Artillery Through the Ages | Page 6

effectiveness of artillery, but nevertheless the arm was often put to good use. The skill of the American gunners at Yorktown contributed no little toward the speedy advance of the siege trenches. Yorktown battlefield today has many examples of Revolutionary War cannon, including some fine ship guns recovered from British vessels sunk during the siege of 1781.
In Europe, meanwhile, Frederick the Great of Prussia learned how to use cannon in the campaigns of the Seven Years' War (1756-63). The education was forced upon him as gradual destruction of his veteran infantry made him lean more heavily on artillery. To keep pace with cavalry movements, he developed a horse artillery that moved rapidly along with the cavalry. His field artillery had only light guns and howitzers. With these improvements he could establish small batteries at important points in the battle line, open the fight, and protect the deployment of his columns with light guns. What was equally significant, he could change the position of his batteries according to the course of the action.
Frederick sent his 3- and 6-pounders ahead of the infantry. Gunners dismounted 500 paces from the enemy and advanced on foot, pushing their guns ahead of them, firing incessantly and using grape shot during the latter part of their advance. Up to closest range they went, until the infantry caught up, passed through the artillery line, and stormed the enemy position. Remember that battle was pretty formal, with musketeers standing or kneeling in ranks, often in full view of the enemy!
[Illustration: Figure 9--FRENCH 12-POUNDER FIELD GUN (c. 1780).]
Perhaps the outstanding artilleryman of the 1700's was the Frenchman Jean Baptiste de Gribeauval, who brought home a number of ideas after serving with the capable Austrian artillery against Frederick. The great reform in French artillery began in 1765, although Gribeauval was not able to effect all of his changes until he became Inspector General of Artillery in 1776. He all but revolutionized French artillery, and vitally influenced other countries.
Gribeauval's artillery came into action at a gallop and smothered enemy batteries with an overpowering volume of fire. He created a distinct matériel for field, siege, garrison, and coast artillery. He reduced the length and weight of the pieces, as well as the charge and the windage (the difference between the diameters of shot and bore); he built carriages so that many parts were interchangeable, and made soldiers out of the drivers. For siege and garrison he adopted 12- and 16-pounder guns, an 8-inch howitzer and 8-, 10-, and 12-inch mortars. For coastal fortifications he used the traversing platform which, having rear wheels that ran upon a track, greatly simplified the training of a gun right or left upon a moving target (fig. 10). Gribeauval-type matériel was used with the greatest effect in the new tactics which Napoleon introduced.
Napoleon owed much of his success to masterly use of artillery. Under this captain there was no preparation for infantry advance by slowly disintegrating the hostile force with artillery fire. Rather, his artillerymen went up fast into closest range, and by actually annihilating a portion of the enemy line with case-shot fire, covered the assault so effectively that columns of cavalry and infantry reached the gap without striking a blow!
After Napoleon, the history of artillery largely becomes a record of its technical effectiveness, together with improvements or changes in putting well-established principles into action.
UNITED STATES GUNS OF THE EARLY 1800's
The United States adopted the Gribeauval system of artillery carriages in 1809, just about the time it was becoming obsolete (the French abandoned it in 1829). The change to this system, however, did not include adoption of the French gun calibers. Early in the century cast iron replaced bronze as a gunmetal, a move pushed by the growing United States iron industry; and not until 1836 was bronze readopted in this country for mobile cannon. In the meantime, U. S. Artillery in the War of 1812 did most of its fighting with iron 6-pounders. Fort McHenry, which is administered by the National Park Service as a national monument and historic shrine, has a few ordnance pieces of the period.
[Illustration: Figure 10--U. S. 32-POUNDER ON BARBETTE CARRIAGE (1860).]
During the Mexican War, the artillery carried 6- and 12-pounder guns, the 12-pounder mountain howitzer (a light piece of 220 pounds which had been added for the Indian campaigns), a 12-pounder field howitzer (788 pounds), the 24- and 32-pounder howitzers, and 8- and 10-inch mortars. For siege, garrison, and seacoast there were pieces of 16 types, ranging from a 1-pounder to the giant 10-inch Columbiad of 7-1/2 tons. In 1857, the United States adopted the 12-pounder Napoleon gun-howitzer, a bronze smoothbore designed by Napoleon III, and this muzzle-loader remained standard in the army until the 1880's.
The naval ironclads, which were usually armed with powerful 11- or 15-inch smoothbores, were a