"What rifles did British LI use?" Topic

It's pretty well established (at least here on TMP) that when British LI were out skirmishing, instead of just being the Fast Guys in the elite Cornwallis Task Force, that a small number had actual rifles, and not plain vanilla muskets.

What type of rifle did they use?

We know that the Ferguson Rifle was used in the Experimental unit, and then put back in storage. So it can't be them.

I am guessing that it wasn't the German jaeger rifle, but that's just a guess.

What type of rifle did they use?

This is of course contrary to the myth of only Yankees using rifles, hiding behind trees, etc.

I always thought they used the brown Bess. And "American" rifles were not as widespread as people think. I remember reading that the long rifles were made in Pennsylvania by German gunsmith. That being said I am sure there were plenty of rifle makers in the colonies.

The Pattern1776 model.

link

There were generally more Crown rifles on most major battlefields than American ones.

Aside from some Lights from each regiment carrying them, so did some dismounted cavalry, all the Jaegers, and some Loyalists at times (e.g., Queen's Rangers).

In the F&I, rifles were also issued to British troops. They were generally models purchased in Germany. See the Bailey book on British small arms. Excellent. Also clears up some things on British Lights during the Rev War.

I had no idea that rifles were issued to the Light Infantry. I am still somewhat skeptical. In the numerous books and articles I have read about the British Army during the Revolution, I have not ever seen it mentioned.

I happen to have Ketchum's "The Winter Soldiers" with me and while he writes volumes about American and German rifles, not one word about British Lights with rifles.

But what really confuses me are the rules I have read and played does not account for them. Just American Riflemen and Jaegers. I will do some serious digging tonight in my references. But for now, color me skeptical.

Could one fix a bayonet to this rifle? Because I know British Light Infantry had bayonets. They were used as elite shock troops. Bayonets fixed and sloped.

Divide 1,000 rifles by 100 light infantry companies, deduct for breakages, storage and lost in shipping, then try to find out when a "Pattern 1776" was actually delivered to regiments, and those regiments shipped to the colonies. Notice the article doesn't say.

I would be perfectly happy in a 1:1 skirmish to have a British light infantryman who'd gotten his hands on a rifle--or an American with a double-barreled long rifle: there was at least one. But my usual question in a wargame is "were there units armed with this weapon?" For the AWI, that means Jaegers, the 1st Continental, and a bunch of backwoodsmen on both sides.

I should note that I've played Napoleonics for 50 years and never made provision for French light infantrymen with rifles of honor, either.

There were generally more Crown rifles on most major battlefields than American ones.

I would really like to see the data that this statement is based on.

Yankees using rifles, hiding behind trees, etc.

Yankees were not known for being riflemen. Rifle country was further south.

I've never seen either an AWI rules set that provided for jaegers operating with Grenadiers for bayonet support either, but they did all the time.
But at the scale I like to play, it matters.

De Witt Bailey. Awesome and definitive.

Thank you. I will check it out.

Obviously I'll have to find a copy of Bailey. I did find something on the gunsmith:

link

But everyone else keeps saying the same thing about 1,000 rifles, light companies and most battles of the AWI. I'm sorry, but let's stop and think a moment. The pattern isn't approved until January 1776, so I think we can leave out Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. And with a newly-approved weapon and exactly one prototype in existence, the Board or Ordnance did not send a purchase order and a wagon to Birmingham and come back with 800 rifles. If it took a journeyman gunsmith a week to make a rifle--and I think that's low--you'd need 16 journeymen doing nothing else to make them in a year. There would have been approximately none available when Howe sailed, so you've just lost all the battles around New York, the Retreat across New Jersey, Trenton and Princeton. They might have been around for Saratoga, Brandywine, Monmouth and the southern campaigns, but that's not quite the same thing.

Historygamer, does Bailey have anything on acceptance from the gunsmiths or issue to units?

I have gone through everything I have and the only mention of British rifles are Ferguson's short lived rifle unit. However I came upon these 2nd Light Infantry reenactors who seem to know what they are talking about. They say that 5 out of 45 had rifles. The bayonet guys were used to back up the rifle guys. So John, on the skirmish level you would have a few rifle armed. But my Light Infantry Battalions will be armed with the Brown Bess.

Interesting to note, I could not find a single scenario, including BG that gave the LI rifles. I don't believe the Perry's make LI with rifles and yet they do for the QR. Does anyone make a Regular British LI with rifles for the AWI? Here is the YT video.

YouTube link

5 out of 45 is roughly 2 out of 12. Give me the roundup.
At my level, that's fine.
Since it's TSATF, that means the riflemen hang back while the Big Boys fight the first round.
Will it make a game difference? Most likely not, but it's for color.

Just like I'll be sure to give Jaegers backup.
I can pretend that I am "simulating" more accurately.

Wow, where to begin. I'll just hit the highlights:

1. The first appearance of rifles in the British military occurs in 1740 when rifled barrel carbines were requested for Admiral Vernon and General Lord Cathcart being sent to the Caribbean to attack Spanish bases

2. Other requests for rifles occurred during the 1740s and rifles stores of rifles in the Tower of London in early 1747

3. 12 rifles were issued for the use of engineers accompanying Braddock and were reported as part of the van guard.

4. First documented large acquisition of rifles by the British army occurs in 1756 by Col James Prevost (60th RAR). He purchased 300 rifles in Germany (prior) that had steel ramrods and mounted bayonets. No example of these rifles has been found, but he was reimbursed for them by Lord Loudoun. I have seen other references where 15 were issued to each of the 4 battalions of the 60th RAR. These rifles were issued to other battalions as well (perhaps for hunting too), including some gentlemen officers serving with Rogers, later returned to stores.

5. 1762 Lord Albermarle requests 10 rifles for use by the engineers going to Havana, Cuba.

6. Communication within the govt regarding the production of rifles occurred in the autumn of 1775 for use in N America. This was prior to the engagement of German Jaegers (remember the 511 who took the field at Brandywine? How many American rifles there???)

7. Contract in Feb 1776 to German gun makers for 200 rifles, and British gun makers for 800 rifles. Total order of 1,000 rifles. No bayonet, swivel rammer. These rifles were referred to as the 1776 Pattern Infantry Rifle. Precise dates for deliver of said rifles is unknown at this time. Select men in the 16th and 17th LDs were given rifles to the dismounted elements. 100 of the German rifles were sent to Canada and NY (50 each) late summer of 1776. English rifles likely shipped to NY in early October.

8. First found reference to issue – 50 to Emmerich's Chausseurs in Aug 1777. Issued to the Lights – 5 per company (Light companies were usually large), Shaw's rifle company of the QRs from late 1779, Althause's NY Volunteer rifle company, and almost certainly to select men in some of the Highland regiments (42nd, 71st). Also receiving rifles – Brown's East FLA rangers, Barclay's Provincial Light Inf (formed 1778), and Royal Rifle Dragoons (1779) under Capt. Flemming, and two companies Detroit Volunteer Chausseurs (1778). Officers could request rifles be issued for units as well.

8. Various American rifles were carried by Loyalist units, especially in the south. Pattern 1776 rifles were also issued out of Charleston and Savannah.

9. The section on the Ferguson rifle, and Ferguson himself is fascinating. It goes into detail of the units he commanded, both regulars and Loyalists, and the later units carrying rifles at King's Mountain.

I quote the following from the book:

"Along with the 1,000 Pattern 1776 rifles and the 100 Ferguson rifles, there were more than 4,000 German auxiliary troops from Ansbach-Bayreuth, Anhalt-Zerbst, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Hesse-Cassel, and Hesse-Hanau carrying their rifles in British service in North America between 1776 and 1782; this is a minimum figure gleaned from the Faucitt Papers and includes original numbers and replacement troops. It clearly indicates that as far as regular troops carrying rifles, there were more in British than in American service, since most of the rifles in American service were in the hands of short-service-serviced militia."

Me again. According to NPS Saratoga Battlefield Park historian Eric Schnitzer, the American approach to rifles appears (not surprisingly) to parallel the British approach, of holding rifles in store and issuing them as needed. Eric points out this was the case with the famed riflemen at Saratoga, who were only issued rifles shortly before the battles. Read his chapter in the book about the campaign and archaeology efforts. There is also a chapter in there by Luzader, the previous park historian and well known author about the campaign.

A few more tidbits:

A company each of the 16th and 17th LDs carried the Pattern 1776 rifles. You can see one in the Dewitt Bailey Museum at Colonial Wiliamsburg.

When the Lights were stood back up in 1771, most of the existing regiments' Light companies eventually received the Pattern 1769 Carbine, which carried a wooden ramrod. Likely subsequently raised regiments' LI carried the 2nd Patter Land musket (plus the five men armed with the Pattern 1776 rifle).

Many units still carried the Long Land Pattern musket, especially Loyalist units. Many of those muskets also had wooden ramrods.

Long story short – rifles weren't the battle-winners they would later go on to become. They had their use, but they also had their limitations (as noted in that video). The range of muskets is largely being reconsidered in the re-enactment community. While it is true that the aimed range of a musket was, at best, 120 yards, muskets could still fire out to ranges of 200 to 300 yards using a type of area fire. Not aimed, but balls still raining down none the less.

Hello, Bill N. Lots of rifles among the "Yankees!"

Not my era, but I recall that the 1st Pennsylvania (rifle) "regiment" was on the security line the night the British attacked at Paoli, PA. The British removed their flints, were ordered to attack anyone who fired by bayonet, as the British could not fire. The riflemen did not have bayonets, and were essentially "dead meat!"

Washington later converted this unit to muskets, and probably any others in his army.

It is not called the Pennsylvania Rifle for nothing!

"Last of the Mohicans" was about Natty Bimbo ("Deerslayer?")
with a rifle in the New York area of Ticonderoga, etc. Might Uncas and Ching…. have had rifles as well?

Also, how were Rodgers Rangers equipped? The fought in New York as well?

GdeP

You know the old line that says "if you have to explain the joke, it wasn't a good joke". That applies here. Of the different meanings of "Yankees" I was using the one referring to someone from New England. Rifle country at the outbreak of the AWI stretched from Pennsylvania southward, and to someone from New Enland at that time the south started in New York. Is there an emogi for lead balloon?

Make that emoji a Poll Suggestion.

Hello Winston,

I am interested in your use of TSATF to game the AWI. I have played TSATF in the past in its original "colonial wars" itineration and liked how they played. Are rule variations for the AWI available in either a published or on-line version?

When you use these rules for the AWI does each formation equal a company?

Ryan

TSATF is vague about what each formation represents.
The rules specify "platoons", but that's not quite accurate.
When I played Cowpens, Camden and Bennington, they were more or less regiments. I'm getting ready to do Spencer's Ordinary, where the scale will be much smaller.
All I'm really trying to do is have a set of rules we all know, and use single figure bases.
When and if I ever release them, I will get complaints from the stitch counters, but I long abandoned their ranks. I'm looking for a game.

Basically, grade your units as Boer, Egyptian or British. Have militia shoot as Egyptian but with Boer morale. Cut ranges in half.
Make up consistent rules to cover lack of bayonets, amusettes, decide if your Indians are Dervish or Pathans, and do on.

Very interesting thread, folks.

Query: WHICH De Witt Bailey book? "British Military Flintlock Rifles" or "Small Arms Of The British Forces 1664-1815", or another title?

Small arms, but the book covers much more

Thanks Winston. I can be a real stitch/rivet counter on some topics, but I agree that the game is still of paramount importance.

Ryan

Garde de Paris- point of order

On receiving Gen. Grey's order that the attacking force's muskets should either be drawn and left unloaded or at least have the flints removed, Lt.Col John Maitland, CO of the 2nd Light Infantry, remonstrated, saying "the whole battalion was always loaded.". He gave his guarantee that there should be no premature firing on the part of the 2nd LI and Grey relented. Only when they had cleared through the far end of the American encampment did the LI open fire on stragglers in the woods.

The First Pennsylvania who, rather than forming the picket were brought up to support the troops facing the initial British assault, were indeed said to have been 'improperly armed.' In a regiment of 'Upward of 200 men 60 of them had bayonets'

(See: Thomas McGuire, 'The Paoli Massacre,' p.106;p121)

From an old friend:

Further to previous answers by "historygamer" and "42flanker", I have the two De Witt Bailey books and can vouch for the information they have given. In fact, from the Philadelphia campaign onwards, the rifle-armed men of each British Light Battalion were gathered together into a single formation, under a lieutenant, and marched at the head of the column, supported by one company of musket-armed men (presumably either the senior company of the battalion, or more likely the "duty" company for the day, in order to spread this chore around). At 5 men per company, this would have created a unit of about 60-70 men across each light infantry battalion; I would suggest this was split into at least two components, in action. Also, following the 1775 augmentation, there would have been up to 60 enlisted men in a company, during and after the 1777 campaign (not sure about the 1776 campaign – many units still seem to be at pre-war/peacetime levels of manpower). I believe Lumpkin's book on the Southern campaigns makes the point about riflemen being more numerous in the Crown Forces than in those of Congress; this may be hyperbole, but only slightly, and it was certainly true in many engagements, including the siege of Fort Stanwix in St Leger's campaign.