Claude-Étienne Minié
Claude-Etienne Minié (born February 13, 1804 in Paris , † December 14, 1879 there ) was the inventor of the Minié rifle .
Minié was the son of a poor craftsman in Paris, joined the army and rose from common soldier to officer . In 1830 he came to Algiers and has been involved with firearms ever since. He also worked with the works of Henri Gustave Delvigne and Louis Étienne de Thouvenin . His breakthrough came in 1847 with the invention of the Minié bullet and in 1849 with the rifle named after him .
In 1852 he was appointed commander of a battalion and was then a long time teacher of rifle shooting at the normal school in Vincennes . After his departure as a colonel in 1858, he went to Egypt, where the viceroy Muhammad Said made him head of an arms factory and a shooting school in Cairo and appointed him general. When he returned to Paris, he worked a lot with rifle designs.
Minié's development improved the accuracy and thus the range of the rifle several times over . In addition, his improvements to existing weapons could be retrofitted. This led to the rapid spread of his technology across Europe. With the improved precision, he changed the conduct of war permanently. The standard rifle could previously hit about 100 to 200 m, the new rifle could already be used at 1000 m. The high losses in the Civil War also resulted from the fact that old tactics but new weapons were used.
Web links
- Minié, Claude Etienne: Improvements to bullets, which Claude Etienne Minié had patented in Paris on May 31, 1854 in England. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 137, 1855, pp. 101-102.
- Infantry armament
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Minié, Claude-Etienne |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Minié, Claude-Etienne |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French inventor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 13, 1804 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 14, 1879 |
| Place of death | Paris |