"How did apostles work?" Topic

Except that they weren't called apostals?

Was there only one powder charge pr. "charger"

Given they carried 8-14 thats not alot. of shots.

Sure the volume of fire was less then say Napoleonic period were 60 rounds could be spent in no time.

My understanding is that they were a deliberately contrived "chain firing" weapon. Scary….

With the religious connotations a bit of praying is involved that it all works smoothly ;) (actually its just the normal number of 12 on the belt= to the 12 apostle in the bible)u (you poured a bit onto the pan from one of the wooden/leather 'bottles' put the pan cover in place(or it would pour out ;( poured the res of the charge into the barrel popped the ball in rammed it down hard with your ramming stick propped the big old musket onto its rest pulled back the hammer,aimed, screwed up eyes against burning sparks and fired. Repeat 8 to 12 times there's is also a lot of doffing and hallowings it the process if done by the book but suspect in battle it all was a bit less theatrical :) my guess about a minute and a half to load per rank. Remember you had in that period up to 8 ranks so it was a constant process which would see a musket solder doing his bit in a slow conveyor belt of movements.
Hope I haven't missed any motions but you get the idea. Cheers

My understanding is that fire was secondary to melee as the battle decider. So a bit of a firefight followed by pike and clubbed musket.

As that changed, and melee became secondary, the need for more ammunition led to the paper cartridge and cartridge box.

Also remember that before apostles, everything was loose powder from a horn, etc. Musketeers still carried these of course – the apostles merely gave a number of ready charges.

But the apostales were used by some well into late 1600s, by that time, pike was secondary stuff, lot less of it then before. with linear warfare.

I doubt that many Napoleonic battles saw infantry firing 60 rounds apiece or even carrying half that number – whatever the regulations might have specified.

Pre-measured charges were in use almost from the development of guns and cloth-wrapped artillery charges are known to have been used in the 15th century.

I think the jury is out on which was most important during the 'pike and shot' era. Fire could be devastating at the right time but conversely sometimes had little effect. Push of pike is described equally as a 'bloody affair' and as being akin to a journey on the Tokyo underground. Take your pick (or pike).

As Zargon mentioned this was a slow process and required depth of musketeers to be effective and good drill if that could be achieved. Also consider that the effective range of most fire locks was at best 40-50 yards. In particular during the English Civil Wars power quality was all over the place as supplies of good powder seemed to always be in short supply. Given all the steps needed to make a fire lock ready to fire it is a wonder that muskets became the firearm of choice in the late 16th and into the 17th Century. To me it would seem arming men with crossbows would be more effective and deadly with a longer range and no need for powder supplies. Also the training would seem to be less then for a firelock.

I've never heard of an 'apostle' as a weaponry term. Any links for a basic overview? I'm just getting Christian stuff.

Here is an article by Robert Giglio who I think has some history chops on this particular thing. He dislikes the term Apostles for the bandolier of powder.

link

Here is another article that uses the term and gives the old statement that they were called apostles because there were twelve wooden bottles of powder.

link

Dr. Mathias I used boolean searching using "musket and apostles"

the wooden things on the bandolier.

LOL. If you look at them and had to describe these bottles of charge in generic terms, I think "dangle bits" would be a bit of a misnomer :) cheers all very interesting thread.

Terrement – Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. The Apostles were Jewish, so it was Sunday to Friday.

I doubt that many Napoleonic battles saw infantry firing 60 rounds apiece or even carrying half that number – whatever the regulations might have specified.

Pre-measured charges were in use almost from the development of guns and cloth-wrapped artillery charges are known to have been used in the 15th century.

I think the jury is out on which was most important during the 'pike and shot' era. Fire could be devastating at the right time but conversely sometimes had little effect. Push of pike is described equally as a 'bloody affair' and as being akin to a journey on the Tokyo underground. Take your pick (or pike).

I've read lots of acounts of some units uesing 60 rounds in less then 2 hours, remember it's avrages, one unit might not fire at al, some fire of 5 rounds, but in most battles, some units will get tangled up and fire at much higher volume then normal.

And I'm talking about late 1600s, the period were pike and shot transforms into horse and musket, by the 1670s pikes were not "mele weapons" as they used to be, more keep cav away weapons.

As olicana says the musketeers had their powder horns as well (to use directly or refill the powder charge bottlesI don't know). They also apparently had a budge barrel of powder at the rear of the regiment where powder could be refilled. Naturally this was rife with the possibility of sparks or slow match getting into it and blowing up at exactly the wrong time…..

if you are standfing next to it, any time is the wrong tiome…..

Pretty much as the consensus indicates, the term 'apostles' was not a contemporary one and would have had a soldier of the time scratching his head in confusion. It appears to derive from Victorian times as do most of the many myths and misconceptions about the period.

The most common description was 'bandolier' or some variant thereof. As many such collars held either more or less charge bottles than the supposed dozen, calling them 'apostles' makes little real sense.

Another myth to bust is about the process of loading the matchlock musket. It was neither slower nor more cumbersome than recharging a forelock. The numerous motions of the procedure could be reduced to the three commands of, 'make ready', 'present' and 'give fire!. A competent musketeer can reload a piece in 30 seconds and I've seen it done in just 20.

I can (or could before the arthritis set in) do the 20 second thing.
As has been well put above, they're just a means of having a number of ready measured charges available in the days before paper was so plentiful that you could afford to waste it rolled around gunpowder. You're supposed to carry a large flask to recharge them with when it gets quiet and have budge barrels with even more powder when that's gone.

Thanks whitemanticore, I know almost nothing about this slice of history, pretty interesting.

A tale of barrels of powder: Hopton's Royalists defeated Waller's Parliamentarians. They put a couple prisoners on the cart that was hauling their powder. The prisoners were smoking. The cart blew up, causing some 300 Royalist casualties. Hopton was among the wounded. This accident reversed the victory.

It was neither slower nor more cumbersome than recharging a forelock.

Surely that just required a quick tug?

I agree with Baccus (I think he meant Firelock not forelock).
We need to get past the Victorianism about the English Civil War.
With only a limited number of rounds of fire from musketeers this will change how we think of 17th century engagement,how much fast and dangerous they may well have been.

Mac, they kept more powder in a powder horn and more bullets in a bullet bag. The apostles were just premeasured "ready rounds", but they had many more shots.

Bullets were always carried in a separate bag, pocket or even in the mouth. And not everyone had a powderhorn, for example none of the German, Swedish or Danish TYW documents I've studied show powder horns being issued to the ordinary infantry. They all had to make do with just the bandolier, while most bandoliers include a small powderflask in their design it was just intended for the priming powder, not as a spare powder supply once the prepared charges in the bandolier were gone.

Daniel S:

Thats weird, as the swedes favored firepower more then say imperials, you would think they would make sure their musketeers had enough shots.

By the 17th century they carried a powder flask usually an odd triangular shape thing at the bottom end of the bandolier along with his small bullet bag.
The powder flask was used for priming, see Jacob De Gheyn beautiful illustrated musketeers postures.
Not in this drill manual or any other drill manual of the period have I seen muskets being loaded from loos.

Gunfreak there is an old cpomparison betweeen revolvers and automatic pistols. Autos can bang away and hope they get hits because of the larger magazine. revolvers have to make theirs count.

If the swedes felt 12 rounds where enough, then probably they where. you just need to get close.no silly long range musket duels.

owen

The Swedes drill preferred the "Volley Fire" get to close rang reduce your rank (from 6 to 3) every one fires and then you change home, when it works it's devastating.

Daniel S:

Thats weird, as the swedes favored firepower more then say imperials, you would think they would make sure their musketeers had enough shots.

There are more ways to create effective firepower than carrying a lot of shots. And the Swedes had an effective supply chain set up in each brigade as the large reserve of "surplus" musketeers would be used to bring up powder and shot as needed to keep the musketeers in the firing line supplied.

The Swedish focus was always on generating as much firepowe as possible in a single moment rather than gaining the advantage in a drawn out firefight. (Which is were an extensive supply prepared charges come in handy). The war with Poland-Lithuania had showed that the "attritional" firing methods of the Dutch system with it's focus on the firefight simply could not stop Polish cavalry charges. What was needed was massed fire with up to the entire unit firing at once as well as providing every infantry unit with it's own artillery support. Along the way the Swedes improved fire control by introducing the platoon and developing platoon fire which was one of several firing methods used by the Swedes.

forgive me for resurrecting this thread
but does anyone know when they were introduced?

Here is an early example worn by an Imperial arquebusier during the Tunis campaign in 1535

An even earlier version is to be seen worn by one of the in Maximilian's 'Triumphzug'

But that is a rare one, in general the very early form of apostles become common in Landsknecht art in the 1530's though they never replace the powderhorn completly.

@ the Gray Ghost

Presumably it was originally because many of the musketeers had very little training or experience with firearms, so were unable to judge accurately the amount of powder to pour out of a powder flask. Too little powder and the fire will be ineffective; too much powder and the barrel could be damaged.

By using measured charges, even the least well trained militia shouldn't be able to get it wrong.

@ the Gray Ghost

Presumably it was originally because many of the musketeers had very little training or experience with firearms, so were unable to judge accurately the amount of powder to pour out of a powder flask. Too little powder and the fire will be ineffective; too much powder and the barrel could be damaged.

By using measured charges, even the least well trained militia shouldn't be able to get it wrong.

Although with widely varying quality of gunpowder, you could get a fizzle or a massive thumping explosion with the same volume of powder, I would guess. Sort of like a hippie in the 60's taking the same amount of dodgy LSD and not knowing if he was going to have the "trip" of a lifetime or not get high at all.

It's been suggested based on surviving equipment purchases for the English army in Ireland that each musketeer could have been issued with two bandoliers. This based on a description of each musketeer receiving "a pair of bandoliers". This might be a pair in the way that we have a pair of trousers. So not actually two items.