16 REFLEEHONSON FIREPOWER IN TIIE FRANCO.PRUSSIANWAR Peter Dennis takes a pot-shot at some myths

Every wargamingmagazine I have picked up lat€ly seemsto havehad stock do"nwards: pttshitg in catidge aftet arlridge after cartidge an article about the FPw in it. I welcome this; the FPW is a conflict npidly wih be n9ht: ud. without dtnng. 6fl9 awat in the rich in possibilities for wargamers, and one in which figure Drcbabk direction oI ke eneny The ten ol Moulin a caJe'(the manufaduer! aie taking a growing interest. However, like mo6t @tree ni ) wasinvented for this node of 6rinE. periods, it comescomplete with a baggagetrain of mlths, legen& and Nthough one cannot assume that the d;sadvantagesof this 'facts'which aI the articles I've read recendyhave trotted out without sedefesset'penditue of atuuition co ld rcnain @ncealed,still the a s€cond thougha. Irad habit was adhercd to tluouBhout the enLirempaign. So what's the problem? The Chassepotrifle drdhave at least twic€ Th€ Duke goeson to giv€ evidencein suppoi of his claim that most the range of the Dreyse, the Pnssian breechloading artilery d? French fre was of this q?€, and I s€e no reasonto doubt that he is hrock sevenkinds of bnck{ust out of the French anillery, some of conect. What seemslike anathema to the Prussiansystem, with its whom were stupidly armed with a priroitive nachine-g n lhey didn't enphasis on individuai ained 6re, does make some kind of sense know how to use . . . thes€ are FACTS, we c.ango aheadand ftame when looked at ftom the point ofview ofthe Frenchinfanfiynan. The our wargamesrules, we rced look no tuiher. Duke is conect about the unpleasantnessof 6ring the Chass€potwith wen. folks. t tbiDl we do need to look nrnhe.. the sliding backight at the top of the flip-up leaf, the top of the stock l-et me say at this point rhat tbe redotr for the French defeat in dgles threateningly into the tendons framing the armpit. It feels 1870do not lie in the hardware or the way it was us€d. In this pi€ce I paintul enoughwithout fting a big nineteenth centuiy cartridge. The atrl goingtoconfnemyseftoweapo y and usagethough, and it you rarget, identified at a mile range, is nothing more thm a d&k snudge want the full story you mNt look elsewhere.(See notes on sources.) on th€ landicape. dd that\ in good light. The ani e.y which suppods thos€ distot G€rmans is probably dropping shels ever Chals€pol rE Ihyse NeedlFgu n€arer to your positioDs. The temptation to.lrop on one tne€, By b€ing the first nation to adopt the bolt-a6-tionbr€€ch loader, the p€rhaps even to goud the stock of youJ rifle dd egle the nuzzle Prusialts paid the pdce we aI pay fo. being ai the forefiont of sk]eard! like a moiar, and spray the diredion of the foe with lead, fashionable tecbnology: having got the kit. sonebody brings out when ordered to open tue at extreme range must have been geat. sonething twice as good the year after. The Chsepot rifle w6 Once staned, like any mass infantry fire,dle of6@rs would have sighted to 12m netres, twic€ the uletul Iange of the Dre]se, it was found it difficult to control, and Fobably imposible to stop. Thus the lighter and could fir€ ten shols a minute. althougb theoretical iates of 90 rounds caried c{) d be expended in about l0 mitruies. This is a fire are partiorla y mideading in any penod. The problem w6, you probl€m if. a! a wargamer, you are habituated like me to using 10 avemge,or even abov€ average.French soldi€r wa! ldgely mtrained mrnuteume-segmenrs. ., 'small in m&knaNhip. For example, the book' of a Fie.ch soldier Anlvay. acording to our expen. the beaten zone was some picked up on the field at Woerth, in 1870,showed that in 1866dd '67, 12001800metres fion the firer. and the lead desnded in a lethal he had fired 14 and 20 roundsrespectively. It is les thd comJortingto shower. The nomal Prussian assault fomation was to have the '68 '69 b€ told that in both yean he ranked as a ftst ctassshot. ln and Skimisher Zufs out in front skimishin8, and the r€mainder of the 'company he wa! quanered in Algeria, md never tued at a[ | The situation in the battalion h four colums' about 5m pacesbehind them. PrussianArmy wa! quite different. Troop6 were constandytmined in ThesecollrtrIns were forty men wide and four trlen deep, and it wason nusketry, eachman finng alms.t 130rounds per year. A third ofeach rheseunfoiunates that the buliet showerdescended. Even so, I hear coinpany formed the 80 man 'skiinish€r' or 'marksman' Zu& nade you thinking, it can't have been very etredive, can it? up of the bestshot5, and every nenber of the companyaspired to join The arlswermust be, in romal circunstances,no. But when events conspire to present the coffee-mill squal with a denser than usual that elite body. 'Hard So, provided the Gemm cruld gei to slug-tnding range with th€ t&get, the result could be a huge Ceman butcher's bill c"s€s French, they were confident that their superior training would make make bad law' they say, dd as a rule-naker I'm alwaysbothered by up for the shortcomingsof their weaponry. Their training suggBted thos€ times when hug€ casualtieswere caus€d,seeningly agaifft the that 3m yards was the sort of range at which they should be opening laws of probabfity. The Prussian Garde attack on St Privat is the tue. The French doctrif,e wasthat the m?ssed6re of the battalion line clasic iistance in this war. Three brisad€s anacking on a 2,000pace opening at extreme range,would k€ep the €n€my at bay, and make it fiont weie assailed by frre at over 1,fi10 metres range and in 10 impossible for him to reach effective range with the Needl€-Gun. minutes losi 6,0m men. I have read that the Frcnch were ananged in Hardly had the smoke cleded norn the fint clashes,befor€ G€rman tiers on a hillside. blt photographsof the site show no suitable slope. military anallsts were wandeing over the sites of Prussianattacks, and the Duke of wurttemberg visited the site soonaJter the battle and s€dching for clues as to how ihe two s'stems had perfomed. denies that this ws posible. However. several lines of infdtry By 1871 an English translation w6 published of fte sr.s.en of hosingthe groud with l€ad, ground occupiedby troops at a depth of attack of the lb}.J.ssiaiInhitty i' the Campajg of 187G71by Lie\r. 10 to the pace could give u5 that figurc without resorting to Field-Marshal winim, Duke of Wuntemberg. In this fascinating exaggeratedfire-effects at extreme range for the chassepot. pamphlet tne Duke hasquite a lot to sayabout French musketry, and when fifing to legidat€ for French tu€ then. we must allow for a I trust the reader wil forgive a lengrhy quote: kind of super-archery, with French troo!6, p€rhapE in complete -fo oreNheln hostile colunns at a.lhtate of ldn defts with cover, chewingup the gound a rnile in ftont of them, dd, I'm afraid. and thus to rcndet it inrytsibte fot then to apqoach a' mmuition nn€s are unavoidablel Fojectiles, 'The oectpkd pondon within efiecdve frnng di'tarcr, waspnponded as After St Privat, as the Duke sa]s, atiack in Line of Colwrrs an axion by Frcnch tacticiats, with the tull assentof the amy. over open gromd was, in spite of the final successofthis one, marked Ir ofier b attain &is long tutge, it becomesnecessary to aim over as an inpossibility and a useless loss of men, and definitively the highestpoint oftl,e back sight, whnh entailsa down||ad $esturc rejected. Inst€ad. troops advarced in skirnish order, forming close of the stock oI the ifle. to the en€my in some fold of the glomd, or any area of cover before EvettMy knowEhow difrcltlt it h to take aim in thjs way: but no laun€hinethe final a5.sault.Thus the Germanswere able to avoid the one ulill naintain that the Frcnchmatl tuds any pleasurc it giving worst etr;cts of the long-range fire, and were able to exploit their hinseff touble. Frivolity and establishedcuston, together vith the marksndship to ftI advantage.Even so, they were not willing to rentenbtutce by the older soldjes of dE fomer nethod of 6ring attempt the final rush againsttroops who had not had the benefit of a ftun the hip without aty calcuktion led very npidly to the bad habit steady pouding fron the famous Germar artillery. of holditg the ifle in the teft hnd at att angle of nearly 45', vith the 17 $ret Sorp8tE ,IVEYY- 15mm Metal Figwes - llEW Romans& Gauls Moghuls ThirtyYears War EnglishCivil War SevenYears War French& IndianWars Clivein lndia AmericanWar of Independence Napoleonics Xnpp sleel breechloadersvs brass muzle-load$ SeminoleWar Why did the French stick to quaint old muzzle loadeE, when the U.S.A.dganE Prussianshad soper modem breechloaden? Were they crazy?They US-MexicanWar uBlElnmns ln were bound to loseI This is the drift of a good deal of comment about AmericanCivil War lor I ta8 the anilery in thjs war. The facfihar the French did get the wo6t of it PlainsWars (hcrnpoign almost everyvhere is indisputable, but it wasn t the guns themselves MaximillianExpedition [.61820 whjch were at fault- If the French can be diticised for stickins to dowr-the^poutarrilleD. rhen socould the British.dnd a Boodm;) ItalianWars ot other respectedarmi€s at the time. Muzzl€load€rs were more ftgged Independence than the breechloadeB, and rates of fire were crnparable. ln any Austro-PrussianWar c6e, 6 dy gunnerwould tell you, it wan't how quickly you fired that counted. In tbe days before recoil mechanisms,it was skili in laing Franco-PrussianWar that made the difference. WORLDWIDEMAIL ORDER SERVICE Cnticism ofihe French for giving the Mitrailleose to the anillery is S.A.E.lot ILLUSTRA|EDLISTS. ,lso, I feel, a linle unfair, I @ t think of any nation which had FREIKORPS machine guns at this time which did not man then with gunn€rs, I 15, 25 PrincetownRoad, Eangor, meu, a black banel on sheels just wouldn't look righr with Co. Down BT2O3TA, Northernlreland. infmtrymen around it would ir? To think of the Mitrailleuse in the sametems as say a Maxim Gun would also be a mislake. Onc! the weapon got inlo a firing cycle the target would be conpletely were liftle used. I need hardly say that the Prussian training was obscuredby lmoke. and th€ effect aimed at would b€ more rhat of supenor. the ded old Prussiansof the 1870sassure us that it was, pith long{ang€ mister than the sweepingtue of a WW1 machine-gun. that appallingsmugness which characterisesall their utterancesat that The weapon did have quite a moraleffect, rhe cemar! hated it. time.If I @ stmd it, in my nen anicle I'll tell you what no less a I think thar we should look at the Orde^ of Battle of the rwo sides p€rson than Kraft, Pnf,c€ of Hohenlohelnge$ngen, commander of for our 6rst clue asto why th€ Frenchanillery failed- Overall numben the Prusian Guard anilery in 1870has to sayabout gunsand gunnery of guns quoted for the armies do not suggesta gross imbalanc€ of in this prologu€ to World War One. numbers, bul a closer examination shows an interestins difrerence. wlile rhc ba'c \rrengrhsof the divisionswere sirnilar:rhe French infanrry division commander had at his dnposal two light artillery The Frd@'German war produced ; massiveamount of print, some balteties (6 suns) dd o.e battery of mitrailleuss, which, with a 8,0m volumes,it hasbeen said were Mitten during the nen 30 or so range of some 1500 metres, cannot be us€d in an artillery duel. yeals- Litde enough is cuently in print, although wdgmes Against this. the German division @mmander hastwo light, and two publishersare getting their act together, and at least one major work, 1,eai7batteries. giving hin a tremendouslocal sup€riority of tu€. The David Ascoli's A Day ofBattie (Harnp) hasb€en publishedin 1987. French corp6 migbt have three or even four divisions, and rhe corps Miiitary dalysts haveswarmed over lh€ actionsof lhis shon war. and anillery would normally be t o light, two healy and four or so horse a wealth offiFt-rate material for our purposs€sis around sorreplrere, bnttenes. The German corps were alwa's of rwo divisions, and the bur clos€ reading of booksellers' lists is nec€ssaryto pick it up. As corps commmder would nonnally have two heavy, two light and two interest in the wd increa!€s, so do bookselleN' pnces. My copy of hone batteries. Thus, regardl€ssof any technical superionty, th€ Marnce's Ftub-GeM wt, publi'lhed by ArbD & Unwin 1899, Gemans were able to deploy fd more artillery at a relatively low which is a monumental Battl€s md leaders'history st me back a level on the chain of command.In our wdgames fought at corps level [email protected] I50. Mosr of the inforrnation he:e camefrom th€ Duke the Gends invanably drive ofi the French artillery very early on- of Wurttemberg's pmpblei de&:ribedin th€ ten, and ftom Lt Col G Bul. if overall numbeA de the same,where are the French guns?In F R Henderson s The Ba.rIe of SpichercD- a study in pncti.al tactis an army reseNe, thafs where. Following th€ Napoleonic tradition, a ard wa..ra,;r;g, publishedin 1909by Gale & Polden. Hendeson is a large park of artillery wa: at the disposal of the army colmmd€r- filst rate delv€r into the military nitty-gitty which warganers 6nd so When the battle is joined on a sevenmile ftont though, by the rine enlightening. His works should b€ snapped up, so rememb€r the the commander haslocated the best place for his res€w€ to be used, thal location willalready hnv€ been dominat€d by rhe Prussianguns. Apart fton a better thought-out dispositionin the commandchain. Moltke and his staff were wel aware of lh€ benefits of wdgming the Gemm gunner had the tremendos technical advantage of as d inlt uctional tool, and thanks to Bill l-€€son, we are able to play supenor mmuoilion. The Germans had perfected the percussion- their gme. Bill publishes th€ contenporary rules of Von Tschis- tuse. wbich meant that when a Prussianshell mived it went baf,s. chwitz for tbe Kriegsspi€]. wilh fantastic maps of huge dimensions, scll. nine lmetr our or ren. The F ench ammuniuonconsi"led 6l dd even lead blocks to play with. Detaiis hom Biil at 5 St Agnell's commonshell with a tine fue which wasavailable in only t$o ranges, Lane Cottages.Henel Hempstead,Herts, HP2 7HJ. Anyone 1.i00 and 2,800metres. At any other mnge it was supposedto interestedin this p€riod should tate this opportunity to examineand - explodeon conlact but didn'i. A few shrapn€lshells were canied by play the game the Prussia officeE themselvesus€d. IiEbt batleries. bur rhetr h@s were so notonously bad that the shells