Defensive Instructions for the People: Containing the New and Improved Combination of Arms, Called Foot Lancers : Miscellaneous Instructions on the Subject of Small Arms and Ammunition : Street and House Fighting, and Field Fortification |
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advantage ammunition angles applied armed associations army artillery attack ball cartridges barrel barricade Boroughmongers buckshot cartridges bullet butt caliber carbine cavalry charge chevaux de frize command common musket construction copper cap cotton defence distance ditch earth effect enemy especially fire firelock Fitzroy Somerset five feet flanking floor Foot Lancer fortification four fowling-piece French front fuse gabion give glacis glue grenades ground hand-grenade hogsheads holes inch diameter inches long infantry lance latter length less loaded Lord Lord Edward Fitzgerald meal powder means military Morning Chronicle moveable moveable bridge musket and bayonet necessary object occasion ounce paper parapet percussion piece pikes pistol placed plate pouch pound powder purpose quick-match ramrod ranks redan redoubt resistance rifle rifle cartridge roll shells shooting shot square stick street tallow thick thrown tion town tridges troops tubes wall weapons
Popular passages
Page 12 - By raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time of peace without consent of Parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary to law; 6. By causing several good subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when papists were both armed and employed contrary to law; 7.
Page 30 - ... that has been done at any time by the particular excellence of any one kind of arms; and will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects, which histories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors of fire-arms.
Page 12 - That the Subjects which are Protestants, may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their condition, and as allowed by law.
Page 19 - I have made many experiments, and thought a good deal, by way of ascertaining the best calibre for answering the particular or general purposes to which the rifle may be applied. We all know that the resistance of the air is the chief obstacle which projected bodies have to encounter. It is so very great, that the range of projected spheres is more regulated by the degree of this resistance than by the velocity they receive from the powder, — the increased velocity of the ball being met by a geometrically...
Page 20 - ... of sixteen bullets to the pound. With respect to the rifle at least, I would most strenuously recommend the substitution of percussion for flint locks, over which the advantages of the former are as great, as the latter are superior to the huge wheel and pyrites locks of two centuries ago. In comparison to the percussion gun, the very best flint one absolutely hangs fire, and one out of nine is usually a miss-fire.
Page 30 - I shall therefore close this paper with predicting, that whatever State shall thoroughly comprehend the nature and advantages of rifled barrel pieces, and, having facilitated and completed their construction, shall introduce into their armies their general use with a dexterity in the management of them ; they will by this means acquire a superiority, which will almost equal anything that has been done at any time by the particular excellence of any one kind of arms...
Page 47 - At the same time the neighbouring counties might rise in a mass and dispose of the troops scattered in their vicinity, and prevent a junction or a passage of any army intended for the city ; they would tear up the roads and barricade every convenient distance with trees, timber, implements of husbandry, &c. at the same time lining the hedges, walls, ditches, and houses, with men armed with muskets, who would keep up a welldirected fire. " However well exercised standing armies are supposed to be,...
Page 20 - ... a missfire. , A cap is put on much quicker than a flint lock is primed ; there is no time lost in changing flints ; and if Mr. Joyce's percussion powder be used, there is no foulness or corrosion whatever; lastly, the rifles at present in use might be converted into copper caps at a trifling expense, and new copper cap looks will cost less fhau flint ones.
Page 26 - Slips from the usual trowser suspenders will answer the purpose. I must yet add a few words, by way of recommending some essential alterations in the method of exercising the troops to the use of that weapon, which will in most respects apply to the musket, carbine, and pistol. In all the rifle or musket practice that I have ever seen or heard of, the men are made to fire at a target of about three feet diameter, placed before a bank or mound of earth, which receives all the missing bullets ! Nothing...
Page 26 - ... with each other. Such a butt being set up endways, need only be connected by a pulley at the top to a couple of poles fixed in the earth, or to the top of a moveable triangle. Any inclination, either forwards or backwards, may be given to it by means of the pulley. If it be inclined backwards at an angle of eighty to eighty-five degrees, the bullets, at medium and short ranges, -will be reflected upwards nearly perpendicularly in the air. The ground in...