What if Prussia never adopted the Dreyse Breechloading Rifle?

Prussia adopted the Dreyse breechloading rifle in 1841. It proved itself superior to the muzzleloading rifles of Denmark and Austria.

What might have happened to European history if Prussia had stuck to the muzzle loading rifle musket as was the the standard type fielded by other European armies?
 
Prussia adopted the Dreyse breechloading rifle in 1841. It proved itself superior to the muzzleloading rifles of Denmark and Austria.

What might have happened to European history if Prussia had stuck to the muzzle loading rifle musket as was the the standard type fielded by other European armies?
Then somebody else would adopt the breechloader before Prussia. :winkytongue:
 

TruthfulPanda

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For all the fanboy fangazming, needlegun does diddly squat to events.
Prussia with capslock muzzle loaded rifles would had won in 1864 and 1866 just the same.
 
The Austrian Lorenz rifle had a characteristic tendency to curve and overshoot the target. The French learned they could exploit this by ducking and closing in quickly, so Prussia could adopt bayonet tactics during the Seven Weeks War to exploit them as well.

Or conversely Prussia might put more emphasis on their artillery arm instead. Could have interesting effects later on. Historically Prussia focused on modernizing their infantry before their artillery. So during the Austro-Prussian War, the Prussians had superior infantry but inferior cavalry and artillery arms. Once they modernized their artillery the dynamic was reversed during the Franco-Prussian War. With Prussia now having inferior infantry with outdated rifles, but vastly superior artillery and howitzers to the French.

In this tl when they purchased new artillery in the 1850s (presumably of muzzle-loaded brass) and new rifles in the 1860s, we might instead see both sides enter the Franco-Prussian War with modern Chassepot-Mauser rifles but Prussia without the Krupp Steel.
 
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The Austrian Lorenz rifle had a characteristic tendency to curve and overshoot the target. The French learned they could exploit this by ducking and closing in quickly, so Prussia could adopt bayonet tactics during the Seven Weeks War to exploit them as well.

What does this mean? Every projectile fired from a firearm follows a ballistic trajectory dependent on its weight and velocity, unless it has some sort of control or guidance post firing (like rocket assisted projectiles from a howitzer).
 
What does this mean? Every projectile fired from a firearm follows a ballistic trajectory dependent on its weight and velocity, unless it has some sort of control or guidance post firing (like rocket assisted projectiles from a howitzer).
It means what it says. The Lorenz rifle was very accurate at long ranges but had an excessively curved ballistic trajectory that could be avoided by advancing forward into the gap created by the drop, which was exploited by the French expeditionary force in Italy.
 
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Excessively curved trajectory? The Lorenz had much the same curved trajectory as any other rifle musket of it's day. It's only real oddity was the bullet which was on Wilkinsons system rather than the Delvigne/Minie generally used elsewhere. The end result is much the same.

What the Dreyse gave was the ability to load from a prone position and at a faster rate of fire. Ballistically it was short legged by comparison to a good period rifle musket.

Without the Dreyse the Prussians would be using the standing line formations of all rifle musket users. How might this impact upon their performances in the field in the Danish and Austrian campaigns?
 
Excessively curved trajectory? The Lorenz had much the same curved trajectory as any other rifle musket of it's day.
Source? While its true that all rifles have a curve, I've seen it often mentioned in analysis of the Franco/Sardinian-Austrian War that the characteristic was much more noticable from the Lorenz. And that the tactics of French officers were adapted to exploit that characteristic while minimizing the Lorenz's range advantage.

I'm also skeptical that firearms made in different countries to different specifications and ammunition would all have the same ballistic performance.
 
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Source? While its true that all rifles have a curve, I've seen it often mentioned in analysis of the Franco/Sardinian-Austrian War that the characteristic was much more noticable from the Lorenz. And that the tactics of French officers were adapted to exploit that characteristic while minimizing the Lorenz's range advantage.
The problem was not that bullets from the Lorenz curved significantly more than other rifles, but that Austrian troops were less well equipped to estimate distances accurately and change their sights accordingly, particularly when dealing with an enemy advancing rapidly as the French did. It was this, coupled with the complexity of the Austrian formations (in which each battalion was sub-divided into three 300-man units, which had to manoeuvre separately but in concert), that caused the Austrians problems.
 
The Lorenz was pretty widely used in the American Civil War but I've never heard of it having a problem with its ballistics there, so it sounds much more likely it was a problem with Austrian training.
 
The problem was not that bullets from the Lorenz curved significantly more than other rifles, but that Austrian troops were less well equipped to estimate distances accurately and change their sights accordingly, particularly when dealing with an enemy advancing rapidly as the French did. It was this, coupled with the complexity of the Austrian formations (in which each battalion was sub-divided into three 300-man units, which had to manoeuvre separately but in concert), that caused the Austrians problems.
That sounds plausible to me. I suspect it might be a combination of both factors as they hadn't much experience with using rifled-muskets, slight differences in the curve would be exaggerated.

I think Prussia in this tl would still be able to use that to their advantage as the French did.

The Lorenz was pretty widely used in the American Civil War but I've never heard of it having a problem with its ballistics there, so it sounds much more likely it was a problem with Austrian training.
I heard that the Lorenz were hastily converted to fire a larger caliber standardized round during the ACW. I figured rechambering would cause issues by default. It doesn't seem to have been very popular during that war at least.

Although I picked up a copy of the Austrian Lorenz manual to check it out. It has some neat graphs on the bullet flight path, the elevation required to account for the bullet curve, and how to use the two-part sights, but cerebro is right. This would be very hard to explain to new conscripts.
 
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The Austrian Lorenz rifle had a characteristic tendency to curve and overshoot the target. The French learned they could exploit this by ducking and closing in quickly, so Prussia could adopt bayonet tactics during the Seven Weeks War to exploit them as well.

The tendency to curve was a characteristic of all minie rifles; the Austrians' problem was that, instead of teaching individual recruits how to estimate range, they taught the NCOs to do so and then pass this on to their men. The French were able to advance quickly enough that the Austrians simply didn't have time for this.
 
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