Migrate French Musketeers to their own page? edit

For purposes of discussion, I have brought over the following from my talk page. What do other people think? NYArtsnWords

I have created a new page for the Musketeers of the Guard of the Maison du Roi, instead of having them at musketeer article which should mainly deal with soldiers armed with a musket. If you give the ok we can remove the information from the musketeer section and make redirects. Carl Logan 10:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

I am torn about this. I imagine (perhaps falsely?) that the majority of wiki links to Musketeer have to do with the French institution or with The Three Musketeers, which would lead me to want to keep it as a subheading on the Musketeer page. This would also be in keeping with the German wiki page (which also has a short section on musketeers in Japan). What is more, the Musketeer article is – right now – tiny (most of the information on the use of muskets is found at Musket), so there is no size issue calling for a subpage. Finally, I am not sure Musketeers of the Guard is well enough known as a title; if a subpage is required, maybe Musketeer (France) might be better? Anyway, that's my two cents. -- NYArtsnWords 17:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)Reply
I cam personally redirect relvant sites there, it is only to go through the What links here section on the musketeer site. I think the name is correct, but it would be best to but a This article is about section at the start of the musketeer article and include them in the disambiguation page. I think that will clear up the confusion. Carl Logan
Musketeer (France) would not be a good title, as the french used two types of musketeers: normal and inexperienced musketeers (those England also used), and those who guarded the King, and the latter where actually called King's Musketeers or Musketeers of the Guard. Anonymous. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.208.45.143 (talk) 09:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC). i agreeReply

Nouveau Mosquetaires edit

I added the "nigh on" & the bits on Swedish & Japanese musketeers based on Dyer's War & Dupuy's Evolution of Weapons and Warfare. Trekphiler 01:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

I rewrote the Japanese section, lifting from Musket. Trekphiler 01:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Chinese Musketeers edit

I am chinese and I've never heard of the Ming and Quing dynasty using muskets. If they had them they could have kicked the British people's ass during the Opium war because they had superoir numbers. The article looks suspicious to me.CHSGHSF 23:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree with on that part. I also don't like the "Guns did not arrive in China until Europeans stole the gunpowder recipe..." part. Please link us to some sources.

This is Wikipedia. What did you expect?

67.182.0.37 01:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Indeed. The Gunpowder article states that the recipe spread westward along the silk road. Added {{Fact}} tag. Mon Vier 16:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Here's a link that discusses Chinese muskets during the Ming Dynasty:http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=16361 --Aldis90

It's certain that the Chinese had firearms during the Opium Wars. They also had them for quite a while prior to that. In answer to CHSGHSF, the Opium Wars mostly consisted of naval bombardment and blockades, with little land fighting. As stated in the Opium Wars article, when fighting did occur on land, the British had modern, mass-produced firearms.Mon Vier 11:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Spanish and Japanese "musketeers" edit

1. Battle of Pavia was won by arquebusiers not musketeers. The whole passage is wrong.

2. There were no musketeers in Japan, but harqebusieres. The japanese teppo was less powerful and had another construction than European musket. It is very close to western arquebus.--Alex Kov 10:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Looks like the whole article is a rubbish. It speaks about arquebus and arqusieres, not musketeers.--Alex Kov 10:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)Reply


  musketeers did not fight on ur mo

The most thoroughly trained musketeer in history edit

In this article I've read the following sentences: "The redcoat was equipped with the 0.75 calibre Land Pattern Musket, or Brown Bess. He was the most thoroughly trained musketeer in history, the British army being the only one in the colonial era to train with live ammunition. A fully trained redcoat could fire four times a minute."

I'm wondering whether a British nationalist or an expert wrote this. I have read the book "Frederick the Great" by Nancy Mitford, and she mentions that the Prussian soldier was the finest of its time. These Prussian soldiers were active at the same time as the Redcoats. Just wanted to mention it, but I guess one can't really tell what country had the thoroughly trained musketeers.

By the way, I've read the following sentence in the Wikipedia article "Prussian Army": "Through drilling and the iron ramrod, each soldier was expected to fire six times in a minute, three times as fast as most armies." One of the reasons of the writer is that the British musketeers were the finest, because of their four bullets a minute. Pruis (talk) 18:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

Is this article really about musketeers? I think it's missing its topic and has to be changed all over. edit

Hey. Just by overlooking this article I'd say it totally misses its topic. It is mainly about handgunners and arquebusieres, not about musketeers. This is especially true for Asia. However, I am not a native English speaker, but I do know someting about definitions of historical firearms as we use them on the European continent, e.g. in French and German. So maybe a native speaker WITH some knowledge about the official definitions can help me out here: According to continental terminology, muskets are 1. the heavy, long rifles which you have to use on a stick, as improvements of the lighter and shorter arquebuse, beginning EXCLUSIVELY in Europe during the mid of the 16th century; further muskets are 2. the historically following rifles. After the original forms became lighter and more and more practical, later every rifle (not shotgun) was called a musket until the first repeaters were developed, except from the shorter carbines that could be used on horses. According to this definition, there have never been neither muskets nor musketeers in Japan until 1866. The rifles they got from the Portuguese were arquebuses, and they didn't develop them any further for 250 years. Therefore most of the Asia section would have to get kicked out of this article, and in the rest of Asia and Europe sections it' d have to be seen: what is a musketeer, what a handgunner or arquebusiere. If it's the latter, kick it out and replace the information in the relevant articles. What do others say, before I'd start with this? --JakobvS (talk) 06:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

I'm totally down with this. I've been scratching my head for months about this page. Surely "musketeer" means "musketeer" i.e. Europe, 16th Century etc. I don't think this is a Western bias per se Silverwood (talk) 15:21, 2 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

Agree. On the talk page of the article on muskets there's some more discussion going on, let's see whats the outcome there.--JakobvS (talk) 14:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

Hi! I wonder what Russian streltsy image does do in this article? Streltsy are not musketeers. They are a separate kind of soldiers, which have their own article. They had completely different equipment (were armored with halberd) and payment scheme, for example (were given land areas instead of being fully paid in wages like musketeers). Or is this article about any firearms-equipped warriors?...--Anuclanus (talk) 05:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)Reply