Apparent complete absence of tactics during Civil War.

[Formerly Babra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by paullus:

It was not until the development of the tank, and tactics on its use (WWII & the panzers) that offensive power once again was on top.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would say it was the advent of Stosstruppen infantry tactics (infiltrate past main points of resistance and launch schwerepunkt at weaker sectors) which negated static defences. All the advent of armour achieved was to make exploitation faster, deeper, and thus have more strategic consequences. It also gave a new name to the tactics developed in 1917 - Blitzkrieg.

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It's a mother-beautiful bridge and it's gonna be THERE.

[Disaster]

Babra is correct. For a good example of this, read Rommel's 'Attacks' where he discusses good coordination and communication in infantry assaults, supported by machine guns and light artillery. At least according to him, he was one of the first to view machine guns as active support, rather than as fixed artillery. Unless he was being totally self-aggrandizing, his experience of fluid, dynamic attacks (flanking, feints and penetrating rushes through gaps) is quite a contrast to what was happening elsewhere on the western front. Well, I guess it helped that he was against the Italians most of the time.

[tss]

Disaster@work wrote:

Nice quote! I've heard the same thing applied to musketry in regards to its accuracy.

I tried to find the whole quote in Simplicissimus but I couldn't find it. Either I missed it (it was 1:30 am) or it was in some of his other books. However, Englund gives the quote in a slightly different form: "Whoever kills a pikeman, sheds innocent blood. And whoever gets a pike wound can blame only himself; who asked him to run straight at it."

I think at that time any type of wound at all was a serious risk to become lethal given the lack of professional medicine for soldiers.

Yes. In particular, one would have to be very lucky to survive a hit intestines. According to Englund, least serious were shallow punctures of cold weapons. However, deep punctures would usually infect and kill the wounded. A man could usually survive a sword slash if it didn't hit in a bad place. (Being repeatedly hacked on while running away is another matter).

All firearm hits were quite bad. The worst fate was to be hit by a cannonball. If it hit in torso, upper legs, or head, death was certain. A shot from a 6 lber traveling at 200 m/s had about 10 times more kinetic energy than a modern high-velocity AK-47 round and _much_ larger hit diameter. One could only survive a cannon hit if it hit on lower legs or arms and even then you would have to be lucky.

The next worst were grapeshots. They would usually kill outright if they hit in the torso, but there are reports of persons surviving. A person would not usually die immedietely from one musket hit, but would instead die from internal bleeding, infection, exposure, or by being stabbed to death by victors.

There are numerous records of persons that had been hit even to head but who still survived. One example was Swedish Georg Carl von Döbeln who served in Björneborg's Regiment (or "Porin rykmentti" as the rank and file called it, they were all Finns) who got a Russian shot in his forehead at Porrassalmi 1789. He survived but the wound never completely healed and he had to use a black headband for the rest of his life (though, that made him quite popular among the womenfolk) and he had severe headaches afterwards.

Yes, being hit was a nasty fate in pre-WWI battlefields but if you was hit by a musket your changes to survive, while still low, were much better than if you had been hit by a cannon.

- Tommi

[Sailor Malan]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

I hope you make the distinction between a line formation and line tactics.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, I do, hence the (bracket)in my post. Line formations are somewhat different to close order tactics

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Cavalry were important for exploiting breaks in the enemy's formations, for harassing, scouting and screening. Only truly desperate or stupid commanders would launch their heavies against a resolved body of troops. Rather, they would wait until the enemy was shaken and not as eager to meet the charge of a formed body of big guys on big animals waving big swords. As with many things in warfare, cavalry taking an active role on the field was due more to its morale effects than its actual lethality<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Indeed, but my point is that infantry achieved this ability to 'face off' cavalry, only by adopting close order tactics. The reason why the cavalry have such a morale effect is that the infantry know that if they break, or even get disordered, they are in trouble if any cavalry see them.

Once you have close order formations, you get the illusion that it's a case of lining up and blasting away (hence the start of this thread). In reality, there is as much tactical skill (although of a very different type) to use close order formations as there is in more modern wars. You try moving 500 men across a field shoulder to shoulder, and then reform on a flank, whilst retaining order! The penalties for getting it wrong are horrendous, as at Waterloo, when The Prince of Orange got a battalion destroyed when he ordered it across the front of a French cavalry unit he hadn't seen

Sorry for the continued debate, it is just that Napoleonic wars are (another) hobby of mine, along with complaining about Hollywood depictions! Still no CM though!

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The conception of such a plan was impossible for a man of Montgomery's innate caution...In fact, Montgomery's decision to mount the operation ...[Market Garden] was as startling as it would have been for an elderly and saintly Bishop suddenly to decide to take up safe breaking and begin on the Bank of England. (R.W.Thompson, Montgomery the Field Marshall)

[Sailor Malan]

Good question, I am not sure. I think that to get a crossbow of the same power as a longbow, or even a musket, you have to make the 'bow' very stiff, which makes it difficult to load. I would think that loading times would be slower than a musket due to the time it takes to cock it. Also the powerfull crossbows were made of Iron/steel, which must have made them expensive (spring steel or wrought iron is much harder to made than cast materials like gun barrels). It may well have been a combination of factors like that.

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The conception of such a plan was impossible for a man of Montgomery's innate caution...In fact, Montgomery's decision to mount the operation ...[Market Garden] was as startling as it would have been for an elderly and saintly Bishop suddenly to decide to take up safe breaking and begin on the Bank of England. (R.W.Thompson, Montgomery the Field Marshall)

[Disaster@work]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sailor Malan:

Indeed, but my point is that infantry achieved this ability to 'face off' cavalry, only by adopting close order tactics. The reason why the cavalry have such a morale effect is that the infantry know that if they break, or even get disordered, they are in trouble if any cavalry see them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Agreed. So it has been since the invention of cavalry. I love how history repeats itself in this regards. I wonder if the same can be said for infantry who hunker down and meet tanks with antitank weapons now instead of running in panic.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Once you have close order formations, you get the illusion that it's a case of lining up and blasting away (hence the start of this thread). In reality, there is as much tactical skill (although of a very different type) to use close order formations as there is in more modern wars. You try moving 500 men across a field shoulder to shoulder, and then reform on a flank, whilst retaining order!

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In total agreement.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Sorry for the continued debate, it is just that Napoleonic wars are (another) hobby of mine, along with complaining about Hollywood depictions! Still no CM though!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hollywood totally gets this wrong. Here is a list of movies I remember that cover 18th - 19th century warfare.

The Patriot: insultingly cartoony. Nice costumes, wasted.

Glory: good movie. Nothing really said about battlefield tactics as it concentrated on one regiment.

Gettysburg: Not a great movie but does have good scenes where the tactics do become apparent. i.e. at the Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge.

Waterloo (version with Christopher Plummer as Wellington): My memory is fuzzy about this but I remember that they do spend time at each well known juncture of the battle. Too bad it isn't available on DVD. I would like to see how it stands up against my memories of it.

Charge of the Light Brigade (version with Trevor Howard as Lord Cardigan): Takes a long time getting up to the critical charge, but they do follow the descriptions well and gives you an idea of how 'command' of that time worked. The actual scene of the charge is a wonderful depiction of a cavalry charge.

Can you think of any others I should see?

[DrD]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sailor Malan:

Indeed, but my point is that infantry achieved this ability to 'face off' cavalry, only by adopting close order tactics. The reason why the cavalry have such a morale effect is that the infantry know that if they break, or even get disordered, they are in trouble if any cavalry see them.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly! In fact, many historians believe that it was the rise of disciplined, trained infantry per se rather than any specific weaponry that led to the downfall of the knight. In fact it was the Swiss pikemen who were the first infantry to regularly beat knights back in the 14th century, even before Agincourt and Crecy.

Keegan in the introduction to The Face of Battle (an outstanding book BTW) discusses this. He believes that horses WILL NOT complete a charge if the infantry line holds as a horse at a good clip hitting such a line will be severely injured. Keegan has witnessed such behavior during the troubles in Ireland. British horseman charging Irish protesters stopped cold when they held their ground.

This is my favorite thread ever as I love this kind of history! Keep it up!

[Disaster@work]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DrD:

Exactly! In fact, many historians believe that it was the rise of disciplined, trained infantry per se rather than any specific weaponry that led to the downfall of the knight.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I love all this agreement. I tried to make this same point in a Slashdot debate a couple weeks ago when some fellow posited that it was technology rather than tactics that ended the knight's dominance on the field. I said that it was tactics (and brought up the Swiss cantons example as well as Dutch burgher defenses behind pits), economics and culture that did them in. If indeed it was technology (such as the longbow) why didn't the use of knights totally collapse after Crecy? Instead it happened again after decades at Agincourt. Time and time again the same people in charge (knights) drew the wrong conclusions about the way battles should be fought. Tally ho! and other such nonsense remained the dominant military thinking for centuries until they no longer were in charge.

Thanks for bringing up Keegan's book. I echo your recommendation. Those who want to know more, here's the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140048979/qid=963959149/sr=1-1/002-2864667-9511213

[Formerly Babra]

Just to throw things back a bit, I think most folks missed my reference to the comparison between casualties at Waterloo (1 day) and Gettysburg (3 days). The casualties were approximately equal, with approximately equal forces engaged. The short answer to this quizical factoid is that, despite the greater accuracy, killing power and loading times of the rifled musket with minie ball, tactics had CHANGED between 1815 and 1863.

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It's a mother-beautiful bridge and it's gonna be THERE.

[tss]

DrD wrote:

In fact it was the Swiss pikemen who were the first infantry to regularly beat knights back in the 14th century, even before Agincourt and Crecy.

I think I could give a few good book references for the minitary history of the 14th century:

Kelly DeVries: "Infantry Warfare in the Early 14th Century," ISBN-0-85115-5715

J.P.Verbruggen: "The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages", ISBN--0-85515-5707

The Verbruggen's book is a quite massive tome on all aspects of warfare of the period while DeVries's book is more analysis of a number of battles where the infantry played major role.

- Tommi

[Disaster]

Barbara Tuchman's popular history "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century" is an excellent and very readable look into the society at the time, especially concentrating on the noble. From her viewpoint, it was the mindset of the noble that caused many famous disasters such as Crecy and Adrianopole.