Just read an article on actual fatalities from musket fire that said was actualy low as armies would start fireing at 3 to 5 hundred yards, in josepf plum martins private yankee doodle, he relates a story of a soldier shooting at a redcoat 300 yds away on a wim and thought said redcoat was fooling around by falling down, but on the return march he was still laying in the same spot
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Interestingly looking back on battles where near the same numbers were involved produced near the same causulties. Blenheim, Waterloo, Gettysburg, American sectors on DDay all had similar numbers involved and similar numbers of causulties.
That's because they were equally barbaric tenngun.
Battles are barbaric for sure. Historically even going back before guns to Hastings or Aqua Sexte and Marathon near equal numbers seem to produce equal casualties. Weapons have gotten faster, more accurate easier to use and longer range. At least on the books, in the end a German machine gun on Omaha beech is no more deadly the a Greek spear.
DaveC
32 Cal.
Uh. no. A single German with a captured Polish Browning water cooled HMG mowed down a lot of U.S. troops landing at Omaha Beach. Some Athenian hoplite with a spear during the, erm, uh, "exploitation phase?" of Marathon skewered many fleeing Persians. Qualitative and quantitative difference. Of course the Zulu bested the UK at Isandhlwana with mostly spears, but then there's 1898 Omdurman and the "whatever happens we have got the Maxim gun and they have naught." Recall that at the Little Bighorn while the Native Americans enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in numbers, it was the at least two to one superiority in guns over the 7th Cav that made the greatest difference.
The musket was a weapon. The regiment, firing by platoons, or files, or whatever, was the weapon system. Lots of projectiles going downrange. As in naval broadsides, so too in the regiment firing a volley: Attrition. Whoever got off the most rounds quicker would inexorably gain the upper hand. That's why the Royal Navy and the secondary service, the army, were so obsessed and insistent that soldiers be drilled to enable three shots in a minute, or a shot every 20 seconds. Similarly, tacticians obsessed about how to fire on columns of broadsword swinging Highland clansmen, or French troops in column. Analysis of actual ammo expenditure by British troops in the Peninsular campaign suggest an actual practical rate of fire of 1 shot every 3 or four minutes, but the idea was that in a firefight, the side that was better drilled would gain the advantage, all other variables being equal.
The musket was a weapon. The regiment, firing by platoons, or files, or whatever, was the weapon system. Lots of projectiles going downrange. As in naval broadsides, so too in the regiment firing a volley: Attrition. Whoever got off the most rounds quicker would inexorably gain the upper hand. That's why the Royal Navy and the secondary service, the army, were so obsessed and insistent that soldiers be drilled to enable three shots in a minute, or a shot every 20 seconds. Similarly, tacticians obsessed about how to fire on columns of broadsword swinging Highland clansmen, or French troops in column. Analysis of actual ammo expenditure by British troops in the Peninsular campaign suggest an actual practical rate of fire of 1 shot every 3 or four minutes, but the idea was that in a firefight, the side that was better drilled would gain the advantage, all other variables being equal.
All that’s true, tactics changed to fit the arms in use and the way those arms were deployed. No arguing that one machine gun could have stoped Persia or the Greeks.
That’s not what I thinking. Only looking at the end result of the battle.
Americans at Omaha deployed around the same numbers as Gettysburg and suffered around the same amount of causulties. Gettysburg had close to the same numbers as Waterloo and close to the same causulties and even back to marathon. Big battles in history tended to pay the same butchers bill.
One man with a machine gun is a lot deadlier then one man with a spear. An army with machine guns is not much more deadly then an army of spearmen. While wepeons got better at killing tactics got better at keeping men alive.
WW 1&2 saw unbelievable amounts of dead, at the same time armies got so much bigger and the front line streatched across a nation.
During the Roman wars at the end of the republic Rome had around half a million men under arms. While much of the empire was controlled by about a hundred thousand men. A drop in the bucket as it were compared to the western front in 1944. Not counting eastern front, Italy, or the pacific.
However an American landing on Omaha had similar survivability as a confederate in Pickett’s charge, or a union man during Burnside assault of Fredricksburg, or a Saxon at Hastings.
That’s not what I thinking. Only looking at the end result of the battle.
Americans at Omaha deployed around the same numbers as Gettysburg and suffered around the same amount of causulties. Gettysburg had close to the same numbers as Waterloo and close to the same causulties and even back to marathon. Big battles in history tended to pay the same butchers bill.
One man with a machine gun is a lot deadlier then one man with a spear. An army with machine guns is not much more deadly then an army of spearmen. While wepeons got better at killing tactics got better at keeping men alive.
WW 1&2 saw unbelievable amounts of dead, at the same time armies got so much bigger and the front line streatched across a nation.
During the Roman wars at the end of the republic Rome had around half a million men under arms. While much of the empire was controlled by about a hundred thousand men. A drop in the bucket as it were compared to the western front in 1944. Not counting eastern front, Italy, or the pacific.
However an American landing on Omaha had similar survivability as a confederate in Pickett’s charge, or a union man during Burnside assault of Fredricksburg, or a Saxon at Hastings.
DaveC
32 Cal.
I see. My understanding of pikes--very limited--has it that the front rank was as doomed as if they'd "gone over the top" at the Somme. post-WWI advocates of air power thought that aircraft in formation would obviate some of the WWI-style arillery mass slaughter, and apparently early on bomber crews had a worse survival rate than the "poor bloody infantry" in Flanders.
SirFrancis
32 Cal
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Tactics change, and so the way battles play out definitely have changed, too.
In an ancient world face-to-face battle, the actual fighting wasn’t that deadly. The phalanx fighting phalanx, or Roman line fighting a barbarian army, was more a matter of attrition in the very front ranks, with men having decent protection from armor and shields, being wounded or killed, giving place to another, or heroically charging into the enemy formation to try to open a breach for their comrades to exploit. Eventually, as the men tired, one side would weaken and give way, the entire battle order would collapse, and as the losers fled, that’s when the killing would really commence, resulting in the lopsided figures we see today, where a few hundred died on one side and 50,000 on the other.
On the other hand, in battles from the civil war to today, most of the casualties are from ranged fire, and so the definite advantage goes to the side with more, longer range, or faster firing weapons.
The tactics of muzzleloaders were geared to the limitations of weaponry. They presupposed a bayonet charge, which in turn presupposed that fire was only really effective at close range.
In an ancient world face-to-face battle, the actual fighting wasn’t that deadly. The phalanx fighting phalanx, or Roman line fighting a barbarian army, was more a matter of attrition in the very front ranks, with men having decent protection from armor and shields, being wounded or killed, giving place to another, or heroically charging into the enemy formation to try to open a breach for their comrades to exploit. Eventually, as the men tired, one side would weaken and give way, the entire battle order would collapse, and as the losers fled, that’s when the killing would really commence, resulting in the lopsided figures we see today, where a few hundred died on one side and 50,000 on the other.
On the other hand, in battles from the civil war to today, most of the casualties are from ranged fire, and so the definite advantage goes to the side with more, longer range, or faster firing weapons.
The tactics of muzzleloaders were geared to the limitations of weaponry. They presupposed a bayonet charge, which in turn presupposed that fire was only really effective at close range.
DaveC
32 Cal.
It has been written that the closing with the bayonet triggered the "fight or flight response" much as you describe.
Recall that the heavy infantry phalanx required considerable shoving and pushing, a bit like rugby, but with stabbing spears and some attrition and casualties until one side gave way. Then the "exploitation phase" and lopsided/one-sided killing of the fleeing enemy ensued, as with the Persians at Marathon. There are other examples.
The Romans had far more tactical flexibility, and threw javelins as the infantry closed in with the primary weapon: the stabbing and slashing with the gladius hispaniensis. If anything, this perhaps most closely resembles the Zulu iklwa from behind a body shield.
I get that ancient battles were often equally bloody affairs to many more modern battles.
1704 Blenheim: 60k French and Bavarians vs. Anglo-Austrian-Prussian-Hanoverian-Prussian etc. 56k. Something like 39k casualties including 10.5k slain.
1709 Malplaquet: something like 95k casualties.
Jena, Eylau, Wagrm, Borodino, Leipzig, Waterloo, etc. etc.
Recall that the heavy infantry phalanx required considerable shoving and pushing, a bit like rugby, but with stabbing spears and some attrition and casualties until one side gave way. Then the "exploitation phase" and lopsided/one-sided killing of the fleeing enemy ensued, as with the Persians at Marathon. There are other examples.
The Romans had far more tactical flexibility, and threw javelins as the infantry closed in with the primary weapon: the stabbing and slashing with the gladius hispaniensis. If anything, this perhaps most closely resembles the Zulu iklwa from behind a body shield.
I get that ancient battles were often equally bloody affairs to many more modern battles.
1704 Blenheim: 60k French and Bavarians vs. Anglo-Austrian-Prussian-Hanoverian-Prussian etc. 56k. Something like 39k casualties including 10.5k slain.
1709 Malplaquet: something like 95k casualties.
Jena, Eylau, Wagrm, Borodino, Leipzig, Waterloo, etc. etc.
