"The British (again) on the ACW." Topic

No, I meant going the other way, Union Cavalry charging into the retreating Confederate infantry. And they dont even have to cause all that many casualties, they just have to break formations, and cause them to run.

Yes assualting the union lines would have just generated a lot of dead cavalry. And yes, the walls and fences would have caused problems, but nothing that Napoleons cavalry did not have to deal with.

The problem is that battlefield heavy cavalry are expensive to raise, train and maintain, and unless an opertunety arises to employ them properly, they are not much use.

So it is a trade off, ,less union infantry for heavy cav. I dont know the rate of exchange in terms of cost, 2 to 1,3 to1? 5 to 1?.. And would that infantry have been needed worse at an earlier battle?

But just as the Union brigade created havoc in an entire corp when they crashed into D'Erlons flank, so copuld a Union brigade create havoc crrashing into Pickets flank.

The Union Brigade justified all of its expensis in a single half and hour. Perhaps a Union division could have done the same.

badger22 15 Sep 2010 7:43 p.m. PST
No, I meant going the other way, Union Cavalry charging into the retreating Confederate infantry

*NJH: DOH! LOL – I'm getting old(er). Union Cavalry makes a lot more sense. ;-)

I find a lot of slightly older historical gamers. I have always gamed historicals, but when I was young booze and women had this odd ability to distract me from the hobby. Now that I am not as young as I used to be, they have quite as much hold on me, and I can do more gameing, and much more research and thinking about what that research means.

I wrote a term paper on this subject back (about a hundered years ago) when I was a history major in college. I seem to remember I found a quote in the London Times from the British Commander in Canada in the wake of the Trent Affair; it went something like this "now that 10,000 reinforcements are on their way to Canada, in the event of hostilities, what are your plans for invanding the U.S.?" The British Commander replied that he was much more concern with holding Canada than invading. I'll look around for it so I can share the sources. It's been a while since college.

The point was that the U.S. was not even close to using all its available man power and industrial capacity. The British would have had a hard time of it. But then again if the entire Empire was brought to bear as it was later in the Boer War, who knows. Do not discount the American Navy. It was large, becoming more modern and by the end of the war one of the largest afloat.

However as some have already pointed out earlier, the British would never have involved itself militarily. More practical minded members of the Davis government knew there would not be any direct military intervention.

Realistically the chances were better for formal recognition which would also include France and many other countries would follow their lead. That would have been plenty. But Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation ended all hope of formal recognition by the British or anyone else.

Towards the end of the war, while the ANV was hold up at Petersburg and Sherman was rampaging through Georgia and South Carolina, the government in Richmond offered to free all the slaves if Britain would recognize the CSA and intervene diplomatically. The British saw the offer for what it was; an act of desperation. The reply was simply that the Union Army was about to accomplish that task anyway. I don't remember if it was Stevenson or a Confederate Congressman who said "if we agree to free the slaves, then the whole reason for this country's existence would be gone."

Pickett's charge:

We know that Pickett's division stopped 75-100 yds from the Federal line and engaged in a firefight rather than pressing home the last bound. The two divisions on the left stopped slightly further away.

Armistead's final advance on Cushing's Battery ("The High Water Mark") wasn't opposed. The 71st PA were broken by fire and routed. Armistead moved into the gap with part of his force. Webb ordered the 72nd PA to charge Armistead, but they refused the order (and later sued to have history rewritten).

There is little evidence of any bayonet fighting during Pickett's charge. There is a lot of evidence of surrendering Confederates walking 100 yards over to their captors.

I think this has a lot more to do with pressing a bayonet charge against averagely good shots using rifled weapons was a great way to get killed, rather then a lack of willpower on the part of American troops to conduct one.

-Will

"I think this has a lot more to do with pressing a bayonet charge against averagely good shots using rifled weapons was a great way to get killed, rather then a lack of willpower on the part of American troops to conduct one."

It is also a good way of getting killed against troops with smoothbores. The theoretical with observed killing abilities of the weapons systems do not match up though. At less than ca. 150 yards there is no difference in the effect on a formation between smoothbores and rifles (in fact the smoothbore is slightly more effective, especially with multiple round loads).

It is not an American thing, it's a Quality thing. Low quality troops of other nationalities behaved in the same manner. An obvious example would be the green British troops at New Orleans, who stopped to firefight rather than pressed to bayonet point, and suffered accordingly.

It's telling that the best troops the Union fielded were those kept overly long in garrisons training. The Vermont Militia Brigade at Gettysburg performed superbly, but they'd been drilling for 6-7 months before taking to the field, for example, but their compatriots raised at the same time and rushed to the field army never reached this level of efficiency. The Heavy Artillery sent to the field army in 1864 performed much better than the old lags of the veteran regiments that had already passed in the combat exhaustion phase of the efficiency curve.

tigers, I'll add there are a few further points.

1. The role of leadership in making above-average units.

2. The American nationality characterstic for individual initiative, i.e. failure to be readily herded to their deaths and the willingness to take matter into their own hands when they are asked to do so.

3. Did any Rebs make it over the stone wall during Pickett's Charge ?

Hi

Smoothbores at 150 yards will have more than half the rounds way above or below the target unit. In order for the No Difference idea to work, then the criteria would have to be that NO ONE is on target and randomly roundball is producing equal hits.

I continue to question this "fact".

Rocky

Your group size is wrong. Smoothbore muskets at 150 yds will produce a 36-48" group, depending on the windage. You've estimated a 288" group in another thread, 6-9 times wider than observed.

At 300 yards on a firing range, 1 in 5 rounds fired by a typical French soldier would hit a 6 ft target. If the smoothbore lived up to it's theoretical capabilities then regiments would have destroyed each other in a few volleys. They didn't, and nor did rifle muskets because they were operated by human beings.

On iron production:

No, the British weren't trying to "catch up" in 1870. The figures for 1870 were:

Britain (island of Britain): 6m tons iron, 0.7m tons steel
France: 1.2m tons iron, 0.3m tons steel
"Germany": 1.3m tons iron, 0.3m tons steel
USA: 1.7m tons iron, no steel

The US will equal British raw industrial output in the 1890's. The US get into the steel business in the mid-1870's, thanks to the output of the mines along the Michigan-Canadian border. I believe you are projecting the massive industrial expansion of the 1880's back 30 years.

On ironclads:

It is a mistake to simply label all iron the same. Due to variable quality of ore and processing the resistance to shot varied massively. The Warrior's 4.5" provided about 3.5 times the protection of Gloire's 4.7" and more than 11" of US laminate.

Fire control isn't hard. Line is incredibly easy, but range is trickier. Bearing in mind the forts of Charleston hit the ironclads in 1863 with 20% of their rounds at ranges of 1,000 – 1,700 yards. Monitor in action against Virginia hit with only 36% of the time at 100 yds. This has to do with the poor fire control possible in Monitor turrets, which only hit the stationary Fort Sumter with 33% of their rounds expended. Monitors were poor gun platforms compared with conventional ships, and were difficult to work (the 11" in Monitor had 1/5th the RoF in action of the 11" in New Ironsides' broadsides). One major problem is that the guns in Monitors were not trainable. The turret was jacked up, keyed up and turned in one direction, where it stayed during the action, being sealed down. There was no room to alter line.

In action against Virginia, Monitor was hit 22 times. Only 9 of these were on the turret. 8 hit the side armour, 2 hit the pilothouse and 3 struck the deck. The deck hits were shell (as were nearly all the hits, Virginia was carrying mainly shell and hotshot to deal with the wooden vessels) – had they been shot Monitor would have been opened to the sea and floundered. Thus the obsession with the "impenetrable turret" only goes so far. Combat experience showed that more hits were against the hull than the turret, which is horribly vulnerable (Warrior's 68 pdrs will plough straight through a Monitors sides at 5-800 yds).

Hi

67th, fixed in a bench rest, muskets test out at 36" within aimpont. This is within aimpoint and means RADIUS, not diameter. Your having this at 48" at 150 yards is correct, but this is still an 8' diameter from aimpoint versus 4.5" for a rifle at aimpoint.

Your "they would have massacred each other" works both ways. Why buy rifles that are several times more effective and slower fireing if they don't work?

On ironclads, you are selecting your points again. As is everyone else! Hampton Roads involved Monitor with half loads. Most of the rest of your points don't seem to select the stats with differences between rifles and smoothbores. I do agree that the issue of shell is a point as is the concepts involved. I am sure that like everyone else here, you have Bradfield's "Guns at Sea" and the long discussions involving penetration, mistakes in the tests, and the UK and american lieutenants who completely revised what was known about accuracy.

The british were, indeed, industrially ahead of the US, but they weren't as wonderful and uncontestable as you seem to advocate.

Rocky

No, group sizes were diameters, not radii.

The experimental observations, that at 200 yds around 40% would hit the company target (10ft x 6 ft), fired by a standing soldier offhand.

The whole point of the rifles (by which I assume you mean the early Jaegar, Pennsylvania and Baker rifles) was that they did have a slight advantage as their group sizes were lower (typically around 18" at 100 yds). They thus had slight range advantages.

Monitor at Hampton Roads was firing with the full service charge, 15 lbs naval powder. There was no "half charge", indeed couldn't be as the charges were bagged.

I consider a nation producing 2/3rds -3/4ths of the worlds industrial goods and energy supply to be pretty powerful. This is a greater % of world industry than the US had after WW2.

Edit: Padfield, not Bradfield.

The Monitor's guns used a charge of 15 lbs. However, the Dahlgren guns could be operated with charges of 30 lbs.

67thtigers 16 Sep 2010 8:40 a.m. PST
……
It's telling that the best troops the Union fielded were those kept overly long in garrisons training. The Vermont Militia Brigade at Gettysburg performed superbly, but they'd been drilling for 6-7 months before taking to the field, for example, but their compatriots raised at the same time and rushed to the field army never reached this level of efficiency.

*NJH: They were Volunteer Regiments, not Militia. The First Brigade was raised a year earlier than the Second Brigade. It was raised in October of 61 and assigned to the AoP in April of 62, hardly "rushed into the field," as you say. That's 6-7 months of training before assignment.

The Second Brigade had it's regiments scattered hither and yon until they joined the AoP in June 63, therefore they could hardly have drilled together for 6-7 months. Also, they were short term enlistments. While they flanked Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg their service record is not remotely close to the valor and gallantry of the First Vermont Brigade.

The Heavy Artillery sent to the field army in 1864 performed much better than the old lags of the veteran regiments that had already passed in the combat exhaustion phase of the efficiency curve.

*NJH: Highly specious and conjectural – you'll need to provide some serious examples to substantiate this claim.

Hi

67th you mix and match the numbers. You cite hits on a company front, and I have a multitude of similar tests that have values all over the place.

What I am describing is pretty simple. The mechanical ability of the bess doesn't allow your numbers. It is like saying someone proved his horse did 500kph!

Sheesh. The mechanical limits is a MOA of 36. That some mythical off hand shooter adds in NO added margin means someone cheated in your test.

The mechanical MOA of a rifle, jaegar, 41 whatever, with roundball is commonly 3 or 4. So, your assertian that an off hand shooter with a weapon that puts all the hits in a circle 1/12th the radius is getting no more hits.

and given no one has unlimited funds, the governments are springing for a device several times more expensive for no gain just doesn't make sense.

Then add in that a sheet company front is a bad example from the standpoint that companies are not a solid front.

In short, I don't know where you got these ideas, but they don't stand up to either my sources OR my experiences as an owner and shooter of these things.

Rocky

Rocky, just like painting your racce car red makes it go faster, putting on a red coat makes a weapon inherently more accurate. I suspect that many have no idea what a mechanical rest is, nor any idea of what a MOA when using one means. Certainly many comments made here seem to indicate that.

Tests should either be valid or not valid. valid when they support you, and invalid when they dont is not a good research idea.

I dont care what happened. I just want to know what it was that happened. I didnt make the weapons or train the soldiers. So hits of 1 in 10 , or 100, or 1000 are all the same to me personaly. But no matter who uses a given weapon they cannot make it any more accurate than it really is.

In the Artillery we call it probably error. Other weapons use different terms, but it all means the same no matter what you do most of your shots will fall into a given area. Rifleing makes that area smaller. And because it all works as an angle, the farther out you get the bigger the area. But even at very close range there is a difference. It might be very small, but still there.

Unless you are British in which case everything is just way cooler because you are using it.

There was no charge authorised for the 11" Dahlgren Shell Gun other than the 15 lbs. The 1866 instructions show the 11" Dahlgren was only proofed upto 25 lbs with solid shot. 30 lbs was never authorised for the gun and the largest authorised charge was 20 lbs (far charge). In 1863 Dahlgren claimed the gun could withstand 30 lbs common powder "for a few rounds", but the Navy never authorised such a heavy charge. When Weehawken fired her 11" on Atlanta it was with a 15 lb charge.

The larger 15" could obviously take larger charges. There was a 50 lb service charge (common naval powder) for the 15", which was for shell or extreme ranges or for battering against armoured vessels. No battering charge was ever authorised for the 11" due to lack of capability against armour.

The brigade comprising the 12th-16th VT was raised under the 1862 Militia Act by draft ("conscription"). The brigade was united on the 28th October 1862 and remained at Washington until despatched to reinforce the Army of the Potomac. They drilled a lot: link

May I recommend Barloon's thesis? link

67thtigers 19 Sep 2010 11:27 a.m. PST
There was no charge authorised for the 11" Dahlgren Shell Gun other than the 15 lbs. …..

*NJH: Yes, the Navy only authorized 15lbs, however, that doesn't change the fact they could have been fired using 30lbs. The military seldom establish operational limits near the upper limits of performance. Caution is often used when establishing use or performance limitations.

The brigade comprising the 12th-16th VT was raised under the 1862 Militia Act by draft ("conscription"). The brigade was united on the 28th October 1862 and remained at Washington until despatched to reinforce the Army of the Potomac. They drilled a lot: link

*NJH: That link is good only for the 13th Vermont, but it is a good link – thank you. However, you can't generalize its activity or experience as the same for all the other regiments. Training quality would naturally vary between units, especially units that are stationed in different locations. Plus, drill was a standard activity of virtually all infantry regiments. Apparently the thought of leaving the troops to their own devices was blasphemy. Although, the leaders did conduct the drill for legitimate reasons as well as to keep the soldiers busy. In either case it was efficacious.

May I recommend Barloon's thesis? link

*NJH: Yes, you may recommend it. Unfortunately, the central assertion of the thesis is best expressed by the author:

"Using the interpretation of Civil War combat suggested by the combined model, a test of the hypothesis of southern martial superiority is possible."

The vitality of this assertion ebbs the further North one goes. Also, as everyone knows, the South performed better in the Eastern theater than the Western theater. The "combined model" apparently doesn't work outside the Eastern Theater, which means the hypothesis fails. The house of cards he uses collapses, taking with it your assertion regarding the Heavies, unless you have other sources?