Counter Battery fire.

[Gunner24]

I'm not complaining about anything, I'm asking the question, did armies lose several 100 cannons to counter battery fire ?.

It's not something I've seen mentioned in books very much, try finding the numbers of cannons lost in battles, it's not easy to do, most books concentrate on how many men were lost.

Question : How many cannons were lost on both sides at Borodino ?, answers on a post card please.

[AJ]

Question : How many cannons were lost on both sides at Borodino ?, answers on a post card please

[/glow]

Damn Gunner that was funny 

Seriously though I'm interested in the answer to that one. Any of you history buffs out there can enlighten us, because for all I know it might be normal.  One thing I've learned on this Forum, there are a lot of guys who know a hell of a lot more than me!!!!

[Gunner24]

Seriously though I'm interested in the answer to that one

So am I, I've looked at about 20 different sites on the net and not found a single mention of cannons LOST, all mention how many were there to start with - but not numbers lost in action, let alone lost to CBF.

Someone must know this answer, I hope there looking in and can provide it for us.

[JMM]

Artillery...

Big question! Could you read Jomini, "Précis de l'Art de la Guerre", Chapter VII, Article 46...
He talked about the use of artillery... Very interesting... There are some rules, and I think we can say- after reading his text- one of them is "there isn't a real rule"...  just some ideas...

IN HW, the AI in charge of artillery tries to adopt this rule :
a) doctrine
b) but when there is a threat, gunner don't take care at the doctrine and they open the fire at the threat

That said, there are several texts about the doctrines.. for example T de Moria's Tratado de Artillerie,.. but I have to search the other references  and several texts talking about the battle.. for example at Austerlitz, Lannes asked to his gunners to destroy the Bagration's artillery which was firing at his infantry... some minutes after, the russian artillery was broken.

JMM

[Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes]

Quotation of Gassendi doctrine for artillerie : it seems that counter battery were frequent and very effective.
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k732658.image.hl.r=duel+.f548.langFR

[Regiment 0]

One thing to note is that there is a difference between losing a battery entirely because all the cannon themselves were actually destroyed and 'losing' a battery during a battle because that batteries combat effectiveness was diminished. The latter could happen because of deaths to crew or animals and destruction of necessary equipment and ammunition caissons other than the cannon itself. As I understand it (admittedly my knowledge is limited), a cannon itself might be a small target, but a whole battery including limbers and caissons had quite a large footprint.

I imagine this type of damage is abstracted in HWLG as a destroyed cannon but in reality would have been repairable after a battle. Whether the degree of damage is correct though, I have no idea.

[Gunner24]

a cannon itself might be a small target, but a whole battery including limbers and caissons had quite a large footprint.
I imagine this type of damage is abstracted in HWLG as a destroyed cannon but in reality would have been repairable after a battle. Whether the degree of damage is correct though, I have no idea.

This makes a lot of sense, I agree, having taken that view should we be asking if the artillery battery should pull back (like Inf and Cav do) before it gets to the stage of being utterlly destroyed ?.

As things stand now you would be taking a very large risk to make you cannons fire at cav and Inf rather than the enemy batteries, if you do they will destroy your cannons.

Why is it so hard to find reference to how many cannons were lost in major battles ?.  

a) doctrine
b) but when there is a threat, gunner don't take care at the doctrine and they open the fire at the threat

I'm 100% sure this is the right way to do it, my only doubt is that counter battery fire is too effective, and the battery being fired on is staying in place too long with heavy lose.

[spec10]

This makes a lot of sense, I agree, having taken that view should we be asking if the artillery battery should pull back (like Inf and Cav do) before it gets to the stage of being utterlly destroyed ?.

[...]du Teil's opinion was that artillery should be more agressively used than before.  When casualties occured, a fresh battery should come forward as fast as possible, to relieve the weakened unit and keep the firepower up. [...]

It would certainly be nice to have the option of letting the AI behave according to this and pull back, as soon as serious casualties occur in a battery.

[Regiment 0]

As things stand now you would be taking a very large risk to make you cannons fire at cav and Inf rather than the enemy batteries, if you do they will destroy your cannons.

Yes, it would also seem to discourage keeping an artillery reserve. Perhaps multiplayer could be set up such that certain doctrines are forced on all players if mutually agreed on. This way, you could ensure that both sides adopt a doctrine whereby artillery prioritise inf/cav if that is what you want.

Regarding numbers of lost cannon in historical battles, I would guess these were not reported because often the cannon were repaired afterwards and so essentially were not lost. In contrast, although I am not very widely read on the period, I do recall seeing numbers reported when cannon were captured, i.e. irrevocably lost.

Perhaps this problem will have to be approached indirectly, such as tracking the action of batteries throughout historical battles. How often were batteries in opposition to each other historically (I must admit that in HWLG it often seems like batteries are everywhere)? And how often did batteries fight for the entire duration of a battle - were they knocked out as quickly as in HWLG when not attacked by other arms?

[Gunner24]

This way, you could ensure that both sides adopt a doctrine whereby artillery prioritise inf/cav if that is what you want.

That's a very interesting idea you have there, I like that, but some would not want to do it.

As it's the same for both sides this is not really a massive problem, but I can not help thinking that to lose 200 cannons to CBF in just a few hours is not realalistic.  I would expect most were captured, rather than hit by cannon balls.

  

[General_Chasse]

Amazon brought me Nosworthy today.

Appearantly counter-battery fire was debated a lot at the time as well. It proved to be necessary if enemy artillery inflicted more damage than your artillery would.
Ways of counter-battery fire were also debated. Some said that each cannon needed a different target, but this would never fully destroy the enemy battery. Others said therefore that all cannons should focus on a single target and this would completely wipe out enemy cannons.
Nosworthy gives some nice examples of how this was done.

Oooh this is going to be a great read

[Jean Lafitte]

Which Nosworthy book?  With Musket, Cannon and Sword?

[General_Chasse]

Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies.

[Jean Lafitte]

Oh, yes. Same book.

It's excellent. I'm reading it now for the third (or is it the fourth?) time !

[Markwooda]

Just reading Barbero's 'the battle' and there's quite a nice chapter early on 'the bombardment in the houghoumont sector' pp117 where it claims that Wellington forbid the use of counter battery fire, but the crews couldn't help themselves returning fire at the enemy artillary, it just human nature to attempt to protect yourself. This was apparently the norm all along the line for the majority of the battle, much to the Duke's frustration! I believe he even threatened the court martial of the first artillary officer he caught doing it. Also the french knocked the British Howitsters out of action within two hours of counter battery fire - this seems pretty effective to me.