Lining up and shooting was the best way to use inaccurate muskets. One guy can’t shoot accurately at all, plus it takes lots of time to reload after each shot.
So you line up 20 dudes and have them shoot 5 or 10 at a time. That makes it more likely to hit something with each volley, and protects the guys who are reloading. The main skill for soldiers wasn’t aiming, it was reloading quickly.
It had fuck-all to do with their muskets and everything to do with command and control. In this era, instantaneous communication is limited to visual or aural signals, and your weaponry temporarily deafens soldiers and fills the field with sight-obstructing smoke. Effective battlefield communication extends only a few dozen yards.
In this environment, the commander who groups and tightly controls his forces has a significant advantage over one who does not.
It wasn’t actually more efficient. Having all of you’re guys in a huge box makes it easier to hit than having you’re infantry spread out. It was mostly a morale thing, having other soldiers within arms range made you reconsider running away. While being engaged with huge volleys by these squares made you very much consider if you should run anyway.
You have to line up musket troops to give them orders too. There’s no radio and you have to shout over the noise and smoke.
Remember, these are black powder guns. They’re loud. If your troops are right next to each other you can more easily direct them to fire, advance, or retreat. Advancing or retreating quickly can take advantage of enemy weaknesses and break up the opposing army. If your guys are spread out, you can’t tell them anything.
I believe the french very much did this. In the Napoleonic wars they mostly used conscripts I believe, so big blocks helped while the British had a more professionally setup army (not that all of its participants were willing either though!) tend to use thinner lines to maximise the shots they could get out.
That’s vulnerable to cavalry charges though, so they had square formations they could get into in order to protect against that.
Both sides then had skirmishers that had more modern tactics to harras and kill officers etc. Some even had rifles. They had to retreat back to the main body if there were cavalry anywhere near though.
One big, deadly game of rock paper scissors
Being alongside people who are conducting an IR strobe disco party because they still mistakenly believe they have a monopoly on night optics is a terrifying experience. I’m told.
IFF strobe patterns sounds plausibly better than there’s movement in that sector over there that’s not on the master battle plan. Hit it with an air strike.
