Page 128 - Wish Stream Year of 2016

British 6 pounder gun, dated 1812
loo. However, it is dif cult to prove as there is no documentary evidence in the Sandhurst archive which supports this. Indeed, two have the date marks of 1859, but the remainder do have the dates of 1812.
British 6 pounder gun, dated 1859, with French 12 pounder in background, in usual position on square
lest they be injured. This was certainly a consid- eration given that the cadets would mount and dismount pieces on the parapets and within embrasures of the eld forti cations which they had constructed in the RMC grounds.
These lighter 6 pounder guns had block trail carriages – a light design consisting of a single block of wood running down from the barrel which concentrated the weight over the wheels (unlike the bracket trail) but which was strong enough to absorb the recoil. This also made the gun
easier to move into position. A remarkable fea- ture about the carriages of the guns dated 1859 is that the central portion, consisting of the axle- tree and cheeks, still retains its original wood- work and is stamped with the date of 1859.
The guns dated 1859 were some of the last produced before the introduction of ri ed artil- lery and as such, are the most honed and ef - cient version of smooth bore gun technology ever made for the British Army. Hitherto, one of the principal problems had been the dif culty of casting shot into a perfect sphere. Accord-
It is, however, more likely that these
guns were used by the Sandhurst
cadets themselves. Although the
Royal Military College was an insti-
tution which trained cadets for the
cavalry and infantry, the cadets, at
various points in the college’s his-
tory, were taught the prevailing gun
drill on a standard eld piece. The overall reason for this was that cadets developed an under- standing of the artillery arm in the attack and defence of fortresses and meant they could man the guns if the gunners themselves had been shot down in action. The cadets used smaller guns such as the 6 pounder operated by horse artillery or, later in the century, a 12 pounder Armstrong gun. The lighter guns were used because the authorities acknowledged that the cadets’ physique was still developing and it was not considered desirable, or indeed necessary, for them to be given large pieces to manoeuvre
RMC Cadets at gun drill, c.1881
This also made the gun easier to move into position.
126 HISTORICAL