"French Battalion guns SYW What Colours????" Topic

Hi all

Just starting in this period in 6mm.

Just wondering a couple of things…

1) Did all the infantry battalions have battalion guns???

2) What colour should I paint the carriages????

All help gratefully appreciated
Cheers
MH

I'm not sure, but I suspect that the battalion guns would be the same color as the regular guns.

French carriages were red at the start of the SYW and changed to British style grey with the introduction of the Gribeauval system from 1767 (IIRC).

Red.

For what it's worth, a red French battalion gun can be spotted very briefly (just a couple seconds) in the movie "Barry Lyndon". It fires a shot at the building which Barry and other Prussian soldiers are defending against the French.

I'm not saying that movies are always accurate or anything like that; "Barry Lyndon" has a few inaccuracies of its own. But your question just happened to remind me of that particular scene.

By royal ordinance of 20 January 1757, every battalion of French infantry serving in Europe was assigned a 4pdr cannon "à la suédoise". These came from the artillery park, so their carriages would have been painted red like those of the heavier field pieces. A sergeant and 16 (!) men were detached from the battalion to serve the gun (presumably also to drag it along). Their calibre was later found to be too light and they may have been withdrawn before the end of the war.

Note that the battalion guns had been in use until 1748, when they were withdrawn a first time. At that time they were served exclusively by men from Royal Artillerie, so for the War of the Austrian Succession the gun crew should be in blue, or red if waistcoats only.

Sources: Nosworthy, The Anatomy of Victory (1992)p.331;
Chartrand, Louis XV's Army (Osprey) vol.2 p.5s. & vol.3 p.38s.

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SYW = Red,
But I suspect not fire engine red. I darken mine with a black wash so they resemble the ones shown in the period paintings of Vernet.
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After the SYW = Blue/grey.
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Cheers,
Bill

I believe the color was called "Rouge St. Louis" and was of a darker tone of "true red" as opposed to maroon or French crimson. British crimson might do.

Very few of the French battalions used battalion guns in the war of Austrina Succession. Bell-Ise had a good amount of them, but there were never nearly enough of the Swedish 4pndrs to go around. By 1745, we see them almost completly disused in the battalion gun role, except for the French German Regts. The Sweedish guns were now being brigaded into batteies, of up to ten pieces each.
Despite the optomistic thinking in the 1757 ordnance, there were still not nearly enough Battalion guns in the French army to issue them at even 1 per battalion. The French were not exactly busy making them since Valliere , the inspector general of artillery, was opposed to them. De Saxe grew to have not much faith in them either. So after 1757, the French were using captured pieces also, and the Rostiang mountain guns were pressed into service. Basically, I wouldn't spend too much time trying to paint battalion guns for the French.

I can see good use for the French 4 pounders, and 3 and 6 pounders for the opposition. I recall reading a war game magazine article about four years ago about the battle of Sonderhausen in the 7 YW, French pursuing a much smaller Hessian force. The Hessians were at the top of a slope with Hanoverian Jaegers on the right, a Land Grenadier Battalion, three battalions of Land musketeers, one regular Hessian line battalion (musketeer)a couple squadrons of Hessian regular cavalry (both dragoons and horse), and then, some light troops in a walled farm complex on the left. River and woods on the right, woods on the left. I recall about 10 light guns, possibly 5 allied battalions.
The French had 10 battalion guns, and I think about 10 battalions of infantry. In this case there was one gun per battalion. The Chasseurs de Fischer were on the left to face the jaegers and Grenadiers, then the French line (possibly 8 or 6 battalions), and 2 or 4 Swiss battalions on the right. The 10 guns were in the center in battery. I recall that the Royal Allemande, Wurttemberg, and Nassau Ussingen Chevau Leger (heavy cavalry) regiments were also there, all wearing bearskin busbies. I think the French also had the d'Apchon Drogoon four squadrons, and other French heavies.
Pengel & Hurt relate that the French battalion has 16 companies of fusiliers of 42 men. Three were drawn off to act as skirmishers, and often formed as a chasseur company, taking place on the left of the line. One more man was taken from the fusilier to provide 16 men to man the battalion gun. This leaves 38 men per company, with Grenadiers and Chasseurs at 48 each. The gunners were not drawn from the artillery, and were probably not that competent. I am doing 54 man French battalions in 15mm, and will have one gun per battalion with crew of 2 on a narrow stand, painted in the infantry battalion uniform. The Prussians and Hanoverians will have one gun with four crew painted as artillerymen to indicate 2 guns per battalion. I am no purist, so use odd little guns by varius makers, even earlier periods. These are a great way to represent small encounters without using any guns larger than 6 pounders.
By the way, I read last week on the internet that some French battalions at Rossbach counter attacked the Prussian infantry by forming columns, and the article stressed that this was not standard, and not done by other armies. Does anyone have any information on this?

I was most interested in your remarks on Sonderhausen. It goes to show how difficult it is to generalise, for here you have shown an example where French Battalion guns were of decisive importance. My information indicates that, at least during the WAS, every Swedish 4pndr had 9 men from the Royal Artillery attached to it, and at least as many men form the regiment also attached. This may well have changed by the time of the SYW.

I think some of the French battalion guns were 3lb and some were 4lb. (Please comment if this is not correct.) The point I want to make is that the French also had 4lb guns that were "long" 4lb guns that were actually field guns. Mid 18th century French gun carriages were typically red.

(Where do some people get the idea that some SYW British gun carriages were red as well?--The period painting I have seen shows gray/blue-gray?

V/R

Joe

Also, the French Rostaing guns were 1pndr. The interesting point is that Valliere Jr. was already loosing controll over the systeme his father had set up. Reality was clashing with theory. It is completely correct that the long 4pndrs or Valliere 4pndrs were positional guns (Field guns). In fact, the majority of French positional pieces were 4 pndrs.
Marechal de Broglie, in the latter SYW, was basiclly completly by-passing Valliere. Not only was he having French cannon bored out to larger calibers, but he was also starting to caste completley new designs by 1761, under authority of the Secretary of State for War, without the Director General of artilleries input.

Malartic,
Perhaps there is some confusion in the Allied camp? Red-painted guns alongside British troops in the SYW would be Hanoverian ones – though the gunners' coats should then be light blue rather than RA dark blue.