Whatever the ‘preferred term’ is, the general characteristics of the Danish amusettes, curricle guns, and galloper guns, with one exception, were the same. The difference lies in what the different artillery arms called them...
...The conclusion that can be made is that the light field piece referred to by the Americans and British as a galloper was similar to what the Danes called an amusette and what would later be called by the British the curricle.

Well, yes. The essential characteristics of artillery pieces with their trail formed by a pair of integral shafts are not in dispute. However, I would question what purpose that conclusion serves. Might we not as well point out that all mules have a leg at each corner?

If you mean that the distinctions between these various types of gun are negligible, and so not worth investigating, I would have to disagree.

Firstly, it is becoming clear that that the designs and functions we find collected under the terms 'amusette', 'galloper' and 'curricle gun' are in fact so varied that to categorize them as all 'the same’ is really to miss the point.

Under those labels we find both heavy muskets and light field pieces, the latter ranging from 1-pdr to 6-pdr, in use, for the purposes of this discussion, over a period of some 80 years. Some were mounted on carriages that were intended to be drawn by hand, some by single horses, others by a pair in tandem. Some of those were driven from the gun carriage, others not. Some were simply intended to provide mobile support on the battlefield for line infantry, some were specifically deployed to provide fire support for light infantry. Some were intended to accompany cavalry. Some were simply needed to accompany troops in rough country where paths were narrow. Some were effective in their intended role, others less so. In other words, we are discussing a range of weapons that were not defined merely by the common characteristic of a trail formed by twin shafts and the option to attach a horse directly to the piece. Indeed, in one significant category, neither of those was even a factor.

Secondly, the term ‘galloper’ is itself unhelpfully imprecise. The term appears to have been coined in the C17th. There may have been guns that were 'gallopers' in name and deed in the previous century but by the mid C18th the term was at best the expression of an aspiration. In the 1740s, when we find ‘gallopers’ being used in Flanders with the Duke of Cumberland’s army, these were very light pieces able to follow the infantry at a walking pace but which, it was concluded, did not deliver sufficient firepower to merit the diversion of man, horse or powder and they fell out of use. Clearly, however, the concept of a light gun without limber remained of sufficient interest for Johan Muller to discuss it in 1757 and the term 'galloper' was sufficiently current for Congreve to use it in the 1770s although by that time the term was obsolescent and ‘curricle gun’ emerged as the preferred term when the idea was being revived, at a time when less vague nomeclature was being sought.

Artillery nomenclature of the period is interesting in itself and there were at least three types or ‘makes’ of the British 3-pounders during the period of the War of the American Revolution. Both Harold Peterson and Adrian Caruana are excellent references for the light 3-pounders beginning in the period of the War of the American Revolution.

First there is the galloper used by both sides in the Revolution which is described and pictured in two of Peterson’s works (The Book of the Continental Soldier and Roundshot and Rammers) is very helpful. Interestingly, Imrie/Risley Miniatures makes a 54mm galloper of the period which is taken from a photograph of one in existence owned by the US Department of the Interior which manages the National Battlefield Parks and they have outstanding historians who work in the parks and are continually doing research to improve the Parks. The picture of the galloper is on page 123 of The Book of the Continental Soldier and describes the carriage itself being used for 1-, 1 1/2,-, 2-, and 3-pounders and instead of the usual train, the piece had two shafts to which a horse could be hitched to pull the piece. I’ve also seen an illustration where the gun crew could pull the piece with either drag ropes or bricoles.

This galloper is also described, with dimensions, on page 115 of A Treatise of Artillery by John Muller:

‘There is one gun carriage more, which is called Galloper; it serves for a pound and a half gun. This carriage has shafts so as to be drawn without a limber, and is thought by some artillerists to be more convenient and preferable to other field carriages; and as it may likewise serve for out light three and six pounders, we shall give the following…’ And what follows are the dimensions of the gun carriage and its component parts.

The illustration of the gun carriage is between pages 114 and 115 and is noted as being Plate XII.

The Light 3-pounders also used by the British of the period were the Pattison 3-pounder (also known as the Irish 3-pounder) and the Townsend 3-pounder. Both had the usual bracket or split trail, the general difference being that the Townsend 3-pounder could be employed as a galloper, having the shafts for the horse being attached to the trail of the piece for transport. The Pattison 3-pounder, however, had a limber that was designed with a mantlet and the mantlet was employed with a fitting and ‘gun port’ for a 1-inch caliber wall piece which was an enlarged ‘version’ of the Long Land or Short Land Pattern Flintlock musket.

The gun mantlet armed with the wall piece also fits the description of what other nations called an amusette.

The light 3-pounders could be carried by their gun crews on their shoulders using the handspikes of the piece.

There was also a Light Infantry 3-pounder, and any and all of these might be referred to as either a grasshopper or a butterfly. The identification of which one was what, beyond the Pattison and Townsend 3-pounders could be confusing. The basic characteristic of all three of these artillery pieces was that they had the standard bracket carriage and did not resemble the galloper carriage in Muller’s artillery treatise nor the ‘amusettes’ of the Danes.

I hesitate to dip my toe into the murky pool of the American War since, apart from leading further off topic, I can claim only to be an interested reader and it is a subject where confusion reigns, as these RevList forum threads indicate:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Rev ... ages/67719
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Rev ... ages/97018

However, it seems fair to point out that the works you cite, Harold Peterson’s very general books from 1968-69 and the late Adrian Caruana’s 1980 study, are both considerably out of date now, Caruana having been challenged on numerous counts in this forum and elsewhere.

It is interesting that Harold Peterson commented in 1977 that “it is somewhat questionable whether the galloper actually saw service during the revolution.” (See thread quoted above). Contemporary references to ‘gallopers’ in the field are elusive. In Stephen Strach’s 1986 survey of Verbruggen guns used in North America the term does not appear once. David McConnell in his 1988 survey of British smoothbore artillery, observed that it is not clear how extensively galloper carriages were used in America. (Given the dates of these essays, it is clearly time for an up-to-date synthesis of current understanding).

The National Park Service ‘Galloper carriage’ illustrated in Peterson's ‘The Book of the Continental Soldier’ doesn’t help us much, being a C20th model based on John Muller’s 1757 design for ‘A Galloper ‘ in the ‘Treatise on Artillery.’ It is a particularly fine example of the numerous full-scale replicas based on Muller’s design that we find associated with AWI battle sites and re-enactor groups.If it was an original it would be a rare if not unique example that would be a lot better known. Presumably the Muller design is used so often because it provides a suitable template for light cannon mounts requiring an authentic design from a period source, rather than because there is any clear evidence that Muller galloper carriages were used in the field. Indeed, I have yet to see any evidence that the Muller design was ever used for practical purposes in the C18th. If such exists I should be interested to know.

The drawing in Congreve’s 1783 MSS folio, of a Townshend 3-pounder rigged up to travel “as a galloper” has caused particular confusion. Not only do we have little evidence of the system actually being employed, it is not a galloper gun as commonly understood, and is obviously not intended to operate on the battlefield. As such it is not strong evidence for the use of gallopers in America. (I regard as distinct from this discussion French colonial use of an amusettes on the Rostaing carriage with its detachable affut monté).

In addition, considerable misunderstanding seems to have arisen over the years from a confusion between the two words ‘galloper’ and ‘grasshopper’ -the colloquial term for light guns, mainly Pattisons, that could be man-packed on carrying shafts. There is also a mistaken belief that the other colloquial term, ‘butterfly,’ related specifically to light guns arranged to travel ‘as gallopers’ as in the Congreve drawing (whereas the name appears to derive from the stowage boxes mounted on either side of the gun barrel on Townshend and Congreve carriages).

However, although the term ‘galloper’ is of limited utility in relation to specific artillery pieces, it is still useful it if we distinguish between the ‘galloper gun' and the ‘galloper principle.’

In French, German and Danish there are terms which precisely describe gun carriages that have a trail formed by shafts - affut limonière, gabelbaume, limonlavet.. In English usage, however, rather than refer to the carriage construction, the term ‘galloper’ was retained, referring to the role these carriages were originally intended to fullfil, even if it is hardly precise. Although the term was obsolescent in military reference from the 1750s onwards, its use has persisted down the years. It is, after all, easier to talk in terms of carriages constructed on the galloper principle rather than wrestle with phrases like ‘shaft mount carriage,’ ‘shaft trail gun,’ ‘twin shaft mounts’ etc., although they might be more precise. Nonetheless, for avoidance of confusion it seems best whenever possible to use the label 'galloper gun' sparingly, preferably when referring to guns so-named in the sources.

There is an obvious parallel in the use of the portmanteau word amusette. Its meaning allusively obscure, it is used to describe a range of light and not-so-light support weapons in French, English, German, Danish and Norwegian usage- which rather demonstrates the point that there is little to be gained in generalizing on the topic of these various names.

The interesting point of the illustration in Muller is the very close resemblance to what the Danes referred to as an amusette.

I would have to disagree that Muller's 1757 design for 'A Galloper' closely resembles the Danish 1-pdr amusette. The Muller carriage is much sturdier than the surviving Danish amusette in Stockholm, notably in the strength of its trails (which may reflect Muller's belief that his carriage could be suitable for 3-pounders and 6-pounders.) The wheels of Muller's design are also more robust in comparison to the light wheels of the Danish 1-pdr carriages. Moreover it lacks the transom that allowed a driver to be seated, rather precariously, to take the reins of the amusette carriage when towed by horses. The Muller design does however include stowage bins for ammunition, adding to its weight but arguably increasing its effectiveness as a carriage for field pieces.

The Danish 3-pdr Regiment canone on limon lavett carriage of circa 1764-1807 as seen in the drawings in my OP, also represents a more robust piece than the 1-pdr amusettes, with more substantial shafts and heavier wheels. This may relate to the heavier calibre gun and an effort to address problems of strength and stability experienced with the 1-pdr carriages. The ‘1807’ carriage also lacks a transom for a driver's seat but instead has a brace across the lower end of the trails, which presumably had to be removed to allow the wheeler horse to be hitched to the gun. It appears that driving guns from a seat on the piece itself had proved impractical.

Returning to the original tack of this thread, what make the Danish guns particularly interesting is that, together with the Hessian amusettes on which they were probably based, they represent the only examples we have today of guns on 'galloper' carriages that were built and saw service. As such, they provide the only authentic reference we have for the British 6-pdr and 3-pdr 'curricle guns' of the 1790s. To what extent those British guns resembled any of the Scandinavian models remains a matter of speculation. More research is required. However, it is a refreshing perspective after endless images based on the Muller design of 40 years before.

The curricle guns of the 1790s are interesting because they represent the last gasp of the galloper concept in British usage, in Europe at least (See below). The double-teams and heavier guns, perhaps driven '`from the box'' as described by Charles James in his 1802 Military Dictionary, show the idea evolving to a point whereby there was a chance they might actually deliver an effective version of the galloper concept: compact, mobile and fast-moving field artillery. In the end, curricle guns proved of marginal value because the carriage was unstable, the tandem draught system was inefficient, and not enough ammunition could be packed on the pieces which, impractical for anything heavier than 6-pdrs, were not powerful enough for 'modern' battlefield requirements (despite these shortcomings, the tandem-drawn 1-pdr amusettes remained in service with the Danes well into the C19th).

As one final point, the longest period during which the term 'galloper' or galloper gun' remained current was in India, for possibly as long as seventy years, circa 1760-1820. However, as far as I am aware, the guns employed, either 3-pdrs or 6-pdrs, all had either bracket trails or block trails attached to limbers. There was not a 'twin shaft trail' carriage in sight.