Let’s Join TJ Savage on a very rainy day in the Continental Army camp at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, as he discusses volley fire, fire power and the rate of fire in 18th century warfare.

In a previous video about the rate of fire of the matchlock musket in the 16th and 17th centuries, we learned that musketeers were generally deployed in formations that tended to be narrow in width, while being many ranks deep. Regardless of how quickly a musketeer could actually loaded their weapon, the firing of the formation was regulated such that only a small handful of men were actually discharging their weapons at a time so that the formation as a whole could maintain a steady deliberate rate of fire.

In this video TJ brings us forward into the mid to late-18th century where the battle formation has changed from the narrow and deep, armed with pike and shot, to the wide and shallow formation now armed with muskets and bayonets. No longer relying on a steady deliberate fire of the 17th century, these new formations allowed all muskets of a company to be brought to bear and deliver the hard hitting shock of a single volley. The rate at which multiple volleys could be delivered depended on how quickly all of the men could reload and make themselves ready to fire again, and no matter how quickly the fastest or most competent soldier reloaded, the company could only deliver volleys as quickly as the slowest and least experienced soldier could reload and make himself ready.

свернуть