Jean Baptiste Auguste Verchere de Reffye

Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye (30 July 1821 – 6 December 1880) was a French artillery general of the 19th century, and superintendent of the works at

Meudon Meudon () is a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris. The city is known for many historic monuments and some extraordinary trees. One of t ...

. He was a former

ordnance Ordnance may refer to: Military and defense *Materiel in military logistics, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment. **The military branch responsible for supplying and developing these items, e.g., the Unit ...

officer for

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

. He also established the gun manufacture in

Tarbes Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turba'' ...

Reffye mitrailleuse

De Reffye developed in 1866 the Reffye mitrailleuse (named "Canon à balles"), one of the best early

machine guns A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...

, which was used during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. It was based on the earlier Belgian

Montigny mitrailleuse The Montigny mitrailleuse was an early type of crank-operated machine-gun developed by the Belgian gun works of Joseph Montigny between 1859 and 1870. It was an improved version of the " Mitrailleuse", ( en, Grapeshot shooter) invented by Belgian ...

of 1863.

Breech-loading cannons

Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye took a key role in introducing

rifled In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the proj ...

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 bre ...

cannons, a marked improvement over the previous

La Hitte system LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

which had been in place since 1858. The La Hitte system used rifled weapons, but they were muzzle-loading, which had the advantage of structural strength, but the disadvantage of slowness in loading. In 1870, de Reffye developed the

Reffye 85mm cannon The Reffye 85 mm cannon (French: "Canon de campagne de 7 de Reffye modèle 1870") was a French artillery piece of the 19th century, developed by the French artillery General Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye, superintendent of the works at Me ...

, an 85 mm (3.35-inch) rifled

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 ...

cannon, equipped with a breech screw, initially made of

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

. The cannon used shell cartridges for ammunition.''Age of Great Guns: Cannon Kings and Cannoneers'' page 30 by Frank E. Comparat

/ref> De Reffye also developed the

Reffye 75mm cannon The Reffye 75mm cannon (French: ''Canon de campagne de 5 de Reffye modèle 1873'') was a French artillery piece of the 19th century, developed by the French artillery General Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye, superintendent of the works at Meu ...

in 1873. His cannons would be soon superseded by the

Lahitolle 95mm cannon The Lahitolle 95 mm cannon (Mle 1875) was a French cannon of the 19th century, developed in 1875 by the artillery commander de Lahitolle. The Lahitolle 90 mm was the first French field cannon made of steel, and one of the first to be e ...

and especially the

De Bange 90mm cannon The de Bange 90 mm cannon (Mle 1877) was a type of field artillery piece developed in France by Colonel Charles Ragon de Bange in 1877, and adopted by the French Army that same year. It superseded the earlier Reffye cannon (1870/73) and the ...

Notes

French generals 1821 births 1880 deaths Military personnel from Strasbourg Deaths by horse-riding accident in France {{france-mil-bio-stub