(July 4, 2016 at 3:39 pm)Constable Dorfl Wrote:(July 4, 2016 at 8:56 am)Gawdzilla Wrote: Rifles were used in the American Revolution. Their main drawback was they were slower loading than the smooth-bores. Higher accuracy, slower rate of fire. For comparison, the last command before "Fire" for the smooth-bore firing line was "Level!", not "Aim". Nobody knew where the slug was going anyway, so why bother.
Rifles were used by individuals in the revolution, not mass produced for whole units or even armies. Rifling had been experimented with since the 1500's but it only came into use as a matter of course between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the Franco-Prussian war (even in the Civil War rifled guns were uncommon).
The biggest problem with a rifle for military use was that they could not be fitted with a bayonet. Since the way for infantry to resist cavalry was to form square and stand there with massed bayonets this was a decided disadvantage. Individual sharpshooters could shelter within a square - as did artillery crews when the horses were coming - but an entire unit would have been overrrun.
