Arms of the East Indiamen

[Daniel]

Went to the J.M. Davis Museum (about which more later) for my birthday, and in their library got my hands on an out-of-print copy of Frankland's Small Arms of the East India Company. It has a section on the small arms of the East Indiamen, which the Company regulated even though it didn't own most of the ships. Records are unavailable from the Golden Age, but here's an interesting list of the East Indiaman Sullivan's arms loadout from 1783.

60 brass-mounted muskets

30 bayonets with scabbards

15 pair of pistols, .56 caliber.

6 brass-mounted walnut musketoons

6 swivels

60 cutlasses with scabbards

80 cartouche boxes with belts and frogs

25 pole axes

A hundredweight of musket and pistol balls in kegs

A brass bullet mold

400 musket flints

200 pistol flints

4 scouring rods, 1 breech wrench, 1 spring hook, 1 melting ladle

20 spare musket rammers and 10 spare pistol rammers and 12 formers for cartridges

40 lock nails, 35 side and breech nails

12 spare triggers, 6 pipes, and 6 worms

Frankland, Small Arms of the East India Company, vol. 2, p. 576.

This is the first time I've ever heard of pole axes being used on a ship.

[MorganTyre]

Went to the J.M. Davis Museum (about which more later) for my birthday, and in their library got my hands on an out-of-print copy of Frankland's Small Arms of the East India Company. It has a section on the small arms of the East Indiamen, which the Company regulated even though it didn't own most of the ships. Records are unavailable from the Golden Age, but here's an interesting list of the East Indiaman Sullivan's arms loadout from 1783.

60 brass-mounted muskets

30 bayonets with scabbards

15 pair of pistols, .56 caliber.

6 brass-mounted walnut musketoons

6 swivels

60 cutlasses with scabbards

80 cartouche boxes with belts and frogs

25 pole axes

A hundredweight of musket and pistol balls in kegs

A brass bullet mold

400 musket flints

200 pistol flints

4 scouring rods, 1 breech wrench, 1 spring hook, 1 melting ladle

20 spare musket rammers and 10 spare pistol rammers and 12 formers for cartridges

40 lock nails, 35 side and breech nails

12 spare triggers, 6 pipes, and 6 worms

Frankland, Small Arms of the East India Company, vol. 2, p. 576.

This is the first time I've ever heard of pole axes being used on a ship.

I'll add that there is no references to pikes or boarding axes, both of which were very common in that era. Looks like they were intending the poleaxe as a catchall.

[Daniel]

Here are pictures of the oldest East Indiaman weapons in the book, still somewhat post-period, unfortunately. The three pictures of the musket are all the same weapon, made between 1753 and 1770. The pistol was made between 1771 and 1787.

[captscurvy_nc]

Curious about the scabbords with the cutlasses. Was it common for all cutlasses on the ship to have a scabbord?