COBI French Artilleryman-Cannon Set 20093

COBI's French Artilleryman and Cannon is built from 97 blocks: a 12-pounder gun of the Gribeauval system with a cast barrel and a movable carriage, a ramrod for servicing it, an ammunition chest with roundshot, and a gunner in the dark blue coat and red-pompomed shako of the French artillery. No stickers.

The system behind the guns

Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval reorganised French artillery in the 1770s, and what he did was less about the guns than about the paperwork. He fixed a small number of standard calibres — 4-, 8- and 12-pounders plus a 6-inch howitzer — and specified every carriage, wheel, axle and fitting to drawings, so that parts made in one arsenal fitted a gun made in another. A wheel from a damaged piece went straight onto another gun. Carriages were lighter, so batteries kept up with infantry instead of trailing behind.

This was interchangeable manufacture decades before industry made it ordinary, and it is a large part of why French artillery was the best in Europe by 1800. It also mattered to one particular officer: Napoleon trained as a gunner, made his name at Toulon with artillery, and built his battle plans around massed batteries. He said flatly that it was the guns that won battles.

In the COBI range

Part of the Napoleonic Wars series. The figure sets (20094, 20098) supply infantry to fight over the position, and the Borodino diorama (20091) the commander.

Specifications

Pieces: 97 · Figures: 1 · Also included: ramrod and ammunition chest with roundshot