Quote: It was actually worse than that. The order was "level, fire!", not "aim, fire!" because aiming a smoothbore musket was useless.
I have a replica Brown Bess and it doesn't even have sights. Just a bayonet lug on the front. The French Charleville at least had a front sight. But again, the French pioneered the concept of legere or light infantry skirmishers screening their columns. It's a good thing as the Revolutionary Armies were every bit as shitty as the American Militia of 1775 but there were a lot of them and their elan was sky high. The French began using columns to attack covered by a thick skirmisher screen who did aim and annoyed the shit out of their more traditional Austrian/Prussian opponents.
