Militarized Artillery

So I've looked through the books, and I can't really find out what this really does for you.

Can somebody fill me in?

The way I have always understood it is that in the era in question civilians were employed to move the guns around, I take it that draught teams were hired when required. By having it fully in military hands I suppose you remove the danger of the civilians not wanting to go to far from home on campaign or doing a runner when the shooting starts & leaving your guns in the middle of a battle .

Don't confuse militarised artillery with Horse artillery, which should always be fully militarised, with all gunners either mounted on horses or riding on the guns themselves( Austrian style)

As far as I can see you are basically buying a security that your guns will move & hopefully do what you want them to, although has there been an in game event whereby civilians have refused to move guns?

It may also be that having fully military crews you could get better rates of fire as everyone is available to man the guns, although I have no idea if this has been taken into account in game.

I was going to say much the same as Jason I seem to vaguely recall a battle in G3 (?) at some stage where civilian crews ran off abandoning guns during a retreat?

I've also seen it as a sign of financial prestige-you can afford to have militarized artillery.

Historically, hired civilian contractors put the guns in position at the start of the battle then moved themselves and their valuable animals to a nice safe vantage point were they can watch the battle. Then did not collect the guns until the battle was over and it was safe to do so. This partly explains why defeated armies in our period lost so many cannon while later Napoleonic Armies were able to save so many more guns in defeat.

Civilian contractors also ment that that when guns were in place place they can not be moved again before the end of the battle (apart from very light guns which can be man handled). Not really a problem if they are pointing in the right direction but if they are not in the right place or the battle starts prior to their deployment then this can be a bit of a problem.

Classic example from just before our period is the battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset during the Monmouth Rebellion against James II ....the Rebel Night attack on the Royal Camp either paniced the civilian drivers who fled or they were still in the pub and not around to more the guns. Either way it needed the effort's of a Anglican Bishop and his coach horses to get some of the Royal Guns into action.

Ref the point about do "Militarized Artillery" move faster than civilian's......my theory is that this would be the case but only if the rest of the "Army Train" was also Militarized. Since in theory a Army would always have waggons/animals on hand to move its grain and other supplies etc and would not have to waste time on the hire of civilian contractors.

In game terms a "Miltarized Army Train" V the current abstract handling could save you the frustration of army units which suddenly go at 40 miles a month or slower and take 3 months to complete a move the average distances in the rules indicate should only take one month. But on the minus side if you suddenly turn your Whores, drivers, tapsters and other denizens of the Army Train into active Units and NPC's think of the ammo your are giving Richard:affraid: