Cool fact: you can find thousands of arquebus examples in Japanese museums. The Portuguese brought the arquebus to Japan in 1543 and the islanders took to it with a passion, since it was the middle of the Warring States Era (Sengoku Jidai) and new weapons were always welcome.
One may want to make the distinction between a thing being advanced in design and being advanced for being a feature present on a thing. That kind of tubular sight was not very new in 1540, with several systems using them for various purposes. Thus, they were not "advanced" in a technical sense, being a known and even old technology at the time. What makes them "advanced" is being present on a firearm early, but the fact it seems "advanced" is because it quickly was found to be mostly pointless. When your guns, due to mechanical limitations, are not reliably hitting within the space of a man's torso at 50 paces, having sights that improve "aim" at ranges exceeding 50 paces is mostly pointless. However, what is cool is that as soon as rifling starts coming around and you get guns that could land a shot consistently within a man's torso area at 100 paces or more, you see sights, including these old tubular types, reappear very quickly. Put another way, the sights are not advanced at all, as they needed to wait for the guns to catch up.
What an absolute beauty. I love the similarity between this stock and the stock of a Jezail. Of all the cool guns Johnathan has shown, this is my favorite!
I love firearms of this period. I'm wondering with that particular model was it used for more sharpshooting/sniping. Being a higher quality, the advance sights, and snap lock trigger seems like it would be ideal for that sort of shooting for that period. Either way I love the video and I hope to see more guns around that time period.
I wouldn't be so sure since, afaik, sharpshooting in any form, wasn't developed as such in that period of time. My guess would be that sight is more likely to be an "overkill" caused by lack of knowledge what kinds of solutions are optimal, similar to things like pre-WW1 guns having sights ranged up to 2km.
@@kolega4ever 2kmwasnt a stupid idea back in 1880 when armies wore bright colours and moved in large formations, hitting a 10 x 50 block of men when 200 men are firing at it is just probabbility. Similiarly if your trying to hit an Impi moving over open veldt or 2000 Afridi and camel cavalry over open Egyptian desert then its viable. The current sniper records are still mostly made in afghanistan where thin air, altitude and lack of forest cover made long range shooting useful. once armies got out of colonial warfare and into urban and trench warfare where short barrels and snap shooting were far more viable then the technology had to change.
@@kolega4ever It may not be sharpshooting or sniping in the truest of sense but if you consider waiting in ambush to take a precise shot at a specific target then this would be a good gun for its time to use. We do have incidents like this happening all over the world. The most notable one is in Japan with Oda Nabunaga where a single shinobi shot him with two balls but he was too far away and it didn't penetrated his armor. Many believe he put two balls in his arquebus rather than shot twice with two guns. Also I'm not super proficient in the nuisances of firearms but is there a difference between sharpshooting and sniping?
@@voiceofraisin3778 I didn't say it was a stupid idea, I said it was a suboptimal one :D Yes, considering how battles were fought in XIX century sighting guns on maximum possible range for gun to even "deliver" the bullet at wasn't a stupid idea. However the reality proofed it to be an excessive effort due to radical change in tactics. And that's what I meant about the sight - an idea that seemed to be a very good one, but proofed by reality to be a suboptimal or needles effort, which is a very common thing not only in weaponry, but in technology at all. Basically every technology is used in imperfect way until better solutions are found with the passing time.
@@GallowglassAxe @Gallowglass well, depends. Sometimes the terms sharpshooting and sniping are used interchangeably, especially in a common context, also it can be sometimes used interchangeably when someone is referencing sniping in WW1 and WW2 (or the speaker lived in that time while speaking) as the actual "sniping" didn't exist then the way it is today. The modern "professional" meaning of these term evolved alongside development in long-range precision shooting and its role in the military. Nowadays marksmanship/ sharpshooting refers to precision shooting at sub 600-800 meters while term sniping refers to long range precision shooting above that. Of course that range distinction is very fluid, as a sniper may be targeting a target at 500 meters, while a designated marksman may happen to shoot (and eliminate) a target at 900 meters, however the distinction between the two is very important as marksmanship/sharpshooting is basically focuses on "just" being able to shoot precisely and consistently up to that range while sniping involves more advanced knowledge not only in ballistics, but also in meteorology, usage of camouflage etc. since sniper's modus operandi totally differs from marksman's/sharpshooter's since the latter is a member of a squad or a platoon, while sniping team is much smaller and works more independently and shooting at over 1km ranges is much more demanding since factors that have very little impact on smaller distances like height difference, air humidity and temperature, atmospheric pressure or Coriolis effect start having a great influence on the projectile's point of impact. Also due to their different places on the battlefield marksman's/sharpshooter's weapon will be different from sniper's, since the latter needs an absolute efficiency of the sniper's bolt-action rifle (however, afaik, me might be seeing a semi-automatic rifles achieving the same performance) and DM/sharpshooter as a member of the squad or platoon is going to use DMR that provides him enough level of precision while having greater rate of fire allowing the shooter to do follow up shots much faster, which is required since DM might be involved in combat at much closer distances like less than 300 meters or even CQB.
Thanks Jonathan and team. Seeing that being handled makes it easy to appreciate all the design features. The still images in the Royal Armouries collection database are also useful too. (They also helped with the Facebook quiz.)
This had made something I read elsewhere make more sense. I remember reading that in the pre English Civil War era there was a type of cavalry called Haquerbusiers... That the Aquerbus seems to be a proto carbine now makes a lot of sense as they seem to be generalist troops in between the Dragoons and regular cavalry of the age, but not being quite a match for either in those roles (They packed swords, pistols and an Aquerbus). Come the ECW they were kind of on the way out being seen as more skirmish and border garrison types where their flexibility was useful.
I love this channel almost as much as the royal armouries themselves. If you haven't been I highly recommend it because the wealth of pieces and information is incredible
I think it is underestimated and undervalued today how early firearms (as well as cannons) were adopted into armies and were decisive in many battles and sieges even securing Tokugawa his Shogunate for example.
Greatly appreciate clarifying exactly what an arquebus is. Most online resources weren't very helpful. What about the fusil? Is a fusil just a flintlock musket, or is there more to it? Thanks!
A fusil is a subspecies of a flintlock musket, somewhat lighter, shorter, of smaller calibre. It was used by the specialised units of fusiliers, by grenadier officers and NCOs in the second half of the seventeenth and the eighteenth century. It could even be a standard issue firearm, as was the case in Russia in the early eighteenth century.
@@suddenwall From what little I know, it was initially just the use of flintlocks as opposed to matchlocks still favoured by many musketeers in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Guarding powder storage (or any other flammables), skirmishing and ambushing was much easier with flintlocks. Later, when muskets gained flintlocks, it became the difference is size, weight and calibre: the ease of carry and smaller recoil made a lot of difference for those who either weren't using guns a lot (officers and NCOs), or were skirmishing or just marching on prolonged campaigns along very poor roads and difficult terrain.
This isn't typically that relevant with most of your videos because I can easily look up modern ammunition types myself, but when watching this video, I found myself wondering about approximate muzzle energy. Could you start mentioning this as a standard thing in every video? I appreciate there's a lot more variation and less standardisation in pre-modern periods, but you could still give us a rough idea, I imagine. It could be particularly interesting for people to see the comparison between modern rounds and rounds from prior periods.
Interesting idea. As you probably already know there are many different loads for industrial weapons, and pre industrial would be super variable and not even rated at manufacture. So, I expect not possible, but still Interesting
@@tamlandipper29 Yeah and you'll have variation through barrel length, but things like that can be acknowledged. I think in many cases, we know approximately how large the charge was, and how heavy the shot was; so if we have an idea of the kind of propellants they're using, we can get a decent idea of the muzzle velocity from a given barrel length if someone with the know-how is willing to do a couple of sums. I'm not saying we'd get precise figures, but it could be within 50 joules or so perhaps, and that's enough to illustrate the point. From a couple of google searches I've seen figures of 1700j (very similar to 5.56 NATO) being given for arquebuses, and 4000j (500j more than 7.62 NATO) for napoeleonic era muskets - but there's probably going to be a lot of variation to be found over the centuries, and from weapon to weapon
I don't think the black-powder recipe was perfected or standardised for another couple of centuries either so Henrician loads probably included all sorts of strange alchemical nonsense which would affect the shooting profile.
By 1547 there were 2281 issued to the English army in England and Scotland with a further 745 in English occupied France. Another 6500 were in the Tower of London ready for issue in case of war. No sheafs of arrows were found in inventories after this time except for the navy.
really important point that this video stresses is that the popular conception of the musket as innacurate has a lot to do with VERY specifically 18th century European line infantry musketry being innacurate, and that is due to a ton of factors, most of them connected to the fact that line infantry was optimized for firepower as opposed to accuracy, so things like sights, tightly fitting ball, better quality barrels, actual training for long distance shooting, and firing in non military settings without the stress and anxiety of war, all go a long way in making the musket far more accurate. As it stands combat accuracy was often recorded as being abysmally lower than even the most conservative modern estimates of effective range, so it's safe to say that the hardware by itself cannot be blamed for the realities of historical battle performance.
Hi Jonathan, a really interesting video! Would it be possible to do a video on artillery from the museum? I can't seem to find any on the RA RUclips channel at all
The German name “Hackenbüchse” means in modern German “Hook Rifle” because Büchse means in relation to guns - rifle (also it means tin or can). A Smooth bore in German is “Flinte”.
As some one who lives in Sheffield it would be good if there was a small changing display case some where in the royal armouries Leeds where we could go and see the objects themselves for a while
It would be interesting to build a replica, to see how it performs. I wonder how the barrel was made, most probably different to the early Brown Bess i guess.
Hakenbüchse in contemporay german. A box with a hook. :D In one of the many castles in Germany they also showed Siege Hakenbüchsen. They are even larger, heavier and bigger bore diameter.
Ah, I think you meant "Hakenbüchse" (at the beginning of the video) - which is quite difficult to pronounce for non native speakers, I guess. Interesting etymology!
Thank you Jonathan. Nice to see it again. A bit short butted to shoulder comfortably, so can be cheek held but perhaps gunners had breastplates and the butt was to fit against the shoulder of that? Not unlike the French later 19th century Dragoon Gras bolt action whose butt was shortened to allow use with breastplates.
I suppose with the stocking style (cheek stocking), was more sensible when you have armour, and, especially, pauldrons/spaulders on. It would probably have been stocked into the cheek, easily resting on the layers of armour. With such low recoil, they probably wouldn't have even felt it through all the layers of leather and steel. It'd be interesting seeing someone in full arquebusier armour fire the reproduction.
There was a Quackenbush Rifle (named after the inventor) made around the end of the 19th century, and they were both .22 caliber or air rifles (depending on the model). Cheap and common at the time.
Interesting that they wouldn't have shouldered their guns, I had a similar question about a lot of crossbows that look like they're not designed for shouldering. Wonder if they were doing back then what some people are trying today with pistols and stockless shotguns, just jamming it into your cheek.
The technique seems to work just fine for many modern guns if you train with it enough, so it could just be a matter of preference. More powerful guns will require that you shoulder them, but you don't need that kind of power for hunting or even for warfare (as everyone realized during the Cold War).
Having fired black powder guns as well as modern I dont think that it is such a prerequisite to shoulder a black powder weapon as the recoil is not as violent more of a stead push backwards especialy with the smaller calibre.
I'm sure Jonathan set that one up for us :) Either that or "staff weapons" as in the context of items issued to or owned by individual museum staff. (Matt Easton calls them pole arms I think.)
@@derekp2674 Museum staff, nice :D Yeah, he does, most people do, but both are correct, just found it funny. That being said I hope to see Goa'uld weapons being covered on next episodes :D
I belive Henry8 farther used canon and small fire arms at the Battle of Bosworth to defeat Richard 3 but at that time they were not very accurate and could also blow up and kill the user. It was during Henry8s reign that Canon and other gun powder weapons became safer to use and more accurate due to better manufacture ie canon were cast rather than metal stays with hoops holding them together. If your in UK it's worth visiting Portsmouth for the Mary Rose and Victory exibits plus the others(not seen Warrior etc) I don't know if still there but Rowtunda on Woolwhich common was a great place to see it was between Army hospital(now NHS) and Woolwich Barraks. Not Far from Woolwich Arsenal Munitions site that moved here after fears of another great London fire igniting Munitions and blowing london off map. The works formed the Woolwhich Arsenal FC that moved across the river to Highbury.
Interesting the origins of the name. I had always assumed that Arquebus was somehow related to the old Roman term Arcuballista (later Arbalest) but it seems the similarity was coincidental.
It seems like an awful lot of Henry VIIIs personal weapons found their way into the armories. Was he comparatively more of a “gun guy” than other British monarchs?
He was obsessed with arms and armour of all kinds. He went on several military campaigns and was an avid jouster until he was seriously injured and nearly died in a tournament in 1536. He collected all kinds of weaponry and even paid top-class German and Italian armourers to move to Greenwich in London to work for him. Definitely a "gun guy". Some of the earlier ones were probably also pretty weapon-obsessed, but there are fewer surviving items from their times. Pretty much all British monarchs have been into hunting and have owned guns, though, right up until the present. The current queen owns guns and used to shoot until recently.
Were the muskets that were around at the same time also match lock? And why did the earlier guns of this type have a hook, or did I misunderstand something?
Yes, Matchlock was the standard infantry ignition system. Cavalry pistols tended to be expensive wheel locks, and a few men who guarded the canon might have carried primitive flintlocks (because in each case a loose match doesn't mix well with horses, or barrels of gunpowder). The hook could function to latch the gun onto a resting place, the gunwhale of a ship, a fortress wall, or perhaps a fence at the edge of a field.
@@steveholmes11 Thanks for the info. The hook makes sense, now that you explained it. Holding the heavy gun steady, while engaging the match lock, would be much easier with the hook.
I thought the difference between the older arquebus and the newer musket was the firing mechinism , IE; matchlock and flintlock. Can someone please verify this or clarify the difference ?
Can only imagine that if Jonathan damages any of these weapons when making these videos he has to go look into a mirror and tell himself that he's a very naughty boy who's in a lot of trouble.
It might be "related" to Beretta. Maybe the maker of this firearm (though not classified as such by the ATF) was invited into, then, Mrs Beretta's bed chamber, and all subsequent little Beretta's have his DNA.🙂
No one does History like Great Britain. ( They buy or steal their history-items from other people, admittedly, but then they keep them in the Very Best Museums ) :P
I've gotta say, the fact that Baretta dates back to the 1520s is one that blew my mind.
Oldest European company that is not a brewery.
@@stevemc6010 Alcohol and firearms, two most essential parts of life.
@@ng.tr.s.p.1254 the backbone of the United States
🇺🇲🍻🔫💣⚔️🔪🛡️🤝🏻
Beretta dude
The era where armor, melee weapons, crossbows, and early firearms is such a cool peroid. I wish people would use it more in media!
Cool fact: you can find thousands of arquebus examples in Japanese museums. The Portuguese brought the arquebus to Japan in 1543 and the islanders took to it with a passion, since it was the middle of the Warring States Era (Sengoku Jidai) and new weapons were always welcome.
Samurai and black powder go hard
There was an era where Japan got more guns than Europe combine😂 talk about gun culture😂
The design of sights on this firearm is very advanced for 16th century.
Advanced for the 18th century!
Henry always got the newest shit..
One may want to make the distinction between a thing being advanced in design and being advanced for being a feature present on a thing. That kind of tubular sight was not very new in 1540, with several systems using them for various purposes. Thus, they were not "advanced" in a technical sense, being a known and even old technology at the time. What makes them "advanced" is being present on a firearm early, but the fact it seems "advanced" is because it quickly was found to be mostly pointless. When your guns, due to mechanical limitations, are not reliably hitting within the space of a man's torso at 50 paces, having sights that improve "aim" at ranges exceeding 50 paces is mostly pointless. However, what is cool is that as soon as rifling starts coming around and you get guns that could land a shot consistently within a man's torso area at 100 paces or more, you see sights, including these old tubular types, reappear very quickly.
Put another way, the sights are not advanced at all, as they needed to wait for the guns to catch up.
I'd imagine the sight picture isn't terribly different from the AR15.
There have been crossbows designed with sights that are windage and elevation adjustable, as well as set triggers.
What an absolute beauty. I love the similarity between this stock and the stock of a Jezail. Of all the cool guns Johnathan has shown, this is my favorite!
I love firearms of this period. I'm wondering with that particular model was it used for more sharpshooting/sniping. Being a higher quality, the advance sights, and snap lock trigger seems like it would be ideal for that sort of shooting for that period. Either way I love the video and I hope to see more guns around that time period.
I wouldn't be so sure since, afaik, sharpshooting in any form, wasn't developed as such in that period of time. My guess would be that sight is more likely to be an "overkill" caused by lack of knowledge what kinds of solutions are optimal, similar to things like pre-WW1 guns having sights ranged up to 2km.
@@kolega4ever 2kmwasnt a stupid idea back in 1880 when armies wore bright colours and moved in large formations, hitting a 10 x 50 block of men when 200 men are firing at it is just probabbility.
Similiarly if your trying to hit an Impi moving over open veldt or 2000 Afridi and camel cavalry over open Egyptian desert then its viable. The current sniper records are still mostly made in afghanistan where thin air, altitude and lack of forest cover made long range shooting useful.
once armies got out of colonial warfare and into urban and trench warfare where short barrels and snap shooting were far more viable then the technology had to change.
@@kolega4ever It may not be sharpshooting or sniping in the truest of sense but if you consider waiting in ambush to take a precise shot at a specific target then this would be a good gun for its time to use. We do have incidents like this happening all over the world. The most notable one is in Japan with Oda Nabunaga where a single shinobi shot him with two balls but he was too far away and it didn't penetrated his armor. Many believe he put two balls in his arquebus rather than shot twice with two guns.
Also I'm not super proficient in the nuisances of firearms but is there a difference between sharpshooting and sniping?
@@voiceofraisin3778 I didn't say it was a stupid idea, I said it was a suboptimal one :D
Yes, considering how battles were fought in XIX century sighting guns on maximum possible range for gun to even "deliver" the bullet at wasn't a stupid idea. However the reality proofed it to be an excessive effort due to radical change in tactics. And that's what I meant about the sight - an idea that seemed to be a very good one, but proofed by reality to be a suboptimal or needles effort, which is a very common thing not only in weaponry, but in technology at all. Basically every technology is used in imperfect way until better solutions are found with the passing time.
@@GallowglassAxe @Gallowglass well, depends. Sometimes the terms sharpshooting and sniping are used interchangeably, especially in a common context, also it can be sometimes used interchangeably when someone is referencing sniping in WW1 and WW2 (or the speaker lived in that time while speaking) as the actual "sniping" didn't exist then the way it is today. The modern "professional" meaning of these term evolved alongside development in long-range precision shooting and its role in the military.
Nowadays marksmanship/ sharpshooting refers to precision shooting at sub 600-800 meters while term sniping refers to long range precision shooting above that. Of course that range distinction is very fluid, as a sniper may be targeting a target at 500 meters, while a designated marksman may happen to shoot (and eliminate) a target at 900 meters, however the distinction between the two is very important as marksmanship/sharpshooting is basically focuses on "just" being able to shoot precisely and consistently up to that range while sniping involves more advanced knowledge not only in ballistics, but also in meteorology, usage of camouflage etc. since sniper's modus operandi totally differs from marksman's/sharpshooter's since the latter is a member of a squad or a platoon, while sniping team is much smaller and works more independently and shooting at over 1km ranges is much more demanding since factors that have very little impact on smaller distances like height difference, air humidity and temperature, atmospheric pressure or Coriolis effect start having a great influence on the projectile's point of impact. Also due to their different places on the battlefield marksman's/sharpshooter's weapon will be different from sniper's, since the latter needs an absolute efficiency of the sniper's bolt-action rifle (however, afaik, me might be seeing a semi-automatic rifles achieving the same performance) and DM/sharpshooter as a member of the squad or platoon is going to use DMR that provides him enough level of precision while having greater rate of fire allowing the shooter to do follow up shots much faster, which is required since DM might be involved in combat at much closer distances like less than 300 meters or even CQB.
When he first said "staff weapons," my brain immediately thought he was referring to weapons owned by the museum staff.
Thank you for covering this! I've always wondered about the Arquebus and where it fits in to firearm history.
Also, kudos to the Tower of London for preserving such a weapon so well for that long.
Henry was very fond of medical and technical advancements and quite modern in that regard
Thanks Jonathan and team. Seeing that being handled makes it easy to appreciate all the design features. The still images in the Royal Armouries collection database are also useful too. (They also helped with the Facebook quiz.)
Wow, these are the kind of firearms that I just love to see! The piece alone is awesome, but the history with it is even better.
This had made something I read elsewhere make more sense. I remember reading that in the pre English Civil War era there was a type of cavalry called Haquerbusiers... That the Aquerbus seems to be a proto carbine now makes a lot of sense as they seem to be generalist troops in between the Dragoons and regular cavalry of the age, but not being quite a match for either in those roles (They packed swords, pistols and an Aquerbus). Come the ECW they were kind of on the way out being seen as more skirmish and border garrison types where their flexibility was useful.
Love these historical pieces, the royal armouries in Leeds was a favourite as a child!
I love this channel almost as much as the royal armouries themselves.
If you haven't been I highly recommend it because the wealth of pieces and information is incredible
My knowledge of this weapon started from Warhammer 40k, the Ad Mech use them... It then led me down the rabbit hole of firearms and to here today...
THAT was really awesome! I've never seen a firearm so old, yet so standardized in such great shape. That's amazing.
That's some history. Incredible.
Royal armouries, would you guys be willing to do an expanded vid on punt guns?
I really enjoy these older weapons
Loves these!
I love the arquebus here! Despite it having cracks and weathered patches, the overall design is absolutely gorgeous.
You guys actually have one of these??? I'm so glad I was able to find this channel via Jonathan reacting to Tarkov guns, havent looked back since.
Just the 3 apparently :)
OMG! I could spend weeks in there just looking at the halberds!
Good video Jonathan, as a black powder shooter this was an interesting history piece.
Absolutely wonderfull! So ancient for us, so advanced for his time.
The Battle of Pavia is my favourite exhibit in the museum, I live in Leeds so I get down there fairly often and I always go back to look at it.
Not only Beretta in Gardone. Europe’s largest black powder gun maker, Pedersoli, is in Gardone too.
What an amazing piece, Jonathan and crew.
I think it is underestimated and undervalued today how early firearms (as well as cannons) were adopted into armies and were decisive in many battles and sieges even securing Tokugawa his Shogunate for example.
It is astounding to see a gun that is 500!! years old and looks in such good condition. What a story it could tell!
Any chance of seeing you fire the repro doing some accuracy and penetration tests? I'd be intrigued to see just how good that sighting system is.
Greatly appreciate clarifying exactly what an arquebus is. Most online resources weren't very helpful. What about the fusil? Is a fusil just a flintlock musket, or is there more to it? Thanks!
A fusil is a subspecies of a flintlock musket, somewhat lighter, shorter, of smaller calibre. It was used by the specialised units of fusiliers, by grenadier officers and NCOs in the second half of the seventeenth and the eighteenth century. It could even be a standard issue firearm, as was the case in Russia in the early eighteenth century.
@@F1ghteR41 Thanks for the thorough explanation! What advantages did the fusil offer over standard flintlock muskets? Much Appreciated
@@suddenwall From what little I know, it was initially just the use of flintlocks as opposed to matchlocks still favoured by many musketeers in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Guarding powder storage (or any other flammables), skirmishing and ambushing was much easier with flintlocks. Later, when muskets gained flintlocks, it became the difference is size, weight and calibre: the ease of carry and smaller recoil made a lot of difference for those who either weren't using guns a lot (officers and NCOs), or were skirmishing or just marching on prolonged campaigns along very poor roads and difficult terrain.
This isn't typically that relevant with most of your videos because I can easily look up modern ammunition types myself, but when watching this video, I found myself wondering about approximate muzzle energy. Could you start mentioning this as a standard thing in every video? I appreciate there's a lot more variation and less standardisation in pre-modern periods, but you could still give us a rough idea, I imagine. It could be particularly interesting for people to see the comparison between modern rounds and rounds from prior periods.
Interesting idea. As you probably already know there are many different loads for industrial weapons, and pre industrial would be super variable and not even rated at manufacture. So, I expect not possible, but still Interesting
@@tamlandipper29 Yeah and you'll have variation through barrel length, but things like that can be acknowledged. I think in many cases, we know approximately how large the charge was, and how heavy the shot was; so if we have an idea of the kind of propellants they're using, we can get a decent idea of the muzzle velocity from a given barrel length if someone with the know-how is willing to do a couple of sums. I'm not saying we'd get precise figures, but it could be within 50 joules or so perhaps, and that's enough to illustrate the point.
From a couple of google searches I've seen figures of 1700j (very similar to 5.56 NATO) being given for arquebuses, and 4000j (500j more than 7.62 NATO) for napoeleonic era muskets - but there's probably going to be a lot of variation to be found over the centuries, and from weapon to weapon
I don't think the black-powder recipe was perfected or standardised for another couple of centuries either so Henrician loads probably included all sorts of strange alchemical nonsense which would affect the shooting profile.
Lots of historical firearms info. Spot on.
By 1547 there were 2281 issued to the English army in England and Scotland with a further 745 in English occupied France. Another 6500 were in the Tower of London ready for issue in case of war. No sheafs of arrows were found in inventories after this time except for the navy.
Any chance we could get a video showing some of Henry's or other very early breach loaders? I understand you may have a few examples.
Nice to see a weapon from my era 😁
not surprising that an arms company is still in business after hundreds of years
They used them as weapon props in the tv series black sails
Thank you for sharing this with us!
Amazing to have one in its military form as opposed to one made for kings or some such personage.
Would like to see a walk around of the staff and firearms collection
Thank you for sharing your expertise
Reminds me of a Jezail in shape looks so advanced for such a old gun :)
Amazing what a piece of history. The skill in making this must have been incredible, hand made entirely 😎😎😎
Sorted thank you, I can only imagine the forces of the day being handed one of those, it would have probably made them feel very special.
really important point that this video stresses is that the popular conception of the musket as innacurate has a lot to do with VERY specifically 18th century European line infantry musketry being innacurate, and that is due to a ton of factors, most of them connected to the fact that line infantry was optimized for firepower as opposed to accuracy, so things like sights, tightly fitting ball, better quality barrels, actual training for long distance shooting, and firing in non military settings without the stress and anxiety of war, all go a long way in making the musket far more accurate. As it stands combat accuracy was often recorded as being abysmally lower than even the most conservative modern estimates of effective range, so it's safe to say that the hardware by itself cannot be blamed for the realities of historical battle performance.
Hi Jonathan, a really interesting video! Would it be possible to do a video on artillery from the museum? I can't seem to find any on the RA RUclips channel at all
loved the dragon, really stylish
Pretty fascinating video, thankyou! :)
I'd love to be able to head into and look at stuff like this, pipe dream but maybe one day :D
The German name “Hackenbüchse” means in modern German “Hook Rifle” because Büchse means in relation to guns - rifle (also it means tin or can). A Smooth bore in German is “Flinte”.
As some one who lives in Sheffield it would be good if there was a small changing display case some where in the royal armouries Leeds where we could go and see the objects themselves for a while
It would be interesting to build a replica, to see how it performs. I wonder how the barrel was made, most probably different to the early Brown Bess i guess.
Three rounds a minute? Now that's soldiering!
Hakenbüchse in contemporay german. A box with a hook. :D In one of the many castles in Germany they also showed Siege Hakenbüchsen. They are even larger, heavier and bigger bore diameter.
was not expecting the Barretta plot twist
"Arrgh!" 🏴☠️ ☠️ 🦜
In Swedish executing by shooting is still called arkebusering.
Well, anyone who plays war games set in the 16th century in Europe or the Near East is very familiar with the arquebus.
So... how small is small? I know a sackbut might be 40 caliber but what's a hackbutt run?
GREAT. So collab with schooagladiatoria, tod, and modernhistory when?
Ah, I think you meant "Hakenbüchse" (at the beginning of the video) - which is quite difficult to pronounce for non native speakers, I guess. Interesting etymology!
Thank you Jonathan. Nice to see it again. A bit short butted to shoulder comfortably, so can be cheek held but perhaps gunners had breastplates and the butt was to fit against the shoulder of that? Not unlike the French later 19th century Dragoon Gras bolt action whose butt was shortened to allow use with breastplates.
Did they ever use any other shot than ball back then? Like buckshot of some sort or things those "Murder pieces" on the Mary Rose used?
In the 1540s-50s the samurai were also using these weapons.
Beretta began in Gardone Val Trompia, which is in the Lombardy region... maybe that's your LO connection?
Why did it have a hook?
Hello, do you have any weapons from the Hussite wars in the collection? (1420s-1430s Bohemia)
I would love to know the caliber, ball weight and muzzle velocity of this guns.
You mentioned that it had an octagonal bore. Was it rifled, i.e. did it impart spin to the bullet?
A staff weapons store? Most places Can only provide a bike shed.
"This is our store of, among other things, staff weapons."
They have what now? oh not the Staff Weapon my nerd ass was thinking of.
I suppose with the stocking style (cheek stocking), was more sensible when you have armour, and, especially, pauldrons/spaulders on. It would probably have been stocked into the cheek, easily resting on the layers of armour. With such low recoil, they probably wouldn't have even felt it through all the layers of leather and steel.
It'd be interesting seeing someone in full arquebusier armour fire the reproduction.
I had no idea these were operating alongside muskets. Does anyone know a good osprey book or whatever on the tactical usage?
So.. would the name Quackenbush (I'm thinking of the modern air rifle manufacturer) be derived from the same term?
There was a Quackenbush Rifle (named after the inventor) made around the end of the 19th century, and they were both .22 caliber or air rifles (depending on the model). Cheap and common at the time.
I wonder if Jonathon's shoulders ever get sore from carrying this channel
Interesting that they wouldn't have shouldered their guns, I had a similar question about a lot of crossbows that look like they're not designed for shouldering. Wonder if they were doing back then what some people are trying today with pistols and stockless shotguns, just jamming it into your cheek.
The technique seems to work just fine for many modern guns if you train with it enough, so it could just be a matter of preference. More powerful guns will require that you shoulder them, but you don't need that kind of power for hunting or even for warfare (as everyone realized during the Cold War).
Having fired black powder guns as well as modern I dont think that it is such a prerequisite to shoulder a black powder weapon as the recoil is not as violent more of a stead push backwards especialy with the smaller calibre.
Reminds me of my heron butt Scottish Snaphaunce arquebus!
Staff weapons?! Goa'uld tech? 😁
I'm sure Jonathan set that one up for us :)
Either that or "staff weapons" as in the context of items issued to or owned by individual museum staff.
(Matt Easton calls them pole arms I think.)
@@derekp2674
Museum staff, nice :D
Yeah, he does, most people do, but both are correct, just found it funny.
That being said I hope to see Goa'uld weapons being covered on next episodes :D
Interesting video, but sadly Jonathan Ferguson's pronunciation of Hakenbüchse is off. The IPA pronunciation is [ˈhaːkŋ̍ˌbʏksə].
I belive Henry8 farther used canon and small fire arms at the Battle of Bosworth to defeat Richard 3 but at that time they were not very accurate and could also blow up and kill the user. It was during Henry8s reign that Canon and other gun powder weapons became safer to use and more accurate due to better manufacture ie canon were cast rather than metal stays with hoops holding them together. If your in UK it's worth visiting Portsmouth for the Mary Rose and Victory exibits plus the others(not seen Warrior etc) I don't know if still there but Rowtunda on Woolwhich common was a great place to see it was between Army hospital(now NHS) and Woolwich Barraks. Not Far from Woolwich Arsenal Munitions site that moved here after fears of another great London fire igniting Munitions and blowing london off map. The works formed the Woolwhich Arsenal FC that moved across the river to Highbury.
Interesting the origins of the name. I had always assumed that Arquebus was somehow related to the old Roman term Arcuballista (later Arbalest) but it seems the similarity was coincidental.
3 rounds a minute? Now that's soldiering.
If you can fire three rounds a minute they won't stand! (Maj Richard Sharpe).
It seems like an awful lot of Henry VIIIs personal weapons found their way into the armories. Was he comparatively more of a “gun guy” than other British monarchs?
He was obsessed with arms and armour of all kinds. He went on several military campaigns and was an avid jouster until he was seriously injured and nearly died in a tournament in 1536. He collected all kinds of weaponry and even paid top-class German and Italian armourers to move to Greenwich in London to work for him. Definitely a "gun guy". Some of the earlier ones were probably also pretty weapon-obsessed, but there are fewer surviving items from their times.
Pretty much all British monarchs have been into hunting and have owned guns, though, right up until the present. The current queen owns guns and used to shoot until recently.
He sounds like a fun guy. Too bad he was such an awful husband
Beretta should bring this design back with a modern-ish percussion lock! Lol
The staff must have a lot of weapons if that's where you store them.
8:12)Assault rifle is the name the US press uses for semi-automatic rifles.
Were the muskets that were around at the same time also match lock? And why did the earlier guns of this type have a hook, or did I misunderstand something?
Yes, Matchlock was the standard infantry ignition system. Cavalry pistols tended to be expensive wheel locks, and a few men who guarded the canon might have carried primitive flintlocks (because in each case a loose match doesn't mix well with horses, or barrels of gunpowder).
The hook could function to latch the gun onto a resting place, the gunwhale of a ship, a fortress wall, or perhaps a fence at the edge of a field.
@@steveholmes11 Thanks for the info. The hook makes sense, now that you explained it. Holding the heavy gun steady, while engaging the match lock, would be much easier with the hook.
I get the feeling that room is probably Haunted?
I thought the difference between the older arquebus and the newer musket was the firing mechinism , IE; matchlock and flintlock. Can someone please verify this or clarify the difference ?
Can only imagine that if Jonathan damages any of these weapons when making these videos he has to go look into a mirror and tell himself that he's a very naughty boy who's in a lot of trouble.
Sort of makes having burning slowmatch braided into your beard makes sense.
Arkebuse
Staff weapons! I'll have to behave when I visit.
It might be "related" to Beretta. Maybe the maker of this firearm (though not classified as such by the ATF) was invited into, then, Mrs Beretta's bed chamber, and all subsequent little Beretta's have his DNA.🙂
Harkenbüchse?
Interesting
In German it's pronounced roughly as "harkenbooksah".
No one does History like Great Britain.
( They buy or steal their history-items from other people, admittedly, but then they keep them in the Very Best Museums )
:P
Your staff have weapons?
definitely a cool firearm. id like to see a reproduction that looks exactly like that just to see what firing it wouldve mostly been like