"Unit Depth during the War of Spanish Succession" Topic

Did units using platoon or volley fire deploy in the same number of ranks? What evidence is out there which shows that they did or did not? What were the consequences of deploying in fewer ranks? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Platoon fire used 3 ranks. Rank fire used 4-6 ranks. usually 4 ranks. The bigger depth was because the pike had only recently been discarded. The usual practice was to deploy the shot to the same depth as the pike. When the pike were rearmed with muskets, the initial formations were much the same…just no pike! reduced to 5 and then 4 ranks for efficiency. That's my 2 cents. Much of it comes from the Editions Brokaw (Pat Condray) and the CS Grant Books on the subject.

To add to what joker wrote. "The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough" by David Chandler & "Anatomy of Victory: Battle Tactics, 1689-1763" by Brent Nosworthy, discuss these in depth. There are also several books on the battles "GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAYS: Marlborough's Battles "& "Blenheim" to name a few that all discuss the platoon and rank firing.
The platoon firing deploying in fewer ranks brought more guns to bear along a wider front. Platoon firing took more training and drill where the Rank firing was more concentrated. There is a personal account of the different firings in one battle between 2 Irish regiments one fighting for the British (using platoon) and the other fighting for the French (using rank). The initial volley from the "Rank" firing is more devastating moral wise but the platoon firing was continuous and drove the rank firing away after 3 platoon firings. When the platoon firing Irish advanced they had less than 10 causalities the Rank firing left 50 wounded on the field. Now the caveat to this is the Allies used heavier weight ammunition than the French so this may have had something to do with the results too.
At this time there were not any consequences in fewer ranks in fact it was an advantage as they overlapped the rank firing infantry frontage which allowed the flank companies to turn in and fire on the rank firing infantry (since they had a shorter frontage).
Sorry for the long post and I hope this helps.

Thank you, most opinions seem to state that platoon fire was more effective as time went on while rank fire delivered a more effective initial volley. The increased effectiveness of so called platoon fire was not due to the method of fire, but simply due to the fact that they were deployed in 3 ranks which allowed more individuals to fire.

The increased effectiveness of so called platoon fire was not due to the method of fire, but simply due to the fact that they were deployed in 3 ranks which allowed more individuals to fire.

There is definitely a psychological component as well. The usual rank fire drill is to have the 4-6 ranks cycle through firing their rounds. Once done, then they wold reload. This left 20-30 seconds where the entire regiment is not firing. So once the enemy weathers the storm of shot, they get a 30 second respite.

Conversely, platoons are probably firing every 5-10 seconds. So there is no respite for the rank fire troops. Essentially, there is some shot in the air at all times during a firefight. So so enemies are under constant psychological pressure.

Also, keep in mind there is a movement component with rank fire. The rank that is firing, moves a few paces forward, fires and then retires to the back of the formation. They then wait eagerly for the reload order. That can't be easy, especially under a steady stream of fire. It does make me wonder why the doctrine was to wait until the whole battalion fired before reloading. It seems to me that giving a reload order immediately to the last rank to fire would be trivial.

its interesting to me that the next development was a salvo of 2-3 ranks from a 3 deep formation, so perhaps the complex platoon firing was not such a boon after all?

A caveat: the oft-quoted tale of the platoon fire vs. rank fire comes from the memoirs of Captain Robert Parker. Parker is clearly an excellent witness to what he saw, no tall tales, no claims of his own greatness. But what must be remembered is that he was not present at the oft-quoted fight. He was back in Ireland raising new levies for his regiment. He is repeating a story heard. I'm sure his regiment beat the opposing Irish regiment (in French service). But the detailed information was told to him. And we don't know if the person he heard it from was embellishing. A grain of salt is in order, though many gamers don't want to hear this about the proof of the superiority of platoon fire.

Platoon firing was considered more effective, however it seems to have fallen out of favour as it was extremely hard to control in the firefight if the enemy did not waver after a few firings. It degenerated into individual "battlefire" where everyone loaded and shot at will much faster than the more controlled (but initially less effective) rank firing. There is a good discussion on this in Riehn's book on the 1812 campaign which despite being about a Napoleonic subject clears up how infantry musketry developed between 1700-1800.

There are/were advantages in both systems. The greater breadth of a platoon fire trained unit is balanced against the greater depth and ability to absorb casualties, and the fact that new uinits to platoon were still wary about cavalry even with the new socket bayonet.

Firing by rank did not mean a 30 second break, betweens firings, you still have ranks firing, but the unloaded men had to get out of the way to reload.

The only time you get a unit with unloded muskets is if they fire a salvo, which was only done very rarely.

The advantage of Platoon was the ripple fire effect along the line meant that smoke had more time to dissipate and that it appeared that the whole line was firing all the time.

It is not clear from the information we have that it had any effect on the battle. Aside from the incident cited above, which may or may not be accurate, we have nothing. Any descriptions of the battles in Flanders simply do not indicate any advantages to platoon fire. On the other hand, I think the French went to platoon fire as well eventually so maybe there is something there after all.

We need to go back in time and research this.

Yep, there isn't a huge amount of good evidence either way. Although the Riehn book also points out that platoon firing was eventually dropped because it was too complex in the heat of battle. I personally don't bother with giving pl firing troops any real advantage as the evidence just isn't there.

On what really happened on the field, I have a little personal experience from reenacting (yes I know it's not real but it's the closest thing to time travel we can do). I did both Am Rev war and Am Civil war. I went to several large reenactments the Rev war largest were 1000 participants the Am Civil war was 15,000. When approx. 1000 muskets are going off at different times our small unit of 20 people barely could hear the officer scream at the top of his lung trying to give orders. When 15000 muskets and cannons are going off you hear nothing except one loud roar of noise, even an officer screaming in your ear is barley heard. What we did was load and fire as fast as you can, try to not burn yourself on the barrel, try to be safe, and watch when the flag or your buddy next to you to figure out when to move and we didn't have anybody dying or getting wounded screaming in pain to contend with. So I guess my point is once heavy fighting started I'm not really sure how the officers of any black powder period kept control over their troop's fire. IMHO they probably didn't and troops loaded and fired as best they could. Just my 1 cent worth.

I have to agree with the caveat mentioned.

I understand from a discussion on one of my Yahoo
groups that the two regiments involved were not on the same
area of the battlefield.

I recall a chapter in Duffy's Prussian Army that covered musketry.
The much vaunted Prussians had several firing systems and he quoted
officers who were emphatic that platoon firing and other systems could
simply not be maintained.

I agree that it should be ignored.

Chad

I also recall British officers who were present at Dettingen saying infantry fire always degenerated into fire at will after the first volley or two.

That would make sense. The amount of smoke generated was considerable as well, making it difficult to see depending on the wind.

Back to the initial query, typically, the nations using 'platoon fire'' adopted three ranks and, thus, a wider battalion frontage and those using 'rank fire' deployed in four to six ranks with obviously smaller battalion frontages. At the beginning of the WSS only the Dutch, Brits and possibly the Hanoverians and Danish adopted platoon fire. During the course of the war a few German states such as Brandenburg-Prussia may have gone to it as well. The rest of Europe used rank fire throughout the conflict and some even into the SYW. The debate about which was better has raged several times on TMP and I suggest searching through the archives for them. I will let the fact that most armies saw no need to trade their tried and true rank fire tactics for the complicated, difficult to control platoon fire tactic with it's inherent longer, unwieldy battalion frontage, to gain the very limited advantages it supposedly gave in a firefight. If indeed platoon fire was head and hands above rank fire, wouldn't France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and everyone else have used it?