"What if they had "Machine guns" in ACW?" Topic

The Confederates had the "Williams Machine gun"
and used it as early at 1862 in the battle of Seven pines. The little information that is available on the subject was that it was reasonably effective.
Of course the Union had the Gatlin gun and made small use of it?
Of course it was just generally dismissed and scoffed at -- as most innovations are initially.
What if these weapons had been taken seriously, refined and developed?
Would it change a thing, have an impact? Turn ACW into WW1 which kind of happened anyway?
Little big horn ?

Russ Dunaway

I think they were taken seriously along with repeating rifles.

I always thought the reason they werent deployed was because of War Board cheapskates.

The same reason that that "Scrooge McDuck" head of Union prisons deprived those Southern prisoners of proper care and food which started a back-and-forth mistreatment of prisoners.

It probably would've changed the Civil War into a one sided WW1. But then, I don't think anyone thought the war would go on for anywhere near the length of time it did.

The number of dead and casualties would have been even higher.

Would it change a thing, have an impact? Turn ACW into WW1 which kind of happened anyway?

Yep, that's pretty much what happened by the end of the war. At the Siege of Petersburg you had 9 months of trench warfare, "over the top" assaults into rifled musket and cannon fire, night trench raids, a massive sapping attack on Confederate lines ("Battle of the Crater"). An awful preview of things to come.

lee had his "Pickets charge" --- Grant had his Colds harbor?

Lesson learned???

Russ Dunaway

Repeating rifles/carbines had some impact, I assume "machine guns" would also have some impact but I doubt it would have done much change to the dig in mentality that was already there.

You mentioned LBH (I'll probably get some flak for this)
I think Custer was right not to take them.
His biggest fear was not whether he could defeat them in a straight up fight, but rather that they would escape.
Given that mind set, they would have slowed him down, as he feared.
His assumption was reasonable, even if incorrect. (reasonable assumptions can be wrong)

I'd say WWI Eastern Front. Not the troop density for Verdun and the Somme. And of course not the combination of field telephones/telegraphs and howitzers with percussion fuses which were the real WWI man-killers. But you have to posit someone providing the Confederacy with the weapons and ammo on a serious scale. Mass production of metallic cartridges seems to have been beyond them.

Of course, I dislike WWI even from a wargaming perspective, so altering ACW to produce more of it is unattractive to me. An ACW in which no one has invented the Minnie ball might be a more interesting idea. Or, from a campaign standpoint, an ACW in which Kentucky and Maryland join the Confederacy makes it a more even fight.

And I agree with Korvessa. Custer takes Gatling guns, never catches up with Sioux, the Army is humiliated, and Custer is not invited to the next campaign. Possibly McKenzie with the Fourth Cavalry in winter 1876/1877--but that happened. How about a summer 1877 campaign instead?

I also do not care for anything post 1900.
No drums, no flags and I'm out.

Russ Dunaway

A very sensible approach to wargames periods. Said mostly because it is the same as mine. :-)

Make that three, except for naval.

A few things to consider when thinking about this:
1) A lot of smoke was produced from gunpowder, even with the muzzleloaders. A rapid fire gun could create quite a cloud of smoke. This was a problem in several of the battles if there was little to no wind and a "machine gun" would have made this worse.
2) Gunpowder left a lot of residue in the gun barrel which could have been a serious problem for a "machine gun." The smokeless powders introduced later in the 19th century did not leave as much residue. So figure a "machine gun" would have been more prone to jamming.
3) The Williams "machine gun" was a small breechloader firing a one pound solid shot. The breech was opened with a cam mechanism that used a crank. It also used the same type of percussion cap arrangement as the small arms. So a crew member turned the crank to open the breech, another crew member inserted the small cartridge (shot and powder held together just like the big brother cannon), the used percussion cap had to be removed, a new percussion cap had to be placed on the nipple, and then the crank turned further to close the breech and bring a hammer down on the cap. A small battery of these was also used at the battle of Blue Springs in East Tennessee in early 1864 IIRC. I don't know how effective this weapon really was nor the rate of fire that could be maintained. there used to be one on display at the VMI museum ,but I have no idea if it's still there.

Long way of saying that ACW "machine guns" would not have been nearly as effective as the WWI variety.

All good points. Plus, the ability to precision machine the parts required to have a functioning machine(automatic fire, ejection, reload) gun would have been close to impossible to achive at that time. This is part of the reason steam engines were still inefficent.

Korvessa is correct about the Gatlings slowing Custer down. Especially since they were 1" guns, i.e., siege and garrison artillery. Large and unwieldy, about like taking a 4.5" siege rifle on campaign. Until the introduction of the 6-pdr Hotchkiss Mountain Gun, the only artillery likely to be seen on campaign in the Plains Wars was the 12-pdr mountain howitzer on prairie carriage.

Wargamers, as a group, seem slow to comprehend the fact that all the early "machine guns" were really artillery pieces, not infantry heavy weapons.

I believe that most people know that the early machine gus were on a carriage with two wheels such as an piece of artillery and not "infantry heavy support weapon."
I still wonder about defensive positions --This why they were called "bridge guns" I believe?
I believe the Williams gun had some reasonable success at the battle I mentioned above -- Seven Pines -in 62.
Imagine a couple of these in the hands of the Union army during Pickets charge -- not that the charge was not devasting as it was!

Russ Dunaway

They would have been great for defensive battles like the Siege of Richmond. Many more soldiers would have died.

Lincoln loved new weapons ideas. What if he brought together a team to overcome some of the tech issues that prevented a practical version from coming into significant use?

I would not give the Confederates much hope of pulling this off as a massed produced weapon. And Elan would not get them far against a battery of real ones. We would lose the ACW as a more open, but transitional, Napoleonic style game unless we could give the Rebels some sort of compensating advantage. And WW1 does not call to me either for gaming except in the air or at sea. . Grim and insanely fearful, a nightmare.

+1 Old Glory. Even into the early 20th Century there was considerable debate about whether machine guns were practical for close infantry support or whether they were a sort of 'super-light' artillery. There were people in the American army lobbying to give machine guns their own separate branch of the service (Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery/Machine Guns).

I think that until they could be carried readily by hand they were generally seen as separate units.

One or more "volley guns" were used in the attack on Battery Wagner -- several barrels fired in a quick ripple; I believe, and loaded with a horizontal strip of cartridges.

The .58 cal Gatling Gun in service during the war had an ROF of 200 rounds/minute. So who needed machineguns to make the war into a preview of WW1? It already was!!

The Siege of Petersburg showed that rifled muskets and repeating rifles fired from entrenched infantry, supported by mortars and artillery, would annihilate a frontal infantry assault. So the Union dug counter trenches,and continued to dig trench lines closer and closer to the Confederate trench lines. If either side "went over the top" (usually Union) they were again, annihilated by rifled musket fire and artillery. This led to night trench raids, which led to the early use of barbed wire and telegraph wire as an additional barrier against attack. The Union bled so many troops against Confederate trenches they conducted an underground attack, digging a tunnel under the Confederate trenches and setting off the largest blackpowder explosion -- ever!

Sound familiar??

The end of the American Civil War was a taste of things to come…

There were a few Gatlings at Petersburg, I think. But their rate of fire was not that good compared to later models when they got rid of that weird hopper to dump the bullets in.

Also, the smoke easily gave their position away and their high profile left the operators open to snipers and artillery. So the time had not quite come…

Right, the principal drawback with early MG was the lack of smokeless powder, this led to obscuring gunner's sight and at the same time gave gun's position away, you need also consider barrels' overheating, in ACW this had became a serious issue for single shot muzzle loading rifles, imagine how big could've be for such a weapon, with its' ROF. I think this was one of the reasons this kind of weapon was reputed more apt to colonial wars that against an organized foe, think about french Montigay's failure against prussians' artillery or how the boer too often eliminated british MG sniping the gunners (they were employed with an artillery-like carriage, very high)

You have all forgotten "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove. This is the little known story of the Confederates getting their hands on AK47s thanks to time travellers. (It is actually a very entertaining read).

The Tredegar folk try to copy them having studied the fascinating, if simple, design. But contemporary metallurgy and chemistry is simply not up to recreating the firearm and its ammunition, even though the design is in their hands.

I have read most of his book series. The ACW goes on into WWII and the Southerners create extermination camps, or WWII starting a year earlier, with totally different alliances, or WWII interrupted by a landing of alien lizards addicted to ginger. All daft and very repetitive, but unputdownable. "Guns of the South" is the best he wrote.

The Williams 1-pdr sounds like an updated version of the Huth design 1-pdr 'amusette' that saw use with some German and Scandinavian forces in the second half of the C18th, mainly attached to light troops and cavalry.

It had a quick rate of fire, and was most useful when firing 'grapeshot' but it's limited firepower and the failure to deliver the intended mobility (not least from a tendency for the slender carriage to rupture) meant it didn't justify the diversion of infantry manpower and powder or the impediment to cavalry.

The Williams seems to be like a more technically sophisticated method of delivering the same weight of fire munition- presumably with a more robust carriage.

PS. I was under the impression that any notion that Gatling guns might have offered an advantage to the 7th cavalry at LBH, had been long discarded.

The Gatling Guns used by the Americans at San Juan Hill in 1898 did excellent service. Indeed, if you read the account of the battle written by the battery commander (Parker?) he'd have you believe his guns won the battle all by themselves :)

Kids would be playing video games about it.