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A "Gewehr" smoothbore gun, of the type mostly used by the Shogunate during the Boshin war (1868-69) in Japan.
Gewehr is the German word for a rifle. Previous to the 1840s, rifled guns were not widespread, usually muzzle-loading and termed Büchse, as they are still in German hunting jargon today. Afterwards, Gewehr became the standard term for military-type rifles.
The term "Gewehr" can be encountered in the context of 19th and 20th century military history for nonspecific rifles from German-speaking countries, e.g. in arms trade, in particular for types produced before German unification in 1871.
Specific types, sorted chronologically from 1841 to 1997 and with designer given, are:
- Gewehr 41 (Dreyse, 1841)
- Gewehr 71 (Mauser, 1871)
- Gewehr 88 (state committee, 1888)
- Gewehr 98 (Mauser, 1898)
- Gewehr 41 (Walther, 1941)
- Gewehr 43 (Walther, 1943)
- Sturmgewehr 44 (CITEFA/Schmeisser, 1944)
- Gewehr 36 (Heckler & Koch, 1997)
See also[]
The original article can be found at Gewehr and the edit history here.