but they will perform waaay beyond what today's modern "experts" predict:
WRONG! :banghead:
Instead of loading the musket with a .735 round ball, try using the ammunition of the day, a .690 ball, and see how accurate you are?
(Why would you do that?) Because under
combat conditions you have to get that thing loaded in 15 seconds, AND you don't get time to swab the bore, so IF you use that large, accurate ball instead of the .690... your musket will not be loadable after about the fifth shot (and the combat load went from 18 shots to 23 shots during the war)... so yeah you hit five guys, but the rest of the enemy is still shooting at you and you're stuck standing there in line with an explensive club or if you're lucky enough to have a bayonet, a short spear... and if you scamper off your own sergeant or officer will shoot you down for desertion.
Why you would consider buying a musket when you could buy a flintlock rifle is beyond comprehension.
Well... first the rifles of the day cost two month's pay for the average working man, while the smoothbore fowler or fusil cost two week's pay.
Second..., It took at least 30 seconds for a rifle to be reloaded using a patched ball, and after about the third or forth shot, you have to stop and take about two minutes to swab the bore. During that reloading or that cleaning, the rifle is a club as it cannot have a bayonet mounted... now true... if you're smart you'd scamper off to reload or swab, but the British Light Infantry wasn't stupid, and understood that creeping up through the woods, and catching folks reloading or cleaning rifles was a good idea, and the Light Infantry could shoot or could charge as they had bayonets...
Besides, when it's raining that nice clean rifle is a club... that British Brown Bess is a spear, so don't get caught napping when it's raining or at night when you can't see your sights, as the musketmen really didn't care much about taking enemy riflemen "prisoner"... know what I mean?
They tried defending a fort, Fort Washington, with a large force of five companies of Rebel riflemen supporting the Rebel musketmen.... when the smoke cleared more than 450 of the attacking British and Hessians were dead or wounded, while the Rebels had only 158 killed or wounded (so yes the rifles plaid a big roll) ... the fort still fell, and 2800 Rebel soldiers were captured, including a large part of the the Pennsylvania and Maryland Rifle regiments.
LD