Alexander the Greats formations comes to mind.Kmarion wrote:
It goes back long before that time. The Romans, Greeks, and French mastered it as well. The American militia took a different approach.
They fought as if they were hunting.deeznutz1245 wrote:
The Iroquois League-- Mohegan, Connecticut, Pequot, Algonquin, etc.. fought beside the English in the French and Indian War. They tought them cover and concealment and how to apply it to warfare. The officers took it serious because of all the casualties their brigades had suffered from ambushes and what not. Actually it is a fact that when the Indians attacked the Citadel they stuffed rags in their mouths while scaling the cliffs at night, to ensure that if they fell their screams would not be heard and ruined the war party's element of surprise. Quite impressive that the Natives, the supposidly "primative" people, revolutionized warfare globaly as we know it.
Range of weapons, and not getting new tactics, kinda like medieval ages. But for some part of the revolution, American Revolutionaries hid in trees and started flanking the Brits for a while.usmarine2007 wrote:
I was just watching some Revolutionary War stuff, and something made me think.
First: WTF were the British and the Americans thinking? Stand in a big line and shoot at each other. Brilliant.
Second: When did those tactics change exactly?
A pretty good summary here, so things I would add but I too tired...paranoid101 wrote:
That was the tactic of the day, mass volley fire and even when they were only about 50ft away from each other, a load of the shots would still miss, solders were trained to stand shoulder to shoulder, it really was the only way to get kills with the smooth-bore musket, the British at the time were using the Brown Bess musket and could normally shoot 3 rounds a minute if not 4, most other army's of the time could mostly only manage two.
Now I know the British lost the Revolutionary war, but to begin with the American forces were having a lot of trouble fighting the British at the beginning of the war, because they were using the same tactics, I think it was taught to them by the french and they were being out shot, but that said near the end of the Revolutionary war when Britain was losing this was mainly because of the distance involed for surpplys, men, etc and a change to American Tactic, they used alot more gorilla tactics like hitting supply lines, reinforcing troops.... etc, so when the final battles came the British were that weaken they couldn't stand so loss the war.
As for the tactics changing, well I can't speak for the Americans, But I know they were still using the tactic during the civil war, but the British started to change tactics around the time of the Zulu wars around 1879, with the introduction of the martini henry rifle, which was no longer a smooth-bore musket, but a proper rifle with rifling and a cartridge bullet (still using Black powder), this meant they were a lot more accurate and the need for mass lines of men firing volley shots were not need anymore.
Also finally when the Boar war started in South Africa in 1899 the British finally got away from wearing the red coat and changed to a light brown jacket, this was because of the improvement in accuracy in rifles and standing out like a sore thumb in the red jacket.
Last edited by Blehm98 (2007-03-03 20:39:38)
Im sorry, even if the Nazis won and all that, I would never resort to suicide attacks against innoccent civilians.pirana6 wrote:
To add to paranoid101:
Near the end the Americans would start guerrilla tactics (as previously stated) and do things like hiding in bushes or behind rocks and ambushing the enemy when they weren't ready. When they did this they were known as "terrorists" and were called cowards for not standing in a long line and getting shot. Of course, now this seems like the normal way to fight and is practiced by probably every army around the world. Now the word "terrorists" is used to call someone who straps a bomb to himself and blows himself up along with 20 others, or someone who puts a bomb by the side of the road in some garbage and blows it up whenever he wants in order to kill his enemy and not himself. Imagine if the Nazi's had won WWII and controled the world. Would you rather go in and attack several of them with some friends and risk certain death or would you rather just blow them up when they drove down the street and not hurt yourself at all.
Just a brief history of terrorism and what it actually means.
Think before you call them "cowards". Because wouldn't you do the same thing.
Last edited by r2zoo (2007-03-03 20:40:00)
I know. But it is better to miss behind a rock or a tree than in the middle of a field.-=]NS[=-Eagle wrote:
My military history teacher said that 1 in every thousand shots hit someone, the muskets and rifles were not that accurate.
mostly they lost because france somehow managed to crush the british navy, and tie what was left of it up defending the homeland.paranoid101 wrote:
That was the tactic of the day, mass volley fire and even when they were only about 50ft away from each other, a load of the shots would still miss, solders were trained to stand shoulder to shoulder, it really was the only way to get kills with the smooth-bore musket, the British at the time were using the Brown Bess musket and could normally shoot 3 rounds a minute if not 4, most other army's of the time could mostly only manage two.
Now I know the British lost the Revolutionary war, but to begin with the American forces were having a lot of trouble fighting the British at the beginning of the war, because they were using the same tactics, I think it was taught to them by the french and they were being out shot, but that said near the end of the Revolutionary war when Britain was losing this was mainly because of the distance involed for surpplys, men, etc and a change to American Tactic, they used alot more gorilla tactics like hitting supply lines, reinforcing troops.... etc, so when the final battles came the British were that weaken they couldn't stand so loss the war.
As for the tactics changing, well I can't speak for the Americans, But I know they were still using the tactic during the civil war, but the British started to change tactics around the time of the Zulu wars around 1879, with the introduction of the martini henry rifle, which was no longer a smooth-bore musket, but a proper rifle with rifling and a cartridge bullet (still using Black powder), this meant they were a lot more accurate and the need for mass lines of men firing volley shots were not need anymore.
Also finally when the Boar war started in South Africa in 1899 the British finally got away from wearing the red coat and changed to a light brown jacket, this was because of the improvement in accuracy in rifles and standing out like a sore thumb in the red jacket.