myArmoury.com - History of artillery carriages and limbers?

Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia

Fri 13 Jun, 2008 1:30 am

History of artillery carriages and limbers?

I recently came across this image in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Limber1461.jpg

which seems like it's really a facsimile of a gun-and-limber assembly from 1461. But then it got me wondering: is the cart shown in the picture really a "limber" as we understand it? And where should I look if I want comprehensive and accurate information about the development of artillery carriages and limbers before the 18th century? Finally, I keep hearing the demonstrably untrue assertion that artillery limbers did not exist before the 18th century, but might there be a grain of truth in this--that is, was there an innovation in the first half of the 18th century that dramatically improved the mobility of guns of all sizes, or is the whole thing just a mistaken reference to the Gribeauval reforms?

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Daniel Staberg

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Posts: 570 Location: Gothenburg/Sweden

Fri 13 Jun, 2008 2:55 am

Re: History of artillery carriages and limbers?

Lafayette C Curtis wrote:

I recently came across this image in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Limber1461.jpg

which seems like it's really a facsimile of a gun-and-limber assembly from 1461. But then it got me wondering: is the cart shown in the picture really a "limber" as we understand it? And where should I look if I want comprehensive and accurate information about the development of artillery carriages and limbers before the 18th century? Finally, I keep hearing the demonstrably untrue assertion that artillery limbers did not exist before the 18th century, but might there be a grain of truth in this--that is, was there an innovation in the first half of the 18th century that dramatically improved the mobility of guns of all sizes, or is the whole thing just a mistaken reference to the Gribeauval reforms?

Regardless of what the caption says that's not a 15th Century cannon. Since it's taken from a 19t century work i'm not he least surprised at it's poor quality. Looks more like a Napoleonic or mid-late 18th Century cannon with 'Medieval' details added.

Limbers were around well before the 18th century You can see one in this painting of a 1514 battle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=8706860

And there is a Dürer print of an almost identical limber in use.
Photobucket image

And the same style of limbers in a 1530 print
Photobucket image

One thing to keep in mind is that the Gribeuaval reforms tend to be abit exaggerated in their importance by many writers . Several of his 'inventions' had been introduced in other armies some 50-60 years earlier.

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Lafayette C Curtis

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Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia

Fri 20 Jun, 2008 12:58 am

Re: History of artillery carriages and limbers?

Daniel Staberg wrote:

Regardless of what the caption says that's not a 15th Century cannon. Since it's taken from a 19t century work i'm not he least surprised at it's poor quality. Looks more like a Napoleonic or mid-late 18th Century cannon with 'Medieval' details added.

Ah. Too bad. I'm not as familiar as I want to be with 15th-century great ordnance, so I guess I have a right to beg forgiveness for having so easily mistaken the picture for a genuine medieval article.

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Limbers were around well before the 18th century

I'm already quite aware of that, but before this I had no pictorial references whatsoever to show me what they looked like--except for that spurious Wikipedia image. You've tripled the size of my picture collection on the subject overnight!

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