Came across this conference speech by Gordon Frye about 19th Century firearms, it's about 2 hours long and very informative and entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EWUehoiJmk&am...embedded#!

Lots of valuable information and a good overview of the designs and historical use of 19th century firearms as well as many historical anecdotes: I enjoyed it greatly and was intending to just see what it was about and go back to it later but ended up not being able to stop listening until the end in spite of it being very late and my needing to go to bed.

Thanks Jean!

That looks really cool. Now I just have to find some time to watch :D

Talk about a blast from the past!
It was Gordon who got me into Landsknecht re-enacting more than 25 years ago.

Glad to see that at least a few people had a look at the video clip as the content is really very interesting, even " I " with good knowledge of the subject matter learned a few new things, mostly the historical anecdotes, as I was mostly aware of most of the evolution of firearm designs in the 19th century.

( Side note: I'm also fascinated by 19th century early 20th battleship design, although thisi isn't the subject matter of this video. ;)
just saying that my interests in arms cover the whole stone age to Star Trek spectrum even if my focus has been on the Medieval in recent years, so 19th century firearms. very well covered by Gordon, was a good refresher course to stuff long ago my principle interest ).

I can also see on the youtube statistics that the number of views of this conference speech has gone up to some degree but I'm re-posting a comment to encourage others to take the 2 hours it takes to view the entire video that is very entertaining and informative + it was fun for me to put a voice to the name and face of a good " internet " friend of mine for the last 8 years. ;) :D :cool:

Jean, clearly we just need to immerse you in the collective minds of the RMS... now, go forth and seek out one of Lloyd's compatriots, Andy Bradshaw, and he'll fill you in on the battleships... :)