Weapon Damages and Accuracy

[Defiant Dan]

Hi,
Im very intrested in the Weapons of the Civil War,i own a 1859 Sharps Cavalery Carbine and a Tryon Arsenal Sniper Rifle compareable to the Whitworth (small bore,fast twist)
I realy love that i can buy and choose Guns for my Army but im not happy with the Accuracy and Damage Values.

I think you look at it too superficial,to layman like,but that is no Wonder since you dont learn such stuff in School ;)

You need to look into Bullet Type,Powder Charge and Bullet Weight.

Said short,all your Weapons are too inaccurate and cause to less fatalities per Salvo
When 2 Brigades with rifled long barreled Weapons shoot each others facing on less than 300 Meters,,the complete first 2 rows of booth Brigades would die.
The Projectiles have no Problems going trough 3 Feet of Tissue,no Problems of penetrating the front Row and hit the Guys behind.

Back as the Cavalery adopted the 1859 Sharps Carbine they did Tests for effective Range and Service Charge...they tested it to 55 Grains of Powder,530 Grain Bullet,900 Yard effective Range on Cavalery Silouhette Target.
That means up to 900 Yard Distance,more then 50 % of the Bullets,shot by normal Soldiers,hit the Cavalery Silouhette Target (Man on Horse)....and that is with the Carbine...

The Sights on the 1859 Sharps Carbine are adjustable for up to 900 Yards.

When we look at the small-bore Fast Twist cal 45 Target Rifle....it was made for Creedmoor Competition on the Creedmoor Range on Long Island.There they shot on 1000 Yards.
The Rifle has Diopter Sights adjustable for up to 1 Mile Distance

Now some People will think this are rather Theoretical Values....
Union General Sedgewick thought the same as he shouted "stand up ! they wont hit an Elephant on this Range!!"....and then cal 45 Bullet impacted into his Right Eye and made his Skull explode....and 900 Yards away a confederate Sniper writes in his Daily Report "I shot a high ranked Officer from his Horse"....
It was a confederate Whitworth Sniper sitting on a Tree 900 Yard away...who with open sights gave the General a Headshot...

I would say up to 200 Meters every Bullet should hit on a uncovered Target,penetrating into the 2nd Line


And for the Damage
Work out a Math Formula where you calculate Barrel Length x Powder Charge : Bullet Weight...or something like that...and use the Results to work out the Different Damage the Weapons would do

You cant go by Caliber alone...
For example my 1859 Sharps has a caliber of cal 54,uses 530 Grain Sharps Projectiles (compareable to Minie Balls) and the Charge for the Carbine was 55 Grain Powder.

The Sniper Rifle has just cal 45....but its a ultra long bullet,which the rifle is able to fire cause it has Whitworths Idea of a super fast Twist...the Riffling makes it spin around much more than a normal Rifle,which can stabilize the long Bullet.And since its so long it weights 500 Grains,very close to the 530 Grains of the cal 54 Sharps.
And the normal Powder Charge is 80 Grains...so even the caliber is lower,the Power is much higher.

So you need a Formula for Damage considering Bullet Weight,Powder Weight and Barrel length.Cause with Blackpowder,longer Barrels equals more Power

[Tom]

1855 springfields are the bomb!

[CrashToDesktop]

You do have to take into account the actual combat conditions, being less-than-suitable ammunition quality, the aim of the soldier, the will of the soldier to actually kill someone, the condition of the soldier (if he's underfed, unnerved, or other physical or psychological effects) wind, moving targets (especially with cavalry or double-quick moving men), and other uncontrollable variables.

If anything, UG:CW is still far too lethal to be realistic, considering you can rack up two or three times the death toll in a battle in the game than happened in real life.

[Luunyrkki]

Originally posted by The Soldier:

You do have to take into account the actual combat conditions, being less-than-suitable ammunition quality, the aim of the soldier, the will of the soldier to actually kill someone, the condition of the soldier (if he's underfed, unnerved, or other physical or psychological effects) wind, moving targets (especially with cavalry or double-quick moving men), and other uncontrollable variables.

If anything, UG:CW is still far too lethal to be realistic, considering you can rack up two or three times the death toll in a battle in the game than happened in real life.

All true, and the game is msising perhaps the worst reducer of accuracy at all: smoke.

[brett.a.hankinson]

Would like to get some buck n ball for up close action.

[xScaramouchx]

You should look into practice range accuracy vs. combat accuracy. The vast majority of people do not try to hit another person with their bullet, and it is only through very rigorous, deliberate training that the average person is able to directly shoot another human being in combat situations.

[englebertfistybuns]

The weapons cause "too few casualties per salvo." When the major battles already have casualty rates of 40-60% I would prefer we don't add more casualties to the mix.

[Lumpy]

I agree. If anything, casaulties should be toned down.

[Deus Vult]

paper targets don't shoot back
shooting at the range incurs no morale checks
1 guy shooting doesn't cause as much black powder smoke as 10,000
keyboard commados shouldn't presume to know anything about real combat
go back to call of duty

[Aurion]

The standard of marksmanship in both armies varied widely but was generally not great- one signifigant issue the Union had as late as the middle of the war was that many of their units recieved very little or no live-weapons shooting training.

It wasn't terribly uncommon to glean rifles from the battlefield as late as Gettysburg whose owners had loaded charge after charge into- and never actually fired!

There's also the problem of being in a formation packed in with hundreds of other people, you're sweating like a pig in summer or freezing in winter, you might not be all that well-fed, and black powder smoke after enough firing more resembled a mobile fogbank than anything else.

And, of course, there's a bunch of people shooting at YOU. That tends to have a chilling effect on efficiency.

-

Imagine, if you will, standing in a battle line firing away at an enemy who is firing at you- only you can't really see them all that well now because there's a big bank of smoke obscuring your view.

Your rifle is slipping in your hands thanks to sweat, you can barely even ram in a new charge due to barrel fouling and said slipping- if you're lucky, you might have grabbed a rock to HIT the ramrod with.

You're firing as fast as you possibly can.

You have precious little cover- reloading a muzzle-loading musket while prone is a fool's errand, so you're standing still. If you're lucky, you're behind a tree or a rock. If not, you're standing in a field while bullets whiz by.

You look like you're performing in a blackface minstrel show thanks to the effect of biting black powder cartidges.

All around you people are dying in horrible ways, being wounded, mutilated, tossed through the air like rag dolls if they're unlucky enough to get hit by an artillery shell. You're probably thirsty as hell because your canteen is empty.

The entire world is shaking itself apart around you thanks to thousands of rifles and up to hundreds of cannons blasting away at close range.

-

There's a lot of very good reasons that even despite the advent of rifled muskets, the average engagement range in the Civil War remained less than 100 yards.

[RackemWillie]

There's absolutely no way you could say

Originally posted by Weedburner:

Hi,


Said short,all your Weapons are too inaccurate and cause to less fatalities per Salvo
When 2 Brigades with rifled long barreled Weapons shoot each others facing on less than 300 Meters,,the complete first 2 rows of booth Brigades would die.
The Projectiles have no Problems going trough 3 Feet of Tissue,no Problems of penetrating the front Row and hit the Guys behind.

This is simply not true. I actually think the kill rates are a bit too high currently. As others have mentioned, there an innumerable amount of factors beyond simple weapon quality that play into effectiveness. I applaud your insight into the weapons themselves but you have to realize that's just a small part, others have pointed out some of the factors.

Look at civil war casualties - most people died from disease, not even combat. Antietam for example, the bloodiest single day - there were firefights far closer than 300m and not everybody was killed...

[Defiant Dan]

The Combat was different then most Imagine..it was not mostly standing should to shoulder and dueling with enemy fireline....check Battlefield Archaology from Ghettysburg..they dig out cases and mark them with Gps..and by that you can a nice overall Picture of the Frontlines...and it seems that we have real Marksman Duels on around 250-300 Yard Distance..
The Invention of riffled Barrels and Percussion Locks totaly changed the Distance on which you accurate could hit a Target..
When the Shot goes Center Mass...then the Spread Circle of the Civil War Rifles dont exceeded the Size of a Human Torso up to 400 Yards,and on 500 Yards it still included most of the Thorso and the Head...
When the Rifle was in good Condition and the shot was aimed...then a hit on 300 yards is very sure....
That lead to this Duels behind improvised Cover,like bigger Field Rocks stacked up...you could not move up to the Enemy to bayonett Range..

[CrashToDesktop]

Bit of a necro, no?

[ohener]

Soldiers in the civil war fought shoulder to shoulder all the way up through appomatox. Even during the smoothbore era it was well known that accuracy in real combat dropped dramatically, with troops at times achieving less than 1% what they could on the practice range. When bullets were whistling past them, even well-trained troops tended to resort to loading and firing as fast as they could and it was considered lucky if they fired horizontally, never mind actually aiming. And the vast majority of troops during the civil war north and south were not well-trained.

[RomePong]

It is quite surprising fact that minie rifle only provide slightly, maybe neglectable advantage over Napoleonic era musket. 0.3~0.5%

But it is also surprising that 1 regiment can actually spit out bullets as much as 50. cal MG, 500 rounds per minutes. I know in theory good soldier can fire 3 shots in a minute, but in actual combat situation, 1 shot/m can be hard to achieve.

So if you stand on firefighting line, you have to withstand a mad man in front of you, firing 50. cal MG carelessly but towards your direction, without cover.

[Stonewallis]

They still used black powder. Smoke from the weapons of both armies would reduce vision and accuracy. Unless there is a lot of wind the smoke lingers (I fire a .54 muzzleloader for hunting... amount of smoke is insane). At Gettysburg the Confederate mass barrage before Picketts charge became largely ineffective in softening the Union lines, overshooting most of their rounds after commencement simply due to the reason that the smoke obscuried their view.

Plus being under fire was a whole different thing than going to the gun range. There are dropped, unfired bullets all over civil war battlefields where nervous soldiers fumbled under the pressure. Fatigue would quickly become a factor after prolonged combat. Also remember both armies were almost completely civilian volunteers straight of the street or farm. Stress of battle and being under fire negatively affects performance of even elite professional soldiers.