Book Review: Military Rifles of Armies in Europe 1867-1886
Book Reviews
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6m 4s
"Military Rifles of Armies in Europe 1867-1886" by Paavo Raukko is a useful book, although one with some limitations. It is largely a photographic catalog of exactly what the title describes, specifically covering Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, and Switzerland. For each of these countries, Raukko lists the various rifle patterns used between 1867 and 1886, with photographs of most. He does also include bayonets and cartridges, although not to the depth of the rifles.
What I like about this volume is that it includes a lot of very rare small-production variations of different rifles, which are hard to find any information on at all. These sub-variants even have photographs more often than not.
However, the amount of information included about the rifles is very limited. Most have just a paragraph or two of explanation for a design family and a few vital statistics (length, weight, caliber, etc). Comparing the French section to my own knowledge of French rifles in particular, I find a number of factual errors and evidence of misunderstanding of the guns in question (like the identification of the Mle 1884 as "Mle 1874/80/84"). That said, the photos allow basic identification of a lot of guns that are, as I said, very difficult to find information on, and that alone makes the book valuable to me.
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