15th wisconsin - Carbine a tige" or "Thouvenin system

thomas aagaard

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Nov 19, 2013
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Denmark
Suhl muskets? Didn't know they where used during the war...
:smile:
Do you happen to have similar information on the 15th Wisconsin?

In 1863 the 15th were carrying French Rifle Muskets in .58. They were actually well liked by the men and the US Army referred to them as 1st rate arms every bit the equal to the P53 & Austrian Lorenz. In several cases Illinois Regiments who had been carrying French Rifle Muskets like the Carbine a tige & M1859 refusing P53's when offered them and only trading them for M1861 series arms when offered.

I have a book somewhere on the 15th but can't lay my hands on it right now. Wisconsin wasn't real interested in spending any money on their volunteer & later National Guard units after the war. When WW1 rolled around large numbers of Lorenz Rifle muskets and a good number of French arms as well were still on the inventory of the Wisconsin National Guard.
It was sort of off topic so made a new one.

WARNING WALL OF TEXT

I remember reading somewhere that the 15th Wis had french rifled muskets... but not what type.

The 15th Wisconsin was known at the Scandinavian regiment. 80% was Norwegian and almost all of the rest where from Sweden and Denmark. (they did have a few foreigners, the LT.COL was american, but with a Norwegian wife and he spoke Norwegian, the major was born by english parents but crew up in Norway)

Now the funny thing is that some of the danish might actually have had experience with this exact type of firearm from the danish army...

Firearms in the danish army:
In the early 1840ties the danish army used smoothbore flintlock muskets. In 1848 they had just started producing rifle muskets at Kronborg Geværfabrik.(the danish army armsfactory)
The Taprifle M-1848. They used the system: "Carbine a tige" or "Thouvenin system" where you got a pillar that you force the bullet around with 2-3 strong blows. then get the bullet expanded out into the rifling.
(google "Carbine a tige" for more info) This make it a lot harder to load kneeling. And if you don't do it the same evry single time the range of the shot will differ. To softly and the bullet don't catch the rifling. To hard and you damage the bullet.
This type is called "tapriffel" in danish.
2008-10-25_tapriffel_4-20081025-094706.jpg


But as part of the 1848 rebellions - one broke out in the Duchies of Sleswig and Holstein.
A bloodless revolution happened in Copenhagen where the King agreed to give the people a Constitution.

This Civil war within the Danish wholestate (the 1st Sleswig war) have a lot of similarities to the acw.
About 20-25% of the danish regular army, and the best equipped part joined the rebels. (almost all officers stayed loyal to their king, but I know of one family where the father and two older brothers stayed loyal, the two younger brothers joined the rebles)

Anyway, the danish army needed more weapons and imported a large number of french M1828 smoothbore muskets, that in 1846 had been changed to the Percussion system. And they where used during the war.
They also made and upgraded older jäger rifles to this system and captured some Sulher rifles using the same system.

Sidenote: by the end of the war in 1850 about 20% of the danish infantry was using riflemuskets... so when you hear in some documentary that the rifle musket was something new in 1861... it is not correct.

During the war they also captured some firearms and when the war ended they confiscated a large number of new Suhler percussion smoothbore muskets.


During the 1850ties danish conscripts first learned how to load and shoot a the M1828/46 or "Fransk musket" as it is called in the military books from the 1860ties.
Then later during their service the best 20% was issued "taprifler"
A good idea in my opinon. The good shots who knew how to take advantage of the weapon got the accurate guns. And everyone else had smoothbores with buckshoots.

sidenote: An interesting detail about how a standing army do thing, is that for drill and exercises where blanks was used (yep, that was done) all the soldiers used the muskets... and the rifles was only to be used for live fire. This was to make sure that the rifling did not get worn by the ramrods. this is clearly states in both the 1863 drill book and the main book used for teaching "underofficerer" at the school. (nco's where all educated at a central school for a period before being sent back to their battalions)

A lot of the captured sulher smoothbore muskets was soem the rebels got jsut before the war eneded and never had a change to issue. Many where made into "Taprifler" in 1854.
(the rest stayed at the royal arsenal in copenhagen and are still there... we borrow them once a year, and they are like completely new weapons... never used... other then our blank fire)


In 1861 the danish army started to rifle the rest of the firearms. Both as a reaction to the genereal development and maybe also in an attempt to outrange the prussians...(my guess, )
Since the needlegun was very well know to the danish army... (it had been tested in 1847, again in 51 and 56. but all testes showed it to be too unreliable... too technical for the average soldier and too expensive)

So about 13.000 of the M1828/46 was rifled to and now called "Minieriffel" since they used his system, with the bullet that could expand from the force of the powder.
14019763680.jpg


So the danish army had 2-3 different types of Taprifler (some french, some danish and some captured "german") and the minierifler (french) and some subtypes...
To limit the problems of supply all Tapriffler was made to the cal of 16,5mm(cal 65,96) and all Minie to 17,26mm (cal 67,9)


But back to my point.
Since Denmark had general conscription of all males there is a good change that at least some of the danes had done their time in the danish army, in the midt-late 1850ties. So they might very well have had experience with the the french M1828/46 and/or the Thouvenin system.


The difference between the Thouvenin system and the Minie system.
I know of three test conducted by the danish army.
source: Våbenlære for Infanteriets Underofficerer - from 1862 (teachingbook for teaching nco's)

The first is with the French minie and the danish Tapriffel M1848 and the smoothbore french musket.
And I got the numbers from it. They define accuracy as "the radius of the circle that hold half the shots"
(so if you fire 10 shots 5 will be within a cirkle that size)

at 200 Alen / 125m
The Taprifle need 15,7cm
The Minie need 20,9cm
The smooth bore need 54,9cm
at 300 alen / 188,3m
The Taprifle need 24,6cm
The Minie need 28,8cm
The smooth bore need 86,3cm
at 400 alen / 251m
The Taprifle need 34cm
The Minie need 36cm
The smooth bore need 152cm Yep, 1,52Meter

So the riffel using the Thouvenin system is more accurate.

Rate of fire:
In another test they fired 30 shots in one go with a tapriffel M1848 at 125m, target 62cmx62cm.
They used an average of 34 seconds pr shot..."With a good hitrate" so slower than the often mentioned 3 shot a minut. Properly because the need for the 2-3blows when loading.


The rest is going from memory since I don't have access to the book. (used it for writing a booklet about the danish firearms back in november... when I was an intern at the Dybbøl battlefield museum)

The interesting thing is that the mentioned 30 shots was the last of a total series of 135-45 shots... done without any cleaning. They fired 30, then took a break, fired some more, took a break, until the next day and the fired some more. The book mention that the last round was as easy to load as the first round. Clearly the system allowed the round to remove the powder residue from the previous shot...

The book also have data an a test made before they started to rifle the 13.000 french muskets.
The part I do remember is that they tested the prototype of the Minierifle, the Taprifle M/1848, the lorenz and the "engelsk M53".
The Tapriffel M/1848 did better then both the Lorenz and the enfield... the Minieriffle a bit worse than all of them.
(but all of them would need a pretty good marksman for him to notice the difference)

Illinois Regiments
Since the tests are with another weapon model it naturally do not tell us anything conclusive about the "Carbine a tige" the Illinois Regiments used. But it is the same system and the danish Tapriffel M1848 was based on the french weapons and used his system.

If better accuracy and less problems with fouling is inherit in the system and as such was also the case with the weapons used by the Illinois Regiments... then that can explain why they didn't want to give them up.
 

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