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Hey Barndon You once mentioned that musket men had a tendency to shot too high or too low, where would you say is a good point to aim? What part of the opponent makes for the ideal aiming spot?
I would also add that hopefully your side brought artillery and cavalry. That would be very useful for making sure they do what you want them to do. Gustavus Adolphus was known for his artillery tactics and using them to force the battle to commence on his terms. Wars are fought with a myriad of weapons to benefit from the strengths of each and minimize their drawbacks. Cavalry can be used to harass supply lines. Soldiers carry spades with then so they can dig trenches everywhere. Cannons destroy strongpoints, their artillery, and their cavalry too and generally reduce their number. You can use your marksmen with rifles to destroy communications and runners. You don't fight battles like this unless it is necessary and other ideas won't net the results you need.
Hey, the Normany landings only killed 7% of the Americans who hit Omaha beach, do we have any volunteers to go back in time and give it a try? The First World War only killed one in eight soldiers in the British army, but I rarely hear anyone say they wish they were in the British trenches in 1917.
It would also be worth considering artillery rounds are against men in trenches... if you're out in the open and well spotted, they're extremely accurate and deadly. It's disingenuous as heck to suggest muskets match modern weaponry's accuracy at all. And if you're saying they are indeed horribly niaccuracte comparedto modern expectaions... then why did you act like people were mistaken at all? They're not.
In regards to the shots fired to kills scored ratio in modern wars, most rapid fire weapons aren't meant to inflict casualties, they're meant to force the enemy to keep their heads down.
It's largely the same during this period as well. Soldiers were trained to fire by sections, rather than along the entire line, in order to keep up a continuous fire. After the first couple hundred shots, the field was covered in smoke, making the individual shot nearly impossible to aim, but fire on they would, in order to prevent the enemy from advancing against them. They were putting up suppressive fire.
This is true in some but not all cases. Room clearing would be a case where accuracy matters. It's a complicated topic. Doctrine varies from force to force, and even then, battlefield practices vary from doctrine.
In the US, the doctrine is to suppress the enemy with small arms fire and call in artillery or air support to take them out. This is especially true when you encounter a stubbornly dug in enemy.
@@Riceball01not necessarily true. Calling for local fire like mortars would be pretty standard, but arty and air would only be for major enemy positions or emergency situations like ambushes. In the smaller scale scenarios, after fire superiority (aka suppression) is achieved, a section of the assaulting unit (or another whole platoon, depending on the scale of the assault) will break off and flank the enemy, hitting them from an angle that negates their cover/concealment, while they are tied down. Artillery and air support is expensive and take time to arrive, it is usually much more expedient for the forces on the ground to handle buisness themselves, especially considering doctrine insists that we only ever attack a position with a 3-1 advantage or better.
To add on: "100 Yards" sounds terrible, this isn't that different from modern firearms. While having technically longer effective ranges, a study following the Korean War found that the vast majority of hits occurred under 300 yards, with the average distance being around 100. (IIRC the study was either ORO, or Operational Requirements for a Infantry Hand Weapon.)
Also, if your enemy is moving tactically (both before they're specifically aware of your presence, and getting covering fire, or mortar, artillery of close air support), that might make your marksmanship a touch less effective.
Once, at the behest of a very statistic-oriented BC, I compiled the percentage of hits made at each range (50m to 300m in 50m intervals) for the battalion's biannual rifle qual. I don't remember the exact ratio offhand and I can't be bothered to find it, but it was quite illustrative. The hit was was something like 80% for the 50m and 100m targets, dropping rapidly to about 30% for the 250m and 300m targets.
The German Army had figured out by the end of WW1 soldiers typically didn't engage the enemy if they were more than 300 meters away, the probability of hits weren't good enough. Let's be honest, your opponent isn't just going to stand there and let you shoot him! This knowledge would eventually lead to the Germans developing the medium-power 7.92 x 33 cartridge and the weapon to use it, the STG-44 "Sturmgewehr" but it would take another war to bring it about.
What we do is often confuse accuracy with effectiveness. They are not the same. A smoothbore can kill at 300 yards. That is effective. It may not be what you aimed at, but it still kills.
Yes! Very well said. I came to the comment section hoping someone could articulate how I was feeling. I absolutely agree with the historical point Brandon is making, but his wording felt completely wrong. Muskets were effective, deadly, and fit for purpose. But they were not accurate. You can't tell me that hitting literally the broad side of a barn (a line of 100 men) is accurate. And as mentioned near the end of the video, you need not compare accuracy to modern weapons (something only natural for a modern person to do), but just compare them to much more accurate period rifles. Muskets were used over an army of all rifleman because the musket was effective.
Perhaps the proper terminology is that a musket is accurate, but not precise. You can hit what you’re aiming at (given you’re aiming at a unit) but you’re not hitting in the same place. In ideal conditions a modern weapon is expected to put all its bullets in a human sized circle out to 300m or further. A musket has a much larger circle (probably an oval side to side) in which it will hit, but given you aim at a formation it is likely to hit someone.
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. -Acts 3:19 If are in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church (These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches) If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms or Wels Lutheran church. If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC (Different from the Church of Scotland) If you are English I recommend the Free Church of England. (Different from the Church of England) Online you can look up church finders for each of the groups and it will show you locations.
When it comes to the whole idea of "muskets were no use outside of a range of 50" or even "30" yards, one experience of mine comes to mind. This year I went to a reenactment in Poland (napoleonic wars, 1807) and the organisers hosted a special competition for reenactors. What do you know, it was a musket marksmanship competition. Each contestant fired from a Charleville Mle1777. Now, the very fact that the organisers were willing to organise and fund such a competition, and that the reenactors were so eager to participate, already makes it seem like muskets might not be that bad after all. Now although of course this was a classic, round target, at an acceptable distance, the results were still quite astounding and there was a clear winner. With that in mind you can only imagine the carnage that could be inflicted on such a massive target as a line of infantry etc. and that is forgetting about any marksmanship training. As the video concludes, the important thing is, the musket was good at what it was supposed to do and shouldn't be compared to modern weaponry. Great video Brandon!
Another interesting thing to look at is the bucaneers of Henry Morrigan's time. They had good muskets for the time, but out dated by the time that Brandon is refrencing. Those guys were still deadly accurate with their muskets
I expect your fine guns and well practiced hands were doing a hell of a lot better than 10% accuracy when aiming at the side of a barn, from 200yds. Musketeers were generally malnourished and got very few rounds to train with, with questionable patching/loading.
Modern powder could make a big difference though, results might vary in operational conditions. There must have been a reason why marksmen normally kept their own powder horn. Edit: That said of course musket fire was effective beyond 50 yards though.
@@Lancasterlaw1175 Regarding gunpowder, this is another myth. In fact, gunpowder in the 18th century was capable of accelerating a bullet to 520 m/s. A bullet from an ordinary infantry musket pierced 4 iron cuirasses with a thickness of 12 mm, or a wooden log with a thickness of about 20 cm
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. -Acts 3:19 If are in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church (These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches) If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms or Wels Lutheran church. If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC (Different from the Church of Scotland) If you are English I recommend the Free Church of England. (Different from the Church of England) Online you can look up church finders for each of the groups and it will show you locations.
Yeah, the fact it's horribly inaccurate by today's standards leads to jokes about it being horribly inaccurate by today's standard. Except the Japanese, who unlike the malnourished European conscripts, were hitting single man targets in the Imjinwaeran.
@@vanivanov9571 Have you been to a public range lately? The skill level of most people with modern two thousand plus dollar rifles all tac'ed out like it's ready for a modern top teir operator mission - is nothing short of laughable. Most modern shooters ain't hitting shit either.
Its purpose was to hit a group of soldiers because it was INCAPABLE of hitting a single soldier. That's inaccurate. That is an inaccurate weapon. Even in its own day it was inaccurate.
Your discussion on these old weapons reminds me of a famous quote. “They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.” - John Sedgwick, just before he was killed by long range fire during the American Civil War.
He died by a withworth rifle however. I get your point but he was essentially killed by a sniper (in term of the times, please internet historians, do not try to correct me, I'm simply helping this man understand in modern term, kindly, stfu)
The example of the advancing line also makes another point: if muskets weren’t effective until they were within bayonetting range, pikes would have remained the predominant weapon well into the 19th century.
I knew a guy in the army who, on paper, had a 200% accuracy with his rifle in a marksman test. 24 hits with 12 shots. Now, as these tests were conducted some 30 people at a time, and several people next to him had already passed their tests, it's possible they decided to help a buddy out and fire a few rounds into his target. But we'll never know for sure...
The explanation is very simple, 1 or 2 of the other shooters was shooting at the same target. It happens easily when there is 30 targets and you are miscalculating what to shoot at by 1 count. Been there done that myself during practice ...
I had 23 hits on a 10 shot practice once. The fun thing was that we were supposed to sight our rifles based on that and none of the three of us who shot at my target seemed to be particularly good shooters.
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. -Acts 3:19 If are in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church (These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches) If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms or Wels Lutheran church. If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC (Different from the Church of Scotland) If you are English I recommend the Free Church of England. (Different from the Church of England) Online you can look up church finders for each of the groups and it will show you locations.
I think the main problem is the definition of “effect range.” What most people who talk about this with modern understanding mean Is the range at which you can hit who you are aiming at. Muskets have a range of 300 yards, yes. But you won’t hit the guy you are aiming at. The guy to the left or right, yes. The guy you are directly aiming at probably not. Keep in mind most people who talk about this are looking at rifles that can hit a man target at a mile and a half max range, and at 300 yards can target individuals. That’s the problem same phrase different meanings.
And the target is also at least three ranks deep. With a shot grazing the hat or shoulder of a soldier in the first rank is going to hit the head or shoulder of a soldier in the second or third rank.
even just that effective range is the distance which you can hit "your target". with modern understanding being your target is a man-sized target, which just straight up isn't true for soldiers of this time period.
Yep perfectly said. You’d probably want to be within 50 yards to humanely take a deer. At 200 yards your not hitting anything. Yet if there are 1000 men standing two hundred yards away and I mean to disperse them? Modern doubters would quickly become believers if they found themselves facing musket fire from two hundred yards away by any substantial amount of men.
The same applies for military archery, which was not necessarily about individual aiming prowess, but the collective economy of force from volleys of arrows. English historian Mike Loades, did experiments with the longbow, what he found was interesting, for example, arrows shot from warbows actually loses power at long ranges, so he determined longbows were shot at close range. In another test, Loades discovered the longbow was most efficient at 20-30 yards, straight at the enemy, rather than the cliched Hollywood battlefield archery, of archers shooting their bows at a high angle into the horizon. Loades explained that battlefield archery was not about good aiming, but speed and volume of arrows being shot, English training with the longbow was more concentrated at building strength of drawing the bow, then nocking the arrow and shoot it as fast as possible, identical rules applies with muskets. I recommend watching Mike Loades documentary series "The Weapons that Made Britain", I really like his approach to history, and uses these weapons in their historical context, as opposed to modern gunmen use to firing rifles in controlled settings like ranges, reenactments are an effective way of learning history, and appreciating how our modern world evolved from this early advances.
Except the Bashkirs were getting impressive hit rates of like 10%, according to the arrogant French. Skilled archers regularly outshot the malnourished musketeers of Europe who were lucky if they got 6 rounds of live ammo to practice with. Meanwhile, the Japanese musketeers accomplished great feats in the Imjinwaeran.
@@vanivanov9571 Marshal Marbo wrote that at best 10 arrows hit the target. Probably the distance was only a few tens of meters. After this, the French easily dispersed the Bashkirs. At the same time, the Bashkirs themselves preferred to arm themselves with firearms
Thank you for this video, having been a reenactor at Old Fort Niagara it is nice to see some of the things we tried to use to educate others to make it to such an enlightening channel. The thing I have found interesting is reading accounts of lines and columns coming under fire in the Napoleonic era taking horrible losses from close-range volleys. Of particular note is how the musket balls would sometimes go through one man and into another, or worse hit in such a way the impact (for example on a musket itself) would cause more shrapnel to fly through the front and second ranks. A while ago this channel covered the impact of a cannonball or canister shot ripping through a line, the effects of a linemate getting hit at 200 yards is just as stunning as a cannonball. One second you marching with your brothers in arms, the next the man next to you collapses, spraying your sleeve with his lifeblood, the man behind him screaming in shock, having to stop and wipe the blood from his eyes. The fire at range "Beyond effective range" just as easily kills and disrupts formations.
Hello Brandon. You may remember me talking about spreadsheets on a live stream and how I did a science degree. I have seen more data than I could have ever imagined. I was dying for you to get to the point that the weapon was fit for purpose. I saw a video before from Royal Armouries about muskets versus the new rifles coming in about the time of Crimea War, that was also very interesting.
Noo. It’s very wrong. The sources stating 300 yard point blank are very Misleading and wrong. Modern guns don’t perform that well, muskets certainly didn’t
@@makimaki500 I have a video-playback plugin that can adjust the speed of videos incrementally to something like x1000 speed. I watch most videos on 2.5x-3x speed.
Great video once again! So tired of ignorant people trash talking 18th century weapons/tactics as if the soldiers/tacticians were foolish. They did the best with what they had and their methods & tools consistently got the job done.
In Spain there is still an idiom reflecting that: "Las reclamaciones, al maestro armero" (Those complains must be sent to the gunsmith). It basically means "it's not my fault, I did the best I could under these conditions".
One mistake modern shooters make with smoothbore muskets and pistols (that have never used one) is to try to aim them by sighting down the barrel like they are used to with an AR-15 or a Glock with front and rear sights. Flintlock pistols often don't have even have a front sight and are meant to be shot at relatively short ranges by pointing instinctively, not by aiming down the barrel. Muskets were too, but more akin to a over/under shotgun with only a front bead rather than an AR with front and rear iron sights. One of the funniest things I've ever seen was a bunch of modern shooters puzzling over how to use a 17th century cheek stocked German wheellock rifle. At first they tried to tuck it into their shoulder, struggled to get a cheek weld and then struggled to twist their heads around to aim the thing by peering through the sights until the owner took pity on them and showed them exactly how to use it.
22:09 I think I commented this on other videos, but the Spanish 1801 infantry manual goes even further, and plans trainings for distances of 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters and 400 meters (a meter is about 1.1 yards). Only a few units were actually capable of firing at 400m, though (the Spanish Zayas division amongst them).
I did just a Google search and Wikipedia does say the Brown Bess did have an effective range of 300m for area target. Which holds up with the Prussian tests (I know the Prussians didn’t use the Brown Bess, it was a British weapon). I appreciate they have that static, shows that a lot of this information is available and can be accurate. You just need to actually do some looking and know what data is actually useful.
Many years ago we did some tests at the range Results showed that when firing at up to 50 yards, whether standing, kneeling or from a bench the smooth bore .75 calibre muskets would have been deadly. At 50 yards with a patched ball, we had no problems getting 6" groups. At 100 yards however, we had some difficulty hitting the 24"x24" targets. There is little doubt though that a line of men firing at another at that distance would have been devastating, albeit unlikely that you would hit your specific target. Further tests done earlier showed that a .75 calibre musket fired at 50 yards had no trouble penetrating 6 1" pine boards that were stacked together. The muzzle velocity was recorded at 1052 feet per second. (just sub sonic) Sighting using the bayonet lug, and without a rear sight is difficult. Further, the delay between pulling the trigger and the musket actually going off made achieving greater accuracy more difficult. We were able to recover many spent musket balls, and some could almost have been reloaded and fired again. After firing 10 to 12 rounds, it became difficult to ram the ball down the last several inches of the barrel. Accordingly, we took breaks to clean the muskets every dozen or so rounds.
The fouling you found with patched balls illustrates why the paper cartridge military musket had such large windages. Each man carried scores of rounds and more were available to refill the boxes. There was a good reason for the way things were at the time.
Hey Brandon, do you have any sources that talk about the effects of suppression on the 18th century battlefield? Nowadays there is squad level machine gun support for suppression while the rest of the squad can maneuver to engage, and I imagine the same would occur back then, only on a company level instead of the squad level. I apologize if you already have made something on this!
Probably makes more sense if couched in modern parlance as "area denial". There wasn't much suppression in the modern sense on a Napoleonic battlefield.
My guess? Fire by….file I think? The one that has a line ripping off shots to end to end. Only to begin again as the last man fires and the first has reloaded. I’d bet the threat of Calvary would have an effect similar to being suppressed by a machine. You aren’t really free to maneuver, you can’t really properly bring all your firepower to bare when you are worried about having to form squares or whatnot, with unhindered cavalry roaming around.
@@BrandonF I have the good luck to own 2 18th century and 1 19th century Muskets a 1700sh Spanish Musket a us m1799 Musket and last a m1862 Musket I have notice that the chance to hit a Target increases as the muskets tolerance increases over time I was shooting from a bench and at roughly 200 yards the Spanish musket was roughly 4 out of every ten shots the m1799 was 6 out of ten and m1863 9 out ten the m1863 is cap lock musket have you noticed that to
Brandon, I must say, your work is truly incredible! This is by far your best piece yet. The way you seamlessly incorporated distance representation in the video is absolutely amazing. As a former Infantryman myself, I can personally attest to the challenges of accurately judging distance. It's a skill that takes time and practice to develop, and you've captured it perfectly in this video. Drawing from my experience as a rifleman who deployed to Afghanistan, I can provide some context for the high round expenditure numbers you mentioned. You accurately describe typical firefights in that time frame, our primary objective was to gain fire superiority, assess the situation, pin the enemy, move on them, and neutralize the threat. This aligns with standard Marine infantry doctrine, which I assume is similar for the Army. It's important to note that from my experience engagements were typically initiated by enemy forces. In a training environment, such as a company-scale assault on an entrenched enemy platoon, the average rifleman would carry more than 210 rounds. This includes six 30-round magazines, one in the weapon, and usually 3-6 extra magazines carried in bandoleers or packs, with 30-120 extra rounds, or 3-5 magazines in the pack. During coordinated assaults with attacking forces having a 3 to 1 advantage against an entrenched enemy platoon-sized element, the suppression numbers really come into play. Even in training, it's not uncommon for the average rifleman to fire 4-6 magazines during the assault. These numbers are high to ensure we gain and maintain fire supremacy. Another crucial factor to mention is the effectiveness of portable indirect weapons, such as M203 grenade launchers. The Taliban feared these weapons, which often deterred them from engaging us at close ranges for extended periods of time. Our ability to use grenade launchers to great effect, combined with the firepower advantage provided by supporting weapons platforms like rotary wing aircraft, artillery, and mortars, gave us a significant edge. I personally recollect after my first firefight thinking, that did not pan out anyway like I had thought in my head. The amount of initial confusion from being shot at the first time is almost comical. Once again, I want to commend you on this video. It's fantastic to see accurate representation, historical sources, and context provided. Keep up the amazing work!
His video on cavalry was a lot better. I was surprised he left so many great contemporary studies and statistics go unreferenced, preferring anecdotes and fuzzy ideas. Then agian, he mightn't want to say that even a musket fixed in place was weirdly in accurate, in one of the french tests I'd have to look up again. Not that much better than the other numbers in the video.
those two graphics with the casualties and the street are exactly what i have wanted to be able to show or explain to people for a very long time, thank you
Great video. It’s always been funny to me that only modern people talk about muskets as being useless. I doubt there were too many contemporary sources who had shot (or who were shot at) with muskets who considered them “useless”.
This was a really fascinating, gripping video. I especially love how you put the hit percentages into perspective (around 10 minutes into the video), with brutal descriptions of just how devastating it would be to a line of soldiers. "Only 10% accuracy" sounds a helluva lot more destructive when trying to imagine being on the receiving end of that fire.
Except you wouldn't. Combat accuracy is way less than paper target accuracy, he eventually admitted. I once saw a US study on how much less from the army, but I lost it and forget the dropoff. The Swedes actually did what he just described as a bad idea, rushing into oncoming fire... and they built an empire with a slew of great victories. That's how inaccurate Euro musketeers generally were. The Scots won many successes, too, relying on their broadswords and shields.
Wow. I really thought I had the ranges pretty well visualised in my head, that was a lot further than I imagined. I imagine there are a lot of people like me who would've imagined they were safe at 300 yards. Looking at that tiny red line, I wouldn't have thought I had a 10% chance of kicking it.
@@jackthorton10 one man throws himself to the ground then others follow suit. A shameful display as the men flail about and make themselves small behind trees. All while the enemy disciplined, stoic in formation ever approaches. Only pausing to unleash a unified rain of hell.
The more surprising thing is that at 70 yards they had like 50% accuracy. Heck, even a French musket fixed to a stand had like a mere 60% accuracy in one of the contemporary tests... Brandon's didn't do much research on this video, as he could've referenced that and other tests, which I even pointed out to him in the past. The Europeans had some really faulty patching/loading system, or something.
@@vanivanov9571 They focused more on speed over accuracy which led to some crazy developments like the conical touchhole where you woulndt even need to prime anymore but since it was much larger, a lot of pressure escaped at a irregular rate so it did affect accuracy. And of course it led to a waste of powder since you had to compensate for the lost pressure so it was not used anymore after a while. Undersized ball of course was used too. A smoothbore musket can be quite accurate but not really in the hands of an average soldier with military loads and under battle conditions after marching under probably not the greatest weather conditions for hundreds of miles and the low number of hits in the study of that actual battle does really show that. I have fired a musket a few times and getting the elevation right without a rear sight is really difficult, now that has to match the range someone has determined just by sight alone, a target thats quite small moving or firing at your ... just being a tiny bit off means you either shoot in the ground of over the lines and there isnt an infinite amount of soldiers standing behind so shooting over also means you most likely hit nothing and there have been many reports of soldiers firing high.
Excellent video Brandon. What modern people seem to miss is that 1800 solider was aiming at the enemy, not an individual. As a video game commentator says, "Throw enough shit at the wall, some of it is bound to stick". Armies of the time were throwing as many lead balls at the enemy as possible, like a modern shotgun.
I think this adequately explains the musket's effectiveness, despite having a less-than-stellar accuracy. I loved the first marching line example; I'd be terrified to see ten people out of 100 either dead or wounded in an instant. And that's just the first volley at 300 yards.
Except you wouldn't. Combat accuracy is way less than paper target accuracy, he eventually admitted. I once saw a US study on how much less from the army, but I lost it and forget the dropoff.
The Swedes actually did what he just described as a bad idea... and they built an empire with a slew of great victories. That's how inaccurate Euro musketeers generally were.
@@vanivanov9571 I get that combat accuracy is much lower, and yes, this is admitted in the video, complete with logs and firing range tests. I know nothing about the Swedish Empire or their military tactics; just by mentioning them you've demonstrated that you know more than I do on this topic! I guess my appreciation of the musket at long range comes from the fact that while the odds of being struck at maximum range were very low, they weren't zero. In the present day it's easy to disregard the musket as a weapon; but in the context of waging warfare with limited resources, it would be foolish to pass up the slightest advantage.
@@vanivanov9571 You say "Euro" musketeers, as if the Continental Army wasn't just as "bad" if not worse for a comparative lack of training and experience?
Good video. It's sufficient to show that muskets were of adequate accuracy to say that, despite being weapons of war, they also were commonly used for hunting. And, while yes, rifles were the better hunting weapon, nobody would have used a musket for hunting if they didn't have a reasonable expectation of hitting their target.
Normally your target is at less than 100 yards, when hunting. And hunters didn't have just 6 practice shots like the conscripts, it was more like a thousand. That's why American sharpshooters got famous.
I own a 44 caliber Kentucky Long Rifle that I've had since I was a child. The three mistakes modern marksmen make that have a dramatic effect on accuracy with a flint lock 1. Inconsistent powder. Powder that's been left in a horn too long tends to grind itself into a finer powder that burns faster and the finer grains settle to the bottom , so muzzle velocity changes as you use up the powder in the horn. 2. Inconsistent tamping. Ramming the ball in too tight or too loosely changes the muzzle velocity. You should always put the same amount of pressure on the ball. 3. Lock time. This is the time it takes from the time the sear releases on the trigger until the bullet leaves the barrel. On a modern hunting rifle that's about 4-7 milliseconds On a flintlock it's 45-90 milliseconds That's enough time for your body to move the barrel around after you squeeze the trigger. Most modern riflemen struggle to hold the rifle on target that long. Watching today's marksmen use a flintlock is like watching a Millennial trying to drive a car with a manual transmission. Now I was accurate out to 200 yards after a lot of practice, but I had to clean the barrel after every shot because fouling would prevent me from tamping the ball down consistently. I have been told that the military used undersized balls so they could get up to 10 shots before fouling made it difficult to push the ball all the way in.
Thank you for another comprehensive, A-star video. I've always thought that if you are at a distance of 100 yards or below, you might as well use your bayonets. Your demonstration of the distances made things very easy to understand.
You can close 100 yards in less than 20 seconds; so, faster than the enemy can load and fire, especially under the stress of being charged. That's why the Scots and Swedes liked to only fire about once before engaging in melee.
Minor correction: the byname Soldatenkönig (soldiers‘ king) doesn’t refer to Frederick I. (Bynames The Great or Old Fritz), but to his father Frederick Wilhelm I. They’re easy to confuse, though they hated each others guts. 😁
Billy Dixon made a mile long shot in Adobe Texas, using a black powder 50-90 round. The Afghan Jezaeel rifles "fired roughened bullets, long iron nails or even pebbles over a range of some 250 metres" according to an presently unavailable source on wikipedia. The main reason muskets had disappointing results in big battles was because after a prolonged period of fire, the weapons would foul up with gun powder. After around 50 or 60 consecutive shots the hole in the pan would clog up & many soldiers carried a tool to unplug the hole. As battles would go on for hours if not days, without opportunity to provide PMS to the musket, its effectiveness was marketly decreased. As soon as linear form of combat was avoided, the muskets were much more accurate, & 300 yards as a distance could easily be realized. For example, the Afghan Jezaeelis, many of were smooth bore, were able to maintain consistent accuracy, because a.) they were the personal property of the Afghans who carried them; so proper maintenance was undoubtedly performed b.) the tactics of firing said rifle preferred sitting down & taking a crisp precise shot over rapid fire of line. A similar situation applied to the Kentucy Rifle of the America at the time, which was ALSO the private belongings of the soldier or militaman who carried it, & was shot in non rapid fire settings. It had nothing to do with MOA or Black powder, but it had to do with maintenance. Today in the modern military they excessively stress to maintain weapon systems as much as possible; proper care is still not taken by virtually all frontline & even rear line/ reserved forces. So Muskets were accurate, until they got misused, which was alot of them
Soldier: Why haven't rifles completely replaced muskets at this point? Gunsmith: Rifles take too long to reload. Soldier: Well what if you could detatch the barrel from the stock and load it from the other end? Gunsmith: (Starts seeing dollar signs and hyperventilating.)
They'd already built breech-loaders long before this, but the complexity and precision necessary in their construction made them expensive, and unsuitable for military use. They were lavishly expensive toys for the wealthy.
@@ErwinPommel rifled muzzleloaders also existed alongside breechloaders. You're totally right about the complexity - in manufacturing, loading, preventing corrosion, etc
@@ErwinPommelSpecifically, an effective gas seal was a massive issue to overcome. Getting such a seal that could survive repeated firing was a massive challenge and although some good enough methods were found, it was only truly solved with brass cases ammunition.
@@88porpoise The iron breech charges had a fine service life but needed to be built to a huge level of precise fit or they leaked hot dirty gas all over.
There’s a difference between point target (one individual) and area target (a group or large object) accuracy. Smooth bore muskets are area target weapons and weren’t ever intended to be anything but that. Judging a smooth bore musket by its point target accuracy compared to a rifle is apples to oranges. It was never intended to be a point target weapon; the tactics didn’t call for point target accuracy.
A FAST 43 minutes Brandon! Another fine presentation! Anyway you look at it you DON't want to be downrange of any group of men slinging those big bullets at you! Whether the bullet hits you or the guy next to you makes no difference to that bullet! You, your buddy, or somebody's going down! Ouch! An additon to the concept of "area denial" or "firing on formations" that idea lasted right into the 20th Century. Many firearms enthusiasts look at World War One era rifles such as the British SMLE, the American 1903 Springfield, or the German 1898 Mauser and wonder why the rear sights have those extreme ranges indicated on them, in the case of the Springfield up to 2800 yards. Well, soldiers werent expected to hit an indiviual target at that range BUT they could (by volley firing) bring fire to bear on an enemy formation, either infantry or cavalry. Very important in those days of no field radios and limited field telephone usage. How often it was actually done is open to speculation though.
@@Materialist39 Right. The development of smokeless gunpowder and the high velocities it delivered was a real revolution in small arms which the militaries of the advanced nations were quick to take advantage of. The maximum practical lethal ranges of infantry small arms increased to ranges undreamed of in the past, amazingly so. However, those ranges proved to be WAY more than necessary, but that's another story.
Between your channel and Capandball there really is a preponderance of evidence in explaining the hows and whys of 18th century warfare and I cannot undersell how valuable that is. Folks of that era may often have been fools in the reasons why of going to war, not much different than now in honesty, but the ways in which war was prosecuted were, in fact, quite well-thought. Most concepts in war are constant in idea, just evolving in nature, and much of recent pop history and historiography seem to conflate the two causing unlike and unfair comparisons.
Like, comparing your average musketeer with a modern rifleman doesn't add much value. Comparing your average modern squad or platoon sized element with historical subdivisions and companies and the like may prove more enlightening. While modern small units typically have a separate base of fire and one or more maneuver elements, one could see a historical unit using some kind of line formation as both base of fire while being a maneuver element. Fundamentally the task hasn't changed, being to harass, suppress, close with, and destroy the enemy, but limitations of the era make their tactics make sense when viewed on the whole rather than on an individual basis
In my experience, there's a relatively easy way to test out the accuracy of muskets in relation to unit size. I've used DarthMod for Napoleon Total War to do this, specifically with light infantry because they can all fire close to the same time. For my tests I used two light infantry units of 240 men each, both firing on one militia unit of 500 men at their max range of 120 yards/meters. Russian Jagers with 25 accuracy can get around 30 hits (6.2% hit rate), French Chasseurs with 30 accuracy can get around 40 hits (8.3%), British Light Foot with 38 accuracy around 50 hits (10.4%), and Prussian Fusiliers with 42 accuracy around 50-60 hits (10-12%). A caveat for this test is that all units used were drawn in three ranks, which will effect the density of fire and the amount of hits per yard/meter. DarthMod really opened my eyes to how devastating muskets can be at that range, and is also very satisfying to see dozens of the enemy fall with a well timed volley. I'd be interested to see what they could do at further ranges, but without making the game unbalanced.
Of course, of course this all made sense. Being a former soldier of 15 years service, and with having an interest in how those of earlier years carried out their profession, I always knew muskets fired from large line formations were always area denial weapons. Reload speed being far more important than individual weapon accuracy. I used to imagine what would've happened in history if someone time traveled and gave 300 M-16's to a Colonial Army infantry company along with 2100 30 rnd magazines and 63,000 rounds of 5.56 nato.
So it basically boils down to, not good accuracy on point targets but in practical application very good accuracy for the way warfare was conducted at the time?
@@dmman33 It's going to be more tangible and replayable. You will be able to progress faster and have more ways to win the game. There are many interesting ideas I intend to implement in this game. This game will be how Civ should have been. More diplomacy. More trade. A Civ that is smart enough NOT to risk a war because of more trade and diplomacy. A civilization that can remember your move and tactics in the game. And many many more features and ideas.
Not everyday you hear of Old Fort Niagara! I loved going there as a kid, and I highly recommend it for everyone. Thanks again for another wonderful video!
Thank you for helping me reach my daily goal of learning something. I am a range officer at my county's public rifle range and the guns on the range span modern machine guns to vintage flintlock muskets. I emphasize that some of the muskets on the firing line are antiques dating from as early as the end of the 18th Century. I have observed those muskets being shot at steel gongs ranging from 6" to 12" at distances from 50 yards to 100 yards. My county range has firing distances from 12 yards to 100 yards, but safety rules mandate that the metal targets be a minimum of 50 yards from the firing line. Under those range conditions I have observed modern rifles versus antique smooth bore muskets. Some of the shooters fire only off the bench and some shoot from standing at the maximum distances. I am not quick to dismiss period gunpowder as being poor quality--I put quality in the "unknown" category until I can prove otherwise. Testing vintage rifles with home-made gunpowder isn't the same as travelling back in time to experience the past. Many times I can only get an approximation because the past cannot be duplicated--I have to rely on "close enough." Even events occurring in the 20th Century cannot be replicated exactly. I had a long military career and in order to understand modern warfare I studied infantry and cavalry in battle back to the 1890's. At first, I was dismayed that modern infantry weapons had a much lower kill rate than infantry rifles of the 1890's despite the linear tactics of the 1890's, lower fire rates, and frankly the modern M16-series rifle and ammunition have both better precision and accuracy, especially with modern sighting systems. Combat distances have shrunk mostly because infantry targets are now point targets instead of area targets. Shooting into a crowd is more likely to hit SOMEONE than shooting at an isolated individual. The modern battlefield is so lethal that either soldiers disperse or die--modern intervals between soldiers are something like ten meters and intervals between squads seem to be twenty-five meters, depending on visibility and terrain. Motorization was a game changer with greater impact than repeating rifles. You taught me something today--I was in awe of how the Vauban forts managed to achieve grazing fire along their lengths. I visited Fort Demount between 1961 and 1963 for the first time--I'm unsure of the date because I was too young to read a calendar at the time. Dad also took me to the Maginot Line in that period. Revisiting the place in the early Eighties validated my first impression--I wasn't keeping track of my battlefield tours in the Eighties, so I don't know the year, only that it was in the chilly autumn. The lesson I took away was that musket fire had greater area fire range than I had supposed. I know that the rifled muskets of 1850 and beyond were routinely used in excess of 800 yards distance when defending fortified positions but thought that smooth bore muskets had petered out at 200 yards. Defensive position logistics are easier than when on the offense--generally speaking--so "throwing away" a ton of gunpowder and lead to suppress enemy maneuver on the killing fields in front of fortifications is a good trade-off. The sappers and miners have to dig another quarter mile when musket fire rains down at 800 instead of 400, and that extra time and effort may spell the difference between a successful siege and calling the siege off.
These videos are great. It helps with research on a historical fiction novel I’m working on. By any chance have there been any videos on Provost Marshals or a form of military police in this time period by the British
Now at the US civil war rifled muskets and conical bullets became common, this increased effective ranges a lot and pretty much killed off line formations, rifles was more dangerous than cavalry, at this point you get charged by cavalry but you was screwed anyway :) You got trenches who was an thing during sieges since firearms became common but now it was an infantry tactic.
Brandon, if 10% of rounds strike a target at 300 yards, aren't you going through a group the size of the original (assuming replacements) with every 10 rounds fired? That seems extremely high if that is the maximum range. It would be a short battle. Very helpful video!
No, because 1, combat accuracy is far lower, 2, your target gets smaller each time, 3, not every hit is a casualty, 4, they'd actually be firing back reducing your firepower (see Lanchester's law), and 5, other factors like smoke building up, very common misfires, and other details would hamper the statistics.
A tiny correction and a bit of random info. Grenade Machine Guns (GMG) are fairly accurate up to 1000-1500 meters. The US manual describes that a GMG can hit a target at that range when using a powerful scope. GMGs can even be used as indirect artillery up to about 2000 meters for area fire. I know the US military teaches this and we see it frequently being done in Ukraine.
Excellent video! I have a Pedersoli 2nd land pattern I bought in 1993. I've been hunting with it since then. I've taken many deer, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and a Canada goose with it. I've always heard of the woeful inaccuracy of these muskets. I never understood why. At 25 yards , I consistently clover leaf a .735 ball over 80 grains powder. At 75- 100 yards I can keep all my shots on a paper plate. This is not a patched round ball either, it's a paper cartridge. True, it's not the standard .690 ball, and I do have to swab every 4th shot ( at the range,) but hunting, I don't fire that many times. I've never had to track a deer very far after a good , solid hit in the boiler room, the wounds these guns inflict are serious. I like the perspective you brought to the discussion. Too often , we see the numbers on paper, and there it is. Then there is what really took place on the battlefield , back in the day. "Firefights werent ENDING at 300 yards, they were BEGINNING..." Well done!
Hey Brandon, just a tiny bit of a correction on the german language, since I have noticed you, understandably, getting this incorrectly as a native english speaker: the "e" at the end of words like "Kabinetskriege" is NOT silent. it is very much pronounced and oftentimes makes the important difference between singular and plural in the german language. Your pronounciation of the word itself is pretty good apart from that. to give you a pointer, the "e" at the end is usually pronounced like the english exclamation of indifference "eh" so you would pronounce it "Kabinetskrieg[eh]" I have noticed this in several non german speaking people on the internet/in the popculture like e.g. Sabatons "Bismarck" [Kriegsmarin instead of Kriegsmarin"e"] or many of Drachinifels video, so I hope you forgive my impertinence in regards to this specific pet peeve of mine please keep up the good work!
It’s called having an accent. It is what it is. He isn’t a German speaker so why would he pronounce words with a German accent? Why are we even allowed to say the word “Germany”? Why aren’t you going to insist that we call it Deutschland instead?
? Aside from the fact that pronouncing german words correctly is not "pronouncing them with a german accent" (because fun fact, there is not ONE german accent), why are you so mad? I know that Brandon is the kind of person who likes to make an effort to get the details right, be that historical facts or the pronunciation of words, so I thought this might be helpful. For me personally (and a lot of other people in the world) it is a sign of respect to try and pronounce words from a foreign language correctly, instead of just saying "it is what it is"
@@winklgasse You speak our language and not the other way around. We will continue to do what people have always done historically and pronounce foreign words in the way that makes the most sense to us linguistically because we are not German and don’t care how German speakers pronounce words.
@@EldritchMadness that is a very weird ethno-nationalistic take on language. also who is this "we" you are speaking about. no offense but who died and made you king of all english speaking people? friendly word of advice, if you are triggered by one person giving another person an appreciated pointer on pronounciation, you should get off the internet for a while and rethink your priorities
@@winklgasse The “we” is native english speakers. No ethnicity mentioned. If anything you’re the one playing the ethnonationalist anyway by policing how those outside of native German speakers pronounce words. And as far as priorities are concerned, that’s my entire point. Somebody makes a nearly hour long in-depth video on a historical topic and you’re in the comments typing about how he didn’t pronounce something exactly “right”.
A brandon video is the perfect thing to cheer me up today. My dads in the ICU but luckily things are getting better now that hes on a liver transplant waiting list (sorry for trauma dumping but brandons videos genuinely cheer me up)
Woah, this us probably the earliest I've been here. I thought this was something talked about before? I swear I remember a previous video saying muskets had an effective range of 400 yards?
@BrandonF Ah, I see. You know, now that I'm 30 min. I've gotta say that part of these misconceptions come from an ignorance on what combat actually looks like. Funnily enough, I bet as modern firefights use more ammunition faster and at longer ranges, our modern average battlefield accuracy is probably just as bad if not worse then an average 18th century battlefield.
The attitude towards musket accuracy may come from civilian hunters using modern smoothbore shotguns. The general rule of thumb for your average hunter is 50-60 yards for taking humane shots against white tail deer if you're using a conventional shotgun with nothing but a bead front sight (specialized slug guns with rifled barrels or chokes and conventional rifle sights can reach out to 100-120). But the key point here is a "humane shot" is intended to kill the deer in no more than 10-15 seconds so they don't have time to run away and get lost. For military purposes a hit doesn't have to be a quick kill so long as you take the soldier out of the fight. A soldier that was wounded in the arm or leg would fall out of the line to be treated so the aim doesn't have to be as precise.
It is nice that you cited percentages from modern conflicts. It is often said that, especially in the world wars, artillery was the king of killing. A critique to offer: I loved your live distance example. It was helpful. To exemplify this even more, could you consider a video with you and compatriots if available of an actual advance from 300 yards with a stopwatch timer and maybe a counter fire indicator, as we see you advance firing or at march. Couple it with the hypothetical casualties as you did briefly. That would be an awesome visual.
There are some considerations to take into account. First, it is not easy to hit a moving man sized target over iron sights even with modern weapons. Second, without disciplined fire control, many men may be firing at the same target/s. But perhaps most importantly; SLA Marshall did some interesting research after WW2 and Korea and found that less than 50% of men ever fired their weapon at all. Ever. And half of those who did purposely attempted to miss. These observations are what led to our modern training methods based around operant conditioning--human shaped targets, varied ranges, moving targets, etc. This has increased the percentage of men actually engaging enemy significantly and reduced the "don't shoot to hit" percentage drastically. Yet...the average rounds to casualty rate in Iraq was still over 500. There are many reasons for this but two are most important. First, a lot of combat does not occur in flat open spaces (and the enemy is trying hard not get shot), but in urban or complex terrain. Second, automatic weapons. Burst fire means that you are firing 6-9 rounds (ideally) every pull of the trigger on such weapons. Given that the enemy is not trying to get shot, that means a lot of rounds. Add to all this is that what riflemen and machine gunners are really trying to do is fix the enemy for the real killers--mortars, arty, CAS/attack aviation, or grenades in addition to allowing maneuver against them. While not strictly analogous to 18th century warfare, The truth is that the psychological factors of who fires, who actually aims, and who fires and aims with actual intent to kill remain the same. Hitting paper targets hurts no one, but aiming and shooting at actual people is far different.
This, and then take into account the often comparison with the long bow. See how scrutinized the musket performance was by contemporary sources, versus the long bow. And finally realize, no, the musket was more accurate at range, the bow s just shrouded by myth of “skill”. Clear example? When Medieval Korea was invaded by Japan, they made painstaking note that their heavy recurves was outranged by japanese matchlocks.
Also, it’s worthwhile to note that, outside of shoulder-to-shoulder fighting formations, the other guy gets a vote. It’s most obvious today in law enforcement officer involved shootings where 5 or 6 officers fire dozens of rounds altogether and make only a few hits on the person they’re shooting at. It’s fairly easy to shoot a perfect score on most law enforcement pistol qualifications (usually 50 shots altogether at ranges from 25 to 5 yards-some departments have harder qualifications) with a little practice, but officers’ accuracy drops under 50% in most shootings because the other guy can move suddenly and take cover whereas the paper target stays still.
Important to remember the 100’ x 6’ paper target is a solid mass of “target”. Every bullet hitting it counts as a “hit”. In reality, even a densely packed line of men has a lot of empty space on it. Between each man, the top six inches is your hat, between your legs and the distance between your leg and the man to either sides’. So a certain percentage of those hits are grazes, shooting your hat off, bullets zipping between your legs, etc etc. Some hits are also going to just be minor wounds that doesn’t leave you a casualty. So the percentage of hits doesn’t mean a one to one conversion to casualties.
Added to which, how many of those hits on the target would have hit the same person sized part of the target. Further in combat the first round would be far more effective (as that had been loaded with care with a lot let stress), with subsequent volleys being less effective (for example, in the American Civil War there are reports of muskets retrieved after a battle where a significant number had multiple musket balls in the barrel).
@@katywalker8322 I’ve always suspected the muskets recovered like that was a soldier who refused to shoot but kept going through the motions so as not to raise suspicion.
Another terrific video Brandon. I notice that there are only a handful of responses from people who actually live fire a smooth bore flintlock musket. I live fire my Brown Bess, short land pattern, every couple of months. From the bench rest, I can pretty consistently achieve a shot pattern of about 19 minutes of angle at ranges of 25, 50, and 100 yards. That equates to about 5, 10, and 20 inches, respectively. A standard silhouette target is about 22 inches wide; so a man measured from the outsides of his arms. Given the 19 minutes of angle at 100 yards, you'll be on target nearly every time. I haven't fired at targets beyond 100 yards. My guess is that at twice the distance, given the same minutes of angle, you'll get to 50% on target. Aerodynamics on the musket ball are another matter. Just as with a curve ball in baseball, or a slice in golf, spin of the ball in flight will affect the flight path. Imperfections of the ball will "catch the wind" and impart spin. The protruding nub left over from the fabrication process, or seams, can create drag and spin the ball, then the curve ball/slice happens. And the longer the distance, the further the miss. How often and how much is anyone’s guess. I use a device that effectively removes the nub and dimples the musket ball, so that they look like tiny gray golf balls. I think this helps with accuracy. Also, as far as lethality goes, there's the velocity of the ball at distance. I don't have a chronograph, so haven't measured my own. I've seen published muzzle velocities for the Brown Bess between 1,100 and 1,200 feet per second. That speed will decrease as the ball flies through the air. Being a round ball, the speed will decrease faster than a sharp pointed boat tail bullet due to aerodynamic drag. At some point, it will only be going fast enough to break a rib, maybe even not penetrate leather belting. Although I imagine you'll have a heck of a bruise. At what distance that will occur, without a scientific study, is anyone's guess.
an extremely informative and entertraining watch. Good work! One video idea for you, which hopefully isn't too far off from the purpose of the channel, is an exploration of the development of the lock mechanisms of guns, matchlock, wheellock, doglock etc or, alternatively, the development of a "true flintlock" from the early versions in later 1500s, snaplocks, doglocks, miquelet locks (I probably mistyped that) etc, till finally we reach the "true flintlock" of 1700s
I've been following you for years Brandon and I'd like to thank you because your channel is a bless for everybody interested in Musket era warfare like I am. I've been trying to put together a military flintlock fantasy story for a while now, and history, along with the info you have given me are truly helping and inspiring. Cheers from Italy.
Great video, and I genuinely love the reasonable discussion and disagreements it has sparked in the comments. This is one of those things that I “kind of” knew but I appreciate the detailed and cited breakdown.
Not true. Look up battle of Saratoga or kings mountain. Civilians could and were armed with guns that had tree times the range as muskets The battle of New Orleans in the war of 1812 civilians with civilian arms overwhelms the best army in the world, some of them veterans of the Napoleonic war From 1792 till 1821 the USGovernment supplied the Native Americans with arms that greatly out preformed the 1792 American musket, and many whites were buying these same guns
@@jeffreyrobinson3555 Americans love to beat their chest and fantasize about their militia being some sort of commando soldiers that could beat anyone in the world. Most of the time the British army had them on the run. New Orleans and Kings Mountain being exceptions, not the rule. Lucky you the French, Spanish and Dutch decided to help you out.
@@raftai665 no chest beating here. I know the war was won by standard soldiers fighting like Europeans However the point of the post was not that militia did any thing special, but that at the time of our founding and writing the second amendment civilians were armed with guns that were superior to military arms at the time. Our second amendment did not provide for a right to own muskets but for a right to be armed with the best we could afford
Interesting video! I see a lot of comparison between these and modern firearms, but I would LOVE to see it go against the bow. I feel like there's a lot idolization there, I just can't see how a bow could be significantly more accurate.
I remember in high school, apush, my teacher once pointed to the back corner of the classroom, at a high stack of books and stated that a trained marksman probably couldn’t hit it with a revolutionary war era musket, while trying to explain the changes weapon technology during the American civil war. I told him that a musket was not nearly so inaccurate, or they wouldn’t have been used.
There is also the effect of the balls nearly missing on the soldiers' morale, the mental effect of being in great danger of death would definitely take a toll on their composure
At 15:43 I would point out that yes the other target boards were hit but it should be noted that the rounds landed in places where they would not have hit anyone based on the silhouette of the main board. I don’t know if the lines would be staggered where the first rank would be offset one way or the other from the second rank and so on making it so there are no gaps or smaller gaps, if so such as when a unit is firing back then yes it is taking out a soldier, but assuming they were marching rank and file then they wouldn’t even be wounded, just terrified that rounds went past their heads and/or legs. In this example it does prove how inaccurate the rifle in and of itself is at that range, however, I’m sure a regiment firing together would prove to be more accurate
Id like to think that soldiers where nervous and abit shakey when their friends start getting concussed and tossed back by a bouncing canon ball and musket ball. Fear might stricke and you look away from your enemy in a sense of just shooting blindly hoping the people in the distance will go away.
This is exactly what the quote in the video means whan it says "the men would become distracted by enemy fire." it's just worded so as to not paint their own soldiers as cowardly in a time where that wasn't acknowledged.
There’s a major distance between ‘absolute’ range, and ‘effective range’. The M16, according to Wikipedia, has a maximum range of 3,600 meters. You’re gonna be spraying and praying at that range, but the M16’s maximum ‘effective’ range is around 550 to 800 meters. That’s the difference. The musket is most effective from 100 yards in, and gets decreasingly less accurate at a further range. In fact, as others have pointed out, most gun fights in modern warfare take place at around 100 yards or less, especially depending on the terrain. And the test by the reenactment group at Fort Niagara shows that in close formation, a missed shot could still find a target. What I’m taking away is that the bullets don’t evaporate after 100 or so yards, until it loses the energy to kill from drag or hits something, the shot will still kill beyond just 100 yards
I just watched a video of a man shooting a 1766 charleville, aiming for a targets head at 150 yards. And he got two of three shots in the forehead with a hangfire. Granted, he likely has a lot more time with the rifle than the regular soldier, likely closer to a colonial hunter or a trained sharpshooter, but a human head at 150 yards, and on a very windy day I'll add, shows great accuracy of the weapon in the hands of a trained shooter. Albeit im certain there are accuracy differences between the charleville and the brown bess, but both are smoothbores of the same time period
In the 18th Century the British command would have been "Make ready! Present! Fire!" The aiming was implied by the word "present." General Washington made the command more explicit in the Continental Army, "Make ready! Take aim! Fire!" When I was in the Marines I never heard "Ready, aim, fire!" at all. On the firing range it was "Ready on the left? Ready on the right? ALL ready on the firing line! Watch your targets! Commence firing!"
Very good video. Thank you also from adding pictures of 17th and 18th century fortresses to it. This were were build with the most advanced science and enginiering capacities of their time. The dimensions and measurement of walls, parapets and redoubts were calculated not only for the exchange of canon fire but also for the effective use of smoothbore muskets by common soldiers to defend the fortress. And also the most basic offensive tactics in a siege was to dig trenches to protect their own soldiers by musket fire from the walls and parapets which would be a useless work if smootbore muskets were really so useless.
The British had also really taken to the practice of "Volley fire" in 3 or 4 lines, they saw how it QUICKLY reduced the enemy numbers... probably the MAIN reason the Old Guard fled at Waterloo after the shock of seeing so many comrades falling down...
Actually not fully accurate. The Britain disliked the idea of multiple deep lines as it actually reduced the speed of fire (as troops having to crouch and reload and stand, and the drill to coordinate it well just slowed everything down). The British army was actually trained in 2 lines and in a firing pattern of platoon. Essentially each company would be split into two platoons and your 18/20 platoons would from both sides begin ripple firing into the centre two before repeating from the outside. This actually allowed for the continuous spring of fire you’d want as those on the flanks would have the 15-20 seconds to reload before the centre two finished and it would just ripple its way back down the line again.
The Middle Guard and not the Old Guard. The Old Guard were the two remaining squares of the French army that the Emperor had taken refuge inside before his departure from the battlefield. These squares were never broken and the British-Prussian cavalry stopped charging them, accepting that they did not know how to destroy them and then let them fall back in good order. I'm just restoring a little historical truth here, it does a lot of good sometimes.
Also volley fire has a brief pause for each unit to have some of their smoke clear somewhat and see where the enemy is. Accuracy is hitting the man aimed at. Effectiveness is hitting the enemy somewhere, even if not the man aimed at. Just as bayonet effectiveness is not how many are stabbed but how many run away.
Also the British under Wellington in the Peninsular War, partly due to manpower, fired from two ranks as opposed to three or four. The French advanced in columns towards the British lines, and the thin red line stood there and fired 4 shots per minute from two ranks. 120men, for example in two ranks puts down 60 rounds per volley as opposed to 40 in three ranks. Whilst in a minute the company got through 480 rounds, the impact of each volley would have been far greater.
When doing marksmanship practice and training with other players on War of Rights, we use 25% accuracy as the baseline for combat effectiveness. And that's with rifle muskets mostly 1861 and 54 patterns.
I can think of two potential problems with some of your analysis. One, is the gunpowder we have today better or worse in terms of quality to the black powder in the 18th century? Secondly, open order formation largely negates the accuracy of muskets, even at close range, making it much easier to avoid causalities. To clarify what I mean about black powder today being better or worse than 18th century gunpowder, a similar case is that armor that we have today being less well made than the armor made in the Middle Ages.
That's why it's so important to use historical data alongside any potential modern tests. The more data you have, the easier it is to get a clear picture across so many different sets of variables. Though I wouldn't say that open-order negates accuracy- it just reduces it.
I think it bears mentioning that modern body armor isn't inferior in quality to medieval armor. It's designed to defend against a different threat. Medieval armor largely defended against stabbing and slashing attacks with swords, spears, axes, and bows, with a degree of protection against blunt force trauma. Modern armor, however, is focused on stopping bullets traveling at Mach Jesus. Against those threats, there isn't a suit of Medieval plate that is holding up. Not a question of quality, merely of what threat they are designed to defeat.
@@gaslightstudiosrebooted3432 oh...fair enough. Though I'd still argue that most replicas aren't manufactured with the intention of being used as protective armor.
Unsurprisingly, the accuracy of muskets is limited by the same factor as the accuracy of any firearm that doesn't have a magnifying sight - human vision. Besides that battlefield accuracy is a very poor way to judge the accuracy of a weapon, and not just because of suppressive fire. I forget the details, but afaik the US military did a survey after WW2, and it turned out that the vast majority of men where only firing in the general direction of the enemy and only around 2% would take deliberate aim at individual combatants. Turns out that calmly shooting another person is difficult under the best of circumstances, let alone when there's bullets coming your way too.
Even if you can take out 1 soldier out of 100, you are already at an effective range. If the enemy will just stand there and let you fire on them, they loose signifact amount of soldiers over time before any engagement even beggins. It is this notion of danger that can turn the entire unit into retreat. Just imagine you stand there doing nothing and you hear the shots... one guys falls. Okay whatever. Than another volley and two guys fall. Than another volley and this time nobody falls. But you stand there still under the pressure of being the next in line to be shot and the tension is piling up. After 10 minutes of idle standing, maybe 20 soldiers already lie dead or wounded and you didn't do nothing yet. As a commander you must know the safe distance and make sure you are not idly standing in their range for too long.
While there's some merit to this point, there are a couple of realities that need to be kept in mind when considering firefights at extreme distances. Fist of all, the logistics of 18th century weren't very good, not to speak of the fact that in comparison to more modern nations, the industrial and economical capabilities of the nations of the times were lesser. An army would have carried a limited amount of powder that could not necessarily be reliably and often replenished during a particular portion of a campaign. I'm not saying that they were powder-starved, per say, but that inconsiderate usage would have caused situations where the stock was uncomfortably low and commanders would undoubtedly want to avoid such issues. Lead was easier, but unsurprisingly created a weight issue to the supply train in turn. Supply loadout is a zero-sum game after all; You can only carry so much stuff and what you pack in surplus will be out of something else. Both together meant that commanders had logistical and strategic incentives to use their supplies effectively and get the best out of the economic investment while maintaining operational capability. The other factor is that black powder burns very dirty and fouls the barrels quickly. This dirty burning also produces the signatory thick smoke cloud. It causes various issues, chief among them being that reloading becomes difficult as the available space shrinks due to the foulage. Cleaning the gun takes a decent bit of time that is probably not available mid-battle, and every shot a soldier takes fouls the barrel further. Highly ineffective gunnery risked leaving the soldier significantly limited in firepower later on if the battle lasted long, potentially meaning the difference between being able to get a volley off before a charge landing or not.
I think there is something else at play, something that Lindybiege touched on a few years ago and that is "shooting to kill." There was a survey of the US Army done in 1946 by General Marshall. He found that only 2% of the soldiers shot to kill when in position to do so; and only 15% fired in the general direction of the enemy. Since then, NATO armies have been using operant conditioning as means of training to get the shoot to kill rate up to 90% or more. Bearing in mind we are talking about the end of the church age and start of the enlightenment; where cultures will have grown up with the gospel "thou shalt not kill", killing being a mortal sin, a very strong philosophical worldview. If soldiers in the modern-day, during WWII, had trouble shooting to kill, why wouldn't the same apply to the 17th-19th centuries? The film "Waterloo" from 1970 illustrates this beautifully.
Now imagine the even greater accuracy of the rifled muskets during the American Civil War but the same style of tactics, and you see why there were regiments routinely taking 60-70%+ casualties in one particular brutal fight.
![True Size of Napoleon's Army - The Infantry [c. 1808] 3D DOCUMENTARY](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qR0sODDUT8U/mqdefault.jpg)
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Hey Barndon
You once mentioned that musket men had a tendency to shot too high or too low, where would you say is a good point to aim?
What part of the opponent makes for the ideal aiming spot?
I would also add that hopefully your side brought artillery and cavalry. That would be very useful for making sure they do what you want them to do. Gustavus Adolphus was known for his artillery tactics and using them to force the battle to commence on his terms.
Wars are fought with a myriad of weapons to benefit from the strengths of each and minimize their drawbacks. Cavalry can be used to harass supply lines. Soldiers carry spades with then so they can dig trenches everywhere. Cannons destroy strongpoints, their artillery, and their cavalry too and generally reduce their number. You can use your marksmen with rifles to destroy communications and runners. You don't fight battles like this unless it is necessary and other ideas won't net the results you need.
Hey, the Normany landings only killed 7% of the Americans who hit Omaha beach, do we have any volunteers to go back in time and give it a try? The First World War only killed one in eight soldiers in the British army, but I rarely hear anyone say they wish they were in the British trenches in 1917.
10% accuracy at a 30x30 foot target at 200 yards? That's atrociously bad. That's like the old cn't hit the side of a barn line IRL.
It would also be worth considering artillery rounds are against men in trenches... if you're out in the open and well spotted, they're extremely accurate and deadly. It's disingenuous as heck to suggest muskets match modern weaponry's accuracy at all. And if you're saying they are indeed horribly niaccuracte comparedto modern expectaions... then why did you act like people were mistaken at all? They're not.
"his yet living corpse"
brilliant, and horrifying
In regards to the shots fired to kills scored ratio in modern wars, most rapid fire weapons aren't meant to inflict casualties, they're meant to force the enemy to keep their heads down.
That's why his example was with a single shot cartridge gun used against the Zulu.
It's largely the same during this period as well.
Soldiers were trained to fire by sections, rather than along the entire line, in order to keep up a continuous fire. After the first couple hundred shots, the field was covered in smoke, making the individual shot nearly impossible to aim, but fire on they would, in order to prevent the enemy from advancing against them.
They were putting up suppressive fire.
This is true in some but not all cases. Room clearing would be a case where accuracy matters. It's a complicated topic. Doctrine varies from force to force, and even then, battlefield practices vary from doctrine.
In the US, the doctrine is to suppress the enemy with small arms fire and call in artillery or air support to take them out. This is especially true when you encounter a stubbornly dug in enemy.
@@Riceball01not necessarily true. Calling for local fire like mortars would be pretty standard, but arty and air would only be for major enemy positions or emergency situations like ambushes.
In the smaller scale scenarios, after fire superiority (aka suppression) is achieved, a section of the assaulting unit (or another whole platoon, depending on the scale of the assault) will break off and flank the enemy, hitting them from an angle that negates their cover/concealment, while they are tied down.
Artillery and air support is expensive and take time to arrive, it is usually much more expedient for the forces on the ground to handle buisness themselves, especially considering doctrine insists that we only ever attack a position with a 3-1 advantage or better.
To add on: "100 Yards" sounds terrible, this isn't that different from modern firearms. While having technically longer effective ranges, a study following the Korean War found that the vast majority of hits occurred under 300 yards, with the average distance being around 100. (IIRC the study was either ORO, or Operational Requirements for a Infantry Hand Weapon.)
This was also found in WW2, where most infantry engagements in the ETO were found to happen at ranges of less than 200 yards.
It turns out that it's actually really hard to hit people far away without a modern optic, who'da thought?
Also, if your enemy is moving tactically (both before they're specifically aware of your presence, and getting covering fire, or mortar, artillery of close air support), that might make your marksmanship a touch less effective.
Once, at the behest of a very statistic-oriented BC, I compiled the percentage of hits made at each range (50m to 300m in 50m intervals) for the battalion's biannual rifle qual. I don't remember the exact ratio offhand and I can't be bothered to find it, but it was quite illustrative. The hit was was something like 80% for the 50m and 100m targets, dropping rapidly to about 30% for the 250m and 300m targets.
The German Army had figured out by the end of WW1 soldiers typically didn't engage the enemy if they were more than 300 meters away, the probability of hits weren't good enough. Let's be honest, your opponent isn't just going to stand there and let you shoot him!
This knowledge would eventually lead to the Germans developing the medium-power 7.92 x 33 cartridge and the weapon to use it, the STG-44 "Sturmgewehr" but it would take another war to bring it about.
What we do is often confuse accuracy with effectiveness. They are not the same. A smoothbore can kill at 300 yards. That is effective. It may not be what you aimed at, but it still kills.
Yes! Very well said. I came to the comment section hoping someone could articulate how I was feeling. I absolutely agree with the historical point Brandon is making, but his wording felt completely wrong. Muskets were effective, deadly, and fit for purpose. But they were not accurate.
You can't tell me that hitting literally the broad side of a barn (a line of 100 men) is accurate. And as mentioned near the end of the video, you need not compare accuracy to modern weapons (something only natural for a modern person to do), but just compare them to much more accurate period rifles. Muskets were used over an army of all rifleman because the musket was effective.
Perhaps the proper terminology is that a musket is accurate, but not precise. You can hit what you’re aiming at (given you’re aiming at a unit) but you’re not hitting in the same place. In ideal conditions a modern weapon is expected to put all its bullets in a human sized circle out to 300m or further. A musket has a much larger circle (probably an oval side to side) in which it will hit, but given you aim at a formation it is likely to hit someone.
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If are in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church
(These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches)
If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms or Wels Lutheran church.
If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC
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If you are English I recommend the Free Church of England.
(Different from the Church of England)
Online you can look up church finders for each of the groups and it will show you locations.
@@highlorddarkstar🐪
@@michaelkiniry3432🐪
When it comes to the whole idea of "muskets were no use outside of a range of 50" or even "30" yards, one experience of mine comes to mind. This year I went to a reenactment in Poland (napoleonic wars, 1807) and the organisers hosted a special competition for reenactors. What do you know, it was a musket marksmanship competition. Each contestant fired from a Charleville Mle1777. Now, the very fact that the organisers were willing to organise and fund such a competition, and that the reenactors were so eager to participate, already makes it seem like muskets might not be that bad after all. Now although of course this was a classic, round target, at an acceptable distance, the results were still quite astounding and there was a clear winner. With that in mind you can only imagine the carnage that could be inflicted on such a massive target as a line of infantry etc. and that is forgetting about any marksmanship training. As the video concludes, the important thing is, the musket was good at what it was supposed to do and shouldn't be compared to modern weaponry. Great video Brandon!
Another interesting thing to look at is the bucaneers of Henry Morrigan's time. They had good muskets for the time, but out dated by the time that Brandon is refrencing. Those guys were still deadly accurate with their muskets
I expect your fine guns and well practiced hands were doing a hell of a lot better than 10% accuracy when aiming at the side of a barn, from 200yds. Musketeers were generally malnourished and got very few rounds to train with, with questionable patching/loading.
Modern powder could make a big difference though, results might vary in operational conditions. There must have been a reason why marksmen normally kept their own powder horn.
Edit: That said of course musket fire was effective beyond 50 yards though.
@@Lancasterlaw1175 Regarding gunpowder, this is another myth. In fact, gunpowder in the 18th century was capable of accelerating a bullet to 520 m/s. A bullet from an ordinary infantry musket pierced 4 iron cuirasses with a thickness of 12 mm, or a wooden log with a thickness of about 20 cm
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.
-Acts 3:19
If are in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church
(These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches)
If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms or Wels Lutheran church.
If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC
(Different from the Church of Scotland)
If you are English I recommend the Free Church of England.
(Different from the Church of England)
Online you can look up church finders for each of the groups and it will show you locations.
I feel like the biggest reason people believe muskets aren’t accurate is the view that its purpose is to hit an individual soldier
Yeah, the fact it's horribly inaccurate by today's standards leads to jokes about it being horribly inaccurate by today's standard. Except the Japanese, who unlike the malnourished European conscripts, were hitting single man targets in the Imjinwaeran.
@@vanivanov9571 That why they lost?
@vanivanov9571 "malnourished European conscripts" perpetuating a myth while supposedly debunking myth, ironic isn’t it
@@vanivanov9571 Have you been to a public range lately? The skill level of most people with modern two thousand plus dollar rifles all tac'ed out like it's ready for a modern top teir operator mission - is nothing short of laughable. Most modern shooters ain't hitting shit either.
Its purpose was to hit a group of soldiers because it was INCAPABLE of hitting a single soldier. That's inaccurate. That is an inaccurate weapon. Even in its own day it was inaccurate.
Your discussion on these old weapons reminds me of a famous quote.
“They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.” - John Sedgwick, just before he was killed by long range fire during the American Civil War.
by a rifled whitworth bullet
He said it no less than twice, and possibly three times before he was hit.
He died by a withworth rifle however. I get your point but he was essentially killed by a sniper (in term of the times, please internet historians, do not try to correct me, I'm simply helping this man understand in modern term, kindly, stfu)
The example of the advancing line also makes another point: if muskets weren’t effective until they were within bayonetting range, pikes would have remained the predominant weapon well into the 19th century.
I knew a guy in the army who, on paper, had a 200% accuracy with his rifle in a marksman test. 24 hits with 12 shots. Now, as these tests were conducted some 30 people at a time, and several people next to him had already passed their tests, it's possible they decided to help a buddy out and fire a few rounds into his target. But we'll never know for sure...
I helped my buddy out once or twice. Fatigue is real.
The explanation is very simple, 1 or 2 of the other shooters was shooting at the same target. It happens easily when there is 30 targets and you are miscalculating what to shoot at by 1 count. Been there done that myself during practice ...
I had 23 hits on a 10 shot practice once. The fun thing was that we were supposed to sight our rifles based on that and none of the three of us who shot at my target seemed to be particularly good shooters.
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.
-Acts 3:19
If are in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church
(These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches)
If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms or Wels Lutheran church.
If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC
(Different from the Church of Scotland)
If you are English I recommend the Free Church of England.
(Different from the Church of England)
Online you can look up church finders for each of the groups and it will show you locations.
@@romaliop🐪
I think the main problem is the definition of “effect range.” What most people who talk about this with modern understanding mean Is the range at which you can hit who you are aiming at. Muskets have a range of 300 yards, yes. But you won’t hit the guy you are aiming at. The guy to the left or right, yes. The guy you are directly aiming at probably not. Keep in mind most people who talk about this are looking at rifles that can hit a man target at a mile and a half max range, and at 300 yards can target individuals. That’s the problem same phrase different meanings.
And the target is also at least three ranks deep.
With a shot grazing the hat or shoulder of a soldier in the first rank is going to hit the head or shoulder of a soldier in the second or third rank.
@@SonsOfLorgar Yeah, that too.
even just that effective range is the distance which you can hit "your target". with modern understanding being your target is a man-sized target, which just straight up isn't true for soldiers of this time period.
@@SonsOfLorgargreat point!
Yep perfectly said. You’d probably want to be within 50 yards to humanely take a deer. At 200 yards your not hitting anything. Yet if there are 1000 men standing two hundred yards away and I mean to disperse them? Modern doubters would quickly become believers if they found themselves facing musket fire from two hundred yards away by any substantial amount of men.
The same applies for military archery, which was not necessarily about individual aiming prowess, but the collective economy of force from volleys of arrows. English historian Mike Loades, did experiments with the longbow, what he found was interesting, for example, arrows shot from warbows actually loses power at long ranges, so he determined longbows were shot at close range. In another test, Loades discovered the longbow was most efficient at 20-30 yards, straight at the enemy, rather than the cliched Hollywood battlefield archery, of archers shooting their bows at a high angle into the horizon. Loades explained that battlefield archery was not about good aiming, but speed and volume of arrows being shot, English training with the longbow was more concentrated at building strength of drawing the bow, then nocking the arrow and shoot it as fast as possible, identical rules applies with muskets. I recommend watching Mike Loades documentary series "The Weapons that Made Britain", I really like his approach to history, and uses these weapons in their historical context, as opposed to modern gunmen use to firing rifles in controlled settings like ranges, reenactments are an effective way of learning history, and appreciating how our modern world evolved from this early advances.
Except the Bashkirs were getting impressive hit rates of like 10%, according to the arrogant French. Skilled archers regularly outshot the malnourished musketeers of Europe who were lucky if they got 6 rounds of live ammo to practice with. Meanwhile, the Japanese musketeers accomplished great feats in the Imjinwaeran.
@@vanivanov9571 Marshal Marbo wrote that at best 10 arrows hit the target. Probably the distance was only a few tens of meters. After this, the French easily dispersed the Bashkirs. At the same time, the Bashkirs themselves preferred to arm themselves with firearms
Thank you for this video, having been a reenactor at Old Fort Niagara it is nice to see some of the things we tried to use to educate others to make it to such an enlightening channel. The thing I have found interesting is reading accounts of lines and columns coming under fire in the Napoleonic era taking horrible losses from close-range volleys. Of particular note is how the musket balls would sometimes go through one man and into another, or worse hit in such a way the impact (for example on a musket itself) would cause more shrapnel to fly through the front and second ranks.
A while ago this channel covered the impact of a cannonball or canister shot ripping through a line, the effects of a linemate getting hit at 200 yards is just as stunning as a cannonball. One second you marching with your brothers in arms, the next the man next to you collapses, spraying your sleeve with his lifeblood, the man behind him screaming in shock, having to stop and wipe the blood from his eyes. The fire at range "Beyond effective range" just as easily kills and disrupts formations.
Hello Brandon. You may remember me talking about spreadsheets on a live stream and how I did a science degree. I have seen more data than I could have ever imagined. I was dying for you to get to the point that the weapon was fit for purpose.
I saw a video before from Royal Armouries about muskets versus the new rifles coming in about the time of Crimea War, that was also very interesting.
I think this is honestly one of your best videos.
tf howd you finish the video already its been 20 minutes
Noo. It’s very wrong. The sources stating 300 yard point blank are very Misleading and wrong. Modern guns don’t perform that well, muskets certainly didn’t
@@makimaki500 I have a video-playback plugin that can adjust the speed of videos incrementally to something like x1000 speed. I watch most videos on 2.5x-3x speed.
Great video once again! So tired of ignorant people trash talking 18th century weapons/tactics as if the soldiers/tacticians were foolish. They did the best with what they had and their methods & tools consistently got the job done.
In Spain there is still an idiom reflecting that: "Las reclamaciones, al maestro armero" (Those complains must be sent to the gunsmith). It basically means "it's not my fault, I did the best I could under these conditions".
Garand Thumb gave the most respect to the guns of the time. His video on the damage they can do is great.
One mistake modern shooters make with smoothbore muskets and pistols (that have never used one) is to try to aim them by sighting down the barrel like they are used to with an AR-15 or a Glock with front and rear sights. Flintlock pistols often don't have even have a front sight and are meant to be shot at relatively short ranges by pointing instinctively, not by aiming down the barrel. Muskets were too, but more akin to a over/under shotgun with only a front bead rather than an AR with front and rear iron sights. One of the funniest things I've ever seen was a bunch of modern shooters puzzling over how to use a 17th century cheek stocked German wheellock rifle. At first they tried to tuck it into their shoulder, struggled to get a cheek weld and then struggled to twist their heads around to aim the thing by peering through the sights until the owner took pity on them and showed them exactly how to use it.
22:09 I think I commented this on other videos, but the Spanish 1801 infantry manual goes even further, and plans trainings for distances of 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters and 400 meters (a meter is about 1.1 yards). Only a few units were actually capable of firing at 400m, though (the Spanish Zayas division amongst them).
Right, you often train for more than you actually expect to achieve.
I did just a Google search and Wikipedia does say the Brown Bess did have an effective range of 300m for area target. Which holds up with the Prussian tests (I know the Prussians didn’t use the Brown Bess, it was a British weapon). I appreciate they have that static, shows that a lot of this information is available and can be accurate. You just need to actually do some looking and know what data is actually useful.
One thing not mentioned is the eyesight of the soldiers. There'd be a whole lot of variability
Many years ago we did some tests at the range
Results showed that when firing at up to 50 yards, whether standing, kneeling or from a bench the smooth bore .75 calibre muskets would have been deadly. At 50 yards with a patched ball, we had no problems getting 6" groups. At 100 yards however, we had some difficulty hitting the 24"x24" targets. There is little doubt though that a line of men firing at another at that distance would have been devastating, albeit unlikely that you would hit your specific target. Further tests done earlier showed that a .75 calibre musket fired at 50 yards had no trouble penetrating 6 1" pine boards that were stacked together. The muzzle velocity was recorded at 1052 feet per second. (just sub sonic)
Sighting using the bayonet lug, and without a rear sight is difficult. Further, the delay between pulling the trigger and the musket actually going off made achieving greater accuracy more difficult.
We were able to recover many spent musket balls, and some could almost have been reloaded and fired again.
After firing 10 to 12 rounds, it became difficult to ram the ball down the last several inches of the barrel. Accordingly, we took breaks to clean the muskets every dozen or so rounds.
The fouling you found with patched balls illustrates why the paper cartridge military musket had such large windages. Each man carried scores of rounds and more were available to refill the boxes. There was a good reason for the way things were at the time.
Hey Brandon, do you have any sources that talk about the effects of suppression on the 18th century battlefield? Nowadays there is squad level machine gun support for suppression while the rest of the squad can maneuver to engage, and I imagine the same would occur back then, only on a company level instead of the squad level.
I apologize if you already have made something on this!
I haven't- sounds like it'd be a good video topic!
Probably makes more sense if couched in modern parlance as "area denial". There wasn't much suppression in the modern sense on a Napoleonic battlefield.
My guess? Fire by….file I think? The one that has a line ripping off shots to end to end. Only to begin again as the last man fires and the first has reloaded. I’d bet the threat of Calvary would have an effect similar to being suppressed by a machine. You aren’t really free to maneuver, you can’t really properly bring all your firepower to bare when you are worried about having to form squares or whatnot, with unhindered cavalry roaming around.
@@BrandonF I have the good luck to own 2 18th century and 1 19th century Muskets a 1700sh Spanish Musket a us m1799 Musket and last a m1862 Musket I have notice that the chance to hit a Target increases as the muskets tolerance increases over time I was shooting from a bench and at roughly 200 yards the Spanish musket was roughly 4 out of every ten shots the m1799 was 6 out of ten and m1863 9 out ten the m1863 is cap lock musket have you noticed that to
The squad level machine gun is not for only suppression.
Any rifle/mg can be used for suppression.
Brandon, I must say, your work is truly incredible! This is by far your best piece yet. The way you seamlessly incorporated distance representation in the video is absolutely amazing. As a former Infantryman myself, I can personally attest to the challenges of accurately judging distance. It's a skill that takes time and practice to develop, and you've captured it perfectly in this video.
Drawing from my experience as a rifleman who deployed to Afghanistan, I can provide some context for the high round expenditure numbers you mentioned. You accurately describe typical firefights in that time frame, our primary objective was to gain fire superiority, assess the situation, pin the enemy, move on them, and neutralize the threat. This aligns with standard Marine infantry doctrine, which I assume is similar for the Army. It's important to note that from my experience engagements were typically initiated by enemy forces.
In a training environment, such as a company-scale assault on an entrenched enemy platoon, the average rifleman would carry more than 210 rounds. This includes six 30-round magazines, one in the weapon, and usually 3-6 extra magazines carried in bandoleers or packs, with 30-120 extra rounds, or 3-5 magazines in the pack. During coordinated assaults with attacking forces having a 3 to 1 advantage against an entrenched enemy platoon-sized element, the suppression numbers really come into play. Even in training, it's not uncommon for the average rifleman to fire 4-6 magazines during the assault. These numbers are high to ensure we gain and maintain fire supremacy.
Another crucial factor to mention is the effectiveness of portable indirect weapons, such as M203 grenade launchers. The Taliban feared these weapons, which often deterred them from engaging us at close ranges for extended periods of time. Our ability to use grenade launchers to great effect, combined with the firepower advantage provided by supporting weapons platforms like rotary wing aircraft, artillery, and mortars, gave us a significant edge. I personally recollect after my first firefight thinking, that did not pan out anyway like I had thought in my head. The amount of initial confusion from being shot at the first time is almost comical.
Once again, I want to commend you on this video. It's fantastic to see accurate representation, historical sources, and context provided. Keep up the amazing work!
His video on cavalry was a lot better. I was surprised he left so many great contemporary studies and statistics go unreferenced, preferring anecdotes and fuzzy ideas. Then agian, he mightn't want to say that even a musket fixed in place was weirdly in accurate, in one of the french tests I'd have to look up again. Not that much better than the other numbers in the video.
those two graphics with the casualties and the street are exactly what i have wanted to be able to show or explain to people for a very long time, thank you
Great video. It’s always been funny to me that only modern people talk about muskets as being useless. I doubt there were too many contemporary sources who had shot (or who were shot at) with muskets who considered them “useless”.
This was a really fascinating, gripping video. I especially love how you put the hit percentages into perspective (around 10 minutes into the video), with brutal descriptions of just how devastating it would be to a line of soldiers. "Only 10% accuracy" sounds a helluva lot more destructive when trying to imagine being on the receiving end of that fire.
Except you wouldn't. Combat accuracy is way less than paper target accuracy, he eventually admitted. I once saw a US study on how much less from the army, but I lost it and forget the dropoff.
The Swedes actually did what he just described as a bad idea, rushing into oncoming fire... and they built an empire with a slew of great victories. That's how inaccurate Euro musketeers generally were. The Scots won many successes, too, relying on their broadswords and shields.
@@vanivanov9571”Waah waah waah his video sucks and I’m going to copy and paste this comment everywhere because it’s so bad!1!1!1! Waah waah!”
Wow. I really thought I had the ranges pretty well visualised in my head, that was a lot further than I imagined.
I imagine there are a lot of people like me who would've imagined they were safe at 300 yards.
Looking at that tiny red line, I wouldn't have thought I had a 10% chance of kicking it.
Nah, in reality youd still be pretty safe at 300 yards.
Just make sure to take cover
@@jackthorton10 one man throws himself to the ground then others follow suit. A shameful display as the men flail about and make themselves small behind trees. All while the enemy disciplined, stoic in formation ever approaches. Only pausing to unleash a unified rain of hell.
The more surprising thing is that at 70 yards they had like 50% accuracy. Heck, even a French musket fixed to a stand had like a mere 60% accuracy in one of the contemporary tests... Brandon's didn't do much research on this video, as he could've referenced that and other tests, which I even pointed out to him in the past.
The Europeans had some really faulty patching/loading system, or something.
@@vanivanov9571 They focused more on speed over accuracy which led to some crazy developments like the conical touchhole where you woulndt even need to prime anymore but since it was much larger, a lot of pressure escaped at a irregular rate so it did affect accuracy. And of course it led to a waste of powder since you had to compensate for the lost pressure so it was not used anymore after a while. Undersized ball of course was used too. A smoothbore musket can be quite accurate but not really in the hands of an average soldier with military loads and under battle conditions after marching under probably not the greatest weather conditions for hundreds of miles and the low number of hits in the study of that actual battle does really show that. I have fired a musket a few times and getting the elevation right without a rear sight is really difficult, now that has to match the range someone has determined just by sight alone, a target thats quite small moving or firing at your ... just being a tiny bit off means you either shoot in the ground of over the lines and there isnt an infinite amount of soldiers standing behind so shooting over also means you most likely hit nothing and there have been many reports of soldiers firing high.
Woo! It’s been a long time coming, it’s been mentioned countless times but its finally here! Nice work Brandon!
Excellent video Brandon. What modern people seem to miss is that 1800 solider was aiming at the enemy, not an individual. As a video game commentator says, "Throw enough shit at the wall, some of it is bound to stick". Armies of the time were throwing as many lead balls at the enemy as possible, like a modern shotgun.
I think this adequately explains the musket's effectiveness, despite having a less-than-stellar accuracy. I loved the first marching line example; I'd be terrified to see ten people out of 100 either dead or wounded in an instant. And that's just the first volley at 300 yards.
Except you wouldn't. Combat accuracy is way less than paper target accuracy, he eventually admitted. I once saw a US study on how much less from the army, but I lost it and forget the dropoff.
The Swedes actually did what he just described as a bad idea... and they built an empire with a slew of great victories. That's how inaccurate Euro musketeers generally were.
@@vanivanov9571 I get that combat accuracy is much lower, and yes, this is admitted in the video, complete with logs and firing range tests. I know nothing about the Swedish Empire or their military tactics; just by mentioning them you've demonstrated that you know more than I do on this topic!
I guess my appreciation of the musket at long range comes from the fact that while the odds of being struck at maximum range were very low, they weren't zero. In the present day it's easy to disregard the musket as a weapon; but in the context of waging warfare with limited resources, it would be foolish to pass up the slightest advantage.
As said in the video, they probably wouldn’t usually fire all at once
@@vanivanov9571 You say "Euro" musketeers, as if the Continental Army wasn't just as "bad" if not worse for a comparative lack of training and experience?
With reference to the definition of 'point blank range', HMS Rodney's 16" guns apparently fired on a flat trajectory at a little over 3,000 yards.
Yea and that’s a cannon not a small arm
@@tillercaesar-kq4outhe term is not exclusive to small arms.
Good video. It's sufficient to show that muskets were of adequate accuracy to say that, despite being weapons of war, they also were commonly used for hunting. And, while yes, rifles were the better hunting weapon, nobody would have used a musket for hunting if they didn't have a reasonable expectation of hitting their target.
Normally your target is at less than 100 yards, when hunting. And hunters didn't have just 6 practice shots like the conscripts, it was more like a thousand. That's why American sharpshooters got famous.
@@vanivanov9571I should have guessed you were one of those folk. I can see the "Ben Martin" in you through the screen!
Hey nice long shot showing the distances they would use, you did nice on that!
I own a 44 caliber Kentucky Long Rifle that I've had since I was a child.
The three mistakes modern marksmen make that have a dramatic effect on accuracy with a flint lock
1. Inconsistent powder.
Powder that's been left in a horn too long tends to grind itself into a finer powder that burns faster and the finer grains settle to the bottom , so muzzle velocity changes as you use up the powder in the horn.
2. Inconsistent tamping.
Ramming the ball in too tight or too loosely changes the muzzle velocity.
You should always put the same amount of pressure on the ball.
3. Lock time.
This is the time it takes from the time the sear releases on the trigger until the bullet leaves the barrel.
On a modern hunting rifle that's about 4-7 milliseconds
On a flintlock it's 45-90 milliseconds
That's enough time for your body to move the barrel around after you squeeze the trigger.
Most modern riflemen struggle to hold the rifle on target that long.
Watching today's marksmen use a flintlock is like watching a Millennial trying to drive a car with a manual transmission.
Now I was accurate out to 200 yards after a lot of practice, but I had to clean the barrel after every shot because fouling would prevent me from tamping the ball down consistently.
I have been told that the military used undersized balls so they could get up to 10 shots before fouling made it difficult to push the ball all the way in.
Thank you for another comprehensive, A-star video. I've always thought that if you are at a distance of 100 yards or below, you might as well use your bayonets. Your demonstration of the distances made things very easy to understand.
You can close 100 yards in less than 20 seconds; so, faster than the enemy can load and fire, especially under the stress of being charged. That's why the Scots and Swedes liked to only fire about once before engaging in melee.
Great video as always! I love the range visualization!
Minor correction: the byname Soldatenkönig (soldiers‘ king) doesn’t refer to Frederick I. (Bynames The Great or Old Fritz), but to his father Frederick Wilhelm I. They’re easy to confuse, though they hated each others guts. 😁
Ah, healthy family, those Hohenzollerns
Billy Dixon made a mile long shot in Adobe Texas, using a black powder 50-90 round.
The Afghan Jezaeel rifles "fired roughened bullets, long iron nails or even pebbles over a range of some 250 metres" according to an presently unavailable source on wikipedia.
The main reason muskets had disappointing results in big battles was because after a prolonged period of fire, the weapons would foul up with gun powder. After around 50 or 60 consecutive shots the hole in the pan would clog up & many soldiers carried a tool to unplug the hole.
As battles would go on for hours if not days, without opportunity to provide PMS to the musket, its effectiveness was marketly decreased.
As soon as linear form of combat was avoided, the muskets were much more accurate, & 300 yards as a distance could easily be realized. For example, the Afghan Jezaeelis, many of were smooth bore, were able to maintain consistent accuracy, because a.) they were the personal property of the Afghans who carried them; so proper maintenance was undoubtedly performed b.) the tactics of firing said rifle preferred sitting down & taking a crisp precise shot over rapid fire of line. A similar situation applied to the Kentucy Rifle of the America at the time, which was ALSO the private belongings of the soldier or militaman who carried it, & was shot in non rapid fire settings.
It had nothing to do with MOA or Black powder, but it had to do with maintenance. Today in the modern military they excessively stress to maintain weapon systems as much as possible; proper care is still not taken by virtually all frontline & even rear line/ reserved forces.
So Muskets were accurate, until they got misused, which was alot of them
Soldier: Why haven't rifles completely replaced muskets at this point?
Gunsmith: Rifles take too long to reload.
Soldier: Well what if you could detatch the barrel from the stock and load it from the other end?
Gunsmith: (Starts seeing dollar signs and hyperventilating.)
They'd already built breech-loaders long before this, but the complexity and precision necessary in their construction made them expensive, and unsuitable for military use. They were lavishly expensive toys for the wealthy.
@@ErwinPommel rifled muzzleloaders also existed alongside breechloaders. You're totally right about the complexity - in manufacturing, loading, preventing corrosion, etc
@@ErwinPommelSpecifically, an effective gas seal was a massive issue to overcome. Getting such a seal that could survive repeated firing was a massive challenge and although some good enough methods were found, it was only truly solved with brass cases ammunition.
@@88porpoise The iron breech charges had a fine service life but needed to be built to a huge level of precise fit or they leaked hot dirty gas all over.
Breech loaders have their own technological difficulties. If you want to dive into it, Ian McCollum made some good films about it.
There’s a difference between point target (one individual) and area target (a group or large object) accuracy. Smooth bore muskets are area target weapons and weren’t ever intended to be anything but that. Judging a smooth bore musket by its point target accuracy compared to a rifle is apples to oranges. It was never intended to be a point target weapon; the tactics didn’t call for point target accuracy.
A FAST 43 minutes Brandon! Another fine presentation!
Anyway you look at it you DON't want to be downrange of any group of men slinging those big bullets at you! Whether the bullet hits you or the guy next to you makes no difference to that bullet! You, your buddy, or somebody's going down! Ouch!
An additon to the concept of "area denial" or "firing on formations" that idea lasted right into the 20th Century. Many firearms enthusiasts look at World War One era rifles such as the British SMLE, the American 1903 Springfield, or the German 1898 Mauser and wonder why the rear sights have those extreme ranges indicated on them, in the case of the Springfield up to 2800 yards. Well, soldiers werent expected to hit an indiviual target at that range BUT they could (by volley firing) bring fire to bear on an enemy formation, either infantry or cavalry. Very important in those days of no field radios and limited field telephone usage. How often it was actually done is open to speculation though.
It’s fascinating how WWI was the high water mark for what the expected infantry small arms combat ranges were.
@@Materialist39 Right. The development of smokeless gunpowder and the high velocities it delivered was a real revolution in small arms which the militaries of the advanced nations were quick to take advantage of. The maximum practical lethal ranges of infantry small arms increased to ranges undreamed of in the past, amazingly so.
However, those ranges proved to be WAY more than necessary, but that's another story.
Between your channel and Capandball there really is a preponderance of evidence in explaining the hows and whys of 18th century warfare and I cannot undersell how valuable that is. Folks of that era may often have been fools in the reasons why of going to war, not much different than now in honesty, but the ways in which war was prosecuted were, in fact, quite well-thought.
Most concepts in war are constant in idea, just evolving in nature, and much of recent pop history and historiography seem to conflate the two causing unlike and unfair comparisons.
Like, comparing your average musketeer with a modern rifleman doesn't add much value. Comparing your average modern squad or platoon sized element with historical subdivisions and companies and the like may prove more enlightening. While modern small units typically have a separate base of fire and one or more maneuver elements, one could see a historical unit using some kind of line formation as both base of fire while being a maneuver element. Fundamentally the task hasn't changed, being to harass, suppress, close with, and destroy the enemy, but limitations of the era make their tactics make sense when viewed on the whole rather than on an individual basis
In my experience, there's a relatively easy way to test out the accuracy of muskets in relation to unit size. I've used DarthMod for Napoleon Total War to do this, specifically with light infantry because they can all fire close to the same time. For my tests I used two light infantry units of 240 men each, both firing on one militia unit of 500 men at their max range of 120 yards/meters. Russian Jagers with 25 accuracy can get around 30 hits (6.2% hit rate), French Chasseurs with 30 accuracy can get around 40 hits (8.3%), British Light Foot with 38 accuracy around 50 hits (10.4%), and Prussian Fusiliers with 42 accuracy around 50-60 hits (10-12%). A caveat for this test is that all units used were drawn in three ranks, which will effect the density of fire and the amount of hits per yard/meter. DarthMod really opened my eyes to how devastating muskets can be at that range, and is also very satisfying to see dozens of the enemy fall with a well timed volley. I'd be interested to see what they could do at further ranges, but without making the game unbalanced.
Of course, of course this all made sense. Being a former soldier of 15 years service, and with having an interest in how those of earlier years carried out their profession, I always knew muskets fired from large line formations were always area denial weapons. Reload speed being far more important than individual weapon accuracy. I used to imagine what would've happened in history if someone time traveled and gave 300 M-16's to a Colonial Army infantry company along with 2100 30 rnd magazines and 63,000 rounds of 5.56 nato.
So it basically boils down to, not good accuracy on point targets but in practical application very good accuracy for the way warfare was conducted at the time?
Musket was a first weapon that consistentlyand reliably punched trough plate armor.
Just what I need.
I am developing a Civ like video game and this video is very useful.
Would love to hear more about the game!
@@dmman33
It's going to be more tangible and replayable.
You will be able to progress faster and have more ways to win the game.
There are many interesting ideas I intend to implement in this game.
This game will be how Civ should have been.
More diplomacy.
More trade.
A Civ that is smart enough NOT to risk a war because of more trade and diplomacy.
A civilization that can remember your move and tactics in the game.
And many many more features and ideas.
Not everyday you hear of Old Fort Niagara! I loved going there as a kid, and I highly recommend it for everyone.
Thanks again for another wonderful video!
I always likened the Smooth bore musket to a modern day shotgun in battle, especially when they loaded with buck and ball loads.
Thank you for helping me reach my daily goal of learning something.
I am a range officer at my county's public rifle range and the guns on the range span modern machine guns to vintage flintlock muskets. I emphasize that some of the muskets on the firing line are antiques dating from as early as the end of the 18th Century. I have observed those muskets being shot at steel gongs ranging from 6" to 12" at distances from 50 yards to 100 yards. My county range has firing distances from 12 yards to 100 yards, but safety rules mandate that the metal targets be a minimum of 50 yards from the firing line. Under those range conditions I have observed modern rifles versus antique smooth bore muskets. Some of the shooters fire only off the bench and some shoot from standing at the maximum distances. I am not quick to dismiss period gunpowder as being poor quality--I put quality in the "unknown" category until I can prove otherwise. Testing vintage rifles with home-made gunpowder isn't the same as travelling back in time to experience the past. Many times I can only get an approximation because the past cannot be duplicated--I have to rely on "close enough." Even events occurring in the 20th Century cannot be replicated exactly.
I had a long military career and in order to understand modern warfare I studied infantry and cavalry in battle back to the 1890's. At first, I was dismayed that modern infantry weapons had a much lower kill rate than infantry rifles of the 1890's despite the linear tactics of the 1890's, lower fire rates, and frankly the modern M16-series rifle and ammunition have both better precision and accuracy, especially with modern sighting systems. Combat distances have shrunk mostly because infantry targets are now point targets instead of area targets. Shooting into a crowd is more likely to hit SOMEONE than shooting at an isolated individual. The modern battlefield is so lethal that either soldiers disperse or die--modern intervals between soldiers are something like ten meters and intervals between squads seem to be twenty-five meters, depending on visibility and terrain. Motorization was a game changer with greater impact than repeating rifles.
You taught me something today--I was in awe of how the Vauban forts managed to achieve grazing fire along their lengths. I visited Fort Demount between 1961 and 1963 for the first time--I'm unsure of the date because I was too young to read a calendar at the time. Dad also took me to the Maginot Line in that period. Revisiting the place in the early Eighties validated my first impression--I wasn't keeping track of my battlefield tours in the Eighties, so I don't know the year, only that it was in the chilly autumn. The lesson I took away was that musket fire had greater area fire range than I had supposed. I know that the rifled muskets of 1850 and beyond were routinely used in excess of 800 yards distance when defending fortified positions but thought that smooth bore muskets had petered out at 200 yards. Defensive position logistics are easier than when on the offense--generally speaking--so "throwing away" a ton of gunpowder and lead to suppress enemy maneuver on the killing fields in front of fortifications is a good trade-off. The sappers and miners have to dig another quarter mile when musket fire rains down at 800 instead of 400, and that extra time and effort may spell the difference between a successful siege and calling the siege off.
These videos are great. It helps with research on a historical fiction novel I’m working on. By any chance have there been any videos on Provost Marshals or a form of military police in this time period by the British
Now at the US civil war rifled muskets and conical bullets became common, this increased effective ranges a lot and pretty much killed off line formations, rifles was more dangerous than cavalry, at this point you get charged by cavalry but you was screwed anyway :)
You got trenches who was an thing during sieges since firearms became common but now it was an infantry tactic.
Brandon, if 10% of rounds strike a target at 300 yards, aren't you going through a group the size of the original (assuming replacements) with every 10 rounds fired? That seems extremely high if that is the maximum range. It would be a short battle. Very helpful video!
No, because 1, combat accuracy is far lower, 2, your target gets smaller each time, 3, not every hit is a casualty, 4, they'd actually be firing back reducing your firepower (see Lanchester's law), and 5, other factors like smoke building up, very common misfires, and other details would hamper the statistics.
A tiny correction and a bit of random info. Grenade Machine Guns (GMG) are fairly accurate up to 1000-1500 meters. The US manual describes that a GMG can hit a target at that range when using a powerful scope. GMGs can even be used as indirect artillery up to about 2000 meters for area fire. I know the US military teaches this and we see it frequently being done in Ukraine.
Very Informative as always. We need more people like Brandon on this Platform
Excellent video! I have a Pedersoli 2nd land pattern I bought in 1993. I've been hunting with it since then. I've taken many deer, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and a Canada goose with it.
I've always heard of the woeful inaccuracy of these muskets. I never understood why. At 25 yards , I consistently clover leaf a .735 ball over 80 grains powder. At 75- 100 yards I can keep all my shots on a paper plate. This is not a patched round ball either, it's a paper cartridge. True, it's not the standard .690 ball, and I do have to swab every 4th shot ( at the range,) but hunting, I don't fire that many times.
I've never had to track a deer very far after a good , solid hit in the boiler room, the wounds these guns inflict are serious.
I like the perspective you brought to the discussion. Too often , we see the numbers on paper, and there it is. Then there is what really took place on the battlefield , back in the day.
"Firefights werent ENDING at 300 yards, they were BEGINNING..."
Well done!
Hey Brandon, just a tiny bit of a correction on the german language, since I have noticed you, understandably, getting this incorrectly as a native english speaker:
the "e" at the end of words like "Kabinetskriege" is NOT silent. it is very much pronounced and oftentimes makes the important difference between singular and plural in the german language. Your pronounciation of the word itself is pretty good apart from that. to give you a pointer, the "e" at the end is usually pronounced like the english exclamation of indifference "eh"
so you would pronounce it "Kabinetskrieg[eh]"
I have noticed this in several non german speaking people on the internet/in the popculture like e.g. Sabatons "Bismarck" [Kriegsmarin instead of Kriegsmarin"e"] or many of Drachinifels video, so I hope you forgive my impertinence in regards to this specific pet peeve of mine
please keep up the good work!
It’s called having an accent. It is what it is. He isn’t a German speaker so why would he pronounce words with a German accent? Why are we even allowed to say the word “Germany”? Why aren’t you going to insist that we call it Deutschland instead?
? Aside from the fact that pronouncing german words correctly is not "pronouncing them with a german accent" (because fun fact, there is not ONE german accent), why are you so mad? I know that Brandon is the kind of person who likes to make an effort to get the details right, be that historical facts or the pronunciation of words, so I thought this might be helpful. For me personally (and a lot of other people in the world) it is a sign of respect to try and pronounce words from a foreign language correctly, instead of just saying "it is what it is"
@@winklgasse You speak our language and not the other way around. We will continue to do what people have always done historically and pronounce foreign words in the way that makes the most sense to us linguistically because we are not German and don’t care how German speakers pronounce words.
@@EldritchMadness that is a very weird ethno-nationalistic take on language. also who is this "we" you are speaking about. no offense but who died and made you king of all english speaking people? friendly word of advice, if you are triggered by one person giving another person an appreciated pointer on pronounciation, you should get off the internet for a while and rethink your priorities
@@winklgasse The “we” is native english speakers. No ethnicity mentioned. If anything you’re the one playing the ethnonationalist anyway by policing how those outside of native German speakers pronounce words. And as far as priorities are concerned, that’s my entire point. Somebody makes a nearly hour long in-depth video on a historical topic and you’re in the comments typing about how he didn’t pronounce something exactly “right”.
A brandon video is the perfect thing to cheer me up today. My dads in the ICU but luckily things are getting better now that hes on a liver transplant waiting list (sorry for trauma dumping but brandons videos genuinely cheer me up)
Hope he recovers fully.
Woah, this us probably the earliest I've been here. I thought this was something talked about before? I swear I remember a previous video saying muskets had an effective range of 400 yards?
I've mentioned these statistics, but I hadn't backed them up with specific information before.
@BrandonF Ah, I see. You know, now that I'm 30 min. I've gotta say that part of these misconceptions come from an ignorance on what combat actually looks like. Funnily enough, I bet as modern firefights use more ammunition faster and at longer ranges, our modern average battlefield accuracy is probably just as bad if not worse then an average 18th century battlefield.
The attitude towards musket accuracy may come from civilian hunters using modern smoothbore shotguns. The general rule of thumb for your average hunter is 50-60 yards for taking humane shots against white tail deer if you're using a conventional shotgun with nothing but a bead front sight (specialized slug guns with rifled barrels or chokes and conventional rifle sights can reach out to 100-120). But the key point here is a "humane shot" is intended to kill the deer in no more than 10-15 seconds so they don't have time to run away and get lost.
For military purposes a hit doesn't have to be a quick kill so long as you take the soldier out of the fight. A soldier that was wounded in the arm or leg would fall out of the line to be treated so the aim doesn't have to be as precise.
It is nice that you cited percentages from modern conflicts. It is often said that, especially in the world wars, artillery was the king of killing.
A critique to offer: I loved your live distance example. It was helpful. To exemplify this even more, could you consider a video with you and compatriots if available of an actual advance from 300 yards with a stopwatch timer and maybe a counter fire indicator, as we see you advance firing or at march. Couple it with the hypothetical casualties as you did briefly. That would be an awesome visual.
Greatly explained. I really liked your distance visualization (25:14 - 29:57) :D
The British light companies were so deadly accurate that the Americans feared them as much as their own riflemen.
I’ve known a couple folks who hunt with muskets
I figure if they’re accurate enough to hunt they ought to be accurate enough for battle
Astounding long-range accuracy out of a smoothbore weapon! Of course, drill is just as important as a mechanically accurate weapon.
There are some considerations to take into account. First, it is not easy to hit a moving man sized target over iron sights even with modern weapons. Second, without disciplined fire control, many men may be firing at the same target/s. But perhaps most importantly; SLA Marshall did some interesting research after WW2 and Korea and found that less than 50% of men ever fired their weapon at all. Ever. And half of those who did purposely attempted to miss. These observations are what led to our modern training methods based around operant conditioning--human shaped targets, varied ranges, moving targets, etc. This has increased the percentage of men actually engaging enemy significantly and reduced the "don't shoot to hit" percentage drastically.
Yet...the average rounds to casualty rate in Iraq was still over 500. There are many reasons for this but two are most important. First, a lot of combat does not occur in flat open spaces (and the enemy is trying hard not get shot), but in urban or complex terrain. Second, automatic weapons. Burst fire means that you are firing 6-9 rounds (ideally) every pull of the trigger on such weapons. Given that the enemy is not trying to get shot, that means a lot of rounds.
Add to all this is that what riflemen and machine gunners are really trying to do is fix the enemy for the real killers--mortars, arty, CAS/attack aviation, or grenades in addition to allowing maneuver against them.
While not strictly analogous to 18th century warfare, The truth is that the psychological factors of who fires, who actually aims, and who fires and aims with actual intent to kill remain the same. Hitting paper targets hurts no one, but aiming and shooting at actual people is far different.
This, and then take into account the often comparison with the long bow. See how scrutinized the musket performance was by contemporary sources, versus the long bow.
And finally realize, no, the musket was more accurate at range, the bow s just shrouded by myth of “skill”.
Clear example? When Medieval Korea was invaded by Japan, they made painstaking note that their heavy recurves was outranged by japanese matchlocks.
Too be fair some Japanese matchlocks were meant for long range engagements but most were short ranged weapons.
Bow where often derided as useless against armour and by the 1500's cheap plate armour was every where in Europe.
Also, it’s worthwhile to note that, outside of shoulder-to-shoulder fighting formations, the other guy gets a vote. It’s most obvious today in law enforcement officer involved shootings where 5 or 6 officers fire dozens of rounds altogether and make only a few hits on the person they’re shooting at. It’s fairly easy to shoot a perfect score on most law enforcement pistol qualifications (usually 50 shots altogether at ranges from 25 to 5 yards-some departments have harder qualifications) with a little practice, but officers’ accuracy drops under 50% in most shootings because the other guy can move suddenly and take cover whereas the paper target stays still.
I've seen shots out to 180 yards. Its certainly not a super accurate weapon, but with enough practice you can achieve really incredible things.
The way you flinched at the word “flintlock” lol, your pain to not say “firelock” was noticeable..
Important to remember the 100’ x 6’ paper target is a solid mass of “target”. Every bullet hitting it counts as a “hit”. In reality, even a densely packed line of men has a lot of empty space on it. Between each man, the top six inches is your hat, between your legs and the distance between your leg and the man to either sides’. So a certain percentage of those hits are grazes, shooting your hat off, bullets zipping between your legs, etc etc. Some hits are also going to just be minor wounds that doesn’t leave you a casualty.
So the percentage of hits doesn’t mean a one to one conversion to casualties.
Added to which, how many of those hits on the target would have hit the same person sized part of the target. Further in combat the first round would be far more effective (as that had been loaded with care with a lot let stress), with subsequent volleys being less effective (for example, in the American Civil War there are reports of muskets retrieved after a battle where a significant number had multiple musket balls in the barrel).
@@katywalker8322 I’ve always suspected the muskets recovered like that was a soldier who refused to shoot but kept going through the motions so as not to raise suspicion.
@@LotharTheFellhanded , possible, or just didn’t realise in the stress of battle. But there were quite a lot of double loaded muskets found
Another terrific video Brandon.
I notice that there are only a handful of responses from people who actually live fire a smooth bore flintlock musket.
I live fire my Brown Bess, short land pattern, every couple of months. From the bench rest, I can pretty consistently achieve a shot pattern of about 19 minutes of angle at ranges of 25, 50, and 100 yards. That equates to about 5, 10, and 20 inches, respectively. A standard silhouette target is about 22 inches wide; so a man measured from the outsides of his arms. Given the 19 minutes of angle at 100 yards, you'll be on target nearly every time. I haven't fired at targets beyond 100 yards. My guess is that at twice the distance, given the same minutes of angle, you'll get to 50% on target.
Aerodynamics on the musket ball are another matter. Just as with a curve ball in baseball, or a slice in golf, spin of the ball in flight will affect the flight path. Imperfections of the ball will "catch the wind" and impart spin. The protruding nub left over from the fabrication process, or seams, can create drag and spin the ball, then the curve ball/slice happens. And the longer the distance, the further the miss. How often and how much is anyone’s guess. I use a device that effectively removes the nub and dimples the musket ball, so that they look like tiny gray golf balls. I think this helps with accuracy.
Also, as far as lethality goes, there's the velocity of the ball at distance. I don't have a chronograph, so haven't measured my own. I've seen published muzzle velocities for the Brown Bess between 1,100 and 1,200 feet per second. That speed will decrease as the ball flies through the air. Being a round ball, the speed will decrease faster than a sharp pointed boat tail bullet due to aerodynamic drag. At some point, it will only be going fast enough to break a rib, maybe even not penetrate leather belting. Although I imagine you'll have a heck of a bruise. At what distance that will occur, without a scientific study, is anyone's guess.
im sure you loved the scene in napoleon with the british sniper 😂
an extremely informative and entertraining watch. Good work!
One video idea for you, which hopefully isn't too far off from the purpose of the channel, is an exploration of the development of the lock mechanisms of guns, matchlock, wheellock, doglock etc
or, alternatively, the development of a "true flintlock" from the early versions in later 1500s, snaplocks, doglocks, miquelet locks (I probably mistyped that) etc, till finally we reach the "true flintlock" of 1700s
I've been following you for years Brandon and I'd like to thank you because your channel is a bless for everybody interested in Musket era warfare like I am. I've been trying to put together a military flintlock fantasy story for a while now, and history, along with the info you have given me are truly helping and inspiring.
Cheers from Italy.
I think the (duelist1954) hade better results !
I’ve always considered the sights to be far more limiting than the lack of rifling.
Great video, and I genuinely love the reasonable discussion and disagreements it has sparked in the comments. This is one of those things that I “kind of” knew but I appreciate the detailed and cited breakdown.
"This is the second model, short land pattern musket.
For home defence as that is what the founding fathers intended."
Not true. Look up battle of Saratoga or kings mountain. Civilians could and were armed with guns that had tree times the range as muskets
The battle of New Orleans in the war of 1812 civilians with civilian arms overwhelms the best army in the world, some of them veterans of the Napoleonic war
From 1792 till 1821 the USGovernment supplied the Native Americans with arms that greatly out preformed the 1792 American musket, and many whites were buying these same guns
@@jeffreyrobinson3555 Americans love to beat their chest and fantasize about their militia being some sort of commando soldiers that could beat anyone in the world. Most of the time the British army had them on the run. New Orleans and Kings Mountain being exceptions, not the rule. Lucky you the French, Spanish and Dutch decided to help you out.
@@raftai665 no chest beating here. I know the war was won by standard soldiers fighting like Europeans
However the point of the post was not that militia did any thing special, but that at the time of our founding and writing the second amendment civilians were armed with guns that were superior to military arms at the time. Our second amendment did not provide for a right to own muskets but for a right to be armed with the best we could afford
@raftai665
I mean we did eventually have regulars.
We celebrate telling the militia to take 2 shots and run.
Grapeshot is for extreme home defense.
I love Dr. Burns’ blog! He’s got so much fascinating information that changed so much about what I “knew” of 18th century warfare.
This was a very good video! Thanks Brandon!
Interesting video! I see a lot of comparison between these and modern firearms, but I would LOVE
to see it go against the bow. I feel like there's a lot idolization there,
I just can't see how a bow could be significantly more accurate.
He actually made a video about it
@@MarcoCaprini-do3dq Must have missed it, thanks!
I remember in high school, apush, my teacher once pointed to the back corner of the classroom, at a high stack of books and stated that a trained marksman probably couldn’t hit it with a revolutionary war era musket, while trying to explain the changes weapon technology during the American civil war. I told him that a musket was not nearly so inaccurate, or they wouldn’t have been used.
There is also the effect of the balls nearly missing on the soldiers' morale, the mental effect of being in great danger of death would definitely take a toll on their composure
Combat is in part psychological
@@dmman33 indeed
At 15:43 I would point out that yes the other target boards were hit but it should be noted that the rounds landed in places where they would not have hit anyone based on the silhouette of the main board. I don’t know if the lines would be staggered where the first rank would be offset one way or the other from the second rank and so on making it so there are no gaps or smaller gaps, if so such as when a unit is firing back then yes it is taking out a soldier, but assuming they were marching rank and file then they wouldn’t even be wounded, just terrified that rounds went past their heads and/or legs. In this example it does prove how inaccurate the rifle in and of itself is at that range, however, I’m sure a regiment firing together would prove to be more accurate
Id like to think that soldiers where nervous and abit shakey when their friends start getting concussed and tossed back by a bouncing canon ball and musket ball. Fear might stricke and you look away from your enemy in a sense of just shooting blindly hoping the people in the distance will go away.
This is exactly what the quote in the video means whan it says "the men would become distracted by enemy fire." it's just worded so as to not paint their own soldiers as cowardly in a time where that wasn't acknowledged.
@@KyuschiThat's for the best.
There’s a major distance between ‘absolute’ range, and ‘effective range’. The M16, according to Wikipedia, has a maximum range of 3,600 meters. You’re gonna be spraying and praying at that range, but the M16’s maximum ‘effective’ range is around 550 to 800 meters. That’s the difference. The musket is most effective from 100 yards in, and gets decreasingly less accurate at a further range. In fact, as others have pointed out, most gun fights in modern warfare take place at around 100 yards or less, especially depending on the terrain. And the test by the reenactment group at Fort Niagara shows that in close formation, a missed shot could still find a target. What I’m taking away is that the bullets don’t evaporate after 100 or so yards, until it loses the energy to kill from drag or hits something, the shot will still kill beyond just 100 yards
I appreciate Brandon resurrecting the lost art form of the Mid-Atlantic accent.
I just watched a video of a man shooting a 1766 charleville, aiming for a targets head at 150 yards. And he got two of three shots in the forehead with a hangfire. Granted, he likely has a lot more time with the rifle than the regular soldier, likely closer to a colonial hunter or a trained sharpshooter, but a human head at 150 yards, and on a very windy day I'll add, shows great accuracy of the weapon in the hands of a trained shooter. Albeit im certain there are accuracy differences between the charleville and the brown bess, but both are smoothbores of the same time period
Didn’t aim? Then why the order 'Ready. Aim. Fire.'?
Even armies that didn't have an order "Aim," were still trained to do so!
And usually it was "make ready, present, fire"
In the 18th Century the British command would have been "Make ready! Present! Fire!" The aiming was implied by the word "present." General Washington made the command more explicit in the Continental Army, "Make ready! Take aim! Fire!"
When I was in the Marines I never heard "Ready, aim, fire!" at all. On the firing range it was "Ready on the left? Ready on the right? ALL ready on the firing line! Watch your targets! Commence firing!"
Very good video. Thank you also from adding pictures of 17th and 18th century fortresses to it. This were were build with the most advanced science and enginiering capacities of their time. The dimensions and measurement of walls, parapets and redoubts were calculated not only for the exchange of canon fire but also for the effective use of smoothbore muskets by common soldiers to defend the fortress. And also the most basic offensive tactics in a siege was to dig trenches to protect their own soldiers by musket fire from the walls and parapets which would be a useless work if smootbore muskets were really so useless.
The British had also really taken to the practice of "Volley fire" in 3 or 4 lines, they saw how it QUICKLY reduced the enemy numbers... probably the MAIN reason the Old Guard fled at Waterloo after the shock of seeing so many comrades falling down...
Actually not fully accurate. The Britain disliked the idea of multiple deep lines as it actually reduced the speed of fire (as troops having to crouch and reload and stand, and the drill to coordinate it well just slowed everything down).
The British army was actually trained in 2 lines and in a firing pattern of platoon.
Essentially each company would be split into two platoons and your 18/20 platoons would from both sides begin ripple firing into the centre two before repeating from the outside. This actually allowed for the continuous spring of fire you’d want as those on the flanks would have the 15-20 seconds to reload before the centre two finished and it would just ripple its way back down the line again.
The Middle Guard and not the Old Guard. The Old Guard were the two remaining squares of the French army that the Emperor had taken refuge inside before his departure from the battlefield. These squares were never broken and the British-Prussian cavalry stopped charging them, accepting that they did not know how to destroy them and then let them fall back in good order. I'm just restoring a little historical truth here, it does a lot of good sometimes.
Also volley fire has a brief pause for each unit to have some of their smoke clear somewhat and see where the enemy is. Accuracy is hitting the man aimed at. Effectiveness is hitting the enemy somewhere, even if not the man aimed at. Just as bayonet effectiveness is not how many are stabbed but how many run away.
Also the British under Wellington in the Peninsular War, partly due to manpower, fired from two ranks as opposed to three or four. The French advanced in columns towards the British lines, and the thin red line stood there and fired 4 shots per minute from two ranks. 120men, for example in two ranks puts down 60 rounds per volley as opposed to 40 in three ranks. Whilst in a minute the company got through 480 rounds, the impact of each volley would have been far greater.
@@peterbray5383 Good point!
When doing marksmanship practice and training with other players on War of Rights, we use 25% accuracy as the baseline for combat effectiveness. And that's with rifle muskets mostly 1861 and 54 patterns.
I can think of two potential problems with some of your analysis. One, is the gunpowder we have today better or worse in terms of quality to the black powder in the 18th century? Secondly, open order formation largely negates the accuracy of muskets, even at close range, making it much easier to avoid causalities.
To clarify what I mean about black powder today being better or worse than 18th century gunpowder, a similar case is that armor that we have today being less well made than the armor made in the Middle Ages.
That's why it's so important to use historical data alongside any potential modern tests. The more data you have, the easier it is to get a clear picture across so many different sets of variables. Though I wouldn't say that open-order negates accuracy- it just reduces it.
I think it bears mentioning that modern body armor isn't inferior in quality to medieval armor. It's designed to defend against a different threat. Medieval armor largely defended against stabbing and slashing attacks with swords, spears, axes, and bows, with a degree of protection against blunt force trauma. Modern armor, however, is focused on stopping bullets traveling at Mach Jesus. Against those threats, there isn't a suit of Medieval plate that is holding up.
Not a question of quality, merely of what threat they are designed to defeat.
@@nicholaswalsh4462 with respect to armor, I meant replicas of medieval harness, as it was called in those days, not modern kevlar armor and the like.
@@gaslightstudiosrebooted3432 oh...fair enough. Though I'd still argue that most replicas aren't manufactured with the intention of being used as protective armor.
Unsurprisingly, the accuracy of muskets is limited by the same factor as the accuracy of any firearm that doesn't have a magnifying sight - human vision. Besides that battlefield accuracy is a very poor way to judge the accuracy of a weapon, and not just because of suppressive fire. I forget the details, but afaik the US military did a survey after WW2, and it turned out that the vast majority of men where only firing in the general direction of the enemy and only around 2% would take deliberate aim at individual combatants. Turns out that calmly shooting another person is difficult under the best of circumstances, let alone when there's bullets coming your way too.
Even if you can take out 1 soldier out of 100, you are already at an effective range. If the enemy will just stand there and let you fire on them, they loose signifact amount of soldiers over time before any engagement even beggins. It is this notion of danger that can turn the entire unit into retreat.
Just imagine you stand there doing nothing and you hear the shots... one guys falls. Okay whatever. Than another volley and two guys fall. Than another volley and this time nobody falls. But you stand there still under the pressure of being the next in line to be shot and the tension is piling up. After 10 minutes of idle standing, maybe 20 soldiers already lie dead or wounded and you didn't do nothing yet. As a commander you must know the safe distance and make sure you are not idly standing in their range for too long.
While there's some merit to this point, there are a couple of realities that need to be kept in mind when considering firefights at extreme distances.
Fist of all, the logistics of 18th century weren't very good, not to speak of the fact that in comparison to more modern nations, the industrial and economical capabilities of the nations of the times were lesser. An army would have carried a limited amount of powder that could not necessarily be reliably and often replenished during a particular portion of a campaign. I'm not saying that they were powder-starved, per say, but that inconsiderate usage would have caused situations where the stock was uncomfortably low and commanders would undoubtedly want to avoid such issues. Lead was easier, but unsurprisingly created a weight issue to the supply train in turn. Supply loadout is a zero-sum game after all; You can only carry so much stuff and what you pack in surplus will be out of something else. Both together meant that commanders had logistical and strategic incentives to use their supplies effectively and get the best out of the economic investment while maintaining operational capability.
The other factor is that black powder burns very dirty and fouls the barrels quickly. This dirty burning also produces the signatory thick smoke cloud. It causes various issues, chief among them being that reloading becomes difficult as the available space shrinks due to the foulage. Cleaning the gun takes a decent bit of time that is probably not available mid-battle, and every shot a soldier takes fouls the barrel further. Highly ineffective gunnery risked leaving the soldier significantly limited in firepower later on if the battle lasted long, potentially meaning the difference between being able to get a volley off before a charge landing or not.
I think there is something else at play, something that Lindybiege touched on a few years ago and that is "shooting to kill." There was a survey of the US Army done in 1946 by General Marshall. He found that only 2% of the soldiers shot to kill when in position to do so; and only 15% fired in the general direction of the enemy. Since then, NATO armies have been using operant conditioning as means of training to get the shoot to kill rate up to 90% or more.
Bearing in mind we are talking about the end of the church age and start of the enlightenment; where cultures will have grown up with the gospel "thou shalt not kill", killing being a mortal sin, a very strong philosophical worldview. If soldiers in the modern-day, during WWII, had trouble shooting to kill, why wouldn't the same apply to the 17th-19th centuries? The film "Waterloo" from 1970 illustrates this beautifully.
Let's go Brandon!
Who asked
The only brandon I like!
@@rafaa4988 obviously you asked, like we all remember that, except for you ig…
@@VLSGyou need to take your daily medice pill mate. I think you're starting to see and hear things xd
@@pablojn4826 Same
Now imagine the even greater accuracy of the rifled muskets during the American Civil War but the same style of tactics, and you see why there were regiments routinely taking 60-70%+ casualties in one particular brutal fight.
Great work thank you and big shoutout from Germany