.
Theoretical maximum ranges were really irrelevant, black powder smoke reduced visibility considerably and there were no radios or field telephones, most artillery opened fire at around 1500m max (Hohenloe – Notes on Artillery).
The problem with the French guns was twofold, firstly and most importantly, there wasn't enough of them. Secondly the shell was designed to burst in the air but the original six settings had been reduced to two so if the enemy was outwith these closely defined ranges he escaped. The French shells were supposed to burst on impact if they didn't burst in flight but the mechanism was defective. After the Imperial armies had been finally defeated at Sedan and Metz the republican artillery reverted to a simple percussion fuze with considerable effect (battle of Orleans I think).

Thx for the info Ramming – the austrian guns were quite good, and it highlights the point that the Krupp guns by themselves were not the sole cause of prussian succes in 1870 – it was a case of better tactics and shooting as well as poor french fuses and deployment.

Unfortunately it would semm that nobody has any opinions on the effect of heavy rifled guns as opposed to the lighter ones – how do your rules reflevt the difference??

Not sure what you mean by 'heavy' guns, French rifled 12pdrs and Krupp 6pdrs ? The 12pdr was supposed to be quite a formidable piece of kit, I can't say for certain if they had the same fuzing – not really my period. The Krupp 6pdr should probably have a hit factor approx 1/3 greater than the 4pdr on the rather simplistic basis that it was throwing a third more metal. No schrapnel for the Krupp guns though I think the French guns could fire it but again I can't be certain. Bruce Weigle's 1870 carries a lot of excellent info on the period, I'd reccommend it.

One of the main failings of the Krupps during the 1866 war were tactical rather than technical. The Prussians often had their guns in the rear of the columns and thus it was late in the day by the time the guns got deployed. This often left the Prussian infantry out-gunned by the Austrian batteries. The Prussians would also pull a battery out of the firing line when out of ammo or if threatened by enemy formations. In late WW2 it was "Wo ist die Luftwaffe", in 1866 it was "Wo ist die Artillerie"

I agree with you Bloodnok – and it is real fodd for thought to read "letters on artillery" whenever one beomes to technical, to get a perspective on ho much application of tactics and training mattered.

Ramming – yes I was specifically thinking about the french rifled 12 pdrs, the Krupp 6 pdr and austrian 8 pdr. I have bought and read all of Bruce Weighes excellent books – both 1859, 1866, 1870 and 1871 as well as most of the readily available litterature on 1866 and 1870. As I mentioned in my first post, it is striking how no mention of any special effect of the heavy rifled batteries is found in sources. Bruce´s rules gives no modifier for heavy guns apart from 12 pdr against buildings. This is what got me thinking – since most rules (and sources) mention better effect of heavy guns in the Napoleonic period. Whas there really a higher effect of heavy guns with the advent of rifled artillery – it seems that ranges were almost the same. The heavy guns carried less ammo and had a slower rate of fire, but were they really only more effective against buildings and entrenchments as opposed to firing at formed infantry.