What was the fire to hit ratio

[strike it rich]

I allways enjoy looking though the civil war finds your not ours. I know there was huge casualties on both side from my limited understanding of that conflict it was the first modern war.

One thing I'm curios about the amount of bullets that turn up would indicate a lot of misses your thoughts please.

 

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[UncleVinnys]

I KNOW there are experts out there who could tell you,
(and I'm NOT one of them) how INACCURATE the rifles
were back then. They were way off.
Not sure, but I think the practice of "rifling" where they
cut spiral groves in the barrels of the guns to make the
bullet spin, like a football, was not yet in operation in
the Civil war, so that caused the bullets to wander off
course more, too.

Then too, you never know if the bullet did hit the mark, but
may have passed through the person, or a flesh wound that
exited. Mmm! Be interesting to spray some Luminal on those
bullets - - see if there's any blood on them (joke!).

 

[Montana Jim]

http://www.civilwarhome.com/civilwarweapons.htm

 

[{Sentinel}]

Rifled muskets were alot more accurate than smoothbores but the bottom line is that you take 150,000 men....all with muskets and slinging bullets in the air at the rate of 3 a minute if they were good and your talking about a virtual curtain of lead! They didnt have to be Accurate!

 

[brnn53]

Some rifles were very accurate such as the Whitworth. A good marksman could hit a man nearly a mile away with it.
Mike

 

[stanjam]

Distance and training are also huge factors. ON average the North had more trained troops, but also had many fresh recruits I believe. Having to fight and aim well while being fired at is not easy. Also accuracy suffers as distance to the target increases. Once the prime distance is reached on a particular weapon accuracy drops off greatly. I would assume that the miss to hit ratio is very high. Even in modern warfare, gunfights have a low shot to hit ratio, and this is with well trained troops. Back then the rate should have been abysmal. This is why charges were so effective. You could send troops on a charge and effectively close with the enemy without tremendous casualties, a tactic that proved very costly come WW1 (see my edit for a correction).

Edit: Looks like I am wrong, at least partially. Seems the accuracy of the civil war weapons were better than I had thought, and a line could actually defend against a charge with good effect, if the troops were disciplined enough to hold the line and fire accurately. Still, in any war, you will get a lot more misses than hits, especially that era. Hitting a target in practice is one thing, killing a man in the heat of war is another, especially once the gunpowder burns and clouds the vision. I would say the miss to hit ratio was high, but I couldn't guess at the number. A lot depends on the discipline level of the troops, and whether they were attacking or defending. Troops defending their soil tend to find a discipline and zeal that would otherwise be lacking!

 

[strike it rich]

Distance and training are also huge factors. ON average the North had more trained troops, but also had many fresh recruits I believe. Having to fight and aim well while being fired at is not easy. Also accuracy suffers as distance to the target increases. Once the prime distance is reached on a particular weapon accuracy drops off greatly. I would assume that the miss to hit ratio is very high. Even in modern warfare, gunfights have a low shot to hit ratio, and this is with well trained troops. Back then the rate should have been abysmal. This is why charges were so effective. You could send troops on a charge and effectively close with the enemy without tremendous casualties, a tactic that proved very costly come WW1 (see my edit for a correction).

Edit: Looks like I am wrong, at least partially. Seems the accuracy of the civil war weapons were better than I had thought, and a line could actually defend against a charge with good effect, if the troops were disciplined enough to hold the line and fire accurately. Still, in any war, you will get a lot more misses than hits, especially that era. Hitting a target in practice is one thing, killing a man in the heat of war is another, especially once the gunpowder burns and clouds the vision. I would say the miss to hit ratio was high, but I couldn't guess at the number. A lot depends on the discipline level of the troops, and whether they were attacking or defending. Troops defending their soil tend to find a discipline and zeal that would otherwise be lacking!

Well thought out reply

 

[DaChief]

Rifled firearms were in play during most of the civil war. There were some smooth bore guns used on both sides but more so in the Confederate Army. My GG Grandfather wrote home to Alabama to say that he arrived in Richmond, VA. without a weapon as did most of his regiment. They had to wait for battlefield recoveries to be issued a weapon that was dropped by a wounded or dead soldier from either side.

The rifled firearms of the Civil War were deadly accurate but the shooter was the key. Doesn't matter how accurate your firearm is if you don't have a clue what your doing. Most southern soldiers grew up with a gun in their hand as did many northern soldiers. There is no doubt that they all knew exactly what the capabilities of a rifle were and how to use them.

Then there is the physical and mental stress factor of battle. There is a big difference also in shooting at a target and shooting at a target that is shooting back. Then you add in the fact that you are moving in a wool suit while holding a heavy weapon and the accuracy of the shooter, (not the weapon), drops dramatically. If you want to try this on your own, take a simple BB gun and stand still shooting at a 2 liter bottle 20 feet away. You should be able to hit it without much difficulty. Then take a 25 pound weight and place it at your feet. Stand 20 feet away again and shoot your first BB. You will probably hit the target the first time. Then pick up the weight, run to the target and back then pick up the BB gun immediately and try to hit the bottle. Do it again and again. You probably won't hit the target at all after the first run if you try to shoot the bottle immediately each time you return from the run. That shows the effects on your shooting skills under extreme physical and mental stress. Keep in mind you were only doing the physical part. These guys were also watching body parts fly off people and friends and relatives die right beside them. Try shooting a target with that going on around you.

As stated above, there were thousands of soldiers on both sides in most battles and it doesn't take long at a decent rate of fire to pepper the land with lots of bullets. Many hits were through and through wounds also where the round kept going after hitting only soft tissue. You add in the thousands of rounds that were dropped or just plain thrown away to lighten the load of the march and there you go. Millions of projectiles everywhere.

Hope this helps understand it.

 

[strike it rich]

Rifled firearms were in play during most of the civil war. There were some smooth bore guns used on both sides but more so in the Confederate Army. My GG Grandfather wrote home to Alabama to say that he arrived in Richmond, VA. without a weapon as did most of his regiment. They had to wait for battlefield recoveries to be issued a weapon that was dropped by a wounded or dead soldier from either side.

The rifled firearms of the Civil War were deadly accurate but the shooter was the key. Doesn't matter how accurate your firearm is if you don't have a clue what your doing. Most southern soldiers grew up with a gun in their hand as did many northern soldiers. There is no doubt that they all knew exactly what the capabilities of a rifle were and how to use them.

Then there is the physical and mental stress factor of battle. There is a big difference also in shooting at a target and shooting at a target that is shooting back. Then you add in the fact that you are moving in a wool suit while holding a heavy weapon and the accuracy of the shooter, (not the weapon), drops dramatically. If you want to try this on your own, take a simple BB gun and stand still shooting at a 2 liter bottle 20 feet away. You should be able to hit it without much difficulty. Then take a 25 pound weight and place it at your feet. Stand 20 feet away again and shoot your first BB. You will probably hit the target the first time. Then pick up the weight, run to the target and back then pick up the BB gun immediately and try to hit the bottle. Do it again and again. You probably won't hit the target at all after the first run if you try to shoot the bottle immediately each time you return from the run. That shows the effects on your shooting skills under extreme physical and mental stress. Keep in mind you were only doing the physical part. These guys were also watching body parts fly off people and friends and relatives die right beside them. Try shooting a target with that going on around you.

As stated above, there were thousands of soldiers on both sides in most battles and it doesn't take long at a decent rate of fire to pepper the land with lots of bullets. Many hits were through and through wounds also where the round kept going after hitting only soft tissue. You add in the thousands of rounds that were dropped or just plain thrown away to lighten the load of the march and there you go. Millions of projectiles everywhere.

Hope this helps understand it.

Reading though your and other replys its apparent theres a lot of knowledge here concerning the civil war. Thanks for the information.

Best wishes S.I.R

 

[Gen. Breckinridge]

In my limited experience (two battlefields Saltville and Marion VA) I would estimate out of about 3000 miniballs I have dug that a good 75% were drops, and only about 10% show any signs of impact. These numbers are not representative of the battles overall but the weather was terrible at Marion Dec. 17 & 18, 1864. Temp was in the 30s and it was raining. I attribute that to the number of drops; cold hands, wet cartridge box ammo. I never found a Williams Cleaner impacted but I have heard they threw them away instead of shooting them. Out of the 3000 total I found (and that is a rough estimate) probably 6-10% were Williams Cleaners. The majority of drops were along the Yankee line and to far from the Confederate troops to even attempt a shot, about 3/4 to one mile. That is a mystery and I wonder why they were messing with bullets that far from the enemy. Things like this give pause for thought as to what may have been going on at the time. It is probably one of those Civil War mysteries that will never be solved. Another interesting fact is that I found only one 69 cal. bullet out of all of those but I did find about 50 pistol balls. No coins were found on the Yankee side but one hard times token was found on the Rebel side as well as a hole with a pocket knife and two chewed minis in it. One unexploded Hotchkiss shell as well as several fragments of Hotchkiss were found on the Yankee side but no projectiles of any kind were found on the Rebel side. Several flat buttons were found on the Rebel side and about 15 military buttons were found in a cluster on the Yankee side including one VMI Cadet button... another pause for reflection! A few cannon fuse were found in a cluster on the Rebel side, none on the Yankee side.

These were found long ago, in the 1980s and I was the first to ever hunt the battlefield at Marion. I was not so lucky at Saltville although I did find a US belt buckle there as well as a lot of eating utensils in bunkers that were built along the ridge lines. All of this tells stories that can be used interpreting the scene at the battles. Interesting stuff!

 

[allen]

alot of the soldiers was kids, 17, 18, 19
years old and was nervous and scared
and id say thats why theres lots of misses..