(June 20, 2020 at 11:28 am)onlinebiker Wrote:(June 20, 2020 at 8:40 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: And they were accurate?
They can be.
I have taken deer up to 100 yards with a smoothebore.
Granted it wasn't a front stuffer - (blackpowder muzleloader) but a 12 gauge. But the physics are the same with both types.
The same accuracy could be gotten by a skilled rifleman with any smoothbore.
I have not had much success hunting with blackpowder. It simply is not as reliable as a cartridge gun. But under controlled condition even smoothbores can get reasonable accuracy for the ranges they were designed to be used.
(June 20, 2020 at 11:11 am)Abaddon_ire Wrote: In those days, one's life depended on reloading rapidly. They got surprising fast at it.
And the objective was not to aim at a particular target at all, but to create a "hail of lead". Bound to hit something if one hurls enough lead down range, hence the mad mass formations of troops.
Makes sense in context of the time and technology. Seems utterly nutty from a modern perspective. "Skirmishers" were an attempt to work around that.
I have never heard any claims of "a hail of lead" attributed to muzzleloading weaponry. (Except field cannons). AK47s are more in that vein of thought.
They call it "spray and pray".
You think AK 47s were an option in the era of muskets?
Good luck with that.
