[Matthew Amt]

Wow, great stuff, here! It should be pointed out that there were instances in the American Revolution of the "wiley Americans firing from behind rocks and trees" at the British. Most notably this happened at the start of the war as the British retreated back to Boston after Lexington and Concord. The woods on both sides of the road were swarming with American militiamen, often firing from very close range with their weapons resting on fences or walls. And yet it is estimated that only one out of every 300 bullets actually *hit* a British soldier! Granted, these were very over-excited and inexperienced militia, but THAT's inaccurate shooting! For a while during that action, the British were able to clear the woods out temporarily with a sweep of light infantry, who were all had bayonets and were trained to use them. Remember, any line of skirmishers or even line infantry spread out in open order, with or without cover, are going to be at a huge disadvantage when two ranks of troops in close order with bayonets fixed arrive!

Frederick the Great did some experimenting with musket fire, with smaller or larger volleys. He apparently found that if his troops fired by company or platoon, small volleys in fairly quick succession down the line, he could kill a lot more of the enemy. But if he had whole regiments or brigades fire at once, the psychological impact more than made up for it!

Even with prepared paper cartridges, it can be difficult to load a musket consistently in action. Tear the paper too far, and powder is spilling all over the place. Dump too much in the pan, for starters, and there isn't much left to go down the bore. So your bullets might not have enough force to kill. One officer in the Seven Years War was struck seven times during a battle by spent balls! One gave him a painful bruise inside his elbow. It was also common to fire too high, sending shots over the enemy's head. Pull your muzzle down to counteract that, and you may just be firing into the ground at their feet.

Basically, those tight ranks of men served the same function as a machine gun: put a lot of lead in the air, and even if you don't hit something you might scare it off. How many bullets from a machine gun actually hit a soldier? Darn few! But we don't call it a dumb weapon, by any means.

Valete,

Matthew

[Walter Stockwell]

The book "On Killing" by David Grossman had an interesting perspective on this. His thesis is that most people don't want to kill. Battles were won by getting the other side to break ranks and run -- this makes it psychologically much easier to kill the enemy running away. He cites some period tests where musket fire at X range should have hit Y% of the opposing line when in fact typical battles only showed hit rates of 1/10th the expected rate. He thinks this came from soldiers firing over the other line, trying to break their morale. Apparently this was also shown to be a factor in WWII, which led to new training methods in the US Army. Very interesting book, well worth a read.

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-C...0316330116

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Lin Robinson]

[James Holczer]

[Lin Robinson]

[Tom L.]

The reason I brought up the loss rate that the allied command was willing to accept for Shermans as being madness was because they only took material losses into account. Tanks are easy to replace but crew members are not. Things got bad enough for the British that they started to get rid of the AA tank units and redistributed those crew to replace tanker casualties. Allied air superiority made this relatively easy to do.

Sure there were relatively few Tigers or Panthers, but such was the effect of those tanks that any German tank was seen as being a Tiger due to the fear that they inspired. The Tiger's strenghs caused a form of inferiority complex amongst Allied tank crews because they soon found out that their equipment was not on par with that of the Germans. The Tiger therefore made up for its lack of numbers by means of its reputation. Panzer IVs were more numerous and were still more than a match for a Sherman but they did not have the same psycological impact as a Tiger.

The idea of saying that the war could be won with a loss ratio of 4 Shermans to every 1 Tiger is madness to me because it doesn't even touch on the effect of crew lost rate. The Sherman was famous for "brewing up" easily after being hit. Admittedly, this was probably due to the crews stuffing the tanks full of ammo in whatever space was available. Tanks in the British Guards seem to not have suffered as much brew ups from hits due to their being more disciplined and storing ammo in the alotted bins only. Research back then showed that whenever a Sherman got hit, it was the ammo that burnt first and then the fuel. Sherman crews saw death around them everyday and also knew that their tanks were not up to the job. Things got so bad that crews were liable to abandon their tanks when hit; even if the hit was not serious. The loss rate was starting to wear down on the men and that was something that high command seemed to ignore.

Of course, things were made worse when the British upgunned some of their Shermans with the 17 pounder which proved to be capable of taking out Tiger tanks. The gun was offered to the US but was rejected for some reason. Why reject the 17 pounder but not the Rolls Royce Merlin engine? After all, it was the Merlin that powered the legendary P-51 Mustang. The Americans went with the long barreled 76 mm as a replacement for the short barrelled 75 mm but for the longest time, did not offer tank crews the high performance armour piercing round that the tank destroyer units had.

So for me, in regards to the Sherman, policies were made that appeared to willingly put human lives at risk due to badly thought out doctrines and cold hearted methematics that did not factor in the human cost.

But enough on tanks: bring on the muskets and bayonets, waistcoats, gaiters, powdered hair, tricorns, shakoes, neck stocks and crooked colonels buying cheap shoes just so they can pocket the remainder of their govenrment allowances.

[Bryce Felperin]

I was a bit mystified at the turn this subject took...but the last entry has brought it back. Basically the adherence to doctrine, even if it is obsolete, causes more casualties and loss of morale in the long run than it gains in the short run. In this case the use of Tank Destroyers as the means to kill German tanks in WWII when it was long proved obsolete and the use of massed infantry formations even after rifled muskets made those formations death traps can be connected.

Usually the side that gives up the outdated doctrines of the past first (like the Germans did versus Poland early in WWII) prosper better in war.

[Jason Daub]

Rifled muskets may have made those formations death traps, but what was the alternative? For nearly the entire existence of cavalry the guiding rule was that infantry in open formation was meat to the horseman. The true death knell for horse cavalry was the birth of the machine gun and quick firing artillery, and muzzle loading small arms simply lacked the rate of fire necessary.

Up until that point cavalry was still a viable arm, "von Bredow's Death Ride" convinced an entire generation of military theorists that cavalry could still be useful. "After all the Prussian cavalry at Mars-la-Tours faced the latest rapid fire weapons, among the the Chassepot (ROF 10-12 rounds per minute), the Reffye mitrailleuse (125RPM), and the Reffye 85mm cannon and still triumphed albeit at a very high cost but they were unsupported", seemed to be the thinking. I cannot think of a single battle between the Western European powers where infantry stood off cavalry without being in a "close order" formation of some type or well defended by field fortifications.

This is a few centuries out of my main area of interest, so if I am wrong, please clarify it for me.

[Robin Palmer]

Hi all one of the post mentioned that fredrich the great used firing by companys which was also used by the british army in the napolionic war possibly earlier. Its biggest asset was it allowed the enemy to be subject to a continuious hail of fire which made keeping order and line difficult both key. Its moral factor has been mentioned. One point not raised is the fact that even under ideal conditions the average musket could be expected to missfire 1in5 shots. The more shots fired the higher the odds by keeping the number down closing fire one or two then charging the odds were good of all the guns firing.

[Jean Thibodeau]