1777 - what weapons would you choose to fight the redcoats?

[goon]

I've been kicking around the idea of getting into revolutionary war reenacting lately so I've been looking at rifles and muskets.
Being from PA, I am kind of fascinated by the PA/Kentucky rifles but I'm wondering if maybe the average trade gun or fowler might have been a more practical long arm for the time.
I'd think with a tightly patched ball they'd be accurate enough to make decent shots on redocats and game out to 80 yards.

So my choice -
A smoothbore trade gun. It could work with a patched round ball or with buck and ball loads if I was somehow dumb enough to try and participate in delivering a volley. Reloading should also be faster than it would be with a rifle. It could also use shot for small game foraging.
Second, a big knife. IIRC, trade guns didn't have bayonet lugs. The knife would at least give you something to fight with if you were unfortunate enough to get cornered by british troops.
Next, a belt sized poll axe. It would be a useful tool that would be slightly more suited for pounding because of the small poll that most hawks don't have and double as a weapon.

 

[tkendrick]

The type of gun I would probably go for would be a smooth bore, quicker to load, and a lot more shots between swabbing.

Also, I would really want something that offered a bayonet. Nowadays we use bayonets primarily for riot control and parades.

In my 21 years of active duty, most commanders didn't like the bayonets to leave the arms rooms, and mounting it was a guarantied butt chewing from the first shirt!

Back then, though, many military strategists considered the musket almost as an accessory for the bayonet, not the other way around!

 

[cluttonfred]

If I were you, I'd find a reenactment group that you like first, then get your weapon to suit that group. Despite image of American Minutemen with rifles picking off the Redcoats from cover, the vast majority of Continental troops had British Brown Bess (originals or local copies) or French pattern military muskets. If you have in mind a uniformed reenactment group, then they can tell you what is "standard issue." If you want to reenact an irregular militia member, certainly a rifle or fowling piece or even a blunderbuss might be appropriate, but again, find your group first so your equipment will suit your character.

 

[StrawHat]

The Brown Bess was a common long gun as was the Charleville and the Committee of Safety musket.

I believe each man was required to carry a longarm, 40 or 50 cartridges, a knife (usually a long kitchen knife), a small ax and a bed roll.

Canteens were not a common part of the kit and bayonets were usually quickly lost or donated to the cooking kit.

The advice on meeting with reenactors is good as these folks have more knowledge of particular groups.

The Committee of Safety musket is a unique arm in our history as by building it, the gunsmith declared himself to be a traitor to England. This was not to be taken lightly and several of the smiths were executed for building the muskets. Most surviving muskets are unsigned because of this.

Pistols were the tools of the Officers as the cost put them out of reach of the common man. They cost about what a longarm cost, and were less useful.

Few colonial gunsmiths made pistols and most were imported from the old country.

 

[goon]

I think for pure re-enacting I'd probably have to go with a Brown Bess just because it would probably fit the most characters/units and also work for F&I war.

But at the time I'd probably have done just about anything possible to avoid fighting as a regular. Standing in a line waiting to get shot is the epitome of stupidity. I think a smaller caliber smoothbore would have been best suited to "normal" use and history has shown that they did just fine when pressed into use in war.

I was thinking about trying to pull some money together for one but you guys are right that I should hold off until I have a much better idea of what I want.

 

[scrat]

Yep i have to go with goon. i think its pretty stupid to stand in a line to get shot. As for me. id take a few of my bp revolvers. but if we are talking fictional. then id also take a 44 henry and a bunch of primers. im sure the bullets i could cast and the powder i could use black. but primers im going to need. a browning 30 cal wouldnt hurt either.

 

[Rachen]

One answer: Da Dao and barrage gunpowder rockets mounted on wagons.

The Chinese had used barrage rockets against the Mongols at Kaifeng, and the same weapons were used by Manchu warlord Nurhaci against the remnants of the Ming army later.

Each rocket is packed with several pounds of gunpowder. It's head is filled with naphtha or kerosene. When the rocket hits the enemy, the backblow from the flaming end plus the kerosene in the head creates a terrific firestorm. Each wagon is equipped to carry 20 or more rockets ready to launch. the operator only has to light a single fuse at the back. The fuse would run all along the line and ignite the rockets at once, resulting in a Katyusha-like ignition. In fact, the most feared weapon that the Nazis in Russia faced in 1943-the Katyusha, was based on the design of the ancient Chinese hellfire dispenser. The weapons are extremely easy to build. With 50 wagons, each wagon carrying 30 rockets, that will mean 1,500 flaming rockets screaming towards the British lines within one minute.

With their tighly packed ranks and robot like precision in marching, the effect of the rockets on their ranks would be terrifyingly destructive. Entire regiments would be burned alive in the first volley. The survivors behind them would quickly flee, not from fear, but from the fact that they would be incinerated too if they don't run. The British artillery in the rear wouldn't fare too well either. The firestorms would ignite all of their powder and shells within seconds.

If I was a militia leader in the 1775, I would have my men build thousands of rockets exactly to Ming Dynasty specifications, and the wagons needed to hold and launch them. Infantry would be equipped with the Da Dao as their primary weapon. There will be no need for slow firing flintlocks. Once the rockets did their deadly work, the militiamen would all draw their swords and charge straight into the disoriented British survivors and hack them down.

I would also have the militia companies form into entire army groups, for more easy manuevering. For example, one single army would contain 2 divisions, identified by great massive banners depicting red dragons or jade serpents.

I think the rockets would also do well against the murderous Indians in the woods that are on the British side. Incinerate the hell out of them, woods and all. It would show them the ferocity of prescribed hellfire and deter them from killing innocent civilians again, because killing civilians will mean having their entire homeland blasted and burned.

 

[Rachen]

Yep i have to go with goon. i think its pretty stupid to stand in a line to get shot. As for me. id take a few of my bp revolvers. but if we are talking fictional. then id also take a 44 henry and a bunch of primers. im sure the bullets i could cast and the powder i could use black. but primers im going to need. a browning 30 cal wouldnt hurt either.

I think Goon meant what we would use, out of the weapons that are available at the time period.
Of course, if I can have modern weapons with me, I would take along thousands of Arisakas, thousands of them, along with Mauser C-96s, and BARs. And of course, I would have my two Remingtons for close up work. However, the barrage rockets will still be my primary weapon.

 

[Cosmoline]

A Penn long rifle. Smoothbore muskets were for lines of soldiers right in front of the action. That's not the best place to be for survival. I'd rather be up in a tree with a very long rifle.

 

[DutchmanDick]

A Ferguson rifle. Being a breechloader, it can be loaded faster than a standard muzzle-loading rifle. It can even be loaded in the prone position. Some surviving examples have folding or sliding integral bayonets. If Major Patrick Ferguson hadn't been killed at King's Mountain, we might have found ourselves facing this one, and be singing "God Save the Queen" instead of "The Star Spangled Banner"!

 

[Rachen]

Patrick Ferguson hadn't been killed at King's Mountain, we might have found ourselves facing this one, and be singing "God Save the Queen" instead of "The Star Spangled Banner"!

No, we would only be singing God save the Queen for a short time. Within a few years, we would have avenged the death of our Great Leader Washington
and tied the King and Queen to a rocket and launched them to the Moon.

The British imperialists also f*cked China in the 19th century and both the Taipings and Boxers were not able to kill more of them because the ancient rocket technology was banned over two centuries ago by the minority Manchu rulers. The rockets were so easily built by anyone with limited knowledge of gunpowder physics that the Manchus were paranoid that the peasants would use the devastating HAN CHINESE technology to overthrow them and reestablish a HAN CHINESE ruler. Therefore, they burned the sacred texts of our past Emperors, and forbid even their own armies, consisting mostly of conscripted Han Chinese, to use the rocket weapons.
However, Dr. Sun Zhongsang, leader of the First Proletarian Revolution in 1911 rekindled the ancient technology and used rockets to defeat Manchu forces at Hangzhou railroad depot revolt.

 

[Redd Flynt]

Bess

 

[goon]

Yep, I meant weapons that were available at the time.
I guess the rockets could count and wouldn't have been a bad idea. Rockets were available then so they would have only needed to be used differently.

I wonder why they weren't used as weapons.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Lorenzoni type rifle. Why? It's a breechloading repeater that featured an internal magazine for the balls and another for the powder. Rapidity of fire plus accuracy of a rifle. All I need is a good horse to make my cowardly getaway.

 

[Jim Watson]

I wonder why you don't know that rockets were used during the American Revolution.
I heard a song about that right before the baseball game today.

I am sure that if I were a member of a formed military unit, I would use whatever was issued; and if now reenacting that unit, I would get the closest repro I could find. If I wanted to portray (or be) an irregular, I would have a fowler or trade gun. Versatile and lighter than a rifle with barrel the size of a crowbar. Quite the nicest muzzleloader I have seen was a 20 bore full stock flint fowler, predating the Revolution by some years. Actually two; the original and a reproduction made up with longer stock for the shooting comfort of the tall Modern American who owned them.

 

[Rachen]

I heard a song about that right before the baseball game today.

That was the War of 1812. And actually, the British used bomb-ships to attack Fort McHenry. Bomb ships are armored mortar carriers. The "rockets" were actually the glowing, scarlet streaks of mortar fuses as they arched across the midnight sky.

 

[Cosmoline]

I heard a song about that right before the baseball game today.

War of 1812, not the Revolution. HMS Erebus, a bomb ketch, was used to launch 32 pound Congreve rockets. They were impressive but very inaccurate. Good thing they didn't have these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0nIqZgnp60&NR=1

 

[Rachen]

Good thing they didn't have these:

These were based upon the ancient Chinese barrage rockets.

If the texts and scrolls on rocket technology were not almost entirely destroyed by the Manchu warlords, the Taiping Heavenly Army in 1851 could have used them to devastate the British in Hong Kong, and then on to Shanghai, where they would have been able to incinerate the hell out of the British and French settlements on the Bund and made them wish they should have never left their home countries to embark on a futile journey of imperialism, in their last, terror-filled moments before they are burned to charred skeletons.

 

[Macmac]

The Committe of Safety musket is an American clone of the Brown Bess. From 20 feet no tourist could tell the difference.

The bayonette for this gun is a triangel sticker, and that lug we all call a site isn't any kind of site. it is a lug, and back in the day was hammer welded on the barrel and not soldered like today.

If you stick a punkin, that lug will be lost in the grass some where. If you get this gun get it welded.

Other guns had bayonettes, called plug bayonetts, more large knife like, if a big knife is something you want.

The Bess sticker can cook meat, and be used to hold a candle, so it has uses.

I play in F&I, as most Rev War guys I see tend to change in jeans and tee shirts promptly at 5 PM. Maybe they don't, but they did.

I also do American fur trapper Free, and Brigade.

In both times I also do Native Warrior characters, eastern and western.

So yeah I am with these guys, find a group/unit and get what they have.

I think it is fair to say at a event no rockets will be thought very well of these days. Maybe for show with NO powder, but if you burn down a historical fort, you are sure to be very unhappy about it.

I think ALL re-enactors should learn the drill, and should fire buck n ball at targets to get the idea of what it was like.

I have seen guys in Civil War popping 36's and 44's well over 100 yards, and they get pissed when the enemy doesn't drop dead. Back then a lucky shot might hit a man at that distance with a 6 shooter, MAYBE!

Most muskets like a Bess might hit a single target at 75 maybe. More like 50 yards.. And if you are Brit aiming wasn't legal, and you would be FLOGGED if caught aiming.. Thse days of course you set the gun off a bit and elevate the barrel, so you don't hurt anyone. Pretty ram rods on the field are a big sin!

Pretty much no one carries power in a horn in field battle and you need a cartridge box with 2 leather lids.

Militia and Natives have some varrance in what and how they carry items.

 

[DrLaw]

Most muskets like a Bess might hit a single target at 75 maybe. More like 50 yards.. And if you are Brit aiming wasn't legal, and you would be FLOGGED if caught aiming..

Could you elaborate on this one?

The Doc is out but wants to learn now.

 

[Rachen]

Could you elaborate on this one?

The Doc is out but wants to learn now.

The British believed in "gentlemanly" warfare. However, how can giving smallpox infested blankets to the Catawbas, our Native American allies be called "gentlemanly"? Okay, back on topic, they want to make themselves look like "gentlemen" trying to civilize the "barbaric minorities" such as American colonists, and Hindu nationalists and Chinese revolutionaries later on.

Therefore, during the great battle at Lexington and Concord, when colonial sharpshooters gave them one of the worst humiliations suffered by the "empire that the sun never sets on", the redcoats said that the "American colonists" didn't know how to fight properly, in other words, like a "gentleman".

However, the lobsterbacks were hardly "gentlemanly", just look at Camden and the Hudson Valley. So, we would not drop to their low level, so we fight their brutality with some cunning and genius of our own, our marksmanship. It was something that they could not fight back towards, and it was something that made even their most protected generals fear for their lives.

 

[scrat]

All I need is a good horse to make my cowardly getaway.
__________________

say it aint so gary say it aint so. i guess a lemat for back up would be nice.

 

[4v50 Gary]

A dragoon regiment armed with Lemats would be nice. Well led, they could take on three times their numbers easily and still win. But percussion caps were about 50 years off and the Lemat another 25 (minimal). As to running away, it's not to be a coward per se but to keep the distance between myself and pursuing British. An unsupported rifleman could fall prey to his musket armed counterpart if the latter came within close quarters.

The British were not stupid like they showed in the movie, The Patriot. After Boston, Howe in England began training infantry in light infantry tactics. As a veteran of the French & Indian War, Howe knew the limitations of most riflemen: slow reloading. Fast moving light infantry with bayonets could be used to drive riflemen from the field. It worked on Long Island and Washington learned that riflemen had to be supported in turn by light infantry. That's why we see Maxwell's light infantry fighting alongside of Morgan's riflemen at Saratoga. Morgan also learned from Saratoga and demonstrated his tactical competence at Cowpens where he took every perceived disadvantage (back to a river, riflemen with their slow guns, majority of his force were unreliable militia) against a confident and agressive opponent leading an elite Tory force (with some British regulars).

As for the Patriots at Lexington and Concord, the vast majority were farmers who supplemented their larder by game. Their guns were mostly fowlers and old muskets.

 

[Macmac]

Doc , I can try but am not to sure what the real question is.

I have a clone Brown Bess made for the bi-centenial, that shoots .735 PRB.

I play in events with targets, and at 75 yards it takes a target in sheets of plywood to hit a man sized figure with a single ball. Sometimes everyone misses the entire sheet of plywood, and aiming at that!

At 50 yards groups get better. Since that lug isn't a sight not much time is spent getting it to be lined up, when these are soldered on. I have no idea what type of solder that is, myself and no real good way to test it, more so since mine got lost in the grass sticking a pumplin in a contest.

My lug rested happily with many more, hardly alone, and so I made a new lug, but didn't spend time lining that up for more than to hold the sticker.

I ground the solder off the barrel easy enuff.. Ground a v on the lug and mig welded it, and that sticker hasn't sung on the barrel since.

In the day mass volley was an art, and each way tto fire in rank and file has a name to the style.

I forgot most of these names, but when you have the man powder a Bess can be one heck of a weapon enmass.

One common method was to have 3 files of men. I hope I have the terms correct.

The first to fire did on command, and this can vary from all at once, to starting on one end, and runing to the far end one after another.

On command the first file drops to their knee and on command begin to load, which the 2nd file steps one step ahead, to fire in what ever method is commanded.

It can be from the far ends to the center two by two a well.

When done the 3rd file moves 3 steps advanced to repeat as the past 2 files have. And by then the first file should have been all ready and waiting.

On the field of battle some where around 100 yards and 25, The command to fix bayonettes was given, and all hell broke loose.

More or less the Bess was to make a pike with the plus of making lots of noise, smoke, and mass volley fire in a field.

There are first hand accounts of officers having tea, while giving time to what every enemy to form ranks and files on the fields of Battle.

Very polite and very Euro.. Shooting at officers on horse back in the rear was thought of as murder. Aimming was murder.

In the Rev War Americans fighting the cause were thought of as murders since they could hide when it was militia, used rifles to snipe, and had the bad habit of popping officers first when they could.

The British style of field battle didn't lend itself well to the wilds of the new world very well, and the Brits paid a high price not adapting to woodland war fare.

Rogers' Rangers were not all that great in the F&I, but since the brits won, because of corruption in the French Govt in Canada, the brits got to write the history, which is typical for the winning side.

Roger's group was just the best adapted to woodland warfare, while the French had many better woodland fighters.

Rogers lost most of his men several times, but he himself managed the near to impossible and escaped, to die poverty stricken and drunk in England, and in some sleazy gutter.

He was native to NH where I live.

I hope I answered something towards the question(s)?

 

[Browning]

+1 for the Ferguson rifle since it was a breech loader.

If not that than one of the Kentucky rifles for 2nd place and a Brown Bess for 3rd.