Most underappreciated artillery?

I thought this topic might produce some interesting discussion. What artillery do you find is the most underappreciated by the average ACW student? This doesn't mean they have to be the most dominant weapons, just ones that get far less press than they deserve for their actual contributions. This would include field, siege, garrison, and naval artillery: guns, rifles, howitzers, mortars, etc.

My nominee is the 12 pounder mountain howitzer. These are usually reduced to footnotes/mentioned in passing in battle monographs or treatise on ACW artillery. However, they appear to have been versatile and useful weapons in actual battle accounts if one drills down sufficiently. This is particularly true in the West and Trans-Mississippi.

Key advantages:
1. Could go anywhere, over any trail or terrain, even into church towers. If you can get arty where your opponent has none or expects none, you have a tremendous advantage.
2. Logistics and draught animal demand of this weapon were the least cumbersome of any field artillery commonly in use. A single horse could pull a carriage mounted mountain howitzer and its limber, or it could be packed on several mules, along with ammunition.
3. Worked well as an adjunct company to cavalry regiments/battalions, or even infantry. Gave them hitting power/weight they would otherwise lack.
4. Hundreds were made, even the CSA produced perhaps two dozen.
5. Although a small weapon, it still fired deadly 12 pounder howitzer ammunition or special made canister.
6. Could be advanced in thickets to point blank range.
7. Probably the most rapidly deployable artillery type.
8. Still in common use during post war years.
Disadvantages:
1. Short range, insufficient to duel with any normal field pieces.
2. Inaccurate, again limiting it to short range engagements.
3. Ammunition supply typically far less than that of a standard field battery.

My favorite would be the 20 lb parrott.

Robert P. Parrott, at the West Point Foundry, came up with a new method for strengthening a cast iron gun with a band of wrought iron at the breech. The design of reinforcing bands was, in itself, not new; many Confederate guns were cast iron with bands for added strength, and they also banded and rifled many captured Union smoothbores. Parrott's method was to form a band of iron around a mandrel, hammering it until it was welded into one piece, then while hot forcing it onto the breach of the tube being water cooled on the inside. Parrott rifles were made in 10- and 20-pound field pieces, 30-pound siege guns and 100-, 200- and 300-pound seacoast and Navy guns. This design was cheaper and easier to produce, but tended to burst right in front of the reinforce (a 200-pound gun at Morris Island, South Carolina burst after just 36 rounds). The original 10-pounder (Model 1861, characterized by a muzzle swell) had a bore of 2.9-inches, while the Model 1863 (no muzzle swell) had a bore of 3-inches in order to standardize the ammunition. In February, 1864 Second Model Parrotts were accepted (of approximately 279) by the Board; in June the First Models were pulled out of the field, and many were rebored to 3-inch(119 out of approximately 250 First Models made). It does not seem any of these were re-issued, as none survive today. Approximately 600 (total of both models) 10-pound Parrotts were purchased during the war (additionally, some were purchased by states).

http://www.cwartillery.com/FA/FA.html

Most underappreciated artillery?

I suspect it would be the kind that shows up late and misses a lot.

1SGDan said:

Most underappreciated artillery?

I suspect it would be the kind that shows up late and misses a lot.

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That would be plain old unappreciated artillery. Even less appreciated were the ones that limbered up and left as soon as things got hot...or perhaps the batteries that were firing over their own infantry's heads with defective fuses or with some rifled ammunition with lead sabot's that tended to separate in flight.

Seacoast! anyone can muck about on field gun, but it takes a MAN to wrestle an 11,000 pound gun in and out of battery LOL.

In the battle of Hoover's Gap, the 18th Indiana had 4 mountain howitzers along with the 6 3inch ordiance rifles. These were assigned to to 72nd Indiana and manned by the 72nd. Henry Campbell, in his journal does not mention the howitzers except to say that they were used at Chickamauga by the 72nd again at Reeds bridge. Today, some of them are used on deer hunts where they are loaded with cansiter

richard said:

In the battle of Hoover's Gap, the 18th Indiana had 4 mountain howitzers along with the 6 3inch ordiance rifles. These were assigned to to 72nd Indiana and manned by the 72nd. Henry Campbell, in his journal does not mention the howitzers except to say that they were used at Chickamauga by the 72nd again at Reeds bridge. Today, some of them are used on deer hunts where they are loaded with cansiter

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That is interesting, but how to lead the deer when aiming.

You pick a spot about 200 yrds from the gun and wait for the deer to show up.

20 pound Parrot Rifled Cannon. It could have been devastating against infantry at long range if it didn't blow up on its own crew.

coltshooter1 said:

20 pound Parrot Rifled Cannon. It could have been devastating against infantry at long range if it didn't blow up on its own crew.

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I can just imagine the crew standing at the back watching the guy who was to set it off. If all went well then running back up to reload.

A 20 pound shot against the enemy or a 1800 pound bomb in your own position. Definitely a unappreciated artillery piece.

There were times with the heavier caliber parrotts in siege operations where there were indications that the piece was about finished. They pulled the lanyard from behind a berm or used other precautions like a slow match. Abbot described this sort of thing with a Sawyer that blew up.

The Lady Polk (a 6.4", 128 pounder rifle cast at Tredegar) blew the crew to pieces and detonated its own powder magazine at Columbus, KY during a demonstration. Polk himself was lucky not to have been killed since the demonstration was for his benefit. Polk would later discover the accuracy of Federal artillery fire in Georgia...

The sister to the same piece above, was used by the same battery at Island #10...where it also blew apart. Didn't kill the gun crew that time. http://rosswar.blogspot.com/ The large caliber CSA guns didn't use the Rodman core chilling process and had a tendency to blow up.