The whites of their eyes

[Beelzebuddy]

http://xkcd.com/1041/

Contemporary depictions of medieval to 19th century combat always seem to include a scene where the commander of the archers/firing line instructs his troops not to fire at a rushing enemy until they're damned near stabbing distance away. I've never fully understood what purpose not shooting at someone coming to kill you might serve. It just seems dumb.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1282

Was this really a thing back in the day? Does it have something to do with the generally crap accuracy of projectiles before rifled barrels? My closest experience is with Mount and Blade, in which game you'd be an idiot not to have all your archers going continuously at anything in decent range.

Any history buffs who can help out here would be nice.

[Madalch]

If you fire too soon, all your arrows hit the ground between the two of you, and the arrow's wasted. You don't have an unlimited supply.

I don't know about the whites of the eyes, though- I've never tried gauging how far away that is.

[Spindrift]

I didn't know anybody had said that prior to the battle of Bunker Hill. And the point there was that they were low on ammo, so they wanted every shot to count.

[BowlOfRed]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

Was this really a thing back in the day? Does it have something to do with the generally crap accuracy of projectiles before rifled barrels? My closest experience is with Mount and Blade, in which game you'd be an idiot not to have all your archers going continuously at anything in decent range.

Any history buffs who can help out here would be nice.

(not a history buff)

I've never heard this except in the context of the Battle of "Bunker Hill", where it is explained as necessary due to the limited amount of ammunition available. Firing earlier at more difficult targets would have reduced the effectiveness of the ammo.

[Beelzebuddy]

I'm asking about more than that one particular battle.

I decided to make the thread after noticing that ordering troops to hold fire happened twice in Helm's Deep, and at the start of The Mummy, and I think at least once in Braveheart, and as I was already familiar with the trope there must be a dozen others.

[paiute]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

Contemporary depictions of medieval to 19th century combat always seem to include a scene where the commander of the archers/firing line instructs his troops not to fire at a rushing enemy until they're damned near stabbing distance away. I've never fully understood what purpose not shooting at someone coming to kill you might serve. It just seems dumb.

Unrifled muskets were accurate at maybe 100 yards and could be reloaded maybe 2-3 times a minute. How fast can an attacker rush you with bayonets? On level ground, let's say that a musket-era soldier could run a 100 in 20-30 seconds (adrenaline-aided). That gives the individual defender one, maybe two shots inside the effective range before the opponent is on them.

Thus the tactics of massed fire, three lines firing in turn, and acquiring high ground to defend.

[CynicalSkeptic]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

I decided to make the thread after noticing that ordering troops to hold fire happened twice in Helm's Deep, and at the start of The Mummy, and I think at least once in Braveheart, and as I was already familiar with the trope there must be a dozen others.

I'm not entirely convinced of the historical accuracy of those films.

IIRC, in Braveheart they deployed a new tactic where they hid long spears, let the enemy rush in on them, then at the last second pulled out the spears allowing the enemy's front line to impale themselves on those spears.

[Baloney]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

I'm asking about more than that one particular battle.

I decided to make the thread after noticing that ordering troops to hold fire happened twice in Helm's Deep, and at the start of The Mummy, and I think at least once in Braveheart, and as I was already familiar with the trope there must be a dozen others.

You see the pattern here, right? Also, The Mummy was set in the 1920s and their Foreign Legion longarms would have been primarily (if not completely) composed of rifles -- thus making the whites-of-the-eyes thing disadvantageous to say the least!

[Big Les]

It's definitely a trope of fiction, but there's truth to it. Aside from the increased efficiency, there is a psychological shock effect of seeing the results of withering fire at close quarters that could cause an enemy formation to rout or at least become disordered for the hand-to-hand phase. There's also the possibility of killing more than one man due to through-penetration, though clearly more rounds of fire at various ranges should theoretically kill more of the enemy and in the majority of cases this is what was done - particularly once longer range fire was possible (i.e. with rifled muskets). The low ammunition scenario is the most likely, but it seems to have been done pretty regularly prior to full-scale adoption of rifled arms, e.g. this example from the ACW.

I'd need more time to dig out examples, but in the C18th, frequently fire wasn't given until 50 yards range - perhaps not quite 'whites of their eyes'.

[geni]

Pretty sure the whole concept is limited to muskets.

At least in some cases its meant to indicate a specific approach. Rather than breaking the enermies lines with massed fire the idea was to fire a single round at close range and then have your forces in good order to use bayonets rather than having half of them caught reloading.

[Bikewer]

The unrifled muskets, with loose-fitting balls for easy loading, we're accurate enough to hit enemy formations if not reliably a particular soldier in the formation.
That was pretty much the tactic of the day, volley fire as each side advanced...eventually one side or the other would sustain sufficient damage and they would "break", then the superior side might fix bayonets and charge to complete the rout.

[crimresearch]

There's also the notion of 'steadying the line'.

If one person fires early, this can cause a ripple effect of premature shots, leaving some percentage of your weapons out of commission for a while (prior to repeating arms), and probably a good portion of those misses, which doesn't help as the enemy gets even closer.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

I'm asking about more than that one particular battle.

I decided to make the thread after noticing that ordering troops to hold fire happened twice in Helm's Deep, and at the start of The Mummy, and I think at least once in Braveheart, and as I was already familiar with the trope there must be a dozen others.

British colonial soldiers didn't fire without a specific order. Once the enemy was well with range they might be given the order to fire at will. But it was imperative they fired when they were told or the drill would fall apart

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by crimresearch

There's also the notion of 'steadying the line'.

If one person fires early, this can cause a ripple effect of premature shots, leaving some percentage of your weapons out of commission for a while (prior to repeating arms), and probably a good portion of those misses, which doesn't help as the enemy gets even closer.

You also had the consideration of the compact units they were fighting in back then as well. The closer the target gets, you get the chance of maybe killing one man but also injuring those behind him in the file.

[Delvo]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

ordering troops to hold fire happened twice in Helm's Deep, and at the start of The Mummy, and I think at least once in Braveheart,

I never saw The Mummy and don't remember such an order in Braveheart but can't double-check it because I don't have it. But at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, I just checked. The Uruk-Hai had stopped their initial approach just at the fringe of arrow range, so if the archers started then, some of their arrows might have gotten to them but a bunch would have fallen short. Right after one guy had slipped and accidentally shot an Uruk-Hai but the rest of the Uruk-Hai hadn't charged yet, there is one order to "hold", with no mention of the enemies' eyes. The commanders were waiting for the Uruk-Hai to charge.

After that, there are no more hold orders. The Uruk-Hai charged, and orders to [s]fire[/s] release were given three times by two different commanders of different units in different positions, when the Uruk-Hai came solidly within range of each position. The archers had been waiting, without needing to be ordered to wait, because their weapons had finite range.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Delvo

I never saw The Mummy and don't remember such an order in Braveheart but can't double-check it because I don't have it. But at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, I just checked. The Uruk-Hai had stopped their initial approach just at the fringe of arrow range, so if the archers started then, some of their arrows might have gotten to them but a bunch would have fallen short. Right after one guy had slipped and accidentally shot an Uruk-Hai but the rest of the Uruk-Hai hadn't charged yet, there is one order to "hold", with no mention of the enemies' eyes. The commanders were waiting for the Uruk-Hai to charge.

After that, there are no more hold orders. The Uruk-Hai charged, and orders to [s]fire[/s] release were given three times by two different commanders of different units in different positions, when the Uruk-Hai came solidly within range of each position. The archers had been waiting, without needing to be ordered to wait, because their weapons had finite range.

Although not shown in the particular battle you mention, it was common to have marks laid out so you knew when things were in range without having to guess

[patchbunny]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

I'm asking about more than that one particular battle.

I decided to make the thread after noticing that ordering troops to hold fire happened twice in Helm's Deep, and at the start of The Mummy, and I think at least once in Braveheart, and as I was already familiar with the trope there must be a dozen others.

I rather liked it in Evil Dead 3 where the archers had the lit sticks of dynamite on their arrows, the camera focuses on the fuses burning really short, the nervous face of an archer, and then Bruce Campbell, who raises a finger, and says,

"Steady..."

[Carnivore]

From Wikipedia

Quote:

Volley fire, as a military tactic, is the practice of having a line of soldiers all fire their guns simultaneously at the enemy forces on command, usually to make up for inaccuracy, slow rate of fire, and limited range, and to create a maximum effect.

Armies that were more effective at volley fire tended to win battles.

Smoothbore muskets like the "Brown Bess" are pretty much not worth aiming at a particular target much past 80 meters. In addition, a battle fought with black powder weapons will cause a thick cloud of smoke around the combatants, obscuring their view of the enemy.

As a result, the most effective use of muskets was in a massed volley, creating a giant shotgun effect. The closer the enemy, the more effective each volley. By holding fire against an advancing enemy until the last moment, you maximise the effect of the volley.

One of the reasons the Duke Of Wellington's Peninsular Army was so effective against the French was that the British soldiers trained in "Platoon Fire", where a battalion would fire company by company, with half of each company firing a second after the last. By the time the last half company in the line had fired, the first had reloaded. The effect was a near constant hail of fire.

[Gawdzilla]

Carnivore, one reason the muskets were crap after 80 yards is that the musket ball flies like a golf ball, rising as it goes along. So at 100 yards a level musket would be shooting over the heads of the enemy.

[RobDegraves]

Sorry to disagree with you Gawdzilla, but the flight of musket balls was more erratic than that. Because the ball was smaller than the barrel, it would be given a spin based on a right angle to the last contact of the ball with the barrel. There was no way to predict which way the ball would veer to. A steady rise would have been a lot easier to compensate for, rather than a random direction. The closer the enemy was, the more likely you were to hit him and after about 100 meters your odds of hitting were pretty variable.

[Hutch]

OK, just a few comments and I'll be off.

First, forget EVERYTHING you've ever seen about ancient (and even not-so-ancient) warfare in the Movies--because 99.999% of bull.

That established, a couple of items:

ITEM 1: In pre-gun times (i.e. 2000 BC to about 17th Century), the primary formation was the Phalanx (or square) made up of spearmen (later pikeman) in a dense formation of up to thousands of men. Archers couldn't break it, mostly because the bows of the day weren't strong enough to get through the mail armor and the enemy cavalry usually went after the opponent's archers (at least until the English demonstrated differently) and the numbers of archers were not sufficient to break a square (bows and trained bowmen cost money, some dummy with a spear was a dime a dozen). Cavalry seldom did much damage to a square, since horses had better sense than to run into sharp pointy things (horse sense is sometimes better than people sense). So battles came down to "push of pike" between squares, until one side had had enough and ran for it (usually getting slaughtered by the enemy cavalry now that the formation had broken up).

And squares had the advantage of being under a General's control. The common Hollywood depiction of two sides in a disorganized charge at each other and a mass brawl with swords would have been laughed off the field by any competent general for about 3,000 years.

You can argue for archers, but like I said, they were expensive to train and maintain and with no real protection from Cavalry, often getting stomped on if they didn't get out of the way fast enough (sometimes by their own side).

And this is basically how the Greek, Egyptians, Romans, Ottomans, Byzantines, Europeans and such fought for three millennium--large, organized bodies of men in close formation with archers to skirmish and annoy and cavalry to keep the opponent's cavalry away and await the chance to pursue the routed enemy (or cover their own troops retreat).

Until the 1600's. When the first effective musket was developed (one that could be reloaded in sufficient time to break down a square) and line tactics began to be developed, especially by a fellow named Gustavus Adolphus.

But the secret here is twofold--one, as mentioned above, the muskets were not very accurate--the ball might fly 200 yards, but where it might hit nobody had a clue. So massed volleys were the only way to ensure SOMETHING hitting the target (another mass of men, either in lines 4-5 rows deep or in column, 75 men wide and 200-300 deep (if you don't like columns, see Napoleon--he used them a lot). And the second point--most soldiers seldom got to shoot their guns except in battle. Powder and shot was expensive, after all in the 1700's, and most armies of the time didn't have spare cash or transport to let the men shoot outside of battle. So as long as they knew how to fire and reload and could do it en-masse, that was good enough.

So "Push of Pike" had become "Volley vs Volley" and the shape of the mass formations changed, but the general tone of battle was the same.

And then came the rifled musket, then the breechloader, multiple-shot rifles, and finally the machine gun, and even generals figured out that mass charges were nothing but suicide (it took WWI to convince the last holdouts).

So now we have battles with infantry in more scattered, company-sized groups, calling in artillery/tanks or air for major strongpoints and not bunched up.

Sorry if I pointed out the obvious to anyone, but I had one good rant in me today, and you guys got it.

[I Ratant]

Originally Posted by Spindrift

I didn't know anybody had said that prior to the battle of Bunker Hill. And the point there was that they were low on ammo, so they wanted every shot to count.

.
The battle at Breed's Hill... was lost because the British troops had gone on a bender the previous evening, and their eyes were red when they attacked.
This is NOT an Internet myth!
I read it long before there was an Internet!

[I Ratant]

Oh, and before the use of firearms, the instruction would never be "Fire"...
"Loose" or "release" for an archer.
Slingers were more deadly than archers.. "Fling"?

[crimresearch]

Originally Posted by I Ratant

Oh, and before the use of firearms, the instruction would never be "Fire"...
"Loose" or "release" for an archer.
Slingers were more deadly than archers.. "Fling"?

'Hurl'

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by I Ratant

.
The battle at Breed's Hill... was lost because the British troops had gone on a bender the previous evening, and their eyes were red when they attacked.
This is NOT an Internet myth!
I read it long before there was an Internet!

In the old Mr Peabody and Sherman show they showed the British wearing sun glasses

[MG1962]

double post

[Marras]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

Does it have something to do with the generally crap accuracy of projectiles before rifled barrels?

The first volley was the most effective one with the musket for two principal reasons, one of which has already been mentioned. They were:

1. After the first shot your firing line is covered with gunpowder smoke that makes aiming even more impossible than usual.

2. Loading muzzle-loaders was a complex process and screwing up at any step could cause a misfire. The first shot was loaded before the battle and was the least likely to misfire. Fouling from gunpowder residue again decreased the accuracy a bit more.

If you fire the first volley from too long range, it may be that the damage caused by the additional volley is offset by the decreased damage of the subsequent volleys.

[Gawdzilla]

Marras, they didn't actually aim, they "leveled".

[Bikewer]

We can only imagine what a black-powder battlefield must have been like, especially on a still, humid day. After the initial volleys, visibility must have been extremely poor for all concerned.
Orders to "fire" or "cease fire" would have been difficult to enforce in the chaos of battle, especially with large-bore firearms making everyone's ears ring...
Keeping track of maneuvering units by sight and delivering orders by messenger and flag signals...
It's a wonder they even knew who won.

One of the better movie depictions of this was the version of The Last Of The Mohicans with Daniel Day-Lewis... The scene where the indians attack the retreating Colonial troops....

[Marras]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

Marras, they didn't actually aim, they "leveled".

It still helps to see what level you should level to. Counts close enough to aiming in my book even if they used a different command.

[dafydd]

Was the ''Front rank, fire rear rank, reload!'' in the film Zulu fiction? I thought was a good idea when I saw it all those years ago.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by dafydd

Was the ''Front rank, fire rear rank, reload!'' in the film Zulu fiction? I thought was a good idea when I saw it all those years ago.

No it was very real

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volley_...nfantry_tactic)

Edit - The first link was wrong

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by MG1962

No it was very real

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volley_...nfantry_tactic)

Thank you.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Marras

It still helps to see what level you should level to. Counts close enough to aiming in my book even if they used a different command.

As noted above, after the first few rounds you couldn't see squat anyway if there was no wind of note. The order "level" was part of the drill and the Sargent Major would kick butt if you didn't level with the rest of the line. This was drilled into them until they were robots, loading and firing without thinking.

[learner]

Originally Posted by MG1962

British colonial soldiers didn't fire without a specific order. Once the enemy was well with range they might be given the order to fire at will. But it was imperative they fired when they were told or the drill would fall apart

I always thought that was unfair to fire at Will. Poor bloke.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by MG1962

No it was very real

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volley_...nfantry_tactic)

Edit - The first link was wrong

And very effective, too.

[Agammamon]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

http://xkcd.com/1041/

Contemporary depictions of medieval to 19th century combat always seem to include a scene where the commander of the archers/firing line instructs his troops not to fire at a rushing enemy until they're damned near stabbing distance away. I've never fully understood what purpose not shooting at someone coming to kill you might serve. It just seems dumb.

Its pretty simple, the key is *contemporary* depictions of old style combat. Its much more suspensefull, dramatic, and cinematic to show it that way. Most (read: all) filmakers (and way too much literature is informed by film tropes) usually do not know what they are writing (filming?) about.

Even modern depictions of modern combat are filled with horrible inaccuracies. Infantry moving in no particular formation usually within arms reach of each other, tanks crossing a bridge one right after the other instead of with a large amount of space between them, or airplane strafing runs starting with a flyover to alert the target and then a long run up to twin straight lines of explosions along the ground.

[Agammamon]

Originally Posted by CynicalSkeptic

I'm not entirely convinced of the historical accuracy of those films.

IIRC, in Braveheart they deployed a new tactic where they hid long spears, let the enemy rush in on them, then at the last second pulled out the spears allowing the enemy's front line to impale themselves on those spears.

Which is pretty weird as a). that spears werren't new even then b). should have been in pretty common use, more common than rushing at each other with swords.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

As noted above, after the first few rounds you couldn't see squat anyway if there was no wind of note. The order "level" was part of the drill and the Sargent Major would kick butt if you didn't level with the rest of the line. This was drilled into them until they were robots, loading and firing without thinking.

Well it has the advantage it forces the solider to focus on the drill and not the 10,000 savages coming at him intending to rip his heart out. I believe I've read at their best each rank could fire 3 times a minute which would give the formation 9 volleys a minute. Very hard to combat that

[Agammamon]

Originally Posted by crimresearch

There's also the notion of 'steadying the line'.

If one person fires early, this can cause a ripple effect of premature shots, leaving some percentage of your weapons out of commission for a while (prior to repeating arms), and probably a good portion of those misses, which doesn't help as the enemy gets even closer.

But this is really only applicable to early firearms. Bows don't really suffer from this drawback.
And its why early guns were fielded in massed formations with multiple ranks at different parts of the fire/reload cycle. Even for early longarms, "the whites of their eyes" was well inside the danger zone for massed weaponry.