Firing canister from a NapoleonRabid Cougar said:
Canister is nasty. I cannot image having to face it at short range.
Quote:
Eight color-bearers were killed at one discharge of their cannon.
Guy"s" ! Yes... Basically.Stive said:
So the guy in front of the shot.....there's basically nothing left after it would fire?
These are instance where the guns were out in the open and basically unsupported. They were operating as the very last lines of defense. Gaines Mills was also out in the broad open. Texas Brigade broke the Federal lines with a Federal battery on the receiving end of the point of the assault. But again, the Texans got the crap shot out of them.Stive said:
So I know some of the more devastating examples of how charges like this failed....are there key examples where charging large numbers of entrenched batteries like that worked?
Agreed. Every instance that I can think of with assaults against the above scenario usually met with huge loss of life on the part of the attackers. On the successful ones, the defenders always had that missing "piece".BQ78 said:
It's hard to come up with a successful charge int he Civil War against entrenched infantry with adequate artillery support where the defenders did not make a huge mistake in their setup that aided the attackers.
Longstreet made this point repeatedly to Lee. By mid-war he could see that combat primacy had shifted to the defense over offense. He advocated an overall operational switch to the defensive to take advantage of the changed circumstances, but was rebuffed by Lee until the South's unsustainable losses forced him late in the war to adopt a defensive posture. Defense's primacy lasted until WWII when airpower and mechanized combined arms changed warfare yet again.Rabid Cougar said:Agreed. Every instance that I can think of with assaults against the above scenario usually met with huge loss of life on the part of the attackers. On the successful ones, the defenders always had that missing "piece".BQ78 said:
It's hard to come up with a successful charge int he Civil War against entrenched infantry with adequate artillery support where the defenders did not make a huge mistake in their setup that aided the attackers.
There are those instances were the attacker breaks through but doesn't have the support to carry the lines and ultimately has to retreat. Lots of those examples too.
Not very big at all. 3 pounder. They were meant to be quickly moved by men in support of infantry assaults. Basically assault artillery of the day. On the march they could me pulled by one horse. in the top picture you can see the harness and rope used to by the crew to move the piece.VanZandt92 said:
Can somebody please detail artillery of the 18th century? I know many of the answers but I'm sure there are those on here who love artillery.
I'll start it out. At Cowpens, the English brought along a grasshopper. How big do y'all reckon this was?
Easy to find......VanZandt92 said:
Can somebody please detail artillery of the 18th century? I know many of the answers but I'm sure there are those on here who love artillery.
I'll start it out. At Cowpens, the English brought along a grasshopper. How big do y'all reckon this was?