(TFT) Guns again

["Grabowski" <grabowskis@earthlink.net>]

DMG stated,


     Let me make sure I have this right.  Are you telling me that there was
a blackpowder weapon that could have a fixed bayonet, and still fire, before
Wellington and Waterloo?  I thought that up till then gunpowder weapons
could either fire, or have fixed bayonets.  I thought it was Wellington who
introduced use of the side mounted bayonet.>>>>>

Since the early and I mean early 1700s, socketed bayonets were part and
parcel of a military musket. The weapon could be fired and loaded with the
bayonet attached.  It was preferred though to reload the weapon without the
bayonet as it made it easier to reload the weapon (speed), because the
bayonet got in the way of the rammer.  But loading with the bayonet was
common.  BTW soldiers feared the bayonet more than the projectile for
obvious reasons.  During the Civil War, soldiers in HTH preferred to use
fist, rocks, or the club of the weapon before the bayonet, as that kind of
killing is TOO personal and it let you open to being attacked while pulling
the bayonet out of a victim.

Yours in Cidri,
Justin

BTW, the Brown Bess musket was the standard military arm (only 3 models) of
the British army for almost 100 years.  It had continued use in the Mexican
army (British East India company sold the arm to Santa Anna as the Brits
were using a new weapon) as it was used against the defenders of the Alamo
and in the Mexican American War

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