Osprey Vanguard Books
Book Review
by John Cook
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Osprey Publishing.
British Napoleonic Artillery 1793-1815 (2) by Chris Henry Napoleonic Naval Armaments 1792-1815 by Chris Henry Napoleon’s Guns 1792-1815 (1) by René Chartrand
Austrian Napoleonic Artillery 1792-1815 by David Hollins The Osprey series of publications should be well enough known to everybody. These six volumes deal with Napoleonic land and naval artillery of three of the major belligerent countries and because they compliment each other I have chosen to look at them collectively. All are valuable additions to any library and together they represent a pretty good study of the equipment of the respective countries. It is to be hoped that authors will be found to complete this series on the artillery of Prussia and Russia. New Vanguard 60, British Napoleonic Artillery 1793-1815 (1) – Field Artillery. This is by Chris Henry, Head of Collections at the Museum of the Royal Artillery so we can have confidence in his subject matter expertise and access to source material. There is little really new in this volume but, within the 48 page limitation of the series, it does bring everything together under a single cover. There are parts on organisation, the weapons, equipment, ammunition, tactics, a glossary of terms and so on, together with the expected monochrome illustrations, many of which are contemporary and have not appeared anywhere else (as far as I know), tables, and coloured plates by Brian Delf. Of interest to those who look beyond Europe is a short piece on the Bengal Horse artillery though it is too brief to be of much value. New Vanguard 65, British Napoleonic Artillery 1793-1815 (2) – Siege and Coastal Artillery. This follows the format of the pre-vious volume, with more colour plates from Brian Delf. In this volume almost everything, I think, will be new to most of us as the heavier weapons, including mortars, have received scant coverage elsewhere. As such this is a more useful volume than that on the field artillery though the two complement each other very well. Set out in the usual Vanguard format, with tables and monochrome illustrations, it fills a very real gap, particularly in the context of the Peninsular sieges. It also includes Chris Henry's bibliography for both volumes. This very short and not very useful, containing a mere three titles with a general reference to documents in the Library of Firepower in the Museum of the Royal Artillery which is provenance enough, I suppose. New Vanguard 90, Napoleonic Naval Armaments 1792-1815. Chris Henry's latest contribution covers a subject on which my knowledge is limited to a couple of visits to HMS Victory. As is to be expected, the volume majors on the Royal Navy and we find the expected tables of characteristics and ranges of ordnance, details of carriages (called trucks, apparently), ammunition types, doctrine and so on, all supported by good monochrome illustrations and the usual fine artwork by Brian Delf. There is a fair amount on British gunnery and drills, and that of the French and Spanish navies which was, as to be expected I suppose, pretty similar. I was surprised to learn that the French 36pdr weighed 15cwt more than the British 32pdr Blomefield pattern, that the latter used flintlock ignition rather than slow-match, and that the principal object was not to sink an enemy ship but to disable it so that it could be taken. In addition to the 'big' guns, there are sections on lesser armaments including the small arms which were just as important when ships closed with each other. A fascinating little book on a subject which was almost entirely new to me and, therefore, beyond my competence to comment as to its technical accuracy. New Vanguard 66, Napoleon's Guns 1792-1815 (1) – Field Artillery. It is a pity that this could not be called French Napoleonic Artillery. This book is essentially about Gribeauval’s system and René Chartrand gives full credit to the Austrian Lichtenstein as the source of Gribeaval’s inspiration though he attributes certain innovations to Gribeauval which are properly Lichtenstein's. This is a similar volume to Vanguard 60 insofar as it too contains little new information, indeed, the Gribeauval system has probably received even more exposure than British field artillery of the period and anybody who has Michael Head's French Napoleonic Artillery published by Almark in 1970, will find very little new in René Chartrand's offering and one cannot say that he has done much, if any, original research on his subject. Of particular interest, however, is the description of the Year XI guns which are often overlooked in comparison to the Gribeauval system. The coloured illustrations are by Ray Huchins and are not, in my view, up to Brian Delf's standard. Plate G, in particular, which shows a crew serving a 4pdr gun is quite dreadful and the artist would have been well advised to stick to what he knows best, which is clearly not people or uniforms. New Vanguard 76, Napoleon's Guns 1792-1815 (2) – Heavy and Siege Artillery. Like Chris Henry's Vanguard 65, this is an extremely welcome overview of French siege equipment and guns which are largely a neglected area of artillery during the period and most of what can be said about Henry's volume is equally applicable to Chartrand's, which, in addition, contains some material on French naval ordnance. There will be very little in it which will not be new to most readers, myself included. Well illustrated with monochrome pictures the artwork by Ray Huchins suffers in comparison with Delf's. This volume also contains Chartrand's bibliography for both volumes which comprises the well known sources one would expect, de Scheel and Gassendi for example. No surprises there. On the other hand a surprising number of readily available secondary (at best) sources are also listed which probably account for some of the errors in Vanguard 66. New Vanguard 72, Austrian Napoleonic Artillery 1792-1815. The author of this volume is Dave Hollins who is probably the English language authority on the Austrian army of the period generally and at this point I have to declare an 'interest' insofar as Dave is a friend, and I am aware of the amount of original research that went into this small volume. It covers field and siege weapons under one cover and is an exercise in putting a quart into a pint pot such that the heavy equipment gets comparatively little coverage. How typical of Osprey to give two volumes to the British and French artillery, which are relatively well known, whilst limiting the Austrian, on which nothing significant exists in English, to a single volume. The book follows the expected Osprey format with numerous monochromes and colour plates, with a return, thank goodness, to Delf as the artist. This is, by far and away the most useful of the five volumes, not because it is better, but because it covers a subject which has had no significant exposure to English audiences before. It is also important because Lichtenstein's was the first modern integrated artillery system and the inspiration, as Chartrand points out in his volumes on the French guns, for much of Gribeauval's reforms. There is no bibliography as such, but a section at the end called 'Collections and Further Reading' which makes reference to the usual English language sources, such as Rothenburg, but the provenance of the book is really contained in the Austrian primary and secondary sources most of which will be inaccessible to the average reader. Constrained by the 48 page format, this book really should have been in two volumes like the others but it is, nevertheless, the English language foundation document on the subject and as such an important and unique volume. Book Review
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