Civil War Tactics: Shooting as Many as Possible
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- The Greeks fought in phalanx formation. In medieval times, they preferred the wedge. So what made Civil War armies fight in long, straight lines that left them wide open to attack? bit.ly/3JulnU6
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All valid and good points but a very simplified explanation as there were many other factors also involved. With Musket, Cannon And Sword is the best book I've ever read on this topic and it goes into great detail about the evolution of these tactics including the often importance of the impact on morale of mass volleys vs independent fire. While line formations dominated the wars of the 19th century there are exceptions and the French developed some interesting adaptions that played to their advantage in the Napoleonic wars. They realized that line formations while maximizing fire power had some glaring shortcomings. They were particularly vulnerable on their flanks and rough terrain would break up the advance of an extended line exposing lead elements covering clear ground to be greatly exposed while units traversing tougher ground would fall behind.
the fact that in medieval times they "prefered" the wedge formation is still up to debate for obvious reasons. Like the fact that the first in the wedge would be probably immediately killed by a good defensive formation.
Stuff like this is superb, makes me miss the heydey of PBS. This is EXACTLY like something I would expect to see on (modern) version of some of its historical shows. Love it!
Breach loading was the biggest game changer in firearms technology, you could reload from a covered position at the same speed you could standing up and that alone changed how fire arm tactics would be dictated, it lead into the repeating carbine, which lead into the bolt action rifle. Once war started being fought with a gun that could load itself the doctrine truly changed
The Minie Bullet and smokeless powder were both more important than that.
@huntclanhunt9697 We wouldn't have smokless powder if not for breach loaders
No disrespect sir, you don't seem to know much about what you're talking about? The evolution of firearms doesn't go from the "repeating carbine" to bolt action rifles. Not sure what "repeating carbine" means, you're referring to just guns that have been developed since the 19th century that shoot more than once before reloading? Breech-loading technology allowed that to be possible. So, you'll find that the bolt action rifle predates the "repeating carbine" - the many single shot breech-loaders - including bolt action rifles - produced in the 1860's alone tells you that.
You also seem to have some really watered down concepts of how this all works... breech-loading rifles didn't magically completely change how we fight, in the civil war for instance, we see HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Spencer repeating rifles and carbines (Perhaps that's what you meant earlier), which among other breech loaders made up the cavalryman's arsenal. Anyway, when cavalrymen fought, they did so in ranks. In the Franco-Prussian war, in the many European wars to come after the civil war, battle order was still in ranks, even with bolt action rifles facing each other. @@effen_aey_man
@SStupendous I love how confident you are in all these wrong answers
"No longer solely relying on handheld weapons" what you mean the musket, rifle, pistol, shotgun and bayonet? All handheld weapons
Not to mention cavalry lances and sabers, which, was still used up until the late 1800’s
I think he meant melee
“Muskets allowed troops to fight at 100 yards or longer”
*Early 20th century@@Mitchell_WerBell_III
The argument is incomplete, as it looks only at the firepower, but not at the and protection. This in return will reduce the firepower during a longer fight,because the long line is also the formation that causes the most casulties. Basically, the opponent cannot miss if any bullet fired at the right hight will find a target. considering that a soldier could fire up to 3 rounds per minute, would be a well orchestrated line of 4 (50% smaller target with identical firepower) be better suited.
The concept of a looser line of 4s, is exactly what they had in their time - the skirmish formation, which is used by light infantry and by skirmishers detached from line brigades. It's not as often shown in movies as it's less of a spectacle than 2 big lines of men blazing away and slaughtering each other.
Your line brigade is like a big warship with 1000 cannons on it, powerful but slow and vulnerable during maneuvers. You don't want it to be the first thing that finds the enemy range, so skirmishers in a loose formation are leading the way. They operated in groups of 4 called "comrades in battle," and they cycled their shooting so that one man always had a shot ready to defend the others while they reloaded. Lines of skirmishers usually found and fought each other first, and by their shooting let the infantry behind them know the enemy is ahead.
It really comes down to communications and command and control. When you are communicating based on signal flags, bugle, and messenger you can't employ complex tactics with smaller elements. You literally need to get on line just to keep everyone in the same direction
The video is not bad, but very incomplete. As you correctly point out, there are fundamental command and control issues, that this video seems to ignore.
In short, linear tactics often look bad, but the alternatives usually look a lot worse.
In the context of the American Civil War, linear formations are the practical means of maximizing local firepower while maintaining reasonable control of your troops. One can attempt to be clever, by detaching some troops and sending them out to attack a flank. The downside is you are giving up a significant measure of control of those troops and inviting the possibility of being defeated in detail, because your forces are split and less coordinated.
There are more sophisticated linear tactics like having four rotating lines, but sophisticated linear formations still suffer the primary weaknesses of linear formations. All things being equal, that better drilled soldiers tend to prevail is not news.
@@ComradeOgilvy1984 that is common amongst military historians who tend to ignore combat support roles and non-weapons technology.
A mass Duel.
Insane tactic.
I wish the myth of 100 yard battles would be better researched. In the two major battles of Shiloh and Antietam I showed in my Master's thesis that the average distance was 66 yards in both battles. This was because the tactics and the Rifles had not caught up to each other. The video is a good lesson on how the war was fought but not at great distances. You learn quickly that you hit someone when they are closer.
Even with WW2 era weaponry the average combat distance was found to only be 300 yards or so. The idea that you can effectively fight at 500+ yards with muzzle loading black powder rifles is stupid.
Wow. 66 yards, good god.
There are a lot of myth's about it for sure. The "Napoleonic Era" tactics from the beginning of the 1800's actually stretched much further back, with the linear tactics, based on short range smooth-bore muskets. Bayonets were very much an important part of those tactics as well, given the shock value, reloading speed of muskets, weather/reliability, and close distances.
Light infantry tactics were known well before then ("Indian fighting" relying on personal initiative, flexibility, use of cover, etc were practiced from early on at least within North American colonial days). Unfortunately then like now, those lessons were forgotten after every conflict to revert to set-piece approach for command and control and had to re-learn bloody lessons in every generation. Good examples of this are early days of the British in French & Indian War (7 years war for Euro's) with severe losses by ignoring light infantry "realities". By the 2nd half of that conflict they had learned hard lessons and became highly effective with "indian fighting" tactics that yielded great results. By the next generation, in the American Revolution / war of independence, those skills and units had been lost & de-valued. They learned bloody lessons to re-invest in those skills & tactics. Same deal in the the next generation when they started fighting Napoleon.
In regards to the US Civil War there was a lot of ""amateur hour" leaders with very little practical military experience and/or prior generation thinking. This was happening at the same time very fast developments in technology. Notably accuracy and reloading speed skyrocketed just before the conflict - but the deployment of a lot of those technologies were haphazard. Repeaters were a fairly new item (whether "6-shooter" pistols or emergence of rapid loading rifles with metal cartridges). This was occurring along side a lot of troops still armed with smoothbore muskets made for a crazy mix of capabilities. The "mini-ball" (Minié bullet) was also a big leap forward in the combination of rapid loading + highly accurate rifles; that just happened just before the US Civil War. Before then, rifles were generally viewed as specialist weapons because of cost and the slow loading.
So yeah, just a few of factors in something that was actually really complex situation.
@@mtnmist1 The tactics of dispersion were not forgotten but used extensively. Dispersion had its place and so did massed infantry. If you were going to hold a major rail hub like Manassas and you used dispersed forces you'd be swept away by concentrated massed infantry before you knew what hit you. I won't suggest that stupid things didn't happen but much of our armchair generalship is a bit off. There's communication there's logistics there's terrain.
@@simplymadness8849 A big factor came from deployment as skirmishers. Out in front 15 paces apart they prevented artillery from being effectively deployed on the offensive other than softening up a position from a safe distance. That was the game changer switching the advantage to the defense. Indeed 500 YD was not an unreasonable range for hitting artillery horses.
I like the Battlefield trust a lot, I really do but the graphics guy might need educated on bullets and shell casings as they have full bullet, shell casing and all flying through the air!
There were so many casualties because there was so many men. The number of men engaged in the major battles of the civil war dwarfed the number of men engaged in battles during the revolution.
The weapons also outmoded the tactics as well. The advent of the Minie Ball and rifling made it where the linear formations could be shot to pieces at much greater distances than 50 to 100 yards.
@@chrisduitsman2918 Nah. Linear tactics exist because of the difficulty in coordinating mass numbers of men with slow firing single shot weapons. Being able to engage at slightly longer rangers doesn’t outmode the tactics.
There were so many casualties because of disease. Far more people died from sickness than combat. The amount of many had nothing to do with the high casualty rate. The Union army alone suffered about 360,000 deaths and about 2 Million soldiers served in the Union. The US suffered about 400,000 deaths from WWII and about 16 Million soldiers served in that war.
@@misterdanny8644 I was talking about combat casualties.
@@simplymadness8849 I made 2 points. Could you respond to the other one?
Oh yeah! This is such a good description of tactics and strategies, love the editors, they did such a well job!
0:50 and fire the whole damn cartridge? Whoever made this doesn't know anything.
i dont think the question is why did they fight linearly, form ranks, and fire volleys... its more so, why did they fight linearly, form ranks, and fire volleys while equipped with rifled muskets accurate out to 300 yards at what was essentially point blank range, if i had seen all the men around me go down, i wouldnt want to do that ever again
Why a Hall flintlock breechloading rifle when talking about flintlock muskets?
I’ve never understood these moronic death lines lol
All other things being equal, the troops that are drilled into quickly forming into "moronic death lines" kill the enemy rapidly and live. Those troops that hate "moronic death lines" hesitate, then run away, to be captured or killed later.
Lines are a practical means of maximizing local firepower and overwhelming the enemy. The real question is not the lines themselves, but what to do when "all other thing being equal" is not true, such as an enemy up a hill with a bit of cover like a low stone wall or logs/sandbags, or when terrain makes an approach with a wide linear line very difficult.
The horrendous and pointless slaughter occurred against strong defensive positions. Getting many soldiers killed to win a battle is one thing, but getting many soldiers killed to stay in a stalemate is quite different.
wait, what musket can fire the entirety of a 5.56 cartridge?
Some muskets were up to .75 caliber so by mass a ball was probably close to the weight of a entire 5.56 cartridge at just .22 caliber. I don’t know what you mean by firing the entire cartridge though.
@lemmingsfly He means fire the whole damn cartridge. Did he stutter? Do you even know what you are talking about?
Thank you...excellent!
Could you please start uploading videos on odysee?
Its a great free speech plattform
Please no hip hop beats on civil war videos PLEASE
👍
This comment section is proof only NPCs care about blacked history
That’s a Hall Rifle you showed at the beginning. They were rifled, and very accurate.
Muskets were handheld weapons… who made this video? Are you guys serious?