American Artillery War

1339 Words6 Pages

American artillery has under gone a large evolution and many changes since its Colonial birth in 1775. The Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and the Mexican War also brought many significant experiences to the Department of the Army. Mainly as to the important impact that American artillery holds on the stronghold of America and to the future of field artillery.
On June 17, 1775, Colonist fought against British occupying soldiers, which started the American Revolutionary War. The Colonist defeated the British soldiers and acquired their artillery pieces, which birthed the American field artillery (Dastrup, 1992, p. 13). With a new army that would use the deployment of cannon fires, Congress had to acquire more artillery pieces. As the Colonial …show more content…

The Revolutionary War had required the Artillery Corp to enlist over 7,000 artillerymen split into four regiments. The country’s economic state reduced the artillery regiments from four to one and later down to only twenty-five privates. The end of the first decade brought rumors of war with Britain again and in 1812, a new war had emerged. The War of 1812 began and 12,000 Americans would be called to fight as artillerymen. The artillery elements belonged to their regimental units, but were assigned to company elements that controlled their maneuvers. Because the artillery regiments were disbanded, all the artillery knowledge that was once developed was lost. Company commanders did not know how to properly use these howitzers. This lack of structure was a result of no proper artillery knowledge, weak artillery leadership and the lack of overall military doctrine for military employment. Most of the artillery elements found themselves using artillery power only to repel foes rather than destroy them. Afterwards most of the artillerymen ended up disbanded as artillery and re-designated as infantrymen towards the end of the war in 1815 (McKenny, 2007). The Artillery Corp had reached its lowest point in U.S. history, and would not gain America’s confidence again until the war with …show more content…

These munitions combined with modernized technologies and training provides accurate and precise, lethal and nonlethal effects on targets. Being used in any terrain with the varying types, from self-propelled tracked howitzers, towed pieces, and even air dropping or air lifted to any position to emplace and range