Pike and Shot suggestions

[KateMicucci]

A musket won't hit a man-sized target at 200 yards every time, but it won't miss every time either.

An archer might be able to cast an arrow hundreds of yards but it's doubtful that he could hit anyone at that range with any more consistency than the musketeer. The fletching might help keep the arrow pointed in the direction its moving, but because the arrow is so slow it is greatly affected by the wind and gravity. Even the best shot could be thwarted by the target taking a single step within the several seconds the arrow would take to reach him.

I have not seen a single reference to the kind of accuracy expected from an archer in any 16th or 17th century archery manual. What I have found is several descriptions of archery competitions, which also took place at the same time as musketry competitions- with the prize for the gun competitions often being worth more. The firearms apparently weren't considered hopelessly inaccurate or random if they held competitions with pretty valuable prizes attached (in one case a golden gun worth 20 pounds and a yearly stipend for life).

The only reference to the accuracy expected of an archer in a primary source I've found is from Chapter 25 of Saracen Archery. A good archer should be able to group his arrows on a 38 inch target ~75 yards away. Modern Olympic archers, with all their fancy equipment, shoot at something comparable: a 1.2 meter target at 70 meters (48 inches at 76.5 yards).

Seems pretty comparable to the accuracy achievable with a musket. This guy does pretty well with a 200 year old musket at 97 yards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ-UazWAOSk

We can get a better picture if we take the figures from the Graz accuracy tests, and convert the area of the scatter which the report gives in square centimeters (why?) into the diameter of a circle. At 100 meters, the worst musket (excluding the one for which no figures were reported) would land all of its shots with a circle 1.27 meters wide. The best would land all of its shots within a circle 0.54 meters wide. The muskets tended closer to the best grouping than the worst. The 2nd worst musket would hit a target 0.87 m wide every time. The above video seems consistent with these results.

So with even the worst musket hitting within a 1.27m wide circle at 100m, it's reasonable to assume that any of the muskets could hit a 1.2m wide Olympic archery target every time at 70m.

Of course at a certain distance the trajectory of the musket will open up, but so will the arc of the arrow become extremely high, making it more and more difficult to aim.

Every source I've seen, ranging from the Americas to Japan, gives firearms the longer effective range. 16th century English military writers are even kind enough to consistently give a maximum lethal range of either 480 or 600 yards for the musket. Robert Barret gives 480, Barwick gives 480, Roger Williams gives 600, and even John Smythe, a fierce advocate of the bow, allowed a maximum range of either 480 or 600 (ed: Barnabe Riche also gives the maximum range as 480 or 600). They probably hit with about one in a thousand shots at that range, or less, but even so, it shows that the idea of Japanese harquebuses carrying a few hundred paces is not unreasonable. Here's one of those English military writers, Robert Barret, in The Theorike and Practike of Moderne VVarres, 1598:

"First, you must confesse that one of your best Archers can hardly shoot any good sheffe arrow aboue twelue score off, to performe any great execution, except vpon a naked man, or horse. A good Calliuer charged with good powder and bullet, and discharged at point blanck by any reasonable shot, will, at that distance, performe afar better execution, yea, to passe any armour, except it be of prooffe, & much more neare the marke then your Archer shal: And the said Calliuer at randon will reach & performe twentie, or foure and twentie score off, whereunto you haue few archers will come neare. And if you reply, that a good archer will shoot many shots to one; Truly no, your archer shall hardly get one in fiue of a ready shot, nay happely scarce one; besides, considering the execution of the one and the other, there is great oddes, and no comparison at all."

I do concede the point on muskets being scary. In the last few months I've found several accounts of soldiers routed by musket fire- especially archers. Machiavelli said that harquebuses were as frightening as 20 of any other arm.

ed 2: The Dawn of Modern Warfare by Hans Delbruck just arrived. Page 38: "At the shooting tournaments toward the end of the fifteenth century shots were made with firearms to distances of 230 to 250 paces, whereas the range for a crossbow amounted to only 110 to 135 paces. Rifles barrels, which had already been invented at that time, were normally expressly prohibited. Other provisions can hardly be understood in any other way than applying to freehand shooting (and not, for example to supported hook weapons)."

[Philippeatbay]

I can easily see why an arquebus would be so scary. Discounting the noise, smoke, and fire factor, if you get shot in the arm with an arrow, chances are you'll keep the arm and only have a low to moderate chance of secondary infection. If you get shot in the arm with an early firearm, if the ball hits bone the bone will splinter, and even if it doesn't the ball will make a very messy and dirty wound. It will probably get infected, and if you're lucky enough to be treated by a barber surgeon who knows the value of amputation, you'll lose the arm. Otherwise, there's a good chance you'll die of infection. I wouldn't be too enthusiatic to be up against men who could do that to me.

Apart from the medical implications of firearms, from time to time you read about people in classical antiquity or the middle ages who carried shields for protection and after the battle ended up looking a bit like they were carrying pincushions. That's all well and good (albeit scary) when people are scoring hits on your shield with arrows, but after a certain point in history you wouldn't want to have people scoring those kind of hits with musket balls.

I like the video, but my one reservation is that that test is being made with a weapon that had had 150 years to become technologically perfect (so to speak). I would be surprised if early 17th century matchlocks were anywhere near as accurate. There are groups out there that practise competitive shooting with the really early weapons -- I'd be curious to hear their comments on this. Those early firearms were very heavy, and the forked stick that was used as a gun rest apparently often ended up as part of the campfire.

[fogman]

none of this applies to battlefield situation where a couple of volleys by a few hundred muskets would create such a cloud of smoke that it was better to wait for the enemy to close in (even 100 m is too far) to make the shots count (ammo being in short supply). at breitenfeld there was at least one imperial regiment, and as many as four, that got lost in the smoke and dust and never got into the fight. against a charging enemy point blank range is the preferred doctrine because firing too early would just create a helpful smoke screen for the bad guy (and i learned of the power of laying smoke screens on an enemy defensive position prior to an assault while playing squad leader!).

a couple of points:

bows are not suitable for siege situations, crossbows and muskets are much more convenient, so the korean account is not surprising but only in that context. marksmanship is useless in battle but eminently sought after in sieges .

bows are best used as an indirect weapon and like pikes are effective en masse but not individually; they are superior to muskets in that they can be used from behind the battle line and with greater volume of 'fire', unlike muskets (and crossbows) that are a direct weapon and slow. (not to mention that bows are obviously more suitable for action from horseback)

[KateMicucci]

none of this applies to battlefield situation where a couple of volleys by a few hundred muskets would create such a cloud of smoke that it was better to wait for the enemy to close in

Do actual battle accounts apply to battlefield situations?

There are several battle accounts which affirm the same thing, even besides the ones from Korea. John Smith, the explorer, was once attacked in his boat by many indians with bows, but his party forced them back, he says, because the muskets outreached the bows, and despite a hundred arrows stuck in the English's shields no one was hurt. John Underhill at the landing on Block Island during the Pequot War also drove back bow-armed Indians and put it down to the superior range of the musket. Blaize de Montluc says in his memoirs how he "said one day to Mousieur de Tais, that I would discover to him the mystery of the English, and wherefore they were reputed so hardy: which was, that they all carried arms of little reach, and therefore were necessitated to come up close to us to loose their arrows, which otherwise would do no execution; whereas we who were accustomed to fire our Harquebuzes at a great distance". Montluc proved his words true by driving off a much larger band of English archers with single volley of the harquebuses followed by a charge.

To be clear, I am not saying that bows could never defeat firearms, since it has happened, but I've never seen anybody with a firearm say that the firearms were outclassed by the bows. The highest praise I've seen of bowmen was the governor of Formosa saying that Koxinga's archers were so skilled that they "nearly eclipsed" the musketeers.

Crossbows do not have a flat trajectory. They're just as curved as a vertical bow.

The English military writers were aware of the bow's greater rate of shot, but since they didn't expect the archer to either hit as often as the firearms or do enough execution with their shots they considered the point irrelevant.

On horseback there was less incentive to switch to firearms, since the sword is more important than either the gun or the bow on horseback. Yet there was a push among the Ottomans, Mamluks and Muscovites to re-arm the cavalry with pistols or carbines instead of bows, definitely not something that would have been done if they were inferior weapons as some people say.

I like the video, but my one reservation is that that test is being made with a weapon that had had 150 years to become technologically perfect (so to speak). I would be surprised if early 17th century matchlocks were anywhere near as accurate. There are groups out there that practise competitive shooting with the really early weapons -- I'd be curious to hear their comments on this.

According to the Graz test writeup there wasn't any increase in accuracy during the smoothbore period. I think today's smoothbore competitions usually take place at 50 yards.

[fogman]

john smith fighting a band of indians is not a 'battle', it's a skirmish and the dynamics for skirmishes are different. and i have no idea what 'battle' montluc was referring to as there was no pitched battle I know of between the French and English in his lifetime. now, whether the bow is superior to muskets, no it's not, simply because it is easier to train a musketeer than to train an archer, and that consideration alone superseded anything else in an age of mass armies.

[shawkhan2]

FYI, a musket ball will be rolling on the ground after 200 yards. It is impossible for a musket to even be aimed accurately enough to hit a target beyond 100 yards. The primitive sights of the time or entire lack thereof, made accurate fire beyond shotgun 'pointing' range impossible.

When a ball travels down the barrel of a musket, it actually bounces around the inside of the barrel in random directions. The total lack of quality control made some barrels tighter than others, while the majority of them were very loosey-goosey for reasons of safety and ease of loading. Modern tests use bullet molds that produce balls that are a much tighter fit than the standard of olden times, hence have improved accuracy and velocity. It was a rare musket that could produce velocities of better than 900 fps.

The idea of ANY hits at ridiculous ranges like 300 yards is simply not possible. You might as well aim at the moon at that or greater ranges.

FYI, ALL projectiles have a trajectory.

Historical accounts from the times of the Illiad on must be taken with a large grain of salt.

AS Fogman has repeated what I originally said, training men to use muskets was much, much easier than developing skill with a bow. That, along with the intimidation factor of massed gunfire, was what made firearms triumphant.

But, I tire of repeating myself, and belaboring the same points over and over again.

[Philippeatbay]

I have nothing invested in the concept of one particular effective range for early firearms as opposed to another, but would tend to suspect that it was certainly less than 200 yards, and probably 100 yards or less. We're talking about a lot of different classes of weapons over what amounts to a 200-year stretch of time, so there will inevitably be a lot of variation in performance, depending on what you're dealing with.

This won't really change things much, but I was under the impression that the concept of aimed fire so popular with gun enthusiasts is a bit of an anachronism. Late 18th century and Napoleonic light troops engaged in it, but even in that period most fire was supposed to be directed at the opposing unit rather than an individual. That's why you hear about people conducting firing tests against a sheet stretched out to occupy the frontage of the potential target. What they were 'aiming' at was litteraly the size of a barn, and they didn't aim as much as point and shoot because it saved time. In that context the longer effective ranges might become a little more credible: hitting a target that's 100 paces wide at 200 yards is not the same thing as hitting a target that is one or two paces wide.

I don't think anyone has ever taken acounts of warfare from the Illiad very seriously, especially as what is described in it is a hodge-podge of dimly remembered customs from a 500-year period of oral history. Caesar and Thucydides are a different kettle of fish because they were often eye witnesses and commanders of the events that they describe. Tossing one of their accounts out of court because it's old and unreliable would have to be based on very strong internal evidence.

I have a vague recollection of Bernal Diaz discussing what amounts to the pin-cushion effect, but it's been a while and I'd have to go back and re-read it to be sure. What does stick in my mind from the Conquest of New Spain is that the Spanish seem to have wasted little time exchanging their heavy metal breastplates for quilted linen armor, presumably because of the heat. But then Aztec warfare was intentionally less lethal than it could have been because the whole point was to take live prisoners for sacrifice.

[TheGrayMouser]

FYI, a musket ball will be rolling on the ground after 200 yards. It is impossible for a musket to even be aimed accurately enough to hit a target beyond 100 yards. The primitive sights of the time or entire lack thereof, made accurate fire beyond shotgun 'pointing' range impossible.

When a ball travels down the barrel of a musket, it actually bounces around the inside of the barrel in random directions. The total lack of quality control made some barrels tighter than others, while the majority of them were very loosey-goosey for reasons of safety and ease of loading. Modern tests use bullet molds that produce balls that are a much tighter fit than the standard of olden times, hence have improved accuracy and velocity. It was a rare musket that could produce velocities of better than 900 fps.

The idea of ANY hits at ridiculous ranges like 300 yards is simply not possible. You might as well aim at the moon at that or greater ranges.

FYI, ALL projectiles have a trajectory.

Historical accounts from the times of the Illiad on must be taken with a large grain of salt.

AS Fogman has repeated what I originally said, training men to use muskets was much, much easier than developing skill with a bow. That, along with the intimidation factor of massed gunfire, was what made firearms triumphant.

But, I tire of repeating myself, and belaboring the same points over and over again.

Since not everyone agrees with you, perhaps you need to use different points?

Here is an excellent quick read: http://allthingsliberty.com/2013/08/how ... you-think/

Ive quoted a few key points in this article which are backed up by 18th century military men of high esteem:

Definition of Point Blank Range, Cpt Smith
"POINT-BLANK, of a gun, is the distance she throws a shot in a supposed direct line; the gun being laid at no elevation, but levelled parallel to the horizon. We say, supposed direct line, because it is certain, and easily proved, that a shot cannot fly any part of its range in a right line strictly taken; but the greater the velocity, the nearer it approaches to a right line; or the less crooked its range."

He concluded PB range of a musket by the above definition was 300 yards but could fire further ie 360

A contemporary:
Lewis Lochee’s Elements of Field Fortification
“the point blank of our firelocks, when attention is paid to the loading, is known to be about 300 yards"

Also, modern men like Nafziger, considered to be pretty foremost in Napoleonic research cites over 300 yards as well

Please also consider that the Graz tests, which seem to be ignored in this discussion, tested 16th century weapons thru more modern weapons with the same powder, and the results were that the 16th c arquebus had roughly the same power as a Brown Bess. Considering that 16th and 17th c Muskets were considerably larger of bore and longer of barrel than both, one could expect they were MORE powerfull than the Brown Bess. Contemporary 16th c scrappers often give ranges like 400-600 yards for some of the heavier muskets. (perhaps the Spanish "double muskets?)

Now this last bit is somewhat theoretical on my part but here it goes:
there is nothing inherently more accurate in a more modern smoothbore vs a 16-17c smoothbore. Really the only difference would be the fit of the ball. Tighter fit, perhaps some more spin , certainly more velocity.

There is nothing I can find that suggest 16 and 17th shot were attempting to load there individual pieces as fast as possible. There is everything to suggest these men, with the deep ranks and fire by file or march counter march, had all th etime in the world to reload before they needed to present their weapon, AIM and fire again,

This is in great contrast to infantry , oh around 1700, where fire power meant getting the individual to be able to fire his piece, 2-3, even 4 times a minute via divisional fire. The prussians ushered in metal ramrods to make rapid fire even easier.
I wonder if 16-17c musketeers use tighter fitting balls. Again, the expectation , as I understand it was the men were actually aiming there shots, why not do anything you could to increase the velocity accuracy and accuracy?

[shawkhan2]

Alright, I can understand that some of you do not seem to understand the physics behind the limitation of musket range.

Here is a link to an article that explains in simple terms and graphs that point blank range for a musket is more like 70 yards.

http://www.willegal.net/iron_brigade/musket.pdf

At 300 yards the graph shows a minimum drop of over 20 feet!

Noone with a musket could possibly hit anyone or anything but the ground at that range. Or possibly the mountain I previously alluded to.

[Philippeatbay]

That article is not as straightforward as it appears to be at first.

The author begins by giving us a graph showing the crucial relationship between grains in the powder charge and and velocity in feet per second.

Then he tells us what the charge was likely to be (I wish he had cited something from the period in his footnote). He doesn't indicate how many grains would be used to prime the pan, but the main point is that the likely powder charge by his lights would be significantly off the chart to the right. From what he's telling us right up front, I would have to expected a muzzle velocity way north of 1000 FPS, and looking at the shape of that curve, I would sort of expect something at the top end of the 1200 to 1400 FPS range.

To put that in plain English, when he then goes on for several pages about musket balls rolling out of the barrel and hitting the ground, my reaction based on what he's already told us, is that of course the balls aren't going very far, you didn't use anywhere near enough gunpowder in your tests. The highest muzzle velocity he shows in his graph is 1000 FPS, and based on what he said in his discussion of his first graph, you would expect a velocity north of 1200 FPS at least.

I wish he had cited something from the 18th century so we could know just how much or how little powder was going into a charge.

You've got a lot of period citations in one article indicating that muskets can do damage at 300 yards (are we sure about those yards being 3 modern feet -- everybody believes Napoleon was a runt because people don't understand 18th century measures), and you've got another article with a bunch of secondary source citations indicating that a musket ball will probably hit the ground after 150 yards. How do you reconcile these two bits of information? The obvious thing to wonder about is the size of the powder charge, and based on Willegal's statements I'm not sure he did his tests with enough powder (and yes, I know those things can explode, especially when they've been double or triple shotted by accident).

I don't pretend to be an expert in this field, so if I'm missing something please set me straight.

People from different cultures and different periods of history walk around with a lot of information and baggage in their heads that they assume everyone else will know and take for granted. The problem with a modern conducting tests of old weapons is that the modern won't have the right baggage in his head, and may as a consequence operate with the wrong assumptions. The 18th century guy may know something he doesn't feel the need to be explicit about, and because the modern guy doesn't carry that information in his head, his tests may be testing the wrong thing and may not be as useful as they seem at first blush.

[shawkhan2]

The physical facts limiting the performance of muskets is not really a matter of opinion. They simply cannot hit anything much at all at ranges beyond 200 yards. 300 yards and beyond is a fantasy. Remember, they were pointed, not aimed, and the musket balls would actually hit the ground beyond 150 yards.

Remember also, adjustable sights had not been invented, not to mention rear sights. There is no way they could possibly be effective at those ranges.

The terminal velocity beyond 150 yards also declines below what is necessary to effectively cause serious wounds.

These are ballistic facts and not really open to discussion.

I am sorry if people actually believe everything they read in the historys, but science is science, writer's hyperbole/exaggeration is something else.

[Philippeatbay]

It is open to discussion. I read that article and came to the conclusion based on internal evidence that he was using undercharged muskets in his tests. That could mean a potential increase in the effective range under normal circumstances by something like 100 to 200 yards. That is the point I wanted you to address. I don't think it's proven based on the evidence you've cited that a musket ball will hit the ground at 150 yards.

What I'm asking you to do is to convince me that the muskets in those tests weren't undercharged.

What 18th century sources can you point to that establish what the powder charge in military cartridges might have been (and I'm sure this information is available), and how many grains does it take to charge the firing pan (doesn't need to be an 18th century source, though that would be preferable)? If you plug that information into the article I suspect it will show that the article is testing for the wrong thing, and I'm starting from the assumption that I will accept the author's physics, just not what he looks at.

My gut tells me that he is either skipping the part of the data which disproves his thesis (that 100 yards or so should be the effective range, which is generally accepted by most board wargamers, myself included), or that he made the tests with the wrong charges and didn't want to do them over again for whatever reason. Compared to the things SLA Marshall used to do to support his theses, that is a very minor pecadillo indeed.

Bottom line: the physics case is most certainly under discussion and as yet not proven. You don't need to hit an individual target, you just need to drop a musket ball into the approximate area where the unit it is in is standing.

The other tack that could (and should) be taken is a philological assault on the phrase "musket range" and a detailed dissection of what 300 yards really means. There are enough period citations to prevent me from throwing it out simply because it doesn't square with my preconceived notions, but I think this question needs closer examination.

[rbodleyscott]

It may be relevant that, although the game makes no claim to adhere to a fixed ground scale for units widths and missile ranges, the approximate size of a square when back-calculated from the deployment width of a pike and shot battalion may be considered to be approximately 60yds.

Hence even long range in the game is only 240 yds, not 300.

While it is acknowledged that missile ranges in the game may be generous, they are not as far off as some people think. The effective (full effect) range of muskets in the game is up to 120 yds when shooting at a large close-order target. There is a further deduction in effectiveness when shooting at skirmishers.

[TheGrayMouser]

The physical facts limiting the performance of muskets is not really a matter of opinion. They simply cannot hit anything much at all at ranges beyond 200 yards. 300 yards and beyond is a fantasy. Remember, they were pointed, not aimed, and the musket balls would actually hit the ground beyond 150 yards.

Remember also, adjustable sights had not been invented, not to mention rear sights. There is no way they could possibly be effective at those ranges.

The terminal velocity beyond 150 yards also declines below what is necessary to effectively cause serious wounds.

These are ballistic facts and not really open to discussion.

I am sorry if people actually believe everything they read in the historys, but science is science, writer's hyperbole/exaggeration is something else.

Geez, why so patronizing? Its not about reading a modern historians synopis and "beleiving it" or a hack ancient historian trying to save his career(or life) but cozing up to a tryant, its about significant amounts of anectdotal as well as physical science being applied by 18th miltary(and earlier) men, many of whom were gifted engineers, of whom many state that muskets at 300 yards KILL. This is not a claim that 10 million persians were killed at Thermoplyae vs 300 greeks


None of them are saying an individual specifically aiming at a man at 300 yards would ever hit that specific man.. except via miracle.
What about all the forifications where interlocking fields of muket fire, support the expection of around 300 yards as the killing zone. Plans, as well as the real forts are in many cases still there. Perhaps Vauban and his predeccesors were just being silly?

BTW, that article you posted declares that to a hit a human being 300 yards away with a musket, that the musket would need be aimed 20 feet above the target.. He even puts an exclamation point after like that is supposed to telling... (it tells me he is biased or doesnt understand his own calculations)
Using a quick online angle calculator indicates the elevation of the gun would need be only 3.8 degrees for that feat, hardly even noticable by the naked eye. Unless I missed something, It also suggest that your author must beleive muskets can reach out further than 300 yards if a mere 4 degrees of elevation can get the ball to 300 in the ist place.

Just because doctrine generally meant that opening ranges for field armies were generally less than 200 yards doesnt mean that firing for effect at longer ranges didnt have its place. Evidence supports it had its place in siege warefare, and again, a point that you have yet to counter, various militaries in the 18th and 19th century recorded having target practices vs battalion sized sillouettes to see how many hits they could get, and yep all them did so at ranges up to and exceeding 300 yards.

[Doyley50]

Erm, poking my head above the parapet here, but apart from seige works, why would any disciplined infantry wanting to make their mark shoot at ranges of 200-300 yards? Waste of shot and powder, might hit a few unlucky souls but not much else apart from perhaps scaring the opposition and creating a cloud of smoke which could embarass either side depending on which way the wind is blowing. I'm with Shawkhan2 on this.

[fogman]

see page 16
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a227467.pdf

some obvious caveats:
muskets from 1800 have better performance than 17th century ones.
test conditions do not replicate battle conditions: smoke, stress, equipment malfunction
test probably conducted by better than average troops.
hitting the target in the test does not necessarily equate with actually hitting a man in the enemy formation.

[TheGrayMouser]

Erm, poking my head above the parapet here, but apart from seige works, why would any disciplined infantry wanting to make their mark shoot at ranges of 200-300 yards? Waste of shot and powder, might hit a few unlucky souls but not much else apart from perhaps scaring the opposition and creating a cloud of smoke which could embarass either side depending on which way the wind is blowing. I'm with Shawkhan2 on this.

Its not about doctrine or what was customary or ideal, its about the physical capability of the weapon which over and over again sources indicate could kill at 300 yards, clearly not precision fire from individuals sniping, but the law of averages of men firing at that range will possibly kill ,wound and make life quite uncomfortable for anyone to be standing there.
Modern weapons can cause suppression, harrassment, wounds etc at ranges far greater than the phycial capabilities of the user and even the weapon to be precise.

Considering 16th and 17th c Muskets were far larger in barrel and bore than BB muskets, ( and tests show greater muzzle velocities), why discount primary sources whom indicate a Spanish musket could kill at 400 or even greater ranges?

Heres the silly question of the day : if you and I were on a 300 yard field of grass, and you handed a confirmed athentic loaded and primed brown bess, would you double dog dare me to shoot it at you at 300 yards away? and would you be fully confident that the musket ball, no matter what I do, will hit the ground spent at 150 yards?

[shawkhan2]

Not really patronizing.
I simply feel foolish debating actual ballistic facts.

Look, if I equipped my musket with adjustable sights I could eventually get within 10-20 feet of a target at 300 yards with repeated firing, providing I knew the range and could use my ballistic calculator, and had a spotter equipped with a good quality scope. None of these things were available in the 16th or 17th centurys. Otherwise, even with adjustable sights I would have no idea where the shot was going. Remember, at 300 yards, there is an elevation correction of around 20 feet. At 400 yards, the correction is more like 40 feet. There would be no way to account for this, even if the musket fired in a straight line otherwise, which it doesn't.


The fundamental point is that these weapons had NO rear sights. It would not matter how many thousands of men blasted away at ranges over 300 yards, as you are pointing, not aiming, much like a shotgun. There is no way to judge the angle to allow for a given range.Even if you hit someone with a musket at 300 yards it would hurt them, but it would not penetrate armor.

Military muskets were made to loosely fit musketballs for repeated firing.

If you made the fit tighter, after about 6-12 shots you would either blow yourself up or be unable to load the musket. Those of us who have used black powder weapons can attest to the fact that firing rapidly builds up a black sludge which quickly fouls the barrel. Black powder of that time was even worse for fouling.

900 fps is actually more generous of a velocity than the average military musket would produce. With most of the gas escaping around the ball instead of pushing it, 700 fps would be more typical.

The black powder used deteriorated quite rapidly, as the potassium nitrate was hygroscopic and interacted with the charcoal and sulfur, gradually losing strength. The powder at the end of a campaign would have seriously degraded, reducing muzzle velocity even further.

There is a reason why even at the Battle of Bunker(Breed's) Hill over a hundred years in the future from the time we are discusing, the order was to "not fire until you can see the whites of their eyes."

Vauban was an interesting fellow, as not only did he make a good living designing fortifications, but he also was well-paid to capture them as well. It was said he could predict how long it would take to capture a place to the very day. Of course, this is mostly after our time period and involved advanced siege techniques such as parallels,salients, redoubts and the like, more approriate to a study of 18th century warfare. The angles were designed to mainly maximize the effects of cannon fire, btw, although musketfire would also be used at closer ranges.

All I am really saying, is that firing muskets at long range is largely ineffective, and a waste of expensive powder. I can imagine what the average noncom would say to men who he caught blazing away to little or no purpose.

[Aryaman]

I think there is no real contradiction in what is discussed, muskets had very low effectiveness at long range but still they were some times used that way. Muskets were also used as clubs in close combat, they were also used for indirect fire, raining balls over hidden enemy, as any tool they were used for many purposses they were not really designed for.

[KateMicucci]

Otherwise, even with adjustable sights I would have no idea where the shot was going. Remember, at 300 yards, there is an elevation correction of around 20 feet. At 400 yards, the correction is more like 40 feet.

That's much flatter than the trajectory of a bow, if a period bow could even reach that far with an arrow heavier than a piece of straw.

The physical facts limiting the performance of muskets is not really a matter of opinion. They simply cannot hit anything much at all at ranges beyond 200 yards. 300 yards and beyond is a fantasy.

Napoleonic era infantry were apparently accurate enough to hit a battalion-sized target at 300+ yards a reasonable percentage of the time.
http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleoni ... tics_2.htm

12.5% hits at 300 yards would wipe out an enemy in under two minutes of firing if soldiers were as accurate in battle as they were during training. Obviously under combat conditions the hit rates would be far, far lower. Even so, it indicates that the weapon was theoretically accurate enough to hit the target at that distance.

The fundamental point is that these weapons had NO rear sights.

Except when they did have rear sights, which in the 16th century was frequently.

They often were barrel-shaped like this:
http://imgur.com/Zd6FCrZ

The Japanese muskets you're doubting almost always had rear sights:
http://imgur.com/Red2LWv

900 fps is actually more generous of a velocity than the average military musket would produce.

What do you base this on?

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/journalimag ... 09_ta1.jpg

I am sorry if people actually believe everything they read in the historys, but science is science, writer's hyperbole/exaggeration is something else.

What we have is a great multitude of primary sources by men who had lots of experience with the weapons vs. a very theoretical argument.

Every source I have found, which includes multiple writers from multiple nations on different corners of the globe has said that the musket has a longer range than the bow. That includes the guys who weren't fans of the musket like John Smythe. I find it extremely unlikely that they were all hyperbolizing/exaggerating.

http://www.willegal.net/iron_brigade/musket.pdf

None of the tests were done with an actual period load. His own chart shows that he'd have to be using half a period load to get 900 fps and only 50 grains for 700 fps. These kinds of tests always seem to have a hypothesis that muskets sucked, so they make the muskets in their tests suck, and unsurprisingly they get exactly the results they wanted.

john smith fighting a band of indians is not a 'battle', it's a skirmish and the dynamics for skirmishes are different.

Do you want to elaborate on that? This sounds like special pleading.

and i have no idea what 'battle' montluc was referring to as there was no pitched battle I know of between the French and English in his lifetime.

He fought English soldiers several times.

Pages 85 and 86.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pa ... ;view=text

Or here, if the above link doesn't work.
http://bowvsmusket.com/2015/07/01/the-c ... of-france/

now, whether the bow is superior to muskets, no it's not, simply because it is easier to train a musketeer than to train an archer, and that consideration alone superseded anything else in an age of mass armies.

The idea that muskets were valued because it was easier to train soldiers with them is based on very flimsy evidence. It's the product of Thomas Esper, a man who was writing outside his specialty and blatantly misquoted the primary sources to suit his argument.

Period European military writers gave many, many reasons why the gun was better than the bow. The reasons they give are things like the musket being more lethal, having a longer range, better accuracy, being usable from behind cover, penetrating armor, and not weakening with bad weather like bows and archers. Faster training of musketeers was never one of the reasons they gave. Whenever the period military writers speak on the issue of training, they are explicit that a soldier must be well-trained.

Let's take for example the first English writer to specifically comment on the inferiority of the bow, Baranbe Rich in 1574, an experienced soldier and prolific writer. He gives several reasons why he believe firearms to be superior, (which you can read here) but reduced need for training is not one of them. To the contrary, Riche is explicit that "Captaynes should use great vigilence in the trayning of their men, considering that an Army is not to be chosen for the multitude, or bicause in the same be hardy men, but bicause they be wel trained, and in their orders wel apointed."