Re: OPPOSE THE WAR! We are going to ruin Iraq to get the oil. Who's ne

[Kevin Elliott]

At 13:14 -0700  on  11/19/02, Mike Diehl wrote:

On Tuesday 19 November 2002 01:02 pm, Kevin Elliott wrote:
     > Correction in the interest of historical accuracy.  The idea that we
     > succeeded in the revolutionary war by "inventing a new form of
     > warfare".  The reality is that the british were marching in formation
     > for very, very good reasons.  Their tactics were an early form of
     > Napoleanic tactics (the techniques perfected by Bonaparte and used to
     > SMASH most of the rest of Europe).  They evolved from several factors
     > notably:

That is very interesting and smells true.  But I have read an historical
account of how we slaughtered the "Reds" from the hills as they marched.
Seems to be a contradiction here that I can't resolve.

Well, there nuggets and the larger truth... Rifles were widely used as sniper rifles by the Americans. They were commonly available (though expensive) because they are a far superior hunting tool than a smoothbore musket. The definition of a "Kentucky Rifle" is a long barreled _rifled_ musket. Much of their reputation came from the fact they were rifles and any rifle will shoot rings around a smoothbore. The british got VERY upset with us because of a tendency to shoot officers which was considered very bad "form". I believe it was common practice to hang anyone found armed with a rifle for what amounted to war crimes. But again, very poor rate of fire kept them from replacing the smoothbore.

On the other hand, track the battles. The US lost most of the early engagements and for at least the first 2 years was doing very poorly. We succeeded in later battles because of improved training and discipline (part of the significance of Valley Forge was that it was used as a training ground that improved the general quality of troops immensely). Yorktown was a fairly traditional Napoleonic battle which we only one because French ships prevented Cornwallis from retreating. He was forced to surrender when it became clear that he couldn't break out of the American lines and that the French were more than willing to bring the whole town down around his ears from the coast.
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Kevin Elliott <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ICQ#23758827