a mystery to me

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

Thank-you David. I have no idea what a Hall Carbine is.
While we are straying from my initial post I am curious to understand why they had difficulty with edged weapons. What was the weapon of choice for cavalry then?
I really don't fancy the idea of going up against lancers from horseback with a sabre.

The M1833 musket had a bayonet, but the carbines no. These were dragoons and surely had sabers, but of little use with these Mexican horsemen all over them in pitch darkness with lances. Besides being pretty well dampened, middle of the night, most of them on mules, the horses spent, on unfamiliar terrain.

While sabers were in use, they were hardly a weapon of choice as had become the case prevailing through the rest of the century, with firearms the primary.

[urbanspaceman]

Hey Jim... et al:
I'm afraid I know virtually nothing about battle tactics of any description, nor war in general; but don't let that stop you, I enjoy all your tales of battle over there
I did come across the Scottish lancers approach to English cavalry once and the virtual impenetrability of the horses in a frontal assault; mainly because it took place in my back-yard; not recently, of course, your friend Hiram put an end to all of that.
While on the subject of invention: I have explained in the past that my principle personal interest lies in engineering and design.
My five year project on the Shotley Bridge swordmakers introduced me to a plethora of engineering details that stretched way beyond the production of a blade and which I enjoyed enormously and benefited from equally enormously.
Returning to the original subject: the design and engineering of that Savage pistol is fascinating but way too complex; the rotate and thumb-cock system of single action Colts and etc was far more sensible. Again, hat's-off to Maxim.