I am very curious about the ins and outs of Napoleonic Warfare, and would like to know a few things.
I read "Napoleon's Invasion of Russia" a few years ago by George something or another and distinctly remember him saying that a unit might form up in line and level muskets only to fire into the parapet or hillside in front of them. Surely musketry couldn't be that bad right? Voltigeurs and Trillaleurs were trained to aim as light infantry, but were line infantrymen truly just trained to only level muskets?
It is my understanding that a great deal of the combat was a game of chicken. By that I mean A unit would form up, fire a few volleys, and charge home with the bayonet, and hopefully the enemy would turn heel and be pursued by light cavalry. How often was it that soldiers truly fought tooth and nail in formation with staggering casualties? (I assume this would only really apply to open field combat) The only example I know of is The Young and Old Guard's action at Plancenoit against the Prussians, with the Young Guard suffering some 80% casualties. Was this simply a feat of Napoleon's Guard, or something that is decently common?
How much initiative was allowed to French officers. For example, When Marshal Ney ordered his disastrous cavalry charge against the English, was that just because he thought he saw something that simply must have been taken advantage of and went over Napoleon's head(I believe he thought he saw English retreating and chose to pursue) or was it his choice, in that Napoleon may have simply given Ney an overarching grand objective for him to accomplish at his discretion? Would a Colonel be at liberty to advance his regiment if he saw an opportunity?
I would also like some Napoleonic Wars literature to be recommended, preferably something that doesn't have an English bias so obvious I feel the need to play "God Save the Queen." Would "The Campaigns of Napoleon" by David Chandler be decent? I'd like to read more about battles as well. I'd also like to check out "The Anatomy of Glory" by Henri Lachouque because lets face it think a unit that was only defeated once is interesting to read about. Any other recommendations?
I greatly enjoyed Peter Hofschroer's "1815 The Waterloo Campaign: The German Victory" where he goes into the much overlooked contributions to the Allied victory at Waterloo (woops it wasn't all Wellington...) and perhaps more interestingly the large German speaking contingent of Wellington's army.
If you're looking for drawn out knockout brawls I'd definitely look for a book on Borodino, I don't have one to recommend but the battles on the road to Moscow like Borodino and those fought on the way to St. Petersburg illustrate both the independence and discretion given to his trusted corps commanders as well instances when there was truly devastating tooth and nail combat as both sides stood firm and left the battlefield in good order.
The campaigns of the war of the sixth coalition, such as the battle of Leipzig are excellent to look into as well.
Chandler's The Campaigns of Napoleon is excellent and almost ridiculously comprehensive, but often somewhat hard to get hold of. Elting's Swords Around a Throne is a survey of the Grande Armée rather than a campaign history, but it gives comprehensive overviews of tactics and practice. I'll be using both in this answer.
As to your specific points:
Smoothbore muskets were extremely inaccurate, and aiming under fire is notoriously difficult. The Prussian army conducted tests toward the end of the 18th Century, and found that, from a battalion firing a volley, hits only climbed above 50% at under 100 yards - it's definitely possible that the majority of a volley would go astray, especially if the troops in question were mostly conscripts, as many battalions in 1812 would have been. However, French infantry were given target practice and firing exercise, although some commanders placed more emphasis on this than others. There was a standard target, and things like ornamental fountains were used for on-campaign training.
Very, very rarely, and generally only in strongpoints like villages and redoubts. Fuentes d'Onoro in Spain and Plancenoit at Waterloo both became bloody hand-to-hand fights, but in an open field such fights were extremely rare and not necessarily bloody from the bayonet. Surgeon-General Dominique Jean Larrey surveyed the wounds sustained in a mélée between French and Austrian troops, and found that only five wounds had been inflicted by bayonets as opposed to 119 by bullets. By contrast, a fight in a village or town could easily become a drawn-out brawl, with each company or group of soldiers unaware of the general state of the fight and unable to easily retreat, and with more soldiers continually being fed into the fray.
It depends on how large that advance was going to be. A Colonel might advance the two or three battalions of his regiment to the charge when engaged, and it was his responsibility to judge when that was appropriate; but regiments did not advance towards the enemy line alone. Such an attack would be made at divisional level at the smallest, and usually at corps level once the corps d'armée system had been implemented. In that case, the divisional general would be responsible for the specific form of the attack, but the order would likely have been given by the corps or army commander. Ney, as Marshal and Corps Commander, had the theoretical authority to order an advance to exploit an opportunity that Napoleon had not noticed - but whether or not Napoleon would congratulate or discipline a Marshal for so doing depended a lot on whether the advance actually helped win the battle. Ney's charge, consisting only of cavalry and pushed back up the ridge when it was clear doing so was foolhardy, obviously did not help win the battle.
Sources: The Campaigns of Napoleon, David G. Chandler; Swords Around a Throne, John R. Elting