The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c12.s1.10

c12.s1.10

The Mahratta artillery in the Dakhin, so late as 1791, was still mounted on the old plan, copied from that of the Moghuls. “His (Paras Rām Bhāo’s) largest guns were brass 32 and 42 pounders cast at Poona, in length far exceeding ours: the wheels of the carriage as well as the carriages themselves, were exceedingly clumsy, particularly the limber wheels, which are generally of one piece, very low, and in a heavy road do not perhaps turn once in the distance of a hundred yards. The gun is so heaped with baggage of every description that it could not be cleared ready to fire under at least half an hour; nor could any one from its appearance iu its travelling state, were it not for the number of bullocks dragging it, conceive it to be a gun: fifty, sixty and sometimes one hundred couple of bullocks drag one of these guns; and in very heavy roads, where the cattle have been hard worked and ill-fed, an elephant is posted to the rear who pushes with his head over difficult passages. Although the improvement of having four bullocks abreast was lately adopted by the Mahrattas, there surely can be no utility in having such a string of cattle as they sometimes tack to one of these strange pieces of ordnance” (E. Moor, “Narrative, 78)”. In the Dakhin we found it necessary to employ sixty Carnatic bullocks in yoke to an iron 24 pounder, fifty to an iron 18 pounder, and forty to an iron 12 pounder (Blaeker, “War”, 283).