Considering how long it takes to reload a musket, why didn’t soldiers from the 18th century simply carry 2-3 preloaded muskets instead to save time?
In: Engineering
Because muskets were *heavy as fuck*. Most muskets in the 1700s (and well into the 1800s) weighed on the order of 30+ pounds. They were made from cast iron, which was so weak that the walls had to be quite thick, and the barrels had to be incredibly long both to capture all of the slow-burning gunpowder, and to ensure a reasonable level of accuracy without rifling. Carrying 3 of them would mean lugging around 100+ pounds, all for three shots, because as soon as you fire the last musket, you’re right back at your original problem, as in a battle you ain’t gonna have time to sit there and reload 3 muskets!
Outside of rank and file combat, if you had a musket you’d often also have one or two pistols tucked away just in case. They were accurate to about 6 feet, but it was better than nothing, and they were significantly faster to reload.
Fixing bayonets was also pretty common in the musket age, as that basically turned it into a spear… which is what the average infantryman was armed with for hundreds of years before muskets came along.
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