French artillerie calibers: interesting finding

Hi there
I've just read something quite interesting and ... funny to say the least, about french artillery calibers after 1801.

In 1801, Napoléon reorganized the artillerie, and updated most of the regiments. New organization, but also new guns.
The standard french 6 and 8 lbs guns were kept, but a small modification was made to the canon balls.
Instead of being 6.0 or 8.0 lbs, they became 6.001 and 8.001 lbs.
It became quite common before 1801 for the french and Austrian/Prussian to steal each other canon balls during battles.

By making the caliber of the french artillerie slightly bigger, the french were still able to steal Austrian or Prussian canon balls for using in their own guns -with a small accuracy loss because of the smaller canon balls though- but Austrians and Prussians werent able to put french canon balls in their own guns

It's funny to see such a move from the man who brought the metric system to Europe -and the world!-

I thing it was a smart thing to do...Sometimes i think in those times ppl were able to do things like this but they feared something... For example why they did not in 3 ranks 1st rank shoot and 2nd and 3rd reload muskets and hand it to 1st rank..

Originally Posted by Eet Mike

I thing it was a smart thing to do...Sometimes i think in those times ppl were able to do things like this but they feared something... For example why they did not in 3 ranks 1st rank shoot and 2nd and 3rd reload muskets and hand it to 1st rank..

Because it does not work in combat. Men are not machines.

The French regulations specified that only the first and second ranks were to fire. The men in the third rank were to reload the muskets of the men in the second and pass them forward for firing. There are pictures of this being done in practice but whether it was always adhered to in action is doubtful.

The British 'Brown Bess' musket had a similar advantage, as it used a larger caliber of bullet than French muskets it would mean that captured French ammunition could be used with little or no disadvantage by the British, while the French would have found it impossible to use any captured British ammunition as they would not fit the muzzle.