It occurs to me - albeit rather belatedly - that my photo of yesterday uses a very bad choice of camera angle for showing the Suren gun. So here's a view of the same gun from the side.
You can see from this angle that the gun's barrel is relatively long, as is appropriate for a French gun. Experiments in the middle of the 18th Century showed that the length of barrel could be considerably reduced without any significant loss of performance, either in terms of range or accuracy. A shorter barrel meant much less weight in metal. That in turn meant that a less sturdy and thus lighter carriage could be used.
All this gave rise to much more mobile artillery, enabling units such as Captain Phillip's artillery brigade (two batteries of 12 pounders) to come up in time to support the British infantry column at Minden.
1 comment:
It is my first time upon your Blog - I only found it today. I really enjoyed reading it and wish you well with your project.
best wishes Alan
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