Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

A place to talk about all things military, paramilitary, tactical, strategic, and logistical.
User avatar
JAG2955
Posts: 3044
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:21 pm

Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by JAG2955 »

Here's another one of my famous so-you-go-back-in-time questions:

I know there's many more folks on here than me who understand flintlocks and things better than I. And I'm finishing up watching The Patriot again.

Are there any better options than multiple ranks firing at each other at close range with muskets? In other words, you go back in time to 1776 and meet up with George Washington and Baron von Steuben. I think that you would make the most impact with training and battlefield medicine, but are there better options as far as tactics with regards to that era? With the slow fire rate, it seems like massing your firepower was necessary in order to create a shock value amongst your enemies. In broken ground, and I believe moreso in the Civil War, skirmishers began to play a larger role.

Do you organize into smaller units? March at a larger interval with the men behind you between the gaps so you can fire half the rounds twice as often? Meet on the line of battle and do an Australian Peel on a battalion-level scale?
User avatar
Netpackrat
Posts: 13983
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by Netpackrat »

The thing to remember, is you are talking about smooth bore weapons and round ball projectiles of limited accuracy and trajectory. Combine that with black powder smoke obscuring the battlefield, you had to put a bunch of them together, and get close to the enemy to get much effectiveness out of them. And since you'd had to close with the enemy, when things went to the bayonet, a massed formation would be the best for that kind of fighting. There were rifles around, more so on the American side, but their rate of fire was much slower, so they really were more of a niche weapon for going after higher value targets specifically.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
User avatar
Kommander
Posts: 3761
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:13 am

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by Kommander »

The only thing you could do would be to introduce Napoleons tactics a few decades early. However calling them tactics is a bit of a misnomer as they were mostly organizational reforms, particularly the concentration of artillery. After that it becomes a matter of logistics. You also could introduce the concept of guerrilla and irregular forces on a larger level than was actually used. It would also be important to constantly train your force as the faster they can fire and move while staying organized the more effective they will be.
User avatar
JAG2955
Posts: 3044
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:21 pm

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by JAG2955 »

Netpackrat wrote:The thing to remember, is you are talking about smooth bore weapons and round ball projectiles of limited accuracy and trajectory. Combine that with black powder smoke obscuring the battlefield, you had to put a bunch of them together, and get close to the enemy to get much effectiveness out of them. And since you'd had to close with the enemy, when things went to the bayonet, a massed formation would be the best for that kind of fighting. There were rifles around, more so on the American side, but their rate of fire was much slower, so they really were more of a niche weapon for going after higher value targets specifically.
That's mostly my thought. I'm wondering if the brains on this forum could come up with a better option.
BDK
Posts: 1698
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 11:14 pm

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by BDK »

The irregular fighting, TMK, caused the largest losses to the English - that, and we produced very little tax revenue for them, relative to the headaches we gave.

The colonial forces were adopting rifles as much as they could, I believe (my ancestors were part of the local junta that issues some orders to local rifle makers to sell all rifles to colonial forces.), but they weren't being mass produced at that time.

I have no idea if they were harder to use, etc - I know they were far more expensive and the colonial forces were pretty well broke
User avatar
slowpoke
Posts: 1231
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:09 pm

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by slowpoke »

Introduce buck-and-ball loads a couple decades early is your best bet.
maybe make black powder claymores?
"Islam delenda est" Aesop
User avatar
PawPaw
Posts: 4493
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:19 pm

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by PawPaw »

From my limited study, it appears that there were lots of irregulars on the Continental side during that war. Cowpens, for example, used irregulars extensively, to whittle down the British before the main engagement. Morgan, in his reports, seemed to minimize the effect of the irregulars and the militia (for his own reasons), but it is undeniable that they helped defeat Tarleton's force before the main engagement.
Dennis Dezendorf
PawPaw's House
MarkD
Posts: 3969
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:59 pm

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by MarkD »

IIRC the tactics of the time were to fire maybe two volleys while closing to bayonet range, that's all the accuracy the muskets of the day had. They began firing at about 50 yards (again, IIRC). One of the things which made the Civil War such a bloodbath was that they were using comparable tactics, but had weapons that were both accurate and deadly at much longer ranges.

The main things the Colonials could do to improve matters were things they DID, like using riflemen to pick off officers (very ungentlemanly of course). More rifles MAY have helped matters, but honestly more ANYTHING would have helped, artillery, food, blankets, shoes.

Given the limitations of the weapons (and quantities thereof) they had, there wasn't much they were going to do tactically. Now if on your trip back you could bring a thousand AK-47s and a million or so rounds of ammo for them....
Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by Aesop »

Battlefield medicine?

First, you introduce them to actual medicine, since nothing of the sort existed prior to the Napoleonic era.
Then you kick start Germ Theory, and steal a march on Florence Nightengale and Clara Barton 75 years early.

Given the tech limitation of the time, the best thing you could do for them would be:
1) revolving muskets
2) revolving pistols
3) revolving shotguns (esp. as offensive/defensive artillery pieces)

You also wouldn't go amiss introducing the Continental Navy to the idea of coal-fired steam power, and ironclads.
Imagine turning the Merrimac and Monitor loose in NY Harbor circa 1777, and sinking the entirety of the British fleet at anchor in one dark windless night.

The entire war would be over in weeks.

If you were really evil, clue them in about tanks and flying machines.

And then introduce interchangeable parts and the assembly line.
And start shipping muskets by the shit-ton to Ireland.

And a decent chemist could do wonders with improvements to powder, explosives, and incendiaries.
Naval artillery that fired something like Willy Pete would be to them like Greek Fire, and take out an enemy ship with a single volley.

A steam-powered frigate-sized ship that could overtake a man-o-war, and vomit fire on it, then escape against the wind at better speeds than they could make before it, would have them crapping in their britches, and fleeing on sight.

Couple that with no-quarter warfare*, a few piles of heads, and a few strategic raids on the English mainland, and they'd sue for peace inside a year.



*(I'd have a Revolutionary War-era A-team formed and assigned to organize each and every county in every colony for insurgent warfare and sabotage, with specific directions to assassinate every British officer above the rank of captain, over and over again, at every opportunity, particularly in their sleep. Whether their dangly bits would be left in their mouths I would leave to local whim. It would definitely take the piss out of them if they knew that a similar fate awaited them the instant they let their guards down. Meanwhile their supplies would mysteriously explode/burn up on a nightly basis, and their food supplies would grow weevils and maggots daily. A bucket of nightsoil in each enemy water point would also put a severe and prolonged damper on fighting spirit, when His Majesty's troops were too busy crapping their guts out to muster each day.)
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
User avatar
JAG2955
Posts: 3044
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:21 pm

Re: Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

Post by JAG2955 »

I knew that we'd get some awesome ideas, but I was really focusing more on the tactics piece.

Introducing irregular/guerrilla warfare on a large scale across the colonies would have had devastating results to the British, and is would likely be the most feasible option to quickly change the course of the war.

Of course, if we start trying to alter weaponry, logistics, chemistry, and metallurgy, we come out on top much faster if we're using our historical knowledge as our number one weapon.
Post Reply