Black Powder and Smoothbore: Weapons from the Yataghan to the Ironclad

The yataghan was an Ottoman single-edged, forward-curved hewing sword used from the mid-16th to the late 19th century. Janissaries and other infantry carried versions made smaller and lighter than ordinary swords so as not to hinder the soldier on the march, and Istanbul, Foca and Prizren were its main centers of manufacture.

The demi-cannon was a medium-sized naval gun developed in the early 17th century, larger than a culverin but smaller than a full cannon, firing shot of around 32 pounds. It armed the lower gun decks of English warships through the 18th century and replaced the unwieldy full cannon that fell out of use in that period.

The flintlock pistol was developed by the French gunsmith Marin le Bourgeoys around 1610 to 1615. Its effective range was short, so it was often carried alongside a sword or cutlass, and it came in sizes from small pocket pistols to long horse pistols kept in saddle holsters.

The Charleville was a .69 caliber French infantry musket that entered service in 1717 and was last produced in the 1840s. It armed both French and American forces in the American Revolutionary War and was used in numerous other conflicts beyond France's own army.

The Brown Bess was the British Army's muzzle-loading smoothbore flintlock musket, its first standard service musket from 1722. It came in several patterns, including the Long Land, Short Land, India and Sea Service versions, and armed British regulars through the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars.

The cavalry sabre is a curved backsword associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods, made for mounted cutting attacks. Britain's 1796 Pattern Light Cavalry Sabre became the most famous pattern of the era, known for cutting power severe enough to sever a limb.

Sir William Congreve began experimenting with rockets in 1804, and by 1806 he had built an iron-cased design reaching 3,000 yards, far beyond earlier European rockets. British forces fielded it from 1808, and Russia, Austria and other powers later adopted it, with use continuing through the Crimean War.

In 1849 Lieutenant John A. Dahlgren of the United States Navy began designing a family of smoothbore muzzle-loading boat howitzers, a safer shape after an accidental gun burst killed a gunner. The smooth, curved profile concentrated metal where firing pressure was greatest, and Dahlgren guns armed Union warships, including the ironclad monitors, in the American Civil War.

The M1857 12-pounder Napoleon was a bronze smoothbore muzzle-loading gun-howitzer adopted by the United States Army in 1857 and used extensively in the American Civil War. Combining the roles of field gun and howitzer let one weapon fire several kinds of ammunition instead of needing separate guns.

Ironclads were steam-propelled warships protected by iron or steel armor, built from 1859 to the early 1890s. The French Gloire, launched in 1859, was the first ocean-going ironclad, and the type first saw major combat in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia.