An XI System

 

As I wanted my voitures-pièces ("piece-carts", i.e. the vehicle made of a limber and the cannon it's towing) to be able to carry "real" ammunition capable of being fired by the toy cannon rather than making a maybe more period-looking and scale-accurate smaller ammunition crate  - possibly carried on top of the gun as it was in the Gribeauval system - but unable to contain the one-by-one circular projectile bricks, the arrangement of limber, cannon and ammunition crate I ended up with is quite similar to what an An XI voiture-pièce would've looked like.

The An XI system of artillery was devised by the French and slowly implemented (not with a resounding degree of success) starting in 1803 (or An XI / year eleven, according to the revolutionary calendar).

The aim of the new system was to improve on the Gribeauval system of artillery (inherited by Napoleon from the Ancien Régime) and remedy some of its flaws. One thing that was done was to have the small crate containing a few rounds of ammunition that each gun would be fitted with be carried directly by the limber rather than being placed on top of the gun as it was in the original design by Gribeauval.

In the An XI system (as with my toy guns), the trail of the gun stock is hooked behind the limber's axle and behind the ammunition crate (consequently augmenting the combined length of the cannon and its limber) rather than right on top of the limber's axle as it was according to the original Gribeauval design. The consideration that the combined proportions of the gun and its limber were more elegant in the ancient system than in the new one might have been far from the minds of the artillerymen having to manoeuvre either the original or the redesigned materiel under sustained fire on battlefield. 

In the artillery system designed by French general Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval (1715 - 1789), a small crate containing a few rounds of ammunition was placed during transport directly on top of the cannon stock. This crate had to be removed and carried away by the crew before they could fire the gun.

In the An XI system, the ammunition crate was bigger, able to contain a few more rounds, and placed directly on top of the limber, thus simplifying the operations the artillerymen had to perform before they were able to fire their gun. They did not have to worry about and handle the crate which stayed on top of the limber at all times and in relative safety when the limber would retreat a few metres to the rear once the cannon had been unhitched.

The An XI system (which also introduced a 6-pounder gun meant to replace both the 4-pounder gun deemed too weak and the 8-pounder gun considered too heavy) would not prove to be the unmitigated success its proponents had hoped for, and the original Gribeauval system would stay in use (alongside some components of the An XI system, such as the 6-pounder gun) with the French army until it was superseded by the Valée system in the 1820s.