Muskets to Machine Guns: Evolution of Weapons (1837-1901) | Animated History

hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian few inventions have had as great an impact on human history as firearms and few inventions have had as great an impact on firearms as industrialization before the 19th century firearms were crafted by individual gunsmiths each pistol or musket a unique work with the introduction of factories and mass production guns could be made in unprecedented numbers and when paired with the burgeoning fields of chemistry and metallurgy a new chapter in military history was opened in this video we will look at the evolution of firearms throughout the 19th century examining how individually made muskets evolved into mass-produced rifles and how the firepower of masked infantry was concentrated in terrifying new weapons like the gatling gun before we start i'd like to take a minute to thank kingdom maker for sponsoring this video kingdom maker which is available to download in the link in the description is a free to play game for ios and android that 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creative thinking head over to the description and use my link to download kingdom maker today [Music] prior to the 19th century the only commonly available form of chemical propellant was black powder made with a simple mixture of sulfur carbon and potassium nitrate despite its usefulness on the battlefield black powder was actually a low explosive burning slower than the speed of sound and producing large amounts of chemical byproducts in the form of smoke and fouling black powder also required a source of ignition to start burning meaning there was no practical way to design a firearm without including a cumbersome mechanism like a flintlock to generate a spark but at the dawn of the 18th century a british nobleman called edward charles howard made a discovery that would shake the world to its core fulminates high explosive compounds that could be detonated by heat or pressure suddenly a whole new world of destructive potential had been unlocked breaking a technological barrier that had stood for more than 600 years gunsmiths quickly saw the potential in fulminates leading to the patenting of the percussion cap in 1822 by american inventor joshua shaw this was a simple metal cylinder containing a speck of mercury fulminate detonated by the impact of a striking mechanism generating a controlled explosion to ignite the powder charge of a loaded firearm but european armies were hesitant to take advantage of the percussion cap and though many trials were conducted it was not until the 1840s that the widespread replacement of the flintlock began in ernst one of the first conflicts that proved the value of the percussion cap musket or caplock was the mexican-american war though u.s forces began the war using model 1816 smoothbore flintlock muskets various armories had already started mass converting these obsolete weapons into cap locks american gunsmith samuel colt had also patented the first cap and ball revolver in 1836 which became highly sought after by any u.s soldier able to afford one most iconic of all was the legendary 1847 cult walker single action revolver specifically procured by texas rangers after earlier designs failed to meet their expectations known as the gun that won the west the colt walker could fire 6.44 caliber bullets before needing to be reloaded and was considered one of the most powerful handguns in the world until the 1930s mexico meanwhile was forced to rely on imports of british brown best flintlock muskets and lacked the domestic gun industry needed to refurbish these old weapons up to modern standards back in europe the period of relative peace following the end of the napoleonic wars ended abruptly with the outbreak of the crimean war in 1853 widely regarded as the first truly modern war by this point most nations had begun issuing cap lock muskets as their standard infantry weapon and rifled barrels were starting to become commonplace but soldiers were still exclusively using muzzleloaded guns with powder and bullets inserted via the end of the muzzle and pushed down using a ramrod this imposed serious limitations on both accuracy and rates of fire lead shot would rattle around inside the barrel of a smoothbore musket greatly reducing accuracy rifled barrels were designed to grip a bullet tightly and spin it but these spiral grooves meant that muzzle loading required violently hammering the bullet down with a ramrod many potential solutions to this problem had been proposed but it was not until just before the crimean war that a breakthrough occurred in 1849 two french army captains named claude etienne meniere and henry gustav dalvinia had invented the meniere ball a cylindrical bullet with etched rings and a conical indentation at its base when fired hot gases pushed the thin lead walls of this indentation outwards engaging the rifling and creating a hard seal with chamber walls within four years the french army had adopted the pattern migne 1851 rifle and licensed the technology to the british who implemented it in the form of the p51 and p53 enfields although some older models were still in use the minie rifles were a powerful force multiplier on the battlefields of crimea being some of the very first guns to successfully combine high accuracy and long range with a high rate of fire in an affordable package but while the minie rifle was undoubtedly one of the most advanced mass-produced firearms of its time it would soon be superseded by breach loading rifles breech loading guns could fire faster than any muzzle loader but were subject to their own suite of issues the worst was that of hot gases escaping from the breach during powder ignition lowering projectile velocity and potentially burning the shooter's face if firing from the shoulder the norwegian army was one of the first european powers to adopt a breach loading rifle as its standard infantry weapon in the form of the m1842 camarader which used a unique crank operated mechanism to tightly seal the breach prior to firing but although the camarader was an excellent design the thick heavy breach mechanism was destined for obsolescence as the science of metallurgy advanced in leaps and bounds throughout the long 19th century while the great powers of europe were busy with the crimean war the kingdom of prussia was busy looking to leapfrog ahead of its competitors by adopting the breach loading zuent nadogevere or needle ignition rifle otherwise known as the dresa needle gun initially prototyped by johann niklaus vondresa in the 1820s the needle gun used an innovative new bolt action mechanism that made it easy to load and fire in any position instead of using a hammer or serpentine pulling the trigger caused a sharp metal needle to punch through the paper cartridge in a breech and detonate the percussion cap hence the term needle gun the bolt action mechanism was lightweight and the entire weapon could be easily field stripped in the heat of battle allowing for the rapid replacement of damaged parts this was an important addition as drase's design was at the bleeding edge of firearms technology the needle was the most commonly replaced part of the mechanism and the imperfect gas seal lowered overall performance nonetheless the benefits of the needle gun vastly outweighed its early problems and following the crimean war most european nations would adapt the design and bolt action features for their own standard infantry rifles at this point i'd like to take a brief moment to discuss some of the important considerations commanders of the day had when it came to new firearms by far the biggest was logistics infantry rifles needed to be cheap and easy to mass produce prior to the invention of steel casing in the mid-1800s firearms were hand tooled relying on skilled gunsmiths to produce consistent results but even after the advent of mass production military thinkers preferred to rely on centuries-old tactics conscript armies marched in mass formations so the need for individual firepower was de-emphasized more complex guns meant more training making soldiers harder to replace for many nations it was simply easier to rely on quantity over quality a great illustration of how quickly firearms evolved during the latter half of the long 19th century is found in the american civil war and the spencer repeating rifle used by some union cavalry regiments the spencer repeating rifle was among the first ever magazine fed rifles adopted into military service and one of the first to use both a lever action mechanism and a metallic cartridge spencer rifles had a tubular opening bored through the butt stock into which up to seven cartridges could be inserted nose first lowering the lever allowed a spring to push a cartridge into the receiver while raising it chambered the round leaving only the hammer needing to be cocked before the rifle was ready to fire this meant a spencer repeater could empty its 7-round magazine in less than 15 seconds to confederate troops still using mostly muzzle loaders like the enfield pattern 1853 encounters with union cavalry armed with spencer repeaters were utterly devastating with a half dozen mounted troops easily able to dismount and match the firepower of a whole platoon armed with cap locks another secret to the success of the spencer repeater was its use of a metal cartridge the first prototypes of which had been created all the way back in 1808 by swiss gunsmith jean samuel pauli prior to his work paper cartridges containing bullet powder charge and primer had been common but metal cartridges protected their contents from the elements much better and created a natural seal against gas leakage one of the first commercially successful firearms using metal cartridges was the model 1 revolver released by the smith and wesson company in 1857 which used 0.22 rimfire ammunition where the primer was contained in a small metal lip around the rear wall of the casing the spencer repeater also used a rimfire cartridge but even by the 1860s gunsmiths were transitioning to center fire rounds with the primer located in a recessed cup at the base of the round this enabled much higher powder loads allowing metallic cartridges to be scaled up to rifle calibers [Music] weapons like the spencer repeater made a dramatic entry onto the world stage they would soon be overshadowed by something bigger still something that would change the face of warfare forever that something was the gatling gun designed by richard jordan gatling and patented in 1861 with an innovative hand cranked mechanism that rotated six barrels around a central shaft and loaded them individually from a steel cylinder filled with paper cartridges the gatling gun was capable of firing not just dozens but hundreds of rounds per minute contemporary designs like the french and union aeger gun also existed but came with severe drawbacks the mitrayus only fired a single shot from each of its dozen barrels before needing to be reloaded making for tremendous volleys but poor sustained firepower the aegergon meanwhile used a complex revolver mechanism that was taxing to operate and its single barrel rapidly overheated the gatling gun was the designs that bridged the gap between the repeating firearm and the artillery piece being a crew-served weapon designated to engage enemy forces with continuous direct fire using rifle caliber ammunition astonishingly though the first gatling guns were regarded as almost useless by both union and confederate generals given their propensity for jamming and the vast clouds of powder smoke they generated richard gatling was forced to take his design overseas resulting in the gatling gun quickly becoming the weapon of choice for european militaries looking for more concentrated firepower against large armies of native troops in africa and other colonial territories in 1870 the franco-prussian war pitted german troops armed with dressa needle guns against french infantry armed with shaspo rifles though prussian artillery and tactics would quickly route the french army the newer shaspo proved superior to the dresa featuring a superior gas seal and faster projectiles that caused enormous wounds at much longer ranges realizing they were at a disadvantage the germans urgently began seeking a replacement rifle after the war ended the mauser company stepped up to the challenge with the mauser model 1871 a bolt-action design that proved far more robust than the delicate needle gun by now the age of single shot rifles was quickly coming to an end and in 1884 mauser's design was updated to become one of the first standard issue infantry long arms with a magazine similar to that of the spencer repeater soon after british canadian gunsmith james paris lee perfected an integral box magazine fed by stripper clips but single shotguns were not obsolete yet and designs like the martini henry rifle proved the perfect weapon for british troops operating all across their vast empire in such remote territories ammunition supply was a huge factor and as ammunition grew more complicated so too did the cost of shipping it out to the troops this was also a drawback for guns like the shaspo whose rounds cost twice as much and were twice as hard to make as these simpler dresser cartridges though many officers saw the potential of rapid-firing guns they also recognized that their introduction would triple any military budget overnight and create new supply chain issues that would take decades to fully address the 1880s would see two more giant leaps forward in firearms technology the first came thanks to the work of british inventor sir frederick abel who patented a smokeless propellant known as cordite in 1889. cordite was a mixture of newly discovered chemicals such as nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin that burned far more cleanly and efficiently than black powder the patenting of cordite and other similar formulas solved the issues of barrel fouling and excess smoke production meaning that it was weapons like the gatling gun which saw the largest benefits while the idea of using the recoil of a discharging firearm to cycle the action and chamber a new round had existed since the 1870s it was the work of british american hiram stevens maxim that created the world's first automatic weapon in 1884 the maxim gun with a single barrel encased in a water filled jacket the maxim gun was relatively lightweight at around 60 pounds and could be operated by one man using a collapsible tripod making it infinitely more portable than a carriage mounted 170 pound gatling gun much like its older counterpart the maxim gun was first employed by the colonial powers during the scramble for africa but with the advent of smokeless powder the frequent jamming issues that plagued both rotary and automatic weapons finally became a thing of the past and the maxim gun was soon being bought by many european powers ushering in the age of the machine gun while previous inventions like the repeating rifle had shown the obsolescence of napoleonic era tactics it was the machine gun that would finally destroy all vestiges of the military status quo that had dominated europe since the invention of the musket as the long 19th century drew to a close the arms race between nations only intensified in the span of about 70 years militaries had gone from using muzzle loaded smoothbore muskets with an effective range of less than 50 meters to magazine fed rifles that could land a bullseye over 600 meters and machine guns were quickly coming to dominate the battlefield unfortunately history has taught us that doctrine marches one step behind technology during the great war generals convinced they could replicate the lightning advances of the franco-prussian war through thousands of men equipped with bolt action rifles against entrenched machine gun positions resulting in unspeakable losses but even this deadlock did not last for long as even more advanced weapons like tanks and improved artillery would eventually break these defensive lines and render them obsolete as well if you want to experience the evolution in weapons from muskets to machine guns check out our free strategy game fire and maneuver which is set between the years discussed in this video check it out on steam with the link below it launches on july 15th and don't forget to wishlist it really helps us out [Music] you

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 1,823,895

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Id: 9289H6FCA2k

Length: 20min 56sec (1256 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 25 2022