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Shooting Practice

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Rule_Britannia (U2429840) on Wednesday, 8th March 2006

  I was reading a sharpes war book and (i know there fictional but there is some truth in them) when i read a bit that says that Britain was the only country to practice with live amunition, it made me wonder why no one else did, even after the evidence that practicing with live ammunition made a better army was there, but still we remaned the only ont to do so throughout the nepolionoc wars.
  
  Any thoughts about why no on else adopted the idea for so long?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Wednesday, 8th March 2006

  Well, britain_rules,
  
  a couple of off the cuff answers from me,
  1. It was very expensive.
  2. It could lead to somewhat unpredictable results, heard the term "Friendly Fire? The Tower Musket or Brown Bess nowadays, despite the Health and Safety regulations isn't a weapon to be handled by anyone who doesn't understand and has accepted the consequences.
  3. Whilst the British Army of the Napoleonic Wars did practice with live ammunition it was restricted to one to three rounds a year. (Not good practice).
  4. The "British" Army did have the monopoly of the worlds resource of saltpetre (thanks to India), the worlds only source of one of the essential ingredients of black powder. (There are other ways of "making saltpetre, look them up, they're not that pleasant).
  
  Cheers AA, and very of the cuff, DaveMBA will point out that others did make some very fine Black (Gun) Powder.
  
  Cheers AA.

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• Message 3

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  Posted by DaveMBA (U1360771) on Thursday, 9th March 2006

  All the nations did some practice - you will find a diagram of it in the Austrian 1806 infantry regulations. However, it was a question of cost and efficacy - a musket was mass use weapon and accuracy was not as important as simply ensuring that the barrel was pointed in the right direction and taking some account of gravity.
  
  Musket powder was similar across all nations - it was Austrian artillery gunpowder, which was stronger.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by Jack Aubrey (U1198855) on Thursday, 9th March 2006

  Slightly off thread but about this time wasn't there an Admiralty rule that stipulated how much powder and shot ships Captains could use in gunnery practise on board ship to the extent that some Captains bought in their own supples? Did a similar rule apply in the navy?
  
  Jack

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• Message 5

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  Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Thursday, 9th March 2006

  yes indeed i read that -officers had to buy any excess powder - can u believe that ??

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• Message 6

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by Turnwrest (U2188092) on Friday, 10th March 2006

  There was indeed such a rule. To some extent it still existed in the 1960s - each vessel received 3 Seacat practice missiles per annum per registered Seacat operator, officer or rating. Some captains would only allow the "reserves" to fire one of theirs, and allocating the extras to the first-choice operators.
  
  Surely the whole point of practice with the musket, or with cannon, isn't to develop accuracy, (fairly poor with any smoothbore muzzle loader) but rather to increase the rate of fire?

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