|
|
Due to spam and off-topic content, these forums are being phased out and replaced with new great books forums. Please join us!
Posted by ed on August 26, 19100 at 08:34:37:
In Reply to: Guns posted by Ethan Sudman on August 21, 19100 at 23:25:41:
: I have a strange sort of strange question. The rifle had been invented by the time of the revolutionary war, so why weren't they more commonly used?
: Thanks,
: Ethan Sudman
Ethan;
Not a strange question at all.
Rifles were much more labor-intensive, and hence more expensive to produce, than muskets. If you're
a king, or a congress, you don't want to deplete the public treasury on just one item when you have to fight a war.
They were more unwieldy in size, which made loading slower. Obviously, a unit that can fire three
vollies in a minute has an advantage over a unit that can only do one.
Since each rifle was made separately, caliber varied from one gun to another. If you're a soldier with 75 caliber bullets and a 50 caliber gun, you're likely to be a dead soldier.
Military life is rough on a gun, and muskets took more of a beating without failing.
Perhaps most importantly, rifles were useless when it came to the "ultimate weapon" of 18th century
warfare - the bayonet charge, simply because they weren't designed to take bayonets. Imagine several
hundred soldiers running straight at you shoulder to shoulder with 18 inch bayonets levelled at your
gut, and you are standing there with a slow-loading rifle. In such cases, it wasn't considered cowardly
to turn around and run.
Best regards,
ed