Crimean War
With war breaking out between the Russians and the Turks, Britain realized that it was only a matter of time before they would be drawn into the conflict. The British Army was in the midst of a significant weapons transformation from smoothbore muskets to rifled muskets. While three of the four divisions of the field army in the Crimea had been supplied with the pattern 1851 Minie rifle-musket, the other regiments of the army around the Empire still carried the 1842 pattern smoothbore musket. By the end of 1853, the Enfield rifle-musket as approved by the War Department for the army and was put into production. The Enfield saw extensive action in the Crimean War, 1854–1856, with the first Enfield rifles being issued to troops from February 1855.
Read more about this topic: Pattern 1853 Enfield
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.”
—Martha Gellhorn (b. 1908)