[lbo-talk] Wedemeyer and cannons

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Tue Feb 28 11:02:21 PST 2006


This may be the sentence that suggests that Engels is offering Wedemeyer cannons. It's ambiguous.

CB

"You may have any number of Prussian howitzers, as they have all been withdrawn now and replaced by rifled 6-pounders and 4-pounders (which fire 13-pound and 9-pound heavy shells). " Engels to Weydemeyer

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_03_10.htm

Engels To Joseph Weydemeyer In St Louis

________________________________

Source: MECW Volume 42, p. 121; First published: abridged in Die Neue Zeit, 1906-1907, and in full in Marx and Engels, Works, Moscow, 1934.

-clip-

Incidentally, I am most grateful to you for your explanations about military organisation in America, it was only as a result of them that I obtained a clear picture of many aspects of the war there. I have been familiar with the canons Napoléon for many a long year, the English had already replaced them (light, smooth-bore 12-pounders with a charge weighing 1/4 of the ball) when Louis Bonaparte re-invented them. You may have any number of Prussian howitzers, as they have all been withdrawn now and replaced by rifled 6-pounders and 4-pounders (which fire 13-pound and 9-pound heavy shells). I am not surprised that the elevation of your howitzers is only 5°, it was no higher with the old long howitzers the French had (until 1856), and, if I am not mistaken, the English ones were only a little more. In general, the high-angle fire from howitzers has been used for a long time only by the Germans; its great unreliability in range-finding in particular had brought it into disrepute



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list