Memoir of the Services of the Bengal Artillery / From the Formation of the Corps to the Present Time, with Some Account of Its Internal Organization

by E. Buckle

The committee therefore without hesitation proposed the introduction of the Madras carriage, with exception to the wheels and elevating-screw, the Bengal wheels and the royal 3–pounder screw being considered better.

The Military Board, on the suggestion of the commandant of artillery (Colonel Deare), recommended that the Madras Government should be requested to send round musters of their 6–pounders, and 5½-inch howitzer-carriages, and Lord Cornwallis approved of the plan. Colonel Deare was also requested to correspond with Colonel Giels (who had commanded the Madras Artillery in the campaign) on the subject of any defects which he might consider to exist in the carriages in question. This correspondence has not fallen in our way, and it seems doubtful whether the Madras carriage was at this time introduced. Up to 1801 no pattern seems to have been permanently fixed on, or else the Madras pattern had intermediately fallen into disrepute, for, as will be hereafter noticed, some modification of the Bengal pattern was at this time preferred.

The Madras pattern alluded to is believed to have been a block trail—the trail divided in two pieces, with the cheeks on each cut out from the solid timber; the trail was very long and the limber had a projection with a limbering-hook at the end (Plate No. 2). The chief faults in this construction were the waste of timber in cutting out the trail and cheeks; the unnecessary length of the trail, which, although it rendered the recoil easier, yet made the draught heavier; and this was again increased by the projection in rear of the limber. Another, and a serious evil, arose from the lever with which the weight of the carriage acted on the cattle in draught, the axle of the limber being the fulcrum. This pattern, however, considerably modified, became the galloper or horse-artillery carriage in Bengal.

It is, however, worthy of notice, how nearly the principle of this carriage corresponds with that of the royal pattern introduced twenty years later, and now the standard of all India; had the fantail been cut off, and the limbering-hook attached to the axle-bed, there would have been little difference; and it is strange that this was not done, for the objection had been seen and noticed in the siege-carriages, and a remedy adopted, not indeed by giving the hook to the axle-bed, but by lowering the limber-wheels and fixing a moveable pintle on the bolster.

The matériel equipment was again submitted to the consideration of a committee early in 1801; Lieutenant-Colonel MacIntyre was the president, and Major Gordon, Captains Grace, Wittit, and Johnson, members. By this time a muster-carriage for the horse artillery had been made up on the general principle of the Madras pattern, by Major Glass, and in Colonel Greene’s letter of instructions to the committee, he says it is “well adapted for the purpose, and can be used with equal efficacy with a line of infantry;” its particular construction was recommended to the committee’s consideration, “but at the same time, as many field-carriages are wanted immediately, and cannot be delayed so long as required to complete carriages on that pattern,” he advised “the adoption of the 6–pounder as altered by Colonel Duff, in preference to the present field-carriage, for the service in the line of infantry, it being much lighter, and having been found on trial sufficiently strong.”

The committee gave the preference to the pattern then in use, that is, apparently, the old one with a few alterations, such as making the axletree equally thick all through, the cheek-bolts through the axle-bed, the elevating screw-box being removed from the centre transom and placed a little in front, and its shoulders working in gudgeons fitted to the cheeks; and their recommendation was adopted by the board, who ordered the 6–pounder carriages then wanted to be made of this construction.

An experiment was also made at this time with iron[^[33]] cheeks for a horse artillery gun-carriage; the wooden ones were, however, preferred, but unfortunately no record appears of the reasons on which the iron cheeks were disapproved; it would be interesting, now that the question of iron carriages has been agitated; it is one of the many instances which a research into the history of artillery shews perhaps more than any other science, “the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.”

Another instance may be given. In 1840, Major Timbrell made a pair of flat twisted chain traces for pole-horses, and being found very convenient, the experiment was tried on a larger scale. Captain Brind’s troop was equipped with them, as also was another on the march to join the Army of Reserve in 1842, but they failed from the difficulty of insuring perfectly good workmanship. In December, 1800, “the commissary of stores is ordered to have a set of flat chains made up in the arsenal as soon as possible, for the traces of the (experimental horse artillery) harness.”

At this time then there were two patterns of light field-carriages in use,—one a beam-trail with the galloper-guns; the other a double-cheek with the foot artillery and battalion guns. In the accompanying sketches, Plate No. 3 represents the galloper-carriage, while the foot artillery retained a double-cheek pattern, modified from No. 1.

We must now follow the ammunition-carriages up to the same point, and in so doing less difficulty exists, as the changes which have taken place are more marked.