How was ammunition for guns worn since firearms were introduced and why was it worn in that particular way? Certainly a 15th century handgonner must have had a different way of carrying things into battle than someone in the 17th century, but why?
The guys in pic related have this bandoleer get-up but the guy in the video has a satchel on his hip. Why? The bandoleer looks a lot smoother as well.
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You can see Landsknechts in some paintings wearing pretty similar set-ups of those "apostoles"
Before paper cartridges were invented you had what you see in your picture, which was called the 12 Apostles as there were usually 12. Each one contained a measured amount of powder for one shot, and would be poured into the musket. A measured amount was needed for the musket to perform as expected.
Before even that a soldier may just have a single flask full of powder, and he would pour from that the amount he thought correct. It often wasn't correct, which led to the developed of the 12 Apostles. That eventually led to individual paper cartridges.
Oh and the satchel is full of the smaller paper cartridges, it was a lot more convenient and easier to carry than a bandoleer across your chest.
People would only carry 12 rounds to battle? That sounds awfully low, although I freely admit I know next to nothing about the period.
They'd have a flask with more powder on their side, but they had 12 premeasured shots ready to go on around their chest. 12 is quite a lot, it takes realistically 20-30 seconds to reload and getting off 12 volleys before either you or the enemy is routed ,or engaged in melee, is probably quite difficult. Two lines firing into each other for prolonged periods didn't usually happen, one usually backed off or charged after the first few volleys.
Pardon my ignorance, but why not? I'm more familiar with late medieval and early renaissance warfare, and there, it was common for bowmen and crossbowmen to carry more on the order of 50 arrows/bolts.
And while there too you rarely had super prolonged shooting matches, what was common was shooting, charging, fighting in melee, one or both sides breaking, reforming, and having at it again seceral times.
Did that not happen as you got into the musket age? Do you have any idea why not?
Probably to do with how much slower muskets were to fire. Their stopping power made up for it, but in the same amount of time you could fire 50 arrows you'd probably fire your 12 shots. A musket battle would have had a lot less projectiles in the air than earlier medieval battles would have.
If you're using a short weight hunting bow. But like a 15th century English longbow? 140-160 pounds of draw weight. Firing a shot requires pulling with enough force to pick up the man shooting it, and that doesn't lend itself to rapid firing, not if you don't want your arms to fall off. And that's not getting into an 1,000 pound esque heavy crossbow which requires a cranequin to reload.
You probably had slightly higher rates of fire, especially for the simple bows, but I'd be stunned if they were shooting 4 times as fast.
But that actually wasn't what I was getting at: In eat least 14th-16th century warfare, you wouldn't usually have just one charge. Yes, there would be hand to hand fighting, a lot of hand to hand fighting in fact, but usually it was of relatively short duration, you'd break off, reform, and then the bowmen would start shooting again.
At least the impression I got from your earlier post (which might or might not have been on the ball) is that once a musket era army either broke and ran, or the charge happened, that was it. Battle was over, one way or another. I'm just a bit surprised about that, that's all. Did you get multiple reformation and re-entry into the fray? And if not, I'm curious as to what changed, since that would seem to be more of a human element, not something about the weapons per se.
Musketeers weren't really meant for hand to hand fighting, they'd only attack other muskeeters, if they got attacked badly, they probably would route off their field, they didn't sign up for that shit. The advantage of muskets was you could levy and train simple folk to become proficient rather quickly, so they could shoot well, but they weren't fighters. That was the pikemen, they'd do the real combat.
Interesting. Do you have any information as to pikes or other professional/mercenary troops and their resilience/ability to reform after breaking?
Not really, they would have been the same as other troops from the previous age, though they were quite well trained and drilled. The Swiss were again famous for their mercenary pikemen.
Didn't they also have a bottle with better quality powder to prime with or am I misinformed?
check out a bit of swiss mercenaries history
pretty much since the dawn of nations they've been working as mercenaries all over the place and yet they've been more fierce and brave in battle than profissional armies fighting for their own countries
and since at a point in europe they were pretty much the best pike units you could find, once them and some other fellows from another place i can't quite remember met in the battlefield - none of those fuckers would back off and instead they would crush each other until everyone at one side died or some other force aided them (named as "bad war")
also, after a few hundreds years, during the gunpoweder era they still were pretty good and kept the heroic "no routing" policy the best they could
>link related: en.wikipedia.org
Source for that webm?
>tsauce
Movie called alatriste. Just search Battle of Rocroi
Longbows may not have been that powerful. The "180 lbs omg so heavy":stat comes from the upper range of the bows on the Mary Rose, which may have been "blanks". As in, almost finished bows that need tweaking to suit the individual archer. They may have been a lot lighter.
Chinese and Japanese musketeers have bamboo cartridges using the slender tip of bamboo shoots. Which is pretty smart.
Would they really carry the burning match like that in their hand? Why not just have a great big spool of it and have like a hook or something on the side of the gun?
That is exactly how it worked. Thats why its called a Matchlock musket. The trigger mechanism literally just moves the end of the burning cord onto the pan igniting the powder.
How come the powder doesn't explode when he rams it down the barrel? Also he talks about this being an "unsafe, historically accurate" way of loading, in what way would a modern day, safe, reloading technique be different?
On the other hand Nips were full retards and made their barrels too thick and large bore so they were heavier and shorter ranged.
Well fuck I forgot the link but it was a guy reloading a musket with a ramrod.
It'll take a lot longer than 20 to 30 seconds to reload. 3 shots a minute was essentially a gold standard time for Napoleonic fusiliers, who had the luxury of paper cartridges.
Those men likely shot a lot slower, a shot a minute tops, making even more sense that they'd only carry 12 powderloads.
>tfw not festooned; like an armenian or somesuch
When were triggers/locks invented?