Strongarming Armstrong

Even in matters as specific as the establishment of British regular artillery, TFSmith makes many mistakes.

As of the time of the Civil War, the British Army had just rearmed with the brand-new Armstrong Gun - a rifled breechloader made of wrought iron. A weapon of mixed reputation today, the Armstrong gun was nevertheless breathtakingly accurate and powerful compared to what had gone before - in testimony to Parliament it was reported that the 12 pdr field gun could put the majority of shots into a five-yard target at 3,200 yards, and it was equipped with the Armstrong "Pillar" fuze which allowed it to burst on contact with the target. By almost any measure it was the best artillery piece of the day not built by Krupp, with the main competition coming in the form of the Whitworth gun (a better specialist long-ranged piece).

The Royal Navy was also rearming with Armstrongs of a heavier grade (up to 7 inch bore), which were able to shoot shell several feet into a masonry wall and hit at a very great range compared to American smoothbore heavy artillery. This gave the Royal Navy a useful advantage


In Burnished Rows of Steel, very little of this is evident.
The new version of the timeline describes them correctly at Rouses Point:

The breech-loading 12 pounders of Battery D of the Royal Artillery were among the most modern artillery pieces in the world; their accuracy was such that a well-trained gunner could actually snipe with them,

but the battle unfolds with little or no actual advantage taken of this property, and indeed the Americans in Fort Montgomery outshoot the British with Parrott 20-pdr rifles at a range of one mile (to the "railway line" upon which the British for some reason deploy their 12-pdrs even in the corrected version of the battle, despite the rail line not existing.) There is a terminological error here, however, in that the correct terminology is “D battery”.

TFSmith describes the Armstrong guns in marginalia as "so much expensive scrap" within a few years, and being technically immature. While it is true they were replaced, this was due to concerns about their reliability - concerns which led to not a single casualty, while the American Parrott guns sometimes killed over a dozen gunners in a single engagement.
Another entry in the marginalia describes the British guns as “first generation” breechloaders, and that second generation breechloaders are “usable” - that is, that the Armstrong gun is not usable.


In chapter 9 the guns are described as "problematic" and the Canadian field artillery (who are acting as artillery for British divisions) are arming with smoothbore 9 pounders in preference. Grant also thinks this:

This part of Lower Canada is flat, as flat or even more so than Illinois, where at least there are some hills, Grant thought. Have to be cognizant of that – no cover, but no heights, either; the artillery would be firing at the same elevation as the infantry … which helps us; the better range of the British 12 pounders in comparison to our field pieces will not be as much of a factor.

If this was shown to be incorrect, all would be fine; as it is, the picture presented is one where shell-firing rifled artillery accurate to within five yards at 2,800 yards range is effectively the same on flat ground as a smoothbore cannon unable to send a cannonball beyond 1,600 yards.
When rolling terrain appeared in the previous chapter, it was treated as an advantage for the American infantry:

“Yes, ‘tis it does; actually, lovely ground for a fight – rolling country, lots of trees,” the colonel, slender and balding but with a flamboyant mustache, replied. “The boys can get at them with buck and ball in the close country, and the skirmishers can use their rifles to our advantage from the hills … same as those sharpshooters of Saunders’ said. Plenty of good spots to stand and pick out a man in red…”

Thus no terrain is bad for the Union or good for the British.





The Armstrong guns also appear in chapter 15 of the old version, where they achieve nothing. They are fired "blind" in their first appearance, do not do any damage to the American trenches in their second appearance, and the British shortly send their gunners in an infantry attack (where many of them are killed).

From Salmon Creek, Cameron continued moving south, through the more rugged country north and south of Beaver Creek, where his column took fire from 200-foot-tall Castle Hill; the British stopped again, deployed the 2nd Btn, 14th Regiment into line of battle, and the rifleman – who having thrown off their overcoats, were resplendent in scarlet tunics - moved up the hill with support from the brigade’s battery of Armstrong 12-pounders. The gunners, a mix of Royal Artillerymen and Royal Navy sailors, were firing blind, however, and the Americans, yet again, rode out of range, leaving a few more red coated infantry dead among the pines. The British camped closed up along Beaver Creek with the guns arrayed outward in the wagons providing some cover; Cameron’s men enjoyed a mostly quiet night and stood to in the morning.

That is it for appearances of the Armstrong gun. It appears two times in the field, providing no benefit on any occasion, and a third time simply to be disparaged; on ships there is no sign.
In marginalia TFSmith mentions that he believes that, in any war situation, the British would quickly replace their Armstrongs with “ML” guns – that is, muzzle loading. British ordnance parlance for a rifled muzzle-loader, such as the “Shunt” guns which replaced their Armstrong field guns, was “RML” - these were guns which had superior performance to the Armstrong itself, though had less development potential. As we shall see below, however, he does not appear to have used rifled muzzle loaders in the TL.



On at least two occasions, TFSmith makes major errors about the British artillery in other ways.
In the invasion of Maine, the British land an unspecified number of guns from “7^th Field Brigade, Royal Artillery” - the problem is that no such organization existed. The 7^th Brigade of the Royal Artillery was a garrison brigade, consisting of heavy (40pdr or 110pdr) Armstrong rifles for siege, position or garrison work, and some batteries were already serving this role in Canada historically.
While this is bad enough, the next instance is completely unforgivable.
During Berthierville (the battle making up most of chapter 9) the only British artillery about which we have any data – aside from the Canadian artillery brigade mentioned above – is the “6^th Field Brigade”. They are described as having “four batteries of field artillery” and having “24 18 pounders”.
1) The 18pdr was technically a field gun as distinct from a garrison or siege piece, but it was a position gun. These batteries 'do not manoeuvre, but they follow the movements of the army, ready to take up such positions as may be desirable'. They are not meant to go into action, and are instead 'moved by cattle obtained from the neighbouring farmers'. They had a platform wagon, because position guns are 'too heavy to be mounted on their carriages or dismounted without a gyn'. Comparing weights with the 12pdr Armstrong, the 18pdr weighs almost five times as much and the 40pdr weighs just over four times.
2) Position batteries are to be 'worked by men of the garrison brigades, or by militia and volunteer artillery'. The 6th was a garrison brigade, which is right for a position battery, but is described as a field brigade, which is wrong.
3) We are told that there are 4 batteries and 24 guns, but in a position battery 'the pieces of ordnance are reduced to four in number'
4) While there is a very, very slim justification for removing the 12pdr from service (as it was replaced within a few years, though by another rifle instead of by a smoothbore) the 40pdr remained in service with some units until at least 1902.



In this major battle by what is supposed to be the best the British can bring to the war, at least one quarter of their regular field artillery is composed of totally obsolete weapons superseded years before, being used in the wrong roles – despite the real historical production of the British Armstrong field gun being sufficient to totally re-equip the British army by this point.
It may be that this is the entire force - we are never told about Armstrong guns actually being at Berthierville, just the two “field artillery” units with smoothbores.






Since this is a major British advantage, by itself this is clear evidence of bias; making it utterly indefensible is that the Americans deploy machine guns and that this gets more attention. Chapter 15:

This work, the “Chamberlain Redoubt” (named after Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain) was manned by some of the remaining men of the 1st Maine, commanded at this point by the colonel’s younger brother, then-Major Thomas Chamberlain. Along with their rifles and muskets, they also had the equivalent of a battery each of 12 pounders and that unusual weapon, the Agar “Coffee Mill” gun. Sixty of the generally balky .58 Agars had been purchased in 1861 and parceled out among various fortified positions, including four that had found their way to Fort Knox. The Chamberlain brothers had taken an interest in them during the regiment’s training as heavy artilleryman, and the guns had been emplaced in the earthworks built up to protect the western flank of the fort over the summer and fall. The guns had been babied for months; they tended to jam and overheat if not, but if taken care of, they could lay down a prodigious amount of fire. The British assault was just the sort of situation the guns were meant for, and as the Scots infantrymen moved forward in open order, the gunners put them to use.

The sharp and repeating crack-crack-crack of the Agars was a different sound than the bang-ziz of standard rifles and the boom of muskets; as the Fusiliers moved forward, the guns began playing over the snow to the east of the redoubt, stopping the Scots in their tracks and leaving, an observer wrote later, “a perfect line of dead men, from one side of the vale to the other.” Combined with field artillery from the Redoubt and small arms and howitzer fire from the mountains looming over the road, the little valley turned into a charnel house. Most of the Scottish battalion fell in a period of minutes; Hill ordered the Buckinghamshires and Dorsetshires in as well, while Reid sent the Buffs and Northhumberland Fusiliers up each side of the little valley to try and clear the heights of Tillson’s infantry to the south, on Eustis Mountain, and Shepley’s to the north, on Heagan. At the same time, Reid ordered the Coldstream Guards forward to support Hill’s attack on the redoubt, even as more of Phelps’ division, including Weitzel’s 1st Brigade, slogged into the American line to the east.

Such is the timeline as a whole. Widely deployed modern British artillery gets less attention than a Union weapon which was never used operationally; American Parrott guns are deployed in great numbers despite the inventor having no time to invent them; the Union puts submersibles and spar torpedoes into action with ahistorical efficiency and speed, while British Armstrong guns show up only rarely and only to prove useless (being superseded by obsolete and heavy smoothbores in field use). It is unclear whether TFSmith is aware of the naval Armstrong gun at all, though if he knew of it he would probably have mentioned it proving unreliable and being replaced.