Fort William Henry

[Freezer]

About three weeks ago my wife and I went to Lake George, New York, the site of Fort William Henry for our annual family get together. I found it very interesting and saw some things I had never imagined. Have you ever seen a Revolutionary grenade launcher? The Brown Bess was very inaccurate and thus didn't have sights. the vertical pin on the top of the barrel was to hold the Bayonet on and was also used to secure the grenade launcher!

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[Jayhawker]

Part of the reason for the inaccuracy of the Brown Bess was that they were using paper cartridges with .720-.730 round balls in a .75 caliber smooth bore barrel...They had a good reason to do so considering that a soldier of the period was expected to maintain a rate of fire of 4 rounds per minute...

With my Brown Bess, using a tightly patched round ball, it was pie plate accurate a 50 yards and accounted for a number of deer...

[Bigslug]

The big argument for muskets over longbows was that it took less time to train a sizeable force of effective shooters, and it was seen as a preferable alternative despite the longbow's greater range and accuracy. But it does make me wonder if there are incidents in history where the musketeers were wiped out by a force of archers that knew what they were doing.

But grenades off the front end of a Bess? THAT'S one way to make up for your lack of accuracy!

[Japhy]

Those things must weigh 25lbs. Ok for suppressing recoil but not for wimps to tote on a 20 mile March.
So shoulder it then trigger then hold 5 seconds looking through the smoke from the pan.

[Freezer]

The rifles barrel had been around since the late 1500s. they were far more accurate but took more time to reload, The rangers of Fort Henry preferred the French rifle. I couldn't get a picture of the one they had but did a lot of research on it, The reenactor was correct, though not common many frontiersmen preferred the French rifle.

IIRC the Browm Bess was 75 caliber and they were shooting 69 caliber balls.