Amendment: My original calculations on rate of fire were based on a company and then incorrectly widened to a battalion. A company fires 108 shots a minute on average, with a battalion firing 648.

Hello There,

I am going to use my knowledge of the Habsburg military during the war of 1809 as an example. I hope others will add their insights on the other armies and areas of Napoleonic history.

Further reflection on this youtubers accuracy can be found [here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4jzavd/is_the_youtube_historian_lindybeige_reliable/).

A Habsburg musketeer from the infantry regiments of the kaiserlich und königliche Armee or k.u.k, would be provided with 60 rounds. In 1809, the average number of men in a battalion from a German line infantry regiment was 900 men, with a three battalion regiment consisting of 2700. If you remove the regimental officers and the company officers, feldwebel (sergeant-major) and fourier from each battalion you have 2540 muskets. Thus, a regiment when marching into Bavaria carried (according to maths) 152,400 rounds of ammunition. The baggage trains for each battalion would consist of 30 packhorses with ammunition (on average 36 rounds for every soldier), adding a further 91,440 rounds to each regiment. Though small isolated companies or battalions fighting in fortified granaries or villages may have fired off all their principle ammunition, if a battalion had access to their baggage trains they would never exhaust their allocation.

The reason being that a Habsburg brigade (2 regiments grouped under the command of a generalmajor) would never be and never was, engaged with the enemy for any longer than thirty minutes at a time. Divisional doctrine dictated a brigade should be replaced in the line after an action (either an attack or the defence of a position) by its sister brigade, allowing the command to restructure and reorganise. This process of recycling would continue until the corps was withdrawn or battle finished. Based upon contemporary sources of the campaign, battalions from both sides would withdraw from action after 20-30 minutes of sustained fighting, if they had not been forced to capitulate (see action of III/IR#59 Jordis at Battle of Neumarkt-Sankt Veit, where they discharged one volley in square, which subsequently fired high and with their backs to the river were forced to surrender to the Bavarian and Württemberg Chevaulegers who had them cut off). Generally a battalion would withraw because of a break down in battalion organisation (loss of an officer, fractured line, pressure from nearby artillery), rather than straight up routing.

Let us use the calculations you provided of 1 death per 200 shots and then extrapolate that over 30 minutes of fighting, using a ‘German battalion’ from 1809.** Deployed in line and averaging a battle tempo of 1-2 shots a minute (1.5) and firing by zug (platoon), a company with a frontage of 32 files and a depth of two ranks across the battalion could fire 648 shots per minute, thus killing 3.5 men (if not deployed as skirmishers the third rank would reload the rifles of the first two, and then replace any losses sustained). If we times this exercise out to 30 minutes then the battalion should have inflicted 105 fatalities on the enemy. In this time we can calculate the battalion would have fired a maximum of 19,440 of its 48,000 rounds, if we don't take into consideration lulls in fighting and casualties sustained.

How many times a battalion and its brigade would be 'in the thick of it' depends on their position in the battle. If we examine the Battle of Wagram and the actions of the Hauptarmee’s left during the second day, we can see that the IV Corps under Rosenberg was engaged in heavy fighting with the III French Corps under Davout from 5am until 4pm. There was a substantial amount of down time when French division were being brought up to replace those who had been repulsed, but we can easily assume that of the 11 hours of battle, there was 6-7 hours of fighting. If we maintain the divisional doctrine of the k.u.k, then each battalion could have been in direct contact with the enemy for 3-3.5 hours. Therefore, they had the possibility of inflicting 735 fatalities on the enemy. In that time they could possible have fire a maximum of 136,080 rounds, again this is a best case scenario and does not take into account casualties sustained, time not engage or when out of range of the enemy. In other parts of the battlefield, some units didn't see any fighting at all (the majority of the V Corps).

So, what would happen of a company fired off all its ammunition? The Unterleutnant (the third company officer after the Hauptman and the Oberleutnant) would take a Korporal (corporal) and his section (8 privates) to the regimental baggage train, where the Regimental adjutant would have the Unterleutnant sign for the company’s designated allocation of ammunition. These men would then ferry the ammunition back to the company and distribute it out. Korpralen were also responsible for collecting the ammunition, equipment and water of the dead to redistribute to the living during battle.

When we compare total number of men that could possibly have been killed by a battalion over thirty minutes (using Rosenberg's egagement as a tester) with a hit ratio of 1 fatality to 200 rounds fired, the losses are significant and in theory should not drag out a battle longer than expected.

The battle of Wagram, as argued by Arnold in his work Napoleon Conquers Austria: The 1809 Campaign for Vienna, marked the beginning of modern warfare. He designates the First and Second World Wars as modern, and where artillery was the largest killer of men. Arnold points to the number of artillery pieces present on the field, almost 600 pieces with a caliber of 6 pounds or over, as the main reason for the majority of the 75,000 casualties suffered by both sides during the two days of the battle, more than fourth of the men present. This was the largest number of battle casualties sustained during the Napoleonic period up until 1813. If we agree with Arnold's definition of a modern war, we can see at Wagram that expertly handled artillery could offset the deficencies found with small arms fire, resulting in a larger proportion of casualties.

**Note I am inclined to take 200 to 1 ratio at face value as smooth bore musketry was notorious for being poor at pretty much all ranges and the training of recruits so bad(Austrians had three rounds of live practice firing a year!!!), whole volleys would 'fly high'. Will follow with sufficient research pertaining to such figures

For further reading see:

Arnold, J. Crisis on the Danube: Napoleon's Austrian Campaign of 1809: The 1809 Campaign for Vienna.

Rothenberg, Gunther E. Napoleon's Great Adversaries: The Archduke Charles & the Austrian Army, 1792-1814. 1982, p1. 219p. Historical Period: 1792 to 1814.

Gill, J, H. 1809 Thunder on the Danube: Napoleon's Defeat of the Habsburgs: Wagram and Znaim," volume 3

Rothenberg, Gunther E., Michael Hochedlinger, Paul W. Schroeder, and Lawrence Sondhaus. 2001. "THE SHIELD OF THE DYNASTY: REFLECTIONS ON THE HABSBURG ARMY, 1649-1918." Austrian History Yearbook 32, 169-206.