Galloper Gun Information

Townsend's Light 3 Pounder as a Galloper - from Adrian Caruana

An interesting inquiry came up today on TMP regarding the Galloper Gun from the Fife & Drum range of figures. The question was, "how can the horse draw the cannon as shown in the Fife & Drum picture?"

Click on the link below to view one version of the Galloper gun shown at the Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich. This is a piece where the gun trail actually serves as the limber as well.

Galloper Gun

After a little bit of research, we found that the term "galloper gun" simply refers to any cannon that is light enough to be drawn by a single horse. So there can actually be a wide variety of artillery pieces that can qualify as galloper guns.

The Fife & Drum Galloper is actually a Verbruggen 3 Pounder mounted on a Congreve Carriage, and adapted into a "galloper" with the addition of the frame shown in the picture above and in the picture below. This was part of Lord Townsend's "artillery system" for light equipment. 

Fife & Drum 3-pounder converted into a Galloper Gun.

So there you have the rest of the story.