Maximum firepower.......

[alexjack]

The Maxim gun was first used by Britain's colonial forces in the 1893–1894 First Matabele War in Rhodesia. During the Battle of the Shangani, 700 soldiers fought off 5,000 warriors with just four Maxim guns. (Wikipedia)

Now I know the Union army was far from being made up of poorly armed 'native' warriors but if the South had maybe waited 30 years, armed itself with maxims and fought a defensive war, would it have won it's independence relatively quickly on the battlefield?

 

[Sbc]

Interesting what if scenario

 

[thomas aagaard]

If they stuck to an economic based on plantations... then no, they would never have been able to supply the needed ammo for the guns... and similar with artillery.

The fact that the civil war was NOT a modern industrialized war with the armies in contact day after day for years... was why the south was able to fight for 4 years.

 

[Mark Roth]

If they stuck to an economic based on plantations... then no, they would never have been able to supply the needed ammo for the guns... and similar with artillery.

The fact that the civil war was NOT a modern industrialized war with the armies in contact day after day for years... was why the south was able to fight for 4 years.

I'd go even further. The South couldn't and would not have been able to provide itself with the ammunition for anything more advanced than paper cartridge muzzle loading percussion rifle muskets. A North with the technological base to adopt and massively employ the Winchester or its equivalent would outshoot the South from here till next Tuesday. Even if this alternate Union army still only used single shot weapons or even muzzle loaders, they'd still have the resources to smash the Confederate maxim guns with artillery.

Something tells me that the 5000 Zulus didn't have too many howitzers.

 

[Jimklag]

The Maxim gun was first used by Britain's colonial forces in the 1893–1894 First Matabele War in Rhodesia. During the Battle of the Shangani, 700 soldiers fought off 5,000 warriors with just four Maxim guns. (Wikipedia)

Now I know the Union army was far from being made up of poorly armed 'native' warriors but if the South had maybe waited 30 years, armed itself with maxims and fought a defensive war, would it have won it's independence relatively quickly on the battlefield?

A famous quote by Hilaire Bolloc, the Anglo-French writer, about England's colonial wars against native populations in the late Victorian era.

Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim gun
And they have not

 

[OldReliable1862]

A more interesting scenario for me would be the results of the CSA making more copies of the Sharps. They used paper cartridges, which the South could make themselves to a certain extent. Of course, this is in the 1860s, rather than the 1890s war as you posit.

 

[Carronade]

The Maxim gun was first used by Britain's colonial forces in the 1893–1894 First Matabele War in Rhodesia. During the Battle of the Shangani, 700 soldiers fought off 5,000 warriors with just four Maxim guns. (Wikipedia)

While the Maxims no doubt helped, I imagine 700 modern rifles in the hands of well-trained soldiers had something to do with it.....

 

[Carronade]

The disparity in population and industry between the slaveholding states and the rest of the country would only get worse as time went by. The North was just as capable of adopting new technology as the South, whether it was Maxim guns, artillery, armored steam warships, or whatever.

When new weapons appeared on the battlefield, there would likely be some rude shocks in the first few battles, probably on both sides, but it seems likely that strategy and tactics would adapt.

 

[Irishtom29]

While the Maxims no doubt helped, I imagine 700 modern rifles in the hands of well-trained soldiers had something to do with it.....

Indeed. At Rorke's Drift about 100 Brits armed with breech loaders fought off several thousand Zulus, no machine guns needed. I assume that in the Metabele War the Brits were using Lee-Metford repeating rifles. The Metabeles once were armed like and fought much like the classical Zulus, I don't know what weapons and tactics they were using in the 1890s.

 

[Saphroneth]

Indeed. At Rorke's Drift about 100 Brits armed with breech loaders fought off several thousand Zulus, no machine guns needed.

The efficiency of British defending troops at Isandlwana was also absolutely amazing - there were about 3,000 Zulus hit (assuming 1,500 wounded along with the 1,500 killed) and the expenditure of rounds is on the order of 30,000. What this means is that the British troops at Isandlwana hit with very roughly one round in ten, which is one of the highest numbers I've ever seen for any engagement. (n.b. all these numbers assume no rifle rounds were fired by the non-British troops present.)

Consider now that the number of bullets expended at Gettysburg was on the order of two million...

Actually, that does remind me of something. The Zulus (in about divisional strength) were able to press forwards at the charge despite suffering 1,500 fatal casualties compressed into quite a short space of time. Since the British were so accurate, and since they could fire ten rounds a minute at quite long range with their Martini-Henry rifles (and since the accuracy of troops at Gettysburg was so much less) it raises the intriguing if ridiculous question of what would have happened if Pickett's men had been a Zulu impi.

My personal estimate - the Federal defenders would have managed one volley (opening fire at 100 yards), maybe two (second shot 30 seconds later, so perhaps they'd get a second round off), and then been pretty much rolled over.
Of course, how it would play back in Richmond that Lee had won a victory with ten thousand black spearmen is another matter...

 

[Irishtom29]

The efficiency of British defending troops at Isandlwana was also absolutely amazing ....

...My personal estimate - the Federal defenders would have managed one volley (opening fire at 100 yards), maybe two (second shot 30 seconds later, so perhaps they'd get a second round off), and then been pretty much rolled over.
Of course, how it would play back in Richmond that Lee had won a victory with ten thousand black spearmen is another matter...

Good post, and ending on a humorous note.

 

[alexjack]

The efficiency of British defending troops at Isandlwana was also absolutely amazing - there were about 3,000 Zulus hit (assuming 1,500 wounded along with the 1,500 killed) and the expenditure of rounds is on the order of 30,000. What this means is that the British troops at Isandlwana hit with very roughly one round in ten, which is one of the highest numbers I've ever seen for any engagement. (n.b. all these numbers assume no rifle rounds were fired by the non-British troops present.)

Consider now that the number of bullets expended at Gettysburg was on the order of two million...

Actually, that does remind me of something. The Zulus (in about divisional strength) were able to press forwards at the charge despite suffering 1,500 fatal casualties compressed into quite a short space of time. Since the British were so accurate, and since they could fire ten rounds a minute at quite long range with their Martini-Henry rifles (and since the accuracy of troops at Gettysburg was so much less) it raises the intriguing if ridiculous question of what would have happened if Pickett's men had been a Zulu impi.

My personal estimate - the Federal defenders would have managed one volley (opening fire at 100 yards), maybe two (second shot 30 seconds later, so perhaps they'd get a second round off), and then been pretty much rolled over.
Of course, how it would play back in Richmond that Lee had won a victory with ten thousand black spearmen is another matter...

I like this very informative post. On a human level these men from my home town were killed at Isandlwana...

Alfred Farr Killed Battle of Isandlwana
Richard Treverton Killed Battle of Isandlwana
Harry Smith Killed Battle of Isandlwana
George Morris Killed Battle of Isandlwana
Charley Long Killed Battle of Isandlwana
William Reece Killed Battle of Isandlwana

 

[OldReliable1862]

All this talking about the Zulu War reminds me I have to rewatch the 1964 movie.

 

[Saphroneth]

It's a funny battle, Isandlwana.
It's brought up as if the British should somehow be ashamed of it on the level of individual soldierly competency, when what actually happened was a raid on a supply station (it's not as if the British thought a few hundred soldiers would beat the entire Zulu nation - they were arrogant, but not that arrogant) and both sides acquitted themselves remarkably well. The Zulus absorbed the kind of casualties that would break most any other charge, and the British inflicted those kinds of casualties in a very short space of time.

Anyway.

To maximize firepower in the Civil War context, these are the things I could see being done:

(1) Adopt the Dreyse.
This is a weapon which has a decisive superiority at short range compared to a muzzle-loader, and weight of fire would create an effective beaten zone.
The difficult thing here would be achieving the scale of production required for it to be meaningful, though a few thousand in a kind of "Needle Brigade" would be an excellent way of pushing forwards a base of fire on the attack or blunting enemy attacks.
(2) Stick to smoothbores.
This is the kind of thing the Irish Brigade did, using buck-and-ball to increase the number of balls in the air. Enough said.
(3) Breechloading artillery.
This did exist during the time period, and the Armstrong 12 pounder was a good example. In extremis this could be fired very fast in "canister" mode to sweep a beaten zone, though it'd be firing into smoke for the most part.
(4) Actual mechanical fast firing weapons.
They did exist at the time, though they weren't exactly common or well developed. Something like the Agar gun would be about the best you'd get, and while unreliable a forward-thinking officer might deploy them in batteries (to make up for any individual failings).
(5) Actually training everyone to shoot straight.
Now this one's just silly.
(In all seriousness, when one of Cleburne's regiments got a chance to use their rifle training at long range it felt to the Federals as if they were facing at least a brigade, so this might be the best way of increasing perceived firepower.)

 

[thomas aagaard]

1 - Or focus domestic production on the sharp rifle. Not that much harder to produce than a springsfield.
(compared to something like the Spencer)
Using imports for the first few years of the conflict and then over time rearm the good units with Sharps... giving the experienced men a better change of surviving,
And give them training in marksmanship.
Maybe starting out with taking the best 20% of the men in a regiment and giving them Sharps and marksmanship training.

 

[Saphroneth]

1 - Or focus domestic production on the sharp rifle. Not that much harder to produce than a springsfield.
(compared to something like the Spencer)

I was assuming this was a thing the Confederates would be doing rather than the Union. Of course, for the Union to arm the best 20% of the men in a regiment with Sharps would take ages!


In June 1861, Ripley orders 3,000 carbines from Sharps. The first weapons are delivered in September 1861; by the end of the year, Sharps has delivered 5,800 carbines and 100 rifles, with a production rate of about 500 per week.
The Spencer's worse, of course, but the Sharps was hardly an easy weapon to stamp out in bulk - it cost three times what a Springfield did, after all.

Assuming that the production of the Sharps instantly quadruples to 2,000 per month (which would produce the entire historical production run of Sharps, ~120,000 all types, in five years) and then doubles again in 1863 t0 4,000 per month (at which rate the entire production run would take thirty months and which is definitely a massive over-estimate), to arm 20% of Union troops - which would be about 100,000 rifles - would take until mid-1864.

What would really be needed for mass use of breechloaders on a useful timescale would be conversions, and probably British industry. At full ramp-up there were more than eleven hundred Sniders being produced (converted from existing Enfields) a day, which would suffice to do the entire Army of the Potomac in three months. (This was during 1867, the year after the choice had been made)

 

[thomas aagaard]

But had the union decided to make the sharp their main weapon, instead of the Springfield, then the arsenals and the companies that ended up making Springfields would have produced sharps instead... giving a much higher output.

Sure more men would properly had been using poorer smoothbores and used European firearms... but I think that would have been worth it, if it would h ve given the best 20% in each company/regiment sharps rifles.

 

[Saphroneth]

But had the union decided to make the sharp their main weapon, instead of the Springfield, then the arsenals and the companies that ended up making Springfields would have produced sharps instead... giving a much higher output.

I allowed for that, that's why I quadrupled the production instantly and doubled it again after a year.
The production of the Springfield in the first fifteen months was about 120,000, producing weapons they were already familiar with; to retool often took a long time, with Burnside taking well over a year to switch to the Spencer as I recall.


Of course, rifle training would solve a lot of the problems anyway as it would drastically improve the hits (though not the shots) per minute per company.

 

[67th Tigers]

Maybe I could mention this old British documentary on the development of the rifle, written by Christopher Roads:

 

[thomas aagaard]

I allowed for that, that's why I quadrupled the production instantly and doubled it again after a year.
The production of the Springfield in the first fifteen months was about 120,000, producing weapons they were already familiar with; to retool often took a long time, with Burnside taking well over a year to switch to the Spencer as I recall.

But how many of the companies where familiar with it? how many companies was making it before the war for the private market? (as I understand it all government contracts was covered by the government arsenals)
(just so we are clear, this is meant as questions... not as statements of facts)

I would argue that The sharp is really not that different from a musket.
Where the the Spencer is a very different gun. So the retooling time was much bigger in this case.

Anyway, Since I don't consider a rifle musket an advantage in most cases over a smothbore, I do think this would have been a better solution. Allowing some men to use old smootbores for a longer time, and in return rearm more experienced men with breechloaded rifles. Improving both their firepower and survivability.