A military history of the 17th century and the 18th century
Friday 17 May 2019
French Royal Rousillon regiment in camp
Not sure whether we have had this before but as someone mentioned it in the comments I thought it wouldn't hurt. It was fairly recently bought by Fort Ticonderoga and the details are here. Depicts the regiment 1740-8 period.
The guns seen here may be old guns (maybe not even of French provenience). The barrels look very old-fashioned and as if they were made of iron - like naval gun barrels -, not bronze. Certainly, I'd not exclude the possibility that some older carriages were not repainted. So, some gun carriages may still have been red - or left natural-coloured (I think both options seem possible in this instance), but overall the testimony of Van Blarenberghe (or Lenfant) has more weight, in my opinion.
No members of the artillery corps can be seen here, so the guns may not be field artillery pieces. I wonder whether they were kind of regimental guns, perhaps small guns easy to handle - sort of mountain guns (the scene is placed in the Piedmontese Alps) with special carriages, later described as "canons à la Suédoise" and "affûts à la Suédoise", respectively. I'm not aware of a source mentioning such pieces for the time of the WAS but they were definitely introduced in the French army during the Seven Years War (one gun per battalion). See here, p.12:
The guns seen here may be old guns (maybe not even of French provenience). The barrels look very old-fashioned and as if they were made of iron - like naval gun barrels -, not bronze. Certainly, I'd not exclude the possibility that some older carriages were not repainted. So, some gun carriages may still have been red - or left natural-coloured (I think both options seem possible in this instance), but overall the testimony of Van Blarenberghe (or Lenfant) has more weight, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteNo members of the artillery corps can be seen here, so the guns may not be field artillery pieces. I wonder whether they were kind of regimental guns, perhaps small guns easy to handle - sort of mountain guns (the scene is placed in the Piedmontese Alps) with special carriages, later described as "canons à la Suédoise" and "affûts à la Suédoise", respectively. I'm not aware of a source mentioning such pieces for the time of the WAS but they were definitely introduced in the French army during the Seven Years War (one gun per battalion). See here, p.12:
ReplyDeletehttps://books.google.ch/books?id=7Y9DAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=peinture+des+affuts+pieces+de+campagne&source=bl&ots=Na9NfVR1lg&sig=ACfU3U1cF9cc_NZ2Ss3RwbglKmNGmlh6ag&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxwOOw7aLiAhWRMewKHQ6SBEgQ6AEwCHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=1757%20canon%20%C3%A0%20la%20su%C3%A9doise&f=false
Comprehensive entries on gun carriages ("affûts", "affûts à la Suédoise"), BTW (p.8ff.), but nothing on how they were painted, as far as I can see.