(Editor’s Note: This was taken from the Saga Publishing discussion group for the rule set Victorian Warfare.)

I did a quick run-through of Michael Glover's Warfare from Waterloo to Mons. Here are some highlights.

Percussion muskets were found to be 26 times more reliable than flintlocks in tests done at Woolwich, England in 1834. By 1842, all British muskets had been converted to percussion cap.

Percussion caps did not increase either the range or rate of fire (surprising), but misfires were way down.

The 'rifled musket' used grooves and the Minie ball, with a range supposedly accurate to 400-500 yards. The British adopted the Minie rifle in 1851, but were not happy with it, instead developing the Enfield rifled musket, smaller and lighter than the Minie, with an effective range of 250 yards.

Crimean armies still had Minie rifles while Enfields shipped out as they became available.

Breechloaders were soon the newest thing, with the Dreyse needle gun adopted in 1843 by the Prussian army. The needle gun fired 8+ rounds per minute compared to two or at most three with the muzzle-loaders. They were used in the 1864 Danish-Prussian War.

The U.S. inventor, Christian Sharp, patented a breech-loader with a 'drop-lock' in 1848, using pinfire cartridges. Christian Spencer developed a loading system to feed cartridges into the chamber, thus appeared the repeating rifle. Union cavalry used these in the latter part of the ACW.

By 1866, the French had developed the Chassepot, a better-ranged breech-loader than the Prussian Dreyse. The Austrians still were using muzzleloaders in the Austro-Prussian War along with muzzle loading artillery vs. the Prussian Krupp weapons.

Russian elite troops were using the Berden rifle by the 1870's, along with 1/4 of their line units. The rest of the army used the Krenk rifle, a converted muzzle-loader accurate to less than 600 yards. At this late date, the Russians still used bronze muzzle-loading artillery.

By 1882, the end was in sight for the single-shot rifle. By 1886, the French were using the Lebel rifle ranged to 4,000 yards, the Germans adopted the Mauser by 1888, and the British were using the Lee-Medford with ranges of 2,800 yards. No longer were distinctly bright coloured uniforms a good idea!