Artillery going into action

[frontrank2]

Battery B, 5th U.S. Artillery - June 3, 1863.

 

[Cavalier]

It's cool to see how much ground a battery would actually occupy.

John

 

[Belfoured]

It's cool to see how much ground a battery would actually occupy.

John

Although there's some foreshortening, I've always thought this photo was one of the few where it appears they were actually using the prescribed 14 yards between pieces axle to axle. In presentations I've used a football field for the standard 6-gun battery - goal line to the opponent's 20 yard line and sideline to sideline for very approximate footprint.

 

[dgfred]

You can even see the wagon tracks from taking their positions.

 

[Cavalier]

I had the pleasure of viewing a video from the British Horse Artillery demonstrating the process of unlimbering and limbering a battery on the battlefield. The reasons for the 14 yard space becomes oblivious in the demonstrations. Very interesting it was too. I assume the process would have been the same in our armies.

John

 

[Belfoured]

I had the pleasure of viewing a video from the British Horse Artillery demonstrating the process of unlimbering and limbering a battery on the battlefield. The reasons for the 14 yard space becomes oblivious in the demonstrations. Very interesting it was too. I assume the process would have been the same in our armies.

John

I assume you're referring to bringing the limber through?

 

[29thWisCoG]

Interesting how they swabbed between shots, I think it had to do with putting our any embers before adding a now load of powder.

 

[Belfoured]

Interesting how they swabbed between shots, I think it had to do with putting our any embers before adding a now load of powder.

Two implements were used - the "worm" to remove remnants of the powder bag (and its embers) and the "sponge" to get rid of black powder residue and embers (often the other end of the rammer, and usually three twists right and left)

 

[29thWisCoG]

Were most of the canon rounds the exploding type? How often did they just let it go like it was a bowling ball?

 

[John Winn]

Were most of the canon rounds the exploding type? How often did they just let it go like it was a bowling ball?

No. There was solid shot, case (hollow, filled with powder), shell (filled with lead balls and powder), and canister (a tin can filled with lead or iron balls - essentially a shotgun shell). Which was used depended on what the target was and how far away it was.

Solid shot was usually bounced along the ground when used against personnel (but not if used against a building or such) so I suppose that's sort of like a bowling ball.

Just a note: when talking artillery, a cannon is different than a rifle. Cannons are smooth bore whereas rifles have a rifled bore. Rifled guns (gun being the collective noun) tended to mostly use exploding rounds although there was solid shot (called a bolt) and canister for them. Canister in rifled guns was reported to not be as effective as that from a smooth bore because the smooth bore loads were larger and because the spin of the rifling reportedly caused a less desirable pattern. The latter point is a little debatable but the size of the load was definitely a decisive factor. Bolts were really only used against hard-shell objects (i.e. not personnel).

 

[Belfoured]

Were most of the canon rounds the exploding type? How often did they just let it go like it was a bowling ball?

Very complicated question that would take a while to answer. Right now, and in an attempt to oversimplify, I think you're talking about ricochet firing, which was better - but not exclusively - suited to round projectiles (smooth bore) as opposed to more or less cylindrical (rifled), for the obvious reason that the latter with its "pointed" shape would be more likely to bury itself on the first hit. If you've watched The Patriot, there's a scene showing a cannonball ricocheting and decapitating a guy on the American side. Both spherical/round projectiles and rifled projectiles were of four general types - solid (the traditional "cannonball" in smooth bores- in rifles called a "bolt"); shell - hollow and timed to blow up into fragments; case/shrapnel - filled with several small projectiles and timed to blow up and scatter them; and canister - filled with several small projectiles, exploding on leaving the tube and spreading in swaths. In rifles, shell and shrapnel might also explode in a different way - not based on a time fuze to explode at a certain distance in flight but using a percussion fuze in the nose which would explode on contact with a target (there were also "combination" fuzes that used both timing and percussion). A spherical solid shot would be preferred for ricochet firing but it could be done with spherical shell or case, as well. To keep oversimpifying, each gun in a battery would be uniformly allocated a specific percentage of shell, case/shrapnel, canister, and solid shot.

 

[Cavalier]

@Belfoured You are correct. The process is facinating to me.

John

 

[Belfoured]

@Belfoured You are correct. The process is facinating to me.

John

It is definitely interesting. Of course, executing those maneuvers under fire was a different story. There also were plenty of times that for any number of reasons the prescribed distance could not be maintained.

 

[Belfoured]

No. There was solid shot, case (hollow, filled with powder), shell (filled with lead balls and powder), and canister (a tin can filled with lead or iron balls - essentially a shotgun shell). Which was used depended on what the target was and how far away it was.

Solid shot was usually bounced along the ground when used against personnel (but not if used against a building or such) so I suppose that's sort of like a bowling ball.

Just a note: when talking artillery, a cannon is different than a rifle. Cannons are smooth bore whereas rifles have a rifled bore. Rifled guns (gun being the collective noun) tended to mostly use exploding rounds although there was solid shot (called a bolt) and canister for them. Canister in rifled guns was reported to not be as effective as that from a smooth bore because the smooth bore loads were larger and because the spin of the rifling reportedly caused a less desirable pattern. The latter point is a little debatable but the size of the load was definitely a decisive factor. Bolts were really only used against hard-shell objects (i.e. not personnel).

Agree on the issue of canister from the smaller rifled bore (3" vs. 4.62" generally) and the effect of the rifling grooves being a little debatable. There was that re-enactor test a few years ago that called the "conventional wisdom" into question - using the two different types, they found that 31% of the balls from the 3" rifled canister hit the target and 33% of the balls from the 4.62" smooth bore canister. There also aren't a whole lot of recorded complaints from the commanders of rifled batteries about the effects of their canister fire, so we'll probably never know for certain. To add to your point about bolts, Hunt simply eliminated them from the prescribed chest for rifles in the Army of the Potomac.

 

[Cavalier]

@Belfoured I thought an interesting aspect of the Royal Horse Artillery evolution was that after the trail of the guns had been dropped the limbers and their teams continue on past the gun line, in the direction of the enemy, and make a U turn, (off camera in the video I saw), then return through the gun line to make another U turn.

As you mention, doing this under fire must have been something to see.

John

 

[Belfoured]

@Belfoured I thought an interesting aspect of the Royal Horse Artillery evolution was that after the trail of the guns had been dropped the limbers and their teams continue on past the gun line, in the direction of the enemy, and make a U turn, (off camera in the video I saw), then return through the gun line to make another U turn.

As you mention, doing this under fire must have been something to see.

John

That is consistent with what was supposed to happen. Of course, under fire things might have to change. For example, I've seen accounts of instances where it appears that the limber may have come up and turned right away first, leaving the gun facing the enemy where it was quickly unlimbered and put in action. To re-limber, it apparently was "man-handled" back to the limber. As I pointed out, there were times when 14 yards spacing wasn't possible/practical. I'm sure there may also have been times where the gun was unlimbered and then man-handled forward to action front, so that the limber etc had reduced exposure to fire. I know I'd be in one heck of a hurry to get all that done under "incoming". Gibbon really didn't address the unlimbering protocol and the Instructions briefly described the process without much detail. I think I may have located one of the RHA videos you were referring to, and they appear to be following the unlimber/turn sequence, with the crew man-handling the gun to turn it after unlimbering.

 

[Cavalier]

@Belfoured Sorry for the delay in responding to you. I tried to determine just how the unlimbering and limbering process was carried out for many years. I remember checking into Gibbon's book and being disappointed in that regard.

I had assumed it would be at least similar to what was done in the Napolonic wars. That was difficult to find out about too. This video was pointed out to me recently and seems to be the answer, at least resembling what was done here.

I find it strange that something so basic that must have required lots of drilling to accomplish was not written about more.

 

[Belfoured]

At some other time I may put up something about the evolution of artillery manuals during the late 18th-first half 19th century; the differences between the French and the British in that regard (and the American mixture); the development of "mounted" artillery; and the change from the bracket to the block trail carriage. It's all intertwined and this process was part of those changes - not all of which found their way into the manuals (blame the British and their French paranoia for resisting putting everything down in writing)

 

[Belfoured]

@Belfoured Sorry for the delay in responding to you. I tried to determine just how the unlimbering and limbering process was carried out for many years. I remember checking into Gibbon's book and being disappointed in that regard.

I had assumed it would be at least similar to what was done in the Napolonic wars. That was difficult to find out about too. This video was pointed out to me recently and seems to be the answer, at least resembling what was done here.

I find it strange that something so basic that must have required lots of drilling to accomplish was not written about more.

The best description I've found is in Ringgold's 1845 manual, adapting an earlier official manual to his notions of how "mounted artillery" should be used - that in turn was a recent development under the 1838 Poinsett reforms. Ringgold was the central figure involved in implementing those reforms with his ideas about "flying artillery". I've tried to highlight the important points.

 

[Cavalier]

@Belfoured I have never seen that before. Thank you very much for sending it to me and the highlighting you did! I will get into it this evening when I am home for the night.

I am looking forward to anything you have to say about the artillery manuals for the 18th. and early 19th. centuries. Should be fascinating stuff!

Thanks again, John