ezekill said: I thought the cuirassiers never mount up guns?
This one probably looks like the French carabiniers-à-cheval (Horse carabiniers). It is said that after 1809, they wore blue uniforms, cuirasses (similar design to the cuirassiers') and scarlet combs on top of their helmets to differentiate from the true cuirassiers.
Last time I remembered of them, they were effective as the hit-n-run types
It's...... a can of worms to say the least. There were some very basic level of standardization but anything dealing with the cavalry in the Napoleonic Era was wildly varied. Case in point, look how varied the term "Dragoon" was used in various armies.
Now as for cuirassiers and your comment, they were generally used as heavy shock cav so they were not usually given carbines but in some cases they were. But they either lost interest in them or hated them so much that they usually ditched them, left them behind, or even sold them to second-line, support, or artillery troops. IIRC they did a kit inspection of the cuirassier force and found that almost everyone had "lost" their carbines and any that had them didn't have basic things like cartridge boxes so they just carried ammo in their pockets. This is mostly info I skimmed and recalled off the top of my head so this is most likely off or wrong. Feel free to correct please. -__-'