Musket

Muskets and bayonets aboard the frigate Grand Turk.

A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore firearm, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer.

The musket replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle (in both cases, after a long period of coexistence). The term "musket" is applied to a variety of weapons, including the long, heavy guns with matchlock, wheel lock or flint lock and loose powder fired with the gun barrel resting on a stand, and also lighter weapons with a snaphance, flintlock, or caplock and bullets using a stabilizing spin (Minié ball), affixed with a bayonet.

The musket first made its appearance when a specialist class of troops armed with a heavy version of the arquebus called a musketin was introduced to support the arquebusiers and pikemen in the Spanish tercios. By the end of the 17th century, a lighter version of the musket had edged out the arquebus, and the addition of the bayonet edged out the pike, and almost all infantry became musketeers.

In the 18th century, improvements in ammunition and firing methods allowed rifling to be used in the military domain, and the term "rifled gun" gave way to "rifle". In the 19th century, rifled muskets (which were technically rifles, but were referred to as muskets) became common, combining the advantages of rifles and muskets. About the time of the introduction of cartridge, breechloading, and multiple rounds of ammunition just a few years later, muskets fell out of fashion.

Musket calibers generally ranged from 0.50 to 0.90 in (13 to 23 mm). A typical smooth bore musket firing at a single man-sized target was only accurate to about 80 yd (73 m) using the military ammunition of the day,[1] which used a much smaller bullet than the musket bore to compensate for the accumulation of fouling in the barrel under battlefield conditions. Rifled muskets of the mid-19th century, like the Springfield Model 1861, were significantly more accurate, with the ability to hit a man sized target at a distance of 500 yards (460 m) or more.[2] The advantage of this extended range was demonstrated at the Battle of Four Lakes, where Springfield Model 1855 rifled muskets inflicted heavy casualties among the Indian warriors before they could get their smooth bore muskets into range.[3] However, in the Italian War of 1859, French forces were able to defeat the longer range of Austrian rifle muskets by aggressive skirmishing and rapid bayonet assaults during close quarters combat.[4]

Etymology

According to the Etymology Dictionary, firearms were often named after animals, and the word musket derived from the French word mousquette, which is a male sparrowhawk.[5] An alternative theory is that derives from the 16th century French mousquet, -ette, from the Italian moscetto, -etta, meaning the bolt of a crossbow. The Italian moscetto is a diminutive of mosca, a fly.[6]

Development

Europe

Musketeers firing muskets in a historical reenactment from the Thirty Years' War.
Gunpowder flask. Carved in relief with Adam and Eve on either side of tree of Life. The back is plain, the background is gilded, the mounts silver gilt. Behind the root of the tree is the figure of a stag; at the top is a coat of arms with the letters I.Z.W., Victoria and Albert Museum

Hand cannons (handgonnes) arrived in Europe from Asia sometime in the early 14th century. They were more commonly used by the early 15th century, particularly in the Hussite wars. It is possible that the noise was at least as important as the missile, for the effect on the horses of the enemy knights. These were very short ranged, inaccurate and difficult to load and fire. Hand cannons had a crude handle, or no handle at all. A wooden stock was added, allowing the weapon to be more easily held and fired.

The hand cannon evolved into the arquebus by the mid 15th century. Early arquebusiers just held on to the rope match, or attached it to their belt, which was dangerous since the match could accidentally contact the touch hole as the arquebusier moved around while loading the weapon in battle. The matchlock mechanism was a simple solution to this problem, and placed the match in a clamp on the end of a lever. When a trigger was pulled, the lever would rotate and allowed the match to come in contact with the touch hole, discharging the weapon. The first European usage of firearms in large ratios was in Hungary under king Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458–1490). Every third soldier in the Black Army of Hungary had an arquebus, which was an unusually high ratio in its era.[7][8] Gradual advances in the empirical understanding of the corning of gunpowder made possible a more powerful explosive (dating is still uncertain from c. 1420 – c. 1550 and probably varied by country). The cost of gunpowder also gradually fell. By the 16th century the arquebus became commonplace, replacing the crossbow and longbow in all advanced armies.

Muskets were initially a heavy version of the arquebus, intended as a specialist armour piercing weapon. Most infantry were pikemen who normally wore some armour, especially the front ranks, and gave protection against cavalry to the arquebusiers. The rise of firearms led to thicker and heavier armour, from 15 kg in the 15th century to 25 kg in the late 16th century.[9] Armour 2 mm thick required 2.9 times as much energy to defeat it as armour 1 mm thick.[10] The need to defeat armour gave rise to a heavier arquebus, firing a heavier shot, which required a rest to balance the gun barrel. According to Sir JohnSmythe, muskets were first used around 1530 in Italy where they had been “devised to encounter heavily armed opponents, and for the defence of towns and fortresses.”[11] During the siege of Parma in 1521, many Spanish soldiers were reportedly using an "arquebus with rest," a new weapon much larger and more powerful than the regular arquebus. However, at this point long-barreled, musket-caliber weapons had been in use as wall-defence weapons in Europe for almost a century.[12] The musket coexisted with the arquebus over the period c. 1521 – c. 1650. For example, from 1636 the complement of the Spanish infantry company, in Flanders, was 200 men, 11 officers, 30 musketeers, 60 arqubusiers, 65 pikemen with body armour, 34 pikemen without armour. The musketeers received double pay.[13] The musketeers were the first infantry to give up armour entirely. As their heavy shot had a longer range, and without armour, musketeers began to take cover behind walls or in sunken lanes and sometimes acted as skirmishers. Sometime around 1630–60, at least in England, the musket barrel was cut down from 4 feet to 3 feet[14] at about the same time the rest was given up.

The arquebus seems to disappear as the musket got lighter. The number of musketeers relative to pikemen grew, partly because they were now more mobile than pikemen.[15]

An intermediate between the arquebus and the musket was the caliver,[16] 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 musket 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 due to it being slow to reload and the occasional accidental ignition of gunpowder stores. The paper powder charge was first introduced in Europe by the King of Poland, Stefan Batory. The widespread use of muskets nevertheless changed the face of warfare (see gunpowder warfare).

The arquebus and caliver were phased out in the 17th century as the musket became lighter and more portable, and "musket" thereafter became the generic name for long-barrelled, handheld, smoothbore firearms. The musket went through further evolution in the 17th century, the most important of these changes being 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. Sven Åderman is credited with advancing the rapidity of firing and was awarded Halltorps estate by the King of Sweden. The flintlock (which succeeded the similar but more complicated snaphance) was a major advance on the matchlock in safety, accuracy, and loading time. It became standard issue for European infantrymen by 1700. Around the same time came the invention of the bayonet. There was now no need for two types of infantry, and the pike disappeared.

The ball in smoothbore firearms was quite loose in the barrel. The last contact with the barrel gave the ball a spin around an axis at right angles to the direction of flight. The aerodynamics meant that the ball veered off in a random direction from the aiming point. Rifling, grooves put in the barrel of the weapon which cause the projectile to spin on the same axis as the line of flight, prevented this veering off from the aiming point. Rifles started as sporting weapons and had little use on the battlefield. From around 1750, rifles began to be used by skirmishers (Frederick the Great raised a Jager unit in 1744 from game-keepers and foresters, armed with rifles),[17] but the very slow rate of fire of muzzle-loading rifles restricted their use until the invention of the Minié ball.

Asia

Early matchlocks as illustrated in the Baburnama (16th century)

The hand cannon was first used in China in the 13th century.[18] The hand cannon was a very simple weapon, consisting of a metal tube enclosed on one end, with a touch hole drilled into the side of it. Gunpowder and ammunition were placed in the tube, and a match (a short piece of burning rope) was touched to the touch hole, causing the powder to explode and the ammunition to be discharged.

Imported arquebuses were utilized in China during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). The Chinese used the term "bird-gun" to refer to arquebuses and Turkish arquebuses may have reached China before Portuguese ones.[19] In Zhao Shizhen's book of 1598 AD, the Shenqipu, there were illustrations of Ottoman Turkish musketmen with detailed illustrations of their muskets, alongside European musketeers with detailed illustrations of their muskets.[20] There was also illustration and description of how the Chinese had adopted the Ottoman kneeling position in firing while favoring European-made muskets.[21]

The Mughals introduced arquebuses into India. The guns came into wide use by not only the Indian Mughal Empires but also by rival South Indian kingdoms. The muskets that the Mughals and the rest of India used were often made of the high quality wootz steel. These Indian muskets were manufactured by the thousands and could even use stones instead of balls if needed.

The arquebus made its way to the island of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), though the date is disputed. The earliest date is the 14th century where a copperplate inscription of Parakarama Bahu IV (1302-1326) refers to two persons who were declared exempt from certain taxes which included "gun licenses".[22] Many believe that it was the Portuguese who first brought over muskets during their conquest of the Sri Lankan coastline and low lands in 1505, as they regularly used short barreled matchlocks during combat. However, P.E.P.Deraniyagala points out that the Sinhala term for gun, ‘bondikula’ matches the Arabic term for gun, ‘bunduk’. Also, certain technical aspects of the early Sinhalese matchlock were similar to the matchlocks used in the Middle East, thus forming the generally accepted theory that the musket was not entirely new to the island by the time the Portuguese came. In any case, soon native Sri Lankan kingdoms, most notably the kingdom of Sitawaka and the Kandyan Kingdom, manufactured hundreds of Sinhalese muskets, with a unique bifurcated stock, longer barrel and smaller calibre, which made it more efficient in directing and using the energy of the gunpowder. These were mastered by native soldiers to the point where, according to the Portuguese chronicler, Queirós, they could "fire at night to put out a match" and "by day at 60 paces would sever a knife with four or five bullets" and "send as many on the same spot in the target."[23]


Despite initial reluctance, the Safavid Empire of Persia rapidly acquired the art of making and using handguns. A Venetian envoy, Vincenzo di Alessandri, in a report presented to the Council of Ten on 24 September 1572, observed:

They used for arms, swords, lances, arquebuses, which all the soldiers carry and use; their arms are also superior and better tempered than those of any other nation. The barrels of the arquebuses are generally six spans long, and carry a ball little less than three ounces in weight. They use them with such facility that it does not hinder them drawing their bows nor handling their swords, keeping the latter hung at their saddle bows till occasion requires them. The arquebus is then put away behind the back so that one weapon does not impede the use of the other.
Various antique Tanegashima.

In Japan, arquebuses were introduced in 1543 by Portuguese merchantmen and by the 1560s were being mass-produced locally. Popular records state that the daimyō Oda Nobunaga revolutionized musket tactics in Japan by inventing the Maurice-style three-line formation at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575 as an effective check on the massed cavalry charges then in use by his Takeda rival. The total victory he won at this battle quickly led other daimyōs to acquire muskets in large quantities, which 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, comparable to if not greater than the numbers employed on contemporary European battlefields. While many believe that during the Sakoku the political power of the samurai led to muskets being banned in Japan, this is a misconception brought on by romantic views. In actuality, the Japanese were fully capable of manufacturing their own muskets, and the shogunate even created several political positions to oversee their manufacture and inventory. The feudal daimyōs, other than the shogun himself, were forbidden from manufacturing or stockpiling firearms.

Large Korean Jochong(Matchlock Musket) in Unhyeon Palace with Korean cannon Hongyipao(Culverin).

As booty from the Japanese invaders, muskets were introduced to Korea (Joseon dynasty). In the Manchu invasion of Korea (both in 1627 and in 1636) the musket troop of the Joseon dynasty army impressed the Manchu army, which consisted mostly of cavalry, despite the eventual total defeat of Joseon. Afterwards, the Manchu Qing dynasty asked the Joseon dynasty for its musket troop when there was a border conflict with Russia. In 1654 and 1658, hundreds of Joseon musket troops were dispatched by the request of the Qing Dynasty and engaged the Russians near Khabarovsk at the Battle of Hutong. Under the Three Branch System, which was simmiar with Spanish Tercio, Joseon constituted their army with firearmers (artillery and mueketeers), archers and spikemen or swordsmen. As time passes, the percentage of firearmers increased rapidly, because training firearms were much easier than training other branches. Also, the sulfur mines found in jinsan reduced the unit cost of gunpowder. After that, in the King Sukjong era (1700's), 76.4% of the local standing army in Chungcheong region's army list were musketeers.[24] In the King Yeongjo era, Yoon Pil-Un, Commander of the Sua-chung, made Chunbochong (천보총), which had a larger range of fire than the existing ones. Its usage is thought to have been similar to the Afghanistan Jezail or American Kentucky Rifle.[25][26](Sua-chung was one of the Joseon dynasty's five central armies. It was stationed at Namhansanseong to protect the southern part of today's Seoul.)

Operation

An English Civil War manual of the New Model Army showing a part of the steps required to load and fire an earlier musket. The need to complete this difficult and potentially dangerous process as quickly as possible led to the creation of the military drill.[27]

In the 18th century, as typified by the English Brown Bess musket, loading and firing was done in the following way:

(At no time did the soldier place the musket on the ground to load)

This process was drilled into troops until they could complete the procedure upon hearing a single command of "prime and load". No additional verbal orders were given until the musket was loaded, and the option was either to give the soldiers the command "Make Ready", or to hold the musket for movement with the command of "Shoulder your firelock". The main advantage of the British Army was that the infantry soldier trained at this procedure almost every day. A properly trained group of regular infantry soldiers was able to load and fire four rounds per minute. A crack infantry company could load and fire five rounds in a minute.

Tactics

Matchlock muskets took a long time to reload and many were very inaccurate, so army tacticians typically deployed musketeers in formations to maximize firepower.

This tactic was pioneered by the Spanish captian Martín de Eguiluz in his Milicia, Discurso y Regla Militar written in 1586 and first published in Madrid in 1592. His most significant contribution to early modern warfare must rest on his detailed description of the countermarch[28] which the Spanish adapted from a maneuver described in De Re Militari done with javelins. This complex battlefield maneuver consisted in lining up three files of soldiers five ranks deep to shoot and then yield their place at the front to those who had been behind them and then to load again and continue in order to maintain a steady rate of fire. Most historians, including Geoffrey Parker, have ignored Eguiluz, and have erroneously attributed the invention of the countermarch to Maurice of Nassau, although the publication of the Milicia, Discurso y Regla Militar antedates Maurice’s first letter on the subject by two years.[29] Nassau copied the maneuver and taught it to Dutch troops in the Eighty Years' War. Eguiluz also stressed constant drills and training[30] which was later copied by others including Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Gustavus made two important advances for his troops. First, he simplified and standardized reloading, then, just like Eguiluz, drilled his musketeers ceaselessly until they reloaded in action by reflex, without becoming distracted. Second, he 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 later 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.

As muskets became the default weapon of armies, the slow reloading time became an increasing problem. The difficulty of reloading—and thus the time needed to do it—was diminished by making the musket ball much smaller than the internal diameter of the barrel, so as the interior of the barrel became dirty from soot from previously fired rounds, the musket ball from the next shot could still be easily rammed. In order to keep the ball in place once the weapon was loaded, it would be partially wrapped in a small piece of cloth.[31] However, the smaller ball could move within the barrel as the musket was fired, decreasing the accuracy of musket fire[32] (it was complained that it took a man's weight in lead musket balls to kill him).[33] The only way to make musket fire effective was to mass large numbers of musketmen and have them fire at the same time. The tradeoff between reloading speed and accuracy of fire continued until the invention of the Minié ball.

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. If the defenders did not break and flee, however, a bayonet charge and hand-to-hand combat would be necessary. Many officers in the French army preferred the a prest attack – a rapid charge using swords or bayonets rather than firepower and British General Charles Grey became known as "no flint" Grey because of his fondness for bayonet attacks.

The British Army was the first army that fought in two ranks rather than three. This allowed the infantry soldier to fire his musket without the need for the front rank to kneel. Another 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.

By the 18th century a very experienced soldier could load and fire at a rate of four shots 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 utilized to the fullest by King Frederick the Great of Prussia during the Silesian Wars and the Seven Years' War. Prussian troops under his leadership could fire a shot every fifteen seconds with almost unrivaled discipline, and his finest infantry units could fire a shot every ten seconds.

In order to counter the seemingly unbeatable firepower of the Prussian infantry, the Austrian army during the Seven Years' War introduced the use of large numbers of skirmishers, provided by formations of pandur, jaeger and grenzer troops recruited among the ethnic minorities of the Habsburg Empire. These light infantry would snipe and harass at the meticulously drilled line of Prussian infantry, firing and moving individually and taking advantage of cover, much like early period musketeers. This Austrian tactic of deploying large numbers of skirmishers would be adopted wholeheartedly by the French Revolutionary Army, the use of the ordinary foot soldier as thinking, individually-guided skirmishers rather than lock-stepping automatons being particularly well suited to a patriotic citizen army.

In the 19th century, a new tactical approach was devised by the French during the French Revolutionary Wars. This was the colonne d'attaque, or attack column, consisting of one regiment up to two brigades of infantry. Instead of advancing slowly all across the battlefield in line formations, the French infantry were brought forward in such columns, preceded by masses of skirmishers to cover and mask their advance. The column would then normally deploy into line right before engaging the enemy with either fire or bayonet. This allowed the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic infantry a much greater degree of mobility compared to their Ancien Régime opponents, and also allowed much closer cooperation of infantry with cavalry and artillery, which were free to move in between the infantry columns of the former rather than being trapped in between the linear formation of the latter. The 'colonne d'attaque' was henceforth adopted by all European armies during and after the Napoleonic Wars. While some British historians, such as Sir Charles Oman, have postulated that it was the standard French tactic to charge enemy lines of infantry head on with their columns, relying on the morale effect of the huge column, and hence were often beaten off by the devastating firepower of the redcoats, more current research into the subject has revealed that such occasions were far from the norm, and that the French normally tried deploying into lines before combat as well.[34]

In New Zealand during the period 1818 to 1842, native Maori bought increasingly large numbers of Trade Muskets which were regularly used in intertribal warfare. The Maori developed a number of special techniques to overcome their lack of professional training. The first was to enlarge the priming hole to ensure combustion with the coarse grain trade black powder that was available to them. The second was to do away with the ram rod altogether. The balls were inserted in the muzzle and then the butt thumped hard on the ground to settle the ball. In battle the barrel was never cleaned, so progressively smaller balls were used to load the musket to compensate for lead and ash fouling. The balls were held between the fingers of the right hand.

Obsolescence and replacement by the rifle

The musket had a smoothbore barrel; meaning that it had no rifling grooves in the barrel that spun the bullet, making the rifle more accurate. By today's standards, muskets are not accurate due to their lack of rifling. Owing to this lack of accuracy, officers did not expect musketeers to aim at specific targets. Rather, their objective was to deliver a mass of musket balls into the enemy line.

Rifling technology preceded the musket, but wasn't used by it. The disadvantage of the early rifle for military use was its long reloading time and the tendency for powder fouling to accumulate in the rifling, making the piece more difficult to load with each shot. Eventually, the weapon could not be loaded until the bore was wiped clean. For this reason, smoothbore muskets remained the primary arm of most armies until the mid-19th century. Up until this point rifles were only used in small numbers and usually by specialist units. As early as the beginning of the 18th century, German regiments from many principalities fielded companies of riflemen known as Jäger. British armies during the Seven Years' War (particularly in the American theatre known as the French & Indian War), formed rifle units, and these units were formed again during the American Revolutionary War. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the British created and maintained a rifle regiment.

The invention of the Minié ball solved both major problems of muzzle-loading rifles. The Crimean War (1853–1856) saw the first widespread use of the rifled musket for the common infantryman and by the time of the American Civil War (1860s) most infantry were equipped with the rifled musket. These were far more accurate than smoothbore muskets and had a far longer range, while preserving the musket's comparatively faster reloading rate. Their use led to a decline in the use of massed attacking formations, as these formations were too vulnerable to the accurate, long-range fire a rifle could produce. In particular, attacking troops were within range of the defenders for a longer period of time, and the defenders could also fire at them more quickly than before. As a result, while 18th century attackers would only be within range of the defenders' weapons for the time it would take to fire a few shots, late 19th century attackers might suffer dozens of volleys before they drew close to the defenders, with correspondingly high casualty rates. However, the use of massed attacks on fortified positions did not vanish overnight, and as a result, major wars of the late 19th century and early 20th century tended to produce very high casualty figures.

In the late 19th century, the rifle took another major step forward with the introduction of breech-loading rifles. These rifles also used brass cartridges. The brass cartridge had been introduced earlier; however, it was not widely adopted for various reasons. In the U.S. Army, generals thought their soldiers would waste ammunition, so they kept muzzle-loading black powder rifles until after the American Civil War. The introduction of breech loaders meant that the rifling of a weapon was no longer damaged when it was loaded, and reloading was a much faster process. Shortly afterwards, magazine loading rifles were introduced, which further increased the weapons' rate of fire. From this period (c. 1870) on, the musket was obsolete in modern warfare.

Outside Eurasia

Muskets were the firearms first used by many non-Eurasians. 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.

During the Musket war period in New Zealand between 1805 and 1843, at least 500 conflicts took place between various Maori groups - often using trade muskets in addition to traditional Maori weapons. The muskets were initially cheap Birmingham muskets designed for the use of coarse grain black powder. Maori favoured the shorter barrel versions. Some Maori groups took advantage of runaway sailors and escaped convicts to expand their understanding of muskets. Early missionaries - one of whom was a trained gunsmith - refused to help Maori repair muskets. Later, common practice was to enlarge the percussion hole and to hold progressively smaller lead balls between the fingers so that muskets could fire several shots without having to remove fouling. Likewise, Maori resorted to thumping the butt of the musket on the ground to settle the ball instead of using a ramrod. Maori favoured the use of the double barrel shot gun (Tuparra - two barrel) during fighting often using women to reload the weapons when fighting from a Pā (fortified village or hillfort). They often resorted to using nails, stones or anything convenient as "shot". From the 1850s Maori were able to obtain superior military style muskets with greater range. One of the authors was a Pakeha (European) who lived amongst Maori, spoke the language fluently, had a Maori wife and took part in many intertribal conflicts as a warrior.[35][36] By the 1860s, it was not uncommon for a warrior to have multiple muskets.

Parts of a musket

The phrase "lock, stock, and barrel" refers to the three main parts of a musket.[37] The stock is the wooden base. The barrel is the tube where the musket ball (or other ammunition) accelerates and exits the weapon. The lock is the mechanism that causes the weapon to fire.

Some muskets were designed to be used with a bayonet, which is a triangular spike or blade designed to fit onto the end of the musket's barrel, allowing the musket to be used as a pike or spear. Bayonets in modern fighting are intended as last-ditch weapons which are only used in emergencies, but in muskets, bayonets played a much more significant role, typically accounting for roughly one third of all casualties on the battlefield.

Locks came in many different varieties. Early matchlock and wheel lock mechanisms were replaced by later flintlock mechanisms and finally percussion locks. The lock typically had a hammer of some sort, which was pulled back into position (cocked) and released by pulling a trigger. The hammer was often referred to as a dogshead or a cock due to the fact that it looked somewhat like a dog or chicken's head when viewed from the side. Flintlocks and percussion locks typically had a "half cocked" position, which was a "safe" position from which the weapon could be loaded but not fired. Only when the hammer was pulled back into the "full cocked" position could it be fired. The phrase "don't go off half cocked" has its origins in this type of weapon.

The stock was made out of wood. The rear end of the stock was called the butt. The stock of a musket was typically heavy enough and sturdy enough that the butt could be used as a blunt force weapon in hand-to-hand combat. Some muskets had small boxes built into the stock called a patch box, since it was used to carry small cotton patches which were used both for cleaning and for wadding when firing the weapon.

The barrel of a musket was usually smooth bore. Rifled barrels were more accurate, but the black powder used at the time quickly fouled the barrel, making reloading slower and more difficult. This was not a problem for hunters, who often used weapons with rifled barrels, but musketeers could not afford to stop firing and clean their barrels in the middle of a battle. The minie ball, which came into use in the 1840s, allowed the use of rifled muskets. The front of the barrel was called the muzzle, and the rear was called the breech. The term muzzle-loading therefore indicates that muskets were loaded through the front end of the barrel. A ramrod, made out of wood or metal, was used to push the ball or bullet into the barrel. Most muskets had a groove in the stock under the barrel, allowing the ramrod to be slid into place and stored there. Musketeers were trained to always replace their ramrods after loading so that they would not leave their ramrods on the field if they were forced to hastily retreat.

Barrel bands held the barrel to the stock. These were removable, so that the barrel could be taken off and cleaned. Barrel bands were typically held in place either with springs or screws. A large screw attached to the breech (called the tang screw) also held the barrel in place.

Most smooth bore muskets did not have sights. Rifled muskets, due to their longer range, were usually equipped with sights. The design and placement of these sights varied. For example, the U.S. Springfield Model 1861 musket used two flip up leaf sights, set for 300 and 500 yards, while the British Pattern 1853 Enfield used a flip up ladder sight, which was graduated from 100 to 900 yards in 100 yard increments (although realistically, hitting anything beyond 500 yards was mostly a matter of luck).

Ammunition

Iron ball mould

The simplicity of the musket design allowed it to fire a variety of ammunition. The simplest ammunition for musket was the round ball, which was simply a round ball of lead. Round balls were intentionally loose fitting in the barrel so that they could quickly be loaded even after the barrel had been fouled by numerous previous shots. This loose fit, combined with the poor aerodynamics of the round ball led to the musket's inaccuracy beyond 50 to 75 yd (46 to 69 m) or so. Muskets could also fire smaller lead pellets called lead shot or buckshot, which struck a wider area but with less force than a single lead ball. Round balls could be combined with buckshot to produce buck and ball ammunition, which combined the wider area of attack of shot with the large mass of the round ball.

Musket balls were of a diameter considerably larger than today's modern rifles—the Brown Bess fielded a caliber of more than 0.75 in (19 mm). With its soft, all-lead composition, the ball would easily flatten or burst on contact, much like a modern soft-point bullet. Together with its large size, this meant it could cause large wounds. The smooth bore muskets of the Brown Bess period had considerable hitting power and were able to penetrate the armor of the day, but had limited accuracy due to the lack of rifling in the barrel.

The Minié ball, which despite its name was actually bullet shaped and not ball shaped, was developed in the 1840s.[38] The Minié ball had an expanding skirt which was intended to be used with rifled barrels, leading to what was called the rifled musket, which came into widespread use in the mid-19th century. The Minié ball was small enough in diameter that it could be loaded as quickly as a round ball, even with a barrel that had been fouled with black powder residue after firing many shots, and the expanding skirt of the Minié ball meant that it would still form a tight fit with the barrel and impart a good spin into the round when fired. This gave the rifled musket an effective range of several hundred yards, which was a significant improvement over the smooth bore musket. For example, combat ranges of 300 yards were achievable using the rifled muskets of the American Civil War.[39] While rifled muskets can fire other ammunition like round ball or buck and ball without issues, they were generally only issued Minié ball ammunition. A rifled musket can also technically fire lead shot, but it does not pattern well due to the rifled bore. A smooth bore musket could also technically fire a Minié ball, but without the spin imparted by a rifled barrel the Minié ball would tumble and would not be accurate.

Musketeers often used paper cartridges, which served a purpose similar to that of modern metallic cartridges in combining bullet and powder charge. A musket cartridge consisted of a pre-measured amount of black powder and ammunition such as a round ball, Nessler ball or Minié ball all wrapped up in paper. Cartridges would then be placed in a cartridge box, which would typically be worn on the musketeer's belt during a battle. Unlike a modern cartridge, this paper cartridge was not simply loaded into the weapon and fired. Instead, the musketeer would tear open the paper (usually with his teeth), pour some of the powder into the pan and the rest into the barrel, follow it with the ammunition (and the paper as wadding if not using a Minié ball), then use the ramrod as normal to push it all into the barrel. While not as fast as loading a modern cartridge, this method did significantly speed up the loading process since the pre-measured charges meant that the musketeer did not have to carefully measure out the black powder with every shot.[40]

The superior accuracy and effective range of the Minié ball and rifled musket led to its rapid and widespread acceptance, while the simple musket ball and smooth bore musket gradually fell out of favor. The later development of the bullet cartridge accelerated the demise of the older technology. Despite this, musket balls continued to be used until well into the late 19th century, as regular armies and militias had accumulated vast stores of them over time.

Accessories

Different types of musket tools

Musketeers carried numerous special tools and accessories, many of which have no modern equivalent. Most musketeers carried some sort of specialized combination tool, usually consisting of one or two screwdriver blades and a small pick. The screwdriver blades were used to change the flint, remove the barrel bands, and otherwise disassemble the musket for cleaning. Later versions of the tool included a small wrench used to remove the percussion lock's nipple. These tools often came in a "private" version and a "sergeant" version, the difference usually being that only the sergeant version contained the necessary parts (like a spring vise) needed to disassemble the lock mechanism. Typically, the entire musket, with the possible exception of the lock mechanism, could be disassembled using only this one combination tool.

A cartridge box holding several pre-made paper cartridges was often worn on a belt. When percussion locks became popular, musketeers also carried another small box on their belt which held the percussion caps.

Some ramrods were equipped with threaded ends, allowing different attachments to be used. One of the more common attachments was a ball screw or ball puller, which was literally just a screw that could be screwed into the lead ball to remove it if it had become jammed in the barrel, similar to the way that a corkscrew is used to remove a wine cork. Another attachment was called a worm, which was used to clear debris from the barrel, such as paper wadding that had not been expelled. Some worm designs were sturdy enough that they could be used to remove stuck ammunition. The worm could also be used with a small piece of cloth for cleaning. A variation on the worm called the "screw and wiper" combined the typical design of a worm with a ball puller's screw.[41]

A fouling scraper was another attachment that could go onto the end of a ramrod. Made out of brass to prevent possible problems with sparks, it was used to scrape powder fouling out of the barrel.

A cleaning jag was another attachment that could go onto the end of a ramrod. Some ramrods were flared, essentially having a cleaning jag built into them. Cotton cleaning patches could be wrapped around the end of the jag, which would then be run through the barrel for cleaning.

A powder flask or powder horn could be used to hold black powder. Powder measures were small tube-like devices used to measure out exact amounts of powder. Once measured, the powder could be loaded directly into the barrel, or it could be placed in a paper cartridge for later loading.

A tompion was a wooden plug inserted into the end of the barrel. This was used to prevent dirt from getting into the barrel and was removed prior to loading and firing the weapon. Nipple protectors were used with percussion lock weapons. This was a small cap, usually attached to a short piece of chain, which covered the nipple and protected it from dirt and moisture.

Modern use

Modern replicas of many muskets are available, from manufacturers such as Pedersoli, Armi-sport, and Euroarms. Flintlocks from the Napoleonic Wars such as the Brown Bess or Charleville musket are common, as are many of the muskets (both flintlock and percussion lock) used during the U.S. Civil War. These are used by historical reenactors and hobbyists, and are also sometimes used by hunters. In the USA black powder shooting, particularly of Civil War era weapons has become popularised by the North-South Skirmish Association who engage in matches known as Skirmishes. These events are not primarily re-enactments of specific Civil War battles, instead they are focused more on promoting the accurate shooting of firearms from the era. Black Powder shooting is also popular in other countries particularly in Europe where shooting competitions and re-enactment events are relatively commonplace. One such event is the 1815 Battle of Waterloo commemorations which will see a widescale use of muskets.

Modern musket designs are also available, such as those made by Thompson Center, though they are often just called "muzzle loaders" or "black powder rifles" instead of "muskets". These are typically used by hunters during hunting seasons specifically for black powder muzzle loaders. They often use black powder pellets instead of loose black powder, and more modern projectiles such as sabots and maxi-balls.

"Muskets" based on breech-loading cartridge rifles that have been smoothbored and re-chambered for a shotgun-type cartridge have been used in some countries to arm police or security forces. The intent is to provide a military-type weapon that is less powerful and has a shorter range than the standard military rifle. An example is the conversion of the Lee–Enfield MkIII rifle to a single-shot musket chambering the .410 inch Indian Police cartridge. Many such conversions were performed in India during British colonial rule, some of these muskets remain in Indian and Pakistani police service to this day.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Muskets.

References

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