Saving artillery crew by removing them from guns

[Southern Hunter]

Can somebody remind me how to do this? I saw somebody do it recently, but I cannot remember how to do it myself.

(For example, when threatened by cav, you remove the crew and go and hide them in a nearby infantry square, then return to the guns when the cav has gone)

[crucify_ego]

Really? Wow never knew that

[marcp]

Heya" I have only just started playing ETW a few days ago but at least once I had used the ALT+right click to have my artillery run from the guns and melee by mistake. Like in Medieval 2 and Rome 1 you can alt+right click to have them pull their knives if they have a weapon I suppose and melee, but I hadn't thought to use this as a tactic yet in ETW.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

If time permits it is better to limber and move the arty to square for safety, or move infantry to square the arty. Leaving the guns using alt-right click will render the guns unlimbered for the rest of the battle.

[AdventureInc]

When my artillery is being rushed I usually make them melee then stop that command and put them behind save lines or in an infantry square, sorry if this isn't the proper way to do it.

[AstaDVM]

In historic terms it was a bad idea generally to abandon your guns if you could move them to a place of safety such as behind a firing line where they could set up again in a new firing position or take shelter in a square if threatened by cavalry. I haven´t played the game enough yet to know if once you have removed the gunners if it is possible to reman the battery after the threat has been removed. Normally, if a battery was about to be overrun, the gun crews might spike their own guns by hammering a barbed nail or spike into the touch hole to prevent the enemy from turning the captured guns onto the retreating enemy. Likewise, if the enemy forces overrunning a battery but unable to remove the guns as they fell back, might spike the guns if the enemy had not already done so to prevent them from being remanned. A spiked gun was normally out of action for the duration of a battle since it was a complicated matter to bore the spike out and probably rebush the vent hole, so if one cannot reman a battery in the game, even if the gun crews survive, it would be historically fairly accurate.