Artillery for town walls - SYW

[grizzlymc]

What shade of blue?

[RMD]

Yes, wooden naval-style carriages are absolutely fine. In Britain at least, garrison guns were often manned by local volunteers (often part of the Militia, Supplementary Militia or Volunteer Infantry), trained and supervised by 'Woolwich Invalid Gunners'. The Woolwich Invalids wore the same uniform as the Royal Artillery (blue coat with red facings and brass buttons), though without the yellow lace.

To use one example, the Fishguard & Newport Volunteer Infantry were responsible for a small fortified battery of eight long nine-pounders (on naval carriages), placed to guard Fishguard Harbour. The guns were manned by three full-time Woolwich Invalids, supported by a part-time detachment from the Volunteers.

[ochoin]

Thank you all for your input.
What I got out of it: I may have to build a small bastion to put in front of my walls to hold the guns.
Naval guns are fine. BTW iron? How do you paint iron barrels? I've only ever painted bronze. Vallejo steel + Nurn Oil wash?
I'll need 2 sets of crews - blue coats & red coats should suffice. Not entirely sure where I'll access those but maybe converting some HaT figures is possible. Two figs per gun would be a fine, nominal number.

donald

[RMD]

If they've still got the mediaeval walls in place, a lot of towns and castles still had/have civil war earthen ravelins in front of the gate, to stop a cannon-armed enemy from putting the first shot straight through the gate. In this part of the world, Carew Castle and Newcastle Emlyn Castle STILL have an earthen ravelin in front of the gate (the one at Emlyn has two very clear gun-platforms on it) and Carmarthen still has a large earthen bastion outside the old town walls. In 1797, the Royal Navy, having brought eight guns up from Milford Haven, mounted five of them on 'the old Civil War earthworks' at Haverfordwest Castle.

Iron guns were painted/blackened. I'm not sure what the process was, but they were definitely blackened to prevent rust (same as the ironwork on gun-carriages).

[grizzlymc]

I have no idea how relevant it is, but a contemporary picture of naval guns in a land fortress at Concepciopn in Chile, ca 1809 shows a man in a 18th C artillery uniform apparently directing with a telescope in hand and a mixture of civvies and men in the uniform of the local militia Bn doing all the work, a gun in the background also has an artilleryman with a telescope and a mix of civvies and militia around it. I'm guessing that the2 regs were the full time skeleton crew capable of manning one or two guns, and they would be split up amongst the guns when the militia were mustered.

During the siege of Chillan, two 24 pdr naval guns were mounted on land carriages and used to bombard the city. It took two weeks to move them 100k from Concepcion to Chillan (a 1 hr drive by car) and the carpenters had to rebuild the carriages several times. After moving them into position, the wheels were removed as the spokes kept breaking.

They may have had a better process in Europe, but iron guns were painted black in South America and had to slow their rate of fire after a few minutes as the gun heated up very quickly. When put into store, the inside of the barrel was painted, this being burned off as part of the commissioning process.

[RMD]

I have no idea how relevant it is, but a contemporary picture of naval guns in a land fortress at Concepciopn in Chile, ca 1809 shows a man in a 18th C artillery uniform apparently directing with a telescope in hand and a mixture of civvies and men in the uniform of the local militia Bn doing all the work, a gun in the background also has an artilleryman with a telescope and a mix of civvies and militia around it. I'm guessing that the2 regs were the full time skeleton crew capable of manning one or two guns, and they would be split up amongst the guns when the militia were mustered.

During the siege of Chillan, two 24 pdr naval guns were mounted on land carriages and used to bombard the city. It took two weeks to move them 100k from Concepcion to Chillan (a 1 hr drive by car) and the carpenters had to rebuild the carriages several times. After moving them into position, the wheels were removed as the spokes kept breaking.

They may have had a better process in Europe, but iron guns were painted black in South America and had to slow their rate of fire after a few minutes as the gun heated up very quickly. When put into store, the inside of the barrel was painted, this being burned off as part of the commissioning process.

Great point about them painting the barrel's interior for storage. I've read that as well wrt British and Imperial guns.

Re transport; in the above-mentioned Fishguard example, the RN and Customs Service took the guns off Customs cutters and transported them by commandeered hay-cart.

[grizzlymc]

For this it might be hard to get good draught horses, in Chile oxen were often used.

[Willz the Wargamer]

Thank you all for your input.
What I got out of it: I may have to build a small bastion to put in front of my walls to hold the guns.
Naval guns are fine. BTW iron? How do you paint iron barrels? I've only ever painted bronze. Vallejo steel + Nurn Oil wash?
I'll need 2 sets of crews - blue coats & red coats should suffice. Not entirely sure where I'll access those but maybe converting some HaT figures is possible. Two figs per gun would be a fine, nominal number.

donald

Hat figures are the best for 20mm conversions.

Willz.

[FreddBloggs]

I suspect the Chile issue was the size. A naval 24pdr is very very big, and heavy, and so is the shot. There was a reason field guns didn't exceed 12pdrs in the period and siege trains were torturously slow.

[grizzlymc]

It was also the shit roads and the shit weather. More troops died of consumption during the seige than in action. But spoked wheels for a 24 pdr were probably outside anyone's experience.