Greg Biggs
tactics and accuracy
Mon Jul 9 14:54:40 2001


Gentlemen,

Happy to see my humble post helped spread the word some.

As you have both correctly stated - the differences among the weapons and the target shooting versus combat shooting both made significant differences in accuracy.

In a battle line you are getting bumped about while loading and firing, seeing your friends drop all around you from taking hits, fear, being hot and tired as well as other factors have come into play.

So - you can take scores from a target range and cut them down even further in terms of accuracy despite the capabilities of the rifled musket.

I wish I could remember who wrote this, but someone analysed CW battles by ratioing casualties versus ammunition expenditure reports and came up with the following figures: it took 4000 rounds to wound one man in CW battle, and 7000 to kill one man in CW battle.

This is, quite simply, terribly lousy shooting, no matter how you cut it!

To see how things have come full circle, World War 2 combat ranges, despite the weapon's capabilities AND the training of troops for shooting accurately at long ranges, were typically 100 yards or less. By 1944 both the German Army and the Soviet Army were trading in bolt action rifles with excellent long range capabilities for either STG44 assault rifles (for the Germans) or sub-machineguns (for the Soviets).

These weapons have shorter range than the rifles in exchange for higher rates of fire. So, they moved to more fire on the field over long range fire. (Before hand German tactical doctrine was built around the MG34's and MG42's anyway, from squad level up through company level. The riflemen wre there to support the long range, accurate and high rates of fire from the machine guns. In the U.S. Army the machine gun was there to support the riflemen - hence the heavy weapons platoons of each company.)

The whole issue, since the days of the invention of the musket, is simply this - seeking to put out more firepower than the other guy does, and, then seeking to adapt doctrines that allow you to successfully attack such firepower. This is but one reason why Marlborough and Frederick were so successful - they buried their foes in fire!

The French in the 1840's THOUGHT they had solved the problem with their rush tactics, and later with their running tactics - close with the enemy faster and you will lose less men. Stop to engage in fire and you're toast! This is why some bayonet attacks went in with unloaded or uncapped weapons - to prevent them from stopping to fire. It did work when it was done right and with the proper morale level for the attacking troops (see Waterloo - at the village of Plancenoit, the Prussians had evicted the French Young Guard. Two battalions of the Old Guard were sent to attack the 14,000 Prussians. These 1400 plus men went in with the bayonet only and routed them! An aggressive attack by superior troops with superior morale!)

As you stated, the Civil War was largely fought by citizen soldiers lead by officers with little to no military experience. Napoleon's army of 1805-1809 was also citizen soldiers (the children of the French Revolution), thus the tactical modes were simple. The biggest differences were these however: 1) The vast experience of the French officer corps. Most of the marshals had had ten years or so of combat experience. Don't forget, while the French Revolution was going on, France was also fighting an external war against England and Austria. The marshals that led Napoleon's Corps D'Armee were FAR more experienced than any American officer was in 1861. France also had officer training schools - which the U.S. Army did not adopt until the 1880's when it created the War College.

2)The troops that marched off to Austerlitz in 1805 had come from two years of intensive training camps in the years of peace between France and E