Napoleon’s Grande Armee was not the most technologically advanced army in the field during the Napoleonic Wars — that title would go to the British army — but its weapons were reliable, plentiful, and most importantly, easy to produce.
Let’s take a closer look.
Charleville M1777 musket
The mainstay of armies in the 18th Century was the smoothbore musket with a flintlock charge. Napoleon’s armies used the Charleville model 1777 musket, which was a new musket put into production during the French Revolution as a hybrid from older muskets.
Calibre: 17.5 mm (0.69 inch)
Weight: 4.7 kg (10.5 lbs)
Length: 1.5 meters (5 feet)
Muzzle velocity: 450 meters/second (1,400 feet/second)
Range: up to 100 yards
The Charleville was one of the most mass-produced muskets of all time. French industry pumped out over 7 million of these long and accurate smoothbores between 1777 and 1839, an incredible 70-year run!
The Grande Armee left behind a staggering 450,000 Charlevilles during their retreat out of Russia, and the Russian army used these right up until the outbreak of the First World War, a century later, although they were mostly ceremonial by that point.
There are still some 4,000 operational Charleville muskets in the world today, lovingly cared for by collectors.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Battlegrounds+ to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.