You’ve got the right spirit, though I do question some of the finer details.
Muskets were also cartoonishly inaccurate, they had ~30% chance of the bullet rattling around in the barrel and landing in the dirt if you were aiming for something 30 yards out
I question where this number came from. Not impossible, I’ve just never seen a 30% chance of missing ascribed at 30 yards.
“A soldier’s musket is not exceedingly ill-bored (as many are), will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards, perhaps even at 100; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; and as for firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you might just as well fire at the moon and have the same hope of hitting your object. I do maintain and will prove, whenever called on, that no man was ever killed at 200 yards by a common soldier’s musket by the person who aimed at him.”
Muskets then being inaccurate by the accounts of the time, but I question if your numbers are an exaggeration.
Napoleon and the US civil war did the same things, but that was after rifling was invented and bullets usually [went] where you pointed the loud end of the gun.
I’m trying to parse this sentence and not make too many assumptions. Rifling existed in the Revolutionary war. Kentucky Long Rifles are famous examples. These were by no means the standard and smoothbore were much more common, but that is also true of the Napoleonic Wars. The smoothbore Modèle 1777 musket was the standard French military arm for example.
You’ve got the right spirit, though I do question some of the finer details.
I question where this number came from. Not impossible, I’ve just never seen a 30% chance of missing ascribed at 30 yards.
From the writings of Colonel George Hanger published in 1808:
“A soldier’s musket is not exceedingly ill-bored (as many are), will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards, perhaps even at 100; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; and as for firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you might just as well fire at the moon and have the same hope of hitting your object. I do maintain and will prove, whenever called on, that no man was ever killed at 200 yards by a common soldier’s musket by the person who aimed at him.”
Muskets then being inaccurate by the accounts of the time, but I question if your numbers are an exaggeration.
I’m trying to parse this sentence and not make too many assumptions. Rifling existed in the Revolutionary war. Kentucky Long Rifles are famous examples. These were by no means the standard and smoothbore were much more common, but that is also true of the Napoleonic Wars. The smoothbore Modèle 1777 musket was the standard French military arm for example.