The Loose Association of Wargamers

Quick question: how accurate were H&M versions?

One of my pals *dared* to question the rule for a SYW howitzer: a directional dice & 3 x D6 to determine the landing point of the shell.

Too harsh?

donald

Depends. First, any fule can chuck a roundshot at people; howitzer accuracy was affected much more by the gunner's skill. Secondly, the third and subsequent shells on a stationary target were much more likely to hit, cavalry moving rapidly towards the gun, not so much.

The directional dice should probably give you two overs, two unders, one left and one right. How far it deviates depends on your ground scale.

I have read somewhere that the howitzer in mixed batteries was often left loaded with cannister in case of a surprise attack by cavalry.

GW directional dice give you 2 x 'on target' & 4 arrows. With 3 x D6, the shell could be potentially 18" away....or 3".

It's not a big deal, my SYW Prussians have one howitzer in their artillery train & the poor old Austrians have none (& actually very few artillery pieces at all).

donald

Most wargames rules using the traditional deviation methods are way too inaccurate. I think this at least partly stems from a scale issue. What works for an individual field piece on a 1/100 scale battlefield doesn't work for a battery on a 1/1000.

Even in the former case, deviation off-line would be minor and more caused by loose fitting shot in all except extraordinary cases where the shell split, or there was some utterly freak accident like being struck by a musket ball in flight. Which I would treat as a misfire.

Estimating range was much harder and much more affected by ground, cover, atmospheric conditions etc, so you would be highly unlikely to hit a stationary target first shot unless you had been able to pre-register the range. Ideally, you want to have a mechanism that has the fall of shot become more accurate in a rough line to the target till it is registered, and then only light deviation. Moving targets.. much harder.

If I was writing a mechanic.. over and under dice. the difference multiplied by whatever scale is the distance over or under, and the total of the two dice if the same must accumulate to a target number. (say 12 if you want to be generous) allow double 1 to be a misfire - So on the first shot you have a 1/36 of being on target, 4/36 of not being significantly over or under, but ineffective, and the rest will give you fall of shot short or over. (ideally it should 'creep' closer, but given variations in powder and shell, who knows). Once on target, still roll deviation dice. Doubles or difference of 1 is on target.

For moving targets in shallow (line) formations, hitting it would be a complete fluke.

Hitting moving targets was not really what howitzers were for. Hitting things is there forte. Ok the thing might be a road with people moving on it, but the road not the movers were the aiming point.

Actually, Fred, you've stated the issue. In the past, the howitzer was used as a normal field gun unless targeting a BUA or field fortification.....of which Leuthen has some.

I think if the directional dice doesn't get the 'on target' symbol, the shell shouldn't get the bonus of disregarding cover & be treated like a normal round shot?

That would seem to fit into what the good Sharbahraz was writing.

At some stage, when I get my hands on some Austrian artillery, this might become more important as I think they used howitzers more than the Prussians?

donald

Were they all that inaccurate, though? Another part of the howitzer 'skill' is the cutting of the fuse - firing at troops in the field they generally wanted to cut the fuse so that it airburst above them, though when firing at buildings they would want it to explode after penetrating the roof/walls.

Given that charge, angle and fuse could all need adapting between shots, I suspect they were reasonably accurate Hitting quite a tight area) but were slower than guns in rof.

The inaccuracy would be due to changes in the angle/time of flight, and the quality of the fuse. Although the short barrel would be less accurate than a gun, that wouldn't really be an issue (smoothbore guns with little windage were very accurate out to 1000 paces).

Firing at a house, or even a battalion in square, it was a matter of getting an under, an over, and then trying to sort out the right fuse length. Once firing for effect, that should have had little effect on ROF but new targets might have a short delay in effect (depending on your turn length).

I suspect that variations in the burn rate of the fuse meant that axial deviation is going to be an issue once the ranging parameters are all known.

and remembering the recoil (less on a howitzer admittedly) means you have to re-lay the gun between shots. And as pointed out above, the skill of the gunner makes a big difference.