"French Napoleonic Horse Artillery 1815" Topic

Nice job…

UNLUCKY GENERAL

link

Armand

Very nice work.

Good to see the gunners mounted.

Chris

Nice model. But who are the outriders? They look like Guard Train drivers.

Great work and shows what you can do in 28mm (His DBHA are even better).

Unlucky General has conceded that the plates on the giberne are wrong, but I will bet Chris D can note at least three other relatively minor issues, or possibly I am missing more than that. Button counting is half the fun, for all but the exhibitor.

If you visit the site, do seek out the other postings. Inspiring work. How I do miss 28mm especially the conversion potential for hard plastic.

(While I typed this Artilleryman got one already!)

They are the accompanying line horse artillery gunners.

I am not sure about the leading and last fellows with either a whip or linstock that they are waving about. A whip would be wrong and a linstock would be holstered.

Best wishes,

Chris

That's a challenge for another time although the Pom Poms on the drivers should be blue gray and the piece would normally be pulled by six horses. However, wargamers usually opt for four, so who knows?

As for button counting, I am having fun investigating Austrian uniforms along with buildings at the present.

Still knee deep with Antietam too.

Best wishes,

Chris

But Artilleryman is right. Look at those boots and imagine trying to man a gun in those.

Left wheel horse is in front of the lead horse to judge by the rear harness.

They look more like 12 pdr barrels being fired, a challenge for HA.

Let's leave it at that, few place the gun crew correctly every time and the end result here is superb whatever. Some of his other work is even better.

Hi Mr D. You started me thinking there and I looked at the battery.

They look lovely and are painted well. The positions are incorrect but most wargamers do this.

The positioned guns are too big for horse artillery as you state. 12pdr are for foot batteries.

The train drivers have the big heavy cavalry boots normally together with a leg protector on occasion ala ACW drivers.

The riders have smaller boots and indeed the early horse artillery chaps were modelled on the hussar boot. With epaulettes these are possibly they.

Here is an excellent link you may find of interest.

link

Onwards we go.

Best wishes

Chris

What surprises me in the link is the colour of the gun carriage and limber. Much lighter than anything you see on a wargaming table.

Happy you like them boys… and thanks for the comments… very useful…

Armand

The green shade. Interesting to know what folk use for the French. My "go to" is Vallejo Russian WWII uniform, then a wash with Agrax Earthshade and finally drybrush again with the Vallejo colour.

Deadhead,

I use the same.

a very nice model and interesting link – i have the Kevin F Kiley artillery book, but i dont find its layout all that helpful with getting useful information quickly – this link however seems much more useful.

so given that the miniature depictions of horse artillery are so often incorrect , are there any images that show correctly the appearance, uniforms and positions of horse artillery teams and with the correct gun caliber?

You might find ‘ Officers and soldiers of French Artillery parts 1 and 2' useful.

histoireetcollections.com

ISBN 978-2-35250-318-7

Best wishes,

Chris

The books have lots of good illustrations but I'm not sure that the gun carriage drawings are to scale.

Thanks

Armand

Much better book is "Napoleonic Artillery" by Anthony L. Dawson, Paul L. Dawson & Stephen Summerfield. It contains scaled drawings & set up for crew etc etc.
link
link

Looks very nice indeed.

Best wishes,

Chris

Extract on French artillery from "Napoleonic Artillery" by Anthony L. Dawson, Paul L. Dawson & Stephen Summerfield with scaled drawings of pieces plus how crew would be deployed at link

Wonderful as always.

Chris

***
"Napoleonic Artillery" by Anthony L. Dawson, Paul L. Dawson & Stephen Summerfield
***

There are some corrections to the printed text here:

link

Kind regards
Allan

Many thanks Allan,

Don't know how I missed that one! Will print it out & put it into my copy of the book.
All the best

Ian

Don't tell everyone, Ian, but the Internet Archive have a full access version:
link
Kind regards
Allan

This is a fine book which I value.

But my copy has a print out of a much longer series of errata, sent to me by a very respected contributor to this forum.

Many had escaped me, but are far more significant than suggested in the above links.

The most obvious, which hit me the moment I read it, was the account of how cannister or case shot worked. That just baffled me. Try reading it.

A very good read and full of useful info, but, like any book it has its errors. (But the cannister/case one is weird…..a container bounces in front of the gun before it disintegrates and sends on its projectiles???).

@deadhead
I recall some spirited discussion on the same and similar topics some years ago, but I cannot recall a list of errata being mentioned. Perhaps it was a summary of points raised?
I would agree that the canister description is odd.
Needless to say, I would be very interested in reading your fuller list if you feel able to share it.
Kind regards
Allan

Whilst this demonstration is from an ACW Napoleon the dynamics are the same as a Napoleonic cannon.

My understanding is that the depressurisation splits the case as the can emerges from the muzzle, spraying the contents forward in what effectively is a cone of high velocity shrapnel.

Do not forget that there would be a battery throwing this stuff out in reality, not just one gun.

YouTube link

Best wishes,

Chris

Absolutely right that is how canister/case shot works. It may be being confused with spherical case shot, what we now call a Shrapnel shell

@Allan F Mountford, I would love to share it, but it runs to several typed pages. The author is a frequent contributor here (indeed avery recent one), but not a signed up member so I cannot send a PM to ask permission. I was hoping he might come across this topic.

Thank you Mr. D.

Hopefully, there is no confusion to our members as whilst I referred to a cone of shrapnel ( ie shards of metal) the shrapnel shell, invented by a Mr S, was an airborne delivery system of a similarly lethal torrent of metal from above.

I believe that this was, initially, a purely British ammunition as opposed to the common shell used by howitzers.

Thank you for the horse tips. I forgot to wash them as well.

Senility creeping in!

Best wishes,

Chris

It is indeed a very fine distinction,largely lost these days. If one is hit by any bit of an exploding ordnance the accepted cry is "Ouch, how unpleasant. I have been struck by shrapnel".

Traditional shrapnel is rarely used now, but we all know that there are flechette derivatives and that summat similar knocks out incoming missiles and drones.

It is all too easy to get confused, especially when Hollywood never shows solid shot, only the common shell and even that only exploding on the ground, with great pyrotechincs. I have often wondered how often an air burst occurred with common shell back then and how lethal the bits of casing would then be.