"Volley Fire: proficiency and gaming categories" Topic

Queen Catherine: I would not agree with that. It seems to me that the more experienced regiments would have substantially lower rate of misfires due to improper loading of the muskets, a procedure that took practice, much less trying to perform it while being subjected to the volleys of some enthusiastic opponents. Just an opinion. Thanks, John Miller

Veteran troops probably didn't shoot their ramrods at the enemy.

- Ix

I would tend to agree with QC. Crack units might move, change formation, and resist attack better. Not sure their fire would be much more effective. Maybe a little but debatable.

But a lot depends on how long a turn is. If it's just a minute or two misfire rates might matter, as would a first fire and so on. But if it's 20 minutes then I'd give them a slight edge or none.

Perhaps crack troops might maintain fire discipline longer and not go to fire at will immediately.

I generally agree with a bonus for superior troops against a closing enemy. Veteran units are more likely to fire at an appropriate distance. Very important against charging cavalry or natives, but of some importance even against other musket-armed infantry.

At a constant range--no. The vets might hold up better under fire, or it might be a function of training rather than experience. But the difference in effective firepower at 80 yards was probably miniscule. Given a green regiment probably has newer weapons, I'm not even sure which way it would run.

I found some of the observations of Ardant duPicq in his book "Battle Studies" to be illuminating. He argued that well disciplined veteran troops possessed the collective strength of nerve to withhold their fire until the enemy approached to within truly deadly range, whereas troops of lesser quality could not endure the growing nervous strain and would impulsively open fire to release the tension.

I would also consider the possibility that lesser quality troops, even if they were to hold their fire until deadly range, might be too flustered to bother much with aiming or leveling their firearms. DuPicq also mentioned certain occasions when lesser quality troops held their fire until the enemy had approached within fight/flight distance, then broke and ran without firing a shot.

There is a great deal of individual, group and even mob psychology in play here, methinks.

B

However, I might say the same about Colonial REgulars post Valley Forge v. British line or Guards.

To my mind, the Continentals started improving noticeably in 1777, when numbers of 1776 men re-enlisted and you got more experienced regiments. Valley Forge standardised drill, but did not (IMO) in itself make the Continentals better shots. Also, bear in mind that most British line units did little or no fighting – it was mainly the flank battalions, the Guards, and a few key units such as the 33rd and 71st who served alongside those elite corps for most of the war. If you look at the firefights at Brandywine/Germantown, or Freeman's Farm/Bemis Heights, you find the Rebel forces give at least as good as they get.

A big part of holding your fire until the right moment involved having a CO with the expertise/temperament to time it right, and a bunch of subordinates able to keep their men in check. This requires a high commander:commanded ratio; for both sides in the AWI, this was often 2-3 officers and 2-3 sergeants for 20-40 men, or a ratio of anything from 1:10 to as little as 1:3.

I think crack units should get a morale bonus, but, no, not necessarily a fire bonus. Sharpshooters, just the opposite.

QC – "On Combat" by David Grossman is a good book exploring the psychology of the soldier and the relationship of different personality types to the act of face-to-face killing in wartime combat. His argument is that most soldiers are psychologically unwilling to voluntarily take a life in close combat and that most such killing is done by the 5 percent of soldiers clinically diagnosable as psychopathic (but otherwise socially functional) personalities.

In terms of the ACW fire fight, it is my opinion that fear and stress plus the physical impediment of the impenetrable curtain of gun smoke caused fire fights to essentially become an extended but more or less ineffectual exchange of random unaimed fire between an attacker who has lost the will to advance further versus a defender who has not yet lost its will to stand and resist – but nevertheless an engagement whose outcome may well rest on a razor's edge of random morale reaction.

This is IMO a deep and still imperfectly understood topic.

B

To digress slightly, volley fire was a rarity, usually being the first fire given by a unit, and that at a longer range. The standard means of giving fire in the ACW period was "by files".

In this situation, which even the drill manuals state is the common means of giving fire, the battalion fires a single volley. the command is given to load, then "Fire by files, commence firing". Thereafter, the right hand file (front & rear rank together) take aim and fire, then immediately reload. As soon as the right hand file has fired, the next file fires, then the next, and so on down the line. This is occurring simultaneously within each company. Once each file has fired, the men begin to reload and then fire at will, independently of each other. They keep their spacing and positions in the line, but otherwise the fire becomes a continuous staccato across the face of the unit. This continues until the order to cease fire is given, upon which the men reload and automatically come to shoulder arms.

FWIW, Sherman, in his memoirs, writes that it amazed him that the most calm area of any battle was the front lines. Coming from the rear, he would pass streams of wounded men and stragglers hollering that all was lost, to turn and runaway, but the closer he got to the firing line, the more calm everyone became. He states that it was a common sight to see men loading and firing, all the while jawing with each other and telling jokes, etc.

Queen Catherine,

I would have to say I sorta agree with you. For the black powder period, when you add in smoke, noise and training. Just how effective was volley fire between veteran unit compared to a green unit?
I felt the experience of the soldier was most effective with their maneuvering, standing strong when things were going bad. But when we were playtesting my AWI rules, everyone kept bringing up why more experienced units did not get better modifiers when shooting. After every playtest game it became the focus of discussion. So I added in the rules a modifier based on a units level of experience. Similar to how their experience would effect their morale. After two years of playtesting, no one brought the subject up again. Everyone felt it was the way it should be for a veteran unit to have a better chance to hit than a green unit did when shooting.
ironwolfindustries.wix.com/gamer

FWIW, smoke isn't really a problem unless the weather is very hot & humid, with little to no wind, OR the fighting is taking place in a forested area with little to no wind.

Due to the relatively long times between fire with a muzzle-loading weapon, even a light breeze will cause the smoke to dissipate quickly. What tends to hold it around in a sort of hazy condition is humidity. Otherwise, even with artillery, it's not really that big of an issue.

I am pretty firmly in the belief that it is not the amount of casualties produced that counts, but rather, what effect of the fire had on the ability of the unit to maintain cohesion. It remained a challenge to the unit's leadership to keep the men focused upon what each individual should be doing at the time during this period. I do not know of many rules sets that address nor account for the actions of the unit's leadership in maintaining control.

I also believe that a combat inexperienced unit had as much of a chance to deliver a "devistating" volley as a well trained unit. It seems to have been a matter of timing and persistance on the part of the firing unit as well as the experience and tactical knowledge of the target unit's leadership to counter the efffects (deal with) with the effects.

A quick study of ammunition expendature verses casualty creation (keeping in mind that artillery created a lot of those casualties) and one will quicky conclude that they were lousy shots!

Continuing the study, you will find instances of units running away with little or no casualties while others remaned on line till almost annialation. Therefore, one can conclude that "casualties" are not a good parameter to base game mechanics on, unless you just want to play a game. How many times have you experienced results that just did not seem right?

The training, experience and length of service together of the unit as a whole (what most call "Morale Grades"), is more applicable to how the unit behaves after combat than being used as how well a unit shoots. Also, why should we believe that any unit of any "morale grade" will always shoot at a specified value, every time they shoot? Disregarding tactical considerations, (resting muskets on a fence, smoke, etc.) no person will always be capable of firing accurately, consistanly! Remember, units are made up of men- no two of which are ever exactly alike. Same with units- no two of which are ever exactly alike.

Until we gamers understand and take to heart in game designs, will we ever get past the "all the same" broad brush approach to casualty producing game mechanics to adjucate our games with.

I have read that artillery batteries customarily always fired in sequence, starting with the downwind gun first in order to avoid smoke interference along the battery front.

I also have read that infantry fire, whether ordered by volley or by file or by any other "organized" means, tended to rapidly devolve into random fire at will except among the very best disciplined troops. At that point, it was also said to be difficult to get the soldiers to cease their fire.

Based upon what I've read, there was the manual and there was the reality of the battlefield, with the two not always coinciding.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

Dye4minis,

A big +1

B

Thanks, B.!

What Tom said and

Blutarski "I also have read that infantry fire, whether ordered by volley or by file or by any other "organized" means, tended to rapidly devolve into random fire at will except among the very best disciplined troops. At that point, it was also said to be difficult to get the soldiers to cease their fire."

Duffy bears this out when looking at Frederick's Prussians also some other very capable commanders of that time thought it very difficult to control more than the first fire. I'm minded to think them right.

QC wrote – " I'm inclined to think that Crack v. Green is irrelevant if they're properly trained and have a little campaign experience."

….. My speculation is that the unit with the best "morale" (i.e. – that mystical, never perfectly quantifiable combination of troop ardor, experience, sang-froid, good discipline and training, good officers, charismatic leadership plus full ammunition pouches, stomachs and canteens) will generally persist longer in the fight.

B

Tom's (Dye4minis) analysis is very good. Within any unit there will be "Alvin York" type soldiers that are crack marksmen, and even in the most renowned units men that struggle with proficiency.

The exception would be Berdan's Sharpshooters which you had to qualify for as a marksman. What really matters is the volume of firepower a unit can project over the length of a sustained firefight. The more disciplined a unit is in the confusion and chaos in maintaining maxim firepower over an opponent that is more erratic in shooting and their rate of fire will decide the action.

Think of the scene in "Glory" where one of the recruits shows his ability in training to be a marksman, only to be unable to load and shoot accurately when Col. Shaw fires his pistol repeatedly and barks orders to load rapidly! Men (and units) that overcome this will be more effective in a firefight.

Terms such as "Crack", "Veteran" and especially "Green" don't convey unit performance uniformly. The Iron Brigade was essentially "Green" when it went into a firefight with the Stonewall Brigade at Groveton, yet stood toe to toe with them in open ground, without cover, and gave as good as they got.

Stannard's Vermont Brigade was in their first fight at Gettysburg (i.e. a "Green" unit) yet were key in having 2 regiments wheel with precision to deliver a devastating flanking fire into Pickett's advancing brigades. Then they turned about 180 degrees to join another regiment of their brigade that wheeled on the flank of Anderson's brigades, and again delivered fire to break that attack up too. Both their maneuvering and shooting was as good as any.

Yet some so called "Veteran" soldiers had a reputation, and a record, of poor performance in battle. The soldiers in the Union XI Corps had a history of poor performance through 1862-63. As was often heard by men in other organizations, "They may have fought mit Sigel, but in the Army of the Potomac they fought like sh#t!"

Units need to be rated based upon how they actually performed in the particular battle you are re-fighting, and perhaps terms such as superior or exceptional, steady or reliable, and suspect or unreliable might better describe a units expected performance, rather than a units tenure in the field. I'll leave the semantics of the terminology open to debate.

Kim

QC – Actually, the Continentals often caused more casualties than the British in firefights in the Main and Northern theatres (possibly in the South, too, but it's harder to get accurate stats for those actions). Whether this was down to the British usually attacking, but lacking the cavalry to pursue a defeated enemy, or actual shooting superiority, is not clear; I suspect mainly the former, but when the Americans were attacking (eg Freeman's Farm), the casualties still fell more on the British side.

On operations (I know we are talking small units here) 4-7 gun trucks w/ dis mounts- there were days when it just seemed like no matter what we did, or what we tried to do, it evolved into a poo sammich. (Rare thank god, and we didn't lose anybody, but I know of other companies -well- this isn't the place). And---- on other days, you would think we were the capt America element. No matter what the xxxk happened, we just could do no wrong. So we had a few really really bad days, a few unbelievable "Hollywood days" and a lot of " oh god lets get thru this with out losing anybody, OK?

I gave up trying to classify ACW units years ago. Now I just have a few rated as 'Crack' with a bit of oomph in morale and close combat; the others have to rely on the luck of the roll.
When I finish my 15mm collection I aim to start a campaign where units can earn – and lose – Crack status. Not sure how I'm going to do it yet but my wargaming history is like my gaming: lots of heroic failures!

Supercilius Maximus wrote

QC – Actually, the Continentals often caused more casualties than the British in firefights in the Main and Northern theatres (possibly in the South, too, but it's harder to get accurate stats for those actions). Whether this was down to the British usually attacking, but lacking the cavalry to pursue a defeated enemy, or actual shooting superiority, is not clear; I suspect mainly the former, but when the Americans were attacking (eg Freeman's Farm), the casualties still fell more on the British side.

One thing to consider is that Washington, IIRC, was the gentleman who ordered the use of, f not the design of, "Buck & Ball" cartridges as a means of offsetting poor marksmanship and/or understrength units.

Basically it was a round ball with either 3 (most common) or 6 pieces of OO buck shot on top. The shot would spread out flat while the ball continued. In addition, greater velocity was attained as the weight of the buck shot, coupled with the paper wrapping which had to be loaded in order to keep all the shot together in the bore, created more resistance as the gas expanded, and thus not only more pressure, but more of the powder being burned.

So, more weight of shot down range at a greater velocity and thus more kinetic energy transfer for damage.

Thank you. I didn't introduce "buck and ball" into the equation as there are examples of the British using it as well (certainly in the South – at Blackstocks, an entire platoon of the 63rd fired at Sumter and wounded him and some of his staff). However, where it was used on one side only, it would certainly go a long way to explaining the casualty differential.

I'll add this much vis-a-vis Buck & Ball cartridges. The Continental Army found them to be the most effective round, and it quickly became the most requested and, after 1800, the default issue ammunition for the regular army.

By the time the 1862 edition of the Ordnance Manual had been released, it was noted in remarks therein that Buck & Ball was the standard round for muskets, with round ball and expanding ball being issued only if requested by the receiving unit, or if insufficient stocks of B&B were available at the issuing arsenal.

Just tossing that out as an aside.

V/R