"Rifle range in Muskets and Tomahawks" Topic

Is the effective range of rifles in M&T an accurate reflection of the difference between them and normal old musket. Rifle range is 72" and normal musket is 24" from memory. 3 times the distance?

According to Wikipedia the Charleville musket had ranges of:
50 to 75 effective & 100 to 200 yards max

The Baker Rifle:
one in three chance of hitting a man-sized target at 100 yards & 200 yards max.

Even assuming the low end Musket ranges, the M&T 72" seems a bit long.

American riflemen could reputedly engage at up to 300 yards, so 3x the musket range seems ok to me.

I dropped the rifle range to 48''

In most of our games players find the 2 AP reload slow so start "tapping" their rifles for 1 AP and being treated as muskets

The fact that we play on 48"x48" tables with lots of terrain mitigates the range. The only kicker is the lethality is not diminished.

SM:

That's why the rifle rangers in BG make no sense. Of course being able to see that far (300 yards) is another matter. My guess is few men could actually shoot and hit anything at that range.

The issue I have is not one of rifle range being 3x musket range, that feels about right. Rifles being slower to fire than muskets is correct too. You can drop powder down the barrel and spit the ball in with a smoothbore musket, a rifle is patched and rammed home, takes longer, especially after the barrel has become powder founded.

Three hundred yards over open iron sights is a pretty fair shot. Not to mention being able to see the other guy at three hundred yards across the battlefield and the fact that he may be shooting back.

What I don't like is the perennial issue in wargames design of weapons that can "reach out and touch someone" anywhere on the table top. The world is quite simply bigger than that. Giving a weapon a 72" range in a wargame means that unless you are playing on a very large table that target will *always* be in range. Why even bother with a range stat?

On a 48" square table even a 24" range weapon will be able to hit most of the table most of the time, line of sight not withstanding.

I have found that to make skirmish gaming with any sort of gunpowder weapon workable at least 50% of the tabletop needs to be occupied by some sort of line of sight blocking terrain feature.

I agree with Dave's last point. Muskets and Tomahawks also makes a note of this. As a skirmish game for early North America there is expected to be a lot of terrain.

When I play the game we have enough terrain to make the ranges a limited advantage. As a matter of fact there are enough disadvantages to rifle units that I don't find them to be as powerful an asset as it first appears.

Thanks for the discussion….i think danthemans last point is interesting….what it means in fact is that the rifles unit is best used as a harassing unit from distance….i shall make sure my tables are covered in terrain!

A lot of posters mentioned it above, but the ability to see is key here. If you aren't using the spotting distance rules with M&T AND dense terrain then rifles can seem a bit powerful. There's actually been discussion on the Studio Tomahawk forums that with terrain, spotting distance, and (God forbid!) weather the rifles become worse than muskets after the first volley!

I would agree with the Inquisitor. That extra turn to reload is huge in a game. I have all but stopped taking rifles in our FIW games. We use less terrain in our AWI games so there I still use a few.

When you read accounts of action, the range used by Indians was close assault range rather than extended sniper range. Tactics especially 'skulking' tactics was to snipe at long moderate range with bows and arrows which were plentiful so miss did not hurt supply as much. Muskets were used for closer action especially in a close assault. A warrior hit with a musket ball at close range is not going to get up. A warrior hit with an arrow in all likelihood would continue to charge. Native tribes were always at a disadvantage for having to maintain a balance of powder and shot.

The firearm powder and shot were too valuable to waste on practice are even hunting. Hunting continued to be done with bows and even blowguns in some regions. They had different types of arrow heads for different types of game. And there were heads for humans which were often the same used for deer and bear. the idea of native sharpshooters is far fetched. Though their ability would be no worse than European soldiers who often had a max of only THREE rounds to practice with per YEAR. The group with the most shooting practice were actually the colonist and frontiersmen who hunted or trapped regularly.

So the idea of reduced ranges in a set of 1700s and 1800s rules can be defended with ease.

This article may be of interest to some of you:

link

My head is going to explode with all the F&I mythology going on here. Where to start?

"I have all but stopped taking rifles in our FIW games."

So other than a handful of British regulars, who exactly had rifles in this period? Please provide some evidence, as opinions are already too plentiful. Indians carried trade muskets or anything captured. There are accounts of Indians even carrying broken muskets for prestige. No one to fix them. No French carried rifles. Only a handful of rifle makers in PA, and they were very expensive, not aware they ever went to war. Most hunting pieces, often called fowling pieces, were smooth bore, not rifles.

"You can drop powder down the barrel and spit the ball in with a smoothbore musket,"

You come to one of our events. I'll give you a musket. You put some balls in your mouth, run around, put your lips on the muzzle, and spit some in. It will be amusing to see how you burn your mouth, and how many musket balls your swallow. LOL. Another myth, unfortunately started by a knowledgeable person built around a tall tale of hunting moose.

"And there were heads for humans which were often the same used for deer and bear. the idea of native sharpshooters is far fetched."

Well done sir, spot on.

"Though their ability would be no worse than European soldiers who often had a max of only THREE rounds to practice with per YEAR."

This myth has been busted repeatedly. Soldiers practiced firing at marks, especially in wartime camps. Read Fit for Service, Redcoats by Brumwell, and With Zeal and Bayonets Only by Spring. Same for Provincial soldiers too. Read Brumwell's new book on Washington – very good, especially on details regarding the VA Regiments.

"The group with the most shooting practice were actually the colonist and frontiersmen who hunted or trapped regularly."

Another myth. Most people on the frontier were farmers, many did not own a firearm. None trapped. That was done by Indians, who traded furs for goods. Whitemen were not wandering around Indian lands like some Charelton Heston movie – that was a later period. Many who enlisted were from the coast or towns, had no experience with firearms. Militia often had to be armed, same for Provincials. Read, Soldiers When They Want to Be to get a sense of people on the frontier, or Breaking the Back Country.

Rifles played almost no part in the F&I, other than in many gamers mythology games. But here is a fact few can swallow, more Crown Forces had rifles in the AWI than colonists.

Skulking back into the darkness to stew on F&I mythology. Grrrrrr.

I agree that rifles would have been rare in the F&I war. I question whether colonials were as unarmed as you suggest.

As for your statement "more Crown Forces had rifles in the AWI than colonists", I am assuming you are talking about regulars. When you add militia to the mix, especially militia recruited from Virginia and the southern colonies, I think the balance shifts.

Now for the question, how was shooting practise done for regulars? Was shooting practise done individually or just by unit? Was accuracy stressed?

Look at the books I cited for armed/unarmed militia/people. Usually when Indians attacked the settlers fled back east.

Note that when the MD miliita was called up in 1777 for Brandywine, they could not really field as they did not have enough weapons – few in fact. The popular myth that everyone had a firearm is just that, a myth. But, look to the books cited and read for yourself. :-)

As to rifles in AWI, again a myth. Washington did not think much of the rifles and pretty much phased them out. Most likely all those Yankee Minutemen had smoothbore fowling pieces. Why would southerners be more likely to have rifles than northerners? The main rifle producing population was concentrated in what is now south central PA among the German immigrants. Remember, most people lived in towns or cities, not on the frontier.

For shooting practice, this was done by units firing at marks. The myth regulars hardly fired prior to wars is partly true, in that wartime camps were created where battalions drilled together. Firing with ball was not done en masse, but by individuals (on a unit basis), so while accuracy was not stressed in a modern sense, it did let the men get the feel for firing their weapons at a mark, if that makes sense. Men were often told to shoot low in the field by field officers as the tendancy was to shoot high. I have read in several instances were they were told to shoot at the legs of their opponents to adjust their aim.

There were over 800 Jagers in the AWI, all armed with rifles. Lights were further issued rifles, along with select units. The militia called up may have had a few rifles in the AWI, but most had to be issued muskets by their state. This often stood in they way of militia fielding.

If I recall correctly the Boston garrison practiced by firing at marks floating in Boston harbor. One would have to assume the men were firing at individual targets or else it would not really be practice. Competition between companies was encouraged and the company that performed best could be honored by putting a small piece of red wool on their hats over the cockade.

HistoryGamer-People fleeing eastwards was not so much a sign that individuals were not armed. A single armed individual would probably be in no better position than an unarmed man to confront a raiding party. It was the breakdown of security on the frontier that caused people to flee eastwards, not the lack of personal weapons.

Having waded through a number of sources, one thing that struck me was that in passing militia acts during both the F&I War and the AWI the legislatures were speaking as if an almost fully armed militia was a reasonable possibility. Colonial gunsmiths wouldn't have the capacity to turn out a huge volume of weapons in a short time. This suggests that the expectation of the legislature was based on existing stocks of weapons in private hands. I can't speak to the unique situation of the Maryland militia in 1777. I do know elsewhere as the AWI progressed replacing weapons that were lost, damaged or seized became a problem.

Why would southerners be more likely to have rifles than New Englanders? To start with there were actually very close connections between the Pennsylvania rifle country and the backcountry in the south. A surprising portion of the populations in the backcountry south actually came from or through Pennsylvania. Also warfare in the south was almost endemic in the years leading up to the AWI. Virginia had indian wars and both of the Carolinas had civil wars.

At the outbreak of the AWI Virginia's militia acts expressly provided for riflemen and rifle units, and not just on the frontier. The Continental Congress at the start of the war chose to organize units of riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia at a time when those colonies had not provided continentals. In South Carolina they raised a couple of regiments of rifles in their first mobilization. The listing of weapons confiscated by Patriot forces after Moore's Creek specifically lists rifles as well as muskets. This all suggests that a rifle culture had already developed in the south before the AWI began.

Washington's views were based on the type of war Washington wanted to fight. A large amount of the fighting though was waged in an entirely different manner.

Re: spotting targets at long range. I had no trouble spotting a stationary man-sized target at 460 yards over iron sights when I was in the army and my vision was nothing special. Taking target movement and concealment into account shortens the potential range but barring intervening terrain, smoke (something very few sets of black powder rules take into account), or incoming fire, there would not be any great difficulty in a rifleman identifying a target at 300 yards.

LT

Even if militia could be marched to the scene of an attack, it still proved of little use. Because the militia was largely untrained, the men lacked basic military proficiency. British officer had presumed that back-country settlers would possess important skills that would make them good soldiers. However, despite the myth of the background woodsman, or the importance of "gun culture" in early America, most backcountry settlers did not make good soldiers. Instead of ranging stealthily through the woods in an attempt to surprise the enemy, they would dash "hooping" and "hallooing," warning any nearby raiders of their presence. Few militiamen seem to have been familiar with the use of guns. Although by law all members of the militia were supposed to provide their own weapons, fewer than half the militia who mustered possessed any sort of arms. Many of those who carried arms had weapons that were too ancient for use or of different bores, which made provision of ammunition all but impossible. Even if they had weapons that could be supplied with ammunition, few militiamen were experienced marksmen. Governor Dinwiddie repeatedly complained of the militia's "Ignor'of Arms and Cowardly Disposit'n." George Washington stressed when recruiting the backcountry 'great care should be observed in choosing active marksmen, the manifest Inferiority of inactive Persons unused to Arms… [compared] to lively Persons who have practiced hunting, is inconceivable." William Parsons similarly complained that the PA frontiersmen were "generally as much afraid to fire them [their guns] as they would be to meet an Indian." pp 93-94

Breaking the Backcountry, The Seven Years War In Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765, Matthew C Ward

Also note too that during the AWI, many militia type units or early units were often called rifles, but did not carry rifles – it was just a name.

The quality of militia has been debated elsewhere, and isn't really germane to this discussion.

If you want to believe rifles among the Colonists are rare and "rifles" in unit names was just a name, we will have to agree to disagree. However I think there is ample proof for rifles being used by militia and state forces as well as by certain continental units during the AWI. I could cite a number of examples, but a quote from the Virginia AWI militia act is quite telling: "That every man be provided with a good rifle, if to be had, or otherwise with a common firelock". During the F&IW the Virginia militia act had simply said "Every soldier shall he furnished with a firelock well fixed" which indicates that things changed significantly during that time.

I am not arguing that your AWI Continental armies should be made up largely of rifle armed troops. However if you are doing smaller actions on the frontier or in the south, the kind of actions where militia played a large role, then rifles would be common.

Well we can reasonably debate terms like "rare," but I think it safe to say that rifles were not really common during the F&I period, perhaps a bit more so in the AWI period. There are certain instances where perhaps a higher portion of rifles might show up, such as at King's Mountain.

Interesting though in reading your post about the militia act, as it could be read different ways:

"That every man be provided with a good rifle, if to be had, or otherwise with a common firelock".

One could take that to mean that it is the burden of the state to provide them weapons, as it says ever man to be provided, not every man is to provide (their own). A state or colony certainly could not force someone to purchase a weapon, and the history of the period is replete with numerous cases of militia being unable to mobilize due to a shortage of weapons. I believe at some point there was discussion about providing pikes due to the shortage of guns. The ability to produce weapons was minimal in the colonies, as most weapons were imported mainly through the Carribean trading with French, Spanish and Dutch colonies.

I would also go back to the part I posted about the nightmare of provisioning the militia with different guns and how impossible that had to be – especially given the scaricty of gun powder at times, let alone the different caliber balls required if they all brought their own firearms (which many didn't).

Perhaps SM can add some info here as well, but I'll go back to the mobilization of the MD miilitia in 1777 and their inability to even take the field due to a shortage of everything, especially weapons. I think it was Smallwood who was sent head that effort up, to no avail.

We are again drifting off topic, but as to provisioning militia with ammo, the militia acts also required each man to possess a certain amount of lead and a certain amount of powder. This suggests that the expectation was that militia would produce their own individual rounds. The problem of provisioning troops with ammo wasn't unique to militia. IIRC Steuben complained about a continental unit that was equipped with muskets, carbines, fowling pieces and rifles.

Existence of a law does not translate into reality. Remember that when Washington tried to raise the Virginia militia in the F&I, he found the rolls had not been kept up and pretty much nobody showed up, let alone with weapons.

A similar problem occurred when the provincial regiment was raised--enlistees had pretty much nothing to their name, not even proper clothing.

If we are talking about the Seven Years War in North America, the comments that no regulars carried actual rifles are accurate.

But in any event, the accepted wisdom is that the military smoothbore musket had a maximum range for aimed fire of about 50 yards, and a maximum range for massed fire of about 75 yards. The common maximum range for a long rifle was 200 yards, but 150 yards is more acceptable as an effective max range. An exceptional marksman could hit an individual target at 300 yards – as a VIrginia rifleman famously did at Saratoga – but what is not generally known is that it took him three or four tries.

Actually some British regulars were issued rifles during the F&I period as well – even before the Light companies, IIRC. I seem to recall about 15 rifles were issued to the 60th with Bouquet. What they did with them exactly seems lost to history – at least as far I have been able to discover.

There has been some revisions regarding how far a musket was fired and might hit something – but the question of aimed fire for the smoothbores was at best 100 yards – and I suspect rare indeed.

Good info on the riflemen at Saratoga, and considering he was shooting at a moving target, not surprising – if you are referring to Fraser.

Then there were the riflemen at Wetzell's Mills who couldn't hit LtCol James Webster, on horseback, considerably closer than 300 yards.

VT – There was a similar incident at Spencer's Ordinary, when Ewald led three companies of the QRs – grenadier, light and one centre – against about 200 (probably fewer) militia, including rifle-armed Virginians, lining a rail fence. I suspect there were other factors involved, possibly including damp powder, but from memory he lost about a dozen men to a full volley and kept going, leading a bayonet charge whic dispersed them.

SM--

It just shows that there is, as with all weapons, a theoretical capability v. one under field conditions. There are so many factors that can affect accuracy--training, weather, visibility, terrain.

That's one of the reasons why I like the less destructive impact of rifles in the BG system--they are a great supporting weapon, but hardly likely to be decisive on their own--as was the case historically.