It is easy to overestimate the losses caused by artillery during the Napoleonic Wars. Similarly, it is easy to underestimate its psychological effect. At Waterloo, all the guns (with the exception of the few howitzers present) were placed in battery in view of their objectives. Each room was a monster spitting fire and smoke. People born around the end of the 18th century were unable to handle more than half the decibels of what we consider normal in our century of jet planes and motorcycles. The young soldiers forming the bulk of the Allied armies must have considered this din as appalling. Napoleon's "beautiful daughters" no doubt even impressed veterans of the Spanish campaign. They had never seen a 12-pounder with its 12-pound projectile in open country in battery.
These projectiles were hardly dangerous, by our current standards. The pieces mainly fired round cannonballs (8 cm in diameter for the 4-pounder guns, 12.5 cm for the 12-pounder of the French Artillery). These projectiles were only dangerous for those who were in the line of fire, because they did not explode. The range - distance from the muzzle to the point where the ball touched the ground before ricocheting - varied according to the caliber:1600 m for the twelve-pounder, 1500 m for the English nine-pounder, and 1200 m only for the guns. of 3 lbs. Typically, the most dangerous shooting distance was half the maximum range. But, on dry ground, the balls ricocheted over more than 1500 m and these twists were not innocent. “The cannonball ricochets like a cricket ball,” notes a doctor, “the way it plows the ground alone allows its strength to be assessed. “Stop it, guys! cried a poor young Irishman, who tried to block the ball with his foot; it was torn to pieces, which made amputation inevitable. »
The English having adopted a two-row arrangement, such cannonballs could cause little damage, especially since, on Wellington's order, the men lay down as far as possible. possible. Because on horseback, the officers were easier targets to hit, but the trajectory of the cannonballs being visible in good weather, the cries of their men alerted them. When the soldiers adopted a column or square formation, the problem became different; the cannonball then passed through the formation, smashing everything in its path. “Towards evening,” wrote an officer of the 40th about Waterloo, “the regiment being in column, a ball decapitated Captain Fisher at my side and put 25 men hors de combat. In long years of service, I have never seen a more destructive projectile. »
Firing round cannonballs required great skill; at Dresden, it is said, Napoleon himself aimed a piece, which, in firing, killed Moreau, his comrade and his rival. Probably a more likely story, four or five times in a row the French artillerymen brought down the mast bearing the Spanish colors of the fort of Matagorda, which was defended by an English garrison, during the siege of Cadiz, in 1810.
Field artillery also used canisters. It was a
cylinder "with a diameter slightly smaller than that of the barrel bore. This cylinder is full of small round iron balls, which give the projectile its weight. For this purpose rifle or carbine bullets were used, a 9-pound canister containing about 180 bullets. As it spread, this hail of bullets caused terrible havoc in the ranks of the units in close formation, but "the dispersion was so great that at 300m this cannon shot had no effect". During the attacks of the French cavalry, the English gunners charged their guns with a round cannonball, topped with a grapeshot box; the hail of bullets sowed disorder in the first ranks and the ball caused damage to the last rank.
At Waterloo, in one camp as in the other, the howitzers formed approximately the sixth artillery pieces. The diameter of the English model was 14 cm, that of the French howitzer 16.5 cm. These guns were unreliable, but their curved shot allowed them to hit an opponent behind a ridge. Howitzers could fire grapeshot, but mostly used cannonballs. This cannonball consisted of a metallic sphere, containing powder, ignited by a wick cut to the desired length and which the servant lit. The range varied between 675 and 1200 m, but the rockets often worked very badly, especially on the French side. Sometimes this projectile exploded in the air, even at the exit of the barrel. The wick burned so slowly that it was possible for a brave enemy to snatch it out after the projectile hit the ground. At Waterloo, the ground was so muddy that these canisters sank into the ground and only raised a sheaf of earth when they exploded.
Napoleon was a gunner but, curiously, the innovations in artillery were made by the English. Thus, Major Henry Shrapnell invented the spherical box which would bear his name and which combined the advantages of the cannonball and the .Å grapeshot box. Taking into account the desired duration of the combustion, the gunner chose from among a batch of rockets; shrapnel exploded above the enemy ranks. For the time, this projectile was very reliable.
British Artillery adopted it in 1803 and, for 25 years, other countries tried in vain to copy it. In 1808, during the Vimeiro campaign, Wellington used it and then wrote to its inventor to tell him that "the spherical grapeshot box had contributed to the victory". Later, he doubted the qualities of this projectile; he had had the opportunity to see General Simon, who had fallen into his hands during the Battle of Busaco (1810). “He had received several shrapnel in the face and in the head, but they had managed to remove them, as one would have done simple pellets, of duck shot in the case of a hunter wounded by a friend. He was not seriously injured." Wellington concludes that “the wounds inflicted by the shrapnel do not incapacitate the persons who receive these shrapnel or prevent them from continuing to fight. He continued to experiment with this weapon and saw that it was particularly effective when loaded with rifle bullets.
Whatever projectile was used, artillery was hardly mobile; the French 12-pounder and its carriage weighed t 1/2 t without its ammunition box, which was also very heavy. When the ground was dry, a team of 12 horses was needed to move it. The English 9-pounder gun was also heavy (14,075 kg). In principle, its team was 6 horses, but it often required 8. The 6-pounder gun of the English foot artillery, which weighed 740 kg, had a team of 4 horses, but the French gun of the same caliber, which weighed 51 kg less, was pulled by 8 horses*. Once the piece was brought close to its firing position, all the maneuvers had to be carried out by the servants with a lot of bragues and anglers. For the 12-pound gun, there were 15 of them, including 8 gunners and 7 simple infantry soldiers, whose mission was to fire on the bragues and ensure the supply of ammunition. The 4-pounder was manned by 8 men, including 5 gunners.
For the battery, we started by rotating the gun butt so as to bring the line of sight in direction of the goal. The rise was then regulated thanks to a device of elevation with screw, arranged at the back of the soul of the barrel. To load the piece, it was first necessary to plug the bore of the gun. The bore of the barrel was then swabbed to rid it of all the debris of powder still burning, and to avoid prematurely igniting the powder of a new charge. Then doses of powder measured beforehand were put in place:the charge was 1.5 pounds for the English 6-pounder and 4.25 pounds for the 12-pounder. A stuffing made of grass or felt was then put in place before inserting the projectile. We then opened the light, which we cleaned with a hook. A small tube of powder or a wick of impregnated cotton was slipped into the light; by touching the primer contained in the light with a fire rope, it was triggered.
The gunner was not finished yet. The guns were not fitted with any recoil-absorbing devices, and after each shot the gun had to be brought back into battery. After the battle of Waterloo,” noted an officer of a horse artillery battery, “the ground was so plowed and the men so exhausted that it was impossible to bring the guns back into battery after each salvo. When the action was over, the pieces only formed, as a result of the recoil, a confused heap. “It was estimated — and this is not surprising — that a 12-pounder could hardly fire more than one shot per minute. Lighter pieces were able to fire every 30 seconds.
The carriages of the French guns were standardized; in 1776, Jean-Baptiste Gribeauval had designed a series of excellent carriages that did not include a limb; this was replaced by two removable wheels. This device had many advantages, but apparently the English pieces with their limber were less heavy.