Apologies if this comes across as sort of a loaded question but it's something that's been bugging me. Some writers from the late 16th century like Roger Williams wrote that a musket with good powder was deadly at up to 600 paces, Humfrey Barwick recommended taking the first shot with a musket at around 480 paces and mentioned that gunmen knew how to estimate range of distant targets and adjust their aim to account for bullet drop. John Smythe on the other hand wrote that firearms were useless past 20-30 paces.
For the late 18th century, this article claims that the "point blank" of a musket was considered to be about 300 yards. Which seems to fly in the face of stories from that period of entire companies opening fire at 100 yards and missing every single shot, as well as claims that musketeers would hold their fire until they got within 50-100 yards of the enemy.
So I guess my question is what was the reality in combat generally like during the early modern era? Were these larger numbers just theoretical maximums widely ignored by experienced commanders, or would battlefields usually see armies firing volley after volley at extremely long ranges hoping to wear down the enemy? Did the average initial engagement range change over time between the age of pike and shot vs the napoleonic wars? Did range vary depending on how experienced the troops were, for instance more experienced gunnmen shooting effectively at very long ranges and less experienced ones being told to hold their fire?
Thanks
Smoothbore muskets could fire balls considerable distances, sometimes well beyond the ball's ability to do damage. There are accounts of Commanders being struck by balls that only had the power left in them to cause bruises.
To say that a well trained and experienced soldier could not hit a fairly large target at 300 yards is not true. It was certainly possible to hit an enemy formation (although to hit a man at that distance would be pushing it) at that distance and kill someone. Under several different test conducted over 2 centuries with smoothbore muskets and all of them achieved a roughly 20% hit rate at 300 yards. This agrees with the article you linked. You could give fire that would be felt by the enemy at 300 yards. In the article it appears that the sources mentioned are all in reference to the construction of fortifications, therefore it must be considered that at 300 yards that are mentioned would be with the advantage of height from a wall.
However, the technical limitations of the smoothbore musket is not the issue. In a combat situation against an actual unit of enemy infantry whilst they're shooting at you is a completely different situation. The accuracy and rate of fire with muskets declined in combat situations due to the stress and fear experienced by the men. For example, the natives of St Vincent were renowned as excellent marksman and David Stewart, a Black Watch officer, decided to test this. He got a Prisoner to successfully shoot the Orange off the top of a bottle at 200 yards. When asked why he did not shoot with such accuracy against the soldiers who captured him he replied that Oranges do not fire back or charge at him with Bayonets.
Examples of other things causing reduced effectiveness include the misfire rate, which was approximately 1 musket out of 6.5 under ordinary conditions. This would increase to potentially 1 in 4 muskets in wet or unfavourable conditions. Then there is the tendency to fire high, many less experienced troops would be unprepared for the kick of the musket and consequently the barrel would jerk upwards during firing, this allowed certain volleys by green units to leave their opponents almost unharmed by the volley. We also have panic, with men leaving their ramrod in and firing it at the enemy or ramming down several cartridges and exploding his gun. Men would also rush their firing and not properly taking aim no wait for the word of command and firing randomly. Something else to consider with volley fire is that each shot that strikes the same man twice is effectively wasted reducing the effective hit rate even further.
So with the limitations being human ability rather than mechanical the drills and tactics of the period where based around utilising this, rather than the supposed theoretical maximum. This is why we see reference to the effective range being 60-100 yards. Because any further away than that and majority of the fire is wasted. It would not be wasted because it wouldn't kill some of the enemy rather, it is not normally enough to harm their morale. This is also why maintaining order and proper volley fire was so important. To cause enough casualties simultaneously that the enemy's morale would falter.