The use of the cartridge and the firelock, or flintlock, musket had the effect of speeding up the reloading process. If Orrery is correct and four ranks could keep up the same rate of fire as six with matchlock musket and bandoleer, that is a reduction in the loading time of one-third. This, in theory, made it possible to reduce the number of ranks needed to keep up a continual fire. However, the introduction of both into the British Army was slow and while the matchlock and bandoleer remained in service six ranks remained the norm. It was not until 1685 that James II ordered the army to be completely equipped with flintlocks: a process accelerated by William III and only completed in the early years of the eighteenth century.27
There are two key points to understanding the ways in which infantry firepower was delivered during the period predating the introduction of platoon firing. The first is that for defensive firing it was important to maintain a steady and continuous fire. The great fear was of being attacked when a unit was unloaded, particularly by cavalry. To avoid this danger a sufficient depth of ranks was required to allow time for reloading. By the 1640s this was generally taken to be six ranks. The second point is that when attacking it was advantageous to maximise the rate of fire to deliver as much firepower as possible in as short a time as possible before closing to hand-to-hand combat, at which stage there was no point in being loaded, particularly with a matchlock. This required breadth rather than depth so that all the musketeers could fire at once. As Turner put it:
Next, firing by three ranks at a time, should not be practised, but when either the business seems to be desperate, or that the Bodies are so near, that the Pikemen are almost come to push of Pike, and then no other use can be made of the Musquet but of the Butt-end of it. I say then that this manner of six ranks to fire at two several times is not at all to be used; for if it come to extremity, it will be more proper to make them all fire at once, for thereby you pour as much lead in your enemies bosom at one time as you do the other way at two several times, and thereby you do them more mischief, you quail, daunt, and astonish them three times more, for one long and continuated crack of Thunder is more terrible and dreadful to mortals than ten interrupted and several ones, though all and every one of the ten be as loud as the long one.28
Thus the reason for the various ways of delivering fire was the necessity to be able to meet the differing tactical demands of attack and defence, something that no single fire-delivery system could do prior to the development of platoon firing. The use of the short-range volley given in three ranks in both attack and defence that was developed in Britain during the Civil Wars is overlooked by Turner. Similarly it has no place in the writings of Orrery and Monck. These were all soldiers with experience in the Civil Wars, as well as on the continent, who were writing after those wars and the restoration of the monarchy, but all three make very little mention of anything from that time. It is as if diplomatic considerations had rendered invalid any practical lessons. Regardless of the efficacy of the close-range, three-rank volley, however, the fact remained that it did not solve the question of how to combine heavy, effective fire with sustainable fire.
A new way of firing made its appearance in 1676 with the publication, ‘by His Majesties Permission’, of An Abridgement of the English Discipline.29 In addition to the usual and well-established firing by ranks, either singly or in pairs, this official publication also included a description of what it called the ‘Swedes Way’.30 This involved reducing the ranks of musketeers from six to three by doubling their front. Each block of musketeers, one on each side of a central block of pikes, was then subdivided.
Figure 3.2 shows how the subdivisions were arranged, slightly in advance of the pike division and alternating one forward and one back. The advanced subdivisions fired first, either all three ranks – kneeling, stooping and standing – or the first rank kneeling and reserving its fire while the second and third ranks fired. These subdivisions would then reload where they stood while the rear subdivisions advanced to fire in their turn. As the subdivisions were split into two lines that fired alternately, it was still considered necessary to have the option of reserving the fire of one rank in order to avoid the danger of having all the musketeers reloading at the same time.
Figure 3.2: A diagram showing The Swedes Way, based on the 1684 edition of An Abridgement of the English Discipline.
Source: An Abridgement of the English Military Discipline (London, 1684), p. 35.
The illustration appears to be purely indicative of how the formation should appear; it contains 144 men in the ratio of two musketeers to one pikeman. The Abridgement did not state how many subdivisions there should be for a battalion formed up for battle. However, it did say that a battalion normally comprised six companies, which was half a regiment.31 One possibility was that the musketeers of the six companies were divided into eight subdivisions as in the illustration. This would result in each subdivision of musketeers being between twenty and thirty men.32 This was a similar size to the subdivision of four, five or six files in six ranks as described by Elton, which gave a strength of from twenty-four to thirty-six men.33
At this time the company was a purely administrative unit consisting of both pike and musket that was broken up to form battlefield formations. It would appear, instead, that there was a preference for tactical subdivisions of musketeers to be about twenty-four to thirty men. The reason for this would appear to be connected to command and control. Monro observes:
To exercise a squadron of Musketiers, how strong soever they be, the number of Rancks being no deeper than six, the files being even may be so many as your voice can extend to, ever observing that your Command be given in the Front, otherwise may breede disorder . . . and above all things you are to command them to keepe silence, not babbling one to another . . .34
In other words, a platoon is limited in size by the reach of the commander’s voice.
When firing in ranks Monro wrote that the officer commanding the musketeers must stand ‘even in Front with them, the Cannon or mouth of their Muskets of both Rancks being past his bodie’.35 Similarly when firing in salvee he described ‘the Officers standing in equall Front with the foremost Ranck, betwixt two Divisions’.36 The difficulties of command in battle were also touched on by Elton who wrote of ‘Commanders, whose voices are drown’d by the loud thundering of the Cannon or Mukettiers; as also by the neighing of Horses, or the lamentable cries of the maim’d and wounded Souldiers’.37
This form of firing, the ‘Swedes Way’, disappeared with the publication of the 1685 edition of An Abridgement, but it did represent an attempt at producing linear fire using small subdivisions of three ranks that all fired together rather than depending on ranks coming to the front of a unit in turn to fire. The subdivisions fired in a simple alternating sequence along the line and it thus qualifies as an early form of platoon firing. The problem that had not been solved was how to fire in a linear formation without too long an interval between discharges of fire.
The name for this way of firing, the Swedes Way, leads to considering the possibility that platoon firing was first developed in Sweden. There is no doubt that that the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus were the first to use platoons of musketeers and to fight and fire in just three ranks. If they had taken the next step towards platoon firing proper, as opposed to simply firing in platoons, then one might expect to find evidence of that before 1676 when the ‘Swedes Way’ first appears in an English drill book. The last Swedish drill book produced before then appears to be Een Militarisch Exercitiae Book, published in Stockholm in 1669.38 However, it contains nothing that bears any similarity to the Swedes Way. The most likely explanation for the name is that it is simply a reference to the use of platoons and three ranks. When, the Swedes Way disappeared from An Abridgement it was replaced by a French system of firing by ranks with a six-deep formation.
The earliest evidence for platoon firing by the Dutch is in a military manual of 1684 by Louis Paan.39 In the introduction to the second volum
e of his work Paan wrote that it contained descriptions of the organisation of battalions ‘as they have been brought to practice in the last war’. By this he is referring to the war of 1672–8 between France and the Dutch Republic. It describes something not dissimilar to the Swedes Way, but with each wing of musketeers divided into three platoons. As such it would appear to have suffered from the same drawback, which was that it did not allow for continuous firing. Paan also gave a reason for the development of platoon firing. Referring to battalions that fired by ranks he wrote:
Such Battalions as mentioned before have been esteemed for a certain period by most military, however it has been found that the Musketeers, after having fired in ranks, in retreating back made too wide a circle in order to get restored to readiness. This caused great disorder which is why this method has been rejected by several military men; that is to say, as far as giving fire in ranks is concerned it is considered to be better to do such with platoons instead of ranks. This is the reason why such changes have been made in the forming of Battalions as described before.40
The Dutch rejected the rotation of ranks by marching them down the sides of platoons to reload at the rear as it caused too much disorder. Clearly keeping the men in their ranks and firing and reloading in platoons was more efficient and less complicated or prone to confusion. They also chose not to emulate the French, who had developed their method for firing by ranks sometime before Turner described it in 1670–1.41
Following the accession of William and Mary in 1688 the English and Scots armies found themselves allied to the Dutch and involved in a war with France. One of the first consequences of this was the dispatch to Flanders of an English force under the command of the, then, Earl of Marlborough. In May 1689 Marlborough wrote to William’s Secretary at War, William Blaythwayt: ‘I desire that you will know the King’s pleasure whether he will have the Regiments of Foot to learn the Duch exercise, or else to continue the English, for if he will I must have itt translated into English.’42
There is no record of a reply or of any translation of Dutch drill being issued to English regiments, but this letter has been taken to demonstrate the introduction of Dutch drill to the English and Scots army.43 Much clearer evidence, however, is available that makes it clear that platoon firing was introduced to both the English and Scots armies in 1689. At the same time as Marlborough was in Flanders another combined Dutch and English army under the command of the Duke of Schomberg was fighting the forces of the deposed James II in Ireland. In September 1689 James II offered battle to Schomberg, who refused, keeping his army in its fortified camp at Dundalk. Subsequently James and his army withdrew to Ardee and went into winter quarters. No sooner had the Jacobite army retreated from Dundalk than Schomberg ordered that ‘the Brigades that did not mount the Guards, should be exercised at firing at a Mark when it was Fair weather (as t’was very seldom) for the Duke knew most of his men had never been in service, and therefore he would have them taught as much as could be.’44 Just how poorly trained the infantry was is apparent.
The Weather for two or three days proved pretty fair, and the Soldiers were exercised with firing at Marks; but it was observable, that a great many of the new men who had Match-Locks, had so little skill in placing of their Matches true, that scarce one of them in four could fire their Pieces off; and those that did, thought they had done a feat if the Gun fired, never minding what they shot at.45
Then, on 29 September 1689, ‘Lieutenant-General Douglas exercised the Regiments of the first Line, teaching them how to fire by platoons.’46 Whilst this provides clear evidence of the introduction of platoon firing, there are, unfortunately, no details given of how it was conducted.
At the same time as Marlborough was campaigning in Flanders and Douglas in Ireland, William had sent Major General Hugh Mackay, a Scot in Dutch service, to take command of the forces in Scotland. In his diary he described how, before the battle of Killiekrankie in 1689, he had ‘commanded the officers, commanding battalions, to begin their firing at the distance of 100 paces by platoons, to discourage the approaching Highlanders meeting with continual fire’, thus demonstrating that platoon firing had also been introduced to the Scottish Army.47 On this occasion platoon firing was no match for the onslaught of the highland charge and Mackay lost the battle. In 1692 he was killed at the battle of Steenkirk. Then in 1693 a drill book was published in Edinburgh with a title page that stated it included the Rules of War in the day of Battel, when Encountering with the Enemy.48
This was, in part, a reprint of a drill book of 1690, the first issued under William and Mary, but which was limited to the infantry drill and did not include the Rules of War.49 According to the introduction to the 1693 Edinburgh edition Sir Thomas Livingstone, who had succeeded Mackay to the command in Scotland, had revised and corrected the earlier edition as well as adding the exercise of dragoons and also adding ‘Lieutenant General Mackay’s Rules of War for the Infantry, to be observed when they are to Encounter with the Enemie in the day of Battel’.50 Given the official nature of this publication, and its recommendation to the Scots and English armies, there would seem to be no reason not to accept Mackay’s rules as representing the then current practice in the Dutch Army that was adopted by the English and Scots armies and that it was an approved description of battlefield doctrine for all three allied armies, from 1689 onwards. In these Rules the Dutch had solved the problem of keeping up sustainable fire using platoons. It also seems that they were published even before 1693 as the title page for the Rules describes them as reprinted, further strengthening the case for them being the practice introduced under William in 1689.
Included in Mackay’s Rules were detailed instruction on how platoon firing was to be organised and conducted. The Rules were organised in twenty-three articles and from the start it is clear that they represented a significant departure from previous doctrine. Whilst Mackay acknowledged six ranks as the norm for forming a battalion and marching he had it in three ranks on the battlefield. There was no place for the older, deeper six-rank formations.
Mackay described the formation of a regiment, or battalion, of thirteen companies, including a grenadier company: see figure 3.3. All the pikemen were formed in a central division, except for eighteen who formed on each outer flank of the two divisions of musketeers. The musketeers of the twelve ordinary companies were formed into twelve platoons, six on each side of the pikemen. The grenadiers were divided into two platoons positioned on the extreme flanks. In the case of battalions that were under strength it would appear that it was considered more important to keep up the size of platoons rather than the number of platoons.
Figure 3.3: A Battalion drawn up according to Mackay’s Rules.
This drawing is schematic only. The central division of pikemen was the same size as each wing of musketeers.
If the regiment be compleat, every company may make a plotton, which makes six Plottons upon each Wing; but if considerably weakened, a Wing may be divided into four Plottons, which ought to be the least number, to give time to charge again, and be ready by that time the Fire is round, that the Battalion, if there be occasion, may entertain a continual Fire.51
In this context the phrase ‘to charge again’ refers to reloading and this tells us that a platoon should be able to reload and be ready to fire again by the time the other three platoons have fired. It is also clear that sustained fire was to be achieved by each platoon firing in turn along the line of each division of musketeers rather than by the rotation of ranks to the front or by ranks kneeling so those behind could fire over them. Instead of using, as Orrery suggested, a minimum of four ranks, this method used a minimum of four platoons.52 Further, a platoon did not necessarily conform to a company and all the ranks in a platoon fired together. Thus all the three elements required for platoon firing were brought together.
The musketeer still required room for reloading the matchlock musket and, even if not hampered by a rest, the process was still a complex one and on the battle
field the use of just three orders was retained. On the command ‘make ready’ the front rank of musketeers knelt and the second and third ranks closed forwards and all prepared to fire, on ‘present’ they took aim and on ‘fire’ they fired. After firing and with no further orders the front rank stood, the second and third ranks stepped back to a distance of two paces between ranks and they all reloaded.53
As Mackay made clear, four platoons could keep up a continual fire, one after the other with the first platoon ready to fire again after the fourth fired. From this it is possible to speculate on a firing sequence with six platoons: see figure 3.4. This could have been first platoons one and five, then two and six, next three and finally four before starting all over again. The benefit of this sequence would be that fire came from both flanks of a wing of musketeers at the same time, covering the central platoons of the division, and then from the central platoons, which in turn covered the flank platoons. Thus not only was a part of the formation always loaded and ready to fire, but each platoon that was loading was protected by the fire of those platoons. However, it could be that all six simply fired in turn along the line with the first to fire having reloaded by the time the sixth fired.
Figure 3.4: A possible firing sequence with six platoons on each flank.
In terms of weight of fire delivered this system is clearly superior to the other two methods already mentioned. A unit firing by platoons in two wings of six platoons each can deliver all its fire, in four volleys, while a unit in six ranks firing by ranks will, in four volleys, have only fired four ranks. Moreover it can maintain a sustained fire, whilst a unit firing by ranks from the rear, as the French did, has a problem once the front rank has fired – the rear rank cannot fire again until the ranks in front of it have reloaded, which has to be done standing up. A unit firing by ranks rotating to the front to fire and then retiring to reload would be at a disadvantage because of the time lost through the movement of the men, whilst the men firing by platoon reloaded on the spot. A unit using platoon firing could, all other things being equal, generate 50 per cent more fire than a unit in six ranks firing in ranks. Furthermore, being in three ranks a unit using platoon firing would be longer than a unit of the same size in six ranks and would be able to fire into its flanks. This represented a considerable improvement on the French method introduced under James II.
Destructive and Formidable: British Infantry Firepower 1642-1756 Page 6