Thoughts About the Horse and Musket Period

The period from ~1700 to ~1848 is known to wargamers as the Horse and Musket period. Some use a single set of rules for this period, since infantry use muskets with bayonets, cavalry uses sabers and lance, and black powder artillery looks pretty similar. Tactics, drill, weapons and even logistics slowly evolved during the period.  The advent of widely used rifled small arms and artillery, railroads and steamships spelled the end of this period. 

 

The period begins with the invention of socket bayonets, which gave the musketeer a cold steel defense when unloaded. The use of pikes faded, though the Swedes continued to equip up to a third of their infantry with pikes at the start of the period. Their aggressive Gå På doctrine, close range fire followed by a cold steel charge made them the terror of the Baltic region. The Russians finally stopped them at Poltava with masses of artillery and infantry. But the Swedes are outliers in this period.

 

Most troops used musket fire and artillery to wear down the enemy before closing with cold steel. Cavalry tended to use pistols at close range before resorting to sabers. Cartridge boxes carried perhaps 26 to 29 rounds. Extra cartridges had to be carried in soldiers’ pockets. I recall old rules where musket fire was based on 2 or 3 rounds per minute. At 3 rounds per minute, an 8 or 9 minute fire fight would see ammo exhausted. There seems to have been a bit less firing than the maximum rate of fire indicates. This holds true today. If infantry just blazed away as fast as possible, they would likely run low in a little over 5 minutes. At the 1777 Battle of Hubbardton, one Continental unit reported firing about 20 rounds per soldier during a hotly contested two hour fight. This indicates sharp encounters separated by lulls in the action.

 

Flintlock weapons might misfire as often as one shot in seven. Drawing a live round from a muzzle-loader is tense work even when no one is shooting at you. I can testify. Towards the end of the period percussion cap locks would see a slight increase in rate of fire and a decrease in misfires. A prolonged firefight would see barrels fouled by black powder residue. This would continue past the period into the American Civil War and beyond until smokeless powder dominated the battlefield.

 

Rate of infantry fire was slowed by wooden ramrods at the start of this period. Load too fast and they break. Prussian infantry used steel ramrods, less likely to break. Constant practice allowed them to fire up to 5 rounds a minute. A minute or two of this would often convince the other side to back off. As the war went on and attrition told, new recruits usually could not keep up with this rate of fire. Again, the cartridge boxes would empty even sooner. We see a gradual increase in infantry firepower due to metal ramrods and improved musket drill. According to Dominic Lieven, the British historian descended from a Napoleonic Russian General, Russian infantry firepower suffered from the inferior paper their cartridges were made with. Minor details can have major results.

 

During the War of the Spanish Succession, infantry formed 3 to 4 ranks deep depending on national doctrine. Infantry companies were administrative organizations, not tactical units. Infantry battalions were divided into 4 equal divisions on an as-needed basis, regardless of the number of companies. These divisions were how the battalion maneuvered from column of march into line.

 

The Prussians used strict discipline to constantly drill their troops until they could form line faster than opposing infantry. Marshal de Broglie figured he couldn’t get his French to match this. His solution was to break his infantry line into 4 divisions, like those of the infantry battalion. By having all four deploy at the same time they could be safely in line by the time the Prussians finished their deploying from a single column. This was the genesis of permanent divisions, which in time led to the formation of permanent corps. Before this, divisions above the battalion level and corps had tended to be ad hoc and basically interchangeable.

 

The Revolutionary and then Napoleonic French developed faster drill methods making formation changes yet faster. At the end of the period chasseur and zouave drill became even faster, as rifled weapons began to make close-order formations more vulnerable to fire. Drill evolved during the period, making trained infantry more flexible.

 

As firepower increased, infantry formations became shallower. Most nations went to three ranks. Britain and the nascent U.S. went to two ranks. Note that Wellington, after seeing the trouble caused by French cavalry in the open terrain at Quatre Bras, went to 4 ranks deep at Waterloo. Rules giving  a firing bonus for two-rank formation need to be adjusted for that famous battle.

 

At the start of the period, some armies had light infantry (notably the Austrian Grenzers) who fought in loose order, often used in broken terrain and specializing in raids and such. By the French Revolution the practice of screening formed troops with skirmishers became widespread. These troops harassed the enemy, functioning as early warning and advanced guards.

 

So far, we have seen a change in infantry firepower, drill and organization. As the industrial revolution spread, weapons and supplies changed from artisanal goods to factory produced. While some artisanal products may have been finer, factories produced more, enabling armies to grow in size. The evolution of advanced capitalist economies made financing larger armies possible. Increased population from improved agriculture provided the basic raw material, live bodies.

 

And now for the evolution of artillery. Artillery was extremely heavy in 1700. The horse teams needed to move these behemoths were privately owned. The owners were eager to get themselves and their valuable horses out of harm’s way when the lead started flying. The Austrians were the first to use military personnel to draw the guns. They would not start the battle by running away. Metallurgy improved, making weapons lighter and gradually more accurate. Consider the following weights of artillery pieces.

 

M1707 Prussian 3-pounder	826 lbs.
M1707 Prussian 12-pounder	3,471 lbs.
1st Empire (Gribeauval system) 8-pounder	2,137 lbs.
1st Empire (Gribeauval system) 12-pounder	4,364 lbs.
M1857 U.S 12-pounder Napoleon gun-howitzer	1,227 lbs.

 

As the period ended, the M1857 gun had the hitting power of the earlier 12-pounder guns and yet weighed substantially less than the French medium gun, less than a third of the French 12-pounder. Lighter guns were more mobile and lessened the burden of gun crews operating the guns. Before the days of hydraulic recoil mechanisms, guns rolled back with each shot (one of the correct things in that recent Napoleon film). The crews had to wrestle these heavy guns back into place after each shot. About the time they ran out of ammo, the crews would be physically exhausted. Again, rules based on maximum rate of fire deserve a wary eye. John Gibbon, the Civil War Union artillery expert, considered that a gun crew should fire one well-aimed shot every two minutes. If they were being directly attacked, the rate might well go up. Or they should limber up and escape.

 

We have dealt with how infantry slowly increased firepower and flexibility, and was covered by skirmishers at the end of the period. There was a slight bit about increased supplies, and now lighter, more mobile artillery. We come to the cavalry. I don’t have nearly as much to report here. There wasn’t much change in horseflesh or troopers. The increase of infantry and artillery firepower was not matched by horseback shooting. Better cavalry now tried to close with cold steel before their foes could get more shots in. irregular cavalry instead opted for raids rather than battlefield heroics.

 

Battles of this period look similar save for uniform fashions. But the pace and interaction of the different arms evolved during the time, tending towards more firepower, flexibility, mobility and increased organization at higher levels, like division and corps.

 

A digression: when American Civil War officers talked about Napoleonic tactics, they weren’t talking about Napoleon I. They were talking about then current French tactics of Napoleon III’s army. Chasseur tactics and zouave drill were all the rage. The French army was the leading army in Europe, having bested the Austrians in 1859 and suppressed the locals in North Africa. The kepi was based on their uniforms, as were the various zouave units. The Napoleon gun-howitzer was named for Napoleon III. None of them knew that the emperor and his army were headed for a big fall.

Further: I was going to post some photos but Google Blogger suddenly is giving me grief about posting photos. Sigh. Maybe the heat got to them.