Foundry "Askari mountain gun" questions

[peachy rex]

A couple of questions about the Askari mountain gun (which has so recently made another appearance on these pages) whilst I await delivery of mine.

1 - Does it represent an actual gun? It looks an awful lot like pictures I've found of the American M1841 12 pounder mountain howitzer (which seems an odd gun to show up in Central Africa) or the essentially very similar French Obusier de 12 cm Valée (the inspiration for the American piece, and perhaps a more likely suspect.)

2 - How would one employ it in a game? I'm planning on using it as pocket artillery for a particularly well-capitalised and short-tempered explorer, but it doesn't seem to have many other applications if it is in fact a smoothbore - it's too sophisticated for the native powers (except perhaps Zanzibar) and not sophisticated enough for the "official" Europeans (or even the "semi-officials" like the early Force Publique or the British chartered companies) who can afford modern rifled pieces like the 7pdr.

Thoughts welcomed...

[MaleGriffin]

I'm not sure about the rules for posting links and crediting pictures etc., so I will simply I recommend doing a Wikipedia search for "RML 2.5 inch Mountain Gun." (Rifled Muzzle Loading...)

In short, guns like these provided artillery support where it would be difficult if not impossible for conventional artillery to go, hence the name "mountain gun." They could be broken down into manageable pieces for transport by animals or even humans.

You may also wish to do a Youtube search for the Royal Navy Field Gun Competition.
I'm pretty sure the Royal Artillery has a similar competition, but I remembered the Navy.

Absolutely AMAZING!

[Plynkes]

Hmmm. Don't think so. Artillery is something I know almost nothing about, but the RML 2.5" doesn't really resemble the model in question.

It's closer in appearance to the earlier RML 7pdr mountain gun, with it's extremely dinky size and very short barrel. Not saying that's what it's meant to be, mind. As I said, I don't know much about artillery.

Oh, and MaleGriffin, posting links is fine. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RML_7_pounder_Mountain_Gun

[Valerik]

A couple of questions about the Askari mountain gun whilst I await delivery of mine.

1 - Does it represent an actual gun?

Thoughts welcomed...

Probably not, looks awfully generic to me, cute, but lethal!!  Given the many iterations & variations of "modern" muzzle loading artillery in 19th C use, choosing a specific one to model, & market, would be challenging...

It looks an awful lot like pictures I've found of the American M1841 12 pounder mountain howitzer
Thoughts welcomed...

I thought so too from online pictures of Foundry's offering assiduously scrutinized...
A Mordecai pattern 12 pdr Mountain Howitzer tube on the pack carriage, rather than larger Prairie carriage.  Having served on both the "dimensions" & appearance seemed to match well enough, though the venue did not.

(which seems an odd gun to show up in Central Africa)

I do agree such a piece was out of place & time anywhere on the Dark Continent.
This not generally being an era when American weapons were sold world-wide.

or the essentially very similar French Obusier de 12 cm Valée (the inspiration for the American piece, and perhaps a more likely suspect.)

Thoughts welcomed...

BINGO!!  I believe we have a winner!!



This could be the very thing indeed!!  & a Continental provenance much more likely than trans-Atlantic.  Fits the 19th C timeline, & locale, nicely as well. The contours are also similar enough, in scale, to be believable.  Has anybody asked the Foundry folks?



I'd always been taught that colonial powers gave their native troops obsolete or even inferior heavy weapons, so a RML or RBL would violate such policy.  Wasn't the Indian Army after the Mutiny denied any artillery at all for many, many years?

2 - How would one employ it in a game? I'm planning on using it as pocket artillery for a particularly well-capitalised and short-tempered explorer, but it doesn't seem to have many other applications if it is in fact a smoothbore - it's too sophisticated for the native powers (except perhaps Zanzibar) and not sophisticated enough for the "official" Europeans (or even the "semi-officials" like the early Force Publique or the British chartered companies) who can afford modern rifled pieces like the 7pdr.

Thoughts welcomed...

Wasn't Stanley an early adopter of the Maxim?  Purely for self-defence, of course.

Any artillery sized comparable to a US M1841 is not strictly a crew served weapon.
One man CAN do the deed, though more preferred, obviously.

One well placed round of canister changes many minds in a crowd.

Granted a smoothbore can't reach out & touch folks like a rifled piece can,
however 1000 yards of range, even in the wide open spaces, isn't to be scoffed at.
Given that guns are most often to be found aboard ship or boat, or in fixed fortifications,
having one on the field of battle could be just the edge one needs.

From personal experience these little guns are highly mobile with a full crew, though obviously not at high speed over long distance.  You'd need many men in harness or with drag ropes to go cross country absent your livestock killed by the tsetse fly...  Though I find no visual evidence to confirm the doctrine, in theory you could break down the piece into regulation mule loads then sling them on carry poles for two or more men to tote.

As far as effects go, such a weapon ranges beyond muskets, and with or further than the most modern rifles.  The results would be brutal at close range with canister, and significant at maximum with shrapnel, less so with shell.  The closer, and denser, the targets, the more casualties.

Which rule set do you have in mind?

Valerik

"double-shot your guns and give 'em hell, Bragg"
Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor, Buena Vista, February 23, 1847

[peachy rex]

The recessed band around the breech is awfully distinctive - that's what first tipped me to the M1841 and its progenitor. My guess, having thought a bit more about it, is that it's meant to be a generic SML mountain gun, but the sculptor (Mr Copplestone, I presume?) used the obusier de montagne as his prototype. It's definitely not a 2.5", which has a distinctly longer and thinner barrel with the reinforced breech typical of early rifled artillery. And I'm fairly positive that it's not a 7pdr, which looks similar to the 2.5" but with a somewhat shorter barrel. (Foundry does make both, however, as do other companies - Perry & North Star have the 2.5", and Empress the 7pdr.)

I'm looking at "In the Heart of Africa" right now - it would be rated a ML Cannon (rather than a Field Gun, which given the stats probably means rifled pieces.) It fires slowly and moves very slowly, but it out-ranges just about anyone and is fairly cheap... the perfect "persuader" for a short-fused explorer. In addition to (hopefully) causing all sorts of havoc against massed troops, it will be quite handy against fortifications. And while I haven't yet come across a reference to an explorer toting a pack-gun around Africa, Fremont took an M1841 on at least one of his expeditions in the American West. (I'm thinking my main character will be a veteran of the NWF, and thus someone who fully appreciates the value of pocket artillery.)

I'll have a donkey in the baggage train to suggest one form of transport, but I agree that it should be man-portable - the barrel weighs 200 pounds, and the carriage (including wheels) 250. (You're quite right about the Indian Army, incidentally - post-Mutiny, and the relative success of the mutineer artillery, it was only allowed a few batteries of mountain guns.)