Big guns in the wilderness, literally in the middle of nowhere. No horses or other pack animals to pull them. Just men – a tough job.
So, artillery doesn’t move by itself. The (British) Royal Artillery was greatly understaffed at Carillon and had to rely on (provincial) troops to pull the heavy guns, howitzers and mortars to the front line. Even the gun crews were supplemented by men from the regular infantry companies.
The overwhelming numbers of the British army looks a little less overwhelming when you have to dedicate a good number of units to unload artillery and supplies from rafts (radeaux), transport the heavy weapons to the front line, clear roads to allow heavy artillery to reach places like the Rattlesnake Mountain which has a clear line of fire to the fort, or build various fieldworks to prepare an assault or siege.
Most of the French artillery sits inside the fort. It can be moved, but at a cost (try lifting a 5000 pound / 2500 kg piece of iron). Montcalm had a few 6-pounders with his troops close to the sawmill when the British landed, but they soon withdrew back to the fort. The British, on the other hand, arrived with an artillery train of over 40 pieces loaded on various rafts – prepared to force their way through any French resistance. There wasn’t any. Once the main army had landed, they had to start unloading these often massive pieces from radeaux (rafts) and it wasn’t exactly a top priority as the British commander James Abercromby* was rushing his army forward before the expected French reinforcements arrived.
Below is a French naval 18-pound cannon (actually, two of them), in the safety of the fort’s walls. Because of the naval or garrison carriage, it has very limited mobility (for now, only 4 movement points – these may and do often change as the game development and testing progresses). It’s an iron piece, as you may guess from “Irn”. I haven’t fully decided the difference between an iron and a brass piece yet. Time will tell… “H” means its heavy. And heavy means it is quite difficult to move, although it does pack quite a punch.
What about the “4-9”? What’s invisible at this time due to space restrictions is the “short” range of two hexes (should be 2-4-9). Short range means firing canister / case / grape against a soft target, such as infantry. Or battering down a fort wall with maximum effectiveness. “4” is the medium range, i.e. point blank (the shot flies more or less level) for this particular cannon type. “9” is long range – the distance in hexes you can fire but obviously with (quite a bit) less probability of actually hitting something or causing damage with a hit.
I will leave discussing overcharging artillery for later, once I have decided how to handle it.
PS. The images on the counters are definitely not final.
* Abercromby, Abercrombie. Take your pick.