A quick question /k/ on the military tactics of the Napoleonic

The uniforms were bright colors because the smoke of all that black powder tended to make things hard to see, and added to the confusion that already exists in battle conditions.

Being able to maintain control and communications during a battle was well worth it.

>>29466137
Big line o guys is because of weapons available, and gun formations developing out of pike formations

>>29466137
and how would you manage such an army without modern radios?

>>29466151

Fair enough, but couldn't cohesion of the lines have still been maintained by lowering your silhouette and not having an allergic reaction to cover?

>>29466169
Drums, bro. And fifes. Everyone will learn like 4 songs, and when you hear a certain song (such as call to charge or retreat), then you do what the song tells you.

>>29466162

And what specifics of the technology of that era were influential here? Long loading times and heavy smoke, I do know about, but how do any of these force you to stand in very static very easy to hit formations? Now I understand that without proper radio communication completely scattering would have been hard, but I am talking about at least more personnel preserving way of actually not just standing like a tree.

>>29466184
with all the cannon and musket fire, you'd be lucky to hear your own thoughts.
>>29466173
Trenches and cover were used quite a bit actually.

>>29466173
Then you run into trouble reloading your musket. Volume or fire was considered very important. Skirmishes and riflemen would often use cover though.

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>>29466184

I feel like a complete retard now. I always figured the music was merely a way to keep morale up, never even hit me that it was a way to transmit orders.

>>29466184
you have small units spread around the battlefield

no one is going to hear shit

>>29466137
Rifles were too difficult to load to get a decent rate of fire, especially once the bore was fouled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihYnG1raB6A&list=PLmW_vcwM_qxvTqoBaHn7MjwVt_oCCr2vt&index=3

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>>29466195
Covers were used when they could be found.

Gun formations were big because they needed to sustain and concentrate fire even with the long reloading time they had.
There is always a line of soldiers ready to fire.

>>29466207
Drums are also good for measured step time. If you know the step length of your men and the beats per minute, you can roughly estimate distance you can march in a certain time.

>>29466137

>Smaller units using cover,
Cover was rarely available, but was certainly used when appropriate.

>actually going to ground while firing to minimize their silhouette would seem to have been a more advantageous approach.
Going prone makes it pretty much impossible to reload, in the smoke and noise of battle causes your unit to be uncontrollable by your officers, and makes it very easy for cavalry to just run you down.

Damn it, I really do spend too much time on /pol/ thank you /k/ I think I am starting to get the general picture.

>>29466227
Very interesting to actually see in real life the time it takes to load them. How dangerous were those rifles? In essence I remember a movie being shot here a few years back where they were recreating line formations and actually used gun-powder in the shoot, as far as I remember at least several people actually got injured by the guns malfunctioning on them.

>>29466268
Initially I wanted to say that although loading would be impossible, you would have at least been a lot safer during the firing, as well as increase the accuracy a bit, but I figure this would still come out inferior as jumping up and down would waste valuable time, which as can be seen in the provided video, was already quite strenuous.

>>29466195
A skirmish line is all very well and good, but you will soon cease to have a cohesive army once cavalry and shock action by other infantry get involved. Not to mention you can't hold a position like that. How are you going to stop an army just marching straight through you on their way to your cities? Sure, they'll take casaulties, but not enough.

>>29466195
>And what specifics of the technology of that era were influential here? Long loading times and heavy smoke, I do know about, but how do any of these force you to stand in very static very easy to hit formations?
Individual muskets have serious fucking accuracy problems well before the musket ball runs out of KE. Walls of musket fire remove that problem.

>>29466321

How bad were those accuracy problems?

>>29466329
The combination of a lack of rifling and undersized balls meant that accurate shots past 50m were unheard of.

Patching the ball tightly and the introduction of the minie and rifling solved this issue in the 1850s however.

>>29466347

It depends what you mean by accurate.
You can quite certainly hit a man at 50 yards.

>>29466347

50m? Shit, well ok then. That does sort of make my musings of hitting the ground completely useless. Rate of fire was indeed king of that time.

>>29466329
Pretty terrible, especially with poor training. Most muskets at the time didn't have sights. Not that you needed to, since your target was entire battalions of men. Dense formations were less about putting out masses of firepower ad more about all the other threats on the battlefield. After all, spreading out means getting hit less too.

>>29466360
Meaning dinner plate groupings, sorry for the lack of clarification in my post.
>>29466373
For standard line infantry it was, rifle units however were quite accurate but their rate of fire suffered quite a bit in a addition to lead fouling making the guns near unloadable after ~10 shots.

>>29466137
>Smaller units using cover, actually going to ground while firing to minimize their silhouette would seem to have been a more advantageous approach.
You just described voltigeurs/jaegers etc napoleon era troops.

Problem is that napoleon era guns have not enough firepower. So low density formation have not enough firepower to stop assault of tight formation they simply march through fire suck up casualties and then overrun you. Especially if it is cavalry. So troops were assembled in tight lines to have enough fire density to BTFO assault. But yeah troop in cover and lose formation would have favourable casualties exchange against tight formation in long range shooting combat. So both tactics had place. Skirmishers tried to inflict damage from range hiding in cover and when threated by assault they fall back under protection of their own line troops.

Napoleon era combat was not one-dimensional line marches.

Can you imagine for a few moment being in the mind of a soldier in the first line of a bataillon, facing the enemy, seeing them pointing their rifles at your general direction, but you are holding still waiting for your commander to order you to shoot.
And after that seing your line absorbing the shot over and over.

I think about it since a long time but can't figure out what make these guys holding the line like that.

>>29466137

Average soldier was armed with a smooth bore musket that wasn't that accurate. When you have a whole company of soldiers with muskets you're almost guaranteed to take out the enemy company.


Also I think in napoleonic warfare the genealogy tactic was to march, fire, reload, march, fire, reload until you got so close to the enemy that'd you haven't fix bayonets. All while being bombarded wth enemy artillery.


That happened alot in the civil war.

Tl;dr a whole lot of muskets were used to kill some people at range but most combat was hand to hand

>>29466513
Most of them were conscripts. They'd get shot for sure if they ran so they took their chances with the enemy. Plus the officer corps was made of noblemen so you had that angle on top of regular chain of command.

>>29466513
>but can't figure out what make these guys holding the line like that.
Zombification. Operant conditioning to follow any orders without any hesitation. You can see this in the core of military drilling.

>>29466557
might be a mix of that plus the fact that consctipt may never have seen war before so don't really know what's like to be shot

STILL campaign after campaign there were veteran corps rising up, and these guys know the shit (ex : napoleon old guard)

Great read:

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/infantry_tactics_4.htm#infantrycombatintroduction

>>29466513
They basically walked right up to just outside of effective fire range and exchanged shots. Everybody who ever wrote about it agrees that after the second or third volley you can't even see what you're aiming at. Heavy casualties were 30%, with the worst-hit units getting up to 50%. This is bad but not completely suicidal.

Officers walked a few paces ahead when advancing so if they actually got close enough to be easily mown down the unit wouldn't move forward. Only elite troops were actually expected to assault, it didn't happen often, and the usual outcome was either the assaulting unit losing its nerve or the target running away before reaching bayonet range.

>>29466329
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDzYshFmlXY

So while hitting a human sized target at 75m is reasonably possible (though as long as you use the ideal load), good luck doing the same at 150m.

>>29466137
Prone position only makes sense if a single man can sustain a decent rate of fire, or load his rifle from the prone position.

Line formations allowed them to maximize fire with their weapons.

>>29466137
Not at all. The weight of firepower and ability to actually control your men makes the large formations worth it. Plus, when you charge with the bayonet, the other guy is going to get fucked.

This of course completely ignores the fact that cavalry was still a thing, and worked closely with the infantry. Loose formations like that would get massacred by cavalry. Part of the reason for large formations was so they could defend against cavalry.

>>29466242
Not just drums, but just about any instrument. All music has a beat to it, unless you want to get into some pretentious artsy music.

>>29466513
What made a soldier hold the line was the belief that his side had the capability to bring enough firepower to win the fight, obviously he was constantly re-evaluating the situation and when he stopped believing that he would run away and this is what we call a rout, it happened all the time.

>>29466137
Great question! Napoleonic warfare is actually my favorite and I at one time wanted to teach it.

So, there are a large variety of factors that play into the standard napoleonic battle. I'll take you through the thought process in chino logical order of a battle.

On seeing the plane of battle, artillery was set up, and on set peice battles like borodino, fortifications were errected. You would then begin to manouver troops to attack.

Your standard fusilers were relatively poorly trained. They marched to battle in a large block, only to then deploy into line. This large block made it easier to command the men, as well as being much easier to manouver than your old school Fredrick the great manouver in line.

This made them easy prey to artillery, as a shot would bound through multiple ranks. But at the same time, made them highly resistant to cavalry charge because of easy manouver to square.

While your fusilers moved forward, skirmishes would harass the enemy. The key was harassment and an attempt to lower enemy morale, to the point that a large line formation arriving would further lower moral.

Now the most important part, tactically. Your line and the enemy line engage each other at distance. This allows your cavalry to role their flank, as they cannot move to square. Just the sight of a polish Lancer charging at you through the smoke made most lines fall. It was a game of fixing and flanking. The vast majority of casualties were caused by artillery. Cavalry didn't really hit home much, and a Bayonett charge simply caused the enemy to run.

>>29466137
OP Its because a smooth bore musket is inaccurate as fuck Riffles did not see large scale use till around the American civil war

>>29466137
One of the key factors here is that there was no radio communication or aerial survailence. You only know where your guys are when they have giant banners saying "WE ARE THIS UNIT. WE BELONG TO THIS FACTION. OUR UNIFORMS ARE BRIGHT YOUR COLOR"

Also, try reloading a musket in a prone position, tell me how it goes.

>>29466137
Because rifling was far too expensive for a major military to equip every man with a rifled weapon, and black powder muskets were incredibly inaccurate by modern standards. IIRC, the muskets used by the Grande Armee had a one in three chance of hitting a man sized target at ~40 yards. As a result, the idea became "throw a wall of lead to guarantee you hit something". Black powder was not smokeless, and after a while the clouds became so thick they obscured vision. Brightly colored uniforms helped make sure you could tell who was on your side.

Good thread maybe I spoke too soon

>>29466137
A big reason for this was the lack of rifling in rifles used at the time. Regardless of barrel length, the rifles were inaccurate due to their smooth bores, so these firing lines would rely on a volleying method. Which was pretty much firing as many shots as possible in close concentration to hopefully hit someone on the other side of the field. It wasn't until german immigrants in Kentucky cut grooves in the barrel to clean it better. This incidentally aided in a ballistics advantage, which rendered these firing groups useless with the development of the "Kentucky rifle"

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Bump with some paintings
>Russian Life Guards Cossacks

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>Waterloo

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>27k austrians surrender outside Ulm

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>crossing of the Berezina (napoleon lost 30k here alone; invading russia was not such a bright idea after all)

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>Battle of Smolensk

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>Saragossa

A big thing people tend to ignore is the impact artillery had on tactics.

The tercios that dominated early gunpowder warfare stopped being practical once field artillery became a potent weapon. As early as White Mountain in 1620, you had the first signs of it - deep formations were very vulnerable to even basic cannons firing solid shot. Rocroi would cement this, bringing about the end of the Tercio.

However, you still needed men to group together to fend of cavalry. The general idea with Napoleonic line tactics was that you have enough men grouped together to not just provide adequate volume of fire, but fend off enemy cavalry. However, lines were comparatively thin to lessen the impact of artillery.

And artillery's probably the biggest reason we stopped seeing the Napoleonic linear warfare towards the end of the 1800s. Big field guns lobbing high explosive were finally able to do enough damage that the Napoleonic-style line was no longer feasible.

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>Saragossa 2

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>wagram

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>"Whether it be in the palaces or on the ruins,
Europe will sleep tonight at Paris." Tzar Alexander

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>>29470134
>A big reason for this was the lack of rifling in rifles used at the time. Regardless of barrel length, the rifles were inaccurate due to their smooth bores, so these firing lines would rely on a volleying method. Which was pretty much firing as many shots as possible in close concentration to hopefully hit someone on the other side of the field. It wasn't until german immigrants in Kentucky cut grooves in the barrel to clean it better. This incidentally aided in a ballistics advantage, which rendered these firing groups useless with the development of the "Kentucky rifle"
Actually, rifling had been around since the 15th century. See this pic for example. It's a German wheellock arquebus; one can also see that it has a rear and front sight. It was used mostly for hunting weapons though since it made the weapons much more expensive and harder to reload. The people who made them also understood fairly well about the ballistic advantages of rifling. For military use, it was mostly applied to light infantry units, which in German speaking areas were called "Jäger" (hunter), since they recruited from local hunters and woodsmen who were good shots with their weapons. They would usually fight as skirmishers, take a few shots from out of range of the enemy muskets and then withdraw. These rifled muskets they used were called "rifles". A smoothbore "rifle" does not exist and smoothbore muskets are usually just called "muskets".

>>29471443
I may add that the weapon seen in the picture is from the 16th century though. Still quite a bit earlier than Napoleonic muskets and rifles though.

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>largest battle ever fought in europe until WW1

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>>29471481

>>29471443
>A smoothbore "rifle" does not exist
Wellll.... yeah, but there were these rifle-bore smoothbores in like .30 and .40 caliber that poor frontiersmen could afford that they *called* smoothbore rifles. Which was undoubtedly mistaken on their part. And yet... there they is.

>>29466137
>No radios
>Smoke everywhere
>Noise everywhere
>Muskets fouled up after a while, so being able to replace units with those with clean barrels is a good thing (as mentioned in Vom Kriege)
>Small units wouldn't be able to hold against larger ones due to the one thing America never figured out, the bayonet charge.
>Muskets aren't that accurate at long range, so volley-fire is the most efficient way of killing the enemy
>Skirmishers can't hold ground

>>29471604
I forgot to add:
>Cavalry would ride down small groups of infantry, infantry squares required quite a lot of men to be an effective deterrent/to effectively fight off cavalry.

>>29466137
Because it maximizes your firepower. Skirmishers can harass and pin down line infantry, but if push comes to shove, line infantry will run over skirmishers if they don't GTFO.

Artillery ranges were limited, so you couldn't focus your entire artillery park on one point, so it didn't turn into the Civil War, where artillery prevented any real maneuver.

>>29471329
that and you know machine guns

>>29472114
That sure as shit helped, but you see the shift away from the dense Napoleonic lines years before machineguns became a thing. The Franco-Prussian War was the first instance I know of off the top of my head where the shift towards skirmish lines happens.