Its 1809 Spain and Napoleons Army is unstoppable as they push ever westward.  The Spanish Army is in state of total disarray as they retreat westward with their British allies.  In an attempt to crush the defenders once and for all Marshall Stout decides to take them on outside the city of Talavera.  Confident of victory, he outnumbers the retreating allies two to one with twice the amount of artillery. The rolling hills are soon filled with armed men.  The French precede their attack by a walking artillery barrage.  Confident in their numbers, they proceed forward in squares giving up firepower to not have to deal with cavalry.  Before them was the thin red line of the British in its two ranks lined battalion to battalion.  The British Cavalry was kept in the rear and to the flanks to deter the French Calvary.

This is the days of the smooth bore musket such as the Brown Bess.  The Brown Bess was a smooth bore flintlock, which for all practical purposes was only accurate to 60 paces.  These were days when men lined up and fired in order until overwhelming firepower won the day.  The strength of the Brown Bess was it could be reloaded five times in one minute. At the time of this battle the British infantry was the only infantry in the world that trained with live ammunition. This definitely gave them the rate of fire advantage.  The twin lines of the British firing in volleys by rank gave them the advantage of amount of fire since the squares of the French hampered those in the center from firing.

The battle started much as any other in those days with skirmishers confronting skirmishers to allow the body under attack in this case the British to form.  Unlike other battles the French followed closely behind their skirmishers and between the cannons, skirmishers, and squares up to 50% of the light companies employed as British skirmishers fell before they could reform on the British line.  The walking artillery let up as the French neared musket range for fear of hitting their own men.  Unfortunately due to the terrain, the British line did not take substantial casualties from artilary.  

The battle for the British started like many other with the command front rank kneel, present, front rank fire, load, second rank fire, load, front rank fire.  The commands were given over and over.  The French after suffering casualties two to one to the British finally retreated and the British were given a victory in the midst of defeat.  Its from this battle that General Wellesley was made the Duke Wellington.

Now for the fun!  Let’s say you could go back in time with hand weapons only one type and enough for one battalion. The British had about 15 battalions in the battle and the French twice that.  The generals as would expect are dubious of your new weapon so your influence on tactics would be minimal however you can deploy your weapons and train those to use them.

Keeping in mind the education or lack I should say of the average infantryman of the time, what weapon would you take?  How would you disperse them and what effect would you expect it to have on the battle?

This ought to be interesting.

Tj

A B-52!

In keeping it simple I would bring a few batteries of light artilley. Very simple Arty like an Ig-18.  75mm and very mobile.

It works as simply as a break open shotgun. It is made for direct short range infantry support so it would be great in this role.

Training would be minimal.  Loader could be anyone trained to do it fast. Gunner could be trained very quickly and easily.  The gun commanders and battery commanders would need a level of training but this would still be quick for the job needed.

Massed thay could provide area denial to masses ranks. The gun is mobile enough to be moved by it's own crew and not need much horse support.

The accuracy would be devistating compaired to the artillery of the day despite it's smaller caliber.

Training time, 1 month and they would dominate the battlefield.  Not the greatest weapon, but likely to be accepted and easy to train on and use. Made for this role so it should work well.

Specs.

The leIG was primarily effective against “soft” targets such as; troops, buildings, fortified positions, and vehicles.  The leIG was capable of firing on tanks, however, it produced mixed results.  The “blast” area was quite effective against the soft targets.  The standard High Explosive round could produce an impact resulting in a 30 yard wide by 10 yard deep “kill zone” with large fragments traveling as far as 150 yards.  The armor piercing rounds were capable of penetrating up to 90mm (3 ½ inches) of armor plate at close range

Optics/sighting devices:  The gun was aimed by using a visible aiming device with an independent sight line and parabolic scope. This gave a four-fold magnification of a ten-degree field of vision.


Gun shells:
7.5cm IG shell 38 HL/A Armour-piercing 75mm penetration


7.5cm IG Shell 38 HL/B Armour-piercing 90mm penetration


Combat range against tanks: 2000 meters

Shell type

Inf. shell 18          5.45 Kg
Inf. shell 38 HL/A   3.1 Kg
Inf. Shell 38 HL/B   3.5 Kg

Range of Shells:  

7.5cm IG shell HE        3500 meters
7.5cm IG shell special  4600 meters


Some Russian troops with captured guns to show size.  

Quoted: In keeping it simple I would bring a few batteries of light artilley. Very simple Arty like an Ig-18.  75mm and very mobile. It works as simply as a break open shotgun. It is made for direct short range infantry support so it would be great in this role. Training would be minimal.  Loader could be anyone trained to do it fast. Gunner could be trained very quickly and easily.  The gun commanders and battery commanders would need a level of training but this would still be quick for the job needed. Massed thay could provide area denial to masses ranks. The gun is mobile enough to be moved by it's own crew and not need much horse support. The accuracy would be devistating compaired to the artillery of the day despite it's smaller caliber. Training time, 1 month and they would dominate the battlefield.  Not the greatest weapon, but likely to be accepted and easy to train on and use. Made for this role so it should work well.

Funny I would have thought you would recommend the Mauser.  The Mausers 15 rounds per minute is 3 times that of the musket and the range over six times.  This would mean the advancing enemy would be under effective fire at three times the normal rate of fire for approximately ten minutes before the enemy would be even in range.  It follows then it would take three battallions to even get within firing range of the one.  

The musket actually was a complicated weapon compared to the Mauser.  The flint size, shape, and lock was critical and barrel fouling very common.  A little known practice of the era was for soldiers in prolonged battle to fall out line and pee into their barrels to take the powder residue out.  The spring mechanism on the Brown Bess was very finicky and subject to corrosion very easily.  The bolt on the Mauser though a tad more complicated than the lock on the musket is far more resilient requiring less maintenence.  Tearing the musket lock mechanism down and oiling the spring was the norm after every firing and every rain storm.  

Training would have been minimal except for the maintainence of the bolt for the use, shoulder fired, and general cleaning, ram rod, was the same.  The length of the Mauser and its bayonet would have fit nicely into their current tactics of using the square and bayonet to ward off cavalry charges.  

Here's an interesting Link of the battle.

www.britishbattles.com/peninsula/peninsula-talavera.htm

Please note that this link makes mention of the 95th Rifles which was the first British unit to use the Baker Rifle however the story downplays the effectiveness of the rifle due to rate of fire.  This is in my opinion in error on the authors part for the common practice was to only load the leather cased slower to load rifle round when used at distance taking the loading time down to 3 per minute.  This increased the killing range from 60 paces to more like 300 paces.  Once in close in 60 paces the 95th would commonly not use the leather patch thus giving up acuracy for rate of fire the same as the Brown Bess.   The Baker was kind of accepted by the military of the time about as easily as the airplane was before WWII.  It was kind of considered a novelty by staff but loved by the men.  

In this paticular battle the French used 4lb cannons with canister shot (tins filled with musket balls) close in very similar to the cannon you suggested.  Of the 17 guns captured by the British the majority were the 4lb light guns used on the infantry advance.  Much of the British casualties were to  artillary espcecially the skirmishers which took the full burnt of both the large guns and the 4lb guns.  

Tj

edit: Ineteresting personal note is that Germans fought on both sides in this battle.  There was the German infantry battalions under the French recruited after the Napoleonic conquest and the German mercenaries fighting to eject Napoleaon from homeland.  Though much is written about the French battallion the German Calvary fighting with the British really gained its reputation at this battle and was respected thereafter as the best cavalry in the British Army during the Pennusla war.   Much of this fame was attributed to the German swords which being of such high quality steel was much sought after and weilded quite effectively by the German calvalry often breaking right through rrifles or enemy sword parries.  

I was going to say the Mauser for the reasons you gave and more but everyone knew I would say that.

Also, armies are resistant to change. Especially the old gaurd.  To take away 1/15nth of your riflemen and teach them on a different rifle when your current rifle works just fine would meet opposition.

Second, teaching the use of the rifle to soldiers who had been using another type for so long would be very hard and time consuming.  German practice was to open up at 600 meteres.  I do not think the soldiers then could have done so well without a long training schedule.

Artillery is the queen of battle, training time / ease, and accepting a new weapon by conservative old men is also a point to consider.  I chose on those merits. (I also didn't want to be prdictable)

Quoted: Artillery is a good idea... and psychologically crew served weapons have been more lethal and individual rifles for the reason that individuals sometimes can't point at a human being like themselves (advancing only because he's a grunt told to do so) and shoot. Thus a claymore or cannon provides a bit of distance - you're not aiming at anyone in particular and who knows, you might miss some. "it's not personal". Of course, we could give them all some CS or Mustard and be done with it, providing the wind was blowing the right way....

You know its kind of funny that Claymores keep being brought up for it was at this war that the Shrapnel round gained its fame and why we now use the term Shrapnel for any metal sliver from an explosive device.  Shrapnels invention was a canister round filled with musket balls with a time fused designed to explode over the enemy showering their ranks with musket balls.  It was first used against the Dutch who were allied with France at the time.  

riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/shrap/

At this paticular battle, it was extremely effective used in conjunction with 18lb Howitzers.  For those that don't know cannon was rated by the weight of the round it could fire safely.  18lbs was a big ass cannon.  Cannons were so important in this war that victories we measured not on who retreated but who gained the most cannon from the enemy and of course the most casualties.

Though due to logistics, the French over running a remote Spainish battallion guarding a crossroad thus threatening cutting off the British supply lines, historians give the battle victory to the British which won the field that day and captured the most enemy cannons.

Tj