Geoff McCarty wrote:
Napoleonics is about volume of fire. In one instance a 3-rank line has the advantage of a reserve of men who can reload the second ranks muskets virtually doubling their rate of fire. In another the first rank can kneel then kick out their musket butts to reload somewhat hindered with the third rank leveling their muskets between the second's shoulders overtop the first rank's heads. Either way the 3rd rank is contributing to firepower.
Well 7YW was about volume of fire, what the Prussians mastered at that time but what even they didn't do anymore in 1806 as they also just fired with 2 ranks and no rank was kneeling.
The theory of the 3rd rank usefulness in fire combat is nice, but I still have to see any prove of it.
Firing from the 3rd rank had proved impractical as it impacted 2nd & 1st rank and the French regulations of 1791 had established 2 rank fire, and the Prussian had done this too before Jena, not sure about the other countries.
Now using the 3rd rank for reloading, well reloading & handing over a loaded musket just get an empty musket back under fire was surely not going nearly as well as it sounded in theory, if it happened at all, especially as 3rd rank was usually the place for the new men in the unit. How they reloaded is another thing, a veteran handing over is empty musket just to get one back that was stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey was surely nothing that he considered to do, nor did the veteran consider to wait till young Pierre was done with his reloading process.
So even if one would grant a contribution of 3rd rank to the fire value, it's not much that is contributed and you have to subtracts something from 2nd & 1st rank, so basically you can right away stay with the 2 rank calculation we have now.
Same counts for the kneeling, once you got them on the knees it was hard to get them going again, and no officer wanted his unit nailed in that way. Even the Austrians abolished it in 1805.
In some papers this may show up for this period but in which battle between 1805-15 did any noteworthy amount of units kneel? And even if you find some, these were surely the exception to the rule that no unit in line keeled anymore in this period.