Quote Originally Posted by Ishmael View Post
i think ill leave it late in a custom battle or two, simply so i can see dead horses clobbering my men (to use the CA persons example).
That said, does anybody know what a good range is to shoot on level ground? For that matter, what were the accurate ranges of the guns at the time (yes, i know thats on the site somewhere, but i cant be bothered to trawl the forum)?
In real life waiting until the enemy was within 50 meters or less you had a good chance at stopping or even routing the enemy with just one salvo. Generally the closer the better and depending on quality of unit.

But of course guns had much longer range and units could try to do a slow advance with individual platoons firing and the rest marching a bit forward, then another platoon fires etc and they would start at perhaps 200+ meters with that.

Tests of muskets showed they were not as inaccurate as some people thinks. At 50 meters range one could expect to hit a target (a badly made musket would be worse of course) and units firing at large targets could achieve hit rates of several % at 300 meters. But that was peacetime tests and there was a big difference between that and the realities of the battlefield.


CBR