On the next page you will find an article from the defunct Courier on Continental Rifles by Fred Vietmeyer. It is one of the most complete articles on the matter that I have seen. I used it as a basis to make our rule on the Rifle Units. I have slightly modified the rate of fire to agree with an English book called the Universal Soldier which gives some rates of fire and about 3/4 of the musket. In our rule we have 2 classifications for the rifle equipped units S and K. All 'S' units have the British Baker rifle and all K units the Continental types of rifles that fired slower. The fact that the firing of a rifle has been taken in consideration in the rate of kill which is about 1/2 of that of the musket, so we are able to allow the rifles to fire every turn unlike the C.L.S. rules which allow them to fire every other turn. Continental Rifles in Napoleonic Wargames by Fred H. Vietmeyer, Midwestern Napoleonic Wargamers Confederation When a Napoleonic wargamer thinks of rifles, he thinks of the British green rifles and well he should, for the Baker rifle was the best of the new weapons developed in the Napoleonic wars (at least the best represented, because of prolific English accounts). Joe Weiler in his "Wellington at Waterloo" states on page 174 that the average rifle rate of fire was about 1/3 as fast as for a musket, but that a Baker rifle used by British or KOL riflemen was considerably better, though still slower than a musket. Albert A. Nofi in S7t #32 in "Napoleon at War," page 19, suggests a rate of 1/3 to 2/3 for the Baker, compared to the Brown Bess, and 1/2 that of other armies' muskets, while the continental rifles fired at 1/2 the rate of the Baker rifle. Ranges for the various rifles seem identical, and in the neighborhood of certainly 150 yards and considerably more for some marksmen, while the musket's effective range is shown to be 75 yards, though Richard Glover reports best results for the musket up to 160 yards in "Peninsular Preparation," page 114. Jac Weller reports better than 50% accuracy for a rifle (p. 173) at 150 yards range, and Richard Glover gives an almost 1/6 chance of a rifle hit at 300 yards. Although initially Baker rifles were loaded with a mallet, eventually this was overcome by using a grease patch, but the continental rifles invariably required the slow mallet or heavy ramrod, hence the slow rate of fire. Plus The fact that weapons such as the Potsdamer buchae (Prussian Jager rifle) fouled so badly after twenty shots that it had to be cleaned, per Dennis Showalter in "The Journal of Modern History" Sept. 1972, page 375. He points out this weapon required a little over a minute per round for a trained rifleman and 30 minutes per round for untrained men! To add to the wargamer's problem, Reginald Bretnor in "Decisive Warfare," page 64, shows the rifle to only have a "lethality index" of 36, compared to the contemporary Napoleonic muskets' index of 47. Furthermore, it seems when continental armies committed their rifle units to a pitched battle, there was some disappointment and some units converted to special light muskets (trench elite legere), or used only perhaps one in ten (Duke of York and Bavarian) or started using loosely fitting carbine balls in the rifles- or not using patches so in effect the rifles had the net effect of a musket. Also in 1809, 80% of the Bavarians using rifled weapons were semi-trained "plinkers." When a wargamer searches for continental rifle units, one must be most careful and not make assumptions. The modern infantryman is interchangeably called rifleman so some translators indiscriminately use the term "rifleman" to Napoleonic units also. Roy Monkcom uses this translation in "Napoleon's Battles, stating on page 276 for example, that the French had six regiments of young Guard riflemen in the 1812 invasion of Russia. Actually, they were the Tirallieurs of the Guard and did not carry rifles. Similarly, Richard K. Riehn in "The French Imperial, the campaigns of 1813-1814 and Waterloo" page 3 speaks of ligne and legere brown musket stocks, blank metal parts, and white rifle slings. However, a partial list of rifles are as follows: Units equipped with the Baker Rifle were the British 5/60th, British 95th, KGL Light Companies of the line battalions, KGL light battalions, and Portuguese Cacodores certainly after 1811. Units equipped with continental type rifles were: Prussian Guard Jagers, East Prussian Jagers, Prussian Freiwilliger Jagers, Lutzoa Free Corps 2nd Battalion tyrolean Jagers and other Lutzon Jagers- not Lutzow Bayonetten jagers however, after 1808 half of the Danish King's Leib Jager Battalion, French Legere Carabiniers at least until 1807, NCO's and officers of French legere voltigeurs at least until 1807, Brunswick 1809 Sharfschutzen Korps, selected men in Bavarian line and light battalions, French guard Dragoons, one half of each Tyrolean Jager company. Vienna Volunteer Schutzen Company, selected men of the Austrian Grenzer Battalions, 13 men per company in the 1805 Russian jager battalion, Danish (pre-1808) light companies of line battalions, Brunswick Advantgarde (1815) battalion, and the Westphalian Elite Jager-Carabinier Battalion. Units that perhaps had continental type rifles were: Bavarian Freiwilliger Jager Battalion, Bavarian Gebirgs-Schutzen Korps, Saxon Jager Korps 1809, Saxon Freiwilliger Scharfachutzen company, Wurttemberg Fusz-jager regiment, Hessen-Darmstadt Freiwilliger Jager detachments, Hessen-Kassel Freiwillliger Jager Battalion, Mecklenburg Freiwilliger Fust jager regiments (two), Waldeck Jager, Lippe-Detmold freiwilliger Jager, Wurtzburg Freiwilliger Jager, Austrian-German Jager battalion, Hellweg Freikorps Jager detachment, Ruxo-Serman Legion Battalion, Baden Buchenjager. An interesting trend from rifles is shown by the French abandonment of Legere rifles in 1807 to a light weight musket in the voltigeur company to a standard musket in the carabiner company. Of the potential three jager type Prussian battalions available in 1808, the Silesian schutzen were armed with smooth bore weapons according to Peter Paret's "Yorck and the Era of Prussian reform 1807-1815," page 148. Similarly, the newly formed British Light Infantry battalions of Moore's new tactics were armed with a light musket and the Russian Jager battalions were issued the standard infantry musket after the Russian's harsh experience at Friedland. But selected marksmen in each Jager battalion had been armed with a rifle in 1805-1807. Austrian Grenzers, it appears, were armed with muskets as cited by Gunther Ruthenberg on page 126 of "The Military Border in Criatia 1740-1881," but there is some evidence that, the Seressaner (in effect "elites" of the Banal and Karistadt Grenzer regiments) carried rifles. Perhaps this matches the report in "The Armchair General," Vol. II, #4, p. 21 that about 10% of these weapons had reached the Grenzers by 1813. So what's a wargamer to do in view of this maze of weapons, organizations, etc.? Perhaps Scharnhorst's conclusions are of use wherein he concluded after extensive tests with "patched" continental rifles, unpatched continental rifles, and French, Prussian, and English muskets- published in 1813- that musket and rifle fire had about the same effect in the same length of time. Therefore a wargamer could simplify by treating continental muskets and rifles alike, and simply allow only for the better Baker rifle in his rules with perhaps 50% longer range with half the rate of fire. If the rulessmith wanted to take into account continental rifles, then he could further reduce the fire rate to 1/4 that of muskets but to counter balance, rule that rifles have reduced melee power. Specialized battles such as Waterloo could thus be portrayed with all rifle weapons present but the game designer had better specify that each player declare his rifle units in advance to avoid confusion. I must interject a caution here. Continental rifles were perhaps 15 times as expensive as a musket, required extensive training, and needed a private ammunition supply. It is unhistorically easy for a wargamer to create a rifle unit, since the painting is no more trouble than a musket unit. Heavy uses of rifles in unhistorical ratios quickly changes a Napoleonic wargame to an American Civil War battle, and this was indeed the main weapons change when the minie ball rifled musket was introduced. Bibliography in Order of Reference Weller, Jac, Wellington at Waterloo, Thomas Y. Cromwell Company, N.Y. (1967) Glover, Richard, Peninsular Preparation, Cambridge University Press (1963) Nofi, Albert, "Napoleon at War" in "Strategy & Tactics" #32, Simulations Publications, New York City, May 1972 Showalter, Dennis E., "Manifestation of Reform: The Rearmament of the Prussian Infantry 1806-13" in "The Journal of Modern History," Vol. 44, No. 3, September 1972 Bretnor, Reginald, Decisive Warfare, Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, Penn (1969) Schwarz, Herbert, Gefechtsformen der Infanterie Und thre Engwicklung in Mittlepuropa, Majer & Finckh, Munchen (1962) Lachouque, Henry, Napoleon's Battles, E.P. Dutton & Co., New York (1967) Riehn, Richard K., "The French Imperial Army, the Campaigns of 1813-1814 and Waterloo" Inric/Risley Miniatures, Richmond Hill, N.Y. (1965) Paret, Peter, Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform 1867-1815, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. (1966) Rothenberg, Gunther, The Military Border in Coratia 1740-1881, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1966) Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 1 No. 7 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Jean Lochet This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com