Musket

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A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore long gun, which a user generally fires from the shoulder. The date of the origin of muskets remains unknown, but they are mentioned as early as the late 15th century, and they were primarily designed for use by infantry. Muskets became obsolete by the middle of the 19th century, as rifles superseded them. Typical musket calibres ranged from .50 to .80 calibre. and depending on the type and calibre could hit a man's torso from up to 200 yards, though it was only accurate to about 100 yards. A soldier primarily armed with a musket had the designation of a musketman or of a musketeer.

Contents

1 Etymology
2 Development
3 Loading and Firing
4 Tactics
5 Obsolescence and replacement by the Rifle
6 Outside Europe
7 See also
8 External links

Etymology

According to the online Etymology Dictionary, firearms were often named after animals, and the word musket derived from the French word mousquette, which is a sparrowhawk. [link]

Development

By the late 15th century, a minority of foot soldiers were already equipped with hand cannons, however these were extremely inaccurate and difficult to load and fire. In the 16th century, the hand held firearm became commonplace and by the 17th century it superseded the pike as the main infantry weapon. In the 16th century, the most common musket was the arquebus. In this period, the musket proper (the word derives from the French mousquette) referred to a heavier weapon, firing a heavier shot, which had to balance on a rest. A lighter alternative to either the arquebus or the musket was the caliver, which was often used at sea, or by irregular troops. Almost all muskets in this period were fired by the matchlock mechanism, where a length of smouldering rope ignited the gunpowder in the weapon's pan, causing the ball to be fired out of the barrel. An alternative to the matchlock in the earlier period was the wheellock mechanism. The matchlock had several disadvantages - it was inaccurate at over 100 metres, slow to reload and often caused accidents by igniting gunpowder stores accidentally. Nevertheless, the widespread use of muskets changed the face of warfare. (See Gunpowder warfare).

Musketeers are firing from muskets. Reconstruction from period of Thirty Years' War battle.

In the 17th century, the arquebus and caliver were phased out as the musket became lighter and more portable. Thereafter, "musket" became the generic name for long barrelled hand held firearms. The musket went through further evolution in the 1600s. The most important of these changes was the introduction of the flintlock firing mechanism, where the gunpowder in a musket's pan was ignited by a flint suspended on hammer, which struck the pan on pulling the trigger. The flintlock (also called the snaphance) was a major advance on the matchlock in terms of safety, accuracy and loading time. It became standard issue for European infantrymen by 1700.

Loading and Firing

The 18th century musket, as typified by the Brown Bess, was loaded and fired in the following way:

The soldier would draw a cartridge (which consisted of a spherical lead bullet wrapped in a paper cartridge which also held the gunpowder propellant. The bullet was separated from the powder charge by a twist in the paper.)

The soldier then bit off the top of the cartridge, with the bullet, and held the bullet in his teeth/mouth.

The soldier then pulls the dogshead back to half-cock, flips the frizzen up, and pours a small pinch of the powder from the cartridge into the priming pan. He then closes the frizzen so that the priming powder is trapped.

The butt of the musket is dropped to the ground and the soldier then pours the rest of the powder into the barrel. Once all of the powder is poured into the barrel, the soldier stuffs the paper into the barrel to serve as wadding to keep the gunpowder in the barrel and to pack it down.

The soldier finally spits the bullet into the barrel and draws his ramrod from below the barrel. He then uses the ramrod to firmly ram the bullet, wadding, and powder down three times. Then the ramrod is returned to its hoops under the barrel.

Finally, the butt is brought back up and the soldier will pull the dogshead back to full cock and the musket is ready to fire.

This process was drilled into troops until they could do it by instinct and feel. The main advantage of the British Redcoat was that he trained at this procedure almost every day. A good unit of musketeers was able to fire 3 rounds a mintute. In rare cases, people have been able to fire as many as 4 rounds a minute.

Tactics

Muskets took time to reload, so army tacticians typically deployed musket-men in formations to maximise firepower.

This tactic was pioneered by Maurice of Nassau, who taught it to Dutch troops in the Eighty Years' War. Originally, it was known as the countermarch, where troops were arranged in lines up to twelve, but more usually eight or six deep. When the front rank fired, they would file away to the rear to reload. Gustavus Adolphus pioneered the use of the volley or "salvo" as an offensive tactic for Swedish infantry in the Thirty Years' War. Because of the musket's slow reloading time, it was necessary until 1700 or so to use pikemen to protect them from cavalry. After the invention of the bayonet and flintlock musket, infantry were no longer equipped with the pike and their firing formations were reduced to three ranks deep. By having the front rank kneel, all three ranks would be able to fire at the same time. This allowed all the men in the unit to fire at the same time, unleashing a withering volley that would slam into the enemy.

The British Army was famous for being the only army that fought in two ranks rather than three. This allowed every single man to fire his musket without the need for the front rank to kneel. Another famous British tactic was platoon fire. At the time, a platoon was a half-company. The right-hand files of a company would form the first platoon and the left-hand files of that same company would form the second platoon. The platoon fire would begin at one of the flank platoons of the battalion or regiment, and one or two seconds after the platoon beside them fired, the next platoon would fire. The effect would be platoon volley after platoon volley rolling down the face of the battalion or regiment, and the result of such disciplined fire was a constant hail of bullets on the enemy formation.

The main tactic for infantry attacks from 1700 or so was a slow measured advance, with pauses to fire volleys at enemy infantry. The aim was to break the enemy by firepower and leave the pursuit of them to the cavalry. The French Army was somewhat exceptional in this regard, as many of their officers prefferred the a prest attack - a rapid charge using swords or bayonets rather than firepower.

By the 18th century, a very experienced soldier could load and fire at a maximum rate of around 4 shots per minute, but the average infantryman fired 3 rounds per minute. Soldiers expecting to face musket fire learned disciplined drills to move in precise formations and to obey orders unquestioningly. British soldiers in particular acquired a reputation for drilling until they could perform coolly and automatically in the heat of combat. Use of musket infantry tactics was manipulated to the fullest by King Frederick William I of Prussia in the early 18th century. Prussian troops under his leadership could fire in some cases five rounds per minute with unrivaled discipline.

In the 19th century, a new tactic was devised by the French in the Napoleonic wars. This new tactic was the colonne d'attack, or column of attack. This new tactic involved a large number of troops, from one or two regiments up to one or two brigades of infantry. These men packed close together in a tight column which, encouraged by the drums, marched slowly forward. The French Army at the time mostly consisted of conscript troops. The column gave them confidence and a feeling of safety due to the huge number of men in the column. The amount of men in the column also made it more capable of sustaining enemy fire as well. Often, the sight of a huge column slowly and inevitably making its way towards its enemy was enough to make the enemy break and run. However, disciplined troops who could fire fast enough could pour enough fire into the column to literally block its way with its own dead; this is how the British were able to defeat the French column time after time.

Obsolescence and replacement by the Rifle

By today's standards, muskets are not very accurate due to the windage (gap) between the projectile and the barrel. A modern rifle bullet will spin, ensuring greater accuracy. Owing to this inaccuracy, officers did not expect musketmen to aim at particular targets. Rather, they had the objective of delivering a mass of musket balls into the enemy line.

At the time of the American Revolution, many British soldiers were outraged by the American colonist's use of rifles. They believed that since the Brown Bess musket had no sights, they were not responsible for the deaths of enemy soldiers. But riflemen, who selected a target and fixed the enemy soldier or officer in their sights were no better than murderers. The disadvantage of the early rifle for military use was its long reloading time and the tendency of rifling to get damaged when reloaded hurriedly. For this reason, regular American units used smoothbore muskets. However, from the Napoleonic Wars onwards, the British created a specialised Rifle Brigade.

By the Crimean War (1850s) and American Civil War (1860s), most infantry were equipped with muzzle loading rifles. These were far more accurate than smoothbore muskets and had a far longer range. Their use led to a decline in the use of massed attacking formations, which became too vulnerable to accurate, long range fire.

In the late 19th century, the rifle took another major step forward, with the introduction of breech loading rifles. These meant that the rifling of a weapon was no longer damaged when it was loaded. Shortly afterwards, magazine loading rifles were introduced, which hugely increased the weapon's rate of fire. From this period (c. 1870), the musket was obsolete in modern warfare.

Outside Europe

Muskets were the firearms first used by many non-Europeans. With the introduction of the rifle to European armies, thousands of muskets were sold or traded to less technologically advanced societies in the 19th century. Inequality in adoption of access to muskets could lead to large changes in political and social structure, for example amongst the Māori of New Zealand due to the Musket Wars.

A rare exception to this was Japan, where muskets were introduced much earlier in 1543 by Portuguese merchantmen and by the 1560s were being produced locally en masse. Japan then was in the midst of civil war. Oda Nobunaga revolutionized musket tactics in Japan by splitting loaders and shooters and assigning 3 guns to a shooter at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575. (Popular records stating he used a Maurice-style 3-layered musketeer formation are incorrect according to onsite evidence.) The total victory he won at this battle led other daimyos to acquire muskets in large quantities, and they proved highly effective during the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 1590s ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. At the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, nearly 20,000 muskets were used, which was comparable to if not greater than the numbers employed on contemporary European battlefields.

External links

[History of numerous Muskets]
http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/lodge/616/
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Campground/8551/

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