Brown Bess

The weapon in common use during the Napoleonic Wars was the musket. The British musket, commonly known as the Brown Bess, was the weapon with the longest service life (over all its variants) of any firearm in history. It was first introduced in 1707 as the Long Land Pattern, and was phased out in the late 1830s when they were replaced with a percussion cap musket.

Origins of the Nickname
One hypothesis is that the "Brown Bess" was named after Elizabeth I of England, but this lacks support. It is believed that this name was not used to refer to the early Long Pattern Land musket but arose in late years of the 18th century when the Short Pattern and India Pattern muskets were in wide use.

Early uses of the term include the newspaper, the Connecticut Courant in April 1771, which said "... but if you are afraid of the sea, take Brown Bess on your shoulder and march." This familiar use indicates widespread use of the term by that time. The 1785 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, a contemporary work which defined vernacular and slang terms, contained this entry: "Brown Bess: A soldier's firelock. To hug Brown Bess; to carry a fire-lock, or serve as a private soldier." Military and government records of the time do not use this poetical name but refer to firelocks, flintlock, muskets or by the weapon's model designations.

Popular explanations of the use of the word "Brown" include that it was a reference to either the colour of the walnut stocks, or to the characteristic brown colour that was produced by russeting, an early form of metal treatment. Others argue that mass-produced weapons of the time were coated in brown varnish on metal parts as a rust preventative and on wood as a sealer (or in the case of unscrupulous contractors, to disguise inferior or non-regulation types of wood). However, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that "browning" was only introduced in the early 19th century, well after the term had come into general use.

Similarly, the word "Bess" is commonly held to either derive from the word arquebus or blunderbuss (predecessors of the musket) or to be a reference to Elizabeth I, possibly given to commemorate her death. More plausible is that the term Brown Bess derived from the German words "brawn buss" or "braun buss", meaning "strong gun" or "brown gun"; King George I, who never spoke English and commissioned its use, was from Germany. Bess may therefore be a corruption of buss. The OED has citations for "brown musket" dating back to the early 18th century which refer to the same weapon.

Usage
Stress-bearing parts of the Brown Bess, such as the barrel, lock, and sling-swivels, were customarily made of iron, while other furniture pieces such as the butt plate, trigger guard and ramrod pipes were found in both iron and bras, although the India and Sea Service patterns used in 1809 had these exclusively in brass. It weighed around 10 pounds (4.5 kg) and it could be fitted with a 17 inches (430 mm) triangular cross-section bayonet. The weapon did not have sights, though it could be aimed using the bayonet lug as a crude sight, which would be rendered impossible once the bayonet was fitted.

The effective range is often quoted as 175 yards (160 m), but the Brown Bess was usually fired en masse at about 50 yards (46 m) to inflict the greatest damage upon the enemy. Military tactics of the period stressed mass volleys and massed bayonet charges, rather than individual marksmanship. The large soft projectile could inflict a great deal of damage when it hit and the length of the weapon allowed longer reach in bayonet engagements.

As with all similar smooth bore muskets, it is possible to improve the accuracy of the weapon by using musket balls that fit more tightly into the barrel. The black powder would quickly foul the barrel, making it more and more difficult to reload a tighter-fitting round after each shot and increasing the risk of the round jamming in the barrel during loading. Since tactics at the time favoured close range battles and speed over accuracy, smaller and more loosely fitting musket balls were much more commonly used. The Brown Bess had a barrel bore of .75 calibre, and the typical round used was around .69 calibre. While the looser-fitting musket ball reduced the effective range of a single musketeer firing at a single man-sized target to around 50 yards (46 m) to 75 yards (69 m), the Brown Bess was rarely used in single combat. Since when firing en masse volleys, a soldier does not pick an individual target, the effective range of the Brown Bess when fired en masse was easily 100 yards (91 m) or more.

Marines
The training for the Marines for engagements at sea was to fire individually, kneeling to reload behind the cover provided by the ship's bulwarks and the hammocks in the hammock nettings. Because of the ranges in play during ship-to-ship combat. Marines were not exclusively employed as musketeers but were also used to augment the gun crews, only being called away to replace small-arms men as the battle progressed.

Variations
Many variations and modifications of the standard pattern musket were created over its long history. The earliest version was the Long Land Pattern of 1722, a 62-inch (160 cm) long (without bayonet) and with a 46-inch (120 cm) barrel. It was later found that shortening the barrel did not detract from accuracy but made handling easier, giving rise to the Militia (or Marine) Pattern of 1756 and the Short Land Pattern of1768, which both had a 42-inch (110 cm) barrel. Another version with a 39-inch (99 cm) barrel was first manufactured for the British East India Company, and was eventually adopted by the British Army in 1790 as the India Pattern. The India Pattern musket was the weapon used by the British during the Peninsular War and therefore is the weapon used by line infantry characters in Show the Colours.

Notes and References
Please note that most of the information is condensed from the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Bess Brown Bess