Robert E. Lee faults

[KICK]

Originally Posted by Pruitt

Actually a smoothbore musket is a shotgun. A Rifle and a smoothbore are opposite ends of the spectrum.

Pruitt

yes it is..
it may also be called a fowling piece..

I'm just having fun with the rifled rifle thing..

you can shoot just about anything that will fit down the barrel of a muzzleloader. doesn't matter whether it is a rifle, a musket, a smoothbore musket, a shot gun, blunderbuss or a fowling piece...

[Nickuru]

OK I accept the corrections. A smoothbore is a musket and a rifle is a rifled gun, meaning it gives spin to the bullet being fired.This increases its accuracy and range.

[KICK]

Originally Posted by Nickuru

OK I accept the corrections. A smoothbore is a musket and a rifle is a rifled gun, meaning it gives spin to the bullet being fired.This increases its accuracy and range.

[mikeck]

Originally Posted by mikeck

I disagree. What support do you have for your statements. Your theory sounds good on its face...rifles had a longer effective range and therefor must have been used at that range; however, the statistics as compiled by Griffith don't support that. The vast majority of engagements took place at less than 100 yards...exactly the same range as in the wars of 150 years prior. Whether you have a rifled musket or smoothbore is irrelevant at this range.

In order to hit a target at 300 yards with a rifled musket you must be able to estimate range within a few meters to effectively use the sight. This is because the round travels at such a low velocity, a parabolic trajectory is required. Slight variations in range can cause the round to overshoot or undershoot. This type of precision just wasn't practical on the battlefield covered in smoke and with troops not trained in it. The Franco Prussian war was the first war where armies engaged at ranges over traditional musket ranges. This was because both sides possesses high velocity breach loaders with a flat trajectory. This allows more room for error in range calculation. Not to mention, both armies did far more training in Marksmanship than the union or confederate armies.

So, I would doubt you can find many examples of engagements in the civil war in excess of 100 yards. Under that, the rifle offered no real advantage over the smoothbores. The biggest impact came from more Accurate artillery because they made columns impractical. The rifles musket was used just as smoothbores were and therefore had little impact.

Also see Hess' book "the rifled musket myth vs reality"

recently, I found a much more concise and articulate article on this with better research
http://johnsmilitaryhistory.com/cwarmy.html

In response to the argument that Civil War battles were "bloodier" than previous battles due to weaponry. From these stats , you can see casualty rates were the same
Casualty Figures

Further proof that Civil War weapons were not as deadly as they are often portrayed can be found in casualty figures. Historians charting the lethality of weapons discovered a counter-intuitive trend. As the lethality of weapons increased, the percentage casualties for a constant unit of time has decreased. So while battles in the linear era produced casualties in the range of 10 to 40% per day, by World War II, casualties on the order of 1% per day were considered heavy. Let's take a look at some battles over a range of time periods to compare the losses - killed and wounded only - not captured or missing. (generally, figures are from David Chandler's Guide to the Battlefields of Europe)
Marlburian - early 1700s

battle French Loss % Allied Loss %
Blenheim 35%? 23%
Ramillies 20% 6%
Oudenarde 7% 5%
Malplaquet 15% 22%



Frederican - mid 1700s

battle Prussian Loss % Enemy Loss %
Kolin 43% 22%
Rossbach 3% ?
Leuthen 18% 15%
Zorndorf 35% 45%



Napoleonic- early 1800s

battle French Loss % Enemy Loss %
Austerlitz 12% 19%
Auerstadt 27% 14%
Eylau 19% 35%
Friedland 9% 41%
Borodino 23% 33%
Salamanca 28% 10%
Vitoria 10% 7%
Waterloo ? 22%



Civil War

battle CSA Loss % USA Loss %
Second Manassas 18% 21%
Antietam 26% 17%
Fredericksburg 7% 11%
Chancellorsville 22% 16%
Gettysburg 37% 28%
Wilderness 19% 18%
Spotsylvania 23% 18%
Shiloh 27% 21%
Murfreesborough 27% 27%
Franklin 23% 8%



19th Century

battle Loss % Loss %
Solferino 13% (French) 12% (Austrian)
Koniggratz or Sadowa 3% (Pr.) 12% (Aus.)
Gravelotte and Mars la Tour 11% (Ger.) 11% (Fr.)
Sedan 4% (Ger.) 14% (Fr.)



As you can see, there isn't a great deal of difference in percentage casualty rates between Civil War battles and battles of 150 years before. Although there aren't a great deal of mid to late 19th century European battles to compare to, it is clear that casualty rates were lower than earlier battles, often much lower. This indicates that later wars like the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, rather than the Civil War, were significantly more modern than wars of the past. Later, we'll gain insight about the tactics of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars - and to study their evolution. After all, that is exactly what Civil War commanders did.

And musket lethality

As we will see, Civil War rifle-muskets aren't all that they're cracked up to be. A major advance in small arms during the half century before was actually the percussion cap, which, unlike flints, were consistently reliable. A much higher percentage of shots after the first volley were fired successfully, and the infantryman could pay more attention to his aim without gunpowder burning near his eyes.



Rifled bullets also flew a straighter, more predictable course. But in one important respect the rifled musket was actually inferior to its predecessor. A bullet traveling down a smoothbore barrel would bounce around, with its final trajectory determined by its final bounce. But at fairly short range, 100 yards or less, the smoothbore was quite good, though, with between 40-75% of shots hitting a simulated line of cavalry in various peacetime experiments. At 200 yards, 18-30% of shots hit the target. (Hughes 27-28). The rifling in the new rifled muskets gave the bullet a much truer course, but they also created much more friction than in smoothbores, which lowered the muzzle velocity significantly. This meant that the bullet traveled a more parabolic course. So even though the bullet flew a truer course, its relatively slow speed meant that at long range the shooter had to estimate the range accurately to within a few yards in order to hit his target. Jack Coggins writes, "A bullet fired by a kneeling man at the belt buckle of a man running toward him at an estimated range of 300 yards would pass over the head of a man 250 yards away. Thus, if the shooter had overestimated the range by as little as 50 yards he would have missed." In addition, the bullet would fall at the feet of a man 350 yards away. The further the range, the more vital the estimate of range was, and the more difficult the task became. Twentieth century studies show that people are quite bad at estimating ranges, with errors usually around 30%. (Ohio Dept of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife website) Modern rifles are much better longer range weapons.

When you also figure that after some artillery fire and a volley or two of musketry there may have be so much smoke that men couldn't even see the enemy, how can you expect them to hit anything? It should be no surprise that Paddy Griffith in "Battle Tactics of the Civil War" calculated an average first volley of around 140 yards, little different from previous wars, and with little difference in lethality. When you consider that each man was eager to open fire, to do something seemingly constructive against the threat facing him, 140 yards was too far away for an effective volley.

So although rifle-muskets were an improvement over smoothbores, the advantage appears slight. Grady McWhiney's thesis that there was a rifle revolution and that the Confederates wasted their manpower in futile frontal assaults is dead wrong. The technology of rifled muskets didn't make combat indecisive. Other factors may have, however.