154 
SIEGE TRAINS. 
Carriages for 
siege-train 
purposes. 
Travelling 
carriages for 
guns of 35cwt. 
and under. 
The difficulty 
of working 
the 64-pr. 
with heavy 
charges. 
Siege Train Carriages. 
A judicious selection of the best system of mounting the guns 
of a siege train forms by far the most important feature in its 
organisation, and as the work to be performed is of various kinds, 
each requiring special consideration, it may be as well to divide 
the carriages into distinct classes, as follows:— 
1st. Travelling carriages. 
2nd. Carriages required for the more powerful battering guns, 
firing very heavy charges. 
3rd. Beds for howitzers, firing lower charges, but much 
heavier projectiles. 
4th. Elevated carriages on wheels, for over-bank direct fire. 
5th. Carriages of the Moncrieff type. 
The use of travelling carriages for the 40 and 25-pr. M.L. and 
the 40 and 20-pr. B.L. guns is no doubt as it should be, as these 
guns at a siege may be frequently removed from point to point, 
and they are besides susceptible of transfer elsewhere for batteries 
of position. 
But experience * has long shown that the 64-pr. is far too heavy 
a gun for a travelling carriage, and it is invariably transported on 
a platform wagon (as in Diagram I.), whilst the difficulty of 
checking its recoil is already so great, even with a 12-lb charge 
and 64-lb. projectile, as to render a wheeled carriage practically 
inadmissible for fighting it upon. When the charge is increased, 
and a 90-lb. battering shot used as proposed, this carriage will 
certainly have to be dispensed with in favour of a garrison 
carriage,! with slide and compressor. 
* By the records of siege equipment sent to the Peninsula it appears that it was 
considered inexpedient in those days to transport even 24-prs. of 50 cwt. on travelling 
carriages, the whole of the guns of this weight, 75 in number, taken to the Siege of 
St. Sebastian, being provided with platform wagons. 
f In India, travelling carriages are not, as a rule, employed at sieges for fighting 
purposes, but simply for transporting the guns from place to place, garrison carriages 
accompanying the train, on to which the guns are transferred when required for use. 
The following memorandum was submitted in April, 1804, to Major-General the 
Hon. Arthur Wellesley by a very distinguished general officer of Artillery, serving 
under his orders in India, and although these opinions are more than half-a-century 
old, they are based on a wide experience of siege operations, and may not be 
considered out of place in discussing the subject of siege equipments. 
“ I do not hesitate to give it as my opinion, from my own experience, that an error has 
been cherished by many Artillery officers respecting travelling carriages, following the 
construction given by authors and others who have gone before them, without allow¬ 
ing their own judgment to operate, and consequently conceiving that all descriptions 
of gun carriages, taken with an army into the field, whether for battering guns or 
otherwise, should be constructed in some degree as field-piece carriages, on high-spoke 
wheels, and long cheeks. This, in my opinion, is by no means necessary. For what 
experienced officer, unless obliged, would think of transporting an 18 or 24-pr. 
battering gun on its own carriage ? Therefore, if the battering guns of an army are 
to be transported on sling carriages or platform wagons, surely it is not necessary to 
construct carriages on these old heavy expensive principles, while the simple truck 
carriage answers every purpose. It is light, and easy to be conveyed by lashing it to 
the same carriage that transports its gun. I am, nevertheless, of opinion, that it is 
necessary in all large garrisons to have in store a few of what are termed ‘ travelling 
carriages’ in case they should be wanted for emergent service.” 
