The Ferguson rifle was most likely the first breech loaing rifle to be adopted by any organized military force. It was a .65 (.648 true) caliber rifle used by the British Army in the American Revolutionary War at the end of the 1770s. Its superior firepower was unappreciated at the time because it was outside the paradigm of armed lines of men standing face to face. Later events, when rifles of similar firepower were adopted, accompanied a change of tactics and abandonment of lines of troops standing face to face hammering it out against one another—a technological need given the need to stand when reloading either muskets or rifles. Breech loading allowed cover and concealment to be utilized, but the change in circumstance went unheralded and unappreciated during their brief advent on the field of battle.