How to Fire a Matchlock Musket

In a follow up to last week's post on the wheellock I provide some links to show how the matchlock works. 

The matchlock was the principle firing mechanism for muskets from about 1450 to 1700. Despite being in common use for a longer period than the flintlock firing mechanism, people are more familiar with the flintlock. While part of this is due to the flintlock being used throughout the 18th and early 19th century and especially in the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars, but part of it is also due to a lot of movies using flintlock weapons anachronistically instead of the matchlocks or in the case of pistols, wheellocks.

History of the Gun - Part 2: The Matchlock from the "History of the Gun" online video series produced by Ruger and hosted by Senior Editor of Guns & Ammo Garry James. Part 2 examines the Matchlock. This is a clear explanation and demonstration of the matchlock. His loading and firing takes about 45 seconds.

Demonstration of a 1611 Matchlock Musket: Historical Interpreter John Pagano presents a detailed presentation and demonstration of DeGeyn's Manual of Arms for the early 17th century Matchlock Musket. This is a longer demonstration that also discusses the gear that the musketeer is wearing.

Matchlock and wheellock firing according to authentic French 17th century regulation. This video is especially nice. We see two matchlocks: a musket and a carbine loaded, fired, reloaded, and fired a  second time so that the entire sequence can be seen (and timed). Commands are given by an "officer" who is armed with a wheellock pistol. He also loads (much more quickly) and fires his pistol along with his men.

How to fire a Matchlock musket - English Heritage Event (1643 patent matchlock musket). This is a clear and short explanation of the matchlock.

From Matchlock to Flintlock: A clear, succinct explanation of the matchlock and flintlock firing mechanisms. Unfortunately, no smoke or fire in the video though.

And as a bonus...that's how you fire a blunderbuss: from Smith's Castle Rhode Island. And another blunderbuss from Triggers. This shows the blunderbuss fired in super slow motion so you can actually see the balls hit the target.

What's a wheellock and how does it work?

Most people are at least a little bit familiar with single-shot black powder pistols. And for most of us that familiarity comes from media. And most often the media depicts some flint lock type of firing mechanism. The sort of mechanism where the hammer is pulled back and locks in place to arm the weapon and the trigger is pulled to release the hammer, causing it to strike the flint it holds against a steel plate creating a spark that ignites the powder in the pan that flashed inside the barrel to ignite the charge to expand the gas to project the ball out of the barrel and (hopefully) hit the target.

That's all well and good but in the time period for my campaign, the flintlock is almost unheard of. The wheellock is the most prevalent firing mechanism for pistols. And pistols are the most frequently used firearm by the PCs. Thus my players really should be a little bit familiar with what a wheellock is and how it works. I find some of the videos especially helpful and often fun.

History of the Gun - Part 3: The Wheellock from the "History of the Gun" online video series produced by Ruger and hosted by Senior Editor of Guns & Ammo Garry James.

Late 16th century German Wheellock Pistol: This be the 4th video in a "How to Fight Like a Pirate" series by Madd Mike of Pirate Fashions. Here we be showing off arrrr German Wheel Lock Pistol. [Despite the pirate lingo, Mike has a monotone voice and he only sparks but doesn't fire the gun. However he does give a good demonstration of how to safely load, prime, and fire a wheellock.]

Wheellock Carbine: Here is a short clip about firing a wheelock carbine reproduction. It is fired in the 'shooters' way, not as they were loaded back in the old times. [This is virtually no dialog, though the shooter wears a snazzy brown period suit.]

Wheellock Firing Process: This is an animation of the firing process.

Wheellock pistol fired at 10,000 frames per second on Triggers. 

A video of the loading and firing of a late 16th century cavalry wheellock puffer pistol. These are fully functional replicas of an original piece dated 1587 minus decoration. They are used for late 16th century cavalry re-enactment and are fired from horseback. After firing the weapons can be reversed and used as clubs in close combat.

Matchlock and wheellock firing according to authentic French 17th century regulation. This video is especially nice. We see two matchlocks: a musket and a carbine loaded, fired, reloaded, and fired a  second time so that the entire sequence can be seen (and timed). Commands are given by an "officer" who is armed with a wheellock pistol. He also loads (much more quickly) and fires his pistol along with his men.

Wheellocks - Real or Fake? And What is "Fake", Really? Sadly no gun gets fired, but there are lot of nice detailed views of a real wheellock and a reproduction from the Victorian era.

Replica guns from the time of the 30 Years War in Europe: the video includes slow motion firing shots and some snazzy Eastern European march music. Unfortunately the text at the beginning is a bit difficult to read...unless you can read Czech. As an added bonus the end of the video features are some interesting period recreation costumes.

Carrier Pigeons

Before the widespread adoption of radio, carrier pigeons were frequently used on the battlefield as a means for a mobile force to communicate with a stationary headquarters. They saw considerable service in WWI and were still in use in WWII. But their use far predates the 20^th century. Cyrus the Great used carrier pigeons to communicate with various parts of his empire. During the Golden Age of Greece pigeons were used to carrier news to other cities of the outcome of the Olympic Games. Anacreon wrote an Ode concerning a carrier-pigeon. In Ancient Rome, within many texts, there are references to pigeons being used to send messages by Julius Caesar, though I don’t recall that big Juli mentioned pigeons in Caesar’s Gallic Wars. In 12^th century Baghdad and Egypt there was an organized pigeon messenger service. Genghis Khan also used them. In 1436 the Spanish traveler Pedro Tafur mentioned the use of carrier pigeons in the Ottoman Empire. In Europe, the Republic of Genoa had watchtowers equipped with carrier pigeons.  

The domestic pigeon (Columba livia domestica) is a pigeon that was derived from the rock pigeon. The rock pigeon is the world's oldest domesticated bird. Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets mention the domestication of pigeons more than 5,000 years ago, as do Egyptian hieroglyphics. Research suggests that domestication of pigeons occurred as early as 10,000 years ago. Initially pigeons were bread for meat which in English is generally known as squab. I have eaten pigeon--didn't fancy it. It was by far the worst meal I ate in the UK. 

A good racing pigeon can average 60 mph through the air for hours at a time, and fast racing pigeons have been clocked at 110 MPH. As far as distance, pigeons have been known to travel 1,000 miles or more.

In fiction, the 1935 version of The Three Musketeers (which I happened to watch recently) uses messenger pigeons more than once as a means of fast communication. The villain of the film is Rochefort and we see a scene where dozens of pigeons are sent out to alert his agents to so that they can ambush D'Artagnan and the Musketeers on their way to England to get the Queen's diamonds. Later we see Milady de Winter send a message back to Paris by pigeon. Recently carrier pigeons were used in my game as a means of fast communication between Cardinal Richelieu and his agents. 

As far as roleplaying, carrier pigeons are not something I've seen in RPG materials. The closest to carrier pigeons is from some Runequest setting materials that mention Yelmalio cultists using hawks to carry messages. Of course in many RPG settings magic provides an even faster method of communication (though one that requires mages) and high power D&D may use hippogriff or pegasi messengers. 

So what do you use for fast communication in your settings?

English Royal Ordinance 1637

The always interesting English Civil War blog recently had a post on Royal Ordinance in 1637. (I read it back when it came out, but my ready to post queue is 2-3 weeks out so it took awhile for you to see my post.) Now I'll admit that if it had been a 1637 (or better yet 1627) list of French Royal Ordinance I'd have been more intrigued and I probably would have bumped this post up in my queue. But our campaign is set in 1624 France and none of our PCs really care what sort of cannon the foul smelling Le Rosbifs use on their barbaric little island.

However the link in the article took me to a very nerdy web site with several interesting technical articles about historic ordnance. Just glancing at a few the articles I found several interesting factoids.

Interesting Factoid #1: Cannon and their shot were cast so that the diameter of the gun was wider by a fixed ratio than the diameter of the shot used. This difference or gap was known as windage.

Interesting Factoid #2: The usual ratio for the weight of powder to the weight of the round shot used in a cannon varied both over time and according to how far away the target was that the gunner was trying to hit. In general there were standard ratios that varied as technology changed.

• ¹/₂  the weight of the ball around 1600;
• ¹/₃  the weight of the round shot was the standard British service charge from 1760 onwards. 

The greater weight of powder in the early period was due to powder of lesser quality and cannon cast with greater windage. Because of this even though more powder was used the ranges achieved would have been similar.

Interesting Factoid #3: Territorial Waters was defined by how far your coastal gun batteries could fire. One of the reasons put forward for the international agreement that territorial waters extend 3 nautical miles from the coast, is that 3 nm was the maximum range of shore battery guns in the 18th century. In the mid 20th century the distance for Territorial Waters was extended to 12 nm.

Here are the articles from which the various factoids were derived.

Cannonball Sizes 

This article has an analysis of both weight and diameter and a comparison to the nominal gun sizes of the day. It also has a nice explanation of windage and its affect on Early Modern gunnery.

Smooth Bore Cannon Ballistics

This article covers the ballistics of Early Modern smooth bore cannon. It includes information on  the weight ratio of powder to shot that was used in the cannons in the period and an interesting footnote on how artillery range affected maritime law. 

New techniques for understanding 17th century siege warfare

 

Reconstructing the maximum possible diameter of a spherical bullet using the bowl of an impact scar from St Luke’s church, Holmes Chapel (image: Dr Paul Bills, University of Huddersfield).

I came across this 4-year old article on the English Civil War. It's interesting, though a bit technical.

New archaeological techniques, however, are beginning to provide more scientific explanations of how 17^th century warfare was fought. In this guest post Amanda Wynne from the University of Huddersfield explains how laser scanning technology is helping us to more accurately interpret English Civil War sieges - and the benefits the results may have for other fields ...

I wish they had included a scale with this picture. But based on my estimate of a Nikon lens cap, that is a damn big scar on this chunk of sandstone.

 Experimentally produced bullet impact scar from a 12 bore musket ball.

So how big is a 12 bore musket ball?

Well 12 bore means that 12 lead balls the diameter of the barrel would weigh 1 pound. So 1 musket ball weighs 1.33 ounces. For those of you from the post Napoleonic world, that's 37.8 grams. You don't want to get hit with that even if the muzzle velocity is only 400m/sec.

The article on Gauge (bore diamater) in Wikipedia gives provides formula to calculate the diameter of the ball. 

• Divide 453.59 (grams in 1 pound avoirdupois) by n to find the mass of each one of the balls.
• Divide it by 11.34 (density of lead) to find the volume of the ball.
• Multiply it by 0.75 and divide it by pi, then find its cube root, (rearranged from the volume-of-a-sphere equation) to find its radius in cm.
• Multiply it by 2 to find the diameter in cm.
• Divide it by 2.54 to find the diameter in inches.

Crunching the numbers yields a diameter of 4 cm or nearly 1.6 inches! They certainly had big balls back in the day.

${\displaystyle d_{n}=1.67051437/{\sqrt[{3}]{n}}}$

Pike & Shotte - Miniatures

I came across the website for Warlord Games. They have a nice collection of rules, information booklets, and historical miniatures, The ones from their Pike & Shotte series is just right for Early Modern campaigns. Minis come in both metal and plastic.

It's probably a good thing that I am very low on cash now or I'd be very, very tempted to drop a couple hundred bucks on minis...which I would then have to paint...which would require buying new paints and such and a huge amount of time. It's been nearly 20 years since I've painted any miniatures. Gaming via Skype really decreases the utility of miniatures and the fun of picking them up, showing them off,  etc. Also I find that painting is a lot more fun when done with a friend. Talking passes the time, you can share paints, and its fun to have someone else to bounce ideas off of for color choices and painting schemes. The friend I used to paint with the most died a young and untimely death - which sucked in a lot of ways. Since then my enthusiasm for painting has lessened. My wife isn't interested nor available to paint with so painting is really a nonstarter. But still I am oh so tempted.

And some of the miniatures really make difficult to refuse. All things considered, I suppose it's fortunate that there aren't sets of King's Musketeers or Cardinal's Guards to push me over the edge. But I did find more than a few miniatures that seem like they would make good figures for PCs. They even have figures with pitchfork and torch. Something every good monster hunter campaign can't do without.

Sadly they don't have painted models to admire for these two.

And what swashbuckler doesn't want to jump on a Coach?

The top opens up to show the inside - how cool is that?

And they even have Cardinal Richelieu and some unnamed guy in an iron mask. I wonder where they got that idea from?

Leadership and Military Ability for Early Modern France

Battle of Rocroi Spanish Tercio vs. French Cavalry

Honor+Intrigue House Rule

I want to be able to include army and fleet level military actions in my H+I campaign. This was a feature of the Siege of Bergen op Zoom campaign arc and it is likely to again occur in the current Face of Treason campaign arc that I am running. Barbarians of Lemuria and Honor+Intrigue both use Careers - specifically the Soldier, Mercenary, Sailor, and Pirate Careers as a proxy for generalship or military ability. Savvy or Flair also do and should figure into the capabilities for Army Generals and Flee Admirals. But I'd like to have more variety than simply using Careers and I want some of the qualities to matter when commanding troops.

At a high level I want to include three aspects to commanding troops. First is military ability which includes tactics, strategy, ability to assess the ground or field of battle, create and use surprise, and so forth. Second is leadership which I see as the ability to get men to follow you into battle and for subordinates to execute your orders and the qualities of charisma and natural leadership that effect morale. Third is daring or resolution. This includes the willingness to act without complete information and in the fog of war, to hold a position against the odds, or to charge the enemy. In this time period leaders are still near or at the front, witness the death of Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Lützen.

Military Ability (MA)

So for military ability I chose to use the combination of Career and the Savvy. 

MA = Career+Savvy *

The relevant careers are Soldier or Mercenary for army combat and Sailor or Pirate for fleet combat.

* -1 if the commander does not possess a relevant Career.

Leadership (L)

One thing I've noticed in reading about French armies in the Early Modern period is that senior and even lower levels of military leadership were frequently provided by or even identical to the nobles of France. This was true even when the noble in question was not the most competent nor even a minimally competent commander. (This problem is by no means limited to the French. The purchase of Army commissions in Britain for example was infamous well into the Enlightenment or later.) So one question is - why did the kings and ministers allow, enable, and even foster this? 

One answer is that military rank like most offices were for sale and this was a significant source of revenue to the crown. Another answer is that high social rank was necessary for an army commander to control the tendency of lower ranking officers of higher social ranks to engage in independent action. The army needed a high noble in charge otherwise nobles of a higher social rank would feel entitled and even justified in ignoring the orders and instructions of a general of a lower social rank. 

There were two tools that kings and ministers could use to manage this issue. First, a good tactician could be provided as a staff or supporting officer to advise the socially high ranking but militarily not so competent commander. This had mixed success since socially high ranking French nobles were not well known for heeding the advice of their social inferiors and often seemed to have an inflated sense ego and sense of their own importance and competence. (As should be especially obvious of late, this too is not a problem limited to the French.)

A second tool used by the king to manage this problem and to place a good tactician in command armies was to promote that person to the title of Marshal of France. This would give them a sufficiently high social rank to keep all but nobles of the highest social rank, e.g. the Grands, in line.

I'd like to reflect this historical reality. Since I've added Social Rank as a house rule to my campaign that seems like it would make good proxy. But I wanted to limit this to noble rank and not allow things like wealth or holding a church, club, or bureaucratic office that add to Social Rank to effect military Leadership.

L= Modifier for Title + Flair

I created a Title table to list the modifiers.

Daring and Resolution (D)

Daring adds to Leaderhip to Attack with less than Overwhelming odds**, Rally, or Defend against odds. Daring or resolution is the simplest command aspect to model. For this I chose to simply use the H+I Quality of Daring.

D= Daring

** Note the H+I rules section Mass Combat (p 110) lists the following Army Sizes: Not Larger, Moderately Larger, Much Larger, and Overwhelming.

Examples

For examples I'll use three of the player characters in my campaign. 

Guy de Bourges (SR 9) is a minor noble who was inducted into the noble Order of the Holy Ghost making him a Chevalier. He has Daring 2, Savvy 3, Flair 3, and no relevant Careers.

• Guy: MA=2 (-1+3), L=3 (0+3), D=2.

Gaston Thibeault (SR 9) is a commoner, his social rank is due to his military rank and post at the Captain-Lieutenant of the Cardinal's Guard. He has Daring 3, Savvy 2, Flair 3, Soldier 3. He has the Boon: Laughs in the Face of Danger which gives him a bonus die for most rolls involving Daring.

• Gaston: MA=5 (3+2), L=0 (-1+1), D=3+

Hippolyte de Bouchard the Foul Corsair is a commoner. He has Daring 2, Savvy -1, Flair 1, Pirate 2. 

• Corsair: MA=1 (2-1), L=0 (-1+1), D=2.

I determine NPC Careers as part of the creation process and for nameless or generic leaders I can easily decide how good a Soldier or Sailor they are based on the concept and history of the NPC. But for Leadership and Daring I created a couple of tables for randomly determining L and D for generic NPC commanders.

 

Types of Sieges and Their Use for RPG Adventures

Siege of La Rochelle, with nearby Île de Ré, by G.Orlandi, 1627.

An important, perhaps to the participants even the key, feature of Early Modern were sieges. It is true in all times and all places that soldiers spend very little of there actual time engaged in battle, especially big, clash of armies battles. Hence the aphorism that war is -

Months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror.

A lot of a soldier's time is spent waiting and trying to stave off the boredom of having to wait. And in early modern warfare some significant time periods were spent waiting on one side or the other of a siege line. Sieges could last for years: 

• Ostend (1601–04)
• Breda (1624 – 1625)
• La Rochelle (1627–1628)
• Mantua (1629–30)
• Casale Monferrato (1629–31)
• Candia (Crete) (1648–69) Yeah that’s right that's  twice as long as the legendary 10 year siege of Troy.
• Waterford (1649-1650)
• Copenhagen (1658–1659)
• Fort Zeelandia (1661–1662)      
• Ceuta (1694–1727) - 33 years! Claimed as the longest siege in history.

 

Our post Blitzkrieg, post Shock & Awe modern military viewpoint has a lot of difficulty comprehending the importance and focus that siege warfare and fortification design held on 17th century military and political thinkers and decision makers. Indeed we have a lot of trouble understanding the thought processes of the General Staff on either side in the First World War or the French over reliance on the Maginot line that followed it.



Capturing strong points was important to the way political and military leaders conceptualized war and its aims. And for the noble classes who provided most of the officers in the armies of the period, war was a way to gain glory and renown. And with the exception of a one army smashing into another sort of big battle - which only happened rarely in that or most periods, a successful conducted siege - whether as the besieger or the defender was likely to result in glory and promotions for some of the officers. And for the besiegers there might even be the bonus of a chance to loot the town.

The original inspiration for my post was an article I read about a year ago on the English Civil War blog Siege types of the English Civil War by David Flintham, a military historian specialising in 17th century sieges and fortifications. Flintham says,

"The origins of the great transformations of the 18th and 19th centuries (the Enlightenment, and the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions) are firmly in the 17th century. The transformation on the battlefield was no less dramatic – military engineering which was regarded as an ‘art’ during the 16th century was very much a science by the end of the 17th ..." 

Siege warfare with on one side the immense precisely designed star-shaped fortifications on the one  side and the geometric traceries of multiple circumvallations connected by parallel communication trenches on the other is the aspect of warfare most amenable to the new fascination with reason and science. And the acknowledged master of the period was Vauban.

Later Flintham divides sieges into four types.
"Civil War sieges fall into four types:

• The coup de main, where surprise was used (such as Alexander Leslie’s capture of Edinburgh Castle in 1639).
• The ‘smash and grab', where an assault was launched after a preliminary bombardment, a preferred tactic of the New Model Army (and on at least one occasion, at Dartmouth Castle in 1646, the assault was launched without any bombardment). Here, just the threat of the assault was often enough to persuade the garrison to surrender.
• The blockade, which was a longer-lasting affair, and the besieger invested the place of strength, preventing communication and offensive activities by the garrison. This was the preferred option by an attacker unwilling (or unable) to attempt an assault and was used (without much success) by the Royalists at Gloucester, Plymouth and Lyme Regis.
• Finally, and quite uncommon was the complete investiture, where a circumvallation of rampart and ditch, fort and battery would be constructed around the entire town, in so doing cutting it off from the outside world. Examples of this are few: Newark (1645-6), Oxford (1646) and Colchester (1648)."

  Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle, Henri Motte, 1881.

These same categories are prevalent in nearly all military periods. Any of these types could be rich fodder for an RPG. Note that here I am not contemplating an RPG where the players are running the characters who are commanding the opposing armies or major units. That situation is closer to the typical wargaming session than it is to the typical RPG session. And if all the players are up for that the appeal should be obvious. Instead lets look at the more common situation where the PCs do not control major military units. So how does the GM use these situations? Let's look at them one by one.

• The traditional OD&D dungeon crawl is an example of a coup de main. And it points the way towards how to use the PCs. Obviously they, with their mad skillz and willingness to take insane risks at the drop of a gold piece are invaluable for a surprise assault.
• The 'smash and grab' also sounds like a traditional dungeon crawl, but arguably the preliminary bombardment may differentiate the two. Though clearly these two categories overlap as Flintham acknowledges when he mentions that the assault on Dartmouth Castle was launched without any bombardment. And presumably the assault on Dartmouth came as a surprise to defenders who, once the saw the besieging army march on up to their walls, were probably expecting the traditional bombardment prior to an assault. The PCs are perfect for the quintessentially forlorn hope that leads the assault. And if your game is one that features powerful magic users (like many versions of D&D) why your PCs are also the artillery for the initial bombardment of the 'smash and grab.' And don't forget the defenders. Most fortifications have a few key areas and a few key vulnerabilities. Put the PCs there defending the important redoubt or holding the gateway once the ram has battered it down.
• The blockade is probably the least used type for RPGs, with the possible exception of  naval and sci-fi based RPGs. The blockade and on its other side the blockade runner (you know that ship that we see at the beginning of A New Hope and the end of Rogue One). In part I suspect that is because blockade duty, like a complete investiture, is boring most of the time, but it lacks the fun of siege engines and the pageantry of one army staring at the other across their fortress walls and encircling  circumvallations. As mentioned, crashing the blockade is probably the easiest and most natural use for PCs. For naval blockades it does require that the PCs have a ship and for land blockades they should be mounted rather than infantry. 
• The complete investiture has some of the same aspects as the blockade. We may see the defenders sending for help like we see, unsuccessfully, in Last of the Mohicans. PCs are perfect for this role. Otherwise I think that the investiture is best used as a backdrop. It may be the starting point for an assault or escalade (ascent by rope or ladders) which defaults to either the coup de main for, say a night escalade, or to the 'smash and grab' for an attack on a breach in the wall or a day time assault under covering fire. Another way to use the full investiture type of siege is assign the PCs to special forces or commando roles. They may be tasked to special missions to: sabotage an enemy battery, capture or kill an enemy leader, poison the water supply, blow up the ammo dump, set fires, drop the drawbridge and jam the portcullis, etc. I used several of the special missions during an arc where I set the PCs inside the town of Bergen-op-Zoom during the Spanish siege. Their roles included counter espionage, foiling attempts to blow up the towns powder magazine or to poison wells, stopping terror attacks aimed at destroying civilian will, holding important strong points against vigorous assault, and launching harassing raids to sabotage enemy guns or destroy the attackers morale.
• Flintham left out one more way to take a fortress - treason. This too is good fodder for the PCs and it allows more scope for the more talkative and intellectual PCs and players beyond simply killing everything in their path. Figuring out how to find a weak defender who is susceptible to bribery or threats on the one hand or, for the defender, trying to catch the attacker's saboteurs and agents provocateur before they can strike on the other.

Yet More on the Wild, Wild East: Russian Military History

I recently happened upon this blog on Russian Military History which I've added to my What's Under the Hat blog list.

Geographically Russia is far from France and AFAIK the cultural connections postdate the 1620 period I'm primarily focused on - though cultural connections between France and Russia would fit an 18th century campaign quite nicely and we all know the 1812 connection between the two countries.

Here's a recent post on French Infantry at the start of the reign of Louis XIV, though given the king's age in 1643 one might more accurately say at the end of the reign of Louis XIII.

The blog also includes chronological tags which make it easy to pick out periods that fit the time frame of one's setting. Here are three that fit nicely with my campaign interests.

• 1618-48 30-Years War (17)
• 1621-59 War in Flandres (8)
• 1628-31 War of Mantuan Succession (2)

And of course the information on Russian Military History would be vital for anyone wanting to use a Wild, Wild East setting.


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