Muzzleldrs Smoothbore Springfields in Union Regiments in 1864?

False. The muzzle velocity of the old Brown Bess was about 40% higher and the ball was larger.


False. The speed of loading of a smoothbore musket had a higher ceiling than a Minie rifle.


Actually, also false, but it's a result of bias. You see, it happens that the wound records record wounded individuals, while those struck by smoothbore balls in similar places at short range were simply killed.

Also, it's still Minié. It's someone's name, so there's really no excuse for continually confusing them with a mouse.



Have you done that range estimation thing yet? It might be harder than you imagine - which is why, as you yourself have actually stated, over 98% of balls fired at Stones River were misses.
You are beating a dead horse, here. For whatever reason you have fixed on an idea & no amount of data will shake you from it. What is the point of having a discussion if you refuse to acknowledge that other people in the discussion are vastly more knowledgable than you are & learn from them?

Because the smoothbore round had to have some kind of paper or cloth to seat it & prevent blow by it had to be rammed by tapping it into the breech. If the seating material gets pushed aside or is missing, the ballrattles down the barrel doing damage to the bore & sending the ball off in an even wilder trajectory than usual. The conical bullet, on the other hand, was smaller than the bore & was rammed into place with little effort. Thus, as anyone familiar with black powder infantry tactics will tell you, the rate of fire from a Civil War rifle is greater than from a smoothbore.

The published medical reports of both armies make it abundantly clear that the wounds from rifled bullets were far more damaging than round balls form smoothbore. At the start of the Civil war, medical reports indicate how shocked the doctors were by the relative severity of the wounds. None of this information is hard to come by. It is, in fact, taught in classes as elemental information to the understanding Civil War combat casualties.

Are you familiar with the term autistic logic? You might want to look it up.
 
You are beating a dead horse, here. For whatever reason you have fixed on an idea & no amount of data will shake you from it. What is the point of having a discussion if you refuse to acknowledge that other people in the discussion are vastly more knowledgable than you are & learn from them?

Because the smoothbore round had to have some kind of paper or cloth to seat it & prevent blow by it had to be rammed by tapping it into the breech.
What are you talking about? When loading a smoothbore you just pour the powder, then load the entire cartridge. That include the paper and do the trick. (and make it a bit faster than when using the american method of removing the paper from the bullet when loading a rifled musket)

You have repeatedly claimed that you are somebody important and knowledgeable... But you never back up you claims with any real evidence.
So when do you get, that for us to accept you as "knowledgeable" you need to show that that is in fact the case.
And you have not done so. You usually just mention some not named friend of yours. That is not a source, but a unsupported claim.

You posted one source - a test proving something we all agree on.

And a test that do not in any way tell us how well the soldiers where able to hit at long range.
Their skills are the issue. Not the gun.

Thus, as anyone familiar with black powder infantry tactics will tell you, the rate of fire from a Civil War rifle is greater than from a smoothbore.
Now this claim is just pure ignorance. And prove that you have no hands on experience with black powder firearms... or ever a basic understanding of how they worked and how they where used.

This is a complete waste of time.
 
Last edited:
<snip>

And a test that do not in any way tell us how well the soldiers where able to hit at long range.
Their skills are the issue. Not the gun.

This! The soft lead of the Minie/Burton ball caused horrific wounds, 'tis true. The carnage was great.

Both the rifle musket and the smooth bore musket fouled rapidly from the inefficient black powder propellant. Minie/Burton balls were greased for that reason.

Claud E. Fuller cited the cartridge used at the start of the Civil War, but not the developments that went into it later.
So, at the start of the war a .5775-in. conico-ogival bullet with three cannelures, weighing about 500 grains, was propelled by 60 grains of coarse musket powder rather than rifle powder, which was considered unsuitable because it might stop up and block the cone.

At the start of the war, the lubricant was 1 part beeswax to 3 parts tallow.

Later in the war, the diameter of the ball shrank because it too was difficult to load when the bore became fouled, and the powder charge went up to 65 grains. In Confederate practice, a marked preference for the Enfield type cartridge was in evidence, and the powder charge was something like 70 grains.

Paper from the smooth bore cartridge was stuffed down the barrel as wadding until the gun was fouled, when it too had to be discarded because it was no longer as loose a fit... This being a .65 caliber ball in a .69 caliber bore.

The rate of fire was not appreciably different until the advent of breech loading. Rifles had initially not been deemed desirable by Ordnance departments because loading them took too long, and the rate of fire of the smooth bore was thus greater. The whole point of the Minie/Burton development was it finally allowed the precision and accuracy of the rifle combined with the rate of fire of the smooth bore.

But the inability of soldiers to gauge the correct distance, to remember to adjust the sights--or even be trained to do so regularly--and the generalized lack of marksmanship training largely negated the superior qualities of the rifle musket.

Many battles fought in the age of smooth bore muskets appear to have been equally bloody as Civil War battles, albeit the sheer size of mass armies grew throughout the 19th century.
 
You are beating a dead horse, here. For whatever reason you have fixed on an idea & no amount of data will shake you from it. What is the point of having a discussion if you refuse to acknowledge that other people in the discussion are vastly more knowledgable than you are & learn from them?
You're repeatedly claiming things that are flat wrong, so I could make a comment about motes and beams. Note that you claimed that the muzzle velocity of a Minié rifle was higher than a smoothbore; it is in fact lower.


Because the smoothbore round had to have some kind of paper or cloth to seat it & prevent blow by it had to be rammed by tapping it into the breech. If the seating material gets pushed aside or is missing, the ballrattles down the barrel doing damage to the bore & sending the ball off in an even wilder trajectory than usual.
You have a very strange idea of how a rifle musket was loaded compared to how a smoothbore musket was loaded. We know from various sources that British troops in the Peninsula could fire up to five times per minute; more than that, however, the loading of a smoothbore musket and a rifle musket are essentially identical except for the way the rifle's bore is not smooth.



The published medical reports of both armies make it abundantly clear that the wounds from rifled bullets were far more damaging than round balls form smoothbore. At the start of the Civil war, medical reports indicate how shocked the doctors were by the relative severity of the wounds. None of this information is hard to come by. It is, in fact, taught in classes as elemental information to the understanding Civil War combat casualties.
Consider the following situations.

A direct hit from a rifle ball (with a certain amount of energy) leaves someone barely alive after a serious blow to a bone. Doctors are amazed by the damage.
A hit in the same place with a musket ball (half again as much energy) kills them. Doctors don't look at them.
 
Are you familiar with the term autistic logic? You might want to look it up.
Charming.

Because the smoothbore round had to have some kind of paper or cloth to seat it & prevent blow by it had to be rammed by tapping it into the breech. If the seating material gets pushed aside or is missing, the ballrattles down the barrel doing damage to the bore & sending the ball off in an even wilder trajectory than usual. The conical bullet, on the other hand, was smaller than the bore & was rammed into place with little effort.
As it happens, I went to the trouble of looking up the dimensions of a "Brown Bess" musket ball. (This is the various patterns of musket used by the British Army in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.)

The bore of the Brown Bess was .75, but the ball was .71 - that is, the windage was 4/100 of an inch in total to allow for easy loading.

By comparison, the bore of the Enfield rifle-musket was .577 and the original ball was .568; this was reduced to .55 by Boxer after the original was found to be too hard to load during the Indian Mutiny. Note that even in the reduced calibre ball the windage was 27/1000 of an inch, or about 2/3 of that of the Brown Bess; the original calibre ball for the Enfield had a clearance of slightly less than 1/100 (specifically 9/1000) of an inch.

Thus, the ball for the Brown Bess had a greater clearance than the ball for the Enfield.


The same pattern also applies for other rifles and other muskets.
 
Oddly the smoothbore musket is actually better than we might imagine at area fire.


There was a great deal of skirmishing at Arcangues, but no concentrated French attack. An unusual duel developed between their artillery and the muskets of the 1/43rd at a distance of 400 yards, far beyond the normal range of the Brown Bess. The 1/43rd had taken up a position in and around the church, a strong building constructed in the Basque fashion with two balconies above the nave. Windows lit all three levels. The wall surrounding the churchyard was lower than the nave, giving the 43rd four protected firing levels. Due to the conformation of the land in front, the French artillery, if it wished to fire on the church at all, had to expose itself on a crest 400 yards to the north. No infantryman could hope to hit a single opponent at such a range, but a target as large as a battery of artillery was a different matter. The 43rd, firing four-tiered volleys, caused the French gunners to fire inaccurately, and later abandon their pieces.

Weller, Jac. Wellington in the Peninsula (Napoleonic Library) (Kindle Locations 4659-4666). Frontline Books. Kindle Edition.


There's also an interesting possible source, which is 18th century fortification designers. The whole point of a "star" fort is that there should be no point on a face not covered by musket fire from another face, and if one looks at the structure of these forts and the contemporary manuals about attacking or defending them we see that they consider about 240 to 300 yards to be musket shot for this purpose. (Lochee's Elements of Field Fortification says that this should be reduced somewhat because men under fire would not be able to aim very well, but it's interesting that this book so old that it ufef thif kind of fpelling should consider infantry to be able to fire out a few hundred yards.)

This does not mean that a man could deliver aimed musket fire at a single target at 300 yards; this is basically impossible without a rifle such as the Baker (with a patched ball) or one more modern. However, it does mean that an area target at 240 yards was considered viable for defensive musketry (probably partly to ward off an enemy and partly to inflict actual casualties).

It was not however decisive range, which was much, much less with a smoothbore - well inside the point at which a trained soldier firing perfectly could score 100% hits with a smoothbore - and it should not be any greater with a rifle, because of the issue of limiting factor:


For a smoothbore
Inside 100-150 yards the limiting factor is the man
And outside 150 yards the limiting factor is the weapon

For an Enfield or Springfield
Inside ~600-900 yards the limiting factor is the man
And outside 900 yards the limiting factor is the weapon

But if the decisive range in ACW battles was less than 100 yards, then that means that the limiting factor is the man whether the weapon is a rifle or a smoothbore, so we should expect little difference between rifle troops and smoothbore troops.
 
E.J. Hess, The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat (Kansas: 2008), 109-10:

Range of Fire
[...Only Stones River December 31, 1862 in this post...]
88th Ilinois, Sill's brigade, Sheridan's division, McCook's Right Wing, Army of the Cumberland

Colonel ordered regiment to wait until Confederates were 75 yards away before he allowed it [unit] to open fire.

21st Wisconsin, Starkweather's brigade, Rousseau's division, Thomas's center, Army of the Cumberland

Regiment was told to wait until Confederates were within 'a good hitting distance,' and colonel ordered it to open fire at about 170 yards.

Liddel's Brigade, Cleburne's Division, Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee

Opened fire on a Federal brigade at 65-70 yards.

22nd Indiana, Post's brigade, Davis's division, McCook's Right Wing, Army of the Cumberland

Regiment waited until Confederates were 30 yards away before it opened fire.

35th Indiana, Price's brigade, Van Cleve's division, Crittenden's Left Wing, Army of the Cumberland

Regimental commander waited until Confederates were 30-40 paces away before ordering regiment to open fire.

6th Indiana, Baldwin's brigade, Johnson's division McCook's Right Wing, Army of the Cumberland

Regimental commander waited until Confederates were 100 yards away before he allowed his eager men to open fire.

Sources:
Quest for a Star: The Civil War Letters and Diaries of Colonel Francis T. Sherman of the 88th Illinois (Knoxville: U of TN Press, 1999), 22.
D. Gould & J. B. Kennedy, eds. Memoirs of a Dutch Mudsill: The "War Memories" of John Hentry Otto, Captain, Company D, 21st Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry (Kent State UP, 2004), 83.
Nathanial C. Hughes, ed. Liddell's Record: St. John Richardson Liddell, Briadier General, C.S.A. (Morningside Books, 1985), 112.
M. Goodings to S. M. Jones 9 Jan. 1863 OR Vol. 20, pt. I, 278.
B. F. Mullen to S. W. Price, 5 Jan. 1863 OR Vol. 20, pt. 1, 611.
H. Tripp to P.P. Baldwin, 4 Jan. 1863 OR Vol. 20, pt. 1, 339.
 
Excellent work, thanks for combing through to find those references.

It looks like the standout is 170 yards, which interestingly is the only one that's past "point blank range" and the only one where sights would need to actually be set.
 
Claud E. Fuller cited the cartridge used at the start of the Civil War, but not the developments that went into it later.
So, at the start of the war a .5775-in. conico-ogival bullet with three cannelures, weighing about 500 grains, was propelled by 60 grains of coarse musket powder rather than rifle powder, which was considered unsuitable because it might stop up and block the cone.

At the start of the war, the lubricant was 1 part beeswax to 3 parts tallow.

<snip>

Many battles fought in the age of smooth bore muskets appear to have been equally bloody as Civil War battles, albeit the sheer size of mass armies grew throughout the 19th century.

First, excuse the pedantic minutiae: I was going to add that the lubricant designed for use in the heat and humidity of the Southeast later became 8 parts beeswax to 1 part tallow, which is really thick.

More importantly, Hess again, 202:
Losses in selected North American battles before 1861

Bunker Hill 1775 Continentals: 36.6% British: 47.9%
Eutaw Springs 1781 Continentals: 23% British: 34.6%
Cryslers Farm 1813 USA: 13% British: 15%
Lundy's Lane 1814: USA: 30.9% British: 25%
Buena Vista, 1847: USA: 14% Mexicans: 16%

ACW:
Shiloh 1862: CSA: 24.1% USA: 16.2%
Corinth 1862: CSA: 11.2% USA: 10.4%
Stones River 1862-3: CSA: 26.6% USA: 22.3%
Gettysburg 1863: CSA: 30.2% USA: 21.2%
Atlanta 1864: CSA: 19% USA: 6.5%

etc.
 
i might report one instance that had the rifle play a real role in battle during the CW.
Both Pender's and Rode's divisions reported being shot at all day from the (Cemetery) ridge on 2 July at Gettysburg.
I will not press the point, but I think some of the reason Pender's division, in addition to his wounding, did not get in the fight was this constant firing from sunrise til dusk. Rodes was ill, but still he could not move his men forward without increasing fire on him for a considerable distance.
There is little fair in war. I think Lee asked too much for these men to be shot at all day waiting for an indefinite point to attack. .
 
i might report one instance that had the rifle play a real role in battle during the CW.
Both Pender's and Rode's divisions reported being shot at all day from the (Cemetery) ridge on 2 July at Gettysburg.
I will not press the point, but I think some of the reason Pender's division, in addition to his wounding, did not get in the fight was this constant firing from sunrise til dusk. Rodes was ill, but still he could not move his men forward without increasing fire on him for a considerable distance.
There is little fair in war. I think Lee asked too much for these men to be shot at all day waiting for an indefinite point to attack. .
Having checked the ORBATs, I actually wonder if that was the US Sharpshooters (who were trained for long distance range estimation and musketry). They were at Gettysburg in Birney's division of Sickles' corps. (It could also have been the Massachusetts Sharpshooters, who were in 2nd Corps.)

It seems unlikely that what was going on was that Pender's division was under fire by any significant number of line troops (either acting as skirmishers or otherwise) because being under the fire of any significant number of rifle-trained troops for twelve hours would simply completely destroy any division targeted.
 
Gettysburg on 3 July 1863 as it appears on Hess's Table 4.3:

14th Connecticut, Smyth's brigade, Hay's division, 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac

Opened fire when Confederates were 200 yards away.

Kemper's Brigade, Pickett's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia

Opened fire at a range of 100 yards.

Garnett's Brigade, Pickett's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia

Opened fire at a range of 75 yards.

Armistead's Brigade, Pickett's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia

Fired at 72nd Pennsylvania at a range of 80 yards.

Artillery is another matter...
 
14th Connecticut, Smyth's brigade, Hay's division, 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac

Opened fire when Confederates were 200 yards away.
I believe that's the one where they were going to hold their fire until closer range, but then saw the Confederates beginning an oblique move instead (meaning the CSA troops would never get any closer) and opened fire then.


Artillery is another matter...
Indeed. I've seen it argued that one of the biggest changes in the "feel" of the battlefield from Napoleonic to ACW where it's actually an improvement is that guns go from being "a mixture of 4,6,8,9 and 12 pounders" to "mostly 12 pounders and rifled guns" - which is an overall increase in range on all counts.
 
Having checked the ORBATs, I actually wonder if that was the US Sharpshooters (who were trained for long distance range estimation and musketry). They were at Gettysburg in Birney's division of Sickles' corps. (It could also have been the Massachusetts Sharpshooters, who were in 2nd Corps.)

It seems unlikely that what was going on was that Pender's division was under fire by any significant number of line troops (either acting as skirmishers or otherwise) because being under the fire of any significant number of rifle-trained troops for twelve hours would simply completely destroy any division targeted.
There was no attempt at destruction by the rifle fire. Mostly, I think, the Federals were having some sport with the Rebs to pass the day.
Neither side had any orders to move, so the Rebs had to just wait. The Federals had some height and got in trees and other cover on the ridge sides. This was somewhat like trench warfare with nobody especially well dug in.
 
There was no attempt at destruction by the rifle fire.
That's kind of what I'm getting at, really. If the fire was constant throughout the whole day, was from line units, and had the kind of precision that rifle-trained line units were capable of in contemporary European armies then it absolutely would have destroyed Pender's division.

Let's say there were ca. 12,000 troops in the Federal lines who had a good LOS, and about the same in the two targeted divisions (Pender and Rodes). Let's also say that the Federal troops expended about 1/4 of their ready ammunition on the firing, and that this amounts to about 16 rounds per man.

With the kind of hit rates achieved by the British in the Crimea, that would have killed every man in both CS divisions. Obviously this isn't what would actually happen, but it indicates that well-trained rifle troops with good range estimation can do terrible terrible things to an enemy who stands still long enough...
 
That's kind of what I'm getting at, really. If the fire was constant throughout the whole day, was from line units, and had the kind of precision that rifle-trained line units were capable of in contemporary European armies then it absolutely would have destroyed Pender's division.

Let's say there were ca. 12,000 troops in the Federal lines who had a good LOS, and about the same in the two targeted divisions (Pender and Rodes). Let's also say that the Federal troops expended about 1/4 of their ready ammunition on the firing, and that this amounts to about 16 rounds per man.

With the kind of hit rates achieved by the British in the Crimea, that would have killed every man in both CS divisions. Obviously this isn't what would actually happen, but it indicates that well-trained rifle troops with good range estimation can do terrible terrible things to an enemy who stands still long enough...
I see this as one point that rifles made a difference. Also, i think Lee understood what at least two of his divisions had to endure. This makes me think Lee had a different timeline in mind for 2 July.
 
I see this as one point that rifles made a difference. Also, i think Lee understood what at least two of his divisions had to endure. This makes me think Lee had a different timeline in mind for 2 July.
But the occasional sniping and pot-shots you're talking about were a feature of pre-ACW combat as well. It shows up at pretty much any of Wellington's European battles one way or another, for example.
 
But the occasional sniping and pot-shots you're talking about were a feature of pre-ACW combat as well. It shows up at pretty much any of Wellington's European battles one way or another, for example.
Certainly i agree. But this case was unusual, as the Federals had such a topographic advantage.
 
Certainly i agree. But this case was unusual, as the Federals had such a topographic advantage.
Though cases where one side has a topographic advantage are hardly uncommon in the ACW as such - and it doesn't really help much for rifle fire, either.
In this specific case Cemetery Ridge is dominating terrain but it's really not very high. It's only about 40 feet above the surrounding terrain - Marye's Heights is similar - and it's going to provide only a very small advantage to musketry. (By comparison the heights over the Middle Bridge at Antietam are 1.5-3 times higher depending on how you count.)
 
Back
Top