18 Pounder Battery

[priv]

Dear Pals,

I am asking a little guidance here on the matter of an 18 Pounder Battery. I am aware that each Battery was made up of 6 Guns, but am intrigued as to how the whole complement was split between Gun Crews, Drivers, Farriers etc - not forgetting the officers, and anyone else. My grandfather served in 2/A Battery of the HAC and I have a collection of related medals etc. I am just wanting to put numbers, people etc into perspective.

Can anyone enlighten me or steer me to a good website or book that would help.

Many thanks

James

[Hoplophile]

There were two basic kinds of 18-pounder battery. Regular Army batteries formed before the war were six gun batteries. Regular Army and New Army batteries formed in 1914 and 1915 were four gun batteries. (Territorial Force batteries that converted to 18-pounders in the second-half of 1915 were also organised as four-gun batteries.) In 1916, a thoroughgoing reorganisation of the field artillery led to the conversion of four-gun batteries into six gun batteries.

I don't have official establishments for all of the aforementioned types and sub-types. I will provide, however, a precis of the 1914 war establishment for a six-gun 18-pounder battery. I suspect that the establishment for most four-gun 18-pounder batteries was the same as this basic organisation with one two-gun section removed.)

The battery consisted of:

one major, officer commanding

one captain, second-in-command

three subalterns, section leaders

one battery sergeant major

one battery quartermaster sergeant

seven sergeants

one farrier sergeant

four shoeing smiths (one of whom ranked as a corporal)

two saddlers

two fitters or wheelers

two trumpeters

ten batmen (officers' servants)

two drivers from the Army Service Corps

seven corporals

eleven bombardiers

75 gunners

70 drivers

The battery was divided in to a headquarters and three sections. The headquarters contained the OC, 2-i-C, BSM, BQMS, the tradesmen (farrier, smiths, saddlers, wheelers), trumpeters, some of the drivers, one of the sergeants, and a handful of the corporals, bombardiers and gunners. Each section consisted of a subaltern (lieutenant or 2/lieutenant), two sergeants, a minimum of six drivers (three per gun/limber combination), and a proportion of the remaining corporals/bombardiers/gunners.

A four gun battery might have had fewer tradesmen (perhaps one less shoeing smith.) Most of the difference between the four-gun and six-gun organisation, however, lay with the sections.

[priv]

Many, many thanks - that was exactly the information I was after.

Thanks

James

[Chris_Baker]

You can find this kind of organisational information on The Long, Long Trail, in the area named Army Terms and Definitions.