Got a Real-World Weapon, Armour or Tactics Question? Mk. XXVIII

[fusilier]

Just realised that the rise of the flintlock mechanism was definitely a big contributor to firearms becoming more widely used which I don't think has come up.

The original handgonnes were basically unusable in large amounts due to how awkward it was to set them up and fire them.

Matchlocks were extremely expensive to operate over time, though I could never find contemporary prices for the actual match it was generally described as a significant expense.

Wheellocks weren't as expensive to use but were far more prone to mechanical failure and were very expensive to purchase in the first place and the mechanism wound up mostly on pistols where matchlock mechanisms would have been inappropriate.

Flintlocks were the first (relatively) cheap to make, cheap to use, reliable and mass producible variant of firearms.

The earliest weapons which could be considered flintlocks, were developed in the mid-to-late 1500s (the "true flintlock", was developed in the early 17th century). It wasn't until around 1700 that European armies finally gave up on matchlocks.

Matchlocks were terribly cheap. Most versions used a simple sear-spring. If you can make gunpowder, you can make matchcord -- out of almost anything. It was necessary to acquire match cord, and there are stories of armies requisitioning all the bed ropes in a town to make match cord. The weapon itself didn't require fine tuning and precision -- you can fiddle with how the match is held in the jaws to get it to line up correctly (I've used one). It doesn't matter too much if the sear spring is a little weak, or a little strong, there's a lot of tolerance there. When rushed, or if something has broken, you can manually fire it like an old fashioned handgonne.

Wheellocks were very expensive, they required a lot of precision, linkages, and good springs. A piece of pyrite (it has to be right kind) is necessary to fire them too. If poor quality steels are used they will fail frequently.

Flintlocks are cheaper than wheellocks, but still more complicated than a matchlock. Various springs have to tempered to give the right amount of force. Alignment between moving parts must be good, and the frizzen has to be hardened in a particular way to give good sparks (also made out of the right material). I think refining the flintlock to the point where it was consistently reliable took some time, then it had to be made cheaply to compete with a matchlock.

The matchcord had lots of draw backs. It has to be lit, it must be kept lit, it can give away a position at night, and is a significant fire hazard around gunpowder (which it was around all the time). While it could be made from almost anything, certain materials were better than others.

--EDIT-- I was rushed when writing this: to clarify, many European armies were still equipping their infantry with matchlocks as late as 1700 (and pikemen lasted about that long too). Generally speaking, the matchlocks were replaced gradually, and not all at once, mounted troops were the first to get "firelocks" (wheellocks, flintlocks), then specialist infantry and guards for the gunpowder, etc.

[DrewID]

--EDIT-- I was rushed when writing this: to clarify, many European armies were still equipping their infantry with matchlocks as late as 1700 (and pikemen lasted about that long too). Generally speaking, the matchlocks were replaced gradually, and not all at once, mounted troops were the first to get "firelocks" (wheellocks, flintlocks), then specialist infantry and guards for the gunpowder, etc.

Especially since "guarding the army's supply of gunpowder" and "walking about carrying a lit match" are NOT two great tastes that go great together.

DrewID

[Gnoman]

--EDIT-- I was rushed when writing this: to clarify, many European armies were still equipping their infantry with matchlocks as late as 1700 (and pikemen lasted about that long too). Generally speaking, the matchlocks were replaced gradually, and not all at once, mounted troops were the first to get "firelocks" (wheellocks, flintlocks), then specialist infantry and guards for the gunpowder, etc.

Matchlocks continued in use for another century in Japan and China, as I understand it. Among all the other reasons for keeping it around, you can't convert matchlock to flintlock quickly and easily (unlike the later conversion from flintlock to caplock), and they were perfectly serviceable weapons.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

And early flintlocks sometimes even still had a matchlock mechanism as well, as a backup. Because it worked, and they knew it did.

They were less handy when it was raining, but even then with a good rain cover most of the troops could usually keep their match lit.

Keeping a good supply of match going was a hassle though. Apparently a single sentry pulling duty every night could burn through a mile of match per year. So for a single battle with an army ten thousand strong and some backup match for everyone in case the thing runs long (for a good head on engagement 8 hours of battle wasn't out of the norm, even if most of that is manoeuvring you still want to be able to fire at any time, because there's always cavalry around looking for weaknesses) you'd need around 60 miles of the stuff or so.

[fusilier]

Matchlocks continued in use for another century in Japan and China, as I understand it. Among all the other reasons for keeping it around, you can't convert matchlock to flintlock quickly and easily (unlike the later conversion from flintlock to caplock), and they were perfectly serviceable weapons.

At least -- I think they were pretty common in the region sometime into the middle of the 19th-century. I knew a guy who was trained in China during WW2 and they drilled with matchlocks -- my understanding is they just used them as drill rifles, but that's how prevalent they were at that late of a date.

[Pauly]

At least -- I think they were pretty common in the region sometime into the middle of the 19th-century. I knew a guy who was trained in China during WW2 and they drilled with matchlocks -- my understanding is they just used them as drill rifles, but that's how prevalent they were at that late of a date.

Apparently in the Sergey Bondarchuk’s “War and Peace” they went into the armories to get old rifles for the extras. They ended up being able to equip all of the ones close to the camera with M1808s and Brown Besses.

[Mike_G]

Arquebus (arquebi?) and late crossbows both had effective armour penetration at something like 200 metres* and were lethal up to 400 metres or so, though the arquebus could fire faster (late crossbows were very slow in exchange for their power) and had a higher maximum range.

The musket was able to pierce armour at something closer to 400 metres, which is a substantial improvement and one crossbows couldn't keep up with.

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

My thoughts on this...

There are various world record claims for bow shots between 300 and 400 meters, roughly. But, those are flight arrows and soft targets, and just getting it to stick counts.

A mass of archers firing at a mass formation of soldiers (even with just helmet and shield for armor) at that range might wound a few through raw odds of hitting just the right spots, and maybe "cause a morale check", but I highly doubt they'd score any kills, let alone enough to matter.

A single archer hitting a single living target at that range and causing a significant or lethal wound... that strikes me more as dumb luck than something you'd ever want to count on.

[Blackhawk748]

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

I mean, its doable. One of the World Record long-distance kills is from a Blackpowder Rifle in the US Civil War. If memory serves it was like 1000 yards. Yes he had an optic, but it was a 1860s optic so like a...x3 or 4 zoom maybe?

Basically, the gun can do it, its a matter of if the shooter can. Now, would it go through armor? Probably not. Would it leave a nice big honking dent? Maybe. Closer ranges it definitely would and I can say that having a dent in an important spot would totally suck and cause not only discomfort but possible issues moving.

Edit: 1390 yards. The shooter is ranked 19th out of 20. Also a .50-90 Sharps is on that list, much higher than I'd think. It was 1874 so Im not sure if that was Blackpowder or smokeless at that point

[Vinyadan]

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I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

For what I understand, the M16 is limited by its own design to operate at those ranges, however. It uses an intermediate cartridge, that was introduced exactly because it was impossible to aim too far without specialised optics, so there was no sense in having heavier bullets.

So there are two factors I can think of. One is that certain arquebuses may have been made with the intent of striking hard from far away. The other one is that terminology is a problem, because language is pretty fluid and researchers may not check what the familiar word actually meant in a certain text.

To make an example, Cellini describes one of his guns as a "gerefalco", a large arquebus with a calibre of 2 cm, which he compares in length to a half culverin. He describes a long shot -- although he doesn't really say how long -- and explains that he gave an arc to the trajectory. He almost hits his target; the ball actually hits the man's sword, and he dies from the shrapnel.

Such a weapon is pretty close to a cannon, but it's still called an arquebus in some dictionaries I could find. So such oversized, overcharged versions meant for the long range could really have had that sort of effect. However, it's still longer than two meters, probably close to or even over 3 m. And Cellini was a "bonbardieri", so an artillery man, and he often describes handling falconets and other small artillery weapons.

This is a problem in general with classification, I guess, because there are "moschetti" (muskets) which were actually naval artillery weapons with a calibre of 4.5 cm used by XVI century Venice.

At the same time, we know that arquebus balls didn't always perforate armour, or even the skin. Field doctors in Italy divided wounds in three different kinds (perforated body with the ball having passed through and left from the other side, perforated body with the ball left inside, no perforation). Even without penetration, the hit could still be bad enough to wound in what I assume was a manner similar to ancient slings.

[rrgg]

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

Keep in mind that this is specifically in reference to the heavy 16th century muskets that fired a ~2 oz. bullet. Humphrey Barwick claimed that a musket was dangerous to "common" armors at 400 yards, armors "of proof" at 200 yards, and unarmored men at 600 yards. The armor penetration might be stretching it a little bit but apart from that it seems to fit given that he's talking just about the ability of the bullet to deal damage at those distances, not the ability to hit single individuals.

From what I've read the way "far shooting" was used was that you wouldn't be delivering whole volleys at that distance, rather a captain would have a couple files of hand-picked veterans or sharpshooters, etc. to step forward into a thin skirmish line with muskets and start calmly firing at a large body of enemy pikemen or cavalry at up to 400-600 yards away. The main purpose of this was just to harrass the enemy, to unnerve them, force them to move, attack prematurely, etc. however if the enemy formation did opt to remain completely still out in the open, say for hours at a time, they would eventually start to take significant casualties. According to Barnabe Rich from his experience in the low countries new captains would quickly learn not to leave their men or horses standing out in the open against musket fire even at 480-600 yards for very long without moving them into cover or screening them with skirmishers of their own.

Essentially expert marksmen with muskets could be effective against large formations at a distance under perfect, firing-range conditions, but against a moving target, targets that are spread out/in cover, or especially against enemies who are actually shooting back and posing an imminent danger, even among the best-trained shooters accuracy would just sort of quickly go down the toilet.

[KineticDiplomat]

I have to agree with Mike G here. Every now and again someone will go run a Picatinny test on musket or blackpowder rifle, clamping it in place with a bench and adjusting it to a perfect angle for a given range, and find out it can hit targets at far, far beyond the historical record. They will typically conclude "aha, they must have shot farther than we thought" or "it was just dumb leaders who didn't realize you could shoot that far."

They almost inevitability look stupefied when they hear that soldiers who shoot reasonably frequently, using easy to handle weapons with very flat trajectories and low recoil, smokeless powder with consistently manufactured rounds, often with a combat optic, firing from a prone position on a range, are far from guaranteed to hit a man sized target at 300 meters. And that many support troops, who despite being undertrained by modern standards, still fire far more practice rounds than a redcoat or civil war draftee, can struggle to consistently hit beyond 150 meters or so.

The next step is they blame modern weapon design, usually on the idea "well, the US/Russians/Whoever designed them to fight at under two hundred meters and optimized for that." Which, while true, ignores the actual ballistics. Which is to say the comparatively small rounds of modern assault rifles do tend to have a substantially degraded flight after six hundred meters or so (whereas you can expect a modern hunting caliber to reliably go out much further), but that within those six hundred meters they have trajectories that are very easy to shoot. Because no one wants to mess with working on range holds and bullet drop mechanics in a firefight; they want shooting to be "get ight picture, squeeze trigger, the same way at 100 meters as it is at 300". Compared to the NATO 5.56 or RU 7.62x39, blackpowder weapons look like you're lobbing a catapult.

The final argument usually goes: "but formations were BIG targets", which is true. But most people don't miss left-right. They miss under-over. A problem which is definitely exacerbated by fat slow bullets on loping trajectories. And formations are still man height, though they do have a larger hazard area for near overshoots can create a beaten zone which hits rear ranks.

[AdAstra]

I have to agree with Mike G here. Every now and again someone will go run a Picatinny test on musket or blackpowder rifle, clamping it in place with a bench and adjusting it to a perfect angle for a given range, and find out it can hit targets at far, far beyond the historical record. They will typically conclude "aha, they must have shot farther than we thought" or "it was just dumb leaders who didn't realize you could shoot that far."

They almost inevitability look stupefied when they hear that soldiers who shoot reasonably frequently, using easy to handle weapons with very flat trajectories and low recoil, smokeless powder with consistently manufactured rounds, often with a combat optic, firing from a prone position on a range, are far from guaranteed to hit a man sized target at 300 meters. And that many support troops, who despite being undertrained by modern standards, still fire far more practice rounds than a redcoat or civil war draftee, can struggle to consistently hit beyond 150 meters or so.

The next step is they blame modern weapon design, usually on the idea "well, the US/Russians/Whoever designed them to fight at under two hundred meters and optimized for that." Which, while true, ignores the actual ballistics. Which is to say the comparatively small rounds of modern assault rifles do tend to have a substantially degraded flight after six hundred meters or so (whereas you can expect a modern hunting caliber to reliably go out much further), but that within those six hundred meters they have trajectories that are very easy to shoot. Because no one wants to mess with working on range holds and bullet drop mechanics in a firefight; they want shooting to be "get ight picture, squeeze trigger, the same way at 100 meters as it is at 300". Compared to the NATO 5.56 or RU 7.62x39, blackpowder weapons look like you're lobbing a catapult.

The final argument usually goes: "but formations were BIG targets", which is true. But most people don't miss left-right. They miss under-over. A problem which is definitely exacerbated by fat slow bullets on loping trajectories. And formations are still man height, though they do have a larger hazard area for near overshoots can create a beaten zone which hits rear ranks.

Yup, getting an accurate range is tough when you're standing up, aiming a heavy gun with very crude sights, and have a significant delay between when you pull the trigger and when the bullet comes out the other end. And of course when you miss you can't just try again immediately afterward, and adjust your aim appropriately, you've gotta reload the gun, and the next shot will be made harder by exertion and the cloud of smoke your first volley made, not even mentioning the bullets coming in your direction. Also the number of rounds allotted for training purposes would be pretty heavily limited if conflict was not imminent.

Even today, you're shooting at fleeting or moving targets, sometimes just muzzle flashes. Exposing yourself for too long puts you at significant risk, making it tricky to align your sights or get a clear bead on the target, and all sorts of other factors like stress, exhaustion, sudden incoming fire, or ordnance can confound your aim.

[rrgg]

I have to agree with Mike G here. Every now and again someone will go run a Picatinny test on musket or blackpowder rifle, clamping it in place with a bench and adjusting it to a perfect angle for a given range, and find out it can hit targets at far, far beyond the historical record. They will typically conclude "aha, they must have shot farther than we thought" or "it was just dumb leaders who didn't realize you could shoot that far."

They almost inevitability look stupefied when they hear that soldiers who shoot reasonably frequently, using easy to handle weapons with very flat trajectories and low recoil, smokeless powder with consistently manufactured rounds, often with a combat optic, firing from a prone position on a range, are far from guaranteed to hit a man sized target at 300 meters. And that many support troops, who despite being undertrained by modern standards, still fire far more practice rounds than a redcoat or civil war draftee, can struggle to consistently hit beyond 150 meters or so.

The next step is they blame modern weapon design, usually on the idea "well, the US/Russians/Whoever designed them to fight at under two hundred meters and optimized for that." Which, while true, ignores the actual ballistics. Which is to say the comparatively small rounds of modern assault rifles do tend to have a substantially degraded flight after six hundred meters or so (whereas you can expect a modern hunting caliber to reliably go out much further), but that within those six hundred meters they have trajectories that are very easy to shoot. Because no one wants to mess with working on range holds and bullet drop mechanics in a firefight; they want shooting to be "get ight picture, squeeze trigger, the same way at 100 meters as it is at 300". Compared to the NATO 5.56 or RU 7.62x39, blackpowder weapons look like you're lobbing a catapult.

The final argument usually goes: "but formations were BIG targets", which is true. But most people don't miss left-right. They miss under-over. A problem which is definitely exacerbated by fat slow bullets on loping trajectories. And formations are still man height, though they do have a larger hazard area for near overshoots can create a beaten zone which hits rear ranks.

It's not really a case of "dumb leaders not realizing how far guns can shoot", the historical record shows they did recognize that heavy muskets could have a noticeable impact at up to 600 yards in the right situations and that this was a tactic which was used from time to time and was something to be weary of. It's just that most of the time it wasn't really relevent or those situations would try to be avoided.

Again, "effective" in this case doesn't mean hitting reliably or even most of the time, I mean that if a musketeer is firing hundreds of rounds at a large, stationary formation, literally over the course of hours with runners occasionally bringing him additional ammunition or a new weapon if his malfunctions or becomes too fouled, then as long as some of his shots connect every so often he'll be inflicting a very slow trickle of casualties. If the enemy formation stays still long enough and he remains unaccosted, he might even eventually work out the enemy's exact distance and how high he needs to aim his sight each time for best results. And again, this is inflicting casualties so slowly that even if the sharpshooters opened up at 600 yards and the enemy formation kept advancing, even at a walk, they would easily be able to get within charging distance before the shooting had done any significant damage. This is why at most you'd only ever send out a handful of your most experienced musketeers for very long range shooting, the rest of the company's shot you'd have remain standing by, conserving their stamina and ammunition for delivering short-range volleys in case the enemy ever gets fed up and decides to try closing the distance.

To put it in other words "Effective range" is generally a pretty fast and loose term and can mean something very different depending on the specific conditions, the target, and what kind of effect you're looking for. It's not a distance at which bullets suddenly disappear into thin air. For modern soldiers during training I assume that it's at some point still mentioned or at least implied that if someone ever does start shooting at him with an M16 from more than 500 yards away then he shouldn't continue standing motionless out in the open.

Lastly, to make one more point regarding the difference between "practice" vs "combat conditions" that I think is interesting and that a lot of people tend to miss. When you come across illustrations or descriptions from the early modern period of large, dense formations of soldiers standing out in the open during a battle, that does not necessarily mean that they are leaving themselves exposed to being shot at by snipers or sharpshooters. To take a quote from Ardant du Picq, who was writing in 1869 about armies fully armed with rifles:

" However, let us not have illusions as to the efficacy of the fire of skirmishers. In spite of the use of accurate and long range weapons, in spite of all training that can be given the soldier, this fire never has more than a relative effect, which should not be exaggerated.

"The fire of skirmishers is generally against skirmishers. A body of troops indeed does not let itself be fired on by skirmishers without returning a similar fire. And it is absurd to expect skirmishers to direct their fire on a body protected by skirmishers. To demand of troops firing individually, almost abandoned to themselves, that they do not answer the shots directed at them, by near skirmishers, but aim at a distant body, which is not harming them, is to ask an impossible unselfishness. "

[Mike_G]

As usual, this has drifted quite a bit, but my points are as follows:

I really doubt that 15th-16th century muskets were intended to do much shooting at over 400 yards. I've shot at long ranges with, let's just admit, much better guns, and while I can hit a man sized target at 500 yards in perfect conditions, it ain't easy.

I highly doubt that a soft lead ball will punch through armor at long range. It's soft, it's slow and it's going to lose a lot of energy after flying 400 yards.

And even if there are a few expert marksmen who can make hits with any kind of regularity at those ranges, that isn't the standard for soldiers. There's only one Carlos Hathcock.

So the original question of "can bows/crossbows still be effective on the battlefield after early firearms?" I think we have to compare the average archer to the average musketeer. And the average infantryman with a firearm anytime before 1870 was probably not all that dangerous to a man more than 100 yards away.

I think, on paper, if you put 100 trained men with longbows and 100 trained men with, say a Brown Bess and had them try to put shots on a target at 50 or 100 yards over a minute, the bows probably can hold their own.

Because the average redcoat is not hitting anybody at 400 yards. He's not even bothering to fire until he's under 100, and he's likely to miss that shot and then charge with the bayonet to finish the job.

I'm not saying bows or crossbows are better than muskets, just that they weren't replaced because the musket was a superweapon that was killing armored men at 400 yards. Any of these weapons is deadly at 50-100 yards and that's where all of them were mostly used.



.

[fusilier]

For what I understand, the M16 is limited by its own design to operate at those ranges, however. It uses an intermediate cartridge, that was introduced exactly because it was impossible to aim too far without specialised optics, so there was no sense in having heavier bullets.

So there are two factors I can think of. One is that certain arquebuses may have been made with the intent of striking hard from far away. The other one is that terminology is a problem, because language is pretty fluid and researchers may not check what the familiar word actually meant in a certain text.

To make an example, Cellini describes one of his guns as a "gerefalco", a large arquebus with a calibre of 2 cm, which he compares in length to a half culverin. He describes a long shot -- although he doesn't really say how long -- and explains that he gave an arc to the trajectory. He almost hits his target; the ball actually hits the man's sword, and he dies from the shrapnel.

Such a weapon is pretty close to a cannon, but it's still called an arquebus in some dictionaries I could find. So such oversized, overcharged versions meant for the long range could really have had that sort of effect. However, it's still longer than two meters, probably close to or even over 3 m. And Cellini was a "bonbardieri", so an artillery man, and he often describes handling falconets and other small artillery weapons.

This is a problem in general with classification, I guess, because there are "moschetti" (muskets) which were actually naval artillery weapons with a calibre of 4.5 cm used by XVI century Venice.

At the same time, we know that arquebus balls didn't always perforate armour, or even the skin. Field doctors in Italy divided wounds in three different kinds (perforated body with the ball having passed through and left from the other side, perforated body with the ball left inside, no perforation). Even without penetration, the hit could still be bad enough to wound in what I assume was a manner similar to ancient slings.

Yeah, this could be an issue of confusing terminology. Arquebus, Musket, and Culverin all have variable meanings depending upon the context. As you pointed out the earlier version of arquebus could refer to a large weapon that's more of a light artillery piece. I could see that having the ability to puncture armor at 200 meters or more.

Throughout the "musket" era, there are many accounts of somebody being hit by a "spent ball" -- it either ricocheted, or simply traveled a very long distance -- the result being that it didn't pierce the skin. Also, I remember reading about Giovanni de' Medici (Giovanni dalle Bande Nere), where bullets would pierce the metal armor, but not the leather armor underneath it.

[Clistenes]

As usual, this has drifted quite a bit, but my points are as follows:

I really doubt that 15th-16th century muskets were intended to do much shooting at over 400 yards. I've shot at long ranges with, let's just admit, much better guns, and while I can hit a man sized target at 500 yards in perfect conditions, it ain't easy..

They didn't shoot at human-sized targets, they shot at dense pike and halberd formations (same for bows, by the way...).

I highly doubt that a soft lead ball will punch through armor at long range. It's soft, it's slow and it's going to lose a lot of energy after flying 400 yards.

Actually, when there still were plate armor around they often used steel or iron ammo against armored enemies.

Also, while they were slow when compared to modern bullets, they were very heavy, and they would lose height way faster than they lost horizontal momentum... the projectile could still do quite a bit of damage by the time it was at the height of your legs.

And arrows had the same problem, only worse...

And even if there are a few expert marksmen who can make hits with any kind of regularity at those ranges, that isn't the standard for soldiers. There's only one Carlos Hathcock.

True, but the same can be said about bows. And bows were even less accurate on average.

So the original question of "can bows/crossbows still be effective on the battlefield after early firearms?" I think we have to compare the average archer to the average musketeer. And the average infantryman with a firearm anytime before 1870 was probably not all that dangerous to a man more than 100 yards away.

On the other hand, if you put 1,000 Renaissance era musketeers against a pike block, they would kill armored pikemen at 100 yards, while arrows would bounce even on buff jackets or gambesons at that distance.

I think, on paper, if you put 100 trained men with longbows and 100 trained men with, say a Brown Bess and had them try to put shots on a target at 50 or 100 yards over a minute, the bows probably can hold their own.

A Brown Bess could punch through a 1 inch wooden shield at 300 yards. At that distance, an 150-lb English longbow's heavy (60gr.) war arrow would have lost its momentum and would be close to hit the ground (their range was of 320 yards).

A Brown Bess's bullet just keeps its momentum and goes in a straight line for way longer, and it's less affected by the wind, so I am quite sure that, given the same amount of training, it would perform better than a longbow at 100 yards.

Because the average redcoat is not hitting anybody at 400 yards. He's not even bothering to fire until he's under 100, and he's likely to miss that shot and then charge with the bayonet to finish the job.

True, he isn't hitting a target at 400 yards, but the longbow's arrow would have hit the floor at 320 yards...

I'm not saying bows or crossbows are better than muskets, just that they weren't replaced because the musket was a superweapon that was killing armored men at 400 yards. Any of these weapons is deadly at 50-100 yards and that's where all of them were mostly used.

The musket didn't need to be a superweapon... it was enough for it to be better than the bow.

And true, muskets were used at the 50-100 yards range, but bows were effective only at around 50 yards or less. Modern testing by Warsaw University of Technology in 2017 shows that even lesser quality armor was effective against longbows at just 25 m/27 yards (some arrows could punch through the armor, but their penetration was less than 24 mm, so a soldier could take a few shots like these and survive). Mike Loades 2011 test showed that gambeson and mail were quite effective against bodkins even at 10 yards.

[Beleriphon]

Essentially expert marksmen with muskets could be effective against large formations at a distance under perfect, firing-range conditions, but against a moving target, targets that are spread out/in cover, or especially against enemies who are actually shooting back and posing an imminent danger, even among the best-trained shooters accuracy would just sort of quickly go down the toilet.

I see, so a few well trained, potentially natural, shooters would fire at a formation with intention of hurting somebody or something at ranges the formation couldn't reasonable retaliate at since it was maybe a dozen shooters spread out enough hitting an individual became impossible.

[Mike_G]

I see, so a few well trained, potentially natural, shooters would fire at a formation with intention of hurting somebody or something at ranges the formation couldn't reasonable retaliate at since it was maybe a dozen shooters spread out enough hitting an individual became impossible.

Except, as rrgg says later in his post, that isn't really how it happens in practice, because what formation is just going to stand still out in the open and take it?

They will either move to close, and men with slow loading muskets will get very few shots off before the enemy close with them, or they'll deploy their own skirmishers, or cavalry will roll up the dispersed skirmishers or, if the target formation has none of those options, they will likely move away out of danger.

This is the same forum where people insisted the American riflemen were no threat to British regiments because "all the redcoats had to do was fix bayonets and charge" before the rifles could be reloaded.

I'm sorry, I just don't buy the idea of 15th-16th Century muskets as a significant long range threat. I can totally see them used to volley at an enemy formation at relatively close (< 100 yards) range.

Most musket and rifle fire prior to the late 19th century was done at very close range. The sharpshooters that we have record of are by far the exception to the rule. They may pick off the occasional officer, but when you are looking at a battle the scale of Waterloo or Gettysburg with tens of thousands of casualties, a few snipers at long range probably had less effect on the battle than a single cannonball.

So, while I'm not quite with Ben Franklin on Team Archery, I think if we compare bows to guns, we need to compare the average bow to the average gun, which in both cases would be close range massed shooting at a formation. The archers would get a lot more rounds off, the musketeers might be more accurate and harder hitting. Comparing the max range is more or less irrelevant, since battles were almost never fought at max range.

[rrgg]

Yeah, this could be an issue of confusing terminology. Arquebus, Musket, and Culverin all have variable meanings depending upon the context. As you pointed out the earlier version of arquebus could refer to a large weapon that's more of a light artillery piece. I could see that having the ability to puncture armor at 200 meters or more.

Throughout the "musket" era, there are many accounts of somebody being hit by a "spent ball" -- it either ricocheted, or simply traveled a very long distance -- the result being that it didn't pierce the skin. Also, I remember reading about Giovanni de' Medici (Giovanni dalle Bande Nere), where bullets would pierce the metal armor, but not the leather armor underneath it.

Yeah, and this is where 600 yards figure comes from, a number of authors mention it as sort of a rule of thumb for roughly the maximum distance at which a 16th century musket ball still has enough energy to kill or incapacitate. If you did fire a musket way up in air at a high angle you could get the bullet to carry probably around 1000-1200 yards, however (and while i suspect that the terminal velocity of a lead ball is probably high enough that it would still hurt quite a bit if it hit) it probably wouldn't be enough to actually kill someone. It's a statistic that doesn't really matter with modern rifle bullets which are much more aerodynamic and need less energy to penetrate flesh in the first place, but it was something to consider way back in the smoothbore days.

Barnabe Rich and Roger Williams actually both listed the maximum lethal range as one of the biggest advantages of switching to the full-sized musket over the lighter caliver, i.e. the musket could kill at up to 600 yards while the caliver/arquebus they only considered deadly up to maybe 400 yards or less.

As an example, say for instance that you encounter an enemy battalion armed with pikes and calivers guarding a bridge while your force includes actual musketeers. You can sit back while some of your muskets fire on the enemy position from 500-600 yards and force them to either cross the bridge and go on the offensive, stay there and continue taking casualties for free, or else retreat and give up the bridge without a fight.

It's essentially the same role that artillery would often be used for (speaking of which, light artillery gradually becoming more mobile and more available might be yet another reason that far shooting with small arms became less common over time) or for that matter, the role bows and crossbows often played at long range during the middle ages. See the battle of Agincourt where the english bowmen advanced to within bowshot of the french camp and coaxed them into attacking prematurely.

As usual, this has drifted quite a bit, but my points are as follows:

I really doubt that 15th-16th century muskets were intended to do much shooting at over 400 yards. I've shot at long ranges with, let's just admit, much better guns, and while I can hit a man sized target at 500 yards in perfect conditions, it ain't easy.

I highly doubt that a soft lead ball will punch through armor at long range. It's soft, it's slow and it's going to lose a lot of energy after flying 400 yards.

And even if there are a few expert marksmen who can make hits with any kind of regularity at those ranges, that isn't the standard for soldiers. There's only one Carlos Hathcock.

So the original question of "can bows/crossbows still be effective on the battlefield after early firearms?" I think we have to compare the average archer to the average musketeer. And the average infantryman with a firearm anytime before 1870 was probably not all that dangerous to a man more than 100 yards away.

I think, on paper, if you put 100 trained men with longbows and 100 trained men with, say a Brown Bess and had them try to put shots on a target at 50 or 100 yards over a minute, the bows probably can hold their own.

Because the average redcoat is not hitting anybody at 400 yards. He's not even bothering to fire until he's under 100, and he's likely to miss that shot and then charge with the bayonet to finish the job.

I'm not saying bows or crossbows are better than muskets, just that they weren't replaced because the musket was a superweapon that was killing armored men at 400 yards. Any of these weapons is deadly at 50-100 yards and that's where all of them were mostly used.



.

I'd argue that there is enough evidence to say that soldiers way back then even with smoothbores would be able to put a significant number of rounds on target at those ranges over time. Here's a page from "small arms and ammunition in the US service" which shows the results of a series of musket trials carried out in 1800 France: https://i.imgur.com/KG1h3zA.png

There are a number of other musket trials from around this same period which tend to match these results pretty closely although I'll use this one since it includes the results for all the way up to 471 m.

A couple of things to note:

-This would have been using napoleonic-era muskets, which had generally become quite a bit lighter than those in the 16th century. A 16th century musket with a much longer barrel and a bullet weighing almost twice as much would likely maintain it's momentum much better and keep an overall flatter trajectory.

-Despite being on a practice range, and firing at a large "battalion-sized" target 32 meters wide, the results still don't seem to represent very good shooting. Out of the 100-man volley only 67% of shots hit the target directly at 78.5 meters, yet at 471 meters 5% of their shots still managed to hit the target directly. We know that there were many individual shooters from both this period and much earlier who were able to reliably hit a man-sized target with smoothbores at ~50-100 meters, so it seems conceivable that those individuals would be capable of hitting a formation-sized target at those distances and farther much more often as well.

-16th century formations tended to have many more ranks and be much deeper than napoleonic infantry lines and thus would usually have presented less dead space where a bullet could pass through the gaps without hitting anything.

-Given that estimates for the numbers of bullets expended to casualties inflicted for various battles throughout the early modern and napoleonic periods tend to more often be in the range of hundreds or even thousands of shots per casualty, I'd argue that a marksman hitting even 2.5-5% of the time at range is being pretty darn effective.

You are absolutely right that in reality this kind of accuracy would almost never, if ever, be achieved on the battlefield whether due to smoke, fear, adrenaline, difficulty estimating range, being screened by loose skirmishers, etc. And I know it sounds like I'm being nitpicky about the whole "maximum effective range" thing, I just feel compelled to keep bringing it up because I'm still annoyed at various video games I've played where i would put musketeers in a strong, defensive position, in cover, only for them to be whittled down by archers at range without fighting back because the game has decided that muskets are only ever allowed to shoot at enemies at a distance of less than 100 while archers get to have a range of 125. >.>

Regarding bows and crossbows vs guns. My position is still that it was probably the whole "battlefield conditions" thing which really did them in, not just a case of taking longer to train. We know about how badly the accuracy of troops armed with muskets and rifles suffered during an actual firefight, so how well would even the best trained archers really be able to shoot when they also have to worry about bullets and cannonballs whistling past them?

[fusilier]

Yeah, and this is where 600 yards figure comes from, a number of authors mention it as sort of a rule of thumb for roughly the maximum distance at which a 16th century musket ball still has enough energy to kill or incapacitate. If you did fire a musket way up in air at a high angle you could get the bullet to carry probably around 1000-1200 yards, however (and while i suspect that the terminal velocity of a lead ball is probably high enough that it would still hurt quite a bit if it hit) it probably wouldn't be enough to actually kill someone. It's a statistic that doesn't really matter with modern rifle bullets which are much more aerodynamic and need less energy to penetrate flesh in the first place, but it was something to consider way back in the smoothbore days.

Barnabe Rich and Roger Williams actually both listed the maximum lethal range as one of the biggest advantages of switching to the full-sized musket over the lighter caliver, i.e. the musket could kill at up to 600 yards while the caliver/arquebus they only considered deadly up to maybe 400 yards or less.

As an example, say for instance that you encounter an enemy battalion armed with pikes and calivers guarding a bridge while your force includes actual musketeers. You can sit back while some of your muskets fire on the enemy position from 500-600 yards and force them to either cross the bridge and go on the offensive, stay there and continue taking casualties for free, or else retreat and give up the bridge without a fight.

It's essentially the same role that artillery would often be used for (speaking of which, light artillery gradually becoming more mobile and more available might be yet another reason that far shooting with small arms became less common over time) or for that matter, the role bows and crossbows often played at long range during the middle ages. See the battle of Agincourt where the english bowmen advanced to within bowshot of the french camp and coaxed them into attacking prematurely.




I'd argue that there is enough evidence to say that soldiers way back then even with smoothbores would be able to put a significant number of rounds on target at those ranges over time. Here's a page from "small arms and ammunition in the US service" which shows the results of a series of musket trials carried out in 1800 France: https://i.imgur.com/KG1h3zA.png

There are a number of other musket trials from around this same period which tend to match these results pretty closely although I'll use this one since it includes the results for all the way up to 471 m.

A couple of things to note:

-This would have been using napoleonic-era muskets, which had generally become quite a bit lighter than those in the 16th century. A 16th century musket with a much longer barrel and a bullet weighing almost twice as much would likely maintain it's momentum much better and keep an overall flatter trajectory.

-Despite being on a practice range, and firing at a large "battalion-sized" target 32 meters wide, the results still don't seem to represent very good shooting. Out of the 100-man volley only 67% of shots hit the target directly at 78.5 meters, yet at 471 meters 5% of their shots still managed to hit the target directly. We know that there were many individual shooters from both this period and much earlier who were able to reliably hit a man-sized target with smoothbores at ~50-100 meters, so it seems conceivable that those individuals would be capable of hitting a formation-sized target at those distances and farther much more often as well.

-16th century formations tended to have many more ranks and be much deeper than napoleonic infantry lines and thus would usually have presented less dead space where a bullet could pass through the gaps without hitting anything.

-Given that estimates for the numbers of bullets expended to casualties inflicted for various battles throughout the early modern and napoleonic periods tend to more often be in the range of hundreds or even thousands of shots per casualty, I'd argue that a marksman hitting even 2.5-5% of the time at range is being pretty darn effective.

You are absolutely right that in reality this kind of accuracy would almost never, if ever, be achieved on the battlefield whether due to smoke, fear, adrenaline, difficulty estimating range, being screened by loose skirmishers, etc. And I know it sounds like I'm being nitpicky about the whole "maximum effective range" thing, I just feel compelled to keep bringing it up because I'm still annoyed at various video games I've played where i would put musketeers in a strong, defensive position, in cover, only for them to be whittled down by archers at range without fighting back because the game has decided that muskets are only ever allowed to shoot at enemies at a distance of less than 100 while archers get to have a range of 125. >.>

Regarding bows and crossbows vs guns. My position is still that it was probably the whole "battlefield conditions" thing which really did them in, not just a case of taking longer to train. We know about how badly the accuracy of troops armed with muskets and rifles suffered during an actual firefight, so how well would even the best trained archers really be able to shoot when they also have to worry about bullets and cannonballs whistling past them?

rrgg, as usual I'm impressed with your recall, and your ability to cite sources. I think in most cases skirmishers neither inflicted many casualties nor took many themselves (exceptions exist; in the 16th century skirmishers could be used very aggressively and at close range). And there's a lot of evidence that most casualties from personal firearms happed at ranges under 100 yards, even when rifle-muskets were employed. But the usefulness of skirmishing goes beyond incurring casualties -- screening, forcing the enemy to deploy/respond, etc. So even if few casualties are incurred at extreme ranges, discussions of the effective extreme range of the weapons are useful.

The rifles used in WW1 typically had sights that elevated up to 2000 or more meters. As it was explained to me, rather than firing on an enemy formation at such extreme ranges, you may fire at a target area (like a bridge) to dissuade the enemy from entering/crossing it.

I agree with the conclusion that "overall" guns had many advantages over bows and crossbows. I know that sharpshooters employed by the North African galleys carried a musket for long range sniping, and a bow for rapid close in shots. That "dual" primary weapon ability is something that requires very specific conditions, however. North American Plains warriors sometimes showed such abilities too.

[Brother Oni]

I'm sorry, I just don't buy the idea of 15th-16th Century muskets as a significant long range threat. I can totally see them used to volley at an enemy formation at relatively close (< 100 yards) range.

I tried to post this earlier in response to Beleriphon, but it looks like the forum software ate my post.

I know that during the 16th Century Sengoku Jidai, during the Battle of Nagashino, Oda and Tokugawa samurai matchlock (deppo) skirmisher squads moved ahead and sniped at the Takeda cavalry formations in a bid to bait them to break ranks and charge forwards. To this end, these deppo squads had larger bore matchlocks than the standard ashigaru matchlock (teppo) formations, thus could fit more powder and use larger shot.

I don't think that this tactic would have been developed on the fly for this battle - it would have been developed over the course of earlier battles from the war and I know it was continued onwards, most notably, at the Battle of Sekigahara.

[William M. Pail]

I don't think that this tactic would have been developed on the fly for this battle - it would have been developed over the course of earlier battles from the war and I know it was continued onwards, most notably, at the Battle of Sekigahara.

I totally agree with you,but there is no way to say for sure.

[Mike_G]

rrgg, as usual I'm impressed with your recall, and your ability to cite sources. I think in most cases skirmishers neither inflicted many casualties nor took many themselves (exceptions exist; in the 16th century skirmishers could be used very aggressively and at close range). And there's a lot of evidence that most casualties from personal firearms happed at ranges under 100 yards, even when rifle-muskets were employed. But the usefulness of skirmishing goes beyond incurring casualties -- screening, forcing the enemy to deploy/respond, etc. So even if few casualties are incurred at extreme ranges, discussions of the effective extreme range of the weapons are useful.

The rifles used in WW1 typically had sights that elevated up to 2000 or more meters. As it was explained to me, rather than firing on an enemy formation at such extreme ranges, you may fire at a target area (like a bridge) to dissuade the enemy from entering/crossing it.

This is true, but the rifles were almost never used at that range. These weapons were developed during period of colonial war, when troops might well see a Zulu Impi at a great distance, and make some long shots, or they might be called on to use "long range covering fire" on an area, almost like artillery. In modern warfare, nobody is using rifles at a mile. That why God gave us mortars.

A friend of mine owns a Mauser C 96 automatic pistol, an antique, not a reproduction, and the sights go out to a very optimistic 800 yards. Nobody hits with a pistol at that range. He happens to be a gun designer and mechanical engineer, and he feels that since the weapon was a new technology (an automatic pistol with a high capacity and stripper clips for quick reloads) they weren't sure how it would be used and included the long range sights. The idea that a unit might be able to create a beaten zone at long range with rapid fire sounds reasonable in theory, but the weapon was actually used at very close range, often by cavalry, like the pistol it was.

It's a lovely weapon, and a tack driver at 25 yards (I shot a 4" group with it), but I wouldn't think I could hit a barn at 800. Just because the sights exist doesn't mean they were used. This happens a lot with new tech. The designer provides for instances that might theoretically be possible, but wind up being unlikely or unrealistic in practical use.

This is why post WWII rifles all moved away from the very long range weapons firing .30 -ish caliber full sized rounds to shorter, lighter higher capacity rifles firing intermediate rounds. You see the development during the war. Most nations started with their WWI weapons and most new weapons became quicker, closer range, lighter and so on. The German SG 44 replacing the K98, the American M1 replacing the '03 Springfield and the M1 carbine becoming very popular with troops. You also see the proliferation of the SMG.

WWI probably had the mist accurate general issue rifles in history, but after a lot of field use, virtually all millitaries realized that these aren't idea for the realities of the battlefield and by the cold war, everybody had switched over.

I agree with the conclusion that "overall" guns had many advantages over bows and crossbows. I know that sharpshooters employed by the North African galleys carried a musket for long range sniping, and a bow for rapid close in shots. That "dual" primary weapon ability is something that requires very specific conditions, however. North American Plains warriors sometimes showed such abilities too.

None of which I disagree with. But I think the bow could still have a niche on the battlefield right up to the general issue of breechloading or repeating rifles. Because I think the average archer could probably hit a target just as well as the average man with a black powder musket, and if it take the archer two or three shots to be as effective, he can still take two or three shots for every shot the musketeer gets. Men with breechloaders and metallic cartridges were sill dying from arrows into the 1880s

I agree the guns were probably better overall, but the question was about the viability of a bow or crossbow as a battle field weapon, and I think it's viable but inferior. Much like I wouldn't bring a Lee Enfield to fight in Faluja, but it's viable if obsolete.

[Max_Killjoy]

Also, while they were slow when compared to modern bullets, they were very heavy, and they would lose height way faster than they lost horizontal momentum... the projectile could still do quite a bit of damage by the time it was at the height of your legs.

I'm pretty sure that, aside from a small aerodynamic effect, all projectiles lose height at the same rate -- it's only their forward velocity that decreases their vertical fall over horizontal distance traveled.

[Beleriphon]

I'm pretty sure that, aside from a small aerodynamic effect, all projectiles lose height at the same rate -- it's only their forward velocity that decreases their vertical fall over horizontal distance traveled.

That one is more or less true. All projectiles released from the same vertical height will take the same amount of time to hit the ground. Mythbusters did an episode on a 9mm bullet that was dropped vs one that was fired. They both take the same time to reach the ground, assuming the fired bullet is completely level to start with. I think the end result of the show was that any differences would be with the margins of error for their setup to actually test things.

[halfeye]

That one is more or less true. All projectiles released from the same vertical height will take the same amount of time to hit the ground. Mythbusters did an episode on a 9mm bullet that was dropped vs one that was fired. They both take the same time to reach the ground, assuming the fired bullet is completely level to start with. I think the end result of the show was that any differences would be with the margins of error for their setup to actually test things.

Only in so far as you can ignore the fact that the surface of the Earth is curved.

[redwizard007]

Only in so far as you can ignore the fact that the surface of the Earth is curved.

Exactly how far would one need to shoot for that particular fact to become pertinent? Are we talking 1000 meters? 2000?

[Max_Killjoy]

Exactly how far would one need to shoot for that particular fact to become pertinent? Are we talking 1000 meters? 2000?

Handheld ballistic computers for snipers do take both the curvature and the rotation of the earth into account, reportedly.

[Storm Bringer]

Exactly how far would one need to shoot for that particular fact to become pertinent? Are we talking 1000 meters? 2000?

err, quick google says that the horizon for a standing shooter (say, 5 feet/150cm off the ground) is roughly 4,400m.

if your only 30cm off the ground (say, a prone sniper) its about 2000m. Now, its perfectly possible for a prone sniper to both see a target beyond that distance and hit it, but it would require said target to be tall enough to stand tall over the curve of the earth. So, using the 30cm high prone sniper, assuming a "flat", empty field, could not see another 30cm high prone sniper beyond about 4 km, because the earth would be in the way. if one of the snipers stood up, he could be seen and shot by the prone sniper form further out (about ~6.5km)

so, yes, its technically a factor, but its only really important on very long range shots. Again, this Is assuming a perfectly "smooth" earth sized sphere, so those figures will be adjusted by the local terrain elevation and height the observer is at.

Incidentally, it was this maths that drove the tall "pagoda" tower superstructures of Japanese battleships in the interwar era, as the japs strove to improve their viewpoints and get better, more accurate fire control data. Almost every warship had some form of rangfinder mounted on top of the foremast or forward superstructure.