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"his yet living corpse" brilliant, and horrifying

In regards to the shots fired to kills scored ratio in modern wars, most rapid fire weapons aren't meant to inflict casualties, they're meant to force the enemy to keep their heads down.

What we do is often confuse accuracy with effectiveness. They are not the same. A smoothbore can kill at 300 yards. That is effective. It may not be what you aimed at, but it still kills.

When it comes to the whole idea of "muskets were no use outside of a range of 50" or even "30" yards, one experience of mine comes to mind. This year I went to a reenactment in Poland (napoleonic wars, 1807) and the organisers hosted a special competition for reenactors. What do you know, it was a musket marksmanship competition. Each contestant fired from a Charleville Mle1777. Now, the very fact that the organisers were willing to organise and fund such a competition, and that the reenactors were so eager to participate, already makes it seem like muskets might not be that bad after all. Now although of course this was a classic, round target, at an acceptable distance, the results were still quite astounding and there was a clear winner. With that in mind you can only imagine the carnage that could be inflicted on such a massive target as a line of infantry etc. and that is forgetting about any marksmanship training. As the video concludes, the important thing is, the musket was good at what it was supposed to do and shouldn't be compared to modern weaponry. Great video Brandon!

Your discussion on these old weapons reminds me of a famous quote. “They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.” - John Sedgwick, just before he was killed by long range fire during the American Civil War.

To add on: "100 Yards" sounds terrible, this isn't that different from modern firearms. While having technically longer effective ranges, a study following the Korean War found that the vast majority of hits occurred under 300 yards, with the average distance being around 100. (IIRC the study was either ORO, or Operational Requirements for a Infantry Hand Weapon.)

I knew a guy in the army who, on paper, had a 200% accuracy with his rifle in a marksman test. 24 hits with 12 shots. Now, as these tests were conducted some 30 people at a time, and several people next to him had already passed their tests, it's possible they decided to help a buddy out and fire a few rounds into his target. But we'll never know for sure...

I feel like the biggest reason people believe muskets aren’t accurate is the view that its purpose is to hit an individual soldier

I think the main problem is the definition of “effect range.” What most people who talk about this with modern understanding mean Is the range at which you can hit who you are aiming at. Muskets have a range of 300 yards, yes. But you won’t hit the guy you are aiming at. The guy to the left or right, yes. The guy you are directly aiming at probably not. Keep in mind most people who talk about this are looking at rifles that can hit a man target at a mile and a half max range, and at 300 yards can target individuals. That’s the problem same phrase different meanings.

The same applies for military archery, which was not necessarily about individual aiming prowess, but the collective economy of force from volleys of arrows. English historian Mike Loades, did experiments with the longbow, what he found was interesting, for example, arrows shot from warbows actually loses power at long ranges, so he determined longbows were shot at close range. In another test, Loades discovered the longbow was most efficient at 20-30 yards, straight at the enemy, rather than the cliched Hollywood battlefield archery, of archers shooting their bows at a high angle into the horizon. Loades explained that battlefield archery was not about good aiming, but speed and volume of arrows being shot, English training with the longbow was more concentrated at building strength of drawing the bow, then nocking the arrow and shoot it as fast as possible, identical rules applies with muskets. I recommend watching Mike Loades documentary series "The Weapons that Made Britain", I really like his approach to history, and uses these weapons in their historical context, as opposed to modern gunmen use to firing rifles in controlled settings like ranges, reenactments are an effective way of learning history, and appreciating how our modern world evolved from this early advances.

Hello Brandon. You may remember me talking about spreadsheets on a live stream and how I did a science degree. I have seen more data than I could have ever imagined. I was dying for you to get to the point that the weapon was fit for purpose. I saw a video before from Royal Armouries about muskets versus the new rifles coming in about the time of Crimea War, that was also very interesting.

I think this adequately explains the musket's effectiveness, despite having a less-than-stellar accuracy. I loved the first marching line example; I'd be terrified to see ten people out of 100 either dead or wounded in an instant. And that's just the first volley at 300 yards.

Thank you for this video, having been a reenactor at Old Fort Niagara it is nice to see some of the things we tried to use to educate others to make it to such an enlightening channel. The thing I have found interesting is reading accounts of lines and columns coming under fire in the Napoleonic era taking horrible losses from close-range volleys. Of particular note is how the musket balls would sometimes go through one man and into another, or worse hit in such a way the impact (for example on a musket itself) would cause more shrapnel to fly through the front and second ranks. A while ago this channel covered the impact of a cannonball or canister shot ripping through a line, the effects of a linemate getting hit at 200 yards is just as stunning as a cannonball. One second you marching with your brothers in arms, the next the man next to you collapses, spraying your sleeve with his lifeblood, the man behind him screaming in shock, having to stop and wipe the blood from his eyes. The fire at range "Beyond effective range" just as easily kills and disrupts formations.

Wow. I really thought I had the ranges pretty well visualised in my head, that was a lot further than I imagined. I imagine there are a lot of people like me who would've imagined they were safe at 300 yards. Looking at that tiny red line, I wouldn't have thought I had a 10% chance of kicking it.

Minor correction: the byname Soldatenkönig (soldiers‘ king) doesn’t refer to Frederick I. (Bynames The Great or Old Fritz), but to his father Frederick Wilhelm I. They’re easy to confuse, though they hated each others guts. 😁

Garand Thumb gave the most respect to the guns of the time. His video on the damage they can do is great.

With reference to the definition of 'point blank range', HMS Rodney's 16" guns apparently fired on a flat trajectory at a little over 3,000 yards.

I think this is honestly one of your best videos.

Hey Brandon, do you have any sources that talk about the effects of suppression on the 18th century battlefield? Nowadays there is squad level machine gun support for suppression while the rest of the squad can maneuver to engage, and I imagine the same would occur back then, only on a company level instead of the squad level. I apologize if you already have made something on this!

"This is the second model, short land pattern musket. For home defence as that is what the founding fathers intended."

22:09 I think I commented this on other videos, but the Spanish 1801 infantry manual goes even further, and plans trainings for distances of 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters and 400 meters (a meter is about 1.1 yards). Only a few units were actually capable of firing at 400m, though (the Spanish Zayas division amongst them).

It is nice that you cited percentages from modern conflicts. It is often said that, especially in the world wars, artillery was the king of killing. A critique to offer: I loved your live distance example. It was helpful. To exemplify this even more, could you consider a video with you and compatriots if available of an actual advance from 300 yards with a stopwatch timer and maybe a counter fire indicator, as we see you advance firing or at march. Couple it with the hypothetical casualties as you did briefly. That would be an awesome visual.

Great video once again! So tired of ignorant people trash talking 18th century weapons/tactics as if the soldiers/tacticians were foolish. They did the best with what they had and their methods & tools consistently got the job done.

I always likened the Smooth bore musket to a modern day shotgun in battle, especially when they loaded with buck and ball loads.

In my experience, there's a relatively easy way to test out the accuracy of muskets in relation to unit size. I've used DarthMod for Napoleon Total War to do this, specifically with light infantry because they can all fire close to the same time. For my tests I used two light infantry units of 240 men each, both firing on one militia unit of 500 men at their max range of 120 yards/meters. Russian Jagers with 25 accuracy can get around 30 hits (6.2% hit rate), French Chasseurs with 30 accuracy can get around 40 hits (8.3%), British Light Foot with 38 accuracy around 50 hits (10.4%), and Prussian Fusiliers with 42 accuracy around 50-60 hits (10-12%). A caveat for this test is that all units used were drawn in three ranks, which will effect the density of fire and the amount of hits per yard/meter. DarthMod really opened my eyes to how devastating muskets can be at that range, and is also very satisfying to see dozens of the enemy fall with a well timed volley. I'd be interested to see what they could do at further ranges, but without making the game unbalanced.

Great video as always! I love the range visualization!

Many years ago we did some tests at the range Results showed that when firing at up to 50 yards, whether standing, kneeling or from a bench the smooth bore .75 calibre muskets would have been deadly. At 50 yards with a patched ball, we had no problems getting 6" groups. At 100 yards however, we had some difficulty hitting the 24"x24" targets. There is little doubt though that a line of men firing at another at that distance would have been devastating, albeit unlikely that you would hit your specific target. Further tests done earlier showed that a .75 calibre musket fired at 50 yards had no trouble penetrating 6 1" pine boards that were stacked together. The muzzle velocity was recorded at 1052 feet per second. (just sub sonic) Sighting using the bayonet lug, and without a rear sight is difficult. Further, the delay between pulling the trigger and the musket actually going off made achieving greater accuracy more difficult. We were able to recover many spent musket balls, and some could almost have been reloaded and fired again. After firing 10 to 12 rounds, it became difficult to ram the ball down the last several inches of the barrel. Accordingly, we took breaks to clean the muskets every dozen or so rounds.

Good video. It's sufficient to show that muskets were of adequate accuracy to say that, despite being weapons of war, they also were commonly used for hunting. And, while yes, rifles were the better hunting weapon, nobody would have used a musket for hunting if they didn't have a reasonable expectation of hitting their target.

Just what I need. I am developing a Civ like video game and this video is very useful.

Hey nice long shot showing the distances they would use, you did nice on that!

Great video. It’s always been funny to me that only modern people talk about muskets as being useless. I doubt there were too many contemporary sources who had shot (or who were shot at) with muskets who considered them “useless”.

Brandon, I must say, your work is truly incredible! This is by far your best piece yet. The way you seamlessly incorporated distance representation in the video is absolutely amazing. As a former Infantryman myself, I can personally attest to the challenges of accurately judging distance. It's a skill that takes time and practice to develop, and you've captured it perfectly in this video. Drawing from my experience as a rifleman who deployed to Afghanistan, I can provide some context for the high round expenditure numbers you mentioned. You accurately describe typical firefights in that time frame, our primary objective was to gain fire superiority, assess the situation, pin the enemy, move on them, and neutralize the threat. This aligns with standard Marine infantry doctrine, which I assume is similar for the Army. It's important to note that from my experience engagements were typically initiated by enemy forces. In a training environment, such as a company-scale assault on an entrenched enemy platoon, the average rifleman would carry more than 210 rounds. This includes six 30-round magazines, one in the weapon, and usually 3-6 extra magazines carried in bandoleers or packs, with 30-120 extra rounds, or 3-5 magazines in the pack. During coordinated assaults with attacking forces having a 3 to 1 advantage against an entrenched enemy platoon-sized element, the suppression numbers really come into play. Even in training, it's not uncommon for the average rifleman to fire 4-6 magazines during the assault. These numbers are high to ensure we gain and maintain fire supremacy. Another crucial factor to mention is the effectiveness of portable indirect weapons, such as M203 grenade launchers. The Taliban feared these weapons, which often deterred them from engaging us at close ranges for extended periods of time. Our ability to use grenade launchers to great effect, combined with the firepower advantage provided by supporting weapons platforms like rotary wing aircraft, artillery, and mortars, gave us a significant edge. I personally recollect after my first firefight thinking, that did not pan out anyway like I had thought in my head. The amount of initial confusion from being shot at the first time is almost comical. Once again, I want to commend you on this video. It's fantastic to see accurate representation, historical sources, and context provided. Keep up the amazing work!

Woo! It’s been a long time coming, it’s been mentioned countless times but its finally here! Nice work Brandon!

Excellent video Brandon. What modern people seem to miss is that 1800 solider was aiming at the enemy, not an individual. As a video game commentator says, "Throw enough shit at the wall, some of it is bound to stick". Armies of the time were throwing as many lead balls at the enemy as possible, like a modern shotgun.

I've been following you for years Brandon and I'd like to thank you because your channel is a bless for everybody interested in Musket era warfare like I am. I've been trying to put together a military flintlock fantasy story for a while now, and history, along with the info you have given me are truly helping and inspiring. Cheers from Italy.

Not everyday you hear of Old Fort Niagara! I loved going there as a kid, and I highly recommend it for everyone. Thanks again for another wonderful video!

I did just a Google search and Wikipedia does say the Brown Bess did have an effective range of 300m for area target. Which holds up with the Prussian tests (I know the Prussians didn’t use the Brown Bess, it was a British weapon). I appreciate they have that static, shows that a lot of this information is available and can be accurate. You just need to actually do some looking and know what data is actually useful.

an extremely informative and entertraining watch. Good work! One video idea for you, which hopefully isn't too far off from the purpose of the channel, is an exploration of the development of the lock mechanisms of guns, matchlock, wheellock, doglock etc or, alternatively, the development of a "true flintlock" from the early versions in later 1500s, snaplocks, doglocks, miquelet locks (I probably mistyped that) etc, till finally we reach the "true flintlock" of 1700s

those two graphics with the casualties and the street are exactly what i have wanted to be able to show or explain to people for a very long time, thank you

You rock, man! I always love the topics you cover; stuff you never get in history books.

Thank you for these insights. It was, as always, very enlightening for me.

Thank you for another comprehensive, A-star video. I've always thought that if you are at a distance of 100 yards or below, you might as well use your bayonets. Your demonstration of the distances made things very easy to understand.

This was a really fascinating, gripping video. I especially love how you put the hit percentages into perspective (around 10 minutes into the video), with brutal descriptions of just how devastating it would be to a line of soldiers. "Only 10% accuracy" sounds a helluva lot more destructive when trying to imagine being on the receiving end of that fire.

im sure you loved the scene in napoleon with the british sniper 😂

I've been working on a few realism mods and this is an amazing reference! Thank you!

This was a very good video! Thanks Brandon!

A brandon video is the perfect thing to cheer me up today. My dads in the ICU but luckily things are getting better now that hes on a liver transplant waiting list (sorry for trauma dumping but brandons videos genuinely cheer me up)

An interesting and informative video. It made me rethink my ideas about 18th century warfare. The battle of Kal Penn, during the American Revolution, is a good illustration of the effectiveness of both muskets at very short range and rifles, and longer ranges.

These videos are great. It helps with research on a historical fiction novel I’m working on. By any chance have there been any videos on Provost Marshals or a form of military police in this time period by the British

Very good video. Thank you also from adding pictures of 17th and 18th century fortresses to it. This were were build with the most advanced science and enginiering capacities of their time. The dimensions and measurement of walls, parapets and redoubts were calculated not only for the exchange of canon fire but also for the effective use of smoothbore muskets by common soldiers to defend the fortress. And also the most basic offensive tactics in a siege was to dig trenches to protect their own soldiers by musket fire from the walls and parapets which would be a useless work if smootbore muskets were really so useless.

Soldier: Why haven't rifles completely replaced muskets at this point? Gunsmith: Rifles take too long to reload. Soldier: Well what if you could detatch the barrel from the stock and load it from the other end? Gunsmith: (Starts seeing dollar signs and hyperventilating.)

Very Informative as always. We need more people like Brandon on this Platform

Astounding long-range accuracy out of a smoothbore weapon! Of course, drill is just as important as a mechanically accurate weapon.

Great video, and I genuinely love the reasonable discussion and disagreements it has sparked in the comments. This is one of those things that I “kind of” knew but I appreciate the detailed and cited breakdown.

I like you idea of showing the loss as they walk forward great vedio Thank you

Another great video. The presentation of the distance was the best for me since I have really bad time aproximating it. Also a quick note. Theres another creator with his own chanel mascot also named Tim and I now can't get the headcanon of your Tim and his Tim being the same and hes just traveling between the two chanels 😂

Wow man, these was such a well made video. Thanks a lot.

Greatly explained. I really liked your distance visualization (25:14 - 29:57) :D

I love Dr. Burns’ blog! He’s got so much fascinating information that changed so much about what I “knew” of 18th century warfare.

There is also the effect of the balls nearly missing on the soldiers' morale, the mental effect of being in great danger of death would definitely take a toll on their composure

Between your channel and Capandball there really is a preponderance of evidence in explaining the hows and whys of 18th century warfare and I cannot undersell how valuable that is. Folks of that era may often have been fools in the reasons why of going to war, not much different than now in honesty, but the ways in which war was prosecuted were, in fact, quite well-thought. Most concepts in war are constant in idea, just evolving in nature, and much of recent pop history and historiography seem to conflate the two causing unlike and unfair comparisons.

Very informative, Thank You.

So it basically boils down to, not good accuracy on point targets but in practical application very good accuracy for the way warfare was conducted at the time?

Great work and very interesting

Great job and analysis. Really well put together film. It’s interesting that 300 yards is so much further than the average modern rifle shooter has any concept of hitting a target. Open iron sights are well past there effective range at 300. You explained area denial with rifle fire really well. Imagining a large formation of riflemen , raining down clouds of heavy musket balls is horrifying. I’ve been reading a lot about the start of the percussion era, and the advances in rifles and projectiles. Small arms improvement between around 1830 to 1875 seems include all the major inventions, with exception of optics. Good percussion rifles from 1865 could shoot 1200 yards, but I’m not sure many people can see that far.

Very well put sir!

Been looking forward to this one.

Brandon, if 10% of rounds strike a target at 300 yards, aren't you going through a group the size of the original (assuming replacements) with every 10 rounds fired? That seems extremely high if that is the maximum range. It would be a short battle. Very helpful video!

Bravo... you have hit the nail on the head...

Great video, Brandon!

Excellent piece, Brandon :salute:

Another terrific video Brandon. I notice that there are only a handful of responses from people who actually live fire a smooth bore flintlock musket. I live fire my Brown Bess, short land pattern, every couple of months. From the bench rest, I can pretty consistently achieve a shot pattern of about 19 minutes of angle at ranges of 25, 50, and 100 yards. That equates to about 5, 10, and 20 inches, respectively. A standard silhouette target is about 22 inches wide; so a man measured from the outsides of his arms. Given the 19 minutes of angle at 100 yards, you'll be on target nearly every time. I haven't fired at targets beyond 100 yards. My guess is that at twice the distance, given the same minutes of angle, you'll get to 50% on target. Aerodynamics on the musket ball are another matter. Just as with a curve ball in baseball, or a slice in golf, spin of the ball in flight will affect the flight path. Imperfections of the ball will "catch the wind" and impart spin. The protruding nub left over from the fabrication process, or seams, can create drag and spin the ball, then the curve ball/slice happens. And the longer the distance, the further the miss. How often and how much is anyone’s guess. I use a device that effectively removes the nub and dimples the musket ball, so that they look like tiny gray golf balls. I think this helps with accuracy. Also, as far as lethality goes, there's the velocity of the ball at distance. I don't have a chronograph, so haven't measured my own. I've seen published muzzle velocities for the Brown Bess between 1,100 and 1,200 feet per second. That speed will decrease as the ball flies through the air. Being a round ball, the speed will decrease faster than a sharp pointed boat tail bullet due to aerodynamic drag. At some point, it will only be going fast enough to break a rib, maybe even not penetrate leather belting. Although I imagine you'll have a heck of a bruise. At what distance that will occur, without a scientific study, is anyone's guess.

Excellent stuff

Thank you for helping me reach my daily goal of learning something. I am a range officer at my county's public rifle range and the guns on the range span modern machine guns to vintage flintlock muskets. I emphasize that some of the muskets on the firing line are antiques dating from as early as the end of the 18th Century. I have observed those muskets being shot at steel gongs ranging from 6" to 12" at distances from 50 yards to 100 yards. My county range has firing distances from 12 yards to 100 yards, but safety rules mandate that the metal targets be a minimum of 50 yards from the firing line. Under those range conditions I have observed modern rifles versus antique smooth bore muskets. Some of the shooters fire only off the bench and some shoot from standing at the maximum distances. I am not quick to dismiss period gunpowder as being poor quality--I put quality in the "unknown" category until I can prove otherwise. Testing vintage rifles with home-made gunpowder isn't the same as travelling back in time to experience the past. Many times I can only get an approximation because the past cannot be duplicated--I have to rely on "close enough." Even events occurring in the 20th Century cannot be replicated exactly. I had a long military career and in order to understand modern warfare I studied infantry and cavalry in battle back to the 1890's. At first, I was dismayed that modern infantry weapons had a much lower kill rate than infantry rifles of the 1890's despite the linear tactics of the 1890's, lower fire rates, and frankly the modern M16-series rifle and ammunition have both better precision and accuracy, especially with modern sighting systems. Combat distances have shrunk mostly because infantry targets are now point targets instead of area targets. Shooting into a crowd is more likely to hit SOMEONE than shooting at an isolated individual. The modern battlefield is so lethal that either soldiers disperse or die--modern intervals between soldiers are something like ten meters and intervals between squads seem to be twenty-five meters, depending on visibility and terrain. Motorization was a game changer with greater impact than repeating rifles. You taught me something today--I was in awe of how the Vauban forts managed to achieve grazing fire along their lengths. I visited Fort Demount between 1961 and 1963 for the first time--I'm unsure of the date because I was too young to read a calendar at the time. Dad also took me to the Maginot Line in that period. Revisiting the place in the early Eighties validated my first impression--I wasn't keeping track of my battlefield tours in the Eighties, so I don't know the year, only that it was in the chilly autumn. The lesson I took away was that musket fire had greater area fire range than I had supposed. I know that the rifled muskets of 1850 and beyond were routinely used in excess of 800 yards distance when defending fortified positions but thought that smooth bore muskets had petered out at 200 yards. Defensive position logistics are easier than when on the offense--generally speaking--so "throwing away" a ton of gunpowder and lead to suppress enemy maneuver on the killing fields in front of fortifications is a good trade-off. The sappers and miners have to dig another quarter mile when musket fire rains down at 800 instead of 400, and that extra time and effort may spell the difference between a successful siege and calling the siege off.

Woah, this us probably the earliest I've been here. I thought this was something talked about before? I swear I remember a previous video saying muskets had an effective range of 400 yards?

A FAST 43 minutes Brandon! Another fine presentation! Anyway you look at it you DON't want to be downrange of any group of men slinging those big bullets at you! Whether the bullet hits you or the guy next to you makes no difference to that bullet! You, your buddy, or somebody's going down! Ouch! An additon to the concept of "area denial" or "firing on formations" that idea lasted right into the 20th Century. Many firearms enthusiasts look at World War One era rifles such as the British SMLE, the American 1903 Springfield, or the German 1898 Mauser and wonder why the rear sights have those extreme ranges indicated on them, in the case of the Springfield up to 2800 yards. Well, soldiers werent expected to hit an indiviual target at that range BUT they could (by volley firing) bring fire to bear on an enemy formation, either infantry or cavalry. Very important in those days of no field radios and limited field telephone usage. How often it was actually done is open to speculation though.

I remember in high school, apush, my teacher once pointed to the back corner of the classroom, at a high stack of books and stated that a trained marksman probably couldn’t hit it with a revolutionary war era musket, while trying to explain the changes weapon technology during the American civil war. I told him that a musket was not nearly so inaccurate, or they wouldn’t have been used.

Now imagine the even greater accuracy of the rifled muskets during the American Civil War but the same style of tactics, and you see why there were regiments routinely taking 60-70%+ casualties in one particular brutal fight.

Great video!

Mate you have put together a well thought out video. My take on the relitive accuracy of these weapons would be , that they tended to use volley fire , where a group of soldiers fire in unison, thus sending a number of projectiles down range at the same time. so if a hundred soldiers fire together thats a fairly terrorfying prospect and dont forget that these weapons are around 75\80 cal which would have been devastating on impact regardless of where it hit you. Even a low hit percentage could be pretty demoralizing.

The example of the advancing line also makes another point: if muskets weren’t effective until they were within bayonetting range, pikes would have remained the predominant weapon well into the 19th century.

The British light companies were so deadly accurate that the Americans feared them as much as their own riflemen.

The way you flinched at the word “flintlock” lol, your pain to not say “firelock” was noticeable..

I find the accuracy numbers interesting. We consider combat ranges in modern combat to be out to 300 yds, and ammunition expended for effectiveness is astonishing (and also not too different) when most shots fired now are to suppress an enemy while artillery creates the most casualties. And artillery also created most of the casualties in Napelonic warfare as well. War, war never changes.

Thank you very much for this interesting Video

I really appreciate when you provide numbers. I can implement them in my video game. now I wonder, how much the accuracy would change between a novice Vs a veteran?

Id like to think that soldiers where nervous and abit shakey when their friends start getting concussed and tossed back by a bouncing canon ball and musket ball. Fear might stricke and you look away from your enemy in a sense of just shooting blindly hoping the people in the distance will go away.

Very good and informative video, again. Now i have to go to the range with my son :D

When doing marksmanship practice and training with other players on War of Rights, we use 25% accuracy as the baseline for combat effectiveness. And that's with rifle muskets mostly 1861 and 54 patterns.

I was hoping to hear some information on manufacturing technology of the day. What kind of tolerances could you expect in the machining or lathing of barrels? How consistent was the black powder? How prone were the stocks to warping? How consistent was the lead shot?

Great work thank you and big shoutout from Germany

In the Pike and shot era professional arquebusiers were fully expected to be able to place shots onntarget 100 away, and the reletive accuracy of their primitive firearms coupled with the necessarily tight formation-fighting is the main reason for this type of warfare's notoriously high attrition rates.

Important to remember the 100’ x 6’ paper target is a solid mass of “target”. Every bullet hitting it counts as a “hit”. In reality, even a densely packed line of men has a lot of empty space on it. Between each man, the top six inches is your hat, between your legs and the distance between your leg and the man to either sides’. So a certain percentage of those hits are grazes, shooting your hat off, bullets zipping between your legs, etc etc. Some hits are also going to just be minor wounds that doesn’t leave you a casualty. So the percentage of hits doesn’t mean a one to one conversion to casualties.

really liked the range demonstration on the road. What i would be interested in is the possibility of smoothbores to use buck and ball instead of only ball. how dioes that change the effectiveness and when did this ammunition start to be used ?

EXCEPTIONAL ! THANKS ! 😎👍

A tiny correction and a bit of random info. Grenade Machine Guns (GMG) are fairly accurate up to 1000-1500 meters. The US manual describes that a GMG can hit a target at that range when using a powerful scope. GMGs can even be used as indirect artillery up to about 2000 meters for area fire. I know the US military teaches this and we see it frequently being done in Ukraine.

Big shout out to Tilbury Fort! Native Tilbury lad here, visited the fort for many years also Coalhouse Fort in East Tilbury, but Tilbury is shall always be my favorite.

The British had also really taken to the practice of "Volley fire" in 3 or 4 lines, they saw how it QUICKLY reduced the enemy numbers... probably the MAIN reason the Old Guard fled at Waterloo after the shock of seeing so many comrades falling down...

Hey Brandon, just a tiny bit of a correction on the german language, since I have noticed you, understandably, getting this incorrectly as a native english speaker: the "e" at the end of words like "Kabinetskriege" is NOT silent. it is very much pronounced and oftentimes makes the important difference between singular and plural in the german language. Your pronounciation of the word itself is pretty good apart from that. to give you a pointer, the "e" at the end is usually pronounced like the english exclamation of indifference "eh" so you would pronounce it "Kabinetskrieg[eh]" I have noticed this in several non german speaking people on the internet/in the popculture like e.g. Sabatons "Bismarck" [Kriegsmarin instead of Kriegsmarin"e"] or many of Drachinifels video, so I hope you forgive my impertinence in regards to this specific pet peeve of mine please keep up the good work!