Originally Posted by
Storm Bringer
as Haighus mentioned, they needed the length, plus the shorter barrelled carbine type guns were even less accurate than the "shotgun with only one ball" spread of a regular musket.
also, the standard formation was only 3 ranks deep anyway, precisely to maximise the amount of shooters. 90% of the time, if you see a reference in a battle to a "column" of men that is 10-12 ranks deep and 30-40 men wide, normally, it is a column formed by three or four 3 deep lines "stacked" close to one another, which was supposed to deploy into a line before contact and thus bring every musket to bear.