Muzzle velocity: 270-300 meters/second
Bullet weight: 31 grammes
Charge weight: 4.85 grammes
Gun weight: 4.5 to 5 Kg
Loading movements: 6

The rifle of Dreyse, or Zündnadel Gewehr (Needle-gun) is a weapon with a deserved place in history as the first breech-loading infantry weapon to be successfully used on a large scale. Its production was a tribute not only to the ingenuity of its inventor, but also to a handful of visionaries in the Prussian army.

But this advanced 'secret' weapon was to suffer the familiar fate that overtakes many pioneering technological advances: breakthroughs don't age very well; and while their possession temporarily confers a potentially crucial edge, that advantage may well prove more ephemeral than the heavy financial and institutional costs of fielding revolutionary technology.

By loading through the breech, this arm offered rates of fire that were unmatched by muzzleloaders: 5-7 shots in one minute. Moreover, breech-loading permitted shooter to easily reload in many positions, including prone — difficult if not impossible with the cumbersome muskets and their ramrods. Finally, in an era where tige and Minié bullets had not yet made their appearance, the Dreyse also offered superior accuracy. Possessed of such weapons, it could hardly be doubted that Prussia's regiments would be irresistible.

But apart from limited use during the Revolution of 1848 and, apparently, in the fighting against Rosas in South America in 1852, it was not until 1864 with the war in Denmark, that the Dreyse had a real baptism of fire. By this time, an improved version, the model of 1862, firing an modernized bullet, had been introduced.

The Dreyse is prone to problems of several kinds — deficiencies which, indeed, caused it to be rejected after careful testing in Austria, Britain, France, and Russia. The needle mechanism which lies at the heart of the Dreyse rifle is itself relatively fragile. In addition, the rifle suffers from an inadequate gas seal at the breech, allowing the considerable smoke and flash generated by the detonation of the black powder cartridge to partially back-blast towards the firer — which did little to favor his good aim. Another serious drawback inherent in the Dreyse system of a consumable paper cartridge was the residue left in the breech after repeated firings; this material made operation of the lock mechanism progressively more difficult, so that soldiers were in some cases compelled to struggle to resolve the jam, leading to hand injury (as reported in the report of the American Commission to the Paris Exhibition of 1867 — a defect the Dreyse shared with its imitator, the Chassepot), or even resort to using stones, in order to operate the bolt and load the next round.

Apart from these mechanical problems, the construction and principle of the Dreyse's ammunition were also the source of trouble. Perhaps the most ingenious part of Dreyse's invention was his complex cartridge which combined powder charge, primer, and projectile. First of all, the priming charge, for safety reasons, was placed not at the base of the cartridge, but at its center, right at the base of the bullet. This location, while advantageous from a safety standpoint, meant that the needle which ignited the charge had to pierce the entire length of the cartridge and this circumstance thus necessitated the provision of a long needle which was susceptible to breakage.

But this was not all. For Dreyse's bullet was a subcaliber design, meaning that though the nominal caliber of the weapon was 15.43 millimeters, the actual diameter of the lead projectile itself was 13.6 millimeters. The bullet did not contact the interior of the barrel, but was instead solidly anchored in a paste-board 'sabot' which engaged the rifling and communicated it to the projectile during firing. After leaving the barrel, this sabot normally fell off within a distance of 30 meters and, given that at this point in the trajectory the munition was moving nearly 300 meters per second, the discarded sabot actually became a sort of secondary projectile. But in about 10% of fires, this sabot (which the Prussians termed Spiegel) remained firmly attached to the lead bullet, causing them to fly erratically with a characteristic noise that earned these wayward shots the nickname Brummer.

Finally, the shape of Dreyse's 1855 bullet shape, evidently a 19th century zoomorphic design whose flowing shape the designer hoped would improve on the performance of the two earlier patterns, was less than ideal in aerodynamic and stability terms. Still in those early days, ballistics remained more of an empirical art than anything approaching an exact science (the French too, with their M1857 Minié bullet, had introduced an aerodynamic non-starter).

With all these shortcomings in mind, let us present some contemporary statistics on the Dreyse M62 firing the M55 bullet:

It must be said that these results appear to be so good as to be unrepresentative; undoubtedly the soldiers shooting were top marksmen firing match quality guns with match quality ammunition under ideal conditions. These trials should therefore serve more as an indicator of the extreme upper limit of the Dreyse rifle's potential. A better idea of the typical 'good' marksmanship can be formed by the figures supplied by an 1858 article appearing in the Russian military journal on Prussian Jäger battalions, where the hit requirements for entrance in the prestigious Potsdam battalion are listed:

These many trials notwithstanding, we are inclined to believe that the Dreyse rifle's actual combat value lay in relatively short-range volume fire, delivered either as salvos or fire-at-will (Schnellfeuer). The gun's poor muzzle velocity and the idiosyncratic design of its ammunition made for poor long-range accuracy relative to other military arms that began to see service beginning in the mid 1840s and with increasing frequency during the 1850s.

The Dreyse's strong suit therefore remained its rate of fire which was two to three times that of the muzzle-loader.

The Dreyse's sights also bore witness to its relatively narrow band of efficacy. While the original M41 model was equipped with sights ranged up to 850 paces (637 meters), it was recognized with the second model of 1862 that this had been too optimisitic a disposition and the sights were changed to a maximum setting of 700 paces (525 meters). Perhaps most significantly of all, Prussian soldiers were instructed not to fire at single figures at ranges beyond 200 paces (140 meters), and groups of troops beyond 500 paces (350 meters).

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POSTSCRIPT For an independent comparison of contemporary accounts and statistics regarding the effectiveness of the Dreyse Needlegun, I have been fortunate enough to rely on the friendly assistance, and the expert opinion of a group of German historical gun enthusiasts, namely Herbert Schmid and Erich May, who have been kind enough to provide me with an invaluable first-hand insight into the use of this weapon.

RATE OF FIRE Although contemporary accounts (and notably and understandably Herr Dreyse himself) were wont to describe the rate of fire of the Dreyse as up to seven rounds a minute or more, it is important to qualify this statement by special focus on the ‘up to’; while French tests of the weapon during the 1860s also achieved this mark, the modern-day firers of original Dreyse rifles in excellent condition and utilizing scrupulously made ammunition have reported that seven rounds per minute represents a theoretical, rather than a practical, figure.

JAMMING Modern-day shooters of the Dreyse, who have fired hundreds of rounds from different versions of this weapon—namely the two main models of 1841 and 1862--are of accord that the Needlegun, particularly after several dozens of shots, is prone to hard jams. In the light of this fact—which is supported by certain contemporary sources—it is tempting to conclude that much of the famed Prussian fire-discipline was more a sober recognition of the Dreyse’s limitations than an artfully imposed tactical method: they fired slowly and deliberately (relative to the Chassepot) because their weapon could nothing else. Finally, in view of the way the breech of the Dreyse is designed, taken together with the fact that it employs a consumable paper cartridge rather than a metallic cartridge, it is almost a fatal certainty that some gas leakage (that is, gas leaking from places other than the muzzle) was inevitable. These gases, carrying unconsumed particles of powder, progressively fouled the joints and moving surfaces of the bolt mechanism. Ironically, the efforts of Dreyse to design an ever more precisely tight breech mechanism and thereby prevent leaks meant that the fouling which nevertheless escaped would lead to even worse jams.

LEAKS The consequences of gas leaks in the Dreyse rifle are not limited to causing jams. The escape of pressure through points and directions other than the muzzle also mean that much less gas pressure pushing the bullet down the barrel. Our modern shooters again support period figures: the Dreyse muzzle velocity has been measured at 270 meters per second—a considerably lower figure than contemporary muzzle-loading rifles like the English Enfield or the Austrian Lorenz (350-370 m/s), let alone percussion smoothbores (450 m/s), or the Chassepot (410-430 m/s). But apart from fouling the mechanism and robbing force, the escaping gasses can also startle the firer and throw off aim. Now, the amount of backwards ‘flash’ generated by the Dreyse seems to vary with the condition of each weapon, but as related to us by modern shooters, the knowledge of these iminent exlamations cause the firer to close his eyes at the moment he pulls the trigger, a situation which is hardly propitious to good aim.