RIFLING!!!

[plang]

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF USELESS DEATHS! it still amazes me how long it took to change centuries old tactics of standing up and marching toward your foe in neat rows!!

 

[John Winn]

I'm sure we've covered the tactics of the war before but I'll just point out that "neat rows" was actually a fitting strategy and the advent of rifled muskets didn't really change that. Keep in mind that they didn't have radios or any means of communication other than flags, bugles, and drums. So, formations had to be kept relatively close to those giving commands. Also, black powder makes a lot of smoke and after a few volleys the enemy might be pretty hard to see; so not much aiming. Massed troops allowed unit control and for massed fire in the general direction of the enemy. In fact, a number of regiments actually preferred smoothbore muskets and some thought buck and ball the best round. In addition, most troops weren't trained marksmen so even if their muskets had a long range most wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it. The supposed advantages of a rifled musket were also minimized by terrain which was another factor that forced close-range attacks.

Of course, later in the war entrenchment was becoming fairly common and there were sieges. In those cases, aiming and long-range shooting were more typically employed and so it could be argued that the rifle had come of age. Before that, though, the only way to deliver effective firepower while keeping control over the troops was by massing and attacking by company and regiment.

Oh, and things had progressed from Napoleonic tactics so it's not accurate to say that CW generals were fighting exactly as European armies had done "centuries" before. This is seen in the way cavalry was used, how artillery and infantry were coordinated, and the elimination of formations such as the infantry square. The bayonet charge wasn't employed as the standard infantry attack that it had been in earlier European conflicts either (although it was still employed to some degree).

Thus I think it's a mistake to characterize CW commanders as somehow foolish to have used the tactics they did or to say that they were still employing Napoleonic methods. Just my two cents.

I would recommend these references:

Nosworthy, Brent (2003) The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War (Carrol & Graf Publishers, New York).

Hess, Earl J. (2015) Civil War Infantry Tactics: Training, Combat, And Small-Unit Effectiveness (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge).

 

[yulzari]

There was a seed of truth in von Moltke's 'two armed mobs chasing each other around the country' comment on the ACW. With few trained officers and untrained troops there was no ability for most to make use of the range of rifled muskets with their arching trajectories needing accurate range estimation. In the ACW most would have been as well, if not better, off with smooth bore percussion muskets with the new rifled muskets reserved for the few (comparatively) civil experienced riflemen. Effectively as light artillery. Modern users of the rifle musket shoot on ranges with given distances and get excellent results but many would be surprised at how difficult it is without known distances. I have tried and my normal mediocre result became abysmal. It only improved as I watched for the fall of shot which is an impossibility in a massed battle. In the Sepoy Mutiny good work was done with Enfields but it becomes clear that this was by the best shots out of trained professional soldiers. The mass of trained professionals could really only lay down a beaten zone at an estimated range.

Of course time and experience gradually made a change and they became better handled and almost universal. Officers learned how to exploit the 'dangerous zone' which could be covered without skilled use of the sights and to fire from protected positions. Also not to substitute bravery for skill with bayonet charges.

Whilst changing technology made changes to the conduct of the war this was especially true in transport and the telegraph and the use of railways enabled the war to be conducted across a continental scale across seasons but the battlefield was essentially the same as in Napoleon's time two generations before. The Crimean War was a reverse in that transport was outdated (bar steam ships and the telegraph) but the battlefields evolved to make use of new weapons technology and the rifle musket changed the depth of the infantry battlefield. However, at the end of the day, someone has to take the ground. Then it had to be with the pointed stick with muzzleloaders. Modern automatic magazine rifles replace that with personal fire power but the ACW had to be a bayonet war when (to borrow from the ECW) 'push came to shove'.

Rifling could have made much more of a difference but the ACW military system was not capable of exploiting it's potential. Not because they were ignorant of the potential but because the circumstances did not permit it.