For hundreds of years leading towards the 18th century, battles had been fought on horseback or with hand to hand combat. However, with the advent and improvement of gunpowder and gunpowder-based weaponry, it was clear that the 1700s marked the beginning of the Age of the Rifle. Armies themselves began to change as well. England was one of the first governments to create a standing professional army with strong organizational structure. This was a strong departure from current standards of the time, which revolved around recruiting armies from the population or hiring out mercenaries. When England created its New Model Army, local militias did in fact represent the bulk of the fighting forces in England, and throughout Europe. It’s also something …show more content…
And while these soldiers also still sometimes carried a sword (for extreme close-range combat) it was their rifle that changed the course of warfare and saw the end to the horse-mounted knight, as musket balls could easily pierce the strongest personal armor of the time. Prior to the implementation of the flintlock rifle, the matchlock rifle had originally introduced the concept of a mechanism or “lock” to aid in the firing of a hand-held firearm. Before the development of this mechanism, a lit match had to be lowered by hand into the weapon’s flash plan to ignite the gunpowder primer. The matchlock made the weapon easier to fire, and more stable (as they soldier was now able to use both hands to hold the weapon). The weapon itself began to make its appearance in Europe in the mid-15th century but was mostly obsolete by the early 1700s, giving way to the more efficient and powerful flintlock …show more content…
To ready the rifle, the hammer was moved to a half-cocked position, the pan was primed, and a percussion cap was inserted, to fully fire, the hammer was moved to a fully cocked position and the trigger would be squeezed. However, in many instances the hammer would snap itself out of the half-cocked position causing it fire. This was a such a widespread problem it’s where we get the phrase “going off half-cocked”. The rifle also emitted a huge shower of sparks when fired which not only gave away location but ran the risk of igniting the powder of the man reloading beside you, leading to the practice of firing in volleys to stagger the shooting &