Artillery

There were eight companies of artillerists (with anolher three added by war end). And one company each of bombardiers, sappers, miners and of labourers (maestranza) as well as one company of artillery volunteers on the island of Sardinia. Batteries were of eight guns each.

They were dressed as the infantry but all in blue (coats, facings, etc. . .), with other ranks having yellow cuff trim. NCO's had two lines of gold lace trim on their cuffs, one over and one above the cuff buttons. Officers had one line of gold cuff lace and had pocket lace as for infantry officers. All ranks carried curved swords.

The artillery train drivers wore red coats with blue l;acings, vests and breeches, with brass buttons. The provisioning train drivers wore the opposite, i.e. blue coats with red facings, vests and breeches, and tin buttons. The tricornes were laced appropriately.

During the WAS, Siege and Garrison artillery included a wide variety of weights and sizes of guns. This included obsolete early guns before sizes and the number of gun types were standardized by a commission of the 1750's. Pieces included light 11- to 20-pdr guns; 21- to 40-pdr medium guns; and 41- to 64-pdr heavy guns. [3] There were also 12- and 8-inch mortars, and 15-inch stone-throwing petards.

Field pieces included the 4-pdr falconetti battalion gun (total weight with carriage, 460kg); and 6-, 8-, 10-, 12-, 16- and 24-pdr guns. The 8-pdr falcone weighed 920kg in total, and the 10-pdr was called a sagri (all of these taking their nicknames from species of birds of prey). Of these the 4-, 8- and 12-pdr were the most commonly used. [i.e. 1.5kg, 2.95kg and 4.43kg; or 3.31bs, 6.51bs and 9.81bs]

Of course, there were also a variety of light mountain guns transportable by manual labour or capable of being disassembled and carried by mules including 1.5- and 4-pdr guns. There were also two baneries of breech-loading, rifled 1.25-pdr guns (named Jenner, or Hyenner, after their Swiss, corporal of the Guard inventor) which were still in use as late as the French Revolutionary Wars.

Endnotes

[3] Piedmontese pound = 0.3688kg (1kg = 2.205 Imp. or U. S. lbs).

Infantry
Cavalry
Artillery
Information Sources

Back to Author Introduction