Royal Armouries English Civil War film clip

[VikingWannaBe51887]

It amazes me of how the outcome of a battle, was determined how fast you reloaded your weapon.

[elgostine]

that guy, in this vid, seemed to take from about 00:11 maybe 00:12 to 1:09

thats about 48 seconds for 1 shot.

yup,

no wonder the wheel lock gained a fair bit of favour.

[ABWEndon]

The bandoliers weren't actually called "Apostles" during the English Civil War period. "Apostles" or "12 Apostles" is a rather fanciful expression that crept in during Victorian times. They were called simply "bandoliers", i.e. each wooden charge was a bandolier, so the collective noun is "bandoliers"... not a bandolier as some people use for the collective noun.

[fp470]

Got a question, perhaps you English C/W experts or re-enactors could help me.

Q: The Wooden flasks, how many would you carry?

Q2:Was a reserve stock of powder kept to continue firing after you had expended all those flasks?

Q3: It looks as if a matchlock could load as fast or faster than a flintlock- anyone have any comment on this observation. I could be wrong.

Thanks in advance

[ABWEndon]

@fp470 Don't confuse the bandoliers with the name "flask". The flask, or "powder flask" was a much larger container, with a nozzle which held a much larger amount of powder and which was used to deliver a set amount of powder, which could either be transferred to each bandolier (if one had time to prepare) or could be used directly to deliver a measured charge of powder directly down the barrel.

[ABWEndon]

@fp470

The powder flask, therefore, would contain the reserve stock of powder. Also, a smaller "priming flask" was sometimes used, which held a much finer grade of powder, specifically for priming the pan. The finer granules would thus "trickle" better into the touch-hole, thereby ensuring that a misfire was less likely to happen.

[ABWEndon]

@fp470 Flintlock (or Doglock) muskets in theory were quicker to load and fire, because there was no match-cord to set into the "serpent" or "cock", maybe saving about 10 seconds. All you had to do with a flintlock was pull back the cock and it was ready. No "blowing on your coals" or "testing your match". Flintock musketeers were often used on guard duty.... especially to protect powder supplies, because there was no burning match, which could be dangerous.

[elgostine]

@ABWEndon and there is a plausable, though unrthodox method of loading the flintlock case study the brown bess, invented in bernardcornwalls sharpe series which was tested by a renactment group in australia, could fire 6 shots in 2 minutes by a reletively untrained man, and theres a vid by blacktriangle of a man, the tandard way firing 3 shots in 48 seconds.

[elgostine]

@elgostine btw, the 'fictional, yet plausable methods colloquially called tap loading because once the shot is sat down the barrel instead of using the ramrod, you gently tap the butt against the ground

the motions described are roughly

bite, pour, spit tap aim,

speeds increased by not having to pull out the ramrod.

[mross7]

Other advantages: the musketeers "replace ability"; you can train a new one to be fairly competent in about 2 weeks, while for an archer, the saying goes to get a good longbow man, you start with his grandfather. Or more practically, training started at age 7.

[TempestDust]

And once that shot had been fired, the musketeer would have to redo the entire process again... Compare the firepower and effectiveness of a matchlock musket to that of a medieval longbow. The archer would have been able to fire 10 shots before the gunner would have reloaded and the arrow had twice the effective range of a smoothbore firearm. Musket smoke also made it harder to aim. The only real advantage the gun had over the archaic bow was the intimidation factor and lethality of the shot.

[whikless]

I saw this when I was there last week