18th century native american armament

[FM WarB]

At the battle of Little Bighorn, many Souix were armed with winchesters, which were better than the breechloaders of the 7th cav. This causes me to ponder what sort of firearms the Indians in 18th century wars might have had. (It also causes me to want a Custer's Last Stand scenario...lol)
If hunting is a prime use for the weapon, might they not have gotten ahold of some rifles? Why would you hunt with a musket? Rifles were predominant on the frontier. The Indians must have captured some. Traders must have sold them some, too.
As I understand the N unit type for indians, they melee better in column. Would this apply no matter what weapon they are assigned?
As alot of indian battles are in forests, giving them rifles negates the range advantage of the weapon, and they all shouldnt be armed with them.

 

[Gary McClellan]

The Small Arms weapons type is the only one with the melee bonus (which applies in any formation, it just gets washed out when they are in X-Line becuse that formation is so bad). Musket armed Indians melee normally.

 

[FM WarB]

The Small Arms weapons type is the only one with the melee bonus

So that is how cav melee more effectively?

 

[Andrew Bamford]

For what it's worth, I spoke to some friends who do C18 frontier living history stuff, including portraying native peoples, and the consensus that I got from them is that Indian armament, at least of the French-Indian war era that they re-enact, would be predominately muskets but also incorporating anything from hunting rifles on the one hand to archaic stuff like doglocks and even matchlocks on the other. Plus the usual array of hand-to-hand weapons.
I don't know how close the games come to portraying this, as an EAW title is the next thing on my "to buy when I have some spare cash for a new game" list, but I thought I'd throw it in.
Cheers, Andrew

 

[Gary McClellan]

What the small arms does is give lower firepower, with lower range (2 hexes as opposed to 4), but a 50% melee bonus.

So, the idea is that those tribesmen have mixed arms. Some muskets, some bows, some melee weapons and the like. They get the bonus for the melee weapons, but since they aren't all musket armed, they don't get full firepower either.

And, not all Indian units are "small arms" armed. If there is evidence that a given band was fully musket armed, they're given credit for having muskets.