Mortar Wagon and Traveling Forge Photos (1 Viewer)

[Fraxinus]

From a great web page, near the bottom photos of a mortar wagon and the traveling forge. Unsure, if the page includes photos of a 12-pound cannon or not, Braddock had four 12-pounders with the flying column plus 6-pounders and howitzers.

http://www.johnsmilitaryhistory.com/ligonier.html

 

[mikemiller1955]

nice find Ken...they own such clean reproductions at Ft. Ligonier...thanks for sharing...after looking at that link...I'm almost expecting to see John make us some bake ovens...four wheeled Conestoga wagons and gins...

all these artillery pieces...carriages...wagons...carts and forges look UNGODLY HEAVY...I can't imagine how many horses Braddock had...

 

[Fraxinus]

Mike,

From Braddock's March, describing the flying column (page 180):

"St. Clair was to have his standard armament of two 6-pounders, plus three wagons of clearing tools. The main party of the detachment, under Braddock, would carry four howtizers with fifty rounds each, the four 12-pounders with eighty rounds each, three cohorn mortars, and thirteen wagons, one of which bore presents for the Indian and the others ammunition. The column's packhorses would carry thirty-five days' food and provisions. Braddock increased the horsepower of the wagons and gun carriages to elevate speed. He now assigned six, rather than four horses to each wagon. And he increased the complements of horses for the cannon to seven for the 12-pounders and nine for the howitzers. An extra one hundred replacement horses joined the four hundred specially chosen for the column."

Dunbar's supply column would have had additional horses beyond these 500.

I find it interesting that the 8-inch howitzers needed 9 horses while the 12-pounders only needed 7. Guessing the howitzers are suprisngly heavy.

 

[Fraxinus]

Hate this new 20-minute timer

Seems the howitzer carriage maybe the reason for 9 horses, it weighs 1,000 more than the 12-pound carriage. This probably better reflects Napoleonic Era, but as we need numbers:

12-pounder: 2,016 barrel + 1,437 carriage = 3,453 Total

8-inch Howitzer: 2,324 barrel + 2,464 carriage = 4,788 Total

In the link below, you can scroll down about 5 or 6 pages for very clean and easy to understand tabular weight descriptions from the British Gunner. You can even find a weight for the forge wagon here, 3.060 pounds

http://books.google.com/books?id=0-...british+gunner#v=onepage&q=18-pounder&f=false

 

[marco55]

Thanks Ken,
You always come up with interesting info for us.
Mark

 

[Fraxinus]

From Harry Gordon, the BoM Expedition Engineer (Spelling as in the original, plus my usual typos):

"At the Little Meadows the General order'd another Reform, which Reduc'd us to Pick Body of Eleven hundred men & officers, our Carriadges consisted of two 6 pounders, four 12 pounders, four Howits's, 3 cowhorns, & 75 Rounds of Ammunition, 3 or 4 Provision Waggons, which made our whole train of Carriadges three or four & thirty."

So 33 - 34 pieces of rolling stock in the column, including 3 or 4 wagons carrying provisions. The remainder of the provisions being carried on the pack-horses. So in the end and after a very brief panic attack, I get to place my red and my new snazzy blue wagon on any BoM shelf I want.

Link Below (page 105)

http://www.archive.org/stream/militaryaffairsi00cumb#page/104/mode/2up