CHAPTER VIII
THE RIFLED GUN
While the evolution of smooth-bore ordnance owed little if anything to the prior development of small arms, the evolution of rifled ordnance which took place in the middle of the nineteenth century followed closely on that of rifling as applied to the musket. Experience with the rifled musket supplied the information necessary for the application of rifling on the larger scale. In tracing the development of rifled ordnance, therefore, the development of the rifled musket must first be considered: the two evolutions are historically linked together. In this chapter an endeavour is made to trace these two evolutions in their natural sequence, and to describe the circumstances in which each took place, the objects aimed at, the difficulties encountered and the results achieved. We shall see how the smooth-bore musket was replaced by the rifle firing a spherical ball; how the spherical ball gave place, in the course of time, to an elongated bullet; and how, when the elongated bullet had been evolved, the principle of the rifle was extended to field and to heavy ordnance. A complete survey of the whole process can be obtained only by stepping back, past the days of the primitive rifled fire-arm, to the age when the longbow was still “the surety, safeguard, and continual defence of this realm of England and an inestimable dread and terror to the enemies of the same.”
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The might of England, avouches the historian, stood upon archers. The prowess of the archer, the dreadful precision of the longbow, and the athletic arm by which it was strung, form the constant and animated theme of ancient British story. In battle and the chase, we are told, the power of the archers always prevailed, and the attainment of that power was an object of incessant anxiety, in all ranks of people, from their earliest infancy. The longbow was thus, as described in the above-quoted act of Henry VIII, a continual defence of the realm. Over all other countries England had this advantage, that against the exigencies of war she had, not only her race of splendid seamen, but armies of the most skilful archers in the world. In peace she was thus well prepared. Good use was made by legislation to maintain the skill and stimulate the ardour of the bowmen, and the statute book bears witness, reign after reign, to the importance attached to archery from its military aspect. At one time every man between the ages of fifteen and sixty had to possess a bow equal in length to his own height. Every township had to maintain its butts, each saint’s day had its shooting competition. The churchyard yew gave its wood for staves, the geese on the green their best wing feathers; and a goose’s head was the orthodox and inconspicuous target. No man under the age of twenty-four was allowed to shoot at any standing mark, and none over that age at any mark of eleven score yards or under. Restraint was laid on the exercise of sports which might interfere with archery, and when the mechanically strung crossbow was introduced its use was forbidden except under special conditions.[111] Honours and prizes were awarded the best marksmen. The range and accuracy achieved by them was without doubt prodigious. Much of their power lay in their strength of arm; but one of the chief secrets of their craft lay in the way in which they set their arrow-feathers at the requisite angle to give the arrows a spin which would ensure a long, a true and a steady flight.
With the advent of gunpowder the shooting competitions declined. An embargo was put on fire-arms; instead of being pressed to possess them the people were forbidden their use except under conditions. The military character became a separate order in society. Encouragement was no longer given to the individual to own and master the unwieldy fire-arm. The English peasant, enthusiasm evaporating as his skill declined, no longer gave the State the military value which his forefathers possessed. The clumsy mechanism of the English musket, the uncertainty of its action (especially in wet weather), its slow rate of fire, its gross inaccuracy, and its inability to penetrate armour under all conditions, were factors which kept fire-arms for long years in disfavour in this country.
Abroad, on the other hand, the development of fire-arms was actually encouraged and skill in their use patronised. The rivalry which already existed with bow and arrow was extended to the new medium, and in Sweden and Switzerland, Germany and France, shooting competitions continued in vogue and proficiency with musket and arquebus was honoured and substantially rewarded. In Switzerland and Southern Germany especially, shooting was very popular. The character of the people, their skill in making delicate mechanisms, the nature of the country, all tended to promote an interest in musketry which did not exist among our own people. As a result England has little to claim in the early stages of the development of portable fire-arms.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries smooth-bore weapons firing spherical lead balls were the only kind known and used. But in the early part of the sixteenth century a development took place which was to prove of the first importance to fire-arms; which was to make the primitive weapon in the course of time “the most beautiful, and at the same time the most deadly instrument of warfare ever devised by the ingenuity of man.” The value of rifling was discovered.
How, when, or where this discovery was first made, appears to have defied the researches of investigators. As to the manner in which the development took place and the effects which it was intended to produce by its means there is an assortment of evidence; and this is so various and so interesting as bearing on the action of the rifle and its evolution, that we reproduce it in some detail. On one point there appears to be small doubt: The earliest rifling had no twist in it.
“It seems to have been generally accepted by writers on the subject,” says the author of The Book of the Rifle, “that the earliest barrels had straight grooves, the object of which was to give a space into which the fouling of previous shots might stow itself without obstructing the process of loading with a well-fitting ball, and that spiral grooving was merely an accidental variation of this, afterwards found to possess special advantages.” Nevertheless, he himself inclines to the opinion that the straight groove was not necessarily a prior form of the spiral. The collections in museums contain examples of spiral grooving older than the oldest straight-grooved barrels. In any case, it is antecedently more probable, he considers, that the spiral grooving was not a variation of the straight groove, but that it was “a deliberate attempt to find a means of giving to the bullet the spiral spin which was well known as having a steadying effect on the javelin, or on the arrow or bolt discharged from the bow.”[112]