old guns

[Midnight_Carnival]

Thanks Frogger5 and wesfreak I'm glad to get some details amongst all the angry Americans shouting at me about how the Canadians pwnd them like it was my fault or something

Does anyone have any idea of how long it took to reload old firearms, what their effective range was and how accurate they were, how much powder was used for each charge, etc... (?)

Spoiler:

In my story the Athese Empire (a large sort of "technofuturist" [if the furturist art movement ever became a pollitical party]) uses the quadpistol which is 4 flintlock pistols each with its own separate firing mechanism but all connected to the same trigger, a switch allows all 4 to be fired at once, or the two top and the tow bottom, or for the barrels to be fired one at a time. The quadpistols come with their own cleaning and loading apparatus which is supposed to make priming them quicker, but that is debatable. They heavy and cumbersome, they are also quite inaccurate and the soldiers who use them (especially one of my main characters) hate them and wish they'd be issued with a musket like the heavy infantry.

... ha I'll write more if 75% of you pay

[bigkahuna]

I'm glad to get some details amongst all the angry Americans shouting at me

Soz. You got on my semi-quasi patriotist nerves.

[Frogger5]

Ok, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musket#Operation

That should help. Basically, it was a long and careful process, and took lots of training and drills to be able to do it quickly, without it blowing up in your face.

Because of this, they invented a new tactic which allowed them to have an almost constant stream of fire at the opponent.
Basically, you have three rows of soldiers, the front row fires first, then crouches down and reloads. While the first row is reloading, the second row fires, then crouches and down to reload, then the third row, and so on and so fourth.

Spoiler:

Effective range for flintlock pistols was only five or so yards (correct me if I'm wrong?). Most pistols produced were smoothbore, which means worse accuracy, but some were rifled.

Muskets are longer smoothbore weapons with an effective range of about 75 to 100 meters.

Smoothbore means it doesn't have the spiral grooves at the end of the barrel which make the projectile rotate, this means less accurate firing, but nowadays pretty much every firearm is rifled, Given the fact that we now use streamlined bullets that are far more accurate.

You can see what rifled barrels look like at the start of a James Bond movie. It shows the inside of a Smith and Wesson revolver.

Spoiler:

[johndh]

Effective range for flintlock pistols was only five or so yards (correct me if I'm wrong?). Most pistols produced were smoothbore, which means worse accuracy, but some were rifled.

Except during a naval battle, where the surface you're standing on (a ship) would be rocking back and forth due to the waves, the erratic movement would reduce your pistol's range to almost melee. Why ships are shown perfectly still during battles in pirate movies is something I'll never understand.

[artisticdude]

Effective range for flintlock pistols was only five or so yards (correct me if I'm wrong?). Most pistols produced were smoothbore, which means worse accuracy, but some were rifled.

Except during a naval battle, where the surface you're standing on (a ship) would be rocking back and forth due to the waves, the erratic movement would reduce your pistol's range to almost melee. Why ships are shown perfectly still during battles in pirate movies is something I'll never understand.

I won't ever get it either. Cinematography does a great injustice to the ship gunner (I know there's a more technical term for those chaps, but I can't remember it just now).

[Frogger5]

Weather it rocks a lot or not depends on the kind of ship. I'm fairly sure galleon ships were liked for their steadiness, and because they didn't tip over when firing cannons in a continuos stream.
At least I think it's the galleon, it might be a different ship.

Anyway I suggest we get this back on topic.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Thanks Frogger5, what you posted was most helpful...

johndh: are you reading my mind or something? Damn, the bit where Jerome singlehandedly hyjacks the Romassi frigate during the storm was supposed to be a suprise!

[Herduk]

I have two questions (and a background thing you don't have to read):

1) how do you convert from pounds (lbs) to kilos?
- the cannon (plural -although why people can't just add an "s" is beyond me) are classified acording to the weight of a solid iron shot they would fire, so how heavy in kgs and how large would ...say a 10 lb, a 50 lb and a 100 lb shot be, just so I can get an idea of what would be a decent size and what would be ridiculous..

Here in Italy, cannon are classified by ogive's diameter (and i always believed was something universal...)