Musket fire
A question to ponder. Musket fire, clearly the nature of the weapon suggested that the 1st volley was the most effective, but i have a question was it more important that these men where trained and with good officers or that they where just there. Reason i ask is that i think personally that the effectiveness of musket fire while would be impacted by the number of people firing i think it is more important as to the quality of the training and the officers in command. That a battalion of 400 men well trained and with good officers would be far more effective than 700 men with poor training and fair officers, or was it really down to the number of guns brought to bear?

The data seems to show that training and command & control were vital. A well-trained unit could fire faster and a well-officered unit could deliver better controlled volleys. The former resulted in more casualties and the latter resulted in a greater morale impact on the recipients.

The most effective tactic against cavalry was to hold fire until about 20 paces - it takes training and officer-induced confidence to do that. If the unit is poor,. shots will be fired off willy-nilly, muskets will misfire, due to incorrect loading etc. They will also not be level, so that they will go over or under an approaching unit. The militia units of all nations were not up to much, which makes the point.

Training and discipline are always better than lack of training and lack of discipline. But, larger units are stronger (given equivalent quality) than smaller units. The real question is, to what extent is it better to invest the army's budget into the largest possible army, or to invest in a smaller, better trained army? It's very hard to prove any argument in either direction, as differences in quality are impossible to quantify. However, it is my own belief that there is no one universally correct answer. Britain was well served by a smaller army (though still larger than most people realize) with a higher standard of training, but that isn't necessarily a successful solution for a continental power. For example, if Russia had had a small but really good army, there's no way it could have defended against Russia's multitude of enemies on Russia's multitude of fronts. It would have established a brilliant reputation right before it disappeared along with the Russian Empire. Nor are the terms of reference the same for all powers. Britain had the cash to pay good money for recruits, training, and supplies. Countries like Austria and Russia had to rely much more on non-monetary solutions, like quartering troops on the local population. These countries had the resources to feed their armies, but not in the form of hard money. Yours, James D. Gray

Dont forget the NCO's. A grizzled seargeant who drills his troops and keeps their weapons and kit clean is often more usefull the a wet behind the ears company CO who has just finished his education in correct cutlery usage at eton and bought his first commision ! Think I read somewhere that this was where the British system was better than the continental as we had a higher proportion of "veterans" or experienced NCOs if you like within each unit. When a sergeant politely suggests something I would listen :wink:

We must take into account the fact that muskets were not at all very accurate. If you hit what you aimed at, at over 50 metres, that would be pure luck. Training would play a very important part but overall i think it would be the morale that would make the difference. A guard volley would not be any more effective at a hundred metres than a 2nd line, but the guard would continue to fire when they were fired back at, and would do so for longer. On another note,, we tried out the new massed columns rules last night and they were very good. Even though they did charge and smashed my line to bits.

BBC, This debate, rather like the other slightly less gentlemanly debate on TMP, would suggest that effective musketry cannot be tied down to any one significant component. It is a mixture of many things coming together on a particular day. IMHO I would opt for discipline/training (includes morale) and good officers and NCOs’ as the key factors. But that can be outweighed at times by many other factors, e.g. good weapons, (e.g. have half the battalion been reissued with poorly made muskets), clean weapons, availability of ammunition, (and its quality), good tactical position, got some sleep last night, got some breakfast this morning, not suffering from dysentery or some other illness, actually warm and dry when ordered to stand up and fire as opposed to wet through and shivering your proverbials off.....etc, etc, etc.... Finally a point on British musketry. One point not touched on, even by the experts on TMP, is that the British fire method in the Peninsular was different to the French and other armies. They tended to space out more in their two ranks allowing for better volleys. The French and others still maintained a very close shoulder to shoulder rank system which put them at a disadvantage in musketry, they were more easily put off by their fellows firing and loading due to their very close proximity. Not a war winning tactic in itself but combined with all the other factors (most of which were usually in the British favour) it definitely helped tip the musketry balance in favour of the British almost every time. DB

DB, never heard about this extra spacing for the british. In Imperial Bayonets by Nafziger it is stated that the French had 26 inches according to the Reglement or 22 inches (according to Escalle: des marches dans les Armees de Napoleon). The British also used 22 inches/men according to Nafziger.

On the size vs quality front, it is also important to bear in mind that this was not a matter of simple choice; a variety of factors sometimes imposed themselves to determine the way a country would go on this. I'm sure that, all things being equal, Napoelon would have preferred a smaller but higer qualtity army as per 1805 - 1807 than the lower quality behemoths of 1813. This, however, is simply impossible is you are going to fight war after war with most of the rest of Europe over a 15 year period. Casualties and strategic committments mean that you are inevtably going to dilute quality and once you do this, you have to search for ways of waging war in the most effective way with the army available to you. Another interesting (at least to me) side of the size vs quality issue is how it informs tactical and strategic choices of individual commanders. I am always struck by how carefully Wellington husbanded his resources as compared to Napoleon. No doubt, this was partly because Wellington had a political government to answer to (as compared to Napoleon who was the political head in France). I suspect, however, that this was also because Wellington percieved a military need to preserve his core of veterans whilst Napoleon probably regarded his concripts as far more expendable (and replaceable). Clearly, however, he had an entirely different view of his guard who was treated with far more care. O

DB yes i decided to try this question in both forums to see the actual points of discussion form and where they went. I was not surprised that they veered off into continuing an ongoing discussion in the guise of answering the question while here, the question was addressed. Such is life. as to my reading, post this question i was drawn to Muir work "tactics and experiance of battle..." in the chapter on moral and cohesion pg 204 he remarks with regards to men leaving the ranks for various reasons amongst them being to attend the wounded that "good troops would suffer a much smaller diminuation of thier strength than poor troops from the same number of casulties, and that the discipline and morale of the unit recieveing a volley had almost as great an influence on it effectivness as the morale and discipline of the troops firing. Naturally this effect compounded, so that a good unit exchanging fiew with a poor one benefitted from its greater coolness in firing, and from the greater impact the casulties it inflicted had on its target" to me this is a very susinct way of really describing fire combat from what ive read of action reports and biographies. That to me it seems that yes other elements would have an impact but critically it was the moral that determined the staying power in fire combat, but also determined the reaming effectivess that would fight. Its noted that the usual ratio was about 2:1 for injured thus for one you could lose 3 from the firing line the determinate being if those two would return to the line or find a reason not to. This being clearly determined by the moral of the troops and the influence of the NCO's and officers. There is a comment that british troops where ordered to fire low such as at the knee's or legs, not so much for accuracy sake but because of the expected effect of not so much killing but crippling a man. I think also its interesting what clauswitz thinks in terms of troops and quality and numbers. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2052&chapter=146373&layout=html&Itemid=27 at 89c For me i think this give a fair idea of what factors impact the percieved effectivness of muskerty fire. Though i am sure there other ways of looking at it! :lol:

To return to Captain Chook's post, I suspect that troops regarded as Guard in wargaming terms were no better at firing than those rated as veteran or elite. As a sort of answer to the original post, a certain commander of the period, who seems to have known his stuff, commented that the moral is to the physical as 3 is to 1. There are a lot of factors involved in the effectiveness of musketry from units, but I do believe that training and C&C are key ones.

I think ordering your troops to shoot at the enemy's knees was a response to the general tendency of all troops to fire high. I think that this tendency to shoot high was one of the strongest factors in distinguishing effective fire from ineffective fire. Muzzle-loading muskets start out in a vertical position; the natural tendency is to fire the instant the piece comes level, and when a bunch of people are trying just as hard to kill you as you are trying to kill them, I suppose the tendency becomes one to pull the trigger slightly before the piece is level. Thus I believe calm, confident, disciplined troops are far more likely to effectively level their muskets before firing than nervous, jittery, or raw soldiers. (As an aside, some historian has suggested that a good percentage of casualties was caused, not by fire directed against a target, but the random "patter" of musket balls falling many yards - even hundreds of yards - behind a unit that was being shot at. Even smoothbore muskets actually do have a remarkable range, if you leave any question of accuracy out of it, and blaze away at 30 degrees to the horizon.) This is also part of the reason, I'd like to suggest, why the first volley was more powerful than later volleys; the troops were ordered to level with a distinct pause before being allowed to fire. As the unit was not yet firing, soldiers who "jumped the gun" would be obvious targets for later punishment by the NCOs, which could ensure that the muskets were properly leveled for at least one shot. This also fits with the British tactic of firing once or twice and then charging. Another thing to keep in mind is that, in the chaotic fear and noise of battle, a soldier can actually pull the trigger without noticing that their musket does not fire; either nothing or just a flash in the pan. In the (American) Civil War it was documented that a large percentage of the muskets left on the field of Gettysburg were loaded with more than one round; I think the "winner" of this bizzare sweepstakes was a gun with over 20 charges! But even merely double-loading a musket pretty much renders it useless for the rest of a fire-fight. I can't help but think that experienced troops who had been through it before, would be less frightened and less oblivious, and thus less likely to render their firearm useless in the midst of battle. I suspect that, in this case, experience was more important than training. And, in troops more than two ranks deep, jittery troops become a positive danger to those in the front rank! “It is not an exaggeration to say that the third rank places hors de combat a quarter of the men who are wounded in an affair. This statement is not carried high enough, if it is a question of a troop composed of recruits." St. Cyr Yours, James D. Gray