"Making sense of musket hit rates" Topic

So the hit rates of muskets is generally given to be anywhere from 1:200 all the way to 1:300

If we say a hit rate of 1:400

And we have two battalions firing at each other both being 800 strong. And give them a rate of fire of 3 rounds a minute (probably too high) then each minute 6 would be hit after 15 minutes the battalion would suffer over 10% casualties.
This seems consistent. Sometimes more sometimes less. But a realistic average.

I have no problem with this.

The problem comes if we take Borodino as an example I've read that the French fired 1.4 million rounds from their muskets. At 1:400 this means only 3500 Russians were hit by muskets. This seems to low. Even with artillery doing 80% of the casualties we'd still need closer too 8000 killed by muskets (a little less given some would die on the sword/bayonets.

But I have problems believing 4500 got killed or wounded by cokd steel and only 3500 by musketballs?

Hit rates are a very difficult thing to determine. Theory and practise seem to be very different.

There is an excellent book called "Seven Years Campaigning In The Peninsula And The Netherlands" by Richard Henegan. He was a Commissary, in charge of supplying ammunition to the army. After the battle of Vittoria he complains that the army shot off millions of rounds of ammunition to achieve the result of a few thousand dead Frenchmen! I can't find my copy at the moment to look up the exact figures but it is quite an eye-opener.

I have no problems finding references of very low hitrates. The most generous is 1:200 but 1:400 seem more realistic (but even that might be a bit generous on average)

I recall reading somewhere that the ratio was more like 1000:1 at Gettysburg, and 100:000 to 1 in Vietnam.

There's simply no way to get an accurate read on these things I think. Too many completely unknown variables. For example, many times the records are for ammo issued, but that is different from ammo used.

As casualties take place naturally you have fewer firers late in a battle, other things being equal.

What about range? Let's assume the average hit rate is 1:400. It might be 1:10 at ranges under 25 yards, 1:10,000 at ranges over 150 yards and 1:375 in between.

Studying weapon accuracy per shot in a battle is interesting but do you learn more from studying the interaction of bodies of troops.

Do 1% or 5% of cavalry charges break squares, do 50% of infantry units attempting to close down on guns lose heart and halt. Do 25% of infantry charges on similar end with the defender routed?

I can see that casualty counts might be needed for a campaign where you have detailed rules for replacements and so on.

Take an example of an infantry unit charging similar, in the lead up there is some musketry, then maybe some brief bayonet exchange and then some prisoners caught in the rout. Do you really need to know how many of each or just the total losses.

db

There are several problems with the 'hit rates', however you determine it, casualty types, when that is available, target hits or ammo use vs casualties.

First Problem is identifying 'hits' between canister and/or musket balls. Even physicians would have a difficult time differentiating between small canister wounds and volley fire.

Second, Volley fire could have been at very short ranges and skirmish fire [recognized as burning through ammo quickly firing at all sorts of ranges [The 17th Legere ran out of ammo at both Saalfeld and Jena and had to be pulled back after an hour or two of fighting.

Third, ammo usage vs casualties are gross comparisons that do not take into account at the ranges weapons were fired or why [simply to draw fire?] as well as misfires [estimated at 15-25% of all fire for flintlocks]. Even Hughes' estimates of hit ratios involve so many estimations and unknowns, as well as some mistakes in the facts such as the conditions at Albuera, that it is difficult to establish 'hit rates.'

Forth, is that ordinance tests are about as perfect an environment and weapon servicing as you can get. So, they represent the very upper end of weapon performance, not the norm. Smoke, in and of itself, hampered effective musket fire, let alone all the other considerations.

This isn't to say all of those estimates aren't valuable in creating some parameters, the possible high and low rates of hits, someone who wants to establish what the outcomes of volley fire and casualties in individual engagements have to turn to other methods to produce more refinement.

Unless you are designing a simulation, with reality and accuracy of tactics as key, then it does not matter. I will mention a few things for you to research.
I have placed all of my research findings into rules or I. Files. And guess what, all of my simulation based rules have been deemed in the past as too slow and kill rates too low.
One study of British hospital records indicated that must wounds to the front were by artillery or muskets and most wounds to the back were by bayonet.
Iirc Fredrick had the Prussian Army conduct unit firing hit ratio tests. Their results were much higher than your 1:200 rate. The unit fired at a sheet representing a block of troops. Realistic in my opinion.

You might look at the 1812/1824 version of Kriegspiel for fire results. What is interesting is that in 1828 the Prussian officers who headed up the use of the game decided the casualty rates were too high and lowered them.

Unless you are designing a simulation, with reality and accuracy of tactics as key, then it does not matter.

Rudy:
What doesn't matter?

Demian an Austrian officer, author of 3 volumes for a handbook for Austrian officers during the Napoleonic time writes this

"Who was in a fire fight without noticing that in this moment the soldier is acting as a machine, that means he loads his gun, shots in the air, loads again and thinks less to damage the enemy than more to distract himself by the work to ban all thought of fear which are surrounding him in this moment. As soon as the soldier is seeing the enemy he wants to start to shoot being afraid that the other will overtake him in that and only few officers have the power to restrain their soldiers, or when they are able to do this they have not the knowledge about the shooting distance of the gun or to judge the distances. In case however the soldier is not lacking in cold blood and deliberation in a serious fire fight, and he is not acting as a machine, so alone because of the disorder and pushing for quickness, which is usual in a fire fight, is preventing to let him think about aiming. The experience teaches that the soldier is hardly listening at the commands of his officer in this critical moment and that every body as soon as he finished loading wants to shot."

the tests by Scharnhorst provide the potential of the smooth bore musket, but as of today, there is a huge difference between battle and the shooting range.

Fire was often used to stop the opponents attack at great distance – to involve him into a time and ammunition wasting long drawn fire fight – to blunt the opponents momentum.
This was achieved by opening fire and put on the psychological pressure onto the opponent, to repeat fire instead of continuing the attack.

As I said I have no problem with 1:400 as an average. As it sounds about right for a typical attritonal combat that often dominated Napoleonic warfare.
And if we guess that would be the hit rate at 100 meters we can guess they mabye the he hitrate was closer to 1:200 at less then 50 meters. We are now talking over 20% casualty rate with in 15 minutes. That's quite extreme. And so I have serious trouble accepting any higher hit rate then that (for formed battalions) as that would simply not fit the descriptions of battles I've read. And this is with out artillery in the equations.

So average of 1:400 is probably a lot closer then 1:200 at least on average.

Of course at very close range a well placed volley could send a battalion running (temporarily) and that would of course have a higher hit rate.

Found another source of that claim 2.1 French musket round were fired that would bring the musket casualties up ti some 6500-7000 and that sounds about right.

Of course at very close range a well placed volley could send a battalion running (temporarily) and that would of course have a higher hit rate.

Gunfreak:

Do you have some examples of volleys alone sending an enemy running…or at least retreating? I haven't found any. Something else had to happen like reinforcements, flank attacks or a bayonet attack to force the enemy in a fire fight to retreat.

I have been to several lectures from Lt Col (Ret) Dave Grossman. He claims that in WWII the average rifleman would often intentionally miss (most non-psychotic humans* not wanting to kill someone).
Would that be true for this age as well?

*=just to be clear, that is meant as a compliment to soldiers, not an insult. Although I was just a peace time weekend warrior, my father is a decorated WWII vet – yes he killed people, no he didn't like having to do it.

If you believe the colonel (which I do)
Then yes. In fact that's probably one the main reason for the low accuracy.
There are times when soldiers are so close it's impossible to blame it on lack of training or the quality of the weapon. The soldiers had to actively avoid hitting the enemy.

McLadddie I don't have a hard reference of single volleys with out a charge followed to drive the enemy away. And of course sources don't always make it clear if it was 1 or several volleys.

I was referring to the fact that unless you are designing a simulation rather than a war game, the kill rate does not matter. For a game the kill rate will b one that is acceptable to the guys in your play test group. If the chance is too low, they will report it as being too slow and boring.

The example of hit rates that I use is a more modern construct and you may have already read it before.
In the 1976 Tank Gunnery US Army, they cited that a M4 tank had to fire 13 rounds at a stationary enemy just 500 yards distance to reach a 50 percent chance to hit the target. It was sighting systems rather than the gun. We used the V sight rather than the ghost sight of the Cold War era.
A gamer would not like such very poor odds of hitting a tank so close.
The same can be said of musketry fire for the 1700 and 1800s.

Do you have some examples of volleys alone sending an enemy running

Try Bunker Hill. The first volley against the British Lights on the beach literally blew the head off the column. The lead company suffered 93% casualties (39 out of 42). The column tried to struggle forward, but the second volley destroyed the second company. The column stopped. The third volley wrecked the third company, and the survivors retreated precipitously. Yes, it was an abnormal situation, but it DID happen.

hi there

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I have been to several lectures from Lt Col (Ret) Dave Grossman. He claims that in WWII the average rifleman would often intentionally miss (most non-psychotic humans* not wanting to kill someone).
Would that be true for this age as well?

*=just to be clear, that is meant as a compliment to soldiers, not an insult. Although I was just a peace time weekend warrior, my father is a decorated WWII vet – yes he killed people, no he didn't like having to do it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I have heard that the original researcher for this has since retracted / modified the claim.

I don't know all the details but it appears there was a training issue with US infantry, but not the marines or UK soldiers.

The issue was identified and the training changed.

No idea if there was a similar training issue in the C19th, or how we would possibly discover it.

DB

And of course sources don't always make it clear if it was 1 or several volleys.

Gunfreak:

Understood. My question was about any and all volley fire actions, regardless of how many volleys might have been fired. Outcome/response was all I was interested in.

I was referring to the fact that unless you are designing a simulation rather than a war game, the kill rate does not matter. For a game the kill rate will be one that is acceptable to the guys in your play test group. If the chance is too low, they will report it as being too slow and boring.

Rudy:

Thanks for the answer. Agreed. You are using 'the guys' as the gauge of what is 'acceptable' for a fun game [not boring], nothing is being simulated. If there is some idea that their objections have to do with how the game results compares to actual casualties or combat results as they understand it, that is an effort to simulate.

My question was about any and all volley fire actions, regardless of how many volleys might have been fired. Outcome/response was all I was interested in.

Does the final defeat of the French infantry at Albuera count?

Didn't the guard at Waterloo get repelled by musket fire alone?

"I have been to several lectures from Lt Col (Ret) Dave Grossman. He claims that in WWII the average rifleman would often intentionally miss (most non-psychotic humans* not wanting to kill someone).
Would that be true for this age as well?"

Brent Nosworthy in Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies, states that casualty rates actually reduced as 2 bodies of infantry moved closer in a fire fight. He also goes into much detail that the whole aim of tactics were to give a psychological advantage, although it wasnt understood in those terms, not to cause casualties.

That doesnt suprise me (that casualty rates would reduce) – I can easily imagine both sides desperately trying to fire faster and faster in order to drive off the approaching enemy – which would result in nobody aiming (or even leveling the musket!) , and more misfires.

There was an a ww2 incident I recall reading about somewhere of german and american patrols running into each at close proximity and instead of opening fire at point blank range instead simply started throwing things at each other and shouting a lot- Instinct took over, and the the normal human instinct isnt to kill, but just make yourself look big and scary so the other guy runs away.

Does the final defeat of the French infantry at Albuera count?

Whirlwind:
I wouldn't think so. It wasn't until the Fusiliers advanced on the flank of the V Corps and various Spanish and Portuguese advance on them at the same time did they retreat. Werle's division didn't retreat until charged.

This is after about an hour and a half to two hours of firefight.

GunFreak: From what I understand the 52nd charged the Guard columns on the flank and several British battalions on the opposite side advanced about the same time. Only the British Guard didn't advance, but continued volleying.

"I have been to several lectures from Lt Col (Ret) Dave Grossman. He claims that in WWII the average rifleman would often intentionally miss (most non-psychotic humans* not wanting to kill someone).
Would that be true for this age as well?"

The circumstances are different for the Napoleonic warrior. He was shoulder to shoulder with his comrades. To not fire would have made him stand out. As he was not actually asked to aim at times, or if he was [and they were numerous times for volleying], he had a wall of men to shoot at, not individuals. Often, with the smoke it wasn't even a concern…. Psychologically, it is a different situation in a different culture.

Brent Nosworthy in Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies, states that casualty rates actually reduced as 2 bodies of infantry moved closer in a fire fight. He also goes into much detail that the whole aim of tactics were to give a psychological advantage, although it wasn't understood in those terms, not to cause casualties.

While I agree that at least one primary aim of tactics was to gain a psychological advantage, casualties certainly was one basic method of gaining that advantage…which was acknowledged by Military men of the time. Personally, I don't know where he got the idea that "casualty rates actually reduced as 2 bodies of infantry moved closer in a fire fight." He makes the claim, but the evidence for that assertion is not there.

I have heard that the original researcher for this has since retracted / modified the claim.

I don't know all the details but it appears there was a training issue with US infantry, but not the marines or UK soldiers.

The issue was identified and the training changed.

From what I remember back when I wanted to be a Marine, it was largely caused by the Army doing all their marksmanship training shooting at big round targets and not silhouettes.

No idea if there was a similar training issue in the C19th, or how we would possibly discover it.

We'd need to know what marksmanship training actually was back then, and how many units actually did the training as specified.

IIRC, part of the problem with some troops doing multiple loads into their weapons was that their drill didn't include actually shooting. Just the loading part of the drill, no percussion caps used.

The author of American KS notes that the density of targets in the fire-beaten zone is the primary controlling factor of casualties at a given range as regards infantry fire. The more targets in that zone, the more casualties. This aligns with the theory that soldiers do not aim at particular targets; and in most of the H&M period aiming would have been of little use. The difference between the number of casualties caused by a skirmish screen when shooting at another skirmish screen and when shooting at a unit in line or column is extreme.

Also, (per AK) units that are within 200m to the rear of the target unit in our model war-games should be taking real casualties form small arms fire; how many games penalize battalions placed too near each other with real casualties and morale effects? Not many; usually the penalty is applied when the front unit breaks too near, and the rear unit is assumed to be swept up in the route (itself a dubious proposition). Period deployments don't make sense if you don't apply casualties to all units in the fire beaten area… nor for that matter do modern deployments. It might be a better system than the usual "Unit A shoots at Unit B" to instead count all units contributing to a fire-beaten zone, then applying hits to the units inside based on that. Aritllery especially should not be stopping at the front target unit, but rather should have its real and morale effect carried beyond to all units behind the target unit; they might not have any effect, but it should be diced for as a factor.

For instance, instead of a range to a single target, a unit should have an array of ranges: Short, Medium and Long. At each range, the first target encountered will suffer a number of casualties based on a function of the distance and target formation (density), minus a factor based on the number of intervening targets and terrain before the fire reaches the target in question. In this way, two or more units could be struck by fire from a single unit; if the fire is from the flank or rear, even a small number of such casualties could result in withdrawal or the check of an advance. This would require players to use more historical deployments: depth, frontal attacks, secured flanks, etc. It would also require bigger tables to achieve the correct depths (a plus for maps!)

The Henegan figures mentioned by Cerdic above bear scrutiny because they are real data from an accurate source rather than some academic, arithmetical formula. Henegan writes that the Anglo-Portuguese Army (separate from the Spanish contingent) at Vitoria fired in the region of 3,675,000 musket rounds and 6870 artillery rounds – to kill and wound around 8,000 Frenchmen. In his experience this was typical expenditure for major engagements in the Peninsula. Notwithstanding any discussion of "hit rates", I find the manufacturing and transportation infrastructure aspects of this level of logistic support fascinating.

That number is kinda giving of the different "styles of combat"

If the French fired 2.1 million musket rounds and fired between 65 000 and 80 000 rounds from the artillery at Borodino

While a quite a bit smaller Anglo-Portuguese army expended 3.6 million rounds from the muskets.

It does back up very nicely the old talk about British preference for musketry.
But does not back up any claim about superior British musketry.

Hagman and gunfreaks posts are very interesting for comparison. Especially if one consides the huge casualties at Bordino compared to Vittoria.

But again, fired when and at whom? A lot of musket fire from skirmishers would be nothing more than harrassing fire, and if the estimate that 15-25% of all musket fire were misfires, the numbers don't tell you much about boots on the ground, specific event expenditures of ammo or their effects. For instance, the British had about 1/6th of their army out as skirmishers during the battle of Vitoria, so how does that effect the expenditure of musket rounds?

3,675,000 musket rounds and 6870 artillery rounds – to kill and wound around 8,000 Frenchmen.

If real numbers, if all of the 8000 were hit by musket rounds, that is 1:459 rounds fired. [.002%] If only one third were hit by artillery, that is 1 hit for every 3 rounds.

You can play similar number comparisons with the Borodino numbers. You still come up with
1. averages for whole battles, not effects of specific actions and
2. Artillery always comes up as a more effective weapon.

The problem with averages over large numbers of events is like coming up with the average family having 2.4 children in the US. First of all you will never find a family with that number/fraction of children, nor will it help you determine how many children are in Wales or Louisville, KY. Second, that average can only be used for large scale issues, not small scale.

Skirmishing fire would have a higher to hit rate than the formed battalions. So that would bring the actual hit rate for battalions to pretty damn little.

I would assume that Vitoria had fewer artillery casualties % wise then Borodino(less artillery and less downright artillery murder)

So yes 1/3 casualties would sound about right.

As far as I know, no divisions stood under artillery bombardment for hours at Vitoria, unlike at Borodino were Russian reserve battalions had close to 50% casualties before even making contact with the enemy.

Skirmishing fire would have a higher to hit rate than the formed battalions. So that would bring the actual hit rate for battalions to pretty damn little.

Would they? The 17th Legere fired off all their ammo at Saafeld and Jena and there isn't any indication that hit rates were any higher for them… could be, but how would we know?

There are plenty of examples of skirmishers firing at 100-150 yards away. On major concern about skirmishing what the 'waste' of ammo and how fast skirmishers burned though their supplies.

I would assume that Vitoria had fewer artillery casualties % wise then Borodino(less artillery and less downright artillery murder)

So yes 1/3 casualties would sound about right.

As far as I know, no divisions stood under artillery bombardment for hours at Vitoria, unlike at Borodino were Russian reserve battalions had close to 50% casualties before even making contact with the enemy.

Exactly. So if all those musket rounds fired only caused 4000 casualties at Vitoria, we are down to .00015 hits per musket round and far higher casualties from artillery if the troops stood still.

Aimed fire from trained shooters should be more accurate then massed volleys on command or random fire at will. (In theory.) And it's not like volley fire didn't happen at 100-150 yards. French doctrine has 150 meters as engagement distance. The muskets them self are perfectly capable of hitting a man at 100 meters. It was the users not the weapons them self that caused the ludicrously low hit rate.

Of course not all skirmishers are crated equal. But remember if we say trained skirmishers hit at 1:100 or 1:200 or 1:300 instead of the 1:500++++++++ their fire does have a higher hit rate but the moral effect is lessened (more spread out over area and time)

Henegan's figures for Vittoria do bear scrutiny, because they are almost certainly wrong. He wrote:

At Vittoria, each infantry soldier, on entering the field, had sixty rounds of ball cartridge in his cartouch box for immediate use, making a total of three million rounds. As near as possible to the divisions of the army, were brigades of small-arm ammunition to feed the expenditure; and from the commencement to the close of the engagement, one million, three hundred and fifty thousand rounds of ball cartridges were issued by the Field Train to the troops. Now allowing one half of these to have been expended at the termination of the battle, there was still a total of three million six hundred and seventy-five thousand rounds fired against the enemy.

Henegan assumed that EVERY INFANTRYMAN in Wellington's army fired the entire 60 rounds that they carried in their cartouch boxes, as well as assuming that they also consumed half of the ammunition issued during the battle from the Field Train, and that consequently, if Henegan is to be believed, they all ended the battle with almost no ammunition in their cartouch boxes. This is complete nonsense.

To take an extreme view, and assuming that the reserve ammunition issued during the battle just served to top up the cartouch boxes so that every infantryman maintained their original 60 rounds complement, the ammunition consumed during the battle could have been as low as 1,350,000 rounds.

I've read that soldiers could carry up to 80 more rounds in their backpack. . Is this taken into account?

And regiments were resupplied during battle, but the Major has a point.

Even so, if it was 1,350,000 rounds for 8,000 hits, that's one hit for every 169 rounds or .005 hits per round. Still a long ways from 1 to 5%. Adding rounds to the cartouch boxes or reducing the hit rate to include artillery casualties and you have a pretty pee-poor hit rate.

However, I don't believe, if true, that those numbers have any bearing on the actual effectiveness of a smoothbore musket, volley or skirmish fire.

I should explain that last point. Consider how many rounds were needed to hit the enemy in WWII with far more lethal small arms… That count has little to do with how lethal those small are could be and were in many instances.

In Would War II, the United States and its allies expended 25,000 rounds of ammunition to kill a single enemy soldier. In the Korean War, the ammunition expenditure had increased four-fold to 100,000 rounds per soldier; in the Vietnam War, that figure had doubled to 200,000 rounds of ammunition for the death of a single enemy soldier. From S.L.A. Marshall's "A Soldiers Load and the Mobility of a Nation."

However, some of his conclusions and stats have been questioned. Here is this:

See, e.g, SHAPE Technical Center, Rates of Expenditure of Ammunition in Relation to Posture (1972).

Here are two examples of the level of detail, drawn from a 2002 study prepared for the US Army's Center for Army Analysis by the Dupuy Institute:

Average daily ammunition expenditures for the 2nd Infantry Division, 24 August—20 September 1944 (28-day period):

Cal. 30 Carbine – 1,441.07
Cal. 30 Ball, 5 clip (BAR) – 1,553.57
Cal. 30 Ball, 8 clip (M1 rifle) – 22,050.29
Cal. 30 Ball, MG – 16,491.07
Cal. 45 Ball (M1911, M1 & M3 SMGs) – 3,578.57
Cal. 50 MG – 12,620.71

Rocket, AT HE (bazooka rounds) – 41.68
Grenade, Hand, frag. – 423.29
Adapter, Grenade Proj. – 77.93
Grenade, Rifle, Smoke, W.P. – 16.29
Grenade, Offensive (concussion) – 16.04
Grenade, smoke & colored-smoke – 37.61
Grenade, Rifle, Antitank – 89.57

60mm mortar shells – 826.71
81mm mortar shells – 1,367.04
57mm antitank rounds – 65.07
105mm howitzer, M3 – 408.25
105mm howitzer, M2 – 1,896.84
155mm howitzer, M1 – 471.82

Average daily ammunition expenditures for the 90th Infantry Division, 1—31 July 1944 (31-day period):

Cal. 30 Carbine – 7,251.52
Cal. 30 Ball, 5 clip (BAR) – 9,855.23
Cal. 30 Ball, 8 clip (M1 rifle) – 27,885.90
Cal. 30 Ball, MG – 30,382.90
Cal. 45 Ball (M1911, M1 & M3 SMGs) – 2,611.39
Cal. 50 MG – 2,627.39

Rocket, AT HE (bazooka rounds) – 42.71
Grenade, Hand, frag. – 512.06
Adapter, Grenade Proj. – 17.19
Grenade, Rifle, Smoke, W.P. – 74.52

60mm mortar shells – 511.77
81mm mortar shells – 2,209.55
57mm antitank rounds – 65.48
105mm howitzer rounds, M3 – 450.77
105mm howitzer rounds, M2 – 2,577.81
155mm howitzer rounds, M1 – 346.81

Conclusion? That the rate of hits per round of small arms or even heavy weapons didn't result in a much better hit ratio than the Napoleonic Wars… and that is with much better weapons.

the Anglo-Portuguese Army (separate from the Spanish contingent) at Vitoria fired in the region of 3,675,000 musket rounds

That's a pretty remarkable statistic. Take out the cavalry and the gunners and that's what, 60,000 infantry? Who fired 60 rounds each, 98.3% of which missed.

So presumably, if 600 men in line fire a volley, they would score ten hits.

@ McLaddie

Personally, I don't know where he got the idea that "casualty rates actually reduced as 2 bodies of infantry moved closer in a fire fight." He makes the claim, but the evidence for that assertion is not there.

That claim is also made in 'Bullets and Brains'. The fire of defenders is more effective at 200 yards than at 50 because in the latter case they can see what damage they're doing and don't want to do it.

Probably less than 10 hits in a volley, more like 2-4.

At 2 rounds a minute that's 8 casualties a minute, 80 casualties in 10 minute, so about a company per 10 minutes.
This is perfectly consistent. With the typical attritional warfare, we would see during the Napoleonic wars.

Napoleonic warfare is in the end just resource management.
The commander that keeps in reserve and feed in the reserve at the right time, usually win(usually) This is true if we are talking keeping battalions in reserve or squadrons.

McLaddie, thanks for those stats, makes logistics more important than we realise especially as modern warfare is a lot about sustaining the firepower that can be delivered.

However we should expect a lower hit rate due to the use of covering or suppression fire and artillery interdiction fire, none of which really applies to the Napoleonic period.

Do you (or anyone else) have examples from the Seven Years War or Marlborough?

I am thinking of using a rule mechanism where losses due to artillery and firefights are not determined until a shock or assault takes place. This means you record the "weight of shot" that a unit has received but you do not determine the casualties or moral effect until a close assault is made or received.

If the attack succeeds then the defender with a heavy level of artillery loss will rout with little chance of recovery.

If the attack stalls then you end up in a firefight with more weight of shot applied to both sides.

If the attack is beaten off then the halt will occur nearer to the start line if the weight of shot is high.

This concept is simple enough but I am still calibrating it.

To add to this the weight of shot is converted to losses when a unit rallies or reforms and potentially the morale rating is lowered at the same time.

For the OP, is the thing to do not isolate some instances where we know it was musketry that caused all/the vast majority of the casualties suffered and see what the situation looks like then?

That claim is also made in 'Bullets and Brains'. The fire of defenders is more effective at 200 yards than at 50 because in the latter case they can see what damage they're doing and don't want to do it.

4th Cuirassier: Thanks, I didn't think it was in Noseworthy's book.

Probably less than 10 hits in a volley, more like 2-4.

At 2 rounds a minute that's 8 casualties a minute, 80 casualties in 10 minute, so about a company per 10 minutes.
This is perfectly consistent. With the typical attritional warfare, we would see during the Napoleonic wars.

Is it? Certainly, sustained volley fire was attritional. However, ten minutes of fire at two rounds a minute is twenty rounds. Many muskets would need either to have the flint adjusted or be unfouled by 12 rounds.

I am assuming you are talking about 100 men. If a battalion of 600, then 12-24 hits per minute. That would mean that in less than an hour the whole battalion would be down. We don't see this at Albuera, for instance. The attritional rate has to go down fairly quickly for the British and French units to 'only suffer' 40 percent casualties over an hour. [Actually, the French V Corps were in the fire fight with both Spanish and British brigades for more than an hour and a half. And don't forget there was lots of smoke.

I like Mike the Analyst's approach.

No I'm talking about a full battalion.

600 men will hit 2-4 enemies in your "average" volley.
There is no way 100 men can kill/wound 80 men with volley fire over 10 minutes.

No 600 men will kill about 80 enemies over 10 minutes.
I said 2 rounds a minute to take into account misfires and slower rate of fire closer to those 10 minutes.
So they might start at 3 a minute and by the end have 1 a minute so 2 on average.

If the hit rate was much higher then the firefight would be over quickly. We know firefighters could last 5-10-15- or over an hour.

80 men out of 600 men is more than enough to cause disruption, some will be NCOs or officers.
It doesn't mean the battalion is out of action, but it might retreat, we know battalions could retreat and come back into the action several times over the course of a battle. 80 men is well over 10%, if the battalion retreat and come back and retrieve similar casualties we are now talking almost 25% casualties.
Again this fits perfectly into many descriptions of combats, units going in fighting, maybe chasing off the enemy, meeting more enemies, getting beaten back, then coming on again etc. Typical ebb and flow. That slowly builds up casualties until the total of the army casualties are 20, 30 or 40%

There are of course instances were the army casualty rate spike (like large formations overrun by cavalry. Or heavy concentrated artillery bombardments ) But there are often also lulls that make up for this. Creating this grinding attritional battle punctuated by higher and lower casualty rates.

600 men will hit 2-4 enemies in your "average" volley.
There is no way 100 men can kill/wound 80 men with volley fire over 10 minutes….80 men out of 600 men is more than enough to cause disruption, some will be NCOs or officers.

Gunfreak:

Is it? And what do you mean by 'disruption?' 13% casualties causes it?

Then in ten minutes, both sides in a battalion vs battalion firefight should be disrupted?

Without questioning your numbers, can you link those losses to 'disruption' and what does that mean in the way of unit actions and capabilities? I feel like we are dancing on air here.

It doesn't mean the battalion is out of action, but it might retreat, we know battalions could retreat and come back into the action several times over the course of a battle. 80 men is well over 10%, if the battalion retreat and come back and retrieve similar casualties we are now talking almost 25% casualties.

Do we? When? What kind of historical events are you thinking of?

Again this fits perfectly into many descriptions of combats, units going in fighting, maybe chasing off the enemy, meeting more enemies, getting beaten back, then coming on again etc. Typical ebb and flow. That slowly builds up casualties until the total of the army casualties are 20, 30 or 40%

What descriptions?

I am assuming you are talking about 100 men.

At the Vitoria rate of 3.7 million rounds fired to down 8,000 men, that's one casualty per 463 rounds fired. A volley by 600 men would thus inflict one casualty. Three volleys would inflict a total of four casualties.

Another comparator we have for period-ish musketry is Rorke's Drift. 20,000 rounds were fired, mostly at very short range, at 4,000 Zulus, inflicting losses on them of 300 men. We can perhaps include the same figure again for wounded who had left the battlefield and were not counted next day – although arguably we should not, because the next-day body count could in fact include wounded who had since died. But if we say 600 casualties in total for argument's sake, then one in 33 rounds fired caused a casualty. This is a lot higher than one in 463, but given the tactical circumstances – rounds were being fired at point blank range into a dense mass of troops – it is, while low, consistent. It is 15% losses which left the Zulus in poor shape, although the 14-hour fight can't have helped.

The problem I then have with the arithmetic here is that if it is true that a volley of musketry inflicted ~0 casualties, then logically, everybody should and would have quickly learned to disregard incoming musketry completely. Constructively it was harmless. That doesn't seem to have happened.

It must follow, then, that (arguably irrational) fear of musketry was the reason troops retreated from it. As the losses were negligible from moment to moment it was the circumstances that made troops run. It further seems that firing their own weapons is good for your troops' morale (in the gamey sense), even if it was pretty much ineffective.

So perhaps the way forward is to ignore the casualties on the basis that they were immaterial and to focus on the circumstantial factors.

Another thing to keep in mind with sustained firing is the misfire rate. For flintlocks I've seen anything from one tenth to one sixth postulated. And it's cumulative, so even at 1/10, by volley six, only 53% of the muskets are firing. At 1/6, it's down to 33%.