Nelson & His World

Though guns and rifles were used to powerful effect in the age of sail, nevertheless, sea battles were often concluded by boarding actions in which a range of weapons such as pikes, cutlasses and swords were used.

Is there any explanation for this?

You don't have to reload a sword and even if it gets wet, it won't misfire. I tend to think even when repeating weapons came into use, an empty gun is still just a club. I'm an old flintlock shooter

Thanks, Peter, for that answer which makes good sense!

Anna,

I also think that most boarding actions were rather close, so I don't think there would have been much room (or time) to wield a musket, although I believe 'sea service' muskets were in any case rather shorter for shipboard use.

Muskets, rather than rifles, would have been used on board ship and ashore for most of 'our period', except perhaps for trained marksmen, the rifle I believe only coming into use during the Peninsula War, and in the army, with units such as the Royal Greenjackets.

The rifle of course, had a 'rifled' barrel, or a spiral groove which spun the bullet and giving it a greater range than the musket.

Think about the damage done by one of Nock's 7 barrel volley guns. Nelson didn't like them because of the recoil and the chance of setting fire to the topsails. And these guns were a pain in the arse to clean. There was also the danger of having one or more barrels that failed to go off. Until you checked it with a rammer, there was no way to tell if all the bores were cleared. Not a bad theory but BAAAD in practice. I've handled an original (I didn't get to shoot it) and it was impressive. MASSIVE is more like it.