Weapons determine tactics. The weapon of the Seven Years War in North America was the smoothbore, muzzle-loading, flintlock musket. It was termed "smoothbore" because its barrel was simply a smooth tube of metal, without rifling grooves to spin the one and one-half ounce ball it fired. "Muzzle-loading" meant that powder and ball for each shot had to be plunged down the length of the barrel with a steel ramrod. "Flintlock" described the firing mechanism. When the trigger was pulled, a small vice gripping a piece of flint sprang forward causing the flint to strike a polished steel plate or "hammer". The sparks fell into a shallow pan containing black gunpowder. Some of the ignited powder jetted through the pinhole in the barrel, lighting the powder and propelling the wadding and ball held within. The musket was said to have a range of up to 150 paces, but it was really only effective up to 50 paces. The loose fitting ball was so inaccurate as to make aiming impractical and so the weapon was most effective when fired en masse.
There were really only two infantry formations in the eighteenth-century: the line, used for fighting; and the column, used for moving. With the invention of the plug bayonet in the late 1600's, followed by the socket bayonet in the early 1700's, the musketeer of the regular European armies had no need of a pikeman to protect him while he reloaded. Formations could spread out, therefore, to a thin line of three men deep (two deep if the situation warranted), the front row kneeling, middle crouching and the rear standing. This theoretically allowed all three ranks to fire, but in practice, the middle rank stood and fired as the rear rank loaded. The grenadiers would take up a position on the right flank of the battalion, the lights to the left.
Column formation allowed the battalion to march at top speed without stopping every few minutes to re-establish the "line". A column would be four, eight, twelve, or twenty men wide, whatever space allowed, with one company following the other. The regimental standard accompanied by the grenadiers would take the lead, with the lights screening in front if contact with the enemy was expected. The rest of the regiment would follow in the order of how they deployed into the line formation from right to left. Although some theorists had foreseen that the column might have some use as an assault formation, it was not until Napoleon instilled the men with patriotic fever that the column was able to be used as a fighting formation.
The time it took to change from column to line was dependant an the terrain, training of the troops and the facing of the line. Forming a line to the left was the easiest. Each company merely turned left. Forming a line to the front was more complex. The grenadiers could stop and allow each company to align itself to the left, or the grenadiers could form line and then sidestep to the right with the companies to the rear following suit until the battalion line was formed. Forming to the right meant the grenadiers had to execute a right turn, form line, then sidestep to their right while the rear companies followed.
Once deployed in line, and moved to within the killing range of the enemy, the regulars simply loaded and fired on command, until one side lost their nerve or came so precariously close that a bayonet charge would scatter the survivors. Commanders attempted, of course, to outflank the enemy and bring this fire-power to bear on the exposed ends of the lines. But once the gambit was countered, and the lines were deployed and firing, there was little left but to await the results.
There was an additional problem for the European regiments fighting in North America the forest. It was not that the forest restricted movement since the forests of Vermont, New York and New France were mature maples and elms with huge, well-spaced trunks. Little sunlight penetrated to the forest floor and thus, undergrowth was limited. In fact, the American forests were easier to manoeuvre through than the ploughed fields of Europe. The problem was with the field of vision. The enemy could not be seen until troops were within close range. Without visible landmarks or the sun to guide them, a slight deviation in direction could get a unit lost for hours. Furthermore, a volley of muskets would choke the whole atmosphere with an opaque white-powdered fog, reducing visibility to a matter of feet. In such an alien environment the usually disciplined Europeans became anxious and insecure. A volley of gun-fire or a war-cry could send a battalion into complete confusion, and it could fire on friendly troops. Clearly, when given the choice, regulars stayed to the pastures, clearings and waterways.
The bow and arrow had a longer range, was more accurate and had a rate of fire three or four times that of a musket. But a wound inflicted by a flint-tipped arrow was not necessarily dangerous. Indeed, an arrow wound taken in a limb, although painful, could be expected to heal by next season. A musket ball was always dangerous. The only remedy to a ball taken in a limb was amputation. A ball taken in the chest guaranteed death, if not immediately, then within a few days as the internal haemorrhaging spread.
The native tactical response to the terrain was distinctly North American the techniques of the hunt were adapted. The natives (as well as the coureur de bois and the American Ranger) adapted concealment, stalking, and dispersal as battle tactics. They sought to draw their enemies into the bush and then to encircle, confuse and disorient them. The ambush became the favoured form of warfare. War parties travelled in open, dispersed formations to avoid enemy traps and then sweep around in great arcs unnoticed. As pickets they were unsurpassed, able to keep tabs on the enemy without themselves being seen. They did not wish to come into close combat with the European regulars with their lines bristling with bayonets. Instead they would harry, terrorize and outflank. Only when the adversary was panicked and confused did the North Americans move in with knives and hatchets to shatter the unit totally.
The wilderness campaigns of the Seven Years War were a flowing blend of both these types of warfare. Constant, deadly, forest skirmishing would proceed an advancing column. Eventually the conflict would break into a full parade ground battle between European regulars on an open clearing. After the battle, the skirmishing would be taken up again by the woodsmen, as retreats were covered or supply lines were secured. Artillery was used very sparingly. Since supplies were limited, most commanders wanted to save the gun's shot and powder for sieging the enemies' fortresses and not waste them in field battles. Most of the forts were built so their cannon could control the waterways. As such, there was very little defence from the landward. If a fortress were to be defended, it would have to be in a field battle on the approaches to the fort, for once the siege guns were in place, there was little chance that the walls would last for long. To enhance the defensive capabilities, entrenchments were routinely dug. Log redoubts provided extra cover and when time allowed an abatis was built of tree branches, facing outwards with all the points sharpened.
As the war progressed the balance shifted from skirmish to set-piece affairs. The war in North America started with a classic ambush of Braddock's forces (1755) and ended with a classic line battle on the Heights of Abraham (1760). The defeat of New France, to a large extent, can be seen as the shift from the North American woodland guerilla warfare which emphasized the French strengths, to the European open-field warfare which allowed the greater manpower, discipline and economic strength of the British to be brought to bear. I.K. Steele traces the evolution:
The eclipse of guerilla warfare had a variety of causes. Stouter forts erected between 1714 and 1740 may have made the change inevitable. Supply lines themselves required defending, and so forts engendered more forts. The European courts had planted the seeds of their kind of war when they had built forts in the New World. The large influx of British troops after 1755, as well as more direct control of the fighting from Britain, ensured complete acceptance of conventional warfare. Indian allies were important but the climax to the long struggle with Canada was a white man's war.
(Steele, Guerillas and Grenadiers, 1969)