"Can anyone give me the Poundage of a 5.5" Howitzer" Topic

Please can anyone give me the shot poundage of a 5.5" Howitzer, I am looking to use it as a mountain gun for my Spanish troops.

Thanks,

Geoff

A 24 pounder is about 5.82 inches. Of course, howitzers don't fire solid shot, so it is a litle like comparing apples and oranges.

Da Big Kahunna

What era 5.5? From what I've seen of the Revolutionary War howtizers they are almost like mortars mounted horizontally on carriages rather than guns.

By the way, a 24 pound cannon would have been considered a seige gun and would have been very rarely used in open battle. The 5.5 Howtizer looks to be light enough for regular battlefield use.

Da Big Kahunna

The French Yr XI 5.5in howitzr is a copy of the Austrian 7pdr howitzer (its shells being 5.5 Zoll/Austrian inches in diameter), but this 7pd is a stone weight on the Nuremburg system, so the Austrian weight is 12.75 Vienna Pounds. So, it would be about 12.5 French pounds.

Dave, you are just trying to convince us about the metric system, aren't you?

It's my guess that a Howitzer will pound you pretty flat.

Geoff,

The round weight for the French 5.5-inch howitzer was 24 pounds.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Sorry a bit confused here

The Austrian 7pdr howitzer was 5.5" bore firing a ??kg shell (12.75 vienna pounds, 12.5 French pounds)

The French an XI (24pdr) was 5.7" bore firing a ??kg shell

Coversion rates
French pound = 0.4895kg
Vienna pound = 0.56kg

12.75 vienna pounds = 12.75x0.56 = 7.14kg
12.5 French pounds = 12.5x0.4895 = 6.11kg
24 French pounds = 11.75kg
Stephen Summerfield stated an XI howitzer shell = 6.6kg

7pdr was equivalent of 7 Nuremburg pounds of stone weight
24pdr was 24 French pounds

Please can someone explain/indicate my errors

thanks

The AN XI 5.5-inch howitzer, which was the new one ca 1805 was also known as the 24-pounder howitzer. The weight is French weight, so that might account for the difference in that field piece.

Sincerely,
K

Thats part of my confusion

I thought the an XI 24pdr howitzer was 5 pouces 7 lignes 2 points or roughly 5.72 inches? or is that 5.5 in English inches?

Mark

It is nonsense to suggest that the 5.5in Fr howitzer fired a 24pd round for the reason you state – doing this with a charge sufficient to throw it a decent distance would destroy a field howitzer carriage! The 24pdr is simply the size of a solid round, which would go down the barrel. You can get an indication of the pi x r3 relationship on sphere to diameter size on p.47 of NV72.

The discrepancy on size is simply the windage between the round and the barrel – there was a problem with French production, as Gribeauval had to stick with the antiquated go/no go rings, while Austrian production was precise as rounds were made in graphite moulds (see Muller). A howitzer was ignited by the launching powder too, so the shell had to be placed in the barrel, so it is not so tight, although Austrian founders reduced the windage in 1811.

The difference in the designation is simply that the French usually measured bore, while everyone else measure dthe round. As the existing howitzer, which contrary to claims put about, was not introduced by Gribeauval, at 6in was a poor piece of kit, Chartrand notes that the French gunners begged N for the Austrian and Russian howitzers. It is clear that "YrXI" measurements were already in use in 1801 and hence some pieces are captured stock, so they used the Austrian sizing.

Well the bore size of the French 24pdr siege piece was also 5 pouces 7 lignes 2 points, so that figures, a howitzer shell being hollow would weigh a lot less than a solid 24pdr ball.

So are you saying the diff of 5.5" and 5.7" is just the way they measured/national differences and that the French 24pdr howitzer & the Austrian 7pdr had the same bore size?

Just to clarify, 7 nuremburg pounds of stone ball would be the same size as a 24pdr solid iron ball.
I did know most of this, but my notes seem to be missing.

thanks

Mark,

Just as a footnote, the French measured caliber by the diameter of the round, not the bore of the gun tube.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Sorry, that was my mistake – all nations measured by the round, but it just depended how on good your production techniques were. I was obviously confused by reading Kevin's own definition of "caliber" in his book, which claims it was usually the bore. Of course most nations used a pd weight figure anyway.

But back to the point. A French inch/pouce was 2.71cm and an Austrian Zoll was 2.63cm. However, what you have here are rounds, which are 5.5 national inches in diameter. The difference is the windage – the gap between the ball and the bore. In the French YrXI case it is 0.22in (0.59cm)and in the Austrian case, the windage was 0.21in (0.55cm), so the same essentially, but reduced by 0.08in in 1811. Contrary to another of Kevin's claims, the L system guns were all bored as the barrel length had been significantly reduced and so, achieved that halving of the usual windage of previous weapons before Gribeauval copied it.

The 5.5in is a direct copy of the L 7pdr and in national inches, the sizes are the same – it is just that the national inch is slightly different.

The 24pdr would presumably suggest that both nations were simply using the 24pdr drilling machine to drill howitzers.

Sorry – I should have said a Vienna pound was heavier, not lighter than a Paris pound, so the pound weight would be bigger as it must be the same in kg. However, the French round is obviously slightly bigger, so it should be slightly heavier in kg.

Maybe this will help: In the U.S. Army of the ACW and pre-ACW, there was a 24-pdr howitzer (normally 1 section to each battery of 12-pounder guns). It had a bore of 5.82". The actual weight of the shell it fired was 18.4 pounds. It used a 2-lb. charge of powder. It wasnt popular during the ACW because it was considered a bit heavy for field use. (Howitzers in the ACW were considerably longer than those of the Napoleonic wars; this one had a 65" tube that weighed 1318 pounds.) It was called a 24-pdr because it had the same bore as the 24-pdr gun, which was definitely too large for field use, being a small seige gun with a 124" tube that weighed 5790 pounds!

hmmm seems someone here keeps making mistakes….then trying to re-direct blame.

Hmmm so

5.5 English inches = approx 140mm
5.5 zoll = approx 145mm (5.69 English inches)
5.5 pouce = approx 150mm (5.868 English inches)
+/- windage depending if these are bore diameter or round

5 pouce, 7 lignes is approx 151mm (5.95 English inches)

But anyway back to the point

so a 5.5" howitzer shell weighs about 6.5-6.6kg (12-13 pound)
of any nation.

Yes. I was interested to see that George Nafziger made the same error on this 24pd equivalent in kg – or maybe Kevin copied George, which is odd since presumably one of the key French texts he cites must give this weight.

I would assume that Don's US howitzer is in the UK Imp pound, which was 1.263 to the Vienna pound, so about 14.5 VP. It would confirm my thought on the origin of the poundage.

Dave when you read the old records are the pounds list as to what kind.

The Vienna Pound
The Imperial pound

(read one refrence to an Imperial trade pound.

Thanks

Lord Ghee

No – it just says "pounds", which can trip the unwary up with the Nuremburg/Vienna differences. Like many things we discuss, you ahve start by thinking like the author, who presumes some knowledge.

Dave which Nafziger work are you referring to?

I too am looking forward to the Dawson/summerfield artillery book, hopefully they contain lots of original numbers with correctly converted data in metric.

Imperial Bayonets.

Unfortunately, in these conversions, it is easy to get the factors slightly wrong – or get confused when a French in is bigger than a Austrian one, but an Austrian pound is bigger than a French pound, unless the Austrians are using the Nuremburg system! I am not sure now whether the Austrian shell being heavier is down to a conversion error or maybe they used a thicker metal casing.

Thanks I have that work & yes very easily, but if the original figures are written as well as the conversion (with a note on what the conversion is based)plus a bit of double checking & cross comparison should minimize errors.
I think the metric data is essential for comparison.

>"I would assume that Don's US howitzer is in the UK Imp pound…"<

Same as still used in the US, which I think is the same as the UK Imperial pound.