You are making a common mistake of thinking "minie" rifles where the first riflemusket in use.
RM have been around since the early 1840ties.
About 30.000 rifled muskets was used at the Battle of Isted in 1850. 25% of the danish government army had them (with all units down to the platoon level having some) and about 80% of the rebel "german" army had riflemuskets.
During that war Danish cavalry still managed to get into close combat with infantry. (So Did Austrian cavalry in 1864 against a purely rilfemusket armed danish force.)
Well, I don't think that's a mistake I am making; I might be wrong. What I am pointing to is the mass deployment of such weapons among major armies of the day (Denmark was a bigger power than most might be aware of in those days, but the French and Austrians were far more important in the eyes of the world).
The RM don't make mounted attacks impossible... just harder.
As I have said myself many a time over the years. Von Moltke's instructions to his generals after the 1866 Austro-Prussian War say the same.
The same with offensive use of artillery. It was done a lot in 1848 when both sides only used a few rifles. By 1850 with experienced infantry formations and a lot more rifled firearms around it was still done, but it now needed to be done in close cooperation with the infantry. And artillery try to find positions where they can get some cover from rifle fire.
If I have not made this obvious, I apologize: the technological advances I have been discussing are an ongoing process.
Battlefield conditions during the days from Frederick the Great to Napoleon I remained generally constant (with changes of degree and constant refinement). The days of Musket and Pike started to end as the flintlock musket and bayonet (first plug, then socket became common). Iron ramrods were a "major" improvement, but otherwise infantry weaponry didn't change drastically until after the Napoleonic Wars. Likewise, artillery improved but did not drastically change. There is little
conceptual difference between the arms used by Marlborough, Frederick the Great and Napoleon, although there are engineering improvements and refinements in the weapons. Tactics were refined as well, but essentially a good soldier of the period from 1700 to 1840 would have little difficulty with the capability differences.
Before that time there is a period where the old musket-and-pike technology is
transitioning to the new flintlock-muskets-with-bayonets technology, just as you have a
transition period in roughly 1830-1860 as the old flintlock-muskets-with-bayonets model changes to a percussion-capped rifle model, followed immediately by a transition to the breech-loading/magazine rifle by the later 1800s. Artillery was undergoing a similar smoothbore muzzle-loaders to rifled muzzle-loaders to quick-firing breech-loaders transition period. Most European military observers of the ACW were coming to observe the effect of the new rifled artillery, particularly in siege operations against the existing state-of-the-art fortifications like Ft. Sumter and Ft. Pulaski. Few of them saw much else of interest (the Russians studied cavalry raids, the British ignored the ACW until G. F. R. Henderson rose to prominence, the Prussians later adopted the USMRR organization wholesale).
Also the RM don't extent the kill zone. It give your two of them. One close to the shooter and the other at an short area around the target. And that is in the hands of well trained men. In between you got an area that is "safe" and if the shooter is not well trained he can easily misjudge the range (usually judge the ranger bigger than it is) and overshoot.
I have to admit this confuses me. It appears to me that you are saying there is a kill zone near the shooter and a kill zone near the target and a safe zone in between. That seems wrong. I am using the term to mean the kill zone is the area in which the fire of the shooter can reasonably reach out and hit the target. Terrain might change that by protecting the target (hills, rocks, gullies, things that obstruct the line-of-sight like trees and bushes and rolls in the ground, etc.), but otherwise the shooter's kill zone is what he can see and reach with his fire.
A problem I have in my understanding of your description is that it seems to say that the shooter's kill zone changes shape every time the target moves -- that if the target is 150 yards away, the kill zone exists as a blob around the target at 150 yards, if the target retreats to 200 yards, the kill zone exists as a blob around the target at 200 yards, etc. In the sense that you can't kill a target where it is not located, I see that you are correct, but I think of the kill zone as the entire area the shooter can effectively hit the target.
During the civil war the change to rifle muskets had very little effect on infantry tactics. (thanks to lack of proper marksmanship training)
Hmm. Bad training will always impact performance. However, the issues involved in the mass introduction of Minie-style rifles to the battlefield had not been resolved by
any Army of the day at the time of the ACW. The 1859 war in Italy left the French convinced they already had the solution (essentially Napoleonic tactics raised to a high level by training). It caused the Austrians, who were moving to a firepower-based system based on the Archduke Charles tactical system from the Napoleonic wars (a good idea that fit it well) to reverse their training, that bayonet charges and traditional shock combat were the way to go. Von Moltke, down there to observe, decided that firepower would now dominate and that both the French and the Austrians were headed in the wrong direction. It isn't until 1866 that the horrendous Austrian defeat convinces rest of the military world to change.
The ACW occurs in a time of experimentation and theoretical debate in military circles. Before 1850, weaponry is little different than it was in the French Revolution or the Napoleonic Wars. The tactics that won the Mexican War for the Americans (essentially aggressive light artillery fire and disciplined bayonet attacks) would be immediately familiar to any of Napoleon's men or the British Wellington or the Austrian Field Marshall Radetzky. Braxton Bragg's use of horse artillery at Buena Vista is probably/possibly the most brilliant such example to be found in the Americas, but it would have been seen as just a good example of textbook tactics by Napoleonic veterans.
It had little effect on cavalry tactics, because early in the war the cavalry didn't have the skills to do proper mounted charges anyway. And on many battlefield the terrain is ill suited for it.
On the terrain, this was the opinion of the British Army's G. F. R. Henderson, who thought even Brandy Station was tight terrain for a European-style cavalry battle.
On the skills issue:
- Pre-war US Army Regular units had the skills, but there were only 5 regiments (2 Dragoons, 2 Cavalry, 1 Mounted Infantry) and were largely scattered west of the Mississippi when the war started. One of these makes a mounted charge out in Missouri about May or June of 1861. The 5th US Cavalry (originally the 2nd US Cavalry) made a mounted charge on advancing infantry at Gaines Mill (June, 1862) that is shot up (55 casualties of 237), possibly gaining some time for the retreat. For the Confederates, J. E. B. Stuart leads a mounted charge on infantry (Ellsworth's Fire Zouaves) during 1st Bull Run in July of 1861 (a success).
- Generally, men in "the South" were much more likely to ride horses while men in the North were much more likely to drive wagons or buggies. Newly recruited Union cavalry regiments (particularly in the East) had to spend a lot of time training men to ride while Confederate units could skip that part. Even in early 1862, Union cavalry units would lose riders simply by getting off the road and trying to move cross-country. The lack of familiarity with caring for horses also led to many broken-down horses in any kind of extended cavalry deployment. This is very evident in the Manassas Campaign (August 1862), where Pope's attempt to make hard use of his cavalry brigades quickly leads to rapidly dwindling strengths. Still, 2nd Manassas is the first real example of Union Volunteer cavalry launching a saber charge in the East (Buford, briefly successful, possibly saving Pope from even greater defeat). Given the general belief that it took 12-18 months to train a cavalryman, that is about the earliest you could expect a Union Volunteer Cavalry regiment to be ready; mounted charges become more common in the Spring of 1863.
- The Gettysburg Campaign features a good number of mounted charges by both sides (June-July 1863). They are usually cavalry-on-cavalry, but the battle itself features two notable cavalry-on-infantry moments: Kilpatricks' sacrifice of Farnsworth in Farnsworth's Charge on July 3 and Buford's mounted-dismounted combined attack to cover I Corps retreat on July 1 (Rebels may have formed some sort of square here, making a good target for the dismounted troopers).
- Out West, you might find more examples of saber charges, but it is probably hit-or-miss. Forrest's commands certainly used the saber, but Forrest generally did whatever worked best for the situation, making excellent use of artillery fire, rifle fire, pistol fire and swords in different places. Wheeler (pre-war US Mounted Rifles Regiment) started out favoring the mounted charge but trended more to dismounted action over time; by 1865 he is debating the point with his new superior, Wade Hampton, who favors a mounted charge. Confederate Cavalry units were sometimes less well equipped with sabers and often acted more like mounted infantry.
Late in the war union cavalry do start to make mounted attacks, but by that time they are armed with breechloaded or even repeating firearms, making the dismounted line very effective because of a technological edge over the infantry.
Up until the end of the Civil War, Confederate infantry remained confident they could push Union cavalry out of any position they tried to hold, because they generally could. This is certainly true in June 1864 when Meade has to order Sheridan to hold his ground against Confederate infantry near Cold Harbor. Repeaters and breech-loaders could be very effective in certain situations (usually in a "mad minute" close-quarter assault where volume of fire can decide the issue, and then generally in favor of the defense). Examples are hard to find, generally occur in 1865, and often involve situations where the Union side had a large numerical advantage.
You can find a few crucial uses of repeaters earlier but they generally will come down to Wilder's Brigade in the Tullahoma Campaign, Wilder's Brigade at Chickamauga, and the Colt Revolving Rifles of the 21st Ohio Infantry at Chickamauga, or the action at the Carter house at Franklin. Wilder's Brigade is truly mounted infantry (existing infantry regiments that had been issued horses) and the 21st Ohio was simply an ordinary infantry unit that ended up in a crucial spot at a crucial time. The Carter house action involves only a few companies (armed with repeaters) of a single regiment among the forces fighting there, but it is a crucial pivot of that fight and the repeaters might have tilted the action.
But I agree that the (theoretical) threat of long range rifle fire made the artillery unwilling to support the infantry at close range during attacks.
I don't think you will find an example of anything remotely like the Senarmont "artillery charge" tactic first seen at Friedland in 1807 or even of typical horse-artillery tactics as seen at Dresden in 1813 (or many other Napoleonic battles), even like Bragg's action at Buena Vista. Perhaps the Gallant Pelham's actions might show like that for the Confederates if I looked closely -- but then he died at Chancellorsville in May, 1863.
Rifle fire was the primary reason artillerymen didn't push forward to engage at extreme close range anymore, although increased artillery ranges and heavier guns must have also played a part. A 12-lber Napoleon was a pretty lethal canister gun at ranges out to 400 yards or more; a 3-inch Rifle a little less so.
It is easy to find examples of artillery in a defensive role dominating the battlefield in the ACW (Mendenhall did it 3 times to save Rosecrans bacon at Stones River and Chickamauga before dying when he tried the fourth time, for example; Malvern Hill also comes to mind). It is hard to find examples where artillery dominated the battlefield in an offensive role. Looking at the European examples shortly after the ACW, I don't see
close-in offensive use of artillery there either (but that might just be my lack of depth on the battles).
I think that the change in weapons technology in the 1850s-1860s caused this change, making the artillery-charge tactic and traditional horse-artillery tactics too difficult, too costly, or less efficient/necessary in achieving the desired result. Perhaps it was all three -- perhaps the artillery discovered they could avoid the heavy losses caused by moving into close contact and still affect the results from longer range due to new technology (longer range, more effective ammo, better accuracy, etc.) The Franco-Prussian War seems the turning point for artillery dominance (leading to a peak in WWI).