See: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/amarch/getdoc.pl?/var/lib/philologic/databases/amarch/.5533
Do you think that the requirement for a one ounce ball suggests the Continentals preferred the .69 caliber, of there was just a lot of sloppy shooting?
“... ‘... each Soldier be furnished with a good Musket that will carry an ounce ball, with a bayonet, ...”
Do you think that the requirement for a one ounce ball suggests the Continentals preferred the .69 caliber, of there was just a lot of sloppy shooting?”
Standard Euro footsolider tactics of the 1770s rendered mass musket fire indispensable. And since everybody used smoothbores, “sloppy” shooting (by our standards today) was unavoidable.
The American War of Independence is distinctive, in that it was the first conflict between “civilised” combatants in which rifles were used and documented. Much is made inside gun-enthusiast lore of this employment of rifles, but it was never more than a tiny portion of the overall effort.
Musket effective range is constrained by the falloff in accuracy, not by velocity loss nor any related deterioration in “stopping power” (whatever that means). So any difference in terminal effectiveness between the 72 cal Brown Bess and the 69 cal French musket had little influence.
The 1770s were still very much pre-Industrial Age; detailed technical requirements did not exist. Still less would the Continental Congress (by any stretch, a gaggle of screaming amateurs, stirred by its powers, ableit with oodles of good intentions and heady enthusiasm) be in any position to declare a “one ounce ball” as the make - or - break criterion for any contracted supply of muskets, and make it stick.
US ordnance preference for 69 cal likely amounted to nothing more than convenience and circumstance. France - still smarting from defeat in the Seven Years War - was willing to supply arms, 69 cal was what they offered, and the fledgling United States was in no position to be picky. So 69 cal was what the uppity Americans got.