The Bavarian Guns 1836 to 1873 -A Historical Article

I will soon have a second batch of French 1870 staff conversions to show you, but for now here is an article I wrote for the Foreign Correspondent, the journal of the Continental Wars Society. This group exists to study all the European wars and armies of the period 1815-1914. It's been going for decades now, headed by the stalwart Ralph Weaver, a name you might know from excellent titles published by Caliver Books.

Joining the group is strongly recommended if you are interested in the period. It has the rather splendid distinction of having, in 2024, no online presence whatsoever, so you have to email Ralph to join: ralphcws@hotmail.com 

THE BAVARIAN GUNS 1836-1873

As a modelmaker, over the last few years I have had the privilege of making masters of Franco-Prussian War field artillery pieces for the Perry Miniatures 28mm range. When you have to make a three-dimensional model of something it forces you to try and establish exactly how that thing looks without any fudging. So the process has made me piece together what documentation I could find, mostly online: descriptions, paintings, line drawings, photographs and even a scale view here and there. The evidence turns out to be adequate, just about, and I thought it might be of interest if I wrote it up, starting with the little-known guns used by Bavaria

The 1836 “Zoller” System

The artillery that sufficed up to 1815 soldiered on for decades longer, but in the 1830’s or so despite very little technological change the gunners of each nation felt it was time to update and rationalise their equipment. The outcome for Bavaria was the 1836 System, named after the artillery commander General von Zoller, also referred to as C/1836 (C for Construction, ie “model”) It comprised a 6-pounder and a 12-pounder plus short and long versions of 7-pounder howitzer to complete light and heavy field batteries. These were state-of- the-art designs at the time, and served Bavaria well in the wars of 1848-9.

One improvement over Napoleonic practice was that the gunners no longer had to walk, being carried on the limbers of the guns and those of the ammunition caissons. So instead of being “foot batteries”, these were now properly referred to as “fahrend”, literally “driving” or “riding” batteries. Each gun commander and officer was individually mounted, as were all the gunners of the 6-pounder horse batteries. 

The 1836 twelve-pounder painted later by the famous Bavarian military artist Anton Hoffmann. Note the two, splayed trail spikes of all Bavarian guns and their correct paint colours: light-medium grey for the woodwork and black for iron parts.

The C/1836 six-pounder. The whole thing seems to have painted over in a single colour at some point.

New Technology: the Shell Gun of 1856

A furious period of technical innovation hit the military world in the 1850’s. For artillery the first big step forward was the “shell gun”, first put in service by France from 1853, and later to comprise the most common piece used in the American Civil War, where it was known as the “Napoleon”.  Bavaria was ahead of other German states in introducing their own version in 1856.

These guns were invariably of 12-pounder calibre, ie the bore would fit a solid iron 12-pound cannonball (so in fact 117mm in later terms). But they no longer fired solid cannonballs. Instead their main projectile was a spherical hollow shell with a time fuse. Given the large calibre they also had a powerful cannister round and could in principle fire shrapnel (although German gunners never placed much confidence in this type of ammunition). The top selling point of the shell gun was that it could fire both directly, like a cannon, and at high angles like a howitzer, removing the need for two types of piece in every field battery. It was a “universal gun”. On top of this, they were lighter than traditional cannons, so the 12-pounder shell gun used the 6-pounder carriage of the 1836 system.

The new gun replaced all the 6-pounders and associated howitzers in field service, and was designated the “leichter Feldzwolfpfunder”, the Light Field Twelvepounder, rather than being designated by name or by year number. It replaced all the foot and horse 6-pounder cannon and their associated howitzers, although the 1836 12-pounder soldiered on in the heavy batteries for a time.

Here’s an original Light Field Twelvepounder, in the Bavarian Army Museum. Note the relatively short barrel.

It has to be said that the Bavarian gunners took their desire for progress a step too far at this point, the standard shell used having it’s gunpowder-filled core offset to one side, as this diagram shows. The unduly optimistic idea was that one side of the shell being lighter than the other it would spin in flight and stabilise itself. It was designated the “eccentric hollow shell”, appropriately enough. They must have tried this out on the ranges and convinced themselves it worked, but the experience of the 1866 campaign would prove otherwise.

Newer Technology: Mr Krupp’s Rifled Steel Breechloader

The Italian campaign of 1859 indicated that the future lay with rifled artillery, and the Prussian company Krupp of Essen pushed its high-technology product hard: a gun that was not only rifled, but loaded from the breech and cast in solid steel. In 1861 all the states of the German Confederation (except Austria which had its own programme for rifled guns) resolved to equip at least 25% of their batteries with Krupp’s guns.

In every case Krupp supplied only the barrel and breech, with each state finding a carriage from their own resources. For Bavaria this was once again simply the six-pounder carriage of the 1836 system. The piece itself was designated in Prussia the C/61, but in Bavaria simply the “gezogene Sechspfunder”, ie rifled 6-pounder. Once again “six pounder” was referring to the calibre which would accept a solid cannonball of that weight, some 92mm in fact. The breech-closure  was effected by a double system of plugs, one screwed in from behind and the second passing through it from the right side to lock it in place.

The actual shell fired was about 15 pounds in weight, pointed in shape and with a fuse that (usually) detonated on impact. This was certainly the way to go, for several reasons, and would prove very effective in both 1866 and 1870. A slight downside was that the cannister round was smaller and less effective than the stuff fired by 12-pounders, and this comforted the illusion that there was still an important role for the shell-gun.

At any rate Bavaria purchased 48 of the Krupp gun and it replaced the smoothbore twelve-pounder. In the 1866 campaign Bavaria started with 48 six-pounders in six foot batteries each of eight guns, which was 35% of the guns they fielded.

The Guns of 1870

In all theatres of the 1866 War smoothbore guns showed themselves vastly inferior to rifled guns, which had in simple terms the same accuracy at twice the range.  And the method of loading from the breech added to this accuracy since the shell no longer needed to be pushed down the barrel from the muzzle, so could be a much tighter fit to the rifling. Hence all the German states dropped their smoothbores and muzzle-loaders. The existing Krupp guns would be fine, and Bavaria decided these would meet the six-pounder needs of the first of their two army corps. New four-pounders would be purchased from Krupp. But for the second army corps’ six pounders Bavaria would cast its own version of a breechloading rifle, out of bronze!

All three guns were to be mounted on locally built carriages, updated versions of that in current use and now known as the C/1866 . It looks very similar to the C/1836 carriage, though two changes stand out. Firstly the trail sides no longer bend down slightly about halfway along. And secondly the older carriage had an oblong chest between the trail sides for an emergency cannister round; on the new carriage that’s replaced by a smaller chest for tools and cylindrical holders for emergency rounds on the upper right trail side.

The Bavarian contingent in the FPW was heavily equipped with artillery. Each of the four divisions had four batteries of six foot guns, two being four-pounders and two being six-pounder batteries. Each of the two army corps had a further six batteries, all of six-pounders and a single horse battery armed with  four pounders. Additionally each corps had a cavalry brigade with a second horse battery. Thus the total was thirty-two batteries, amounting to 192 guns in all, reinforced by a further six batteries in October 1870.

Krupp Six-Pounder on Bavarian Carriage

The first of the three standard guns used in 1870 was the existing “gezogene Sechspfunder” on the C/1866 carriage. (The actual guns were all of the original version, C/1861 in Prussian parlance, whereas a slightly newer model was now commonly used by the Prussians themselves.)

A Krupp six-pounder dashes into action in 1870. It’s pulled by six horses and the crew comprises the five gunners clinging precariously to the limber plus the mounted NCO gun commander seen just in front of the team. Steel gun barrels were painted black in Bavarian service to protect them from rust, but the breech plugs were of steel and brass.

 

Krupp Four-Pounder on Bavarian Carriage

The four-pounders of the foot and horse artillery were Krupp breechloaders of the latest model (C/1867) used by Prussia, but mounted on Bavarian-built carriages and referred to simply as “rifled four-pounders”. These were steel rifled guns, with a different system of breech closure here, what was called a “wedge” closure. Two steel wedges fit into a square void in the cubical breech. Turning the handle on the left side pushes the wedges across each other making the breech gas-tight. The carriages of these guns were slightly lighter, but only marginally different in appearance to the standard C/1866.

The first artillery shot of the 1870 War, at the battle of Wissembourg. This is a four-pounder of the foot artillery. The nearest gunner  is the gun commander. Being a mounted man he has a horseman’s gear: slung sabre, cartridge box on a shoulder belt and riding trousers.

The Bavarian-Built Six Pounder

The third main gun was Bavaria’s very own cast bronze six-pounder breechloading rifle. It was unusual for a breechloader to be made of bronze, but the Austrians took the same approach after 1866 and it evidently worked well enough, firing the exact same ammunition as the Krupp six-pounder. It used a wedge-closure mechanism with a big handle on the left of the breech block, similar to the Krupp four-pounder.

Aiming the Bavarian six-pounder. The colour blue-grey seems to exercise a fascination over those painting artillery pieces, whether artists or wargamers, but all the woodwork of Bavarian guns was grey in fact.

Scale plans of both six-pounder versions, the bronze rifle at left and the Krupp version at right. The carriage was the same for both. Canvass travelling covers are shown over the muzzle and breech of the second gun.

Uneven Reinforcements

Six more batteries were raised and sent to the Army in France during October 1870. The I Corps, fighting hard in the campaign against the French Army of the Loire, gained two more batteries of six-pounders, model unknown. And both corps received two more unusual batteries: one of twelve-pounders and one of Bavarian-designed machine guns.

The twelve-pounders were rifled conversions from the old shell gun and my sole source on these ( Lutz) is puzzling. Such conversions had been started on during the 1866 war and the large numbers adapted had been held in reserve. They are said to have been rifled breechloading guns using wedge breeches, but how they might have gone about such a conversion mystifies me on several levels, I have found no images of such guns to shed light on the matter, so will have to admit defeat as regards these particular few guns.

Bavaria’s Own Machine Gun

No such mystery attends the two batteries of four machine gun, odd as they were. The Bavarian inventor Johann Feldl had come up with this rival to the mitrailleuse and Gatling, which on the face of it was more lethal than either, with a cyclic rate of fire approaching 400 rounds per minute. It used four parallel barrels of the new Werder rifle and fired the same metal-cartridge bullets as that excellent weapon. One gunner stood on the gun’s left and turned a large crank which powered the mechanism, while a comrade aimed the thing, sitting on the little trail seat and operating controls for elevation and direction. Ammunition dropped from the four large magazines on top and the box underneath collected the empty cartridge cases.

The I Corp's Feldl battery was seriously engaged just once, at the unsuccessful battle of Coulmiers. It blasted off up to 7000 rounds, which must have made an impression on the French, but three out of the four guns were rapidly jammed solid and out of action.  The machine gun saw no further use after this, despite the inventor’s protestations that the problems were only due to poor training of the gunners and inadequate quality control in manufacturing the ammunition. He might have been right, but the view of most gunners by 1871 was that conventional artillery had won them battle after battle so they didn’t need to bother with less promising weapon systems.

The Feldl MG in all its mechanical glory.

After the Franco-Prussian War

In October 1871 the newly formed German Empire adopted the metric system, which led to more rational designations based on the (approximate) calibre of the guns in centimetres. So the four- and six-pounders were henceforth referred to respectively as “8 cm steel cannons” and “9 cm steel (or bronze) cannons”.

From 1873 a new artillery system was introduced, incorporating the lessons of the war. Henceforth all foot artillery was to be of 9 cm calibre and only the horse artillery kept the 8 cm calibre. And no longer would each state have its own artillery models. They were all “German guns” now, all Krupp 1873 models in fact, and this brings us to the end of the story as regards specifically Bavarian artillery pieces.

 

 

Principal Sources

Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung der Grossen Generalstab, Der Deutsch-Franzosische Krieg 1870-71, Berlin 1878

Lutz, Captain Luitpold, Die Bayerische Artillerie von ihren ersten Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart, Munich 1894

Muller, Major K, Die Entwickelung der Feld-Artillerie, Berlin 1873

Sauer, Karl Theodor von, Grundrisse der Waffenlehre and Atlas zum Grundrisse der Waffenlehre, Munich 1876

Schott, Captain J, Grundriss der Waffenlehre fur Offiziere un Offiziersaspiranten der Norddeutschen Bund, Darmstadt and Leipzig 1868

Wille, Captain K, Leitfaden der Waffenlehre, Berlin 1874

Witte, Captain W, Die Gezogenen Feldgeschutze, Berlin 1867

All of these books are online and can easily be found via Google as I did, but you have to be able to read German printed in the gothic script. Lutz is by far the most informative. There are very helpful articles on the Prussian artillery pieces in the German-language Wikipedia, and these have good diagrams of the working parts, taken mostly from the books listed.