Muskets- 3 or 2 in a row? Open formation?

Recent discussions have put into trial wheter muskets should be put in rows of 2 or 3.

Rows of 2 tire less easily and you have more kills per volley.

Rows of 3 have continous fire but tire less easily but seem to kill more.

I always used rows of 3. Anyone not happy?

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Should muskets be put in open formation when under gun fire?

Some people say that in open formation you have less casualties on muskets but others say that open formation reduces morale of the unit and increases background deaths of your best units behind the missiles.

so???

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Honour to Clan No Fear.

Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

[Tachikaze]

My muskets usually get charged, so I like deep ranks to get as many shots off as possible before they become overpriced peon melee units.

Do four ranks fire faster than three? I've never tested it.

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The best thing about TV is, you can turn it off!

[Hosakawa Tito]

I prefer to have 3 ranks for the increased rate of fire,do they kill more than ranks of 2?I'm not sure but even if not I believe the increased rate of fire means the enemy morale/fear factor is decreased faster.I set up muskets in a bridge attack in ranks of 3.Some of the AI YS were "foolishly"set up in range.My guns fired for a long time and I watched them from the AI side of the river.As they tired you could see that not all the gunners in the front rank would fire.
The more fatigued they became the number of gunners who actually fired decreased.In certain situations I think I would keep a closed rank of 2 gunners behind a rank of 3 loose formation gunners to absorb missile fire and back up the front unit as they back away from any charging meelee units.
Tito

[The Bear]

You are all correct, I think it all depends on the situation. If i combine muskets and archers, i tend to put them in two lines close formation, up front of my army backed by the archers, causes regular routing from the ennemy.

[LordTed]

when i started i did 2 but went to 3. i noticed the difference especialy at longer ranges while rows of 2 would scare the shit outa ppl

What about the open formation on muskets?

Also...

Quote Do four ranks fire faster than three?[/QUOTE]

If you put the muskets in a row of 4, the 4th row won't shoot.


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Honour to Clan No Fear.

Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

[Hosakawa Tito]

I'll use an open formation with muskets in the front,but it is a double edged sword so to speak.In closed formation your gunners take more casualties,which lowers morale,and in spread formation they also seem to suffer a loss of morale because they are more vulnerable to meelee attack.As a general rule I won't use 0 honor muskets in spread formation,especially on-line,because they have a penchant to rout rather quickly.Honor 2 muskets seem to not rout as easily in spread formation.
Tito

Ok heres what I've found about ranks of musks. Rows of 4 or more, even though the 4th plus ranks don't fire, do actually reload faster. However they do have less men firing. The wider formations are better if your musks are actually under fire. I don't really know why they reload quicker, it could even be a bug, but standing 2 groups of musks next to each other, seeing how fast they fire in different formations shows this to be true.

As for loose/close formation, I tend to use 4 units of musks in close formation. Loose is good for maybe one unit of musks, but close is good for multiple units. And also because if my 4 groups of musks were in loose formation, in ranks of 3, they would strecth over half the map.

Remeber that loose formation in guns induces:

loss of morale of unit thus rout more easily and kill less as well.
more susceptible to enemy attacks because of larger space taken and loss of morale.
less manuoverable
more background kills in units behind missiles[/list]

Probably the only advantage of loose formation in guns would be they get less casualities when under archer fire mainly.

This is all I can think of right now

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Honour to Clan No Fear.

Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

[This message has been edited by Terazawa Tokugawa (edited 04-29-2001).]

[CaPeFeAr]

im not here to say which way is better. i use 2 and 3 rows close and loose formation or a mix of them. the formation that is best depends on what you are trying to acomplish. but i would like to point out that 2 rows tire more quickly than 3 rows. also, the 2 major points to concider when deciding on what formation you want is: the distance between what you are shooting at and your muskets and line of site ( weather they have a clear veiw or not)
the gun battle can be one of the most important stages of a battle and can often decide the winner so practice your skills and experminent with different formations.
P.S. whats wrong with 1 line i even use that at times!!

[Steeleye]

ha - ok - i always thought that the first two ranks fired and then they swapped with the two rows behind - which is why you get the increased rate of fire - so I invariably put my muskets in 4 ranks. Does the 4th rank really not fire (or am I harking back to my napoleonics days...).

The main difference between 2 rank formations and deeper ones surely is that in two ranks, all your gunners open up in 1 volley, which has a much more devastating effect on charging HtH units than the deeper formations, which interchange ranks to speed up the rate of fire (so are better against steadier units), but have less gunners firing at the same time (obviously if you have 3 gun units in deeper formations side by side, this cancels the need for line formations). Am I right or wrong?

Kyodaispan

[BanzaiZAP]

Steeleye:
Looks like ya hit the nail on the head. 2 rows for maximum effect per volley, and 3+ rows for steady rate of fire.

The animation is for 3+ rows, so if you have 4 or more, it visually looks like only the first three are in use, but the RoF is faster, and I think they don't tire as quickly.

I set the center gunners on two ranks, and hold fire until the enemy are quite close. Then one shattering volley will often A) kill a large number, and B) scare the crap out of the whole attacking army. Gunners on the flanks are set to 3+ rows, just for the constant harrasment factor, and since they don't really run out of ammo.

-- B)

[RageFury]

i always have more luck in rows of three...from wot i can see

Roes of three : get tired quicker but the reload time seems to balance with gettin off ess shots per minute

Rows of 2: more shots in one go..mor background kills..but lower rate of fire means they run quicker normally


-Fury

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[celtiberoijontychi]

U might be forgetting something...

3 line formation in open arrangement will work like a 2 line in close formation: they'll fire simultaneously cos all of them have a good line of sight.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx shooting
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx shooting
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz loading


x x x x x x x x shooting
x x x x x x x x shooting
x x x x x x x x shooting


But the morale penalty makes it still a risky tactics

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Long live Celtiberos
Glory and Honour to Clan Celtiberos

[This message has been edited by celtiberoijontychi (edited 05-03-2001).]

[CaPeFeAr]

well it seems there is some doubt as to which formation tires quicker? ie 2 or 3 rows. im fairly sure that 2 rows tire quicker but others think the other way around... so which is it?