Arquebus

see also: Etymology of Arquebus

The arquebus is a Firearm of limited effective range (less than 50 Mètre S), enough door and cumbersome but which one could shoulder the last versions.

" Arquebuse" comes from old French " haquebute" , term of XVe century approximately and which points out " crochet" , because of that whose were provided the first arquebuses in order to lean on a kind of fork or an edge of wall, of branch, to improve the aiming and to box the retreat.

The arquebus with wick, appeared towards 1450, weighs from 5 to 9 Kilogram S and requires the catch of support on a fork (fourquin) to draw. The wick is lit and brought back on the small basin where the Poudre is packed for the explosion. It succeeds the Couleuvrine with hand of which it differs by the addition from the small basin (containing the powder of starting) and of the serpentine which, holding the lit wick, swivels for the firing of the weapon.

The arquebus with wheel comes later (1550), measurement from 0,80 to 1,30 meter, weighs from 4 to 7 kilograms and car a ball of hardly 25 G. This version can shoulder, in the previous versions, the stick was blocked by the chest.

The arquebus has a weak rate of shooting (a shooting per minute) and its gun warms up quickly. One distinguishes thereafter the unrifled bore arquebus, used for hunting and intended to draw from the shot, very heavy and often fixed on a carriage to support his transport along the ponds for hunting for waterfowl and the rifled bore arquebus, shorter and more handy, intended for the shooting with ball.

It is contemporary first Mousquet S, which end up replacing it; these weapons are much heavier, and always require the fork of support (" fourquine"), but of larger gauge, projectiles able launch to cross all the armours.

The arquebuses are quickly the support of the most beautiful ornamentations of the arms manufacturers of the time: gildings, engravings, inserts in horn or ivory carved, sometimes even of invaluable stones. They are used as object as decoration in the residences of the richest lords to show to the visitors the skill craftsmen than they employ.

The arquebus in Japan

The arquebus is imported with the Japan in 1543, at the beginning of the time of the trade Namban, by the Portuguese on the island of Tanegashima, from where it draws its Japanese name.

In the one year space, the Japanese blacksmiths manage to reproduce the mechanism and to start the mass production of rifles. Hardly fifty years later, the firearms were certainly more common to Japan than in any other country of the world ; the armies of this country are equipped with a very great number of firearms.

Famous the Daimyo which it first almost entirely unifies Japan, Nobunaga Oda, makes an intensive use of the arquebuses, which play in particular a role-key at the time of the Bataille of Nagashino in 1575, battles during which it utilizes approximately 3000 arquebusiers.

The arquebuses, like the other firearms, all will be practically destroyed after the unification of Japan, to return to the Japanese Saber regarded as more civilized.

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