"How to base artillery?" Topic

I want to base my polish artillery. Should the width of a foot and a horse artillery unit match the width of a deployed bataillon (24cm)?
And how many tactical sub units are necessary to represent? I am under the assumption that two guns are a sub unit of a battery. Is that correct for horse artillery, too?

A quick look at the Napoleonic Wars Source book indicates a width from half to two thirds the width of a French battalion. Assuming the Poles are using French doctrine, and using your measurements above, a battery would be 12 to 16 cm in width.
See this link from years ago on TMP:
TMP link

Two guns is the usual sub-unit for both horse and foot but there are situations where one gun may be used.

If I can represent a battery with two bases of 6 or 8cm, that will save me a LOT of money I don't "have to" spend on limbers. And my case for giving artillery the "open formation" rule in Valour and Fortitude gets optical support, too!
Thank you!

Disregarding base size and getting to figures, seems many rules put number of guns not on gun models but number of figures. So my Russian batteries have 12 figures with 4 guns and 4 stands, 2 with 4 figures, 2 with 2 figures.
A Prussian battery has 3 guns and 8 figures, 3 stands 1 with 4 figures, 2 with 2 figures.
A British battery has 6 figures and 2 guns , 1 with 4 and 1 with 2. Its only been last bunch of yesrs getting this all together as I wanted. Limbers are a great thing to have but don't know of a rule set they are necessary, everyone turns the stand around if limbered , facing correctly unlimbered.
45 years into it finally can put 1 limber up for every battery on the board.

I base my guns one gun per base which may be cumbersome but does give a lot of flexibility – and for 28mm I use 4 figs per gun

Also, something to consider: leave your guns loose on the base so you can attach them to limbers when they move. A bit fiddly but it looks better, IMO.

@ochoin: if you use FrontRank guns, you don't have to glue the axle to the mount. Then the wheels can turn…as I bought 8pounders for my polish, I plan to send them to my French anyway, so I will exactly do as you suggested. The Polish used 6 pounders afaIk.
I love limbers and caissons. And I always need a NCOs as a third rank, and I will use ADC just for the look of the game. Most important thing in wargaming is adding little things to bataillons who acted bravely, like the name of the battle on a streamer(?) attached to the flag

Basing should be based on your rule system.

Having at least 1 1gun, 2 figure stand and extention on my limbers that stand goes on the limber stand. Not a big fan of loose figures, I don't but see many game masters do that. Especially packing up figures often would think its a problem butvthey don't.

@ dogtail – 100% agree.

@ 14Bore. It is a bit annoying but when limbered up, it looks so good!

@79ththPA: Valour and Fortitude does not give strict rules for the dimensions of basing
And I actually prefer rule sets in which it is up to the players to consider why rules are the way they are written, leaving things open.

+1 @ Ochoin.

(1) Always base in accordance with chosen rules.
(2) That said, if a battery of 6-8 actual weapons doesn't take up the frontage of about 4-500 formed 3-rank infantry, there's probably something wrong.
(3) Yes, usually batteries were broken into a number of two-gun "sections" which might deploy separately under some circumstances.
(4) I can see the appeal of a single gun on a very wide stand, but if the rules call for that, I'd still recommend a base not much wider than the gun & crew and a terrained sabot to fill the rest of the space. It gives you more rules options. More options are almost always better than fewer.