"French Units in the Crimea - All Minie Rifle?" Topic

How were the French units in the Crimea armed? I've seen all with Minie rifle and only elites. Can anyone be definitive about this?

Thanks in advance

Not definitive, but I read that the Minie rifle was " in widespread use in the French army of the Crimean War". Suggests it was more than the elite soldiers who carried it. The British had Enfield rifles for three out of four divisions, perhaps a higher ratio for the French? Their army had recent field experience in North Africa and had come to appreciate the benefits of the longer ranged weapon when fighting enemies who had developed their own longer range rifles.

Thanks John I think I was reading just that last night. I think I'm going to go with all of them with Minie rifle unless someone knows better. I've four battalions left to paint and a battery and some cavalry.

Digging around for my sources….but I have read that line infantry had smooth bores and elite had rifles. That I how I play them.

link

This link says ALL French units had the Minie. Cannot vouch for its accuracy of course. The rules we use (Fields of Honour), give all French and British " Minie"

"but I have read that line infantry had smooth bores and elite had rifles."

Yeah me too-but no source given.

Interesting link John thanks.

I'm leafing through Warner's Minie references to no great avail. Cracking book though.

More recent works suggest that rifles were in widespread use by French and British even as early as the Alma. Both Figes and Small mention Russian Gunners being picked off one by one and forced to withdraw while waiting for Brit and French infantry to come in range, which they were smart enough to avoid.

There is no doubt that all but Cathcart's Division had Minie's at the outset as far as the British are concerned.

I think, but don't know for sure, that all the French did. Some of the Russian's did too but mostly not.

The Russians were trained to advance in column and use the bayonet, which is a tactic that would have negated the usefulness of rifles, had they deployed them. Almost all Russians were armed with smooth bore muskets.

Yes they mostly did that but not always.

Its interesting to read a British cavalry officer's account of the Minie fire the Light Brigade received from the Russians at Balaclava. But mostly, yes, smooth bores and very little target practice.

This article states that rifles in the French army were the domain of the Guard, the light infantry and the zouaves. The line, that made up 85% of the troops in the Crimea, were armed with smoothbores.

link

It also indicates that the French rifle was ballistically inferior to Enfield used by the British.

The following is taken from "French Infantry of the Crimean War" by Anthony L Dawson.

Field trials of the Minie rifle were carried out in October 1850 and the results were not as good as expected and the trials were suspended. 1,500 were issued to the Zouaves.

A modified version of the Minie, M1853 "Fusil d'Infantrerie Rayee" was initially issued to the Guard in 1854 and also the Chasseurs a Pied. The remainder of the army did not receive them until 1857.

It appears the Line infantry used the rifled Carabine a Tige, but the Tirailleurs Algerian and Legion carried smooth bore Fusil d'Infanterie.

Just a final item. The greatcoat worn on campaign was iron-grey and not the later blue. Source as above.

Good stuff Chad47, but too late for the great coats in my case, and it will make for a more interesting game.

Thanks Mark Strachan for a very useful article.

This was a question that vexed me quite a lot as I was researching the Crimean War scenarios for "Bloody Big European Battles!". The conclusion I came to was that initially "only chasseur battalions and the Imperial Guard had rifles. All other French troops had smoothbore muskets. In 1855, 2,500 newlymade muskets were hastily rifled and sent out to equip the three zouave regiments."

Thus at The Alma and Inkerman, the zouaves are using smoothbore muskets; at the Chernaya, they have rifles.

I could be wrong, of course, and I can't find a record of my French source for that, but for instance a quick Google reveals:
link
"Nous allions à la guerre en Crimée avec un armement démodé, des fusils Mod 1853 neufs, mais lisses, des fusils 1842 et 1822 T tout aussi lisses. En fait, les seules armes réglementaires rayées en France étaient les fusils de la Garde Mod 1854, (en cours de fabrication et rarissimes à cette période) et les carabines mod 1842, 1853 et quelques vieilles 1837. Mais on en avait très peu.
Or, nos amis anglais venaient d'adopter un excellent fusil rayé de petit calibre, l'Enfield Pattern 1853.
La France ne pouvait pas perdre la face.
Voici pourquoi (à mon avis) on a fait un véritable "Crash-Program", on a sélectionné une série de fusils 1853 neufs, on les a rayés et on leur a soudé une hausse réglable. Et direction la Crimée."

Hope this helps.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
link
bloodybigbattles.blogspot.co.uk

Cheers Chris, its one of those questions where you think this should be simple enough-and its not.

My impression is that the French were using Nessler ball in their smoothbore muskets -- but I can't be certain of it. The Nessler ball has been described as similar to a shotgun slug; it's basically the minie ball principle applied to a smoothbore. By ensuring a tight fit, the accuracy of the smoothbore weapon was increased significantly and I think some of the smoothbore muskets had rear sights added. Not as good as a rifle, but much better than a smoothbore firing undersized round ball.

Here is a website that has some nice pictures of various kinds of Nessler balls (and French arms), unfortunately it's in Italian, and my Italian isn't good enough to translate it:

link

I never knew about the Nessler ball. Thanks for

The link you gave says that in practice its results weren't great, and that of course it needed more careful loading.
("Alle prove pratiche i risultati non furono dei migliori, inoltre nel caricare occorreva prestare maggiore attenzione di prima perché la palla ora doveva essere inserita in canna con la parte semisferica verso l'alto.")

I also found this link:
civilwarguns.com/9910b.html
which says the Nessler was widely used by the Russians in the Crimea, as well as the French and Piedmontese.

Chris

This gets more and more interesting.