"French Musketeers Firing Review" Topic

"In English the word ‘musket' is used for any long firearm before the widespread adoption of rifled barrels, when the word ‘rifle' became normal usage. In French the word is more precise, in that a musket is specifically a matchlock (where the charge is ignited with a match or hot wire), and the later weapons ignited by sparks such as from a flint are termed fusil, from which the term fusilier is derived. So this set depicts infantry armed with the matchlock, a weapon that was out of favour by the time of the War of the Spanish Succession. Although it was the standard firearm of the 17th century, it was slower to load than the flintlock, more prone to damp conditions (which made the match hard to keep alight) and more likely to misfire. By 1701 many nations had largely abandoned it, and indeed so had France, eventually, which decreed that the flintlock was the only approved infantry weapon in 1699. However the enormous cost of replacing all the existing matchlocks, and the time necessary to manufacture replacements, meant that it took many years to complete the task, and it was not until 1708 that the last matchlock was finally withdrawn from front-line service.

Since the musket is the focus of this set we will start by looking at that, partly because it is the most noticeable feature at first glance. All these men carry a matchlock which is quite nicely sculpted, with fair detail on the lock and the match. The French army used various models of matchlock at the same time, so there was no standard model, but in an effort to control this diversity, in 1670 the authorities decreed that the calibre and barrel length of all muskets should be the same. The barrel length was to be three feet and eight inches (these are French measurements, not the same length as the Imperial system still used by some today). This equates to about 119cm, which at our scale is 16.5mm. All the muskets in this set are 17mm total length, with a barrel of 11mm, so are massively too short. To be honest this is readily apparent simply by looking at them, and they should be much more like the examples illustrated on the box artwork…"

Full Review here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Those are pretty nice figs!

Nice dragoons for my Imagi-Nations

Happy you like them guys!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

These reviews are consistently thorough and give much attention to accuracies both of uniform/weapons and of poses (ie how appropriate these are to contemporary drill etc.). The last paragraph of this review is in my own view anyway an excellent account of the choices we often have to make. Thanks again for bringing things to our attention.

Vous êtes les bienvenus mon cher ami!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand