It’s hard to fathom that someone at some point wouldn’t have thought, “*hmmm, maybe just standing in a big line waiting to get shot isn’t the most optimal tactic*”
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In general they had skirmishers who ran around finding cover and taking potshots at officers the way you’d fight now. Armies in formation would use walls, ditches and so on for cover sometimes if they could. They didn’t normally take turns shooting each other, they shot in volleys as fast as they could.
What you are missing out is that cavalry was still a major threat then, if they’d tried to all stand around spaced out like skirmishers or modern soldiers, the cavalry would have ridden them down.
Standing around being shot at or waiting to be stabbed is terrifying at the best of times, most people will run away without encourgement and threats. The skirmishers were elite. For the rest of the troops, without a crowd of allies close around them and some NCOs behind them with big pointy sticks they’d probably have cut their losses and ran. Maybe pausing to loot their own baggage train, if you were lucky.
The other thing is that volley fire maybe wasn’t so great as a method to accurately shoot the other side to death but it was excellent at making them run away. Whole armies fled after receiving a single volley, or even after just firing one, like the four Spanish battalions at Talavera.
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