Musket fire

darkestlord

Hi Everyone, thought I'd mosey on down here and ask a quick question. I'm writing a short story set in Elizabethan England. I wanted to know if a musket ball could penetrate a shield. Now what I've found out that England was late using the musket and it was very inaccurate. Before that they prefered the archer. And that most of the soldiers would have have had animal hind or wooden sheilds. But I saw somewhere that it would be common for the higher folk ( lords and royalty) to have steel sheilds. Would this be the right timeline or would steel sheilds be more common later on. Any advice would be most helpful. Thanks.

Denerick

The problem with muskets wasn't with their force (They could pierce through any armour, in appropriate range) but accuracy. With primitive devices, a soldier could fire at a target only ten yards away, basically point blank, and the bullet would hit anywhere but the dead center were the musket was aimed! They were only useful in mass formations, because the scattergun approach and shock effect would be useful. Another problem was the time it took for them to reload. Longbows were much much more efficient, accurate and deadly in this period.

Longbows were still widely used in European armies right up until the late 16th century, when they began to be replaced by mixed pike/musket regiments (Such as the Tercio or condotierre, the two best examples, I think)

darkestlord

Thanks alot Denerick. Very useful information you gave me there there. Never really interested in Elizabethan history until I started researching it. Watched a few films just to give me a bit of info on the clothing ( I know it probally isn't that accurate). But I was amazed at the inaccuracies of the films made. Elizebeth's life was filled with intruige,deception and blood, and still Hollywood decided to change it. There was no need really.
I decided that a few of my nobelemen will have the matchlock Musket but on the most part there will be longbows.It will help the story more if Longbows was used more than musket . I Won't bore you with the details and thanks again.

Denerick

I doubt there was any regiments left that still had longbowmen in Elizabeths time. Good luck with your short story though.

riffmongous

Hi darkestlord, Wargames illustrated did a small series of articles earlier this year about 'what if the Armada had landed' and it mentions a few things about the longbow/musket you might find interesting.

It claims that longbows would have featured heavily, but it depends on the location, as in

'the London Trained Bands had reduced the bow to a weapon of the untrained, unarmed men'

but

'some counties like Oxfordshire fielded as many bows as shot'

and

'of the 7000 armed men in Kent (the first line of defence) nearly 2000 were armed with bows'.

A couple more quotes that might be of use

'the longbow had fallen out of fashion.... required a great deal of practice... the English bowmen would almost certainly not have been of the quality of those who fought at Agincourt'

however

'thanks to the gun's punching power, may fellows had stopped wearing a great deal of armour which meant the archer now did not have to have to concern himself too much with where his arrows struck home. Huge rate of fire, no armour.. you do the maths.'