Period firearms?

[gem]

I've never posted in this forum before; I hope I'm in the right place!

I'm doing research for my new book, and I'm looking for basic info on what kinds of firearms were in use during the Renaissance (mostly 1500s, but I can fudge that), both personal (?) and larger scale (cannon).  Basically, if you were going to wage war, what would you need?  And you can already tell I know absolutely nothing about guns, can't you?    I can poke around online some, but I'm really hoping someone will have some book recommendations for me!

Gramercy!

[groomporter]

Matchlocks were the most common form of firearm used on the battlefield especially for the common soldiers or musketeers. Flintlocks in their early forms had been invented by the 1500's but were not that common yet. Wheel locks were also in use, but were more expensive and would have been and officer's or cavalry weapon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchlock

Renaissance armies were made up of three primary units pikemen, musketeers and cavalry. Although the term musketeer was French originally, the word was being used in English language military manuals by the late 1500's

[groomporter]

Matchlock Musketeer: 1588-1688
http://www.amazon.com/Matchlock-Musketeer-1588-1688-Keith-Roberts/dp/1841762121

Dutch Musketeers, circa 1580 (English musketeers would look similar)

[escherblacksmith]

what kind of book?  And, more importantly, what location?

[gem]

A simple book, preferably with pictures.    (It's difficult to describe what you haven't seen yourself.)

The novel is a fantasy, so location doesn't matter so much--something more widespread would probably be best.

Gramercy!  This is all very helpful!

[groomporter]

The book I mentioned is part of a series that usually has several color plates in the center as well as many black & white illustrations.

A little about tactics.

Picture a block of men with pikes http://tinyurl.com/3qguct with a couple blocks of musketeers on either side of it. You start trying to whittle away at the enemy with volleys of musket fire and cannon fire.

The problem is matchlocks are slow to reload. (Even with 18th c. flintlocks 3 shots a minute is fast) You are juggling a gun, loose shot (musket balls) gun powder, and a burning match... and sometimes a musket rest to help aim it. So the blocks of muskets cannot fire fast enough to effectively protect themselves against cavalry.

If the enemy horsemen approach, the musketeers pull back and the the pike block moves forward to protect them with their pike braced against the ground and their back foot -remember the movie Braveheart? (A 17th C. pike block ready to receive a horse charge http://tinyurl.com/4as2sc ) You can imagine with the pikemen braced shoulder-to-shoulder not many horses would be dumb enough to run on a hedgehog formation like that.

If you think you have your enemy army weakened enough you advance forward to drive them from the field with a "push of pike"
http://www.plympton.info/IMAGES/sknot16.JPG
http://tinyurl.com/4hgs8b

-with your muskets firing to try to continue to weaken them before final contact. If the musket blocks meet each other or have to face pike blocks they fire as long as they can and then reverse their weapons to "club their muskets" to literally use the guns as clubs to for fighting at close quarters (17th C. reenactors again http://tinyurl.com/3twreb )

[brier patch charlie]

Well, depending on you main Crater, and his social back ground would determan what kind of firearm he had. A very well to do gent would have some thing like a Brescian snaphaunce lock pistol ( early flintlock) or a wheel lock, both would be found in the mid 1500's. The wheellock is what would have been found in the hands of some one who had money. Yes, Match locks were more common, but they were old technology. You have to understand that all these guns were over lapping each other from the 1500 to 1700's,by 1620 matchlocks were out law-ed for use by the military in the colonies. Gun makers were all trying at that time to out do each other, to the point that some of the guns made were just asinine, ie.. Henry VIII's 8 barrel sword pistol , in the Royal armory in the tower of London. A good book to look up for any research Is Firearms By Howard L. Blackmore

You can also goggle
matchlock
wheellock
snaphance
dog lock
spanish miquelet
I hope this helps. BPC

[Poldugarian Warrior]

brier patch and groomporter have about covered evrythin I could suggest. But, maybe, gives us a little more on what your characters in your story are going to use these firearms for. If hunting then wheel-lock would've been used by the upper classes, but matchlock is most common. Horsemen in the Polish army of this time and the Dutch would also have carried wheel-lock pistols or carbines, not in the sense as a American west carbine or WW2, but a short match-lock/wheel lock rifle also known as a carbine during the Renaissance. If a swordsman, just carrying a pistol as back-up then a wheel-lock would be suitable if he had the cash, a matchlock wouldn't be able to be used as readily because of the lighting of the match/fuse before firing, by that time a sword could be thrust through an opponent.

matchlock
wheellock
snaphance
dog lock
spanish miquelet

Again this is a great list showing all the different types of ignition for any firearm of the 1500's, and just to point out some types are only used on certain firearms, a wheellock,snaphance,or spanish miquelet being used usually on a pistol or carbine. Matchlock on rifles (think muskets) dog lock not sure that's a new one to me so I'll have to do some searching. But, again gives us some characters and their positions in the story and we'll try to match them to a proper firearm.

[Sir_Geoff De Shelton]

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr001a.htm

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=fkg

[Wolfden]

One thing to keep in mind is that musketeers fought en masse and never as individuals. Matchlocks were horribly inaccurate and, if a musketeer fired at a target 50 feet away, he was more likely to miss than hit his target. It was during the era of Cromwell that musketeers began to fight in ranks and use massed volley fire, meaning everyone fires at once and you hope to hit something. This technique was used right up to the US Civil War when rifled muskets and the invention of the Minie ball caused the horrific casualties and this "Napoleonic" style of warfare was abandoned. I would recommend you do some reading on Cromwell and the English Civil War, this is the first time in history that cannon and firearms were used to great effect in a combined attack. During this period, the musketeer was also issued a short sword. When the cannon breached the castle wall, the infantry was sent into the breach. Depending upon the resistance, the musketeer could also be sent forward and his matchlock was useless both as a firearm (no time to reload) and as a club (too large and heavy to swing effectively) in close quarter fighting. He would often drop his matchlock and continue the fight with his sword, returning to pick up his matchlock later, if he survived.

[groomporter]

Actually troops under Gustavus Adolphus during the 30 Years War are also documented as have started to use volley fire in ranks, but then the original post was asking about 1500's, so earlier than either of us are talking.

[ALS]

By the first quarter of the 16th century both the Swiss and German Landsknects were using handgonners firing in large groups behind ranks of pikeman and halberders. The Spanish by mid century had so drill perfected the use of pike and shote ( due more than anything to thier seemingly never ending campaigne in the Lowe Countries ( Holland and Flanders) which lasted on and off most of the 16th century and into the begining of the 17th) that some in Europe thought them the toughest troops around, and they were rightly somewhat feared by the 17th century for thier seemingly unshakable discipline under fire ( the campaigns in The Lowe Countries and Spains later involvement in The 30 Years War also pretty much bakrupts the monarchy and marks the begining of a very rapid decline for Spain as a European power, by the begining of the 18th century Spain is already a second rate power and by mid to late 18th not really a player at all).

The term "clubbed muskets" in reference to arquebusiers ( also spelled harquebusiers) and musketiers ( the term musketier really just referes to a soldier using a musket rather than the flashy Alexander Dumas "The Three Musketiers" image we have) is found used in period documnetation of battles of the ECW as well as various source material from The Thiry Years War. How far back this practice of using the handgonne as a melee weapon in close combat goes I am unsure but it was pretty common on 17th century battle fields. With no real standardization of weapons until the later years of the 17th century ( the 17th century sees the introduction of cast brass for military sword hilts to fascilitate some level of standardization as well as ease of production from around mid century but really takes until the 18th century to become perfected in a meaningful sense) the swords carried by both cavalry and infantry varied in hilt style quite a bit although blades were in a very rough sense similar. Rapiers were seldom seen in a military setting as they were a civilian weapon made for a very specific type of thrusting geared civilian combat based around the use of these long slim bladed weapons. Military swords would often have very similar hilts to rapiers with lots of bars and small plates to protect the hand but the blades were shorter ( 28-32" being a pretty common working range) and broader than that of a rapier as these miltary swords ( called by a variety of names, backsword, broadsword ect.) were designed to function as both cut and thrust weapons unlike rapiers.

[chips]

Sorry, may be a bit late with this thread but i have only just seen it.
Groom porters account of fighting was extremely accurate and enjoyable to read.It was a pleasant surprise to see that he used a couple of pictures of my regiment to illustrate his points,the charge for horse and club musket which is fine.If you wish to know more or look at pictures or video or ask more questions please check out the web site www.marquisofwinchesters.co.uk where we have some knowlegable people.

[Obadiah Jib]

You can see King Henry fire a wheel lock pistol in "The Tudors" season 1 at the celebration of the birth of Henry Fitzroy.

[BLAKDUKE]

Look into wiki-pedia under snaphaunce and you will see a picture of what you should be looking for.