Although the word musket later became a general term for almost all front muskets, it was an amazing behemoth when it first appeared on the Italian battlefield in 142 1. The word musket first appeared in the arsenal list of 1499 Naples. According to the existing material object, the gun body is 550 mm long, the caliber is 30 mm, the total length is 1430 mm, and the barrel is octagonal. The word "musket" comes from the Latin word "musca", which is also the Latin name for throwing arrows. /kloc-in the 6th century, the Spanish improved musket was a gun with a caliber of 23mm, a total weight of1/kg, a bullet weight of 50g, a maximum range of 250m and an effective range of100m. Because it is too heavy, filling has become a tiring job; At that time, it only took 10 second to load the musket, but it took more than 20 seconds to locate, install, aim and shoot. Needless to say, it is also difficult to move, and the recoil when launching-the projectile launched is about twice that of a musket-can not be ignored. The archers of these matchlock guns are all selected and powerful big men. They are paid a lot and often have followers to move equipment on the battlefield. But in front of the projectile launched by Musk, Scales and chain mail really became fragile things for the first time. With the development of early muskets, from the end of14th century to the beginning of16th century, it was also the appearance and development period of full-body armor until the appearance of integral metal armor in the late16th century. Soldiers with matchlock guns [data picture] shot with matchlock guns [data picture] Nevertheless, the musket troops mixed with spearmen finally knocked down the heavy cavalry. Swiss mercenaries were famous for their halberds in Europe at that time. But in the Swiss mercenaries, except for the heavy infantry who used halberds, crossbowmen and later musketeers have always maintained a certain proportion; That kind of oversize musket can ensure that the early breastplate can be broken at a distance of about 100 meters. In the historic Battle of Novara (15 13), Swiss infantry completely defeated French knights, and only ten years later, in the Battle of Bika in 1522 and the Battle of pavia in 1525, musketeers showed their value for the first time. Records at that time said that this kind of big matchlock gun often killed several people or horses with one shot; But obviously, they can only form a fixed position against the enemy under the cover of spearmen and trenches, and still can't replace crossbows to provide sufficient and flexible firepower for infantry. As a result, people have to sacrifice destructive power. By the end of 16, muskets have become the weapons of light infantry and cavalry, and the caliber has dropped below 15 mm, which is similar in size to modern rifles. Although the strength is not as good as before, musketeers are popular, and the ratio of musketeers to spearmen in the army was completely reversed in the whole16th century. By the end of 16, the spearmen had completely become the existence of providing cavalry charge cover for musketeers. Crossbows and longbows finally withdrew from the military sequence in16th century; Although the early musketeers were worse than crossbows in some performances, compared with crossbowmen, especially the longbowmen, musketeers trained quite quickly, and musketeers, especially the projectiles, were also very convenient to manufacture. It takes months to make a longbow, a week to make a crossbow and a day to make a musket. It takes half an hour to make a crossbow, but projectiles can be cast in large quantities. In Les Miserables, it is described that the rebels melted metal utensils into pellets, which was unimaginable in the era of using crossbows. /kloc-in the 6th century, cavalry was first equipped with pistols and sabers); Except for spears that have been used for thousands of years. The appearance of the dragon knight is also in this era. Although they can walk and ride at the same time, most of them are still used as cavalry; When using muskets, cavalry usually charge in three stages. First the rifle, then the pistol, and then prepare for hand-to-hand combat to about 30 meters. This charge method has two more blows than the previous charge with only spears. However, cavalry began to rely more and more on firepower. They often use the tactics that the cavalry in front fires and retreats to the rear of the cavalry queue to reload, and the cavalry in the back fires and retreats. This tactic is very similar to a three-stage attack. Moreover, with the popularity of muskets, cheap cavalry using pistols and sabres gradually squeezed most of the heavy rifles out of the cavalry sequence. By the beginning of17th century, Gustav's Swedish army had been able to resist the assault of Polish spear heavy cavalry. Don't forget that the Poles of FQ have always been the best heavy cavalry in Europe ... Their descendants can even create a miracle of cutting tanks with sabre, which is enough to prove that they are not inferior to Naizu. It is an indisputable fact that heavy cavalry is expensive, and its cost performance has been declining since the rise of muskets: the cost of equipping a heavy cavalry is equivalent to the cost of four spearmen or musketeers. For a musketeer, as long as he can shoot down even a heavy cavalry in the battle, he has already completed the task, because, to put it bluntly, his life is far less valuable than the other side. But heavy cavalry still has its existence value, especially in frontal assault; After adopting cheaper breastplates, they continued to exist as breastplates until the middle of19th century. /kloc-At the beginning of the 6th century, with the development of mechanical technology such as clocks and watches, some whimsical inventors tried to apply these machines to firearms, and revolvers were born. The so-called revolver ignition pistol is to replace the matchlock clip of a general matchlock gun with a snail-shaped spring and a large metal revolver. Pull the hammer with your right thumb and tighten the spring. When the trigger is pulled, the spring drives the revolver to rotate at a high speed, rubbing the spring or other metal parts on the fire door and sparking. This mechanism is complex, expensive and difficult to repair-the price is 2-3 times that of matchlock-but it is gorgeous and easy to use. Although it is difficult to be used as a weapon with a lot of equipment, for cavalry, this kind of gun saves them from the trouble of sudden flameout of match rope during high-speed riding. The famous Germans hired the Der Scharzritter, and everyone often carried several revolvers. However, with the appearance of flintlock with similar advantages, the rotary musket gradually faded out of the battlefield; Because of the high cost and complexity, infantry never want to use it, and the technology of turning muskets has always been used only on pistols. By the way. When the technology of matchlock was spread from European businessmen to Japan, the Japanese could be said to have given up matchlock ("iron cannon"). Including the well-known three-stage attack, musket tactics and gun technology have been greatly improved in a short time under the requirements of the Warring States period. In the battle of Guanyuan (1600), there even appeared a large matchlock gun with a length of 2.5 meters and a weight of more than 40 kilograms, which was carried by two people. There is never a shortage of matchlock guns in countless cartoons with the Warring States as the background; To celebrate the flowers, muskets from China, Japan and the West all appeared. There are three skeleton musketeers, and three skeleton three musketeers play three-stage shooting on a moonlit night in ghost city. However, because this article focuses on European muskets, and there are many excellent articles devoted to iron guns, I won't say much. Compared with similar products in Europe, Japanese iron cannons are better made, but the nature of use has not changed. The real difference will appear after the invention of flintlock gun in the second half of16th century.