Obusier de 6 pouces Gribeauval

Obusier de 6 pouces Gribeauval
Obusier de 6 pouces Gribeauval, modèle 1764, Year 2 (1793–1794), Les Invalides
Place of origin	France
Service history
Used by	France
Wars	French Revolutionary War Napoleonic Wars American War of Independence
Production history
Designer	Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval
Designed	1765
Specifications
Weight	701 lb (318 kg)
Barrel length	2 ft 4 in (71 cm)
Crew	13 men, 4 horses
Caliber	166 mm (6.5 in)
Barrels	1
Carriage	1,895 lb (860 kg)
Rate of fire	1 shell per minute
Effective firing range	Canister: 250 m
Maximum firing range	Shell: 1200 m

The Obusier de 6 pouces Gribeauval or 6-inch howitzer was a French artillery piece and part of a system established by Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval. The Old French inch (French: pouce) was actually 1.066 English inches long so the weapon can accurately be described as a 6.4-inch howitzer. The Gribeauval system included the 6-inch howitzer, the light Canon de 4 Gribeauval, medium Canon de 8 Gribeauval and the heavy Canon de 12 Gribeauval. Superseding the older Vallière system, the Gribeauval system was introduced in 1765 and the guns were first used during the American Revolutionary War. The most comprehensive employment of Gribeauval guns occurred during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Two 6-inch howitzers were often added to four or six cannons to make up a battery of artillery in Napoleon's armies. The 6-inch howitzer was capable of firing an exploding shell at long-range targets or a canister shot at close-range enemy personnel. Starting in 1803, the Year XI system partly replaced the Gribeauval artillery, but it was not until 1829 that the Gribeauval system was wholly superseded by the Valée system.

Adopted by the French army on 15 October 1765, the Gribeauval system was quietly introduced to keep it secret from foreign powers and to avoid a hostile reception from conservative officers in the French Royal Army. The system included 4-, 8- and 12-pounder cannons, the Obusier de 6 pouces Gribeauval (6-inch howitzer) and the 1-pounder light cannon. The 1-pounder was rapidly abandoned. The 6-inch howitzer was used extensively during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, but its first major operational use was even earlier, during the American Revolutionary War, in General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau's French expeditionary corps in 1780–1782, and especially at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.