"WSS - Platoon vs Rank fire" Topic

Is it worth modelling – was the actual difference in effect that much – and if so how? I am using Black Powder, but if you use different rules feel free to explain.

I have also been thinking about this. I reckoned on giving the Rank Fire unit a bonus that would make their first volley more effective than the platoon firing unit but subsequent turns less so

eg –
Platoon fire unit get 3 dice per turn firing
Rank unit get 4 dice for their first turn then 2 for subsequent turns.

After reading a few things it seems that it wouldn't be worth modelling in black powder. The difference between 3 dice and any other number of dice is pretty big for a unit.

If you were to give the units more dice, say 9 or 12, then you could possibly model it by giving the platoon fire 10 or 13 or something more like what mattspooner suggests. But with three dice it doesn't seem like it would be accurate to give them 33% or 50% more fire than other units.

One way you could do it is to make one of their shots more "armour piercing" so for every three shots one of them gives a -1 to the morale save.

In Age of Honor (Fire & Fury for Age of Reason, units are brigades) we give 2 Fire Points per stand if Platoon Fire/Linear, 1.5 if Fire by Rank, 1 if Shock infantry and 1/2 if mounted fire.

Regards, Bill Gray
ageofeagles.grouply.com

I considered allowing one miss rerolled

I'd give the platoon fire people a first volley bonus, since I suspect all fire systems broke down after a few minutes.

There is one side of this discussion that says there shouldn't be a difference at all. If you look at some other rule sets they do not give a fire combat bonus for platoon fire. Their reasoning is that the difference was so little that it isn't worth putting into the rules plus it just adds a layer of complexity which may not be needed. Also, their second reason is that the history is written by the victors, the English in this case. So naturally the English would point to their fire system as being better which of course led to their victories.

My group's personal opinion is that the amount of fire was not that significantly greater coming from the platoon fire system and does not warrant a fire combat bonus. But the impact to the enemy unit receiving that fire was that they would always be taking some losses or just be under fire more often which adds stress to the men and makes it that much more difficult for the officers to control their unit even if no one was hit. Therefore we feel it is more of a moral negative to the receiving unit then a fire combat bonus to the firing unit.

And as the french, who was on the receiving side, for the whole war, didnt adopt it, it probably hadnt any effect in battle. If it was effective, it would have been adopted promptly. I would say ignore it.

I would also agree that Platoon firing at this time was no different to rank firing. There is absolutely no reliable evidence that it was and a lot that it was basically the same. The only evidence there is comes from very biased propaganda.

As hornblaeser has mentioned the French ignored, but not just for the period of the war but for 60 years! Even worse the French used it before this time and stopped using it because it doesn't work.

But as you are using Black Powder then do whatever you want. It is hardly a serious set of rules so it will hardly matter.

For Black Powder I am giving the french the first fire bonus. So a +1 dice. The allies Dutch, English are getting a base of 4 firing dice.

"I would also agree that Platoon firing at this time was no different to rank firing"

so why did platoon fire live on and rank firing die out?

"French used it before this time and stopped using it because it doesn't work."

as above

Le Roi Soliel represents this by the different Musket types, A being Platoon Fire, B being the Rank fire of the French and Allies to approx 1708. After that, the French move to Musket A. However the Spanish and Bavarians remain Musket B.

I don't think platoon fire is as strong as some rules have it, but the French did eventually adopt platoon fire.

One reason they didn't earlier was they relied on the cold steel "a prest" attack rather than firepower. As the rate of musket fire increased during the century due to flintlocks, paper cartridges and iron ramrods, they changed their minds. The French were always retro regarding musktetry due to their reliance on cold steel.

From what I've read, platoon firing was something of a myth. Worked great on the drill field, fell apart in practice. Contemporary accounts from the Prussians in the SYW and the British in the Napoleonic Wars both seem to agree it wasn't really used in practice. What did seem to be the real difference was armies trained to platoon fire were more disciplined, and held their fire until 50 paces (or so), so their initial volleys were far more effective. Duffy's Armies of Frederick the Great and Armies of Maria Teresa both contain contemporary accounts from both sides that indicate that the real difference came from one side waiting to fire at 50 paces while the other started blazing away at 150 to 200 paces

Anybody remember Frank Chadwick's horse and musket rules (published as a pull-out in the Courier, I think) that eventually were very much modified to become "Volley and Bayonet"? Not only did the two doctrines play differently, you had to base them differently!

Allen

Blucher: The key part of the phrase is 'at this time' -i.e. during the WSS.Platoon firing might have worked in the 1740's and afterwards. Big changes had happened after the WSS to maybe make it better than rank firing. So it might work in the SYW but it certainly doesn't in the WSS.

But I would agree with Berlichtingen that there is a great deal of doubt about whether it was actually possible to use in practice at any time. Certainly whenever it is mentioned it is in a context that makes it clear that it was something unusual to see it.

1812: Napoleon's Russian Campaign. Richard Riehn.

This book
has an excellent discussion about musket systems all the way back to Corporal John's time.
In it he postulates that there was a small theoretical advantage to platoon firing but once the firing started it soon became impossible to control due to smoke and noise. Once troops started to fire raggedly and at will (he says this happened in all armies)effectiveness dropped off. Firing by ranks was initially less effective BUT the unit could be prevented from drifting into this state of "battle fire" for longer and therefore their effectiveness remained longer than those troops who fired by platoons. Platoon fire was later, according to him abandoned by the Prussians as unworkable, however just to muddy things the French eventually did take it up, starting with some units in the war against Marlborough.

I would ignore it myself or a small first fire bonus at the most.

The discipline involved in training in platoon firing that Berchtlingen points out above may easily lead to a material advantage in combat if the infantry can keep their cool heads longer than the enemy--even if they actually are firing at will after the first few rounds of regular volleys. vtsao's suggestion for a first fire bonus in the first round seems more reasonable than awarding no bonus at all. According to Duffy and Nosworthy, the performance of Prussian and British musketry inspired comments from their enemies--probably not a very biased opinion.

Over the years our group has tried many ways to reflect the two schools of firing. Our conclusion was – to complex to make a difference on the table top.
Moves had to broken down into phases and command structures down to platoons or ranks, then record keeping was needed to know who was loading and who was firing. And since we all cheat we thought best to drop it and simplify the rules.

As to the British and Prussian fire being better than the French, I think this may have more to do with training. The Brits and Prussians drilled at firing using live ammo, the French used wooden flints.

Thank you all for your comments. I'm getting the same sort of responses elsewhere.

Consequentially I am giving Platoon firers the +1 First fire bonus, and rank firers nothing on first shot.

This will not make my opponent on Friday night happy. The reason for this question was his indication that Platoon fire was very effective (he appears to be getting "Platoon fire" confused with "MG42")

A final note on platoon fire. All nations in the WSS knew how to perform platoon fire. The French experimented with it in the 1690s but it didn't fit their philosophy of being on the attack. Platoon fire in the WSS is much more of a defensive action then used as an offensive weapon. Only by the SYW did the Prussians perfect it given the 'new' cadence marching.

I would give every unit a first fire bonus as all muskets are clean and reliable. Imagine the fire and shock effect of 200 muskets at 50 paces all fired at once, then twice then a third time? Whether they hit anything or not, the psychological effect on the receiving end could be staggering. I look at it like this, rank firing gives 3-4 body blows while platoon firing gives several jabs. In the end, both are about as damaging. Remember, accuracy will be the same regardless of the system used and in the course of 10 minutes, the same number of shots fired, the end result is going to be nearly identical, it will all depend upon unit integrity and morale as to who will remain standing.

When did the Prussians come up with the self priming pan and iron ramrod? As I think these would have a great effect on firing.

The Prussians first used iron ramrods in the War of Austrian Succession and were the only users until the SYW when just about all armies had them. The "self priming pan" is the conical touch hole not utilized until about 1780-1790 along with the "two ended" ramrod which didn't need to be reversed after being extracted from the carrier for use. The Prussians of 1780 apparently could fire up to seven shots per minute(but only on the parade ground with blanks). All evidence shows that regardless of ramrod or touch hole, three shots per minute in battle was as good as it got, and they sure weren't aiming at that rate!
The iron ramrod didn't work any faster, it just didn't break. The only advantage the Prussians had was disipline, order, and speed. They didn't shoot any better, in fact, it could be argued they were less accurate because the emphasis was on the quantity of fire, not quality. Just as Walmart does, the Prussians made it up in volume.

Like what GZ Fuss said. especially while using the BP rules. Between the firing dice and the saving dice, all serious distinctions would be lost. I figure after the first volley of whatever kind, it would devolve into a semi-controlled zoo in the ranks. Most officers would probably be content to keep the men from running away and having them do something useful after first contact.

I am currently reading the first volume of the former German general staff history of the wars of Frederick the great, publ. 1890's. It has a good summery on state of the art of warfare on the eve of the WAS, and is about the best summery I have ever read. All very convincing. It states that fire by ranks was still in wide use. Interesting point here is that it was the preferred sort of fire for all infantry not moving at a cadenced step. Fire by bataillon sub divisions such as pelotons require cadenced step. They state infantry moving by cadenced step could be easier controlled and kept better order. Fire by ranks with non cadence infantry performed more rugged and tended to run out of officers control soner then the other. Looking at the issue this way, it may well be more a command control issue then the purly technical question as to what method caused more casualties.

crogge1757: Does the German history say when cadenced step was started and by whom?

The best information I have says that either Anhalt Dessau started using it during the WSS period (or shortly after) or the Swedes used it during the GNW and it then spread to other nations after the WSS/GNW. But clearly if the German history is correct the date of the introduction of cadenced step would be important.

I think the British adopted the cadenced step c.1740.

@alincoln

No, unfortunately, Generalstaff history doesn't say much on what army adopded it at what date. They say most armies did not have it by 1740. The text focuses mainly on Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, and finally the French. Ohter participating armies such as the English or the Dutch are not included. Platoon fire was around since WSS, and according to David Chandlers book "Marbgorough as Military Commander" certain related types of fire were known in the English army even before. IFAIK Marlgorough's Flandres armies including Dessau's regiment created the 18th century way during the WSS. Prior to the cadence step and not to be confused with it, a step to a tact, indicated by the beat of the drums was in wide use. So, one should not go so far as to say no sub-division fire possible without cadence step. It was done before. Generalstaff states Dessau introduced it in the Prussian army. His iron ramrods were introduced by royal ordonnance of 1718/19 into the entire army. A new infantry drill regulation was introduced around 1726. Possibly around this date. I believe the issue isn't so easy for uniformity in drill only gradually built up as the century moved on. In some armies faster (Prussia), and in others slower (namly Austria and France). Process however was the same with all. Some regimental commander would have given his drill instrucions into print, othes purchased a copy, and for lack of having their own, simply copied it. This way, the more popular ones would have been in wider use.

@crogge:

I agree with what you say generally, although platoon fire dates back to at least the 1680's and probably earlier. I certainly think that cadenced step was a major change and was decisive & so it is important to track down when it started, etc. Of course it probably took time to spread but as we have no 'start date' for it we can not know this for sure.

But what I also had in mind is that what the German General staff say does not make sense. If rank fire was the prefered method for all units not using cadenced step and armies don't have this until say 1740 then how can units be using platoon fire in WSS or earlier times.

Put plainly it seems to me that the German general staff just have it wrong. Probably because they are talking about the situation in 1740 and in the WSS (or earlier) things were different.

Can I ask you for the page numbers in the German general staff history which deal with this? I will use by bad German to look at it :)

I'd have thought that firing by rank would take longer to get organised because of the distances from the extremes of the line to the fellow giving the orders. There would be some waiting until everyone was ready, or the volume of fire would fall off as individuals fell behind. While the rolling firing by platoon might degenerate, the platoons themselves would be easier to keep under local command.

@alincoln,

Go agead, the digitalized book can be found at archive org
link
it is a rather complete scan as it doesn't have any fold outs. Tactics and art of war starts at page 129 or n146 when reading online.
Rereading the respective section, the advantage of the cadence step was more precisely that of making it easier for the infantry to advance / attack and conduct fire at the same time (pp. 136 ff. and footnotes below) As long as you remain stationary anyone can do fire combat of any sort, That's how I read it, at least.

Hi

time scale………….

If your rules are, say 15minute turns, then what appreciable difference does it make?

If your rules are, say, ten seconds, then when the fire is delivered and when the reloads are available might have an import.

Or are we just discussing the details just to do it?

Rocky

@Symbiotic Relationship

Any delay for transmitting orders would be the same for both types as in either case the order would have to be passed from a single guy along the line. But given the very low rates of fire in the WSS I don't think this would be a problem.

On platoon firing (and almost certainly rank firing as well) degeneration some famous commentator (I can't remember who) from the time said that in 40 years of combat he had never seen a battalion complete a single sequence of platoon fire in the field!

@crogge

I already have the book but as my German isn't good it is easier if some one can give me a reference to a specific part. So thanks :)

The idea of making it easier to advance and fire makes more sense than the earlier idea. But it would of course mean less fire.

Thanks again for the references I will look at them.

Rocky – if method A delivered more accurate fire than method B over the course of 10 seconds, and keep this rate up for 15 minutes then over 15 minutes the differance could be quite noticeable!

HOWEVER
There were, I understand 8 Platoons. If a man could fire 2 shots a minute, lets call it 1 per 32 seconds for the maths, then to keep the rolling fire that is each platoon every 4 seconds. I reckon than is BANG BANG 3 4 BANG BANG 3 4.

To keep the same sort of discipline (ie 1st being ready by the time last has fired, or at least able to hit their mark) in rank it is every 9 seconds: More than enough time for a rank to advance and make ready.

1/8th every 4 seconds vs 1/4 of muskets every 9. This is before it looses parade ground regularity, and casualties start to tell.

Additionally I can quite imagine that men in platoon fire would fire early – men on the battle field get jumpy, and if a few in a platoon fire early the natural reaction would for the rest to join in – humans go with the crowd.

Lines are harder to fire too early- they are not in a position to for much of the time.

@Last Hussar

I believe your speculation on rate of fire is a tad too optimistic. I'd say the ability to fire and load a musket 2 or 3 times a minute cannot be taken as a basis for what happened on a battlefield. Any unit would run out of ammo within 20 minutes, and we know the average encounter often lasted much longer. From Prussian sources the rate of fire by a bataillon is rather well known. Firing by pelotons (with 8 firings to a bataillon) it would get out 1 salvo every 10 seconds. Each peloton having fired once after 80 seconds. This was considered to be a good performance. Maréchal Belle-Isle attended an exercise of the Prussian Guards somewhere in Bohemia during a WAS campaign and had observed exactly that. However, his account had been misread and soon Europes gazettes wrote Prussians fired 6 rounds a minute – reading each musket firing 6 rounds. That this rate may well have been rather paracticable would be confirmed by the accounts of the Austrian officer of IR2 Cogniazzo who stated with fire by divisions (4 or 6 firings to a bataillon) the intervals were found being too short, so that it could not be kept up for more then 1 turn.
The English regiment Kingsley IR 20, is said to have adopted the Prussian drill during the 7YW and having improved it by leaving out 1 or 2 manuals and with particular pride claimed it would shoot faster than the Prussians :-)
Maybe 7YW Kingsley would, thus, qualify for an extra die roll :-)

Hi

I think we just got trapped into game stuff, again!

It is this way, when someone writes, "fighting all day" or similar, this is not actually Fighting all day.

Similarly, I don't see a way for 20 minutes of continuous fire. Fire primarily produces results due to morale not casualties.

I don't have a problem with 3 rounds a minute, just the concept of doing so without one side or another failing for more than a couple minutes. We get blinded by scale again.

Rocky

Crogge – I realise the 'drill book' 2 rounds a minute is optimistic. My point was that even at the fastest possible rate of reload, for the platoon fire to be truely continuous then it would mean 1 shot only every 4 seconds, or it would soon break down – if each platoon fires after just 3 seconds these is a 7 second gap after PL8 while PL1 is still reloading

On rates of fire we just can't be certain. But I would suggest 1 round per minute maximum in the WSS and in perfect conditions. More usually it would be less than this and often a lot less.

On platoons firing and timing I would remind you that in the WSS (and I think later but I can't remember off hand) the platoons were normally organised into 3 or 4 'firings', depending on if a reserve was kept. The number of platoons used in each 'firing' but it was always 3 or 4 'firings'.

This means that you get one 'firing' every 7.5 or 10 seconds at the optomistic rates in the drill books. But one 'firing' every 15 or 20 second or less if being more realistic.

Rank firing also had 3 or 4 'firings' in their sequence, although of course who fired was different.

1 round a minute/man seems painfully slow for flintlock drill, unless accounting for fatigue or smoke obscuring the target. How long did 18th c firefights last before one side withdrew or broke? Would less than 15 minutes firing be sufficient at 50 yards range for casualties to approach 25% or 50%? Should that casualty account include stragglers falling out of the line?

1 platoon every 10 seconds seems painfully slow – hardly the massive rolling fire a freind tries to convince me of. Thats the sort of timing for rank firing.

I wonder now if what you got was the unit firing the whole lot in 15-20 seconds, the platoons following on quickly from one another. That is a lot of fire in one go, compared to the necessity of filtering ranks back, which will slow things down.

However what does happen is 1/8 of the fire power is delivered on a narrow frontage, vs 1/4 on a wider frontage. Plus gaps will open up easier in the thinner platoon firing lines.

I'm going to stick with the first fire bonus for platoon firers.

It's amazing how we gamers get so tied up(and worked up) over numbers and statistics. We are trying to recreate the results of big battles using data from infinite minutia of rounds per minute and such. What a fire fight between to battalions comes down to is, 500-700 men on each side blazing away at 30-50 yards until one side has had enough. Fire systems lore and myth doesn't matter, the same number of men will fire regardless of the system used. The only data we need concern ourselves with is the percentage of hits and the resolve of the units. As we all know,at 30-50yds, anywhere from 5-25% of rounds fired will hit the target. Since most rules have a unspecified time scale per turn(15min – 1 hr) we cannot measure how many shots are fired in a turn. So what to do? Think of this. Every complete firing of 500-700 men has a total of 25-175
"hits". Unit quality, visibility, cover etc. being the variable "modifiers". After just 3 complete firings the battalion will have hit 75-525 times. Even with a low average of 10% hits, the enemy has taken 150-210(30%) casualties and the firefight would be over in just a few minutes. If this is the case, how did "extended firefights" happen? Probably because the range was longer and thus very few rounds hit and/or the rate/volume of fire was pretty low. What it boils down to is, no system was better than the other in the course of a firefight, the same number of bullets would be fired by the same number of men causing the same number of casualties. The supposed advantage of the platoon fire system's "constant fire" irritant degrading the enemy's morale would be balanced out by the crashing and devastating volleys the rank fire system has upon morale.

Have at you!
Brian

1 round per minute: You have to remember 2 things here. First of all the 18th century was a period of rapid change so talking about '18th century rates of fire' is meaningless. This is why generic rules that try to do all the 18th century, let alone other periods, are rubbish – I would just bin them. The second thing is that 1 round per minute (which is a maximum and real rates of fire were almost certainly a lot less) was about twice as fast as could be done before. So it was massive fire power compared to what came before and what people were used to. These things are always relative to what came before.

@Last Hussar: Firing the whole battalion in one go or in a series of quick fires defeats the point of both firing systems. They are both designed so that there are always some of the troops loaded to tackle and surprises. Having said that I suspect that it was common for all units to fire battalion volleys whatever system they were supposed to be using, but that is a different matter.

Also rank firers don't 'filter back'. They stopped doing that a long time before. They kneeled in place and stood to fire. Platoon firers moved around though and this is why their rate of fire was probably slower. But as mentioned before I wouldn't guess that platoon firing was slow enough to have an effect.

As I said in my previous post in the WSS (and later) there were 4 (or sometimes 3 firings) in a platoon firing system. A full strength British battalion in the WSS for example had 16 platoons. 4 of these spread across the unit frontage would fire together in a single 'firing'. The battlaion was supposed to fire 4 'firings' and then start again, but it is clear that even doing this once was very uncommon. So it would be 1/4 fire on 4 narrow frontages spread acros the frontage and 1/4 fire across the whole frontage.

@Grenadiers: I kind of agree with your sentiment but with some reservations. The logic you give is prime evidence for low rates of fire – simple put firefights often took hours and were in the open at short range. So only low rates of fire can account for the length of them.

But I would disagree with other parts of your idea but I don't have time to go into. For example it was clearly possible that one system or another could produce significantly faster or more accurate firing & thuis would have an effect.

Finally this will be my last post on this as I have other things to do – like writing a book on all this! But remember that all the 'evidence' for platoon firing being better in the WSS period comes from unreliable primary sources. These sources are little more than propaganda and are NOT balanced or reasoned opinions.

Could throw in 2p worth here from a tutorial discussion the the late great David Chandler gave on this very topic. And if its good enough for him…..

His view is that the effect of Rank fire was intense. But then the firing line would go silent for a bit in the intervals of reloading to keep up a steady fire.

For their target unit, the expectation of fire would be stressing, then after the fire had been received the gap gave them a breathing space. If you had survived the fire, you had time to move or recover or return fire etc.

Platoon fire put out a continuous stream of fire, starting at the ends of the line and working its way in to the centre where a double side by side platoon volley fire was issued. There were no safe interludes. After the centre fired the ends began again. It affected morale much more to be under constant fire.

The example he gave were "The WIld Geese" at Blenheim, where two Irish units engaged each other on opposite sides. Similar troops, similar arms, similar morale, jst different fire doctrines. The French Irish fired by rank in the French style, the English Irish by platoon.

The Platoon fire was considerably more effective, and the French Irish broke and ran.

"Warfare in the Age of Marlborough" a must have text which covers this concept in some detail.

Some thoughts:

1) Wooden ramrods apparently produced a slower rate of fire than was typical with the later metal ramrods. Throw in fatigue from marching, poor diet/accommodation, and prior movement on the battlefield, and the need to re-organise for the first volley, and re-align (from casualties and the natural disorganisation from having to "unlock" the ranks to re-load, and one or two rounds a minute is not so unlikely.

2) Didn't many officers state that they never saw any orderly system of firing survive the first one or two rounds? The main reason they gave was that the men (seeing their comrades falling around them and/or the enemy preparing to shoot first) would automatically start firing at will – even breaking the sequence of "firings" in their desire to "get one in first" before the enemy knocked them over.

3) In the rare event that either firing system survived the chaos after Round One, both had the advantage that the enemy's front rank would not absorb the entire fire of the battalion (ie a few men taking multiple hits), but that successive volleys would be concentrated on the survivors, resulting in more casualties per volley.

Supercilious is correct when he says that fire systems would not last past the first couple of shots. On firing, the Earl of Stair said that at Dettingen the men kept up a running fire of their own accord and that this was always the case.

If one listen's to Wolfe's comentary on firing he says that it was more important that the men properly load their muskets rather than firing fast.

The French did fire by rank from a six rank line at the beginning of the WSS but began to reduce the number of ranks as the war progressed. Fire by ranks was probably more useful in the defense than on the attack. I imagine that most armies would only fire the first two or three ranks in the attack and in that case just fire a volley and then attack/advance/charge.

In the latter 17th century, Turenne felt that the only effective fire was that of skirmishers using independent and most likely aimed fire.

Food for thought.

v/r

Joe