Were the Americans ahead of the curve in terms of weaponry and

The Crimean war presaged many Civil War tactics, especially the sieges. The technological developments in the Civil War did put America ahead of everyone else for a brief period, though. The Brits would tell you the Warrior was superior to the Monitor, but many more Monitor-type vessels were built than transitional Ironclads like the Warrior. Additionally, cartridge rifles and repeaters were pioneered in the US.

Civil war sure did have some proto WW1 vibes didn't it? On the other side yeah I'd like to say we were ahead a little bit as far as weaponry and tactics.

>>31845325
Repeating (lever) and rapid fire guns were something the US led it. Everyone else caught up later.

>>31845325
For like two to five years if even that.

>>31845358
What about artillery wise? Both in tactics and ability. Did the Americans ever develop anything revolutionary for artillery?

What would it have looked like if the British Army went up against the Union Army in 1865?

>>31845404
The Union had excellent Rifled Breech-Loaders.

>>31845413
The post-Crimea British Army was a mess, while the Union Army in 1865 was a battle-hardened force with prevalent rifled artillery and repeating rifles.

It wouldn't be pretty.

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>>31846215

The post-war US military was composed of both the Union Army and the remnants of the Confederate Army; you could say it spent the Civil War testing new weapon systems on itself.

>>31845404
Yeah, primarily powder charges that didn't chain-explode and kill dozens of people at a time if you dropped one shell or jostled it slightly. European artillery was shit well into the 1900s and the stuff that wasn't was either back-engineered or given to them.

>>31846496

The Monitor was an entierly functional ship - and up close it looks cold and emotionless as the steel it was forged of.

>>31846538
I have the good fortune to have visited the Warrior. As much of a balls-out hooyah Navy patriot that I am, I'm pretty sure the Warrior would sink the Monitor handily, provided she didn't just swamp the Monitor with her wake or bow wave.

>>31846215
>The post-Crimea British Army was a mess
And what's the basis of this? I can't find anything remotely similar to what you posted anywhere

>>31845367
>>31845325
The united states has led small arms technology since its inception. If it wasn't actually doing so in 1784, it was certainly poised to do so by 1791 when the 2nd Amendment, The right to keep and bear arms, was ratified along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

>>31845416
Yeah larger scale industrial nature of the north led to this. That's what you get for growing an economy based on slave labor.

>>31845325
Subs, repeating rifles, trench and guerilla warfare pretty much but thats because European powers decided to ignore everything they had to learn because they were European and what the Americans did was of no interest. That thought process would lead to alot of death in the beginning of WWI.

The great war channel talks about it in one of their out of the trenches videos.

>>31846575
What about the french Lebel rifle, didn't the US have to catch up and upgrade to smokeless after the frogs changed the game?

>>31846215
>It wouldn't be pretty.
Not really...

Even if the Union hadn't been worn out by war fatigue, and assuming The South would join them, taking on the British Empire would have been a very tall order.

>>31846575
>it was certainly poised to do so by 1791 when the 2nd Amendment, The right to keep and bear arms, was ratified along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

I used that an essay against gun control, my argument was pretty much about how our private industry made us one of the biggest innovators and blah blah the best country in the world.

>>31846601
>Mle 1886 Lebel
>1886
>The Civil War ended in 1865
>What did he mean by this?

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>>31846601
I don't mean to say that The United States has been at the very forefront of development for the past 230 years, but we must certainly have captured the most "area under the curve".

To bring us back to the discussion in question; all things considered the United States was certainly ahead of the global curve when it came to small arms in the post-bellum period.

>>31846615
I did a 10 pager on how Prohibition was a catalyst for the advent of historical American Gun control in the 1930s with the NFA act.

The first federal Gun Control law was literally 1934.

>>31846557

It's more of a question on whether the guns the Warrior has on hand are capable of poking a hole through the Monitor or not - even if it can't, the Warrior still has far better mobility and can disengage at will.

For reference, the Monitor has 203 mm armor on its turret (curved to make it additionally harder to land a direct blow), 76-127 mm at the belt, and a "mere" 25 mm thick deck of wrought iron. The warrior is armed with RBL 7 inch Armstrong guns with a muzzle velocity of 1,100 feet per second (340 m/s) and maximum range of 3,500 yards (3,200 m), as well as the larger caliber smooth-bore, muzzle loaded 68-pounder of 1,579 feet per second (481 m/s) and rough range of <3,000 yards (2,700 m).

The HMS Warrior has 114 mm armor all around and an unarmored deck, compared to the Monitor's XI-inch Dahlgren shell gun with a range of 3650 (at 15° elevation) and variable velocity, with the only concrete numbers at the top of my head being 5.81 seconds of flight fired from an elevation of 5° at a range of 1,975 yards at maximum - not sure if a velocity can be gleaned from that type of information.

Any calculator-types out there able to make a guess at what range the Warrior would need to be to punch holes into the Monitor and possibly vice-versa?

>>31846467
How fucking aesthetic were the Confederates

>>31846834
They're wearing almost the exact same thing.

>>31846850
Nearly all of the uniforms looked the same save for color

>>31846467
Dude only has one leg ?

>>31847460
It's how he is standing. You can see part of his pant leg behind his left leg.

>>31847486
Ah yes thx

>>31847460
war is hell

>>31845325
The opening scene of Jules Vernes' "From The Earth To The Moon" is Europeans obsessedly discussing the innovations seen in the recent US Civil War.

The Civil War was pretty much what made Europe actually pay attention to us after 50 years of doing our own thing following the War of 1812.

>lol those backwards Americans
>oh shit, mass produced repeating rifles
>oh shit, self contained cartriges
>oh shit, trains
>oh shit, revolvers
>oh shit, breech loading canons that actually work
>oh shit, Gatling guns
>oh shit, ships made completely of steel with fully enclosed TURRETS

Franco Prussian War was in 1870 and the french and germans were using single shot bolt actions.

though the prussian was a needle.

crimean war was muskets, traps, and rolling/falling blocks.

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Dreyse Needle Rifle > Any standard-issue civil war era rifled musket

Although it wouldn't get a real test until the Franco-Prussian war.

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>>31848080
Wrong pic...

>>31848027
Thank you I was about to bring this up

>>31848080
And yet the Chassepot was superior. Also the Prussians had nothing like a mitrailleuse, or a Gatling gun. Additionally, they had no metallic cartridges.

>>31848080
Yuri Gagarin WAS the first man in space, stop trying to confuse me in the other thread

I'll stalk you across these lands if I have to

>>31848094
>the Chassepot was superior.

I should hope so; it came over 20 years later.

>>31848100
I was joking

Google "Yuri On Ice!!"

No, it does not have lesbians.

>>31848080
Those who could afford to carried lever guns at the time. Muskets were just general issue weapons.

From what I recall, the USA had machine guns, steel ships, trains, and repeating rifles during the Civil War. It was definitely an advanced war.

>>31848385
Agree , the US civil war by the end was WW1 lite. After WW1 the European's and Russian's caught up and were ahead by time WW2 started. The US played catch up for the rest of WW2 as far as general tactics and some weaponry.

The civil war was insanely revolutionary. Train timetable movement, gatling guns, they even sent guys up in observation balloons with telegraph wire so guys could morse code artillery strikes.

But the biggest futuristic evolution in the Civil War was the Battle of Fredericksburg. Trench warfare.

>>31848479
This speaks to war itself. War creates rapid advancement in technology, medical, logistics etc. The problem with America and war is after every one the US purges the armed forces. By the time the next war comes around things have to be re learned.

>>31848436
This is probably the most important thing to take away from the civil war. Weaponry of the ACW was essentially Mexican War V2.0 with the very notable exception of the rifled musket. Sure, both sides had repeaters and breech loaders, but the vast majority of weaponry on both sides was the muzzle loaded musket and muzzle loaded smoothbore and rifled artillery.

The Minie ball quadrupled the effective range of an average soldier with a muzzle loader. This was completely unprecedented, and unknown for those commanders who lead troops during the Mexican War. It took commanders on both sides a long, long time to realize the rifle was the dominant factor on the battlefield, and massed offensive formations were outdated. As we get into 1864 and 1865 we see the dominance of the defensive, and the first large scale trench networks that would dominate the European war.

You want to see the first modern battle? Siege of Petersburg could have pretty much been a dress rehearsal for the western front.

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>>31848529
Despite the theoretical increase in range, most firefights occured in smoothbore range, with causality percentages actually lower that equivalent European battles where all parties had smoothbore guns. The rifle wasn't the game changer in the war, it was the breech loader and repeater. The battle of chickamauga is a solid example, and the effectiveness of repeaters would increase as the war continued. However, they could not be said to have changed the course of the war, only portend things to come. In that sense the civil war was the transition between basically medieval wars and modern war.

T. Civil war firearm expert at a state museum

p.s. The middle rifle is an Enfield copy built by a Colt agent in new York between 1862-5. Only a thousand or so were made

>>31848529
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEcu7d4dvXg

Above all training is what mattered most.

>>31848348
Sharps rifles, falling block paper cartridge breech loading rifles.

They were being issued to cav and late war infantry.

>>31848658
There were some snipers as well, and brass-cartridge rifles like the Spencer saw some limited official Union service, especially in Cav.

The civil war was certainly one of the USs peaks of its pre-prominance.

The world had basically considered the US tobe the literally who at this time. They didn't have anything particularly spectacular going on, and just generally the US sat in its corner of the world and gathered sticks and trinkets and poked at things while Europe Europe'd at things.

Then the war came. The Civil War. And advisors and observes from dozens of nations watched in abject horror as the literally who of the world split in two, and raised a European sized army against another European sized army, and fought with outdated tactics that became incredibly modern and shockingly better than the Europeans with weapons that the Europeans either didnt have, hand just started to have, or couldn't have at all while manufacturing bases and war economies exploded in size as those literally who's killed themselves and burn their cities.

And then one giant was beaten and bloodied, the two reserved, and the giant went back to being literally who.

To Europe it was shocking. it would be like if that nerdy kid in your highschool who was just small land unassuming got flicked in the back of the head one day by some Chad, then turned around, picked up Chad, slammed him over his knee, in a triumphant roar, and then went back to drawing.

America had taken center stage by slitting its own throat, then it walked back stage and sat there for 30 years

30 years later it come about and guts Europe's sick man with a gigantic knife that everyone looks at and asks where the fuck the US just got that gigantic knife from.

Then it went back stage for about two decades, coming out just at the end of a gigantic fight and sallying it's enormous cock into the mouth of the world's former toughest guys while pointing gens at evening else and threatening to kill them all if they fuck with them, brokering the end of the fight, standing with its new found lime light and just sort of being there for awhile.

>>31845367
>Repeating (lever) and rapid fire guns were something the US led it. Everyone else caught up later.

The Prussians were ahead of the Americans. They adopted the Dreyse Needlegun in the 1830-40s and used it in 1948 to put down rebellions.

>>31848589

That is completely incorrect. Repeating rifles were not common whatsoever amongst the rank and file. Typically they were reserved for specialist units and cavalry. The vast vast majority of infantry on both sides used rifled muzzleloaders. There are some notable exceptions, as you described, of other weapons being used, but they did not largely effect the strategic picture.

When you look at the casuality figures of the Mexican war compared to the Civil War, the portion of casualties caused by the musket compared to bayonet, artillery etc skyrocketed. Strictly because the effective range quadrupled. What once was a 100 yard engagement range went up to 400 yards. It gave the defender an incredible advantage they didn't have in the age of the smoothbore musket.

There is a fantastic book I read some years ago in college specifically about the changes in weaponry from the Mexican War to the Civil War. For the life of me I can't remember it. I do remember it was a short book (less than 200 pg), had a blue cover, and was written by a since dead historian considered firmly in the "Lost Cause" school. It described pretty much all I just said in detail.

>>31845325
>Were the Americans ahead of the curve in terms of weaponry and tactics
A big no.

While you had shit like repeaters, revolvers, and the Gatling Gun, American tactics was ancient as fuck. Niggas were deployed along traditional early 19th century line battles n shiet while Europe was moving toward skirmish lines.

The USA didn't even have a standing army at the time. Just a tiny corp of professional soldiers attached by meme state volunteer militias, with some units that are even privately raised among neighborhoods and any individual with money. That shit is primitive as fuck.

To say nothing of USA's fucking navy at the time.

>>31848773
>To say nothing of USA's fucking navy at the time.
>First Ironsides and Submarines

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>>31848479
>But the biggest futuristic evolution in the Civil War was the Battle of Fredericksburg. Trench warfare.
>Trench Warfare.
>Futuristic
Fuck off with that noise. Trench Warfare is ancient as fuck and it is what happens when a siege gets under way ever since firearms became common weapons in the battlefield.

What happened in WWI Western Front wasn't futuristic. When they started digging trenches, it was a step backwards in the history of warfare as the cunts tried to figure out what to do with the deadlock.

>>31845404

Rifled artillery were pioneered in the US during this period as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlgren_gun#Dahlgren_rifled_guns

How frequently were repeating rifles used in the Civil War? Were they common?

>>31846575
>The united states has led small arms technology since its inception.

Bolt action rifles... krauts.
Smokeless powder... frogs.
Semi-automatic pistols... krauts again.
Semi-automatic rifles... beaners.
SMG's... krauts once again.
GPMG's... krauts.
Assault rifles... krauts.

>>31846589
>Subs, repeating rifles, trench and guerilla warfare pretty much but thats because European powers decided to ignore everything they had to learn because they were European and what the Americans did was of no interest. That thought process would lead to alot of death in the beginning of WWI.

Do you know what is funniest part of about ignoring the US civil war lessons in WWI... US ignored those and everything French and Bongs told 'em about early war mistakes when they entered war.

>>31848773
>Niggas were deployed along traditional early 19th century line battles n shiet while Europe was moving toward skirmish lines.

An example is the French, who fought the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. The French were victorious against the Austrians, who used rifled muskets, despite the fact that the French had smoothbore muskets. The French used aggressive skirmishing movement to make up for it.

>>31848806
>First Ironsides
Warrior of the British Navy says Hi. Not to mention that was old hat in Europe.
>Submarines
And what a major, mainstream, often-used weapon that hand powered sub was.

>>31848834
Bolt action rifles... AK47
Smokeless powder... AK47
Semi-automatic pistols... AK47 again.
Semi-automatic rifles... AK47.
SMG's... AK47 once again.
GPMG's... AK47.
Assault rifles... AR15.

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>Europe was at peace in the 19th Century and did not no how to fight modern wars :DDDD
Who teaches Americans this?

1840-1870s, Continental Europe had some war going on somewhere.

In addition if America indeed was so fucking ahead, why did all those whipped and afraid Asian countries like Thailand, Japan, and China hired only either French or German military advisors for their armies and sent engineers to Britain to study naval design? Same shit in Latin America. You rarely had people who cared for the opinions of contemporary USA. Maybe the Filipinos or something.

>>31849007
I think it's because they only go over what happened in the world briefly, everyone forgets.
In the end as with everything else you need to self study in America.

>>31848747
>This did not change the course of the war

Did I fucking stutter? They were rare, changed the game in a few engagements, but would be the status quo after the war.


Once again, theoretically, the rifle can reach further. In skirmish or light infantry, that's useful; to the point that rifles were first issued in mass to light infantry. But before the advent of smokeless powder, even a sub division of a brigade would produce too much smoke on their first volley to effectively target infantry at four hundred yards, to say nothing of the shooter's capability offhand and the environment of the eastern united states. Once again, casualty rates between comparable Napoleonic battles are identical or favor lower American rates. The idea that rifles caused the horrendous casualties of the civil war is a meme, some odd conflation of rare individual accomplishments (1,500 yard kill with a sharps rifle by Berdan's Sharpshooters) with the rank and file individual. Read reports on how awful the average infantry was at shooting to get an idea of how effective they'd be at four hundred yards

>>31848813
The lion's share went to the calvary, with some sharpshooting units also issued Spencers. Other than that, your average grunt could buy one if he had the cash or pick one up if he was lucky. Given that not everyone even got rifles during the war, repeaters were rare outside of specialist units

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>>31849007
>China
A Massachussets drunkard & mercenary called Frederick Townsend Ward created China's first modern army: the Ever Victorious Army. While the US & CSA fought the Civil War, our boy Ward was fighting Christian ISIS in China for the Emperor in the form of the Taiping Rebellion. He was given the honorific "Wa" (meaning "King", also an attempt by Chinese to pronounce his family name) and a post as Imperial Commander.

Though it was ill disciplined (Ward was never a soldier, he was a mercenary who fought in Mexico) and was kept in line more by the more disciplined European officers that were present in the army and Li Hongzhang, who was studying European military sciences at the time. Townsend was ultimately hired largely because he was the only white boy available in 1850s China. The ill-discpline of the corps proved fatal as Ward was killed by Taiping rebels in battle.

After the Taiping, only then did China hire Franco-Prussian advisors. Later dumping the French after 1871.

>>31846496
>modern flag
Triggered

>>31848738
Not sure exactly how accurate this is, but I like the analogy

>>31848125
are you sure
'cause I saw it on the charts and set up a rss feed because I thought it was about skating lesbians