Roman shield Vs musket ball

In My Humble Opinion
61

I happen to own a modern reproduction Brown Bess. They basically took a Model 1756 long pattern musket and copied it using modern machinery. Aside from being new, the only difference between it and an authentic period musket is that the new modern reproduction doesn’t have marks all over it from everything being whacked into place and beat into submission during the hand-fitting of parts.

A Brown Bess has a .75" bore. It’s bigger than a 12 gauge, more like a 10 gauge.

A Brown Bess doesn’t have sights, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t aim it. The tang screw makes a functional (though admittedly less than ideal) rear sight and the bayonet lug on the front works for a front sight.

Smooth bore muskets always fire curve balls. This is because the round ball is going to randomly strike the side of the barrel as it travels down through it when fired, giving the ball a random spin. It’s going to go pretty straight for about 50 to 75 yards. After that, it’s going to curve off in some random direction. They used to say that you could stand 100 yards away from a single musketeer and not fear getting shot by him, which of course isn’t quite true but you get the point.

They usually didn’t bother to aim at individual soldiers. You leveled the musket at the enemy and fired in mass volleys, making a huge shotgun-type of effect on the enemy line. If you throw enough lead at the enemy you don’t need accuracy. Musket commands weren’t “ready, aim, fire”, they were “ready, present (often abbreviated to a one syllable slurred p’sent when in a hurry), fire”.

You can make the musket more accurate by using tighter fitting balls, but armies intentionally did not do that. Black powder quickly fouls the barrel, making reloading more and more difficult after each shot if the balls fit tightly. The 1.14 oz slug is accurate, assuming a 0.69 cal. round ball, which is about the size of the balls typically fired out of a Brown Bess (like I said, they intentionally used smaller looser fitting balls for faster and easier reloading). So that comparison with a 12 gauge slug is accurate.

Smoke is going to very quickly obscure the battlefield. When I go to the gun range, they usually stick me down on the end where the big cloud of smoke I send downrange won’t bother anyone.

I don’t know when they switched from plug bayonets to socket bayonets, but my 1756 model is set up for a socket bayonet, so there’s no need to take any time fixing the bayonet. The 1780 Redcoats in the OP aren’t going to have plug bayonets, they are going to have socket bayonets.

The British were very good at bayonet fighting, as George Washington learned the hard way. Poor old George got his ass kicked up and down the battlefields until he went into Valley Forge. Aside from nearly starving to death and all of the other horrors of Valley Forge, Washington’s troops got a good crash course in proper military discipline and proper bayonet fighting. Only then could his army go toe-to-toe with the British.

The British aren’t going to be helpless when the Romans reach them. Bayonet fighting was hugely important in the Brown Bess days, typically accounting for roughly a third of all battlefield casualties during the Napoleonic Wars and the American Revolution. The British strategy would not (as the OP presumes) be to stand in lines and fire volleys, but to fire volleys to weaken the enemy and then to finish them off with brutal bayonet fighting. The British lines could also move. They didn’t have to stand still and fire.

The British aren’t going to be firing every 20 seconds. British troops lined up by rank, typically 2 or 3 ranks deep. The front rank shoots then drops down to reload. While they are reloading, the second rank would fire, then they would drop down and reload. So what you really end up with is two or three volleys every 20 seconds, which is much more devastating.

Musketeers were required to be able to do 3 shots per minute, so the 20 seconds reload mentioned throughout this thread is accurate. That’s basically the minimum performance standard that all soldiers were required to meet.

I guarantee you my Brown Bess will shoot right through a Roman shield. The gun range I go to only allows paper targets, but if someone has a replica Roman shield and a place where we can shoot it, I’ll be happy to bring my musket out to prove it.

62

It’s my understanding that it was really WW I and widespread use of rifles, machineguns and massed artillery that rendered obsolete the tactic of “lines of infantry briefly shooting at each other before closing with bayonets and swords”. Still, there are a few examples of somewhat bizarre attempts to armor infantry (aside from the helmet, which was really more for protection against lower-velocity shrapnel).

Ultimately what they came up with was “army tank”. At least until the invention of Kevlar.

63

Now I want to read a Science Fiction book or ten about this, any hope of enlisting Eric Flint?.

64

No, but it was part of the a defence against deadly lead bullets. Ones with the stopping power of a handgun.

65

I think it was the widespread adoption of accurate repeating rifles that rendered Napoleonic tactics obsolete. During the Civil War, the low rate of fire of weapons like the Springfield rifle made it necessary to use blocks of infantry in order to coordinate and bring as much fire to bear as possible at critical moments. Men armed with the 7 shot Spencer rifle could fire as many as 20 shots per minute so you didn’t need them in big blocks to concentrate fire.

66

So that you have an idea of where I am coming from, when I was younger I was very much into wargaming with miniatures. My particular periods were 18th - early 19th century, and ancient warfare.

I spent years reading about this kind of thing - not just the speculation and theory, but detailed accounts of real battles. I also also spent years arguing and discussing points like these with some very knowledgeable people.

Firstly, theoretical figures and limited experiments in ideal conditions are NOT battlefield conditions.

The figure of 20 seconds to reload has been repeatedly mentioned here. On a parade ground, experienced soldiers could get that rate – for a few shots – before it would start to drop. On a battlefield 30 seconds was about as good as could be expected.

The rate dropped because, as ecg says, gunpowder residues accumulate in the barrel, and it gets progressively more difficult to ram the charge and musket ball. Also, on a battlefield, soldiers are flustered, distracted, there may be casualties around them, the ground is sloped or uneven, there are clouds of smoke, orders can’t easily be heard, etc.

The more rapidly the soldiers had to reload, the more the number of misfires increased, due to the touch hole being blocked, the flint not sparking properly, the charge and musket ball not being rammed adequately, soldiers being distracted and forgetting steps, etc.

The first volley was always the most effective, and was often reserved for closer range for that reason. Then the effectiveness dropped rapidly.

ecg made many good points, but…

No, they did not “drop down and reload”, for the simple reason that you can only reload a musket standing up. You have a musket, so try ramming when kneeling, especially with a hot gun barrel. It’s not practical.

Yes, and that random direction can be too high, over their heads, or too low, into the ground, as well as left and right. That’s why effectiveness dropped rapidly over 100 yards, whatever the theoretical range.

Another point is that force of the musket ball would drop rapidly with range. A round musket ball is not a spinning bullet.

‘Spent’ musket balls were a thing on battlefields. At long range, a person would sometimes be hit by a musket ball and only receive a bad bruise. It wouldn’t even penetrate the skin. (Spent cannon balls were also a thing, rolling along the ground at long range.)

That was another reason the first volley was often reserved for close range.

It’s also a reason that shields and armour would be effective at long range against musket balls.

Cuirasses could often stop a musket ball, except at very close range. While cuirasses were thicker than lorica segmentata, Roman armour would still have some stopping power, particularly at long range.

A bayonet on a musket is only a glorified spear.

An unarmoured spearman, or a soldier with a bayonet without even a shield, has absolutely no chance whatsoever in close combat against a trained legionary with a helmet, body armour, a shield, and a sword.

There would also be the effect of pila thrown at about 30 yards before closing. A shower of javelins would be very effective against closely packed ranks of unarmoured soldiers.

The Romans never marched in step.

No armies did until the 17th century. (Except possibly a Macedonian phalanx armed with sarissas, and even that is only speculation.)

I’m going back to Killiecrankie, because it is relevant.

It’s the closest real life example I can think of to what we’re discussing.

The lines remained stationary at long range for hours. The Highlanders were waiting for the sun, which was in their eyes, to move closer to setting. The Scottish army could not advance because the enemy were uphill, and there was no room on the flanks to manoeuver.

The Scottish army kept firing (they even had a few small cannon), and the Highlanders suffered casualties, but not enough at that range to make any difference. If the Highlanders had had armour, it would have made even less difference.

Highland side:

The continual fire of the enemy from the lower ground covered them, by a thick cloud of smoake, from the view of the Highlanders, whereof severals dropping from time to time, and many being wounded, they grew impatient for action. But the sun then shineing full in their faces, the Generall would not allow them to engage till it was nearer its decline.

They were definitely in range, and fire from the Highlanders also had an effect on the government army.

Government side:

The enemy, from their elevated position, having a full view of the General as he moved along the line, fired several running shots, which missed him, but wounded many by his side.

So they stood at long range for some time, then the Highland charge rolled down on the lines, moving from long musket range to close quarters.

This is exactly the situation we’re discussing.

The Scottish commander, Sir Hugh Mackay, was highly experienced in many battles in Europe over a number of years, and some of his regiments were veteran regiments. He made the best possible use of his troops.

When the Highlanders advanced, the redcoats fired by platoons, using aimed fire at close range. They could only fire one volley before the charge hit home.

Any idea that they would have time to reload is simply not realistic. If they had fired a volley at long range, it wouldn’t have been effective, and even if they had had time for another rushed close-range volley, it would have been much less effective than one careful, unhurried volley at close range.

Their fire made but a slight impression on Mackay’s men, who, marshalled in line according to the strictest rules of discipline then practised, reserved their fire till within a few paces of the enemy, when they poured it into his breast. By discharging in platoons, they were enabled to take a steady aim, and thus their fire told with dreadful effect on the thick and disorderly masses opposed to them.

At the commencement of the engagement, and for some minutes after, (for the whole lasted but a few minutes), the advantage was at least six to one on the side of Mackay; but when the Highlanders, after discharging their pieces, threw them away according to custom, and drew their broad swords, they took ample revenge. The most robust among them using the two-handed sword, gave what further impetus a savage ferocity could add to the force of this destructive weapon. They were down upon Mackay’s men before these had time, after a discharge, to fix their bayonets, which, at that period, were awkwardly attached to the musket.

Bayonets would have given them more chance against swords and shields, but perhaps not enough to make a difference, even against totally unarmoured Highlanders.

My money is on the Romans in this scenario.

67

It’s certainly possible that I picked up some bad info somewhere, but just to see how practical it is, I tried it a few minutes ago with my musket, indoors so I didn’t actually load it. But I did go through all of the motions of loading it.

You can’t hold the musket straight up and down like you do when you’re standing, but as long as you hold it at an angle it’s a lot more practical than you think. With the butt of the stock on the ground the musket does have a natural tendency to want to roll over onto its back, but as long as you manage that it’s not difficult to avoid touching the barrel or having the hot barrel roll over onto your leg. I found that letting it roll over onto its side but no further than that was the easiest way to reload it without touching the barrel. If you let it roll all the way over onto its back then it’s guaranteed that either your hand or your leg is touching the hot barrel. It is possible to reload it while keeping the musket upright, it’s just a bit more fiddly.

You have to prime the lock and then slide the musket back a bit to easily use the ramrod, but as long as you slide the musket back a bit you can easily use the ramrod with full force if you need to get a ball down a heavily fouled barrel.

I wasn’t able to find a position where I could easily prime the lock and also operate the ramrod without sliding the musket back a bit first. The musket barrel is just too long for that. You might think that holding the musket more vertical would help but that actually made it worse.

As I said, it’s a bit fiddly since the musket has a natural tendency to want to roll over onto its back, so it was definitely slow to reload for me since I haven’t practiced it. I think with some practice and experience preventing the musket from rolling over onto its back, the loading time would at least be reasonably close to the 20 second standard.

Overall, no biggie.

68

All these hypothetical threads like this always suffer from a few big issues:

  1. Lack of setting clear and proper knowledge boundaries for the two sides.
  2. Lack of considering how the method of encounter and terrain tremendously impact how battles progress.
  3. Lack of understanding what generally cause armies to be defeated in the field (it usually is not “having all their men killed.”)

What we can say broadly is by the 18th century (the OP said 1780 which isn’t the same as 1680 which keeps coming up–by the way the British fought and lost to Highland infantry in the 1740s a few times too so you don’t even have to go back that far, and they lost to primitive infantry in the 19th century a few times as well)–military tactics and weapons had advanced based on integrating scientific advancements and by discarding things that generally didn’t work in favor of things that did. Countries aren’t building militaries for hypothetical one off time travel battles, they are building them to confront the specific national-tier challenges they might expect to run into. In most of history there are examples of where a country with a perfectly logical and functional military given that country’s economy, technological development etc, loses a battle against an on-paper inferior foe. That’s because of the things I mentioned at the beginning of my post, how an encounter begins, the terrain etc all are important considerations in real battles.

There’s a reason European countries didn’t abandon muskets and switch to Scottish Highland battle tactics because of a few random defeats the English had in over 100 years of “trouble” in Scotland. In fact the only reason the Highlanders were resorting to those tactics is lack of access to better weapons and equipment. The Highlanders faced successive punishments for each series of rebellions they engaged in and ultimately lost their way of life and in many cases their lives and land, these were no the techniques of long term effective war making.

Often times to try to make these discussions more interesting people will posit things like “okay imagine the battle is on perfectly flat ground”, but many battles aren’t fought on perfectly flat ground, and historically armies specifically maneuver to try to gain terrain advantages in battles, using information from scouts and knowledge of the local topography to their advantage.

And then the last point I mentioned initially is understanding how battles* are historically won or lost. It is usually because one side “breaks” and loses its ability to function as a cohesive fighting force. Typically that side will have only lost a relatively small % of its total manpower when this occurs, and in the ensuing chaos they might and often did lose more people in the collapse than they did in the contested part of the fighting. * [I want to add I’m talking really about individual “engagements”, in ancient times the entire battle might be such a thing, but by the 18th and 19th centuries sometimes battles were complicated affairs with many engagements spread over a long line and wrapping around complicated topography and might stretch over multiple days.]

All that out of the way, the short of it is good infantry melee fighters against 18th century musket units could win if conditions were right. This would usually mean some lack of key support for the musketeers, poor leadership, poor positioning, and would usually mean experienced and determined melee infantry. This actually is true even in the 21st century. In 2004 the “Battle of Danny Boy”, coincidentally involving a unit of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (I don’t know much about modern British Army but I assume those ancestral regiment names are decorative and there are no more Scottish Highlanders in this unit than any other in the British Army, I’d be interested in knowing if that is true or not.) Due to failures in radio equipment, this force engaging some elements of the Mahdi Army insurgents ran low on supply and the decision was made to execute a bayonet charge–it was devastating and effecting. The Mahdi lost 28 dead, the British suffered a few casualties but none killed. The reason is fairly simple–a lot of the Mahdi insurgents were teenagers with no training, even with automatic weapons it’s no small thing if you’re a kid with basically no real training facing down an angry professionally trained soldier charging you with a fixed bayonet.

69

Thanks, that’s interesting. There were many different methods of volley firing, but as far as I know none of them used reloading in any other than the standing position. They probably considered it too fiddly with close-packed ranks of soldiers, and with large numbers.

70

Anyone who has read about warfare in the age of wooden ships knows that it’s not the ball that gets you, but rather the splintered wood between you and the gun. A musket ball hitting a wooden shield might not just take out the Roman holding it; a shattered shield could send shrapnel into everyone standing around him.

71

The battles against the highlanders are an obvious comparison as mentioned GreeenWyvern and others. In fact by the 1780s those battles (which the musketry did not get the upper hand) had led to the adoption of the socket bayonet which gave them the advantage.

But that’s is not heavy infantry in the classical sense, as roman legionaries were. I wonder if any of the Indian armies the British fought with in that period during the rise of the Raj still fielded anything comparable, and if so how they did?

72

To me the real question isn’t musket vs shield, there’s literally YouTube videos for some of that stuff and the answer is that the musket will frequently penetrate, but maybe not all of the time, and the longer the distance the more often the shield wearer will be spared.

The question is more are we positing a “perfect information” scenario, which would mean the musketeers (and their officers) know fully well that day they will be fighting a Roman force of around 500 legionnaires. Likewise the Romans will have been drilled and taught about gunpowder and firearms. In that scenario I think the Romans have a fighting chance depending on a few conditions, but I also think that by 1780 enough British officers had fucked up fighting infantry without guns that they may have approached the battle more intelligently, would be a little hard to predict.

Without perfect information I frankly imagine the Romans break and rout after the first musket volley, to them it would be like someone had summoned magical powers onto Earth and used it against them.

73

Mind that heavy infantry was still being used in the late 17th and early 18th century, by 1780 not really much in Europe, line infantry replaced it for reasons that heavy infantry was just not as effective any longer. But that wasn’t predicated on engagements where 500 heavy infantrymen were put 100 yards out from 500 line infantry musketeers. It goes back to the totality of the military picture.

Line infantry is meant to fit within a large paradigm than a fairly rare 1:1 with no support element battle against heavy infantry. It’s like positing what would happen if a battleshield warped into reality 2 miles away from an aircraft carrier right after the carrier’s entire detachment of planes had left on a bombing mission? The answer is the aircraft carrier would be sunk.

74

They weren’t cave men. If they were faced with a ranged weapon that made noise and smoke, they’d just assume it was a new weapon they weren’t familiar with, and either keep fighting or retreat, regroup, and change tactics.

This is important, and one of the reasons why actual battlefield casualties per volley never came close to the theoretical numbers tested on a range. Another is adrenaline, and poor training. A lot of soldiers when faced with actual battle would just load and fire as fast as they could, with barely any attempt at all to aim. That’s even true with modern, accurate weapons. The number of bullets fired per casualty in every war is astounding.

And don’t forget the Romans had their own ranged wepons. If the redcoats manage to lay down some devastating volleys at 100 meters, the Romans can respond with everything from Javelin (30 meter range), composite bows, crossbows, ballista, darts, etc.

A Roman composite bow had a range of between 180 and 230 meters. A Roman archer could shoot anywhere between 15 and 25 arrows per minute. At 100 meters they could put an arrow into a man-sized target every time. If you put a Roman archer up aginst a redcoat with a musket at 100 yards, the redcoat is going to die 9 times out of ten - the one time he wins is when his first shot gets lucky. Then, in the 20 seconds it takes him to reload he’s probably going to be perforated with several arrows.

Forget the legionairres - I think an equivalent number of Roman archers could wipe out the redcoats. Not only do they have maybe five times the rate of fire, but they can reload while moving, while staying out of accurate range of the muskets.

Remember, while the redcoats have guns, they don’t have any protection or tactics against arrows. Ancient warriors developed shield tactics and formation tactics to defend against volley fire raining down from above as well as direct ranged weapons fire. The redcoats got nuthin.

Once the Romans figure out they can’t just advance slowly in mass formation they’ll just switch tactics.

Also, the Romans are almost certainly going to be more disciplined, better trained, and in better shape. Your average redcoat didn’t get much training. In fact, as I recall the main selling point of the original muskets wasn’t that they were deadlier than a good archer could be, but that they didn’t require years of training to be effective so you could build huge armies and replenish them quickly if required.

My money is on the Romans.

75

This is out of sync with many recorded instances of non-gunpowder societies being first confronted with gunpowder using enemies. A massed volley of musket fire would be extremely likely to induce a panic and general rout among soldiers completely unfamiliar with the existence of gunpowder or anything like gunpowder.

I’m also a little confused about bringing up all kinds of other weapons other than the basic kit of a legionnaire. As I understood the OP it was a simplistic fight between 500 legionnaires and 500 redcoats–very specifically exactly no non-line infantry units for the redcoats and I presume that meant the same for the Romans. What you’re proposing is more like a Roman legion with its full complement of auxiliary forces (including some war machines), that’s a pretty silly match up to begin with (if you can get any sillier than time travel battles.) If the Romans get stuff like ballista then the red coats would get their equivalent–which would be cannon, and cannons of the era would do a real number on the Romans.

76

If it’s the first time they have seen gunfire then they wouldn’t know how long reloading time would be, and may tend to understand the time required.

77

Fine. No ballista or cannon. Are light archers allowed? Javelin certainly, and legionairres also carried Plumbata, or basically barbed lawn darts they could throw at quite a distance. Some sources say it was common for soldiers to carry four or five of them attached to the inside of their shields.

The redcoats might get a multiple hail of darts coming down on them from 40 yards, breaking up their reloading, then flights of javelin from 25. If light archers are allowed, arrows start coming in from 100 yards.

It wouldn’t be an easy fight either way. The Romans are going to have to withstand several long-distance volleys. But I wouldn’t underestimate the Romans once they are inside 100 yards. They could mess with you in a number of ways while they closed the distance. And they win a melee.

78

I don’t believe this matches the historical instances of pre-gunpowder societies’ forces hearing massed gunfire for the first time. The Romans weren’t cave men, but they were human, and massed gunfire can be terrifying even for experienced modern soldiers.

79

By the way, the top one is the Brown Bess (middle is an 1853 Enfield, bottom is a modern .22 rifle for a size comparison)

80

This topic inspired me to wonder similar match-ups.

How about the same 500 Romans vs 500 average American cops from the 50s-70s? Cops are told to hold a line against a mass prison break with weapons and deadly force is authorized. Cops have a random assortment of weapons of the era, mainly 50/50 mix of .38 Special Revolvers and .357 Magnum Revolvers. One out of 10 cops is armed with a 12 gauge pump action shotgun with 00 buck. Is that still just too much firepower for the Romans to handle despite lengthy load times?