What to do with capured artillery ?

[S Trauth]

It wasn't - and aside from the super light guns used in the 30 Years war- it was extremely ineffective- firing solid shot - solid shot used to knock down walls in sieges, not to hit opposing armies.

My point was -considering the relative numbers of guns in a battle -would the level of training provided foot then, be widespread enough whereby they'd know to spike a gun? Would there be enough ammo in the context (and limited time scale) of a field battle to even bother with.

Solid shot, being what it is -not overly effective at anything other than its impact on morale, would there be much point?

Ransom? Well I imagine I got misinterpreted -in that I was making the point that artillery was a high value piece of ordinance -that it would definitely be an object to take off of the other side - which was even moreso outside the impact it might have on the battlefield itself - and considering in Musket and Pike's engine, you can assign it whatever level of victory points that you want (as the designer). If I used 'ransom' it was more of a relevant statement of value, to say a person of nobility -where you wouldn't just kill someone from the other side in a battle as that person (as a captured item) was worth far more alive than dead -- same thing with artillery. Worth far more undamaged than damaged.

What I was saying is that artillery was not as major of an impact on the field of battle at this time (aside from the light guns used widely by Swedish forces) so that going so far as introducing blanket impacts for artillery that applied more commonly as artillery evolved into a fully fledged and distinct arm -as opposed to specialist equipment manned by private contractors/artisans, is probably giving common foot-soldiery additional capabilities and awareness that they simply did not have in this period -and that was due to the relative rarity of cannon on a battlefield (as it existed prior to 1631).

[Verdun1916]

It wasn't - and aside from the super light guns used in the 30 Years war- it was extremely ineffective- firing solid shot - solid shot used to knock down walls in sieges, not to hit opposing armies.

My point was -considering the relative numbers of guns in a battle -would the level of training provided foot then, be widespread enough whereby they'd know to spike a gun? Would there be enough ammo in the context (and limited time scale) of a field battle to even bother with.

Solid shot, being what it is -not overly effective at anything other than its impact on morale, would there be much point?

Ransom? Well I imagine I got misinterpreted -in that I was making the point that artillery was a high value piece of ordinance -that it would definitely be an object to take off of the other side - which was even moreso outside the impact it might have on the battlefield itself - and considering in Musket and Pike's engine, you can assign it whatever level of victory points that you want (as the designer). If I used 'ransom' it was more of a relevant statement of value, to say a person of nobility -where you wouldn't just kill someone from the other side in a battle as that person (as a captured item) was worth far more alive than dead -- same thing with artillery. Worth far more undamaged than damaged.

What I was saying is that artillery was not as major of an impact on the field of battle at this time (aside from the light guns used widely by Swedish forces) so that going so far as introducing blanket impacts for artillery that applied more commonly as artillery evolved into a fully fledged and distinct arm -as opposed to specialist equipment manned by private contractors/artisans, is probably giving common foot-soldiery additional capabilities and awareness that they simply did not have in this period -and that was due to the relative rarity of cannon on a battlefield (as it existed prior to 1631).

Well wheather or not black powder artillery was effetive or not in a field battle is debatable. Hand cannons, hand bombards, hand culverins, bastard culverines and culverins were all common anti-personell artillery by the 15th century on European battlefield. Grape shot is thought to have been used as early as the battle of Crécy in 1346. And heavier guns, cannons and bombards usually firing stone and later iron round shot were certainly used in field battles aswell during the early years of artillery. Again Crécy is one example of this. How effective they were doesn't really matter. They were obviously effective enough, otherwise they would not have been so widely used. And under emperor Maximilian I various types of field artillery for anti-personell use aswell as siege artillery evolved greatly. He himself sported around 105 pieces of artillery in his armies and arsenals. Note that I'm not claiming artillery were some sort of super battle winning weapon here. They were not. And by the 15th century they were not that rare either in most European armies.
Considering the amount of artillery aswell as various types of hand held guns, all off them using the simple touch hole, driving a nail or some other thin enough object through it to render them temporarely useless might not have been every common warriors knowledge, but it would certainly not be unknown outside the realm of the "private contractors/artisans" manning the guns. The professional soldiers in general, and the commanding officers in perticular would most certainly have understood the principle of spiking a gun in a situation were you could not defend or retire it. And the latter would certainly have understood the importance and the value of artillery, and the importance of preventing the enemy to get their hands on the guns in working order. And spiking was just one way to prevent the enemy from taking your guns and instantly dragging them away or turning them on their previous owners.

So if we see spiking the guns in game not just as the litteral action of driving a nail into a touch hole with a hammer, but rendering a piece of artillery temporarily useless, no matter the method I don't see how this should be limited to mid 17th century or later titles to be honest.

When refering to the light Swedish artillery of Gustav II Adolf I hope you are not thinking of the so called leather cannons! These were only a small number of experimental guns that saw field testing during the Swedish-Polish war from 1628 and onwards prior to Swedens entry into the 30 years war. And they very quickly showed themselfs to be a flawed design not worthwhile pursuing. There are no evidence, that is no Swedish sources, that any of these guns were still in use by 1630-1631 when the Sweden entered the 30 years war. However somehow the story of these guns have grown into almost mythical proportions outside of Sweden. Probably alot thanks to their popularity within the table top wargaming community and in certain History Channel related content. The Swedish light artillery were 3 pound copper guns.