[Jean Thibodeau]

Second hand knowledge, but from Gordon Frye: He told me here and in private communications in the past that essentially 16th century musketry put more emphasis on aimed individual fire than in the mass unaimed volley fire of the 18th century that valued rapidity of fire ( relative rapidity that is ).

Possibly the 16th century liking for aimed fire was related to precision use of the crossbow and longbow ? Although mass unaimed arrow volleys where certainly used at longer ranges against massed targets.

Oh, the ball used in 16th century smoothbore was tighter fitting to the bore size giving accuracy close to what would expect today with a 12 gauge shotgun used with slugs and this is around 200 yards.

The 18 century ball was undersized to the bore to speed loading and to make loading easier when the bores started to get fouled after a dozen shots or so. ( Would rattle around down the bore and be much less accurate even in the hands of a good shot ).

Anyway, maybe Gordon will confirm this with the appropriate sources.

[Hunter B.]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Hunter B.]

[David Evans]

A few points.

Smoothbore snaphuance and matchlock at targets. I've fired ball at 100m Fig11's and average 9 out of 10 hits without too much trouble, you can actually see the ball flying so correcting aim isn't too hard!

A 16th and 17th Century body of Shot doesn't fire by controlled platoon volleys, firing is usually done by ranks, retiring to the rear once fired. A single person may only fire once a minute, but the body itself may manage 6 rounds in that time.

[Hunter B.]

[Helge B.]

[David Evans]

[Paul Kenworthy]

The combat effectiveness of musket fire is mostly (but not completely) conditioned by two factors: loading speed and muzzle velocity.

Muzzle loading infantry shoulder arms were inherently slow to load. This presented an opportunity for forces with sufficient mobility to cross what 19th-century military theorists called the “deadly ground” and close with the shot while they were reloading. Soldiers addressed this inherent vulnerability four ways:

1. They developed firearms that were easier to load and fire. A percussion lock shoulder arm is faster to load than a flintlock, which is faster than a dog lock, which is faster than a snaphaunce, which is faster than a match lock. 16th-century matchlocks took over a minute to load and fire, while 19th-century expanding ball rifles took about 20 seconds. One of the most significant steps along this path is the introduction of the iron rammer at the end of the 17th-century. You have to load more slowly with a wooden scouring stick to make sure you don’t break it and disarm yourself. The result of these technological changes is that the volume of fire per unit time goes up by a factor of four between the 16th century and the end of the muzzle loading era in the mid 19th century.

2. They developed standardized weapon handling drills. Starting with Johann van Nassau-Siegen and continuing right up to the present day, soldiers practice standardized loading and firing drills to improve their speed and reliability. What makes muzzle loaders so slow to load is that there are a large number of steps that have to be performed in exactly the right order; if you miss a step or do it out of order the gun will not fire and most likely will need to have the charge drawn – a slow, laborious process. The effectiveness of this approach probably reached its peak in the Prussian army under Frederick II when the skill at weapons drill of the average infantry man gave his army almost a two to one advantage in volume of fire over their adversaries.

3. They developed tactical formations to maximize volume of fire. Volley fire, counter marching, firing in closed ranks, &c., are all methods of maximizing the amount of fire put on a given area per unit time by muzzle loaders. All of these formations become instantly obsolete when the muzzle loader becomes obsolete. There is a direct correlation between how easy the weapon is to load and what formation maximizes volume of fire. Match lock-armed formations are frequently 8 to 10 ranks deep and deeper than they are wide, while percussion lock formations are typically two ranks deep and much, much wider than deep.

4. They combine the shot with other weapons that don’t share the same reloading requirement. Pikes are always loaded and they work just fine in the rain. The most significant development in this area is the invention of the socket bayonet some time around 1670. From that time on, every musketeer is a pike man and every pike man is a musketeer. Pike are not made obsolete by improved firearms; they are made obsolete by the socket bayonet. Pike disappear from the European battlefield 200 years before cavalry do.

By the way, this issue of loading speed was not new to the Renaissance; the big advantage the longbow had over the crossbow was loading speed. A crossbow bolt has just as much range and stopping power as a longbow arrow, but you can’t get three of them in the air before the first one lands.

The second major component of the combat effectiveness of musket fire is muzzle velocity. This is because muzzle velocity is the key contributor to combat firing accuracy. 19th century examples are particularly instructive because that was when Captain Minié’s invention caused extensive research into the ballistic properties of muzzle loading firearms. The American Civil War saw .75” smooth bores fighting side by side with .44” self-primed metallic cartridge breach loaders. All of the research they did back then is available to us today.

Combat shooting is not target shooting. Muskets have low muzzle velocity by modern standards. Low velocity means that the ball travels in a very curved trajectory making accurate range estimation critical. A 17th-century musket ball will kill a man at over 500 meters, but you have very little chance of actually hitting him at that range. The important point I want to make here is that rifling a low velocity gun will do very little to increase your chance of hitting your target. In other words, improving the target accuracy of the rifle doesn’t improve its combat effectiveness nearly as much as increasing its velocity does. Comparing the aiming problems of a modern, 7.62mm high-velocity round to the M-1855 .58” expanding base conicoidal ball shows why.

“For instance, if a gun is reliable for a six-inch bulls eye at 100 yards, I deem it of trifling consequence whether the average distance of its shots from the central point of that bull’s eye is an inch more or less; for, except with a dead rest, not one man in a thousand but would make a greater variation than that, in firing a series of shots with the most perfect weapon that could be made. This statement will be doubted by very many persons who know nothing practically about rifle shooting, but who entertain a vague idea of the existence of a race of men somewhere “out west,” who can shave off either ear of a squirrel at 100 yards without otherwise injuring him. But any experienced rifleman will call it a superior performance for off-hand shooting with open sights, to put a series of shots into a six-inch ring at that distance, and a moment’s reflection will show that such work is quite nice enough for any sporting service. For it would be pretty certain death to a partridge, which I take it is as small game as any rifleman would ever spend ammunition upon, and there are very few men who would ever shoot at such game at more than half that distance. This assertion will also be scouted by many readers, even among men accustomed to shooting, but it is true, nevertheless, as any ordinary sportsman may convince himself by taking pains to pace the distance of some of his shots at game, which (unless he has been in the habit of making such measurements) he will find is rarely so much as he thinks it is.” (H. W. S. Cleveland, “Hints to Riflemen.” New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1864. pp. 200-2001.)

A six-inch group at 100 yards equals an angular width of 1.67 milliradians. The width of a man’s shoulders at 300 yards is 1.85 mils, so if you can hold that group you can reliably hit a man at 300 yards, assuming two things. First you have to be able to see the man. That is not a trivial problem in combat. The US Army Operations Research Office discovered during Project SALVO that the probability of noticing a man standing at 300 yards under field conditions was under 20%. Civil War soldiers made it a little easier by bunching together, and waving flags and yelling, but that still didn’t make it a given that you could see your target.

Secondly, you had to correctly estimate range. As Cleveland points out, and as modern studies have confirmed, even experienced shooters tend to over-estimate range, usually by about 50%. In other words most shooters think a target at 50 yards is at 75 yards, a target at 100 yards is at 150 yards, and a target at 200 yards is at 300 yards. Because the ball drops faster the farther it gets from the gun, correctly estimating range gets more important the greater the range. For example, modern, high-velocity round like a 165 gr. flat based .30” bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,700 f/s and a max point blank of 225 yards will drop 7 inches from 225 to 300 yards, 16 inches from 300 to 400 yards, 27 inches between 400 and 500 yards, 38 inches between 500 and 600 yards, 52 inches between 600 and 700 yards, 70 inches between 700 and 800 yards, 100 inches between 800 and 900 yards, and 120 inches between 900 and 1,000 yards (the max range of the ladder sight on a M-1855 rifle musket). Unfortunately, the Ordnance Dept report on the M-1855 only gives the ballistic trajectory for 200 yards, so I can’t directly compare the drop on a Springfield to the drop of a modern round. However, it does give the sight elevations for different ranges. To aim at 200 yards, you elevate the sight 4.31 mils. (Milliradians as a unit of angular measure hadn’t been invented at the time of the Civil War. They’re what we use nowadays because the math is easier with them than when using degrees. I had to convert the 1855 Ordnance Dept data into mils.) To aim at 300 yards, you elevate the sight an additional 4.92 mils. To aim at 400 yards you elevate the sight another 5.54 mils. To aim at 500 yards you elevate another 6.76 mils. A 5’ 8” tall man standing at 300 yards is 12.6 mils high. The difference between the 200 yard sight elevation and the 400 yard elevation is 10.46 mils, or almost the height of a man. That’s why it was so easy for an untrained observer who over-estimates range by 50% to overshoot a man-sized target with an accurate gun. The gun’s not the problem.

For our period, a perfectly accurate low-velocity gun aimed at the belt buckle (or girdlestead, as they would have said) of a man at 350 yards will pass clean over the head of a man on horse back positioned halfway between the shooter and target. In contrast, a NATO 7.62mm ball will be only 11 inches above the line of sight at the halfway point of its trajectory. This is one of the reasons why the linear formation is so effective in the muzzle loading era; most of the enemy’s shots are going to fall short or go long. The column solves the enemy’s range estimation problem for him. The tactical commander on the 17th-century battlefield has to decide if he has sufficient force size to make the area fire of long range firing at cavalry effective given that most of the shot is actually going to go long, not short. If he lets the cavalry get closer before he fires, the range estimation problem becomes geometrically smaller, but the greater the chance that the musketeers will be caught reloading. Therein lies the dilemma.

By the way, cannon doesn’t have this range estimation problem. Because a cannon ball has so much inertia, the cannoneer deliberately fires his round shot short and lets it bounce into the enemy formation.

Best Regards,

Paul

[Paul Kenworthy]

The exposure of cavalry to shot is dependant on the speed with which the shot can reload versus the distance the cavalry can cover during that same time.

The numbers look like this:

Horses walk at approximately 3 – 4 mph (4.83 – 6.44 kph)
Trot at 8 – 10 mph (12.87 – 16.09 kph)
Canter at 10 – 17 mph (16.09 – 27.36 kph)
Gallop at 17 – 30 mph (27.36 – 48.28 kph)

(Thoroughbreds can gallop at 40 mph and quarter horses can sprint at 50 mph, but I am ignoring racing horses.)

If it takes 1 minute to load a musket, cavalry can travel this far in that time:

Walk 88 – 117 yards (80 – 107 meters)
Trot 235 – 293 yards (215 – 268 meters)
Canter 293 – 499 yards (268 – 456 meters)
Gallop up to 880 yards (805 meters)

If it takes 20 seconds to load a musket, like it does in the 19th century, cavalry can travel this far:

Walk 29 – 39 yards (27 – 36 meters)
Trot 78 – 98 yards (72 – 89 meters)
Canter 98 – 166 yards (89 – 152 meters)
Gallop up to 293 yards (268 meters)

If the “deadly ground” is 300 yards wide, then cavalry can cover that whole distance at a trot in the time it takes to reload a matchlock, whereas cavalry could not cover it at a flat out gallop in the time it takes to reload a American Civil War rifle musket. In practice cavalry does not attack at one speed; they start out at a walk, transition to a trot when they come under fire, and break into a gallop just before contact. It is impossible to maintain a formation at the gallop, so you use that only when you are close enough that it doesn’t matter.

This is one of the reasons they used counter marching in the 17th-century. If you lined up in three ranks like typical Napoleonic infantry, but you only had matchlocks, you would get off exactly one volley. On the other hand, in the American Civil War where you could lay down harassing fire past 500 yards, you could get off four or five volleys with your percussion locks and still have your socket bayonets to deal with anyone who got through that. Part of the improvement in the 19th century is increased accuracy, but most of it is increased rate of fire. Counter marching is the only way to keep cavalry under fire for any length of time with slow loading weapons. As David points out, you can get a volley off every ten seconds that way, even though it will only be 1/6 the weight of shot compared to firing the Napoleonic way.

Best Regards,

Paul

[Daniel Staberg]

[Hunter B.]

Excellent post Paul, especially on the horse information!

[Morgan Butler]

[David Evans]

I was having a think last night about the way in which Pike divisions received Horse, more specifically the posture in which the pike received Horse. It struck me that the posture “Charge for Horse” was just simply too static and may never have been used on the battle field by any except freshly trained regiments of Foot. The reasoning that came to mind was simple. The Dutch codified drill postures during the 80 years war, resulting in Jacob de Gheyn's 'Exercise of Armes' published in 1607. This I think was the final result of some 40 plus years of warfare and probably depicted practises on the field in use of maybe the last 20 or more years. All three main weapons are shown in full and this manual remained the basis for drill to the end of the 17th Century. This book is the source for all drill used by most 17th Century re-enactment groups today. The other side of the coin as regards Dutch practise was far smaller Battalia units on the field against the Spanish Tericos. A Spanish Terico numbered about 3,000 men in quite a tight formation. The Dutch were never going to be able to raise enough men to go around head butting Terico’s one on one so they moved to smaller, slimmer units able to dance around a Terico.

The second point is the flanks of a Pike division weren’t left hanging in the air unsupported. The shot of a Battalia covered those flanks whilst the flanks of the Battalia were covered by the Battalia deployed in refused echelon. Given that Horse charge in a pretty much straight line and find it very difficult to manage 270 degrees adjustment on route to go from charging the front of a body to charging a flank, the flanks are fairly safe. Yes, the Horse can “wash” around the flanks but there’s not going to be any shock of impact. And getting too close to Foot armed with very heavy blunt clubbing weapons whilst damm near static on a horse is not going to be a good move.

I think that, in practise, an experienced Battalia received a charge of Horse with the shot firing on both flanks whilst retiring by ranks. The Pike charged and moved forward so that the shot were even further back from the front. Against all but the heaviest armoured of Horse this would work quite nicely. Galled by fire even as the Horse made contact and faced by upwards of 6 pike heads per horse, most Horse units would not complete the charge.

However, should a Battalia adopt “Charge for Horse” it’s a static blob on the field. Which means the Horse can stand off and nibble at the blob with pistols. Should a Terico lumber into range it’s going to get rolled over like a hedgehog on a Highway.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Paul Kenworthy]

Hi Lafayette,

I am talking about Johann VII (1561-1623) Count of Nassau-Siegen who was one of the 24 children of Johann VI (1535-1606) Count of Nassau and Dietz. He was a younger brother of Willem Lodewijk (1560-1620) Count of Nassau. He was also a cousin of Maurits van Nassau, later Prince of Orange. Maurits and Willem Lodewijk went to school together and were good friends. Johann VII was an antiquarian and wrote extensively to Willem and Maurits about classical Greek and Roman tactics, especially Aelian's. He had the first illustrations showing the intermediate steps of weapons drill produced which eventually resulted in the de Gheyn manuals of 1607. Johann VII also established a short-lived military academy at Siegen.

Best Regards,

Paul

[Paul Kenworthy]

[M. Eversberg II]

How these people managed to stay in formation in spite of incoming cannon fire is beyond me.

M.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[quote="Paul Kenworthy"]