Viability of wooden ballista-like "grenade launcher" as artillery in bad terrain?

Cannons are HARD to move around. And in rough terrain, it's HARD to get them where they will actually point at the enemy. It's not easy to drag them through mud or rocky terrain. Pick them up? NO WAY. All the steel needed to contain the force of the blast makes it way too heavy to carry.

I've been thinking.... What other possibilities are there for "artillery" that is more mobile in crappy terrain? One thing I've considered is light artillery that throws explosive shells on a high, slow trajectory. bombs/grenades basically. They don't rely on the projectile's kinetic energy, so the launcher can be very low-power. Possibly such that it could use stored tension (like a crossbow), instead of a gunpowder blast. This would mean that it wouldn't need to be made from nearly as much metal as a traditional cannon, and could even have a wooden frame light enough to be carried by a team of men in rough or boggy terrain. Hence, very mobile artillery.

I've been mulling this idea in my head for a while, but what finally got me to post this was reading about some battles in the 1814 north-eastern France campaign, where supposedly muddy terrain greatly reduced the effectiveness of Napoleon's artillery in a number of battles. Of course, I imagine this idea may be applicable far earlier than the Napoleonic period.
 
What you're describing - an artillery piece that fires an exploding shell on a high, slow trajectory - is well-known and is called a mortar, and they were extensively used alongside flat-trajectory cannons basically since the beginning of gunpowder artillery in Europe (I don't know about their use in China), and continue to be used today.

Now, I'm not aware of any non-gunpowder-based "artillery-sized" mortars, but hand grenades (much smaller but basically the same as the explosive shells used in their larger cousins) were delivered by a number of methods: thrown by hand, of course, for the most part; with primitive grenade launchers called hand mortars (since at least the early 18th century), and also possibly with large slings. Their were definitely grenadiers in Napoleon's army, though they were mostly used as elite shock infantry and not as any kind of artillery.

One thing you might want to look into, though, is rockets. The British made fairly effective use of primitive rockets called the Congreve rocket, based on designs they encountered in India. They were favored because they were much, much lighter and more mobile than other artillery, but were much less accurate (the accuracy problem were be fixed in the mid-19th Century by causing the rocket to spin slightly; I think fins would also likely have worked). Getting the French to borrow the idea from the British should be pretty possible, and neither of the innovations needed to increase accuracy to something useful require particularly higher technology, so this is probably a viable solution for what you're looking for.
 
Crossbows of such a nature were done in WW1. I'm unsure if the bombs of an earlier era would be safe, reliable, and portable enough for such a project, and furthermore in the Napoleonic era fire is so much less significant that you can do a bayonet charge much more easily. Using a fuze on it seems like it would be very dangerous. Furthermore, the range is going to be quite short; admittedly muskets were shorter ranged too, but this isn't trench warfare. You don't have static positioning slowly moving around to enable the artillery to play a sustained role, instead you have the much more mobile battle of the Napoleonic era. I don't think there would be enough terrain of the nature unpleasant to justify deploying it compared to conventional artillery.

There were light mortars during the American civil war, with the Model 1841 Coehorn mortar (5.82 inch), weighing 296 pounds (there might have been a 24-pound throwing mortar weighing a similar amount). These might quality, they are much heavier than the Sauterelle though. The Americans deployed light rockets in the Civil War though. I don't remember if they incorporated technical innovations since the Napoleonic civil war (the Hale process being the principal potential one).
 
Not a bad idea. After all grenadiers were used in the 17th century and in some places to the early 19th century so it's an idea. I have a feeling that most of the early weaponized uses for gunpopwder were as rockets and grenades to begin with. Hand cannons were very common in Chinese warfare as well and modified crossbows might work with small grenades. And there are catapults,trebuchets,scorpios,onagers,magonels and just about any siege engine would work. Plus old fashioned rockets in themselves would cause a lot of damage in tricky terrain. You could attach grenades to spears, arrows or have them thrown from slings. In fact, many of these methods were used in guerilla warfare.
 

jahenders

Banned
Cannons are HARD to move around. And in rough terrain, it's HARD to get them where they will actually point at the enemy. It's not easy to drag them through mud or rocky terrain. Pick them up? NO WAY. All the steel needed to contain the force of the blast makes it way too heavy to carry.

I've been thinking.... What other possibilities are there for "artillery" that is more mobile in crappy terrain? One thing I've considered is light artillery that throws explosive shells on a high, slow trajectory. bombs/grenades basically. They don't rely on the projectile's kinetic energy, so the launcher can be very low-power. Possibly such that it could use stored tension (like a crossbow), instead of a gunpowder blast. This would mean that it wouldn't need to be made from nearly as much metal as a traditional cannon, and could even have a wooden frame light enough to be carried by a team of men in rough or boggy terrain. Hence, very mobile artillery.

I've been mulling this idea in my head for a while, but what finally got me to post this was reading about some battles in the 1814 north-eastern France campaign, where supposedly muddy terrain greatly reduced the effectiveness of Napoleon's artillery in a number of battles. Of course, I imagine this idea may be applicable far earlier than the Napoleonic period.

The Title mentions ballistae. The ballista is a fairly high velocity, direct fire weapon -- not the kind of high, slow trajectory type thing you mention.

You could use some kind of small catapult or trebuchet, but either would be impractical to move about
 

Puzzle

Donor
The Title mentions ballistae. The ballista is a fairly high velocity, direct fire weapon -- not the kind of high, slow trajectory type thing you mention.

I think you could get a ballistae to fire a nice looping arc by aiming up. It would be just like lawn darts.
 
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