>hey guys, let's stand in a line and shoot and those

>>34142930
They did build trenches in the civil war.

i don't know if this is a troll thread so good bait

formations allow you to move large numbers of guns. that's what they are, there's nothing more to it. do you think you are the first in 300 years to think why haha

>>34142930
Line warfare like that stopped shortly after napoleon. Continental army realized it was getting wrecked in the rev war and switched to guerilla warfare.

>>34142951
Maybe in a few skirmishes but the vast majority of the time it was retarded lines just mowing each other down

>>34142965
Nigger what? Napoleonic combat was post Revolutionary war, and people still rely on linear warfare in the civil war.

>>34142965
>>34142930
>Line warfare like that stopped shortly after napoleon. Continental army realized it was getting wrecked in the rev war and switched to guerilla warfare.
C'mon /k/ you're better than this.
1) Napoleon was long after the revolutionary war
2) When possible the US army did assemble in line and it was more effective in a pitched battle than being disorganized
3) This was done partially to prevent desertion
4) The idea was that guns were so inaccurate you could have better effect by grouping them together
5) Very few of the many generals who did line combat were stupid.

>>34142975
Those "retarded" lines are also massively effective at killing shit.

Skirmishers only become viable when better guns become a thing.

>>34142995
>better guns
also, we're beyond field cannons now and entering large artillery. the gatling and shit like this did not push the armies into trenches. it was artillery, and it is still king.

>>34142987
>>34142965
>concept of shoot from cover
>gorilla warfare

Wish American schools would stop teaching this bullshit. Guerilla warfare is more political in nature seeing as it defined by involving non-state actors.

>>34142987
So basically you're telling me that pre 1900 the armies were so disorganized and desertion prone that just lining up your men and letting them get mowed down was easier than developing an actual plan to win battles?

>>34143099

Yeah, kind of. One other major reason lines were a thing was because of limited communications: before the advent of the radio and battlefield telephone, it was hard for seperate units to talk to each other.

>>34143120
Jeez seems like an awful waste of life. Wonder how many good men were mowed down in such a stupid fashion

>>34142975
formations are much more than firing lines. they let the generals perform complicated action in the course of battle. think of how important this is- how do you feign retreat, collapse, encircle- maintaining ranks and reacting wins battles, and it's a numbers game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws

the massive blunders share an issue with communication. you can't independently command up to 30k troops, or expect semi-independent elements to react to the big picture as you need them to. a lot of battles do have large force movements from within the army, and so there rose the specialist ranks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenadier

what changes it most is artillery. the dynamic shifted massively in favor of entrenchments. there was little or no chance to make encirclement, and the ground you took you either held and advanced or received punishing shells from the next line.

>>34143099
Yeah, they aren't smart as you, my fellow anon.

you think they would at least command them all to kneel or shoot prone. You all remember the shit in the old movies when they were fighting injuns and a line of muskets fired but the Indians were waiting and all dropped to the ground? Funny shit

>>34143146
You know they do kneel right?

Shooting prone is stupid because you are supposed to stand up and march again quickly.

>>34143161
I meant command the entire formation to kneel if they are going to stop and fire anyway, not just the front guys, I dont really know what im talking about though

>>34143146
but you compare two radically different forces my dude

the indian's largest successes were small unit ambush on a well formed army. they used surprise. it is hard to surprise when you march 200 men, haha. have you ever heard this many boots in life? it is loud, 400 feet crunching rocks with the gear to push them forward

>>34143173
That doesn't improve efficiency, the whole point of kneeling is to get the 2nd row to fire too.

>>34142930
>All it would've taken back then to win a war was to build some sort of fortification or trench and fire at the other side's retards just standing in a perfect line waiting to be picked off.

These were real wars and those other guys were after their shit.
If they dug in, they could simply go around them with the cavalry held back in reserve to fuck up them should they ever decide the trench is no longer comfy and those burning villages might need help.

>>34142930
Skirmishers existed in the age of line battle. It was a way of both getting a mass of firepower, holding your men together, and command and control (think of how shitty and confusing it was where everything was filled with smoke and nobody can hear).

If they were all in skirmisher formation, they would get run down by cavalry or forced from the field by superior firepower.


Line battle tactics throughout the ages are always very fascinating. Like the Swedes who would sprint into battle, let the enemy do their own thing, blow their load at 20 yards, then run in with pike and sword in the ranks among the rifleman's bayonet.

>>34143199
This, some armies of line warfare were based totally on the bayonet, as in rushing in with bayonet to scare away the opposition thus taking the terrain.

The gun only serves as precursor. And shooting muskets generate a lot of smoke, serving as screen to protect the group from skirmisher fire.

>>34143099
How the hell do you propose to be able to move and direct large numbers of men in an organized way that can respond effectively to changes in a battle situation with only things like drums, flags, and bugles without drilling them to fight in formation?

Remember also that the primary weapon of the time was the Brown Bess or another smoothbore musket like it. These are guns that take several minutes to reload after each shot and have an effective range of maybe 75-100 yards on a good day.

>but muh skirmishers, muh guerilla tactics!

The Continental Army actually became MORE effective when they learned to fight in a European way courtesy of von Steuben, because it allowed them to actually be able to hold ground. The real reason why the British were ultimately defeated was because the number of troops they deployed was completely insufficient to be able to subdue a country the size of America (~30,000 tops) AND because they were fighting across an ocean in the fucking Age of Sail.

>>34143191
speed is key to these wars. they're fighting tired supply lines, the seasons and winter, disease and hunger, attrition. you had to light a fire and go with the army. look at how successful khan was at striking whole regions. it was speed. before the enemy could form an army, and because there was no central command, they could just ride as fast as the news could to the next poor bastard, gave them days to weeks to react

a well marched army also let them marshal quicker. little shit adds up to big wins
HIGH
ENERGY

>>34142930
Hold on anon let me just radio orders to my men in 1815

>>34143224
Whilst simultaneously fighting off the French and the Spanish.

>>34143188
I don't mean kneel for accuracy but to be smaller target

>>34143233
>pigeon lands
>clears his service pistol
>explains the river problem

>>34143253
The smoke generates from each fire already serves as screen to protect the group for a minute or two.

It's more important to kill enemy fast than to dodge enemy fire.

>>34143253
i'm trying to imagine a column of musketeers try to dodge bullets as they advance, like george bro i'm zig zagging and then they all start

>>34143284
>>34143284
and while we are talking about my stupid fucking ideas why didnt they just give the front rank some metal shields

>>34142930
Historical casualty rates defy the accuracy of the weapons, most shots never occured, were faked in the line, or were aimed over the enemy's heads.

>>34142930
Muskets suck.

What they lack in accuracy and range, you need to make up for in volume of fire.

>>34143301
Takes two hands to fire and reload a musket.

>>34142930
>Seriously, why were armies of the pre WWI era so stupid?

not stupid really they just formed tactics around what they were given. smoothbore rifles are shit so use mass amounts of guns all firing at the same time to increase hit probability. it also made commanding troops easier. line formations basically died once artillery tech went nuts.

>>34142930
because it worked against people that didn't do line battle formations

>>34143301
that was tried in a few ways, but it's also very heavy to move iron this thick over long distances. it could be done if they were defending locally and could move it quickly sure

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>>34143301

They tried that. Many times, especially in WWI. The shields reduced the speed of progression so much it was found better to ditch them. Same as the fucks who want to armor our boys today enough to survive a sniper rifle; you could technically do that, but what you get is a man who is too burdened to do anything useful.

>>34142930
Guns were not exactly accurate and massed volleys were still the thing because muh traditional warfare. Even if you did into cover most guns were still muzzle loaders meaning you usually had to stand to load them. So instead of relying on cover they relied on putting a fuckton of bullets down range. On the bright side widespread rifle use allowed the lines to stand farther away but loading times were longer and they were still fairly inaccurate. If you've ever tried to quickly load a percussion cap muzzle loading rifle you know it's not exactly fast or the easiest thing in the universe. Now imagine trying to do that while artillery and the other side's volleys are coming at you.

Where things start to change is when bolt actions and other relatively accurate and reliable multi-shot rifles started seeing widespread use. You could no longer afford to just stand there and load and you no longer needed to stand up to reload the gun and chamber another shot.

>>34143191
>>34143228
This. There were plenty of sieges and fortifications in those days. Sometimes they even formed actual lines of fortifications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lines_of_Torres_Vedras
It just doesn't work very well with maneuver warfare and the logistical situation at the time.

>>34143430
Most used a double line. The front line fired when commanded while the rear line (5-10 ft behind) reloaded. It isn't without pressure, but it helped reloading time.

Cheap, widespread barrel rifling and multi shot rifles were the game changers.

>>34143465
Only issue is the other guys are probably doing it too.

the orcs used suicide bombers to break their ranks

>>34142975
>maybe in a few skirmishes
What is the Siege of Petersburg for 500?

>inb4 oh it wasn't a big deal
-70k casualties
-Finished off the shatter of what remained of the South's veteran and experienced troops
-was the beta for WWI

>>34142930
They didn't actually fight like that, save for a few instances where an enemy force was moving towards a town surrounded by open fields, and the other force didn't want the fighting to take place within the town. That only happened when they didn't have time to make fortifications (such as trenches, which were very much a thing in the civil war).

The reason there's a misconception about how musket warfare took place is because reenactments are lazy and want to make the fighting more of a spectacle. You can't have an audience watching you fight in the forest or in a trench line.

Same applied during the revolutionary war. Human instinct to hide when small cannonballs are flying at you didn't just go out the window just because it was the 1700's. Except the British and French actually were retarded and stood in firing lines during the first implementation of firearms, that's because they thought it would be like archery lines (which were protected by infantry lines). They got their asses handed to them enough to realize that wasn't a good idea.

>>34142930
>Seriously, why were armies of the pre WWI era so stupid?
didnt read thread; warfare wasnt like that; kys anyone who replied as if it was

>>34143672
>Except the British and French actually were retarded and stood in firing lines during the first implementation of firearms, that's because they thought it would be like archery lines (which were protected by infantry lines). They got their asses handed to them enough to realize that wasn't a good idea.
What the fuck?

>>34143735
Teach me how it actually, anon-san.

>>34143224
We have a winner.

>>34143750
people understood things like cover and fortification and flanking well before the existence of gunpowder, let alone after longbows and crossbows started dominating battlefields in the old world (in the middle ages)

>>34143772
Which explains thing like tercio and pike square am I right?

Why don't they just build a fort in the middle of the battlefield?

>>34143783
well thats what you have guys with big shields and pointy sticks for

which is why the romans did what they did, but also why that sort of thing fell out of favor in favor of siege warfare with long range weapons vs castles and most engagements being decided by long range attacks (bows then, airstrikes and arty/cruise missiles now) and sneak attacks (night fighting then, gorilla warfare now) being waged against static strategic assets like water treatment plants and factories and airfields and ports rather than just "we control the capital because we fought the guard at parliament with swords at noon and won, so we control the country now"

>>34143794
Tercio didn't have big shields, huge pikes yet, no big shield.

Also, the roman shielded formation is to counter arrow, not for actual combat.

>Why were people so stupid
>Clearly I several hundred years later have a far better grasp on how things actually were

>>34143672
>>34143794
Please learn how to form both arguments and sentences before you continue posting.

>>34143812
It's just ignorant ass americans who watch the Patriots and think they are smart.

Never mind that their grand-grand fathers fought in linear tactics well into the civil war.

>>34142930
Read up on the Revolutionary Wars.

The French Revolutionary Army (bunch of 13-30 y.o. Frenchmen with no shoes, uniforms, food, or resources) btfo'd invading forces from the entire Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Prussians, Russians, British, Spanish, Portuguese, and the Dutch, all in a span of about 10 years. I'll paste a good write-up on the subject.

contd.

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>>34143854
All men between the ages of 18 and 25 were to be forcibly conscripted for military service -- all men. Men into their 30's would also regularly volunteer or be called upon as well though. If you were fighting your first few years in the military would be one of utter disorganization and panic. Revolutionary hype would be ripe and you and your comrades would feel it. Any officers living a little too luxuriously? Mob them and send them to the guillotine. Your NCO being a little too harsh on you and your mates? That doesn't sound like liberty or fraternity, I don't like being drilled! You'd probably be part of a mob that killed him or stripped him of his power. It is very likely you would be witness or a participant in the murder of an individual whose only crime was being a bit rich, an aristocratic heritage, or was being a bit too strict with you.

Where you fought doesn't really matter, your life would be hell. Supply issues were rampant as the Royal Armies rather sophisticated supply system would be sacked entirely for being part of the old system. A new administrative service would be created which had a semi-independent status, its commissaires-ordonnateurs only responsible to the Republic itself and not the commanders it served. These men, responsible for collecting, storing, preparing, and issuing foodstuffs and clothing along with disbursing money were filled with endless opportunities of larceny. Supplies and cash would frequently vanish before reaching the troops going into the pockets of Revolutionary leaders in Paris. Vincentius Zahn, a pastor in Hinterzarten, watched a French army pass through in 1796 which would be about when the supply issue began to stabilize. So this is the best case scenario you're about to read:

>>34143864
"One did not see [compared to the Austrian army] so many wagons or so much baggage, such elegant cavalry, or any infantry officers on horseback below the grade of major. [Austrian infantry lieutenants had their own mounts] Everything about these Frenchman was supple and light -- movements, clothing, arms, and baggage, In their ranks marched boys of fourteen and fifteen; the greater part of their infantry was without uniforms, shoes, money, and apparently lacking all organization, if one were to judge by appearances alone. . . These French resembled a savage horde [but] they kept good order, only some marauders who followed the army at a distance . . . terrified the inhabitants."

You had no shoes most certainly. The Directory in '95 had to pass a special order just to give all the Officers their own shoes and even that wasn't filled out entirely. Your uniform was nonexistent as is mentioned but just a loose collection of tattered blue or white with the French tricolor somewhere on it if you could manage. You had no regular supply of food from the country itself but had to survive off of war. Most early campaigns you would fight in would not be explicit offensives but 'liberating' nearby towns across the Rhine or in North Italy for supplies. Soldiers had no issue foraging on their own French lands as well. If you were a conscript you would most likely abandon your men while marching through familiar land. Many Divisions would lose half their men on extended marches through attrition and desertion alone.

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>>34143870
Artillery and cavalry was restricted mostly to pre-war soldiers who had the training and knowledge to perform those duties. If you were conscripted you were almost certainly put into one of two areas -- light infantry or regular infantry. Tirailleur and Fusilier respectively. Assuming you did not desert after being thrown into one of these two sections you would get two very separate combat experiences. The post-Revolutionary army was very fond of skirmisher forces for some inexplicable reason. I say that mainly because inexperienced troops are very poor skirmishers. They generally aren't crack shots and flee at the slightest sign of trouble. Yet whole battalions were frequently deployed as entirely skirmishers, a tactic dubbed "tirailleur en grandes bandes." If you were part of a skirmisher force you would likely not be thrown directly into the fray. You would be sent on small scale raiding 'missions' with a small number of other skirmisher comrades and an officer as a sort of training exercise. You would raid storage caches or small villages so that you would get used to being under fire in a more controlled environment for your officer to control you. As you would go into battle against a formal Austrian, British, Italian or Prussian army your duty would be constant harassment.

If you were thrown into the fusiliers you would be heavily drilled about formation. The common trope about Napoleonic warfare are two sides standing in line formation staring each other down 50-100 yards apart and shooting at each other. This is a shitty strategy for the French, pardon my French.

>>34143876
Line formation is inefficient for untrained conscripts because, like a phalanx, it requires holding formation and firing in concert -- two things conscripts will not be capable of doing on a few weeks of training under heavy fire. The French military doctrine of this time was one of constant attack -- always being on the offensive. It was the only way they would abuse their manpower advantage. You would be organized into a column of just a few men wide and dozens of men deep. You likely would not fire your weapon once or just once in a battle, as you were charging at full sprint into the enemy line. That is what the column provided -- it gave depth to the line, did not require a lot of organization, and was only used as a formality to charge into shattered and notably thin lines of the enemy. British, Austrian, Italian and Prussian troops were professional armies and would fight in that line formation. It would not stand up to constant column charges.

How would a normal battle go? Well, again, it depended on your position in the army. Again you were most certainly in the infantry if you were just a farmer. Let's imagine it from the enemies shoes. Swarms of skirmishers would begin to envelop your tight, strictly dressed formations firing from cover in completely disorderly formations. When I say swarm, we're talking 2:1 or 3:1 ratios at times. If you stand still, you will be continuously picked off. If you try to fire on them, you will only hit a few as they were extremely scattered. If you tried to charge them they would drift away, still shooting, and follow you when you try to fall back into your strictly disciplined line.

Eventually your line would be in tatters you, a Brit or Austrian alike, would look up across the horizon. Out of the smoke comes a howling, trampling, massive rush of thousands of men with bayonets extended with the weight of 12 men against every yard of your exhausted line (which were only 3 deep when it all began).

>>34143885
Your professional, organized, and chivalrous armies would try their best but they would keep running into issues. A French NCO who was completely outnumbered and outmaneuvered that just failed to recognize his hopeless situation and charged anyway, killing thousands in a last stand. Inexperienced French officers who would show a shocking disregard of accepted military strategy and turn every engagement into a mindless, all out slugfest where fancy tactics and strategy of the non-Revolutionary sides meant nothing and would buckle under the weight of thousands of Frenchmen bearing down on them.

Back to the French perspective. Let's say, somehow, you survive all of this. It's not unreasonable, many did. You did not get poked with a bayonet or shot in a charge or desert your men or didn't get caught hoarding anything. You survived the '90's into 1799 when the Directory would fall. A hundred battles would harrow you. You would time and time again throw the English and Austrians back in particular. What many tens of thousands died of combat many more would die of your governments incompetence. The patriotic enthusiasm you held in '91 seemed immature and stupid to the ragged veterans of 1799. The bands would play the patriotic airs of those first years of revolution -- Chant du Départ, Ah ça Ira, and the Marseillaise.

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>>34143891
The bands would play and you would sing, but they would mean nothing to you. You were a professional soldier in a professional army now. You, who fought out of pride and comradeship in '91 had spent the last decade learning to loot and murder to survive and would hold little reverence for any person or any idea and especially for that damn Revolution. Your Generals would be a wolf-breed, disrespectful of authority and independent minded. All of you, officers and men together, were survivors. Men of steel, toughened to all the hardship and conditions of the worst wars in history up to that point, thoroughly fed up with the gros-ventres -- big bellies -- of the Revolutionary government in Paris who had used and abused you. You had won dozens of victories and thrown the entirety of Europe onto its backfoot but you had no peace, no shoes, and not a square meal in nearly 10 years. It was this army that would make Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul at the beginning of the 19th century. And this army was comprised of you, dangerous metal which would be forged into the Grand Armée -- the greatest military force the world would ever see.

>>34143854
TLDR:
The Revolutionary Armies early on would conscript basically everyone and the more professional, more 'efficient' European armies would simply be overwhelmed. Maneuver and tactics went out the window when you have 3x as many people swarming down on you all shooting wildly into your formation and charging into you, disregarding all casualties. Sheer force of numbers would push the primarily Austrians and British back and allow the French to get early territorial gains in the 1792-1797 First Coalition War.

By the time of the Second Coalition War between 1798-1802, the goal was not to reinstate the Monarchy but to just at least contain the French from taking more land and at best taking back some of what they gained. Despite getting many early victories with the help of the Russians, they would eventually back out and the British and Austrians primarily would face the reality -- Napoleon was now in charge and was the military genius he is. At his feet lay a military which had been fighting for a decade straight, easily the most experienced and battle hardened group in Europe. As the rest of Europe was playing catch up with the idea of mass conscripted armies, France had perfected it over the past decade of failure and death and had a horrifying combination -- an experienced conscript army led by arguably the most talented general in history. This would allow them to wage multiple wars of aggression throughout the early 19th century and convincingly win them and conquer most of Europe.

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>>34143896
>>34143891
>>34143885
>>34143876
>>34143870
>>34143864
>>34143854
>>34143904
>>34143896
excellent write up anon. I'll cap it

>>34142930

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdM44rovn6c

This, more or less.

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>>34143904

>>34143904

Until they started losing but that's later on due to not being able to hold territory and skimping lots of administration tasks and logistics. Win battles, lose the war and all that jazz. Just took a while.

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>>34143904
other then inertia Is there a reason the grande armee kept the same tactics of columns ands scouts/skirmisher even after they attained veteran status and the ability to do things like lines.

>>34142930
Are you that dumb? They used muskets that fired one bullet.... those guns were barely accurate out to 25-50 meters. There is a lot more killing power in a glob of bullets than being spread out and missing half your shots. Standing in a line like that maximized the killing power for both sides. When a mass of bullets are going at your enemy, it's a lot harder to avoid getting hit. Modern guns are a lot more accurate and a lot quicker, it's much easier for one guy to take out 30 dudes without reloading than it is for one guy to take out 30 dudes with a musket, taking a minute to reload at least. Every shot...

>>34142930
>>34143969 me

To add to that, they didn't have enough time our resources to train every induvidual in tactics and firing accurately. A lot of soldiers were just trained in commands and to point in a general direction and fire.

>>34143955
>>34143958
>>34143966
nice ty
>>34143963
Napoleon's conquest with the Grande Armee is considered separate from the Revolutionary Wars. They won the defensive Revolutionary Wars (known as the First and Second Coalition Wars by the invading nations) then the army propped up Napoleon as First Consul and started a separate campaign with the specific purpose of conquering other nations.
>>34143966
Considering most of the men were green conscripts who were baptized in these new skirmisher tactics, they either saw no reason to change, or simply couldn't evolve that quickly. These new tactics were revolutionary for the time, and the other armies had not yet adapted to counter them so the French continued employing them.

>>34143969
>those guns were barely accurate out to 25-50 meters.

important to note that guns themselves were mechanically good to 100 yards with an experienced shot. Training and trigger time was abysmal by modern standards. its one of the reason frontier militias and hunters could give veteran armies a run for their money in 1812 and the american revolution even without rifles

>>34144042
Stop spouting bullshit, you realize the huge contributors of the American revolutionary was the American continental army which fought with linear tactics right?

>>34144020
>Considering most of the men were green conscripts who were baptized in these new skirmisher tactics, they either saw no reason to change, or simply couldn't evolve that quickly. These new tactics were revolutionary for the time, and the other armies had not yet adapted to counter them so the French continued employing them.

I also believe this is one the earliest examples except for Rodgers Rangers(who don't really count as being as small group of mercs) of a Dismounted recon/scout/skirmisher force ever being consider respected or even elite as previous dismounted scouts were often considered marauders and skirmishers as cowardly or unmanly.

>>34144048
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trgZmM9fNS0

hear are some random aussies hitting 100 yards consistently with a brown bess.

Are you denying that frontiersman and hunters had more trigger time then conscripts from urban Britain? What are you protesting in my post?

When is this meme going to end?
"Those old people from back in the day" were just as (Actually, probably more so) intelligent, cunning, devious, and capable as you. You're just uneducated on the subject of military history, and don't realize that due to technological constraints of the time, line warfare was the most efficient method to employ an army.

"American Guerrilla warfare won the revolution" is basically a myth, as well.

>>34144072
>Yet whole battalions were frequently deployed as entirely skirmishers, a tactic dubbed "tirailleur en grandes bandes." If you were part of a skirmisher force you would likely not be thrown directly into the fray. You would be sent on small scale raiding 'missions' with a small number of other skirmisher comrades and an officer
That's an interesting point. They were definitely highly valued by the commanders and I can't think of any other Western army that valued or respected this kind of unit at the time, despite how effective they obviously were.

>>34144105
maybe its a democratic thing, aristocracy are almost never skirmishers so they were often lead just by lowborn officers or just NCOs so they couldn't claim much respect in aristocracy when they aren't represented in the brass.

>>34143783

>Why don't they just build a fort in the middle of the battlefield?

Because of artillery. the only kind of fortifications that were truly resistant to Napoleonic field artillery were labor-intensive star forts using vast quantities of earth and stone. A battery of cannon would easily tear apart temporary wooden fortifications in a spray of splinters as happened to ship superstructures during naval warfare.

>>34144080
>hear are some random aussies hitting 100 yards consistently with a brown bess.
And what does that prove anything?
>Are you denying that frontiersman and hunters had more trigger time then conscripts from urban Britain? What are you protesting in my post?
And these so-called frontiersmen would get their ass kicked by the line infantries.

It was line infantries vs line infantries in the revolutionary war.

>>34144114
What is the Britain's Light foot and the chasseurs and the fucking jaegers?

Jesus christ, /k/.

>>34142930
Enough people have mentioned the dfficulty commanding forces with flags and drums if they're not in formation that I'll ignore that.
Instead, here's a somewhat relevant video explaining why armies might prefer to stand in front of each other firing shitty muskets than fire one volley and charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFaVf3vVz6A

>>34143146
Extremely hard to reload a muzzle-loader kneeling or prone.
Not to mention the loss of mobility. and the fact that if everyone''s kneeling then rear rannks can't see shit. Once breechloaders appeared then kneeling was introduced but more as a way to get the front ranks out of the way of the way once they fired their volley.

>>34144179
so you think the continental army was magicked out of random people and not hunters and frontiersman then then got trained up allowing militia units trained for a single winter to compete with veteran units. You are the one going on about the guerilla warfare meme, I'm just talking pure trigger time and accuracy.

>>34144194
The continental army was formed out of conscripts, some are barely paid.

There's no doubt there are militia and frontiersmen serving as scouts or light infantries, but it's those badly paid conscripts that win the war for the americans.

>>34143129
>Jeez seems like an awful waste of life
Yeah lad, but that's war. You throw your nation's willing men to fight other men to the death with the weapons of the day with the full knowledge that each and every one of them could die

>>34144244
It was an actually better that way.

Better then a 2000 casualties sound like phew it's nothing, nowadays a 20 casualties get liberal panties on fire.

>>34143224
>These are guns that take several minutes to reload after each shot

That's some bullshit, trained soldiers were expected to load and fire at least 2-3 shots a minute.

File: Grierson_2.jpg (80KB, 717x540px) Image search: [Google]

80KB, 717x540px

>>34142965
>Continental army realized it was getting wrecked in the rev war and switched to guerilla warfare.

the funniest thing about the "american patriots invented guerilla warfare" meme seemly taught to americans is that the British Army were massive Light Infantry/skirmishing aficionados with every Battalion having a light infantry company and several Rifle Regiments existing

afaik every major power in the Napoleonic wars had some form of light infantry

>>34142930
>have a gun you can reload maybe a couple times a minute
>lets spread out so we can get overrun
Great plan there, buddy.

>>34144294
It's a very bad meme, but americans can't help it.

They watched the patriots.

>>34142930

This has to be fucking bait

"All they had to do was build a trench or something"....

Yeaaaaaaaaahhh. Have you actually seen any late war pictures of U.S. civil war battles? Have you ever read anything about the battle of fucking yorktown? Or any of the battles of the late 18th century? Even though non-rifled muskets can, at best, get off TWO shots when someone is charging over the last 100m people STILL dug redoubts.

Long story short, as soon as weapons started to get rifled people did exactly as you suggest. We wen't from fortifications sticking out of the ground (to prevent climbing up them) to being dug INTO the ground because it was necessary to get away from that fucking fire as soon as possible. There's a neat line going from muskets and redoubts, to rifled muskets and shallow trenches with abatis, to breach-loaders with full trenches, to machineguns and full trenches with rapidly dug rifle scrapes and foxholes and long term DEEP bunkers (even quicker / more necesssary due to modern artillery).

>>34143969
3 rounds per minute was the standard rate of fire for British line infantry armed with muskets.

>>34144114
americans just humiliate themselves with their lack of knowledge on a regular basis, there have always been skirmishers, there were light foot in a regiment, there was light cavalry such as hussars and dragoons which were very popular.

maybe its a democratic thing, peasants are almost never smart