Was the American Civil War inevitible?

[Admiral Yi]

Smoothbore horses for cavalry charges? I was referring to cavalry charges in the Crimean War and how viable they were as a tactic of war.

Smooth bore muskets.  The minie bullet extended the killing zone too far out for cavalry charges.

[Viking]

Smoothbore horses for cavalry charges? I was referring to cavalry charges in the Crimean War and how viable they were as a tactic of war.

Smooth bore muskets.  The minie bullet extended the killing zone too far out for cavalry charges.

Well it seems that Hussars, Curassiers and Lancers were all obviously obsolete before the ACW.

[grumbler]

Smoothbore horses for cavalry charges? I was referring to cavalry charges in the Crimean War and how viable they were as a tactic of war.

Smooth bore muskets.  The minie bullet extended the killing zone too far out for cavalry charges.

Rifled cannon where also responsible. The cavalry would be too big a target as it mustered for the charge.

[Razgovory]

I don't know if the "Bikini armor" thing has decrease, it may have just decreased in the games we play.  I think it's a bigger thing in console games.

General Lee in bikini armor would be a disturbing image.

Goddamn it.

[Berkut]

From wikipedia:

However, historians such as Allen C. Guelzo reject this traditional criticism of Civil War infantry tactics. Casualty estimates compared with expended ammunition from battles indicate 1 casualty for every 250 - 300 shots discharged, not a dramatic improvement over Napoleonic casualty rates. No contemporary accounts indicate that engagement ranges with substantial casualties between infantry occurred at ranges beyond Napoleonic engagement ranges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifles_in_the_American_Civil_War

That number probably isn't that much different now, what with the common use of automatic weapons. Are you going to say those aren't qualitatively different then muskets and have not changed the way men fight?

The big advantage of automatic weapons is they fire faster, so you would expect more bullets shot per minute, which is true (the hit rate is probably much, much lower).  The advantage of rifles is their accuracy, so you would expect higher hit rates, but we don't see that.

No, actually you would not expect that. Increase in accuracy results in changes in tactics, not increases in hit rates.

You have to think of infantry tactics as more of a push-pull kind of thing - increasing the lethality of the weapons isn't necessarily going to increase the kill rate, but it is going to radically change how men fight so as to avoid that increased lethality. It can't be any other way - otherwise everyone would just be wounded immediately.

It is undeniable that a rifle is radically more accurate than a musket. So given that is true, if we see that the hit rates are largely static, you have to consider other variables. You don't just assume that they aren't really all that accurate after all - that is non-sensical.

Personally, I think that the factor that drives overall hit rates for infantry weapons is more the tolerance for the infantry to take casualties - I think this is largely fixed, in general. So the tactics evolve to the point at which the lethality of the opponents weapon is "tolerable", while trying to allow the infantry to remain as capable as possible.

So if you invent a new, more deadly infantry weapon, you aren't going to suddenly start killing lots more of the enemy overall, you are just going to better constrain their ability to maneuver and fight, since they will have a more narrow set of tactical options available to them without being decimated by your improved weapons.

WW1 is a perfect example of this - there was a radical increase in lethality across all weapons, and you saw this incredible increase in casualties while everyone figured out how to operate in a radically more constrained tactical environment. But once that environment was understood, the hit rate and casualty rate per round fired was almost certianly similar to what it was in the Civil War, and what it would be in WW2 and probably is even today when you consider infantry weapons and their immediate support.

[jimmy olsen]

Personally, I think that the factor that drives overall hit rates for infantry weapons is more the tolerance for the infantry to take casualties - I think this is largely fixed, in general.

I think is a questionable assumption. Whether the soldiers are ideologically committed to the cause, if they have a direct stake in victory or defeat, and how much firmly the believe in an afterlife all has an impact on their willingness to take casualties. A regiment of evangelical protestants in 1860 who volunteered to fight for the Union/Abolition/Independence is going to be willing to take much heavier causalities than a regiment of draftees sent overseas to fight the Vietcong.

[Berkut]

Personally, I think that the factor that drives overall hit rates for infantry weapons is more the tolerance for the infantry to take casualties - I think this is largely fixed, in general.

I think is a questionable assumption. Whether the soldiers are ideologically committed to the cause, if they have a direct stake in victory or defeat, and how much firmly the believe in an afterlife all has an impact on their willingness to take casualties. A regiment of evangelical protestants in 1860 who volunteered to fight for the Union/Abolition/Independence is going to be willing to take much heavier causalities than a regiment of draftees sent overseas to fight the Vietcong.

Right, those are all variables that effect the particulars of how particular formations might handle casualties. Clearly some untrained draftees are not as capable of taking casualties and still operating as a bunch of special forces guys.

But overall, the baseline is consistent, and increased lethality of weapons simply means that the infantry is forced to constrain their actions to bring the casualty rates back into line with what a given group of human beings can tolerate.

I wasn't suggesting that every group of human being can tolerate the same level of casualties.

[The Brain]

I recommend further research.

[Kleves]

He was known for his audacity.  He would not have hesitated to assault that hill the first day, and in my estimation he (or really any likely Southern general) would have stood a good chance of succeeding.

General Robert E. Lee: [Trimble enters the room] General Trimble.
Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble: [Trimble salutes, and Lee returns it] Sir, I most respectfully request another assignment.
General Robert E. Lee: [Lee looks at Trimble, then sits down] Do please go on, General.
Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble: The man is a disgrace! Sir, have you been listening at all to... to what the aides have been telling you? Ask General Gordon or General Ewell. Ask them. We could've taken that hill! God in His wisdom knows we *should've* taken it! There was no one there, no there at all, and it commanded the town.
[he sighs]
Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble: General Gordon saw it. I mean, he was with us! Me and Ewell and Gordon, all standing there in the dark like fat, great idiots with that bloody damned hill empty!
[he stops]
Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble: I beg your pardon, General.
[Lee nods]
Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble: That bloody damned hill was bare as his bloody damned head! We all saw it, as God is my witness! We were all there. I said to him, "General Ewell, we have *got* to take that hill." General Jackson would not have stopped like this, with the bluebellies on the run and there was plenty of light left on a hill like that empty! Well, God help us, I... I don't know wh... I don't know why I...
[he stops]
General Robert E. Lee: Do please continue, General.
Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble: Yes, sir. Sir... I said to him, General Ewell, these words. I said to him, "Sir, give me one division and I will take that hill." And he said nothing. He just stood there, he stared at me. I said, "General Ewell, give me one brigade and I will take that hill." I was becoming disturbed, sir. And General Ewell put his arms behind him and blinked. So I said, General, give me one *regiment* and I will take that hill." And he said *nothing*! He just stood there! I threw down my sword, down on the ground in front of him!
[he stops and regains his composure]
Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble: We... we could've done it, sir. A blind man should've seen it. Now they're working up there. You can hear the axes of the Federal troops. And so in the morning... many a good boy will die... taking that hill.

[Razgovory]

No, actually you would not expect that. Increase in accuracy results in changes in tactics, not increases in hit rates.

You have to think of infantry tactics as more of a push-pull kind of thing - increasing the lethality of the weapons isn't necessarily going to increase the kill rate, but it is going to radically change how men fight so as to avoid that increased lethality. It can't be any other way - otherwise everyone would just be wounded immediately.

It is undeniable that a rifle is radically more accurate than a musket. So given that is true, if we see that the hit rates are largely static, you have to consider other variables. You don't just assume that they aren't really all that accurate after all - that is non-sensical.

Personally, I think that the factor that drives overall hit rates for infantry weapons is more the tolerance for the infantry to take casualties - I think this is largely fixed, in general. So the tactics evolve to the point at which the lethality of the opponents weapon is "tolerable", while trying to allow the infantry to remain as capable as possible.

So if you invent a new, more deadly infantry weapon, you aren't going to suddenly start killing lots more of the enemy overall, you are just going to better constrain their ability to maneuver and fight, since they will have a more narrow set of tactical options available to them without being decimated by your improved weapons.

WW1 is a perfect example of this - there was a radical increase in lethality across all weapons, and you saw this incredible increase in casualties while everyone figured out how to operate in a radically more constrained tactical environment. But once that environment was understood, the hit rate and casualty rate per round fired was almost certianly similar to what it was in the Civil War, and what it would be in WW2 and probably is even today when you consider infantry weapons and their immediate support.

The argument was that technology outpaced tactics.  If they have the same casualties because they altered tactics then the argument falls apart.  Challenging the assumption that they were "radically more accurate" is entirely valid.  What is the idea they are "radically more accurate" based on?  Rifled guns are more accurate, but how much so?  If they have a 5-10% higher chance to hit a target at 200 yards, then they are more accurate but not radically so.  The rifled musket had a longer range, but did soldier typically engage in at maximum range?

I took a look at Wikipedia to see the maximum range of the Springfield rifle which was 500 yards.  That's a pretty good distance assuming the number is correct.  I imagine that a lot of men could not reliably hit a target at that range.  I couldn't, I have poor eyesight.  While the armies tended to train men in drill regularly, they were rarely trained in marksmanship.  There are other factors as well, such as a natural unwillingness to kill people.  You'll have men who will intentionally miss or not even fire their gun.  Mental state is another factor, people being shot at are less likely to fire accurate then some one shooting targets on a calm summer day.  The guns also produced quite a bit of smoke so visibility would hampered (in addition to any environmental problems).  So you could see how an advancement in accuracy  may not be all that important.

[Berkut]

Certainly there are many factors that mitigate the ability of rifle to hit a target beyond musket range, of course. But the primary reason you didn't see lot's of people killed beyond musket range was simply that people learned not to expose themselves at those longer ranges - the range at which you could "form up" with impunity was much greater, and so the tactics changed to account for that. You saw more use of reverse slopes, for example. You saw more emphasis on terrain.

A rifle doesn't have a 5% higher chance of hitting a target at 200 yards compared to a musket - a musket has a effective range of about 50 yards, so its odds of hitting anything at 200 are basically nil (when considering aimed, rather than volley, fire) - you might as well not even aim because what you point the musket at has no relation to where the round will go at that range. More relevantly, an entire regiment firing at anything more than 200 yards is likely going to be ineffective in actually causing casualties, although could still be effective at stopping an attack.

A regiment firing rifles at 200 yards, assuming the men are nominally well trained, will be devastating when firing at an exposed target, as was seen during the Civil War when it happened. So you cannot simply dismiss the difference between the two. Since it was devastating, commanders would endeavor to not allow their opponents to engage them at that range in the open. The long range if the rifle made it imperative that you close the range somehow under cover, so you are not exposed to as many effective shots before you can close with the enemy.

So, if in the Napoleonic Wars a regiment could fire on another at 200 yards with muskets with minimal effect, and you look at the results and say "Gee, in 1810 there were rarely any casualties from musket fire at 200 yard ranges".

Then in the Civil War, commanders would certainly endeavor to not allow their men to be in a position to take aimed rifle fire at 200 yards because it would be devastating, so they maneuver accordingly, and you say "Gosh, during the Civil War, there were rarely occasions where aimed rifle fire blew away guys at 200 yards..." and conclude that nothing has changed. But of course a lot has changed.

The same is still true today - the overall casualty rates are consistent even in WW2 from infantry combat. Does that mean an M1 Garand is not really anymore effective that a Brown Bess musket? Of course not.

Of course, the reality is that things most certainly had changed. The firepower of aimed rifle fire by infantry in the US Civil War radically changed the possible ways one force could attach another with any hope of success, and a large part of that change was due to the significant increase in firepower enjoyed by the well trained infantryman with a rifle.

The invention of the Minié ball solved both major problems of muzzle-loading rifles. The Crimean War (1853–1856) saw the first widespread use of the rifled musket for the common infantryman and by the time of the American Civil War (1860s) most infantry were equipped with the rifled musket. These were far more accurate than smoothbore muskets and had a far longer range, while preserving the musket's comparatively faster reloading rate. Their use led to a decline in the use of massed attacking formations, as these formations were too vulnerable to the accurate, long-range fire a rifle could produce. In particular, attacking troops were within range of the defenders for a longer period of time, and the defenders could also fire at them more quickly than before. As a result, while 18th century attackers would only be within range of the defenders' weapons for the time it would take to fire a few shots, late 19th century attackers might suffer dozens of volleys before they drew close to the defenders, with correspondingly high casualty rates.

[Razgovory]

Do you have any proof of this?  Can you prove that officers used terrain more in the Civil war then the War of 1812 or the Mexican American war?  If what you say is true one would expect the casualty rates to be higher in the beginning of the war and decrease as the war went on (as officers learned the dangers of the new rifles), do you have evidence of this actually happening?  Do you know what the typical range of fire was in the civil war compared to the War of 1812 and the Mexican American war?  You make a lot of assumptions about what officers did, but no real evidence to back them up.

[Berkut]

You know what, you are right. The evidence clearly shows that rifles made no difference, and really, they should have all just kept using muskets. Or maybe pikes.

Silly me for arguing with Raz. Back to ignore.

[jimmy olsen]

The argument was that technology outpaced tactics.  If they have the same casualties because they altered tactics then the argument falls apart.  Challenging the assumption that they were "radically more accurate" is entirely valid.  What is the idea they are "radically more accurate" based on?  Rifled guns are more accurate, but how much so?  If they have a 5-10% higher chance to hit a target at 200 yards, then they are more accurate but not radically so.  The rifled musket had a longer range, but did soldier typically engage in at maximum range?

I took a look at Wikipedia to see the maximum range of the Springfield rifle which was 500 yards.  That's a pretty good distance assuming the number is correct.  I imagine that a lot of men could not reliably hit a target at that range.  I couldn't, I have poor eyesight.  While the armies tended to train men in drill regularly, they were rarely trained in marksmanship. 

Maybe most men couldn't hit a man sized target at 500 yards, but they weren't often aiming at a man sized target, but one the size of a regiment.

[Razgovory]

You know what, you are right. The evidence clearly shows that rifles made no difference, and really, they should have all just kept using muskets. Or maybe pikes.

Silly me for arguing with Raz. Back to ignore.

That's an odd way to respond when I ask you to back up your assertions.

"Despite these new weapons, there doesn't seem to be a massive increase in casualties"
"That's because of the new tactics they used"
"Do you have evidence they used new tactics?"
"I'M IGNORING YOU NOW!"