I have read the comments on musket ranges that appeared in "Empires, Eagles, and Lions," with interest, and would like to add my two pence as a private soldier. I have been active in the world of re-enacting since 1973, a record which hundreds can easily surpass. In that time, I have been an American Soldier of the Revolution, his British counterpart, served with Major Roberts and the rangers, and am looking into the War of 1812. En route, I have had the honor of serving field pieces from 12 lbers, through 3 lbers, and up to 6 lbers and 5 1/2" howitzers. In short, I have had a typical soldiers eye view of this period. Having served with both the British Brown Bess (Short Land Model), and the French Model 1777, 1 would like to make a few comments about them, and flintlock weapons in general. I have found that firing independently, with live rounds, a rate of fire of two rounds a minute, to be rather easy to do. This is assuming, however, that one is not subject to orders, and that one can take shortcuts such as not returning the ramrod to its pipes, but rather sticking it into the ground next to you, etc. Volley fire may drop this to three rounds per two minutes, depending on what orders are given. From practice, this has been the average speed that a group can load and fire for some time without any drop. The Prussian Army has been stated to have trained its troops to fire five times a minute, but I have not seen a date on this, nor have I seen whether or not it was live fire or blanks. in their drive toward the maximum number of rounds per minute, the Prussian Army adopted in the post Seven Years War period, a "self-priming touchhole," as well as a double ended ramrod. I wonder if the five rounds per minute was done with this weapon. As for the individual performance of the weapon itself, I would like to offer the following facts, with the reminder that these weapons that I am talking about, though exact reproductions are undoubtably better made than the originals, and that the black powder used is better than that used during the Napoleonic war. For either a Bess or a Charleville, the mis-fire rate is about one in five today. I have seen competitions run to see who could keep their musket firing the longest, when after twenty rounds, twenty-three people out of the forty who entered, were still left and the only item you were allowed to wipe the frizzen with was your thumb. On the other extreme, I have seen a platoon of fifteen musketmen, after a battle in which they fired at the most ten rounds, attempt a "fire of joy," and not have s single shot go off. I have seen battles fought in the rain, where the officers were attempting to explain to the sponsors that we could not fight in the rain, with the roar of musketry going on at the saw time. It takes a very heavy rain to put a musket out of operation. However, one should assume that at least one out of four weapons is in operable during a Napoleonic battle. One additional item that rarely is considered, is the size of the ball that the musket is firing. The larger the ball, the better the accuracy. The smaller the ball, the less accurate. However, with every shot, the discharge that builds up in the barrel of a musket is impressive. in firing a .75 Brown Bess, X use a .735 ball for the first six to ten shots. By the eighth round, the barrel is down to a .74 or less, and loading the .735 ball becomes a task. At this point, I switch to a .715 ball. Considering the improvements in gunpowder, the problem must have been far worse in the 1800's. In fact, for the first few rounds, one does not need a ram round, but rather one can pour the powder down the barrel, drop the ball on top of it, and rap the butt of the musket against the ground to seat it, thus never having to use a ramrod. After the first two shots or so, this method does not work, as the ball is liable to hang up in the barrel and not drop to the bottom, with interesting results. This crud that builds up in the barrel, in the pan and on the frizzen and hammer, must be cleaned out. If it should get wet and dry, the resulting cake will foul up the touch hole so that the weapon will be useless. Surprisingly, the Charleville, due to its banded construction, is a far easier weapon to clean in the field than the Brown Bess. A Charleville can be field cleaned, with the help of a screwdriver in less than an hour, while to do the same to a Bess, takes a hammer and a pin driver, and more than an hour. There is also the danger, that if one losses the pins, too many times, they will not hold. A second area where the Charleville has an interesting edge on the Bess, is in the nature of the hammer. The Bess has a goose neck, which can shatter, while the Charleville has a double neck hanvaer. Also, to adjust the flint in a Bess, one needs a screwdriver of somie sort, while the Charleville has a hole through which one can use a nail or something similar to tighten or loosen the flint. It is a small matter, to say the least, but to the man in the field, trying to adjust a flint to get his weapon to work, small things like this become important. As far as ranges go, seventy-five yards is about the limit for aimed fire at a human sized target for the average shot. Volley fire is accurate to 250 yards still has in this sense is a relative term. More correctly, volley fire at 250 yards still has some effect, for in shoots we found about ten percent accuracy at this range, shooting at human stillettes. (There were five members in the firing party, with four volleys fired). Closing the range, we went up thirty-three percent at 150 yards, and to sixty-six percent at 50 yards. This includes multiple hits on the target, no attempt at allowing misfires, etc. One point on musketry, that I feel is very important, though often missed is that the first volley is usually the best, and has the fewest number of misfires. This is due to the fact that this is the round that is loaded usually without hurry, and the firer has had a chance to check his lock. The flint has not yet chipped, the frizzen is still clean, and in short, this is the volley that has the best chance of succeeding in doing the most damage. In short, at least between the Bess and the Charleville, there is not much of a difference, although there are those who favor the French Charleville. Musket fire should have some effect on forme- d lines at about 250 yards, with the effect raising as one closes. the range. My personal house rules allow for the following losses per firing figure, (without any modifiers- these figures are for one line versus another in an open field). Losses Ranges 0-100 Yards 100-175 175-250 Max. 50% 25% 12.5% Average 35% 17% 8% Min. 20% 10% 5% Editor's Note: Greg Novak is the past editor of "The Courier," the journal of the North West Territorial Alliance, an 18th century re-enactment organization of considerable size and reputation. He is also a wargamer and teacher. Thank you very much for your "two pence" Mr. Novak. It is hard to argue with specific, practical facts like the ones you present in your article. I think that your data takes care of the question of musket rang and volley fire range. I am glad to see that we don't have here any basic disagreement with my article on MUSKET FIRE presented in this magazine in issue #20 of this magazine. The above article is also a very nice complement to the article presented in this issue, page 18, ON FIRE DISCIPLINE. Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 1 No. 24 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1978 by Jean Lochet This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com