"Size of French Cav Reserve horse batteries at Wagram?" Topic

I'm having some trouble finding numbers here.
Based on the size of other horse batteries it looks like 6 x guns per battery would be standard, with a few 4 x gun batteries mixed in. Does anyone have some hard numbers? Thanks!

This from "Armies on the Danube" by Bowden and Tarbox:

1st Heavy Cavalry Division: 4th Co., 6th Regt. a cheval with 4x 8pdr. and 2x 6p. (pouce, I believe approximately 1"), and 5th Co., 6th Regt. a cheval with the same.

2nd Heavy Cavalry Division: 3rd Co., 5th Regt. a cheval armed as above.

3rd Heavy Cavalry Division: 3rd Co., 6th Regt. a cheval armed as above.

That was the usual for French horse artillery companies, though sometimes they would be armed with six guns and no howitzers.

I don't have any source documents for the period at all, so was also going to quote from Bowden and Tarbox etc.

Equally there were other artillerie volante with more 8pdrs and some with 4s. These may have been foreign of course.

To give you an idea tho, most cavalry divisions at the various Army of the Ocean Coast started 1805 with a full complement horse battery/ company.

By the time of Austerlitz, many were down to half-company/ peloton, that is 3 pieces, which was consistent across several Corps. I haven't examined in acute detail but it may be that campaigning was hard on the horses and so fewer, but more mobile, guns were taken to the front.

And to some extent foreign and LOC troops may have been leavened with 'French' moral support and [therefore their battery] needed fewer horses on hand, not in being in battle.

I'm sure the same scheme would have been utilised on future campaigns, FWIW
regards d

Cool- thanks for the info. I may have to adjust.
Here's part of what I'm working on. To my knowledge this is the first model-soldier battalion/squadron/battery level army for Wagram. This is only about half of the French army.

Click here to zoom in: picture

Every battery lists the number of guns, type (foot, horse, or position) and weight of shot. The color coding shows each units regiment and place in the OOB. The scale is 10mm = 100m, and the map that these units go with roughly 9' x 4'. I'll post some pictures once I get the table set up. The color coding makes it go quickly, but the map is too big to set up in my apartment.

In the French Archives du servcce Historique de 1'seta-major de l'armee located at the chateau do VINCENNES, the cartons of records for the Grand Armee, Carton C2505 contains the returns for the artillery June and July. According to those records,

All the Reserve Cavalry Corps Horse Artillery had 8 pdrs and 6pdr howitzers.

The Imperial Guard horse artillery contained 24pdr howitzers. All HA companies contained four 6 pdr guns unless noted otherwise.

Unexpectedly, the II corps reserve artillery were Horse artillery according to the records. They also contained 24pdr howitzers with 6 pdr guns. For some reason Bowden shows them as foot artillery containing 12pdrs though he references Carton C2505 and duplicates other foot artillery companies in other places of the French OOB.

3rd Horse Artillery Regiment, 4th & 5th Companies,
5th Horse Artillery Regiment, 4th Company

The III Corps HA had 6pdr howitzers.

The IV Corps HA had 5pdr 7li. Howitzers. The same is true of the Saxon Corps.

McL
Are you mistranslating 'pouce' as pound when it is a length/ diameter measurement- inch?

And the "duplication" may well be, on examination that cannot be determined by the printed data, further proof of the use of half company/ pelotons across divergent bodies in this later than my cited campaign.
Perhaps… d

Are you mistranslating 'pouce' as pound when it is a length/ diameter measurement- inch?

SHaT: Yes, I got carried away with typing, should have ended with p. and not pdr

And the "duplication" may well be, on examination that cannot be determined by the printed data, further proof of the use of half company/ pelotons across divergent bodies in this later than my cited campaign.
Perhaps…

This I am not sure of--I haven't read anything like that. Considering the size of an artillery company, could half [a peloton can be considered half of a company?] serve the same number of guns?

At this late stage in the Campaign, would there be enough men in one company to adequately serve 16 guns? What, 40 men possible to serve eight guns?

In 1807 company of French foot artillery (8 pieces) consisted of:
2 captains
2 lieutenants
1 sergeant-major
4 sergeants
4 corporals
1 furrier
2 drummers
24 gunners of 1st Class
45 gunners of 2nd Class
85 Total

In 1815 company of foot artillery (8 pieces) consisted of:
2 captains
2 lieutenants
1 sergeant-major
4 sergeants
4 corporals
1 furrier
2 drummers
20 gunners of 1st Class
48 gunners of 2nd Class
84 TOTAL

In Bowden's book, he has the 4th Co, 7th Foot Art Regt. with both 2nd Divisions of the II and III corps. IF the 5th Foot Art. Regt, 4th co. was actually part of the II Corps Reserve, it also appears with 8 18pdrs stationed on Lobau Island. That is one thing that convinced me that the records were correct about the II Corps Art. Reserve.

I did the research in 1984 for Napoleon's Last Triumph, so there may be new information since then.

An excellent source for the 1809 campaign, especially the artillery allocations and which corps had 8-pounders and which had 6-pounders, is Saski, Volume I.

Campagne de 1809 en Allemagne et en Autriche, Volume I by Commandant Saski.

link

By the time of Austerlitz, many were down to half-company/ peloton, that is 3 pieces, which was consistent across several Corps. I haven't examined in acute detail but it may be that campaigning was hard on the horses and so fewer, but more mobile, guns were taken to the front.

There was a shortage of horses for the 1805 campaign and this affected how much artillery could be fielded. For example, this forced Davout to leave some of his artillery behind.

Further, horse losses after hard campaigning would also determine how much artillery could be employed with the army.