by Stuart Reid
Drawbacks in the firing system
There was a problem with the famous platoon firing system which Bland rather softly hints at: it was over-complicated and sometimes did not work.
There were essentially two reasons for this. First, by dividing a battalion up into evenly sized platoons, the normal company-based command structure was necessarily disrupted. It is perhaps too easy to overestimate the effects of this, since proper training – or, more accurately, rehearsal – should have overcome the worst of them. The second – and real – reason why the platoon firing system tended to break down was that all too often such training and rehearsal was lacking. This, in turn, can be attributed to a number of factors, chiefly that it was rarely possible to assemble enough officers and men in one place at one time to practise platooning properly. Except for the footguards, concentrated in London and near to Hyde Park, and the regiments of the Dublin garrison, close to Phoenix Park, most units were too widely scattered to carry out the necessary training.
Considerable time was also spent on providing aid to the civil authorities, road-making in Scotland and simply on marching from one quarter to another. Obviously, it was possible to carry out a certain amount of training on a daily basis, even if it were restricted to the manual exercise (weapon handling) and basic foot drill, but except in the weeks immediately preceding an annual inspection it appears to have been rare for a regiment of the line to have been able to practise platooning.
The result, perhaps predictably, was an utter shambles when the British army had its first real opportunity to put Bland’s teaching into practice, at Dettingen in 1743. Far from being carefully controlled, the firing was generally agreed to have been wild and undisciplined. James Wolfe, then the adjutant of the 12th Foot, wrote that he had spent the day ‘begging and ordering the men not to fire at too great a distance… but to little purpose. The whole fired when they thought they could reach them, which had like to have ruined us. We did very little execution with it’.
Perhaps not surprisingly in the circumstances, he was also later moved to write: ‘I have a very mean opinion of the infantry in general. I know their discipline to be bad, & their valour precarious. They are easily put into disorder, & hard to recover out of it; they frequently kill their Officers thro’ fear, & murder one another in their confusion.’
Improvement in tactics
Perhaps the only consolation was that the French had proved to be even worse in discipline. Afterwards an intensive training programme was embarked upon, which reaped its rewards at Fontenoy and Culloden. It is no coincidence that Cope’s army, routed so spectacularly at Prestonpans, was made up of untried regiments which had only been concentrated for the first time a month before, and that Cumberland’s victorious army at Culloden preceded its final advance to contact with six weeks of rigorous training in its cantonments around Aberdeen.
Notwithstanding the improvements bought by proper training, it was still generally recognised that Bland’s platooning was too complicated, and a number of units soon experimented with and developed ‘improvements’. These were vigorously discouraged by the Duke of Cumberland, who had no wish to see the hard-won efficiency of his regiments destroyed by the abandonment of a common drill-book. Nevertheless, some useful refinements were authorised in 1748 and again in 1756/7.
Doubtless drawing upon wartime experience, the 1748 Regulations simplified Bland’s platoon exercise by leaving off a reserve, reducing the number of firings to three and, perhaps more significantly, by formally linking platoons and grand divisions. Under the 1748 Regulations, there were now to be four platoons in each of the four grand divisions.
Platoon firing sequence as recommended by Humphrey Bland in 1727. According to circumstances and regimental practice, all the platoons in each ‘firing’ could deliver their volleys together, or else each platoon could fire individually, according to the pre-arranged numerical sequence. [Author’s collection]
The 1756/7 Regulations essentially retained the simplified platooning of the 1748 Regulations but took a major step forward in closing up the distances between files. Bland, as we have seen, advocated an interval of half a pace between each file, or in effect a frontage of about 30in (0.75m) per man when firing. The 1756 Regulations closed this frontage up to 24in (0.6m) per man.
At the same time, close order (one pace of about 30in) became pretty much the standard distance between ranks for firing as well as manoeuvring. This speeded up the locking of ranks and hence the rate of fire. In the early days when three ranks fired at once, the front rank went down on one knee, the second crouched a little and only the rear rank remained upright. This created two problems: first, if the centre rank did not crouch low enough, it was difficult for the rear rank to do other than fire in the air; secondly, the distance between ranks placed the muzzles of the rear rank firelocks uncomfortably close to the heads of the men in the front rank. Bland’s drill-book solved this problem by advocating the locking of ranks immediately before firing.
The slightly simpler platoon firing sequence established in the 1748 Regulations. Note how there should ideally be four platoons in each of the four ‘grand divisions’. [Author’s collection]
All the loading and reloading was done at the proper intervals. When ordered to ‘lock’, the front rank went down on one knee as before, but otherwise did not move. The centre rank closed up hard on the first and took half a pace to the right, while the third rank similarly stepped forward and took a full pace to the right. By this means the file was now ranged in echelon with the centre man firing down the gap between the front rank man and his neighbour on the right. The rear rank man was firing over the head of that neighbour, but was sufficiently close to him to obviate any danger of blowing his head off.
Notwithstanding these improvements, the 1748 and 1756/7 Regulations essentially did little more than tinker with Bland’s system. In the meantime a number of regiments were engaged in the quite unauthorised development of the ‘alternate’ system of firing, which would eventually replace Bland’s platooning in the 1764 Regulations.
By comparison with Bland’s platooning, the alternate system was simplicity itself. Proceeding on active service, a battalion would first equalise its companies – that is, transfer men from one to another until they were all roughly the same size. Each company then acted as a platoon, commanded in action by its own officers. As a further refinement, the eight battalion companies (the Establishment was reduced from nine to eight at the end of the Seven Years War) were also paired off to form the subdivisions of the four grand divisions required for manoeuvring.
The final version of platoon firing as laid down in 1764. Battalion companies are paired off to form the four grand divisions. Each company also fires as one platoon under the control of its own officers. [Author’s collection]
The sequence of firing was also considerably simplified. The platoons prescribed by Bland, and the later 1748 Regulations, were numbered off both as to the three or four firings and in a straight-forward numerical sequence so that volleys could be delivered in one of two ways. Either all the platoons of the first firing could blaze away at once and at the same time, followed by the platoons of the second firing and so on, or each individual platoon could fire one after the other according to their numerical sequence.
This may well have looked fine at Hyde Park or Phoenix Park, but as Major George Grant remarked in 1757: ‘I deny regular Platooning being Battle Form, it is too formal for that, and never done without some Mistakes. Why should a Platoon stay four or five Minutes waiting for Regularity? perhaps all knocked on the Head before it came to their Turn to fire again. . . no Commander to stay a Moment after his Platoon is loaded, but Present and Fire immediately, until the Number of Rounds are gone that is allowed him for that Manner of Fireing. Then will you see right Battle Form. Why should we train Men up in one Method, and leave them to find out another how to fight the Enemy. For these regular Platooners, as soon as you take them out of the Way they are taught, will
be all in confusion.’
Grant, admittedly, had seen no active service since being cashiered for a too hasty surrender of Fort George, Inverness, in 1746, but it is hard to deny the force of his argument, and the much simpler firing sequences of the 1764 Regulations were undoubtedly a great improvement.
There still remained a danger, as at Dettingen, that the longer firing went on the more likely it was that platoons would begin firing out of sequence and that ultimately the firefight might degenerate into each individual soldier loading and firing as fast as he could. However, close attention paid to the manual exercise led to the average British soldier being able to load and fire his weapon faster than his continental counterpart. This, rather than the overrated platoon firing system taught by Bland, may in part explain the noted British superiority in firing.
Grenadier and light infantry units
It would still have been necessary to exert a measure of control over the firing, and in reviews it was customary to limit any particular phase of firing to a stated number of rounds. There seems no reason to doubt that the same method of control was exercised in combat – as indeed Major Grant recommends.
Common to both platoon and alternate firing was the practice of treating the grenadier company as an entirely separate unit. This was done for two reasons. In the first place, it was sometimes helpful to have a reserve of experienced men specifically charged with guarding the battalion’s flanks in battle. Secondly, it became increasingly common for the grenadier company to be detached from its parent unit.
The grenadier’s role in the 18th century was an interesting one. Grenade throwing had from the beginning been only incidental to their real role as fast moving assault troops. It was a role which they retained, despite the effective abandonment of the hand grenade, which was only of any real use in assaulting or defending fortifications. Indeed, under the alternate fire system, the grenadiers were soon paired off with the newly introduced light company. When a battalion was drawn up as a single organic unit, the grenadiers would often be tasked with skirmishing on the right of the battalion, while the light company skirmished on the left.
It became increasingly common, however, for both flank companies to be drawn off from their parent units and formed with other similar companies into provisional assault battalions. Although the practice seems to have been pioneered during the Seven Years War, both in Germany and in North America, the most notable example of it was to be seen during the American War of Independence. All the grenadier companies serving in that theatre were formed into four semi-permanent battalions of grenadiers, and the light companies into four light infantry battalions. These provisional units appear to have built up a considerable esprit de corps, and within a short time their officers, and presumably by extension their men, were taking to describing themselves as serving in the British Grenadiers rather than belonging to their parent battalions.
The extent to which their roles differed is difficult to gauge, since both grenadiers and light infantry were expected to serve either as skirmishers or as shock troops as the occasion demanded. Indeed, where it was impractical to form separate battalions of grenadiers and light infantry, as on San Domingo in 1794, a single composite ‘flank battalion’ would be formed from grenadier and light companies. This linkage may at first appear surprising, but it was entirely in accordance with Continental thinking on the employment of light troops.
In North America, the locally raised ranger companies were supplemented by the formation of a light infantry company in each regular battalion. These companies and the 80th Light Infantry who followed were tasked with scouting and skirmishing in the woods. At pretty much the same time in Europe, however, volunteers were also being taken from the British regiments serving in Germany to form a battalion of chasseurs under a Major Fraser. As in America, a number of light infantry - or rather ‘light armed’ regiments - were soon raised. These included a number of Highland regiments, who are frequently described as being among the earliest light infantry units in the British army. In a sense, this is true, although it would be quite wrong to regard them as skirmishers.
Those who saw action were shipped overseas as quickly as they were raised, without proper training in the platoon exercise or much else in the way of drill. Their role, however, was not to stand shoulder to shoulder in the line of battle or to skirmish from behind cover, but to serve as lightly equipped formations capable of undertaking rapid marches and heavy raids deep into enemy territory. Once in contact with the enemy, they almost invariably went straight in with the bayonet. In effect, their role was not unlike that of the modern air-mobile brigade.
At the end of the Seven Years War, both the regimental light companies and the light infantry regiments were disbanded. (It was a common misconception, both in Britain and on the Continent, that all light troops were a rascally set of banditti who were of some use in wartime, but had no role to play in a peacetime army.)
Sufficient interest remained to see the official formation of light companies in all regiments on the British Establishment in 1771 and in the Irish Establishment in 1772. It was one thing to order that these light companies be formed; quite another to produce a competent body of light infantry. So in 1774 Major General William Howe, who had gained some very useful experience of light infantry work in North America, devised a ‘discipline’ for the new companies and managed to exercise some of them in it just before the outbreak of the American War of Independence. This ‘discipline’ was in some respects rather limited. Although marksmanship was stressed, together with considerable practice in ‘irregular & bush fighting’, the real meat of the training was to enable them to manoeuvre - and fire - in accordance with the 1764 Regulations while dispersed in open, or even extended, order.
Evolution of light infantry tactics
Once appointed commander-in-chief in North America, Howe then took the whole process a stage further by effectively training all his regular infantry as light troops. In the 1750s, the intervals between ranks and files had been tightened up quite considerably in order to speed up manoeuvring. But Howe trained his battalions to march and fight in two ranks rather than three - and to do it in open order, that is, with a full arm’s distance between each file.
Munition quality broadsword hilt as issued to the rank and file of Highland regiments. [Author’s collection]
The result may not have been very pretty, but this ‘loose file and American scramble’ served the army well throughout the war, and is usefully described in a set of standing orders issued by Major General Phillips: ‘It is the Major General’s wish, that the troops under his command may practice forming from two to three and four deep; and that they should be accustomed to charge in all those orders. In the latter orders, of the three and four deep, the files will, in course, be closer, so as to render a charge of the greatest force. The Major General also recommends to regiments the practice of dividing the battalions, by wings or otherwise, so that one line may support the other when an attack is supposed; and, when a retreat is supposed, that the first line may retreat through the intervals of the second, the second doubling up its divisions for that purpose, and forming again in order to check the enemy who may be supposed to have pressed the first line. The Major General would approve also of one division of a battalion attacking in the common open order of two deep, to be supported by the other compact division as a second line, in a charging order of three or four deep. The gaining the flanks also of a supposed enemy, by the quick movements of a division in common open order, while the compact division advances to a charge; and such other evolutions, as may lead the regiments to a custom of depending on and mutually supporting each other; so that should one part be pressed or broken, it may be accustomed to form again without confusion, under the protection of a second line, or any regular formed division.’
From this and from other similar descriptions, it is clear that the tactics employed by the British army during the American War of Independence were radically different fr
om those practised in Europe. Gone was the solid firing line; instead there were, to all intents and purposes, a heavy screen of light infantry backed up by solider assault columns ready to exploit any weakness in the enemy lines. The frequency with which ‘charging’ (presumably with the bayonet) was stressed is also significant.
The troops ranged in these loose files were not intended to act as skirmishers per se; although the regimental light companies (and to a certain extent the grenadiers as well) were trained in that role, particularly in broken ground, it generally remained the prerogative of specialist units of riflemen and marksmen.
Typical Land Pattern bayonet as made by John Gill of Birmingham. [Author’s collection]
In the light of this distinction between light troops and skirmishers it is perhaps less surprising to find so much reliance still placed upon the bayonet, despite the fact that Culloden, in 1746, was apparently the only occasion on which it was wielded in earnest.
The bayonet used throughout the period was a 17in fluted iron spike with a wickedly sharp point. Although it also made a surprisingly handy dagger, its real function was to intimidate rather than to kill or wound. This is particularly obvious if you study the rather limited training given in its use. Bland outlines what is, to all intents and purposes, the old pike drill practised during the English Civil War. The soldier stands at right angles to his front with the firelock and bayonet levelled across his chest, shoulder high, with the right hand grasping the butt. On the word of command ‘push’, he was expected to do just that, driving it forward with the right hand.