> I wouldn’t be so sure about that. They would definitely mention their command over a cavalry charge (usually fellow nobles or knights depending on time period and polity) but archers were generally lower status, even though they were better trained than some farmer-soldier from a distant retinue.
But we do have so much written about musket volleys, and those were done by lower status soldiers as well. It is very strange that much was written about musket volleys but not archer volleys.
The printing press fundamentally changed everything so our sources get much more socially inclusive starting with the arquebus onwards (but not so much the hand cannon, which predates the press). This cuts across all subfields of history because society no longer depended on expensive scribes to preserve sources and publish new material.
More importantly, volleys were crucial to breech loading gun tactics because unlike an archer a gunner is very vulnerable while reloading, since they have to hold the gun, load the powder and ball, and pack it down with both hands. The musketeers were in a formation several lines deep so that when the front line fired, they’d go to the back to reload and it worked much better if it was organized. This cadence also informed the pikemen defending them when it was safe to move and reposition. Archers could “reload” from a quiver much faster so there was no point in coordinating it.
Indeed, it would make sense that musket volleys evolved from archer volleys than being spontaneously invented as a tactic for a weapon that was competing with the bow.
When was the last recorded javelin volley? I think there is a suggestion of a historical transmission from the late Classic era to the early modern era and it was possibly archery. Not to mention crossbows.
One thing that I don't enjoy from COUP is he often demolishes ideas that approach strawman territory (is a barely coordinated order to start shooting a volley? or does it have to be something else), but I understand that from his perspective as a teacher, he has to disabuse his students of all the nonsense tropes they pick up from tv shows and movies.
> I think there is a suggestion of a historical transmission from the late Classic era to the early modern era and it was possibly archery. Not to mention crossbows.
The most obvious reason they practiced volley firing for muskets is the large amount of smoke they produce, once one person shoots the rest can't see where they would fire so you want everyone firing at once so they don't block each other.
So there is no reason to believe the practice evolved from anywhere, they is no world where they didn't volley fire with muskets that produce a lot of smoke since its the obvious thing to do.
Well, you aren't really aiming with early firearms. You are just shooting in the general direction of the enemy. So I don't think smoke really explains it.
Javelins continued to be used around the Mediterranean until the gunpowder era, so there's no reason volley tactics could not have been transmitted directly.
But we do have so much written about musket volleys, and those were done by lower status soldiers as well. It is very strange that much was written about musket volleys but not archer volleys.