firearms of that period were more effective than pikes and arrow, but not effective enough to stop using them in mass formation volley fire.

>>1314032
I'm not an expert, so I welcome correction, but I'd figure that in an era without radio and orders are given by drums, horns, and horseback couriers, it was easier to keep everybody's shit together if they were close like that.

>>1314032

To repel cavalry charges.

Yeah, you go guy, I'm sure that centuries of military leaders were all just morons and only chose line battle tactics because they were stupid and it wasn't that it was the system that worked the best against alternatives during the era. If only you could go back with a time machine to those time periods as the person who has never fought in those battles and probably has never handled a musket and who has the great claim to fame of posting on an internet image board will show those line battle idiots who really knows how to fight wars. This reminds me, I need to get my own time machine to lecture medieval knights about how to fight in melee combat, I've never actually seen a sword or a suit of amor but I know for sure that they're doing it wrong and that they're retarded.

>inb4 300 replies to this shitty bait

For its time it worked. Japanese cavalry got completly fucked in The Battle Of Nagashino by japanese musketeers in rank formation. Basically it ended the dominance of cavalry in warfare. Shit went out the window in WW1, yadda yadda, antique tactics were not enough for modern weapons.

>>1314053
Well okay, but if I could go back I would at least tell them not to wear bright fucking red or blue. Green maybe?

>>1314088
>"Haha I'm such a genius for giving all of my troops green uniforms to go into battle with and blend in with the backdrop."
>"Oh fuck where are my men? I can't see shit."
>"Which of those guys are my men? They're all wearing fucking green."

Alternatively

>"Haha our general was such a genius to give us all green."
>"Oh shit is this position safe I can't see how many of our allies are here."
>"Fuck I can't see if anyone is coming through the smoke are those our men or the enemy's?"

>>1314088
Except that's exactly what they did? Elites of the Napoleonic era (I don't think your OP pic is quite nappy era yet, but) who wielded rifles, the Jaegers, yagers, british rifles etc. All wore green.

Everyone else was expected to march in line so it didn't matter what they wore. A group of two hundred men is obvious, green or not. Maybe the red coat thing was pushing it but that was for muh tradition. Blue worked not bad. Austrian white was kinda kekworthy tho.

The main point of uniform in that era was
1. To provide easy visual distinguishment between units for ease of command. You can't tell your chasseurs from your sappeurs with ease if they don't dress different.

2. For the intimidation of the enemy. Some units had reputations that were enough to buckle or even break the enemy. Case-in-point (off the top of my head), the Horse Carabiniers, or the Vielle Garde with their fuckoffhuge bearskins.

>>1314104
Muh American Guerrilas we wuz natives and shieett

British troops got btfo during the Battle Of Saratoga due to their identifiable red coats in a dense forest. It was good for troops in a pitch battle, where the terrain not really obstructed, but when it came to something more than flat land troops started dying.

>>1314088
Have fun looking for all that green among acres of gunsmoke.

I'll agree at first glance it seems silly, and it would probably be the last era of warfare that I would want to fight in. But it was what worked consistently best.

The American Civil War however should have gotten it's shit together, though. You have legit rifles that can reach out to hundreds of yards, some specialized versions even approaching thousands, and we still gotta do the tightly packed volley fire shit?

>>1314108
Just to elaborate, jaegers could wear green because they did not engage in line battle. Because of the loose skirmish nature of their deployments and the relatively autonomous nature of their purpose, they needed active FoF identification less than the average line regiment.

Despite this, I'm pretty sure rifles and light muskets still fought in line on occasion. The Austrians tended to deploy them in two ranks instead of the usual three deep iirc. Not that they could rank fire with much more effectiveness with the reload speed of rifles at the time anyways.

>>1314118
Battles during this time period were fought in generally open fields where troops could easily identify their colors. Warfare, logistics, and tactics weren't fluid enough for more complex areas and thus green colors or camo weren't needed.

>>1314032
We have this thread every day

Even though this is bait...
If you were in the front line marching at the enemy all the way up you only had a 25% chance of getting hit by fire on your approach.

And like that guy said. With the shitty muskets organization was key to making them effective. Everyone firing at will from behind trees would not have worked because of how shit the accuracy was.