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If marksmanship didn't matter for line infantry esp in volley fire, why did soldiers bother aiming their iron sights with proper stances?

This post from Reddit is making me inquisitive.

The stereotype of Napoleonic Warfare and indeed any gunpowder war before the World War 1 is that soldiers just line up and shoot without regard to marksmanship because they assume that an enemy will get hit in the mass fire of volley. So much that I seen comments about how you don't even have to hold your rifle properly and you just shoot it in the American Civil War and earlier because you are guaranteed to hit an enemy in the mass rigid square blocks they are stuck in.

However this thread on suppressive fire in modern warfare made me curious.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/7vkubw/how_important_is_individual_marksmanship_is_in

The creator of the above link states despite the cliche that hundreds of bullets are spent to kill a single enemy and most tactics in modern war involves spraying at an enemy to get him to become too scared to shoot back and hide while you have one person sneak up behind the now cowering enemy and kill him, plenty of marksmanship training is still done in modern warfare.

So I have to ask if marksmanship was important even in volley fire seen before WW1 in the American Civil War and other earlier time periods in particular Napoleonic? Is it misunderstood much like modern suppression tactics is by people where they get the wrong impression that you just spray bullets on an enemy and marksmanship doesn't matter because your buddies will sneak behind them and kill them? Is it more than just "spray bullets nonstop and hope it hits the guy in front of you in a bayonet block"?

He does bring a good point about one thing-why did soldiers prior to World War 1 esp in the era of 1 bullet guns like Napoleonic and American Civil War bother learning proper stances and how to hold a rifle if warfare in the time used nonstop volleys after volleys while in formation because you'd be too blinded to shoot because of the smoke from shooting guns creating fog in the battle field? If that was true, why did soldiers bother even aiming on their iron sights as they began their volleys?

If individual aiming was useless, why not have soldiers just fire their guns at random from the hip or some other sloppy random shooting method? Why did soldiers still train to lay their eyes near the rifle as they shot like modern hunters do while aiming at deer and other prey? If volleys were used during this time because speed of shooting bullets and reloading ASAP to shoot again was the key to victory, why bother teaching soldiers on how to hold rifles in a specific way during the gunpowder eras when guns contained only a single bullet esp in the Napoleonic Wars and before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated? Most of all why did American Civil War soldiers, Revolutionary War troops, and Napoleonic armies bother aiming on their iron sights if gun accuracy was so poor and armies were expected to close in and shoot nonstop volleys where speed of reloading guns was of utmost important? Esp if the battlefield was expected to be covered with smoke thus blinding soldiers? Why no armies ever did volley fire at the hips or some random disorganized way if accuracy was based on how close you were to the enemy and the smoke blinded soldiers' vision? Why bother even aiming on your iron sights at all in such circumstances esp with the method of fighting in this era?

7 comments

7 Comments

Skip Smoyer

Listening to Life and Times of Frederick the Great and lineal warfare thought of something never heard before. Many comment on why infantry lined up shoulder to shoulder and in files no one comments on cavalry lining up boots to boots and what infantry could have done to stop a cavalry squadron or regiment.

john fortune

May 16

British soldiers practised firing at marks as early as the 1770s. At this date, light infantry deployed in open order, engaging the enemy in independent files, became a feature of the infantry battalion.

Hans - Karl Weiß

May 14

the tallest soldiers were in the first rank, the smallest in the second, not try and point you gun according to the distance of the target, in case you are second rank, also you must be able to judge distance, how many rank and file soldiers could do that? Only when you know the distance you would be able to poise the musket in the right elevation, but how can you do this in rank and file, elbow to elbow in a much constricted environment? The gun accuracy was ok for the size of the target, indeed why bother aiming on your sights, when it is useless, just pull the trigger and create noise, it has an effect on morale, both for the shooter and the target.

John Cook

May 15

Replying to

I can’t provide any evidence but I would expect experienced soldiers to be able to judge distance, the more experienced the better they would be able to do so, I think. I also wonder if it was a skill that conscripts with a rural background might even bring with them. There is also the increasing need for skirmishers, be they drawn from light companies or the third ranks, or even elsewhere in the battalion, who would need to be able to judge distance. Be that speculation as it may, I do agree with the implication of your comments, though, that most Napoleonic soldiers were unsophisticated and uncomplicated people to a degree that it is hard to imagine in the 21st Century. But, 19th Century soldiers didn’t have to judge distance for the volley anyway, that was done by the command element, who gave the order to fire when the target was at the appropriate distance. The point at which fire was delivered was not a decision left to the soldiers in the ranks.

I have also read accounts where soldiers, British ones anyway, were ordered to aim low in order, apparently, to prevent firing high and over the target. That, it seems to me, was about the limit of aiming, such as it was. I have even read similar accounts of orders to aim low from the American Civil War, where soldiers were armed with rifle-muskets, with relatively sophisticated adjustable sights, the suggestion being that they were insufficiently trained to take advantage of them, or that there was no need to at normal musketry ranges. The answer to the question, though, posed by the OP about firing from the hip or some other position is that it was understood that it was necessary to generate effective fire, i.e. fire that causes casualties in the enemy target, and to do so ‘aiming’ or pointing, firing low, call it what you will, was necessary to achieve this. Also, from the simple point of view of practicality and safety when in ranks, firing from the shoulder was the only sensible option. The musket was designed to be fired from the shoulder and that is what soldiers were taught to do. The closeness of ranks and files to each other would seem to preclude any other method.

John Cook

May 11

Napoleonic soldiers stood close to each other in up to three ranks. Generally speaking a file occupied a pace, approximately 26 inches, which did not give much room in which to load and fire a musket, fitted with a long bayonet. This necessitated training soldiers to do so in such a confined space in order not to injure each other, and possibly themselves, and to maximise the effect of the collective musketry. Sights on muskets were rudimentary, if they had any at all, simply because the nature of the weapon, and its inherent inaccuracy, meant it was pointless providing them with any. But, it was still a matter of relativity and soldiers still needed to look along the barrel to ensure that the ball went in the direction of the target. Soldiers ‘pointed’ their muskets at their targets. They had to in order for them to be effective even at the very short ranges by modern standards. Firing from the hip wouldn’t achieve this.

David Hollins

May 04

It is to do with fire effect and the trajectory of the ball. Random firing does not have the effect of controlled fire both on the target and morale. In addition, if you fire level, due to gravity, the ball will gradually drop, but you know the distance it is likely to travel. If you fire from the hip, you can quite easily impart a few degrees up or down without knowing and thus will change the distance the ball travels or the height at which the ball strikes the target at a given distance. If you establish a drill, it is also easier to control the unit as it goes through those drills.

Skip Smoyer

May 04

Seems some Famous Russian commanders think that too. Yet Alexander Mikaberidze's Russian Artillery officer biography had a task to go around and survey small arms for awhile, you had to arm troops with something.

Some countries did expend resources training troops with live fire. Getting troops to fire with all arms leveled was a attempt to fire correctly as a unit.

I have a replica Brown Bess, while been some time since had it out, at least up a step on how to hit a mark.

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