First time on a cannon crew

[SgtErv]

This past weekend, I had a really cool opportunity - serve a 3lber on British carriage at Fort Laurens, a small event held by the Northwest Department of the BAR.

I'd never examined one or seen one in action save as a spectator. The gun's owner and commander needed some guys to work it. So my unit volunteered.

We drilled on it all morning to ensure we were good to go. It's not extremely complicated once it's broken down into different parts, so we caught on fast. I tended the vent and did the priming. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, right? We fired a couple of rounds during the public demonstration early in the afternoon, then did the battle toward evening, practicing in between.

We fired something like 10 rounds or so. The gun commander watched us close, everyone took their time to ensure safety and what not.

And wheeeeeew boy that was fun!

 

[coloradoclyde]

Live rounds or blanks?

Both are fun....and then you realize that in battle...the other guy's cannons are aimed at you. :shocked2:

 

[SgtErv]

They were blanks. I'd love to shoot one live sometime.

I don't imagine being an artilleryman in a battle would've been pleasant or fun. Of course, being a grunt in a line unit wouldn't have been either.

 

[Calum]

They are fun!

I've only worked on a CW crew, using friction primers. I don't think the friction primers were around much earlier, but I'm not sure. Were you using quills, loose powder or ??? for the priming?

Mike

 

[SgtErv]

Quills. They were pretty delicate so I had to be careful. I hear the friction primers can chew the vent guy up pretty bad

 

[Artificer]

Sounds like you had a great time.

British 3 pound field guns were often called "grasshoppers" in the period. They were often used in the battle line, between supporting Infantry Units. So, in effect, they were the crew served weapons of their day. It is remarkable to see a well trained crew who can disassemble, quickly move and reassemble and fire the gun. We had a Royal Artillery Battery who was with us when I did a Private Soldier in the Major's Coy, 42nd RHR and we sometimes helped man their gun.

I had already been trained on a WBTS 12 pound Napoleon, so it wasn't completely new to me.

Funny story about another Rev War Field gun I wound up manning near the start of this century. I am not entirely sure what size gun it was, but it was at the Yorktown Victory Center and I think it might have been a six pounder. My sister was taking a college course on public speaking. She had had rheumatoid arthritis outbreaks, so she missed the earlier speeches her Professor had said the entire class had to attend one and do a report on it for the class. So she asked me if I would like to drive and listen to a speech on the middle passage of the slave trade in the 18th century. I jumped at the chance because I wanted to visit their museum as well. Besides the museum, they had a very interesting exhibit of 18th century farming.

They also demonstrated loading and firing the gun but no blanks were fired, they just went through the motions by the correct period drill. Then they invited the tourists to man the gun and go through the loading procedure, though they did not actually fire a blank round. Well, none of our group volunteered, so they began asking people and assigning them to different positions. I grinned when they chose my sister as the gun captain and I was later asked to man the rammer and told them my “baby sister” would get a kick out of ordering me around. They actually had one round with a ball attached to the powder bag, but the bag was filled with sand. They told me to make sure I did not actually load the charge, but drop it at the muzzle on the ground and then use the rammer to “ram down.” I smiled and said I understood.

My Sister did a very good job for her first time as a Gun Captain and went through most of the commands without help. Now when I was ordered to load and ram the cartridge and since I had done it before on other guns with blank rounds, I smoothly dropped the charge on the ground and ran the rammer down and out quickly with a flourish. The two Victory Center personnel had a look of extreme apprehension on their faces, as they were not sure if I had dropped the charge on the ground or rammed it down. When we finished the drill they said, “Eh, you didn’t actually ram down that charge, did you?” I smiled and told them, the gun was clear and pointed to the charge on the ground. They were very much relieved. With a chuckle, I informed them I had pulled “dry ball” loads from rifles and muskets before and I would certainly not want to try pulling that fake charge out of the gun!!

Gus

 

[SgtErv]

Ha! It's the same procedure, although a little dicier in a cannon, the blank round comes out a lot easier. The worm can hook on to the foil easily. Piece of cake! Just follow the proper procedure (not gripping the implements and such.)

Good on your sis!

Yea. I did have a blast. Might do it again at The Fort Pitt museum in Aug 4-5, but I'll probably stay in the ranks with the grunts where I'm more comfortable

 

[SgtErv]

Going to test posting a photo here

 

[Zonie]

Change the size of your picture to something around 900 pixels (3 inches) width before you upload it to a web picture storage site.

Doing this will allow us to see the picture just fine and it won't run off the edge of the screen like the picture above does.

 

[SgtErv]

Thanks Zonie. I can probably manage that on my laptop easier than my phone. I was wondering how I'd change that.

 

[cahokia]

You must have been manning the cannon on the right hand side of the picture. I was part of the gun crew manning the left hand gun, the King Howitzer. You can see my striped trousers in the picture. Manning a gun can be a real blast

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Both are fun....and then you realize that in battle...the other guy's cannons are aimed at you.

OR his riflemen, IF they can work close enough that they don't get spotted by the battery commander.
:shocked2:

I cut-my-teeth in living history on a CW cannon crew, Dement's Battery, Maryland Light Artillery, CSA. That was back in the 1970's. We used match back then too.

LD