Daniel Staberg wrote: |
My personal opinion is that it's likely that a lot of Reiters that could aford would have carried more than the required two pistols. Even well into the 17th Century some units were laoded for bear from the looks of it. In 1639 a Scots cavalry regiment took to the field armed with carbine, two pistols in the saddle holsters and a pistol in each boot for good measure.
Cheers Daniel |
Sort of makes sense from a firepower point of view since this would be close to equal to the firepower of an 1860 Civil war cavalry man armed with a sabre and one percussion revolver.
Reloading 4 single shot pistols and one archebuse would seem somewhat close to loading the six chambers of an early revolver with powder / ball and percussion caps. A bit faster maybe when only one weapon has to be handled.
Firing the 6 shots with the revolver would also be a little faster than having to put away ( or throw away in an emergency ) a pistol to use the next one.
With careful aimed fire or one shot at a time in a fairly short time span i.e. no time or pause long enough to reload any of the pistols or the revolver, I think the comparison may be valid ?
Well, with the early revolvers ( Colts ) one might also carry multiple pistols or sometimes extra pre-loaded revolver cylinders for a relatively quick reload. ( Somewhat tricky on horseback taking one's revolver apart and changing cylinders without fumbling and dropping something important like the barrel or the locking wedge. :p :lol: ).