Napoleonic weaponry and warfare
Used during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the Charleville musket was a .69 calibre, (sometimes .70 or .71) 5-foot-long (1.5 m), muzzle-loading, smoothbore musket. Properly trained French infantry were expected to be able to fire three volleys a minute. A trained soldier could hit a man sized target at 100 yards but anything further required an increasing amount of luck, the musket was wildly inaccurate at long range. French officers were usually armed with a .69 pistol as a secondary weapon to their sword. This still had to be muzzle loaded and fired with a flintlock after reloading. Besides guns, soldiers used a variety of pikes, swords, and bayonets for close range or melee combat. Officers, sergeants, other higher-ranked officials, and cavalry mainly used swords, while the majority of infantry soldiers were equipped with bayonets.
The cavalry and engineers of the army essentially carried the same musket as the infantry. At 10 inches shorter, the carbine and the musketoon were less cumbersome, making them more suitable for the mobility that horseback riders required but at the expense of accuracy. Besides the usage of the firearms, heavy cavalry typically wielded straight sabres with a 38-inch blade (970 mm) while light cavalry wielded curved sabres with a 33-inch blade (840 mm). 
Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, rifles were also introduced into the battlefield. Rifles were substantially more accurate at a maximum range of 200 paces because the barrel put spin on the bullet. Despite this advantage, rifles were more expensive and took longer to load, something Napoleon was not fond of and a reason why he did not incorporate them into his army. Instead, he settled for the speed of the musket, as it allowed for his rapid manoeuvres. The British did utilise the rifle such as the Baker Pattern 1800 Infantry rifle equipping some units, most notably with the creation of an entire elite rifle regiment, the 95th Regiment (Rifles). One success of the British 95th Rifles was picking off French general Auguste François-Marie de Colbert-Chabanais in 1809 during the Peninsular War. The British themselves were to lose General Robert Ross, himself a veteran of the Peninsular War, to American long range rifle fire in 1814. Rifles were also utilised in smaller numbers by Jäger companies in several German states.
The Austrian Army introduced the Girardoni M1780 repeating air rifle as a specialist weapon and used them in the Napoleonic Wars. A multi-shot breech loader, it only had an effective full charge range to about 150 yd (140 m). It was nearly silent and made no smoke or noise, but was complex and needed a significant infrastructure to support it. The air rifle fell out of use after 1815 as more conventional types of weapons proved superior overall, in only a few more decades, all soldiers would be gunpowder rifle equipped.
Most weaponry provided would be gained due to the French hosting absolute control over all armories even if this control came from district and provinces command.

Artillery: One of the major components in Napoleon's arsenal of weaponry was his artillery. With the development and improvement of combat weapons throughout the Seven Years' War prior to Napoleon, artillery had expanded to almost every European country, including France with 12-lb and 8-lb cannons. "The Gribeauval guns developed between 1765 and 1774 were 12-pounders, 8-pounders, 6-pounders and 4-pounders with 6-inch and 8-inch howitzers."
This style of gun was the artillery of choice for Napoleon, considering they were lighter by one third than the cannons of any other country. For example, the barrel of the British 12-pounder weighed 3,150 pounds, and the gun with carriage and limber about 6,500 lb (2,900 kg). The Gribeauval 12-lb barrels weighed 2,174 pounds and the gun with carriage and limber 4,367 pounds. Since Napoleon insisted on speed and mobility in conducting his manoeuvres, this lighter cannon provided the flexibility he desired. Along with the artillery, the army had vast quantities of mortars, furnace bombs, grape and canister shots, all of which provided substantial support fire.
Artillery also played a role in naval warfare, with most ships containing anywhere from 50 to 100 cannons. In 1798, Napoleon's flagship L’Orient, with 120 guns, was the most heavily armed vessel in the world; until it was sunk that year at the Battle of the Nile. Napoleon's quick, destructive artillery force contributed to a majority of his victories.

Special weapons: Congreve rockets based on the Mysorean technology were systematically used by the British during the Napoleonic Wars.

See also: Military history of France
Napoleonic tactics


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