"Guns for Austrian Cavalry Batteries" Topic

I'm looking for the correct guns to equip a cavalry battery supporting a historically plausible Austrian advance guard division during the 1809 Aspern-Essling timeframe. I intend to use AB 18mm miniatures, and I see they have 6pdr Kavalleriegeschütze. It seems like those would likely be the correct guns to use.

Generally speaking, did Austrian cavalry batteries exclusively use Kavalleriegeschütze, or would they also use foot guns? Was there a cavalry howitzer similar to the Kavalleriegeschütz, or would they use foot howitzers alongside Kavalleriegeschütze? If they did use cavalry howitzers that were different than foot howitzers, were the trails similar enough that I could combine the howitzer barrel from a 7pdr foot howitzer on a 6pdr Kavalleriegeschütz trail, or would that look incorrect?

Any information, advice, or suggestions on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.

The Austrians were pretty serious about their artillery – the horse artillery batteries as I recall only used the light 6pdr gun and the 7-pounder howitzer but were less mobile than say French horse artillery

It was the unique part of the cavalry batteries that they used the Kavalleriegeschutze. Without them and the ability to 'ride' the gunners on them, they would effectively become 'foot' artillery. At 18mm scale, the carriage of the 7 pdr cavalry howitzer was close enough to that of the 6 pdr to get away with a barrel swap.

Have a look at CGM (Campaign Game Miniatures) they make Austrian Cavalry artillery.

link

less mobile

Surely having four gunners able to easily and quickly hop-off and back on again would give greater mobility:

- going up-hill? Get off and push on the gun wheels
- going down-hill? Get off and help brake the gun
- gun overturned? Get off and right it
- deploy gun? Already off, piece loaded, Ready.

Mounted gunners have to park, dismount, get someone to hold the beast and then get to the gun. Also they've to deal with the problem when their ride has been killed.

As to outright speed – jolt the guns/caissons too harshly and the cartridges will have shaken to pieces. Care needed.

Also, I believe the Austrians used pack horses to carry the ammunition, which offer an overall mobility advantage too.

Thank you all very much for the helpful responses! I'll most likely go with AB's Kavalleriegeschütze, and do a barrel swap for the howitzer.

For more info on the batteries (including download) & how they were controlled see "Kavalleriegeschützbatterien" Topic at TMP link