Early French battalion gun crews?
Something I thought best to consult the forum brains trust on - Does anyone know who exactly crewed the infantry battalion artillery pieces during the French Revolutionary Wars? I know 'volunteers' from the battalion ranks provided the majority of the labour and the muscle, but what about the technicians? Were they also from the ranks (presumably trained and permanently assigned to the guns) and so uniformed as infantry like the rest of the crew, or were the technicians drawn from the foot artillery proper (and therefore wearing foot artillery uniforms)? I'm also interested to know how the same arrangement worked / what the breakdown was with Austrian battalion guns during this period as well. Can anyone help please?

Austrian battalion guns were allocated to regiments with technical crew in the artillery uniforms. The labour was done by infantrymen drawn from the ranks, known as Handlanger, who wore their unit uniforms.

Many thanks Dave - much appreciated. No one can help me with the French then?

John, This is a dim and distant memory from the old Funcken books, so take what I say in that context. IIRC, the regiments were assigned one or two artillery NCOs to command the detachments and train the crews. These latter were chosen from the infantry, but were given special uniforms - again, from memory, almost like the artillerie a pied but with subtle distinctions. The old Emir Bukhari book on the French infantry was annoyingly silent about artillery detachments, from what I recall.