At 10:37 -0700 on 11/19/02, Mike Diehl 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:Unfortunately, terrorism is probably a predictable response by people who want to be able to control their own destinies, select their own leaders and forms of goivernment and so on.Yes, it's just a "new" form of warfare. During the Revolutionary War, we also deviced a new form af warfare. If you recall, the English had this habbit of marching and fighing in formation. We were able to pick them off from the hills as they marched. The wouldn't leave formation, and we slaughtered them, quite un-gentlemanlike, btw.
1) the incredibly poor accuracy of smoothbore muskets. Rifled muskets were available, but quite costly and...
2) rifled muskets were not effective because of the ponderous reload time (I don't have precise figures, but the number 1/6th-1/10th the rate of fire of a smoothbore musket comes to mind)
3) additionally the very short effective range of 18th century firearms meant that the most effective tactic was to:
Stand in lines, fire in volleys and reload as fast as possible. If you were well trained you could fire significantly faster than your opponent, and thus kill his men faster than he can kill yours. And as you kill his men, he has fewer to return fire with. Eventually he will be out of men or his line will break. Once his line breaks you can continue to volley fire into a retreating enemy and/or run his men down with cavalry.
If you read between the lines of US history, you'll discover that America did not begin to succeed in the war until late in the war when the troops had become better trained and disciplined.
As an aside, the slaughter of the Civil War and WW1 mainly resulted from a failure to recognize that the wide spread use of rifled muskets and minnie balls in the Civil War and smokeless powder in WW1 had completely destroyed the effectiveness of Napoleonic tactics. Technical innovations like the machine gun put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.
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Kevin Elliott <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ICQ#23758827
