GDG- Re: weapon trajectory

[Biggsk at aol.com]

Hello,

>>>>One thing to consider, though, is that with a  smoothbore in particular, 
accuracy didn't  matter.>>>>
This is true especially if firing buck and ball rounds where four  
projectiles come out from each trigger pull rather than one.   A  lot of units liked the 
knockdown power of those rounds especially  when fighting in wooden areas 
like Shiloh.
 
But even back in the early 1800's both the French and Prussians did  accuracy 
tests against unit sized targets and found that their smoothbores  firing 
single balls only could hit the target almost 40 per cent of the time at  150 
yards and it got better as the range closed.  That's not too bad  in terms of 
accuracy.
 
Of course these were controlled conditions and not combat conditions.
 
Smoothbores were a bit more accurate than folks seem to think as they used  
the paper wading to help the ball "grip" the barrel when it was fired.
 
Brent Nosworthy's book on the Napoleonic Wars, which predates his excellent  
"Bloody Crucible of Courage," covers this in detail as do some other 
Napoleonic  scholars.  I rate "Bloody..." as the most important Civil War book of the  
last ten years as it really breaks a lot of new ground and ties things up very 
 well with what came before the Civil War.
 
Greg Biggs
 

 



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