Napoleonic question?

Question

If someone replaced all muskets with rifles, would an army have an advantage against an army with muskets?

Answer 1

A similar thing happened in the Civil War. Union units with newly acquired Henry repeating rifles (lever action) went up against Confederate units with older style muzzle loaders. The Union action was mostly defensive, but they showed strongly that soldiers armed with repeating rifles FAR outclassed soldiers with muzzle-loaders by a wide margin.

Answer 2

Rifles have a huge advantage over muskets.Muskets were very inaccurate, you had to be within 50 to 75 yards of your target to hit it, with a rifle you can hit a target at 1000 yards or more. An army using muskets had to adopt linear tactics,that's where your troops line up shoulder to shoulder in the open, so they could concentrate their fire and stand a better chance of hitting the enemy.
One man with a rifle could hide behind a tree or rock and pick off troops in linear formation one by one before they could get close enough to use their muskets.
Also, you had to reload a musket after every shot, three shots per minute was considered good with a musket. A rifleman with a 5 round magazine could shoot 50 or more rounds per minute.

Answer 3

yes, muskets take too long to load, wheeas rifles all you have to do is load the bullet.

Answer 4

Most definitely.