Historical question on artillery

Saphroneth

Banned
Until rifling was invented the range of arty was severly limited (range and probability to hit)

cannon balls are useful against fortifications (siege arty - heavy and large) and ships. Grape/case shot was employed only at short range (immediately before boarding). From the mid 18th century arty making became better and when cartridges allowed explosive ammo (19th century) arty became viable as long range anti personell weapons.

I think that's pushing artillery too LATE. Napoleon's guns were all smoothbore firing round shot - because round shot IS useful against formed troops.
 
I think that's pushing artillery too LATE. Napoleon's guns were all smoothbore firing round shot - because round shot IS useful against formed troops.

It is if employed in larger batteries, but cannons seldom if ever broke a determined attack. a Ball plowing through a packed formation must follow a quite narrow path to do much damage (too low it goes to ground (and might or might not deflect) too high it passes overhead. A determined charge will lokiely capture the guns (spiked often) - with long range arty and especially grapeshot Cannons became really devastating. And even Napoleons Grande Armee had "only" 400 guns in 1805 (including the Bavarian Auxillaries)

A rule of thumb has 3-7 guns per 1000 man infantry...
 
Most artillery pieces of the Napoleonic period had around 6-8 horses towing them plus a limber. A single battery at that time (British army had the Royal Regt of Artillery with 10 battalions each with 10 companies, plus the RHA with 13 fully mounted troops, a troop or company had 5 field cannon and a howitzer, added to this were the Drivers who had several troops distributed across companies deployed into the field, these provided all the handlers to control the 6 to 8 towing horses plus all the extra vehicles needed. The company plus drivers equalled a battery. I'm not going to give you a full breakdown as my books are back on the mainland away from me) generally 6-8 guns, 130 troops and around 200 horses.
 
Don't forget the roads outside cities were all dirt. Unlike an air filled tire, the iron rims on guns and wagons digs in and tears up such roads. A stream of artillery and their supply wagons can churn up a road, add the least bit of rain and everything can turn to a kind of mush. Gun batteries used and injured a lot of horses. In soft ground the work the horses had was harder and harder as the iron shod wheels sank into the ground. You still see the same thing with car tires in bogging down in mud.

This. It is the same reason why inland, before the railways and the paved roads, stuff traveled much better and more cheaply along rivers and other internal waterways. Moving stuff around is simply easier by water.
 
I think it is more a matter of canons being the only viable armament for ships while they are just one component of a land army. Put it like this, you cannot build a viable warship without canon so, by extension, a viable fleet cannot be built without a very large number of canon. Compare this to an army where a few hundred canon is plenty to be decisive in battle and I think you have your answer.

I respectfully disagree. First thing, warships existed even before gunpowder. Secondly, even as late as the Napoleonic wars, certain large and viable, although ultimately losing, navies did put cannons in their ships, and yet it wasn't cannons that made those warships really viable. In fact, their tactics relied on closing in onto the opponent's warships and on boarding them with superior numbers of naval infantry, winning the fight mainly in that way and not through gunnery.
 
this is later (19thcentury) but illustrates the effort & horses needed

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It is if employed in larger batteries, but cannons seldom if ever broke a determined attack. a Ball plowing through a packed formation must follow a quite narrow path to do much damage (too low it goes to ground (and might or might not deflect) too high it passes overhead. A determined charge will lokiely capture the guns (spiked often) - with long range arty and especially grapeshot Cannons became really devastating. And even Napoleons Grande Armee had "only" 400 guns in 1805 (including the Bavarian Auxillaries)

A rule of thumb has 3-7 guns per 1000 man infantry...

Cannons not breaking a determined attack alone does not make them ineffective versus infantry, though. A single artillery battery is not enough manpower to be comparable to a regiment anyway.
 
Cannons not breaking a determined attack alone does not make them ineffective versus infantry, though. A single artillery battery is not enough manpower to be comparable to a regiment anyway.

Massed cannons (la grande batterie) usually did not need to break an infantry attack against them for the very good reason that the opposing general did not advance with infantry straight against such a battery.
On the contrary, we have some fine examples of grandes batteries being used offensively, moved forward with their muzzles facing the enemy and firing and moving in bounds, and the enemy infantry was unable to break a determined attack by the artillery, for instance at Friedland and Wagram.
 
Being outraged by the big guns probably had something to do with that.

500 yards isn't much, but it beats the distance you can hit even with long range musket fire.
 
Being outraged by the big guns probably had something to do with that.

500 yards isn't much, but it beats the distance you can hit even with long range musket fire.

That's true but also only half of the answer.
If that was all, then the recipe would be to close in quickly - which the cavalry did try sometimes, and sometimes the infantry too, against smaller batteries.

But not only you are outranged by cannonball when you are distant from the artillery. Once you move into the range of your own muskets, you are also within the range of cannister fire by the battery. And the battery, especially if it has many barrels and/or large barrels, still wins in sheer firepower.
 
Most artillery pieces of the Napoleonic period had around 6-8 horses towing them plus a limber. A single battery at that time (British army had the Royal Regt of Artillery with 10 battalions each with 10 companies, plus the RHA with 13 fully mounted troops, a troop or company had 5 field cannon and a howitzer, added to this were the Drivers who had several troops distributed across companies deployed into the field, these provided all the handlers to control the 6 to 8 towing horses plus all the extra vehicles needed. The company plus drivers equalled a battery. I'm not going to give you a full breakdown as my books are back on the mainland away from me) generally 6-8 guns, 130 troops and around 200 horses.

200 horses.. I cant recall what that is in high energy grain, but for green fodder it is 1500 to 1700 Kg. A corps with 60 cannon would be requiring 16,000 Kg per day to keep those guns moving. Providing that requires more draught horses, or oxen so add in another 15%, plus wastage, and remember your spare horses at the start of the campaign.
 
That's true but also only half of the answer.
If that was all, then the recipe would be to close in quickly - which the cavalry did try sometimes, and sometimes the infantry too, against smaller batteries.

But not only you are outranged by cannonball when you are distant from the artillery. Once you move into the range of your own muskets, you are also within the range of cannister fire by the battery. And the battery, especially if it has many barrels and/or large barrels, still wins in sheer firepower.

I would not want to push that as an unsupported artillerist, though. Artillery certainly could be and was effective, but eighty guns versus ten thousand infantrymen is going to be bloody.
 
I would not want to push that as an unsupported artillerist, though. Artillery certainly could be and was effective, but eighty guns versus ten thousand infantrymen is going to be bloody.

If the 80 guns are set up normally, i.e. with one frontage, the infantry officers just have to send 10% of their force to the left and 10% to the right, and the battery is toast.

If OTOH the artillery commander knows he's unsupported and has an early warning, then we might be talking about a hedgehog of guns facing in every direction, with enough ammo at the center, and maybe a bit of earthworks to go with them, as would be customary for emplaced artillery used defensively.
The infantrymen are still going to win and wipe the battery, provided they are willing to take horrendous casualties. This in turns requires high morale to start with; which is not a given. With average to poor morale infantry, the artillery might be able to push them into retreating.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
It should also be remembered that, in a pinch, guns could be loaded with grape. It basically goes - long range, round shot; medium range gun duel, grape; short range (but still more than smoothbore musket), cannister shotgun.
 
As pointed out, transportation is going to be a nightmare, if the guns are very large (over 50 pounders?), also if you are on the losing side you can't hang around to save your own guns and they will end up in the hands of your enemy.
 

Maur

Banned
All these things aside, lets not forget that cannons of that era were very useful, and increasingly so, and the number armies carried was constantly increasing, effectively turning the battles into something like WW I trench carnage.
 
All these things aside, lets not forget that cannons of that era were very useful, and increasingly so, and the number armies carried was constantly increasing, effectively turning the battles into something like WW I trench carnage.



That happened every war, the longer it went on the more guns, they were too useful. Frederick the Great continually wanted more guns and howitzers. The era warlords may not have preached artillery firepower (except maybe Napolean) but they practiced it.
 
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