woensdag 12 november 2014

Siege of Willemstad 1793


The look of a French battery at the siege of Willemstad, netherlands, 1793.

Which is an interesting picture as it shows various methods to bombard a city.
On the right the big bombards/houwitzers with their caracteristic fused bombs. In the middle "normal" siege guns which are probably using heated cannonballs as on the left cannonballs are heated to cause fire in the city.
For me it was new, that this last method was used against cities. I thought they were only used for shore batteries against ships.

A sortie against a French battery by the Dutch garrison.

This depicts the sortie on Friday, 15th march 1793 when in total 58 men (3 officers, two sergeants, 2 corporals, 6 artillery men and 45 men) attacked a French battery killing almost all French and made 3 siege guns unusable.

The troops came from the garrison battalions (1st Saksen-Gotha, batallion Bosc de la Calmette).
As the grenadiers of both battalions used bearskin the grenadiers in the back with (probably) mitres are portrayed wrong.

Geen opmerkingen: