Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

Al,

I know I promised to do it much earlier. But find it somewhat difficul to understand what should and what I should not post. So I decided to be malicious enough to just translate all the text concerning the history of the flintlocks (only several pages[8D]).

Before you start reading, I'm not sure if this is a violation of copyright agreement. In here people are not concerned about it at all, but different countries have different law, so just for me to feel comfortable. [:I] If you use this text anywhere just give a link to Vladimir Eronimovich Markeev "Handheld firearms. History of development since invention to the middle of XX century". Oh yeah, if you meat a comment in the parentheses that finishes with -AK it's made by me. In general it's close to the text as possible. Sometimes even too much, but I have no energy to deal with the style now[8)]

One more thin. There are old Russian measures used in the text. As well as metrical system. Where they do not coincide with measures used in US or Britain I'll give their interpretation. So "line" is 0.1 of "inch" or 2,54 mm. Step was usually assumed to be 75 cm long so that two full steps give 1,5 m. At least now such a rule holds and I never heard it was changed.

So paragraph 43.Military flintlocks and pistols before 1800.

Military firers of that time were developed not bad, but existed in numerous patterns which often differed only in minor details. If infantry and cavalry obviously need different types of firer than it¡¦s not clear why in cavalry there should be several patterns of the firer: for dragoons, for hussars, for uhlans and so on. Military specialists of the time supposed that if the uniform in a regiment is different than the weapon should look in a different way. This led to variety of unnecessary and sometimes very bad patterns of weapon. For example smoothbore cavalry musket had ramrod in the fore-end while the cavalry carabine of the same length didn¡¦t, the ramrod for it was carried separately and attached to the saddle or to a shoulder belt. Such variety of patterns caused many problems while teaching troops to deal with weapons, in production, supplies, maintenance etc.

Even now we can find misunderstandings and mistakes in naming and definition of the patterns of that time found in museums and weapons collections.

By the end of XVIII century infantry military firer still was a light smoothbore musket with flintlock and bayonet. In Russia such a weapon was called ¡§fuseja¡¨ (By the order of Piotr the First in 1715 this spoiled French word ¡§fusil¡¨ was introduced. The solder armed with it were called fusiliers and regiments fusiliers. There were also musketeers, carabineers etc.), since 1760 new official name ¡§rugje¡¨ (here and later I¡¦ll just use flintlock instead - AK) was introduced. He caliber of military firers was from 17,5 mm (7 lines) to 20,5 mm (8 lines). Modern patterns had smaller caliber. Earlier were 140 cm long barrels were shortened to 100 cm. The flintlock weight was from 5 to 5,6 kg. The barrel was made of ductile iron welded along from a stripe into a tube. Than it was drilled inside and grinded off outside. In order to monitor the temperature of the barrel welding and smithery were carried out at night.

The tube and the neck (?-AK) of the bayonet were made of the iron. To the neck three-edged blade was welded. The lock was done more strong and was faultless. Wooden ramrod was replaced by iron one. The foresight was fixed not on the barrel but on the upper ring; it was semicircular with convex sides and pointed top; it was of brass. All the metal details of gun-stock were usually made of brass or rarely of iron.

All the iron parts remained bright and were cleaned in order to keep them in white shining state. There was no sight. The gun-stock was made of walnut, birch, maple and so on.

Russian infantry flintlocks of Piotr I had barrel 142 cm long. Caliber was not kept the same and varied from 19,68 mm (7,75 lines) to 21,5 mm ( 8,5 lines). The weight with bayonet was 5,6 kg. These patterns of Pioter¡¦s time haven¡¦t changed significantly for a long time. During Paul I reign, 100 years later, the barrel was shortened a bit from 142 to 124,4 cm. With such a flintlocks weighting about 5,5 kg were armed Suvoroff¡¦s troops.

In general military firers of XVIII century were worse than hunting ones of XVII century. For example Austrian flintlock had neither sight nor foresight and the aiming was performed just along the barrel.

The caliber of the bullet was much less than the one of the barrel so that the former, being wrapped in paper shell would easily enter even not clean barrel. Because of movement of the bullet inside the barrel the shooting couldn¡¦t be accurate. Satisfactory accuracy of independent fire was no further than 100-120 steps. At 150, 200 and sometimes even at 300 steps the fire was performed in volleys by units. The charge was initially half of the weight of the bullet. When the powder was improved this ratio changed to 1/3. All the military firers were loaded with cartridge in a paper shell. They were made in regiments by the shooters themselves. The government supplied only the lead and powder, the paper was bought and the bullets were smelted in regiments.

While shooting on speed and accuracy the shooter was to hit the man-height target from 100 paces. While shooting on speed well trained shooter and in ideal conditions could make up to 6 shots a minute. At least this rate of fire was demonstrated by one of Suvoroff¡¦s Cossacks somewhere in Switzerland while crossing the Alps. He won the bet on speed of shooting.

At that time they were very keen on drill. So much that the fire was executed from the position ¡§in halt¡¨, i.e. with no making a half-turn the right, not spreading the legs and not leaning the head to the butt, but just touching it with the chin. Napoleon¡¦s guard shot in such a manner. Impressed by the example of more accurate hunt shooting they started to aim hunt-like (my word ƒº -AK), at the same time the butts were modernized.

Percentage of rifles in the armies both Russian and foreign was very low. Caliber of rifles was decreased to 15,24 (6 lines) and even 12,70 (5 lines). Military rifles were designed using hunting patterns as an example.

That's not all. Next goes description of cavalry firers, then some interesting patterns are discussed, then most of the european flintlocks are described and some comparison given. It just seems too much for me at one time. Do not forget I'm not typing but translating it[:I]