Fusilier

Fusilier was originally the name of a soldier armed with a light flintlock musket called the fusil. The word was first used around 1680, and has later developed into a regimental designation.

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Various forms of flintlock small arms had been used in warfare since the middle of the 16th century. At the time of the English civil war (1642-1652) the term firelock was usually employed to distinguish these weapons from the more common matchlock musket.

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The special value of the firelock in armies of the 17th century lay in the fact that the artillery of the time used open powder barrels for the service of the guns, making it unsafe to allow lighted matches in the muskets of the escort. Further, a military escort was required, not only for the protection, but also for the surveillance of the artillerymen of those days. Companies of firelocks were therefore organized for these duties, and out of these companies grew the fusiliers who were employed in the same way in the wars of Louis XIV. In the latter part of the Thirty Years War (1643) fusiliers were simply mounted troops armed with the fusil, as carabiniers were with the carbine. But the escort companies of artillery came to be known by the name shortly afterwards, and the regiment of French Royal Fusiliers, organized in 1671 by Vauban, was considered the model for Europe.

Musket: A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore long gun. Its user fires from the shoulder, except in the case of the rare wall guns. The date of the origin of muskets remains unknown, but they are mentioned as early as the late 14th century. Muskets became obsolete by the middle of the 19th century, as r...

Flintlock: "flintlock" is the general term for any firearm based on the flintlock mechanism. The type is now obsolete. Introduced about 1630, it rapidly replaced earlier types, such as the matchlock and wheellock, and continued in common use for over two centuries, replaced by cap and cartridge-based systems...

16th century: As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600....