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Riflemen
A rifleman is an infantry soldier armed with a rifled long gun. Although the rifleman role had its origin with 16th century hand cannoneers and 17th century musketeers, the term originated in the 18th century with the introduction of the rifled musket. By the mid-19th century, entire regiments of riflemen were formed and became the mainstay of all standard infantry, and ''rifleman'' became a generic term for any common infantryman. History Units of musketeers were originally developed to support units of pikemen. As firearms became more effective and widely used, the composition of these pike-and-musket units changed, with pikemen eventually becoming support units to the musketeers, particularly against cavalry. The last pike regiments were dissolved by the 1720s, as pikes were superseded by the invention of the bayonet. This converted the musket into a pike for those situations where it might still be useful, such as following up volleys with a charge, crowd control, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rifle Regiment
A rifle regiment is a military unit consisting of a regiment of infantry troops armed with rifles and known as riflemen. While all infantry units in modern armies are typically armed with rifled weapons the term is still used to denote regiments that follow the distinct traditions that differentiated them from other infantry units. Rifles had existed for decades before the formations of the first rifle regiments, but were initially too slow to load and too unreliable for use as practical weapons for mass issue. With improvements in the designs of rifles, the first rifle regiment was raised very late in the 18th century as armies could now equip entire units of troops with these new weapons in preference to earlier firearms such as muskets. Though rifles still took about twice as long to load as a musket the increase in accuracy and change in tactics more than compensated for this delay. History United Kingdom European armies in the 18th century largely consisted of large numbe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Team
A fireteam or fire team is a small military sub-subunit of infantry designed to optimize "bounding overwatch" and "fire and movement" tactical doctrine in combat. Depending on mission requirements, a typical fireteam consists of four or fewer members: an automatic rifleman, a grenadier, a rifleman, and a designated team leader. The role of each fireteam leader is to ensure that the fireteam operates as a cohesive unit. Two or three fireteams are organized into a section or squad in co-ordinated operations, which is led by a squad leader. Historically, nations with effective fireteam organization have had a significantly better performance from their infantry units in combat than those limited to operations by traditionally larger units. US Army doctrine recognizes the fire team, or crew, as the smallest military organization while NATO doctrine refers to this level of organization simply as team. Fireteams are the most basic organization upon which modern infantry units are bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayonet
A bayonet (from French ) is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit on the end of the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar firearm, allowing it to be used as a spear-like weapon.Brayley, Martin, ''Bayonets: An Illustrated History'', Iola, WI: Krause Publications, , (2004), pp. 9–10, 83–85. From the 17th century to World War I, it was a weapon for infantry attacks. Today it is considered an ancillary weapon or a weapon of last resort. History The term ''bayonette'' itself dates back to the mid-to-late 16th century, but it is not clear whether bayonets at the time were knives that could be fitted to the ends of firearms, or simply a type of knife. For example, Cotgrave's 1611 ''Dictionarie'' describes the bayonet as "a kind of small flat pocket dagger, furnished with knives; or a great knife to hang at the girdle". Likewise, Pierre Borel wrote in 1655 that a kind of long-knife called a ''bayonette'' was made in Bayonne but does not give any ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own)
The Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army formed in January 1800 as the "Experimental Corps of Riflemen" to provide sharpshooters, scouts, and skirmishers. They were soon renamed the "Rifle Corps". In January 1803, they became an established regular regiment and were titled the 95th Regiment of Foot (Rifles). In 1816, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, they were again renamed, this time as the "Rifle Brigade". The unit was distinguished by its use of green uniforms in place of the traditional redcoat as well as by being armed with the Baker rifle, which was the first British-made rifle accepted by the British Army in place of smooth-bore muskets. The 95th was the first regular infantry corps in the British Army to be so armed. They performed distinguished service in both the First and Second World Wars. Post war, in 1958 the regiment formed part of the Green Jackets Brigade as 3rd Green Jackets and was amalgamated with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rifled Musket
A rifled musket, rifle musket, or rifle-musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels replaced with rifled barrels. The term later included rifles that directly replaced, and were of the same design overall as, a particular model of smoothbore musket. History and development In the early 19th century, there were rifles, and there were muskets. Muskets were smoothbore muzzle-loading weapons, firing round lead balls or buck and ball ammunition, that were also designed to accept a bayonet. Rifles were similar in that they used the same kind of flintlock or caplock firing mechanism, but the main difference was that their barrels were rifled – that is, their barrels had grooves cut into the interior surface which would cause the bullet to spin as it left the barrel. Rifles have the advantage of long range accuracy, because spinning bullets h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Royal Rifle Corps
The King's Royal Rifle Corps was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army that was originally raised in British North America as the Royal American Regiment during the phase of the Seven Years' War in North America known in the United States as 'The French and Indian War.' Subsequently numbered the 60th Regiment of Foot, the regiment served for more than 200 years throughout the British Empire. In 1958, the regiment joined the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and the Rifle Brigade in the Green Jackets Brigade and in 1966 the three regiments were formally amalgamated to become the Royal Green Jackets. The KRRC became the 2nd Battalion, Royal Green Jackets. On the disbandment of the 1st Battalion, Royal Green Jackets in 1992, the RGJ's KRRC battalion was redesignated as the 1st Battalion, Royal Green Jackets, eventually becoming 2nd Battalion, The Rifles in 2007. History French and Indian War The King's Royal Rifle Corps was raised in the American colo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light Infantry
Light infantry refers to certain types of lightly equipped infantry throughout history. They have a more mobile or fluid function than other types of infantry, such as heavy infantry or line infantry. Historically, light infantry often fought as scouts, raiders, and skirmishers. These are loose formations that fight ahead of the main army to harass, delay, disrupt supply lines, engage the enemy’s own skirmishing forces, and generally "soften up" an enemy before the main battle. Light infantrymen were also often responsible for screening the main body of a military formation. Post-World War II, the term "light infantry" evolved to include rapid-deployment units (including commandos and airborne units) that emphasize speed and mobility over armor and firepower. Some units or battalions that historically held a skirmishing role have kept their designation "light infantry" for the sake of tradition. History Ancient history The concept of a skirmishing screen is a very ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hand Cannoneer
The hand cannon (Chinese: 手 銃 ''shŏuchòng'', or 火 銃 ''huŏchòng''), also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of small arms as well as the most mechanically simple form of metal barrel firearms. Unlike matchlock firearms it requires direct manual external ignition through a touch hole without any form of firing mechanism. It may also be considered a forerunner of the handgun. The hand cannon was widely used in China from the 13th century onward and later throughout Eurasia in the 14th century. In 15th century Europe, the hand cannon evolved to become the matchlock arquebus, which became the first firearm to have a trigger. History China The earliest artistic depiction of what might be a hand cannon — a rock sculpture found among the Dazu Rock Carvings — is dated to 1128, much earlier than any recorded or precisely dated archaeological samples, so it is possible that the concept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minié Ball
The Minié ball or Minie ball, is a type of hollow-based bullet designed by Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the French Minié rifle, for muzzle-loading rifled muskets. It was invented in 1847 and came to prominence in the Crimean War and the American Civil War, where it was found to inflict significantly more serious wounds than earlier round musket balls. Both the American Springfield Model 1861 and the British Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled muskets, the most common weapons used during the American Civil War, used the Minié ball. Rifling, the addition of spiral grooves inside a gun barrel, imparts a stabilizing spin to a projectile for better external ballistics, greatly increasing the effective range and accuracy of the gun. Before the introduction of the Minié ball, balls had to be rammed down the barrel, sometimes with a mallet, because gunpowder residue would foul a rifled bore after a relatively small number of shots, requiring frequent cleaning of the g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breech-loading
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition ( cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle). Modern firearms are generally breech-loading – except for replicas of vintage weapons. Early firearms before the mid-19th century were almost entirely muzzle-loading. Mortars and the Russian GP-25 grenade launcher are the only muzzleloaders remaining in frequent modern usage. However, referring to a weapon specifically as breech loading is mostly limited to single-shot or otherwise non-repeating firearms, such as double-barreled shotguns. Breech-loading provides the advantage of reduced reloading time, because it is far quicker to load the projectile and propellant into the chamber of a gun/cannon than to reach all the way over to the front end to load ammunition and then push them back down a long tube – especially when the projectile fits tightly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Warfare
Industrial warfare is a period in the history of warfare ranging roughly from the early 19th century and the start of the Industrial Revolution to the beginning of the Atomic Age, which saw the rise of nation-states, capable of creating and equipping large armies, navies, and air forces, through the process of industrialization. The era featured mass-conscripted armies, rapid transportation (first on railroads, then by sea and air), telegraph and wireless communications, and the concept of total war. In terms of technology, this era saw the rise of rifled breech-loading infantry weapons capable of high rates of fire, high-velocity breech-loading artillery, chemical weapons, armoured warfare, metal warships, submarines, and aircraft. Total war One of the main features of industrial warfare is the concept of "total war". The term was coined during World War I by Erich Ludendorff (and again in his 1935 book ''Total War''), which called for the complete mobilization and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Jacketed Rifleman Firing Baker Rifle 1803
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combination of yellow and cyan; in the RGB color model, used on television and computer screens, it is one of the additive primary colors, along with red and blue, which are mixed in different combinations to create all other colors. By far the largest contributor to green in nature is chlorophyll, the chemical by which plants photosynthesize and convert sunlight into chemical energy. Many creatures have adapted to their green environments by taking on a green hue themselves as camouflage. Several minerals have a green color, including the emerald, which is colored green by its chromium content. During post-classical and early modern Europe, green was the color commonly associated with wealth, merchants, bankers, and the gentry, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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