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Re: Artillery
All,
I went to war with a Marine Artillery Regiment, M-198s, 10th Marines, Rolling Rifles. After seeing the destruction we inflicted I know why it is call the "King of Battle."
However, once I pulled the lanyard on a 10lb parrot I was hooked as a reenactor. I am not sure how many more artillery units is needed, as I don't know how many there really are. But I can say that the original ratio was a section, 2 guns, for each thousand infantry, or a section per regiment, a battery per brigade. So we may be pretty close at most reenactments as far as that ratio is concerned.
Most reenactment units have just a piece and limber, wish we could have the rest, the caisson, battery wagon, and forge, but we're talking a lot of gear and a lot of personnel. I'd love to have horses too! Cost is a major driver, each piece, parrot (rifled) with limber & implements is about 15K, plus the cost of the trailer. Storage is another issue, if the piece is stored outside then more PM is needed. Not to mention burning a 1/2 lb of powder with each shot. Original parrots used 1 lb, howizters use more.
Artillery, as our BC says in LH demonstrations, is the ultimate team sport. A cavalryman, alone, is still a lethal weapon, so is an individual infantryman, but an artilleryman with no cannon or crew is just a warm body on the battlefield. Thus the crew has to function as a team, each man knows his and other jobs, but concentrates on the particular job they have at that time. The original gun drill was safe, I don't think that reenactors have made it any safer by modifing the drill, sort of like wearing a belt and suspenders to hold up your trousers. Accidents happen when you don't pay attention to your job.
Currently many artillery reenactors are not artillerymen, they do not study the tactics used, have little idea how to work with the infantry and have a tendency to line up all the cannons and blast away during reenactments!! What a bunch of BS. Artillery did not fight that way, didn't then and doesn't now. We artillery reenactors have to think more as artillerymen!!! Read and remember the "red book" or Gibbons manual; call out ranges and rounds, the 5-8s have to call out elevations based on fuse settings for the indicated ranges. Know the rounds your unit's piece fired, not all cannons fired grape, not all used canister. Make it real.
Our unit has a number of impressions, we can do the campaigner, sleeping under the tarp or blankets and gum blanket; we can set up As or a training camp. We are drilling ourselfs on dismounting tubes, recovering a tube without a carriage. That's what they did, it just was not sponging, ramming and firing.
As far as the expression "too old and fat to do infantry so I'll do artillery" doesn't really cut it, we manhandle those pieces about the battlefield, now we are the horses. If your physical condition or health precludes you from heavy lifting or exertion, the artillery is not for you. Perhaps you should be a general :wink_smil
Okay down off the soap box.
Semper Fi (s/f)
All,
I went to war with a Marine Artillery Regiment, M-198s, 10th Marines, Rolling Rifles. After seeing the destruction we inflicted I know why it is call the "King of Battle."
However, once I pulled the lanyard on a 10lb parrot I was hooked as a reenactor. I am not sure how many more artillery units is needed, as I don't know how many there really are. But I can say that the original ratio was a section, 2 guns, for each thousand infantry, or a section per regiment, a battery per brigade. So we may be pretty close at most reenactments as far as that ratio is concerned.
Most reenactment units have just a piece and limber, wish we could have the rest, the caisson, battery wagon, and forge, but we're talking a lot of gear and a lot of personnel. I'd love to have horses too! Cost is a major driver, each piece, parrot (rifled) with limber & implements is about 15K, plus the cost of the trailer. Storage is another issue, if the piece is stored outside then more PM is needed. Not to mention burning a 1/2 lb of powder with each shot. Original parrots used 1 lb, howizters use more.
Artillery, as our BC says in LH demonstrations, is the ultimate team sport. A cavalryman, alone, is still a lethal weapon, so is an individual infantryman, but an artilleryman with no cannon or crew is just a warm body on the battlefield. Thus the crew has to function as a team, each man knows his and other jobs, but concentrates on the particular job they have at that time. The original gun drill was safe, I don't think that reenactors have made it any safer by modifing the drill, sort of like wearing a belt and suspenders to hold up your trousers. Accidents happen when you don't pay attention to your job.
Currently many artillery reenactors are not artillerymen, they do not study the tactics used, have little idea how to work with the infantry and have a tendency to line up all the cannons and blast away during reenactments!! What a bunch of BS. Artillery did not fight that way, didn't then and doesn't now. We artillery reenactors have to think more as artillerymen!!! Read and remember the "red book" or Gibbons manual; call out ranges and rounds, the 5-8s have to call out elevations based on fuse settings for the indicated ranges. Know the rounds your unit's piece fired, not all cannons fired grape, not all used canister. Make it real.
Our unit has a number of impressions, we can do the campaigner, sleeping under the tarp or blankets and gum blanket; we can set up As or a training camp. We are drilling ourselfs on dismounting tubes, recovering a tube without a carriage. That's what they did, it just was not sponging, ramming and firing.
As far as the expression "too old and fat to do infantry so I'll do artillery" doesn't really cut it, we manhandle those pieces about the battlefield, now we are the horses. If your physical condition or health precludes you from heavy lifting or exertion, the artillery is not for you. Perhaps you should be a general :wink_smil
Okay down off the soap box.
Semper Fi (s/f)
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