French and Spanish Ordnance

[allanyed]

Does anyone know of a source for Spanish and French cannon pattern drawings from the 17th century through the early 19th century based on contemporary sources?  I would be grateful for any information.  

 

Allan

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by allanyed

[Lieste]

There are published tables and drafting instructions, together with drawings for Maritz 1758 and Manson 1786 pattern ordnance. Published during the manufacture of these pieces - Maritz available in facsimile from Ancre, The 1786 ordnance on Galica BNF. There are two documents for the 1786 ordnance with some slight differences - and the addition of bronze artillery (of an older pattern in 24/18pdr), field artillery of the 1766 pattern, the obusier de vaisseau and a.1pdr perrier. Also various howitzers and mortars. (For the use of the marine and the colonies).

Ancre publishes a text on the Artillerie de Marine, but the scanning/printing quality is too poor for my eyes to make much sense of any of the dimensions on the reproduced diagrams and many of the tables. The Galica files are much easier to read (at least in the online pages - the downloads suffer from lower resolution.

I don't have any source for Spanish ordnance beyond "being based on the French system" with differences in thickness and mouldings during the revolutionary period.

[Waldemar]

 

For the Spanish ordnance (most useful)

 

– Enrique García-Torralba Pérez, La Artillería Naval Española en el Siglo XVIII. Su evolución técnica y su recíproca influencia con la arquitectura del buque, Ministerio de Defensa, Madrid 2010, ISBN 978-84-9781-591-8 (includes printed and digital (CD-ROM) reproductions of source documents and plans),

 

– Juan José Navarro, Álbum del Marqués de la Victoria (1719-1756), Lunwerg Editores, Museo Naval Madrid 1995, ISBN 84-7782-352-9,

 

... and very, very rich (graphic) resources of the highest quality put online by Spanish national archives.

 

 

For the French ordnance (really no more is needed)

 

– Jean Boudriot, Hubert Berti, Artillerie de mer. France 1650-1850, Ancre, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-903179-12-3 (includes large reproductions of contemporary plans and drawings).

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Waldemar

[allanyed]

4 hours ago, Waldemar said:

Jean Boudriot, Hubert Berti, Artillerie de mer. France 1650-1850, Ancre, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-903179-12-3

This looks like a winner. but the problem is the cost as it will not be inexpensive.   

 

I did some more digging and found the following website that gives a lot of good information on Spanish ordnance.

https://www.artillerianaval.es/artilleria-de-ordenanza/

 

 

5 hours ago, Waldemar said:

Spanish national archives.

Waldemar,

I did find the website for the archives in Madrid but cannot find a search function and am at a loss.  Do you have a link?

Thank you!
Allan

 

[Waldemar]

 

This web page in Spanish is a misunderstanding. It is entitled "Spanish Naval Ordnance", and contains charts showing field guns (and only bronze).

 

 

[Lieste]

The Boudriot Artillerie book is the one I found of very limited use, with many of the tables/drawings having unreadable numerals especially in fractional terms.The scans and printing are rather soft and the size of many glyphs is too small to be resolvable. If you have excellent eyesight you might guess at a few where I could extract nothing, but many just aren't rendered parsable at all.

Their Maritz text in facsimile looks to be clearer judging from their preview, and the 1786 dimensions can be found on Galica BNF, but I didn't get much usable dimensioning from the many included tables and drawings. It is an excellent coffee table book, but not much use as a resource because of the lacklustre quality.

[allanyed]

Thanks again Lieste and Waldemar, your thoughtfulness in your replies is very much appreciated.

 

Allan

[wefalck]

From my literature list for the 19th century. Most of the pre-1900 works are available as digital copies e.g. from the Bibliotheque Nationale:

 

Busquets i Vilanova, C. (2013): El cañon naval pesado. Medio siglo de poder naval.- 247 p., Madrid (Edita Real del Catorce Editores).

Cavalli, J. (1849): Memoire sur les canons se chargeant par la culasse sur les canons rayes.- 88 p., Atlas (missing), Paris (J. Corréard).

Carrasco, A. (1887): Memorial de Artilleria de Bronze.-  Madrid.

Carrasco, A. (1889): Memorial de Artilleria de Hiero.

CORNULIER, E. DE (1841): Memoires sur le pointage des mortiers a la mer et sur les améliorations de système des hausses de marine.- 238 p., 3 pl., Paris (Correard).

CRONEAU, A. (ca. 1893): Canons, torpilles et cuirasses. Leur installation a bord des batiments de combat.- Encyclopedie scientifique des aide-memoires, section de l'Ingénieur: 202 p., Paris (Gauthier-Villars & Masson).

DELAUNEY, J.F., GUITTARD, A.C.A.J. (1889): Historique de l'artillerie de la marine 1692-1889.- 328 p., Paris (D. Dumoulin).

DELESSAEY, A. (1890): Cours speciale le matériel de côte, à l'usage des cadres de l'artillerie de la marine.- 274 p., Paris (Imprimerie Nationale).

GADAUD, L. (1869): L'artillerie de la marine française en 1868.- 157 p., ? pl., Paris (Arthus Bertrand).

GADAUD, L. (1872): L'artillerie de la marine française en 1872.- 160 p., 90 figs., 2 pl., Paris (Arthus Bertrand).

HENNEBERT, E. (1887): L’Artillerie.- Bibliothéque des Merveilles: 329 p., Paris (Librairie Hachette et Cie.).

JAMOIS, T. (2011): Indret, manufacture de canons pour la Marine (1777-1827).- 119 p., Paris (Centre DCNS de Nantes-Indret).

LAFAY, J. (1850): Aide-memoire d'artillerie navale.- 721 p., 50 pl., Paris (J. Corréard).

LEDIEU, A., CADIAT, E. (1889): Le nouveau materiel naval.- Tome premier: balistique, agentes explosifes, canons et mitrailleuses, hydraulique de manoeuvre pour l’artillerie, fusils, électricité en marine, piles, accumulateurs, dynamo et magnétos, lumière et éclairage èlectriques, torpilles.- 762 p., Paris (Vve Ch. Dunod éditeur).

       LEDIEU, A., CADIAT, E. (1889-1890): Atlas du nouveau materiel naval.- 2 vols, 4 p. + XXXIV pl., 4 p. + XVII pl., Paris (Vve Ch. Dunod éditeur). 

E   Lewal, M.L. (1863?):  Traite pratique d'artillerie navale et tactique des combats de mer. Tome Deuxieme. Guide pour l’instruction des batteries des vaisseaux. Pointage et chargement, manoeuvres, exercices et tirs des batteries des gaillards des vaisseaux. Instruction d'une deuxième batterie. Instruction d'une première batterie armée de canons rayés. Manoeuvres des pièces d'embarcations et des batteries de canons rayés employées à terre. manoeuvres de force à bord et à terre. Données d'expérience sur la manoeuvre et le tir des bouches à feu marines.- 400 p., 1 pl., Paris (Arthus Bertrand, éditeur). 

E   Lewal, M.L. (1863?):  Traite pratique d'artillerie navale et tactique des combats de mer. Tome Premier. Recherches et donnees d'experiences sur installation, le pointage et le tir des bouches à feu marines. Sabords. Champ de tir. Appareil de pointage. Écouvillons. Gargousses. Inflamations accidentelles. Culots et crasses. Dégradation des lumières. Valets. Étoupilles à friction. Installation des vaisseaux anglais. Données d’experience sur le tir. Mesure des distances. Déviations dues à la vitesse. Passages des poudres et projectiles.- 484 p., 6 pl., Paris (Arthus Bertrand, éditeur).

NICOL, E. (1894): Traité d'artillerie à l'usage des officiers de marine.- Bibliothèque du Marin: 349 p., Paris/Nancy (Berger-Levraulet et. Cie.).

PAIXHANS, H.-J.. (1822): Nouvelle force maritime et application de cette force à quelques parties du service de l'armée de terre.- 458 p., 7 pl., Paris (Bachelier).

VERDIER, M. (1837): Nouveau manuel complet de la marine. Seconde Partie. Manoeuvres du Navire et de l’Artillerie.- 288 p., Paris (Librairie Enciclopédique de Roret).

VIGO, J. (1947): Historia de la artilleria Española.- 3 vols.: Madrid.

 

I have also some official works on the French naval artillery covering roughly the period 1864 to 1890 with very detailed drawings, but I gather you be more interested in the time up to the 1850s? Lafay would then be the authoritative source for the period 1830 to 1850 and the book is free to download.

 

 

 

[allanyed]

Eberhard, I am PMing you regarding the rest of the project.

Merci bien

Allan

[Lieste]

Primary document of high quality for the main 1786 ordnance Marine:

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52508427k

Fills in the gap of the OdV de 36 and Perrier de 1 Livre, as well as various other colonial ordnance types. The bronze marine guns in 24, 18 livre seem to be an earlier pattern (perhaps the Maritz guns, but are also marked as 'siege' for the drawings. The drawings are readable, but the pages are not flat and you would need to re-draw them using the supplied dimensions.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3288527

[allanyed]

Lieste

THANK YOU.  

Allan

 

[Lieste]

It is still lacking the 4pdr (lange et court), added to the establishment of guns in 1787, and then fairly rapidly abandoned.
A table of dimensions for the 'basic' sizes can be found (along with les anciene 36/24 and les nouvelle 36/30/24/18/12 caronades) in (also from Galica - "Michel, Jules (1790-1838). Auteur du texte. Mémorial de l'artilleur marin... par Jules Michel,.... 1828". Don't have the link to hand, but the cite should have more than sufficient information to track it down).

An informed estimate might be needed for the mouldings, but the 'rules' for the 1786 system Manson are applicable for the gun form.

[Lieste]

A note on French windages of the mid-late C18th.
Vent de boulet is not what it appears - it is the vent du boulet when the shot is highest at the grand lunette. Where all three diameters are listed, there is a 'petite lunette' and an intermediate 'calibre du boulet' (Or where calibre is reserved for the bore, 'diametre du boulet'). The difference between the two lunettes is set at 9pts, so the mean windage is 4.5 pts looser than that specified.

This is modified in the 1820s or 30s, (unsure when exactly, when the forges are permitted only 1.2mm (just over 6pts, and the calibre du boulet is calculated for the nominal windage - the grand lunette is 0.6mm (~3pts) 'higher' than the previous value. The petite lunette used is the one for 'places' and is 1.1mm smaller than the nominal diameter and ~9pts below the high gauge)

At the same times British windage was set for a standard gun at 1/21st of the bore, this being the low gauge (20/21) - with the high gauge allowing 2/3rds this windage (61/63), and the mean shot diameter 121/126.
Around 1817 the British windage was 'improved' to 121/126, by the simple recording it as for the mean, rather than the lowest permitted shot, before the two gauges were changed individually over the next decades. Larger ordnance tended to retain the same, or a very similar gauge, with the low gauge and mean shot increasing with a narrower forge allowance for rejecting shot and improved intent for maintenance and replacement/rejection in the places. Smaller ordnance (which had mostly become obsolete outside of field artillery) received shot which was forged both to a tighter tolerance and to higher gauges for both high and low gauge.

Quite a bit of the supposed advantage of French windage in the C18th comes from the use of the high vs low gauge to describe it, though the French windage was not directly proportional to calibre, and their larger calibres were somewhat better than British ones, and their small calibres by specification somewhat looser.

 

[allanyed]

22 hours ago, Lieste said:

It is still lacking the 4pdr (lange et court),

No problem Lieste, thank you kindly for your help.   For our scales, I believe I can use the ratio of the shot diameter of the 4 pound to the 6 pound and reduce the bore and barrel diameter the same 12% (approximate) and keep the same lengths as the 6 pounder without notice.

Allan  

Edited March 22, 2023 by allanyed

[Lieste]

Well the bulk measures are correctly stated in the 1828 document, which is also interesting for the section on carronades. It is only the 'correct' quantum to be used for the mouldings that is unclear - the same as the 6livre, or the 'next' step down, given that 8 and 6livres share a common scale. for the main mouldings.

For a better 'record' and resource it would be better to use the proper values, and/or note where there are estimates and/or exaggerations to aid those coming behind. IMO and YMMV.

[allanyed]

I guess it is time to get the Admiral involved as she is a retired French teacher.   HOPEFULLY the naval terminology will not throw too many clinkers into the fire.

Allan

[Waldemar]

 

On 3/20/2023 at 1:51 PM, Lieste said:

The Boudriot Artillerie book is the one I found of very limited use

 

Boudriot's monograph on French artillery of very limited use!? It holistically describes all the artillery systems of the period in question, not just one of them. And not only the gun barrels themselves, but also the carriages, tackles, gun utensils, etc. And it does so with a precision, clarity and reliability that presumably even exceeds the needs of this very project for which it is to be used. And all this in one book. But I admit, I didn't know beforehand that it was more about free, more or less random downloads from the web.

 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Waldemar

[Lieste]

It is a good bibliography - but as a direct resource there were few pages within the reproduced documents where the data was uniformly clear enough to read with confidence, the diagrams are far too small and soft to read the dimensions, and the tables complied from the data have clear errors in them (e.g. the calibre of the 4livre gun, is actually the diametre) The originals were engraved... the reproductions are halftone greyscale and not at high resolution.(Comparable to the results I got printing a copy of the free *low resolution* images from the Galica "Dimensions" text.

The presentation of information by Galica *far* exceeds the reproduction quality of the book, and many of the contemporary works available on Google are also easier to use. I was very clear why I was critical of the book, and I don't think that a 'vast trove' is terribly useful if it is too soft to *reliably* read, when it is possible to find the same information largely for free. The bibliography may be worth the asking price, but try to use higher quality reproductions rather than the book as printed, it will be easier (also cross check data against proportions, as transposition errors crop up fairly commonly in the sources (e.g Lafay, showing 381 kg weight where an ordnance should be 831kg, as confirmed both by a 'sanity check' of the ordnance/shell ratio and the 'cost per kg' of bronze.

[allanyed]

23 minutes ago, Lieste said:

I don't think that a 'vast trove' is terribly useful if it is too soft to *reliably* read, when it is possible to find the same information largely for free.

I totally agree, why pay for a modern reproduction when the contemporary information is available for free.   I don't mind spending money when necessary, but in this case for the 1787 pattern of French cannon, it was available in good quality at no cost.   Now, where can I find similar information on earlier versions of French (and Spanish) guns?🙂

 

We have drawings of seven patterns in their various calibers and lengths for English sea ordnance from 1625 to the early 19th century (over 90 drawings) and would like to have a complete accounting for Spanish and French patterns as well.  

 

Allan

[Waldemar]

 

"Always" the same - economic input, economic output. I give up.

 

 

[Lieste]

No. It isn't that. I bought Boudriot Artillerie and 'The 74 Gun Ship" I found 'Artillerie" less usable than the same information available within contemporary sources (it isn't all... but I think I have 2 tables of dimensions and one pattern of gun diagrams I haven't found and extracted readable data from. My complaint is purely one of quality and usability. (And a certain wariness of 'to the lowest cost, but without prices to suit 'reference works which are unusable) Boudriot Artillerie is better than most, but don't exaggerate the utility, when you can't read the drawing dimensions at all. You *can* on the better quality "free" resource from a national library you are sp quick to dismiss as 'random.and in many other contemporary documents imaged by libraries, or available as high res scan at a cost e.g from some German libraries/museums.

I'm not a native French speaker, like at all... so it is incomparably more useful to have both a clear drawing with the dimensions clearly indicated at their proper landmark (and repeated which has helped with table errors/unclear glyphs than to have a faint, barely legible drawing a bare fuzz for a dimension, and even some 'labels' unclear or unreadable..

[Waldemar]

 

Lieste, that's okay, yet, in my opinion you are looking for a hole in the whole, because no one here will even try to read these dimensions given in feet, inches, lines and points (although they are perfectly legible in the tables), they will most likely just do a quick, hassle-free redraw of the graphic. And also in this sense Boudriot's monograph may be even regarded as an overkill for the needs of this project.

 

Also, try to explain to others (I don't need to), that they should be content with the gun barrels only without carriages and implements, and whether the 1786 artillery system can be used for the time of, say, the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War or the War of American Independence.

 

 

[Lieste]

It is not as I have been quite clear, the only such high quality contemporary source which is available, and (nearly?) every contemporary diagram and table in Boudriot is found in formats much more accessible and amenable to close examination, and with their *entire* context attached - in various dated Memoires d'Artillerie, Ordonnonces de Roi etc.

I also indicated the Maritz document available as a more readable facsimile (judging solely by the pdf advertisement it is true, from ANCRE, which looks tempting... but I was disappointed by the quality of the 'best resource on Artllerie de Mer' and somewhat put off buying a copy.

If you have lots of money and no strong desire to spend it on something else, then Arillerie de Mer is a good bibliography, but I would suggest looking to see if a library, museum or open-book project has digitised the tables and drawings in better quality elsewhere once you identify the material he uses. If you don't find it, no harm, no foul, but just look at the quality difference and say that there is no problem with the reproduction.
I bought it for the tables, and was disappointed in the print quality for those and for the contemporary drawings. He is "showing his workings" for his summary in the front work, but I can't use it to 'follow along', as I can with the actual source documents, online.

My current interest is in the ordnance itself, rather than affuts et attrailles; Armements, assortiments, accessoires et gréement des bouches à feu ... but these other items can be found in the sources available too... just not that one link.

To reiterate... the print quality I got from my home printer and the free offline pdf of the 1786 dimensions was superior to that of the reproduction in the not inexpensive book... and if I am working online I can also zoom in to the original on-site pages to at least an order of magnitude better resolution and clarity where I am struggling with the print out (which has advantages of being loose leaf and flat too. .. Not just that document either but dozens on Galica and more on Googlebooks and other museum and libraries and digitisation projects for open access of library resources paid or free to access as a social resource.
 

[Waldemar]

 

Again, it all comes down to the fact that everyone has their own individual needs and possibilities, including financially, without forgetting about time, which can be even more valuable than money. In this sense, it can be considered that there is no single right. This is how I will conclude.

 

 

[wefalck]

On the other hand, modern authors have to draw on either printed sources of the time or on archival material.

 

Over the last few years many, if not most, of the printed sources have become available as digital copies through national libraries. Unfortunately, for most of the works that were digitised on behalf of Google they did not bother to unfold the plates/tables and, therefore, such copies are often pretty much wasted effort. The BnF usually does a good job in digitising their works.

 

The main value of modern works is having evaluated archival material (if really done), as this typically (still) is not accessible remotely. Archival work is time-consuming and costly, when involving travel.

 

Otherwise, if the research was done properly, the reference list may be the most valuable part in modern works - useful to give indications where to look further.