Should there be a distinction made between matchlock and flintlock?

[Did you expect a name?]

According to 'Weapons at Westpoint' on youtube, the matchlock had a firing rate of about 1 round per minute, whereas the flintlock could double or triple that.

By the time of the brown bess musket (after the period set in this game), well drilled musketmen could shoot up to 4 rounds per minute!

Is that what lead to the so called 'military revolution' in the 17th century? The adoption of the flintlock*?

*By different names 'snaplock', 'snaphaunce', 'doglock', etc. Far as I know, they were all flintlocks of some form or another.

Should there be a distinction made in this game? If so, why? Or why not?

[SnuggleBunny]

I would say no. The game is modeling a very long period of time (1494-1700) in an abstract manner.

To my knowledge, the appearance of flintlocks did not radically change how battles were fought, and I'm not aware of a highly intensive "flintlock race." The mechanism was superior, and was gradually adopted.

You say well drilled troops could fire the brown bess 4 times a minute. That's probably true on a parade ground, but in battle, confusion, fear, smoke, and the fouling of the barrel probably reduced this rate. I also think soldiers of the 16th and 17th century were not drilled as strenuously as those of the 18th.

The game tries to reduce a huge plethora of weapons into a few small categories so that rules can be created covering the timespan. Right now, we have Arquebus and Musket. Really though, in historical terms it's hard to tell the difference between the two. For a time, the distinction was that muskets were larger caliber weapons made to penetrate armor, being heavy enough to require a rest. Gradually, musket just came to mean all non rifled long barreled guns. There was no standardization of caliber in most armies, so all kinds of guns were used, often even in the same unit. So the range 4 muskets and range 2 arquebuses are just an abstract way to represent the evolution of firearms.

If you were to make that system less abstract, you would have to do the same for all the weapons systems in the game, and I think it would get too complicated too fast. Composite bows vs longbows, poleaxe vs bill, sabre vs warhammer.

I think if the game were about a narrower timeperiod, such a consideration could make sense, but as things are, I think the abstraction is a good compromise to keep the game rules comprehensible.

As for the Military Revolution, debate among historians goes on about what it was. Was it the widespread adaptation of firearms? Or the offensive use of pikemen? The return of classical models of command divorced from the Germanic warrior ethos? The 200 year process of pike and shot and then the musket and socket bayonet becoming Europe's universal tactical system? Do revolutions occur over 200 years, or are they short and sharp events? Did the Military Revolution ever exist outside of the theoretical frameworks of modern academics? I don't think there is much agreement on any of these questions.

[Did you expect a name?]

"You say well drilled troops could fire the brown bess 4 times a minute. That's probably true on a parade ground, but in battle, confusion, fear, smoke, and the fouling of the barrel probably reduced this rate. "

Well, according to 'Military History Visualized' (on youtube) muskets would also have a 20% chance to mishap, and barrels could get pretty hot after rapid firing for a little while. Not to mention, ammo was also a concern (ammo being heavier then than it is in the 20th century onwards). So yeah, I could understand how flintlock wouldn't make TOO much of a difference then.

Maybe it's good for salvos, or justifies shallow formations in some way?

"I also think soldiers of the 16th and 17th century were not drilled as strenuously as those of the 18th."

Probably a much more contentious argument. Tercios do seem to me like they would have taken a lot of organisation, with musketmen rotating around the pike block and all that. In an intra-unit sense, maybe the organisation was similar to later armies - while the 18th century took more advantage of combined arms and inter-unit operation, though that's my conjecture.

"If you were to make that system less abstract, you would have to do the same for all the weapons systems in the game, and I think it would get too complicated too fast. Composite bows vs longbows, poleaxe vs bill, sabre vs warhammer."

I think this is a slippery slope fallacy. I was just trying to examine what might be strong contributors to the military revolution.

"I think if the game were about a narrower timeperiod, such a consideration could make sense, but as things are, I think the abstraction is a good compromise to keep the game rules comprehensible."

That's fair enough if you wanted to go more into depth regarding certain time periods, but that's for another day. :D

"As for the Military Revolution, debate among historians goes on about what it was. Was it the widespread adaptation of firearms? Or the offensive use of pikemen? The return of classical models of command divorced from the Germanic warrior ethos? The 200 year process of pike and shot and then the musket and socket bayonet becoming Europe's universal tactical system? Do revolutions occur over 200 years, or are they short and sharp events? Did the Military Revolution ever exist outside of the theoretical frameworks of modern academics? I don't think there is much agreement on any of these questions."

It sounds like you've read a bit more about this than me. :l

[SnuggleBunny]

Well I think the slightly higher rate of fire accelerated the trend of reducing the number of pikemen in infantry formations, and accelerated the trend of infantry action usually being decided by fire instead of shock.

Shallower formations were also a slow, century long trend, starting approximately 1600. Being able to fire more rapidly probably meant you didn't need as many ranks to keep up the same volume of fire, and deciding action by fire instead of shock probably reduced the need for many of those ranks too. I would hazard a guess that the socket bayonet had a greater effect on tactics.

[Did you expect a name?]

"Well I think the slightly higher rate of fire accelerated the trend of reducing the number of pikemen in infantry formations, and accelerated the trend of infantry action usually being decided by fire instead of shock. "

Well, shock was still a decisive thing, hence the continued use of cavalry up until WW1, right? Maybe it had more to do with musketmen needing less training?

Deciding a battle by fire doesn't sound like it'd require as brilliant of a general either - so the professional army doesn't need to be as big, while the scrub general and his musketmen can hold the hill or whatever?

"I would hazard a guess that the socket bayonet had a greater effect on tactics."

It could be also be argued that socket bayonets were simply the nail in the coffin on pikes? Shallow formations dominated, and now men could form square and stay like that if they were meant to front up against shock units.

The only thing disrupting this would be human waves of infantry (maybe the counter to un-flankable wagonbergs, or wagon circles; assuming horses can't simply knock down wagons), which would force some muskets to lose formation in order to duke it out with the bayonet. Which might also explain the popularity of the human wave up until WW1 (though generally, maybe only very brave infantry would be willing to charge head long into a musket line, shallow or otherwise; the exception being if they have a reach advantage, like with pikes, zweihanders or halberds).

Just like in this game, units caught in melee can really disrupt ranged tactics. And I think a circle of wagons would only somewhat disrupt a human wave; just climb over the wagon, spear in hand, and you're good (thinking of the zulu here).

[SnuggleBunny]

Shock was still decisive, but more as a psychological element of combat. Shock would decide an engagement that had already been decided by fire. Cavalry almost never successfully charged formed infantry. They would run down fleeing infantry, charge units in the flank that were poorly deployed, or charge units that had already been disrupted by musketry or artillery fire.

"Duking it out" with the bayonet basically never happened. Bayonets were more a psychological weapon. Cavalry would hesitate to engage them. When it came to infantry vs infantry, a clash of formed units in melee almost never happened. The defenders would flee, or the attack would peter out and degenerate into a grinding firefight, ending either when one side backed off or finally worked up the courage for a charge. Hand to hand fighting on a mass scale really only broke out during the storming of fortifications or in vicious house to house fighting. One book I highly recommend on the subject: "Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon," by Rory Muir.

To be fair, this change had been underway before the bayonet too - English Civil War infantry mostly were unarmored, even the pikemen often throwing away their armor on the march. Battles still occasionally came to push of pike, but the infantry battle was often decided by musketry alone, or musketry followed by a charge that broke the enemy before contact. Very different from the earlier era of ferocious hand to hand combat with the Swiss and Landsknechts.

Generalship still took skill; I mean, all modern conflicts are decided by fire superiority, but war is still something that only a small number of people master. Napoleon's infantry decided battles by a combination of firepower, and then taking advantage of its effects to charge and force the enemy out of position. Timing these attacks took skill, though I think that would generally be more a matter for officers more junior than the commanding general. The most important effect of training was the ability to rapidly maneuver and change formation in the face of the enemy, to gain an advantage in ground etc.

[Did you expect a name?]

"Cavalry would hesitate to engage them. "

I guess by that logic, they'd also hesitate to engage the spear. Still, knights tended to decide battles with a charge. There are accounts of musketmen that were unable to form square in time, and got routed by cavalry.

"Hand to hand fighting on a mass scale really only broke out during the storming of fortifications or in vicious house to house fighting."

Yeah, I don't think I meant that mass scale hand-to-hand fighting occured in the open (if anything, it'd get chaotic and the general would lose control of the battle; also most troops weren't brave enough, and 17th and 18th century armies were bigger raw affairs than the smaller life-time warrior armies of the olden days). I was thinking human waves would be more popular against fortifications such as trenches or wagon circles, or natural ones like hills. Storming walls also.

"To be fair, this change had been underway before the bayonet too - English Civil War infantry mostly were unarmored, even the pikemen often throwing away their armor on the march. Battles still occasionally came to push of pike, but the infantry battle was often decided by musketry alone, or musketry followed by a charge that broke the enemy before contact. Very different from the earlier era of ferocious hand to hand combat with the Swiss and Landsknechts."

This is funny, considering most of the battles in 1620s (30 years war map list) are me losing due to enemy picking the right times to engage in close combat. :l

[SnuggleBunny]

Knights didn't always decide battles on horseback though - sometimes they would dismount. At Hastings, they were assisted by infantry and, especially archery. During the Scottish wars the English learned the hard way that they should dismount their men at arms and rely on bowmen to take on the Schiltrons of spearmen. But you're right, knights did very well against most opponents in the charge. That being said, open battle was the exception - knights were more likely to be engaged in raids or sieges.

You're right about storming. And here is another case where psychology is everything. During the final assault at Yorktown, the Americans and French stormed the British redoubts with unloaded muskets. Now, theoretically, it would probably be more effective to charge with loaded muskets, blast the enemy in the face, and then carry on the charge. But psychological reality is such that men with loaded muskets would always fire, and then they would stop to reload. At this point they would be shot down in the ditch. So handicapping the men in their armament provided them a tactical advantage by forcing psychological cohesion on their advance, making this a well known tactic. Pretty interesting stuff when you really stop and think about it.

As for the game, it is an abstraction - I would argue that close combat doesn't necssarily entail constant hand to hand fighting, but short periods where the formations, or portions of the formations, draw off at 20 paces to catch their breath and blast away a bit. The Impact Phase also takes fire into account. Thus the Swedish Salvo foot's +200 POA on impact.

[Did you expect a name?]

"So handicapping the men in their armament provided them a tactical advantage by forcing psychological cohesion on their advance, making this a well known tactic. Pretty interesting stuff when you really stop and think about it."

Yeah I was watching the movie 'Gallipoli' with Mel Gibson (1981), and there's a scene where the men are about to do a human wave against turkish machine guns, and they're told to empty the clips of the rifles and remove all ammunition on their person. I think that would have confused viewers, maybe thinking 'Do they want the soldiers to die?'. Turns out it's just an age old tactic. :P

Even so, it colludes with the fact that the 4 waves conducted by the anzac were all complete failures in the period depicted.

"I would argue that close combat doesn't necssarily entail constant hand to hand fighting, but short periods where the formations, or portions of the formations, draw off at 20 paces to catch their breath and blast away a bit"

That would probably have given pikes an advantage if men kept backing off. Men retreat from chaos, and the pikemen grab the pikes they'd dropped on the ground (probably to wrestle somebody with a dagger), returning to the front rank to defend against the next rush along the line.

[ohener]

By the end of the 16th century military writers were already noting that it was uncommon for infantry to come to a push of pike in modern battles, and even then it wasn't really the pikes that did most of the killing.

During the 18th century, it still typically wasn't expected for troops to achieve more than 1-2 shots per minute under battlefield conditions. The 16th century musket took longer to reload, but that's mainly due to the fact that it was larger, weighed 20+ lbs, and requried a rest to shoot. Most infantry back then were instead armed arquebuses or calivers, which were smaller, lighter, and had twice the rate of fire. The trend for the 17th century was the "Musket" steadily becoming shorter and lighter until it ditched the rest and was closer in length and weight to what most 16th century arquebuses had been.

[Did you expect a name?]

But didn't lighter muskets sacrifice the power of earlier heavier versions, or were the earlier versions heavier due to over-building (because metallurgy improved in later periods, or people just got better at gun smithing)?

[SnuggleBunny]

Some of both. Gun making did improve, but penetrating power was less. That didn't really matter though, because by that point armor had largely been discarded, and such that was worn was rarely more than pistol proof, thanks to the weight.

[ohener]

A lighter weapon would make extreme recoil more difficult to handle, which may have affected power, however the actual caliber didn't decrease as much. A typical 16th century musket might have a barrel of up to 8 guage and and most arquebuses would be between 20-30 guage or so. At the end of the 17th century most flintlock muskets had a 10 or 11 guage barrel.

[Did you expect a name?]

Originally posted by ohenry415:

A lighter weapon would make extreme recoil more difficult to handle, which may have affected power, however the actual caliber didn't decrease as much. A typical 16th century musket might have a barrel of up to 8 guage and and most arquebuses would be between 20-30 guage or so. At the end of the 17th century most flintlock muskets had a 10 or 11 guage barrel.

Hm, that might explain why french curassiers wore torso armor into the 20th century, and why some helmets of later centuries had an iron or metal layer.

[SnuggleBunny]

The 20th century armor really was just for show. Even Napoleonic era armor was proof against blades, and, at certain ranges perhaps, pistol shots. At that point, its main function was psychological - its appearance would intimidate the enemy, and wearing it would give the men confidence. Arguably it was only of actual practical use when engaging enemy cavalry.

[Did you expect a name?]

Yeah, I heard about that. Curassiers were still somewhat functional and they did deploy cavalry reserves in WW1, in the event of a breakthrough to exploit (which did occur on the eastern front for the russians; not so much the western front). When the artillery finally did get to move forward in 1917, there were horses that became so stuck in the mud, they had to be put down.