[Henry O.]

So as I understand it, platoon firing and salvo firing were both limited to a maximum of 3 ranks firing at a time, while infantry who still formed 4 or 5 ranks deep would have to practice fire by rank of some sort. Do we know how often the method where each rank would remain in place after firing and kneel to reload was actually practiced in combat?

I'm curious because Sir James Turner discussed this method of fire by rank as far back as his 1671 "Pallas Armata" and seemed very dismissive of it, concluding that the front ranks would have more to fear from the ranks behind them than from the enemy. So did the french manage to figure out a solution for this, or would they have continued to just stick with a simpler countermarch drill most of the time?