So Napoleanic tactics make sense as the meta when you are fighting other armies playing by the same rules, but how did they work against people not playing by those rules? Like wouldnt it make more sense to wear armor instead of ridiculous uniforms when fighting against zerg rushing hordes of zulu warriors or manchu bannermen? Obviously by the late 1800's when machine guns were a thing that was a non-issue but how did dudes with wool clothes and muskets marching in formation beat significantly larger hordes of melee combatants charging at them?
You would've to be "unconventional" by those times standards, that's why the russians were able to defeat him (For the anecdote, the general appointed by the czar to face the French army had to disobey him because he wanted him to face Napoleon the same way every other army had done instead of doing scorched earth tactics)
Bayoneted rifles combine the reach of a spear with the guarding potential of a sword and the defensive flexibility of a quarterstaff, all while being a ranged weapon effective at like 100 yds.
Bayoneted rifles are inferior to all of those weapons in balance and handling, the bayonet is ultimately a reasonably effective cope compromise on top of an extremely effective ranged weapon.
Colonial powers massacred foreign armies for most of time. British wrecked Indian kingdoms, Russian wrecked central asian khanates.
And this is some how meant to be seen as a bad thing
No they didn't. It was always a mixed bag. The Europeans struggled to project power to their overseas holdings up until the invention of the steam ship and were always careful to avoid direct conflict with the major powers of their respective localities.
> Russian wrecked central asian khanates.
This comment is funny because they didn't. They had success against the sedentary turkic states, but against the nomadic turks and mongols they regularly got their assess handed to them. Their experience in Central Asia left such a deep impression on the Russians that Russian military theorists would spend most of the 19th and 20th century attempting to emulate the fluid and mobile fighting style of the Mongols and Turks.
>Russian military theorists would spend most of the 19th and 20th century attempting to emulate the fluid and mobile fighting style of the Mongols and Turks.
You're confusing 15th century with 19th
Russians also fought different from other Europeans. There was a much greater inclusion of other melee weapons. They were essentially a mix of European and more typically Asiatic armies.
One of the most interesting things I learned about Napoleonic combat is the fact that apparently drill for melee units is not intuitive for fighters. The idea that you and an ally agree to standing right besides eachother in a line, ready to stab opponents at the same time, is a skill that does not come naturally to melee combat.
Watch and compare to superior euro tactics of line warfare bayonet melee.
It seems like more was invested into training than armor, and there are instances of more well off soldiers esp. cavalry owning cuirasses when expecting to be shock troops.
Makes some degree of sense. A big part of it seems to unironically just be violence of action. Whoever is acting confidently and quickly usually comes out on top. You see that in street fights as well. Part of that is likely simple skill. Someone who has boxed or otherwise fought acts without hesitation and seizes the initiative. The people on the receiving end hesitate and suffer for it as a result, even when there are multiple of them.
On the other hand in your video if three people with spears face one with two swords, I doubt the result would repeat the same. They are much simpler weapons to not get in each others way with.
>how did dudes with wool clothes and muskets marching in formation beat significantly larger hordes of melee combatants charging at them?
Let's take Waterloo for just one example
How do you fight a horde of 12,000-16,000 dudes charging at you? By running them down with 2,300 dudes on horseback. Just two British cavalry brigades routed the entire French I Corps, inflicting at least 50% casualties in less than an hour.
>okay, but I don't have cavalry
Battered British battalions defeated about 5,000-7,000 of charging French infantry - mostly Imperial Guardsmen but also including survivors of I Corps totalling two or three times their number - with rolling volleys of musketry, aided by artillery firing canister and shrapnel. Similarly, at Hougoumont, about 7,000 British and German troops defeated twice their number in French infantry.
>zerg rushing hordes of zulu warriors or manchu bannermen
would be slaughtered wholesale because they don't even have artillery, which inflicted most of the casualties on the Allied infantry at Waterloo.
Did colonial powers bring artillery or cavalry when subjugating potential colonies? Surely some indian kingdoms or mongolian clans also had cavalry?
but redcoats and bluecoats and their cavalry are able to charge guns and cannons without getting scared?
Sauce or links to specific battles?
scottish highlanders
so bayonet wielders beat sword and spear wielders simply because they are scared shitless before they get into range?
>but redcoats and bluecoats and their cavalry are able to charge guns and cannons without getting scared?
the whole point of the bayonet charge was after you shot enough rounds that the bore of the gun got all gunked up and you couldn't load rapidly anyway and usually one side would run away when there was a bayonet charge.
Plus, unironically a yuropean army was better trained and less likely to rout when charging with bayonets
Interesting. I was wondering how yuros got such an overwhelming tech advantage with just muskets. I guess it was also training and morale related tech advantages that the ottomans and qings didnt have (plus not enough guns to even try those tactics)
>Every crusade was successful
>Every time Europeans have fought people from outside Europe they have been successful
Genetics
>Did colonial powers bring artillery or cavalry when subjugating potential colonies?
Of course
You don't really think people just marched blocks of infantry all over just like that, do you?!?!
>Surely some indian kingdoms or mongolian clans also had cavalry?
And artillery even
Got BTFO all the same
But that wasn't OP's question - OP's question was
>fighting against zerg rushing hordes of zulu warriors or manchu bannermen?
>not playing by those rules?
and the answer is, BTFO even worse.
Napoleonic combat isn't at all silly, it was the most effective tactics made possible by the technology of the times.
>how yuros got such an overwhelming tech advantage
Competition.
Other regions stagnated in tech development, for various reasons.
>so bayonet wielders beat sword and spear wielders simply because they are scared shitless before they get into range?
No, that's really not what I said. Shock should not be confused with "fear", it's better synonyms would be "sensory overload" and "confusion". When men are surrounded by noise and blood and fire and explosions they can get easily "shorted out" and this can result in anything from breaking formation (but still pursuing the enemy) to getting turned around and charging askew to where you intended to go, opening yourself up to more attacks than otherwise.
Further, disrupting a formation can be as simple as "every third man is dead and we're no longer a solid wall" or "having to run or jump over the dead in front of me slowed me down compared to the other men charging, fricking up how we hit the enemy"
And there is of course the fact that your "outnumbering" force might not be so heavily outnumbering by the time you've taken four close volleys (and perhaps more distant volleys ammunition permitting).
Forces that have been disrupted, rendered uneven, staggered, spread out, tend to be at an extreme disadvantage even when they outnumber the enemy significantly. Force *concentration* is extremely vital, three men can kill ten if they fight them one at a time.
This is all *aside* from fear, which is always a factor of course.
how efective was arty in the napoleonic age ?
in ultimate general civil war (i know not a good point) cannons fire the whole game and only end up inflicting small amount of cassualties compared to infantry
that said i guess it s still good if they don t take damage
>how efective was arty in the napoleonic age ?
Arty outranges musket but had much less overall fire power (possible kills per minute). Arty largest effect was it prevented "turtling" of the infantry, and promoted maneuver combat. As infantry can't just stay in comfortable position and wait when enemy comes at them and attacker is in disadvantage because you can't march and fire at the same time and marching brakes order and overall reduces amounts of fifee tou can deliver comparing to stationary defenders dire from perfect rows. Arti can hit infantry from range and thus promoting movement of this infantry.
The Napoleonic wars saw some advancements in artillery - brass cannon replacing iron, shells, flintlocks, improved caissons - and Napoleon being an artilleryman by training, made great use of it. He also can be credited with inventing the Grand Battery, what today we would call Corps Artillery, in which instead of leaving operational control to individual brigades, he took most of the army's cannon personally in hand and directed them against the primary target. This was a particularly brilliant innovation because it doesn't need additional investment.
By contrast, muskets had more or less the same performance as they'd had for nearly a century.
Napoleon won quite a few battles with artillery, and they inflicted the most casualties at Waterloo. It was a classic Napoleon set-piece battle, where he used his artillery to pulverise the enemy and then finished the job with an infantry-cavalry charge. (Just two days prior, Blucher had been smashed by the same tactic.) Except at Waterloo, Wellington chose very good defensive positions which negated the artillery advantage. Even so, the British-Dutch army suffered massive casualties, and mainly to artillery fire.
So how effective was artillery? It was extremely effective. But so was cavalry, and so was infantry volleys, and so was skirmishers. These four elements made up the "rock paper scissors" of Napoleonic warfare, and a proper combined arms army with all these elements was hard to defeat by an army that was missing one arm.
>Arty outranges musket
By a factor of twenty, mind you. Artillery was effective at one mile, muskets at fifty yards.
>He also can be credited with inventing the Grand Battery
the concept first came about during the italian wars, i think. although it ultimately didn't succeed so the french would probably prefer to forget about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marignano
>Arty outranges musket
>By a factor of twenty, mind you. Artillery was effective at one mile, muskets at fifty yards.
That's a bit misleading. Against formations of men, muskets could reliably hit the enemy at three or even four times the distance, and reach out even further in ideal conditions (or with a greater acceptance of low hit rate)
Smoke, undersized balls for faster loading, and just simple human error (the number of balls estimated to be shot straight into the fricking ground is massive) contribute more to the smoothbore musket's reputation than the objective limitations of the weapon.
not to mention I slipped up; one thousand yards is not one mile!
however,
>Against formations of men, muskets could reliably hit the enemy at three or even four times the distance
Supposedly muskets could hit a platoon-sized target at around 100 yards 50% of the time, so that's what we would call its CEP today, and a man-sized point target at 50 yards. At 200 yards the hit probability fell to 25%. We know that these figures were carefully considered by contemporary tacticians, because of the prevalent use by Napoleon of musket-armed skirmishers - it dictated both skirmishing and attrition range. (The Baker rifle was expected to be effective at 200 yards in the hands of regular troops - unless it did afford greater performance over muskets, the expensive and slower-firing Baker rifle wouldn't have been used. Napoleon however claimed that muskets were good enough for his skirmishers, so perhaps they accepted the tradeoff of lower accuracy at 200 yards for greater rate of fire. Reportedly French skirmishers were effective in large numbers but could be fended off by a sufficient number of British skirmishers armed with Bakers.) Accounts of the war consistently have battalions closing to 50 yards before opening fire.
So all in all, it seems likely I think that 50 yards was the accepted effective range for a musket, and 200 yards considered long range more suitable for harrassing fire.
More likely ten or so.
Even bursting shells were recorded as killing or maiming about two dozen men, so round shot shouldn't be that extremely deadly.
>Supposedly
>So all in all, it seems likely
Unfortunately, muskets still exist, we can still load and fire them, and record their accuracy, so we don't need to suppose or go off of theory.
This is with unpatched balls, and the shooter is still able to put almost every ball in an area the size of his rather large body at 125 yards. These 125 yard balls would have still all hit the man to the right or left or behind the target (which is under sized anyway). You have to remember that it's literally an order of magnitude easier to hit a formation than it is to hit a single man.
%3D%3D
With all of these tests, we see that hitting a single target is very possible at or beyond 100 yards, and that most of the missed shots were to the right or left, which would be very likely to hit a man in a line formation that would be two or even three ranks deep. Smoothbore Muskets with correctly sized balls are extremely lethal at 100 yards against a massed enemy, and can reach out even to 200 yards fairly consistently. This range is tremendously reduced by battlefield conditions, primarily smoke, and thus while one volley might have 50% accuracy at 200 yards, successive volleys will be shooting nearly completely blind, and the army that trades accuracy for speed in this case dominates. Loose/undersized balls, drills that emphasized speed over aiming, none of these are hard trades when you can't see the enemy.
We are not supposing or going off theory, we are rationalising from historical accounts. As I said, in multiple instances during the Napoleonic wars, battalions marched to 50 yards and only then opened fire. Skirmish order was ineffective and tirailleurs did not enjoy a huge advantage over line infantry, as would be expected if they truly had effective ranges on point targets at 125 yards and formation targets at 200+.
All these videos prove is that repro muskets and modern black powder are more effective than Napoleonic era manufacture.
>As I said, in multiple instances during the Napoleonic wars, battalions marched to 50 yards and only then opened fire.
see
>Loose/undersized balls, drills that emphasized speed over aiming, none of these are hard trades when you can't see the enemy.
You're not going to carry completely different ammunition and train completely different loading and aiming procedure to fire off a couple more volleys when a third of your troops are going to fire into the ground or way off into the air anyway.
>Skirmish order was ineffective and tirailleurs did not enjoy a huge advantage over line infantry, as would be expected if they truly had effective ranges on point targets at 125 yards and formation targets at 200+.
Skirmishers were used as a supplement to standard infantry in just about every war since the end of the matchlock.
>All these videos prove is that repro muskets and modern black powder are more effective than Napoleonic era manufacture.
Several of those videos are using antiques and period specific powder, now you're being purposefully obtuse.
>when you can't see the enemy
Except they also did it at the commencement of action, when the battlefield should have been clear
>Skirmishers were used as a supplement
So if muskets were so effective, why weren't they practically eliminating battalions?
A battalion in line would present something like ~600 muskets forward, say arranged in three lines of 200 each. Their effective range against point targets (skirmishers) would be 125 yards according to these videos. Skirmishers however would have a field day shooting at such a huge target from twice the distance, easily killing and wounding one man with every shot. About 60 skirmishers per battalion was the standard. In just 10 rounds of fire, less than five minutes, even assuming 50% misses, a company of tirailleurs could destroy a battalion in line, while suffering few losses as they could take cover. And with such wide dispersion, smoke won't obscure them; rather it would conceal them whereas a whopping big formation target would suffer tremendous casualties even if smoke from their own fire hid them after a few exchanges, because they had to stay in place with little cover.
So why was there never any such engagement recorded in the Napoleonic Wars, and all the other wars of the period?
Simple answer: actual period muskets and powder were nowhere near as effective as these videos claim.
>Several of those videos are using antiques and period specific powder
Tell me which one isn't a repro
"Period specific powder" is a misnomer; it was documented there was notable quality differences between British and French powder. So tell me, this "period specific powder", which one is it equivalent to?
>Except they also did it at the commencement of action, when the battlefield should have been clear
Which would be a relevant retort if I hadn't listed several reasons besides the smoke. You seem to either be refusing to read my posts or purposefully misinterpreting them.
>So if muskets were so effective, why weren't they practically eliminating battalions?
Lots of reasons? First, Skirmishers were often given the same ammunition (undersized balls, lose ball loading, etc) which limits the theoretical maximum and effective ranges. Second, a Skirmisher taking cover has a dramatically lower rate of fire than a standing man, and obviously a standing skirmisher can be retaliated against pretty effectively by infantry. Third, the enemy would have skirmishers of their own more than likely. All of the shots I showed gave the shooter however much time they wanted to aim, which also obviously further cuts down on rate of fire.
You cannot get off ten volleys in the time it takes for infantry to come within range of you, not kneeling, not laying down, not standing. Even if the enemy had to run up on you and beat you to death with a rock you could not make that time. At a brisk walking pace it takes about two minutes to walk 200 yards, that's from best case scenario musket range to strangling distance, walking.
>as these videos claim.
Prove, as these videos prove.
>Tell me which one isn't a repro
You didnt watch all the videos? Which video *did* you watch in full?
>"Period specific powder" is a misnomer; it was documented there was notable quality differences between British and French powder. So tell me, this "period specific powder", which one is it equivalent to?
I'm curious what you know about black powder shooting, what ratings of powder do you think are equivalent to what historical loads?
>listed several reasons besides the smoke
such as
>none of these are hard trades when you can't see the enemy
?
your "several" reasons all hinge on the smoke factor
>Skirmishers were often given the same ammunition
British skirmishers had better ammo and better training, so why couldn't they absolutely annihilate French battalions all on their own?
>a Skirmisher taking cover has a dramatically lower rate of fire than a standing man
They also took cover behind trees, rocks, in dead ground, but once again, not once, not ever, have skirmishers ever been documenting pulling off what theoretically is claimed possible here
>the enemy would have skirmishers of their own
All armies did, to various extent, but once again when considering the claimed ranges, a battalion standing in line would present such a massive area target, that opposing skirmishers could even bombard them from further away than defending skirmishers could counter them, and massacre the battalion. But this never happened. Not once, not ever.
>however much time they wanted to aim, which also obviously further cuts down on rate of fire
Hardly relevant, because battles took hours; even at a generous rate of one round per minute, a company of skirmishers would theoretically reduce a battalion below 50% in two hours. But this never happened.
>musket range to strangling distance, walking
Also irrelevant, as skirmishers can "kite" battalions in line more effectively as they didn't have to march in close order.
>what ratings of powder do you think are equivalent to what historical loads?
None
Powder isn't made by historical techniques any more
Why don't you tell me what grade of black powder equals a French cartridge? A British one? A Prussian one?
This all boils down to one question really: either literally every one in the 1800s fighting for their lives are utter morons, or you are very much mistaken. I wonder what the odds are.
>such as
As I've said several times ball sizing and loading style are huge factors in accuracy, and have direct trade offs for speed.
>your "several" reasons all hinge on the smoke factor
ah yes the ol smoke makes my balls smaller disorder.
>so why couldn't they absolutely annihilate French battalions all on their own?
Because of the many reasons besides drill and ammunition that I pointed out.
>a battalion standing in line would present such a massive area target, that opposing skirmishers could even bombard them from further away than defending skirmishers could counter them
No they couldn't, they'd be using the same weapons from the same distance, a distance that can be closed in minutes at a walk and less at a jog.
>Hardly relevant, because battles took hours
Yes but crossing a 200 yard gap would not take hours, much less a gap into even point blank musket range.
>even at a generous rate of one round per minute, a company of skirmishers would theoretically reduce a battalion below 50% in two hours.
Provided the battalion stood there like botched lobotomy patients neither moving nor attacking, sure. Hmm, I wonder why your scenario that requires the enemy to behave like mannequins in a store window never happened?
>Also irrelevant, as skirmishers can "kite" battalions in line more effectively as they didn't have to march in close order.
Ahh yes I'm sure you'll be keeping up a fantastic rate of fire jogging away, firing sporadically, letting the enemy drive you from the field, being shot at by enemy skirmishers, rode down by cavalry, stellar stuff.
>None
Absolutely absurd, there is no known, or supposed, performance of flintlock firearms that cant be replicated with 1f to 3f powders. It's generally believed that most historical powders of the 1700s were equivalent to 1f or 2f powders. Most of the shots taken in the videos I sent you were *low* powder loads. CapandBall generally underloads his guns.
>ball sizing and loading style are huge factors
So did your "authentic" musketry videos take this into account? Did they use "period" ammunition and "period" barrels at least, with all the known windage problems of the day?
>they'd be using the same weapons from the same distance
Battalion in line = Area target
Skirmisher taking cover = Point target
Understand the difference
One is very much easier to hit than the other
>crossing a 200 yard gap would not take hours
So either literally everyone who fought at Waterloo from 12am to 8pm are complete morons, or you don't understand the limitations of the weapons of the time
>I wonder why your scenario that requires the enemy to behave like mannequins in a store window never happened?
It did, often. Such as when battalions knelt in square to receive cavalry charges, but also when defending key terrain, such as the ridge at Waterloo.
However, what you propose theoretically, never happened in actuality because you have no real clue about the weapons used and their limitations. Repro bullshit doesn't obviate real experiences documented by the people who fought there.
>being shot at by enemy skirmishers, rode down by cavalry
All else being equal ie cavalry and artillery support, a force made up of skirmishers should massacre a force standing in line. Why didn't this happen? Because muskets don't have the performance you imagine they did.
>that cant be replicated
You would have to use lower loads to approximate known weapon performance, which is why
>were *low* powder loads. CapandBall generally underloads his guns
is irrelevant.
We have accounts of Napoleonic battles written by real sharpshooters, marksmen with the Baker rifle who understood the business of target shooting, within the limitations of the technology of their time. And we have accounts of marksmanship in both battle and test conditions, because people back then weren't morons. Stop assuming they were, and accepting the facts.
>So did your "authentic" musketry videos take this into account? Did they use "period" ammunition and "period" barrels at least, with all the known windage problems of the day?
Try watching them.
>One is very much easier to hit than the other
Not so much that it would increase the effective range of a musket in your point of view, lol. You balked at 100 yard shots.
>So either literally everyone who fought at Waterloo from 12am to 8pm are complete morons
Is this supposed to be a joke? Do you think that it literally would have taken them a day to physically walk across the field?
>It did, often.
You've just made a mistake in reading my post, the "your scenario" I was referring to was your ridiculous strawman you're trying to associate with my point, which you've said several times never occurred.
>All else being equal ie cavalry and artillery support, a force made up of skirmishers should massacre a force standing in line.
Provided the line wasn't allowed to, yknow, move, or retaliate, in any way.
>You would have to use lower loads to approximate known weapon performance, which is why
How would you know what that performance was if you cant even calculate a load of any grade of Black Powder that will produce the same results?
>because people back then weren't morons. Stop assuming they were, and accepting the facts.
You cant keep trying to pretend my argument suggests something that it doesnt and then insist that I accept the implications of that suggestion, but the ludicrous position you're desperate to joust against is never going to materialize out of the ether.
>even assuming 50% misses,
At 250 yards expected musket accuracy vs batalion is 15% not 50%.
>muskets at fifty yards.
Pretty damn effective. The Napoleonic Age was the first time field cannons were major factor on the battlefield. Before that they were annoying but you wouldn't expect to win battles with artillery. Cannonballs would skip along the ground , punching through lines of infantry
I wonder what the maximum number of men a 12lber cannon can punch through is. 20? 40?
You’re using the cannons wrong or the wrong cannons. You should be getting upwards of a thousand kills a mission just using the napoleons let alone the 24 pounder howitzers. You want to chevron so they can flank fire with canister into enemy units attacking your infantry. Confederates like to banzai charge way too much. If you’re playing against the union that still stands, just have to make better use of terrain to limit their musket advantages.
Good illustration why its better to bunch up in line when facing cavalry.
>in line when facing cavalry
ORDER THEM TO FORM SQUARE DAMN IT
>beat significantly larger hordes of melee combatants charging at them
guns and cannon are scary and do a lot of damage
No guns
The us dollar is no longer a viable store of value
Sure but neither is your no guns currency.
so long as people want international trade and aren’t willing to potentially permanently lose hard assets, the US dollar will stand
no other country has even remotely enough wealth to become the reserve currency, and the 2nd best options (the euro and Yuan) are even less stable due to Eurozone instability and absolutely notorious Chinese monetary policy/manipulation
only a completely ignorant buffoon would think otherwise and we hear this same alarmist threat every couple of months
you want “the chinese GDP is completely man made” CCP/Xi to control your assets? how about Greece and Bulgaria? have you checked France’s GDP “””growth””” over the past decade?
not even the fricking chinese want their shitty Yuan
look man, he has a Yale jpg
>We won every crusade
who the frick is we
The royal we obviously you dumb Mexican
My currency isn't the worlds reserve currency and my country doesn't rely on our currency being a viable store of value
>The royal we
And which "we" would that be? Considering multiple crusades failed and multiple succeeded, no "we" won "every" crusade.
>nooo but I if I named the dogshit country I live in, everyone would make fun of me for being a poorgay nogunz moron
we already know that
Every single crusade you idiot Mexican can't you read
oh so you're a Muslim Turko-Norman. Makes perfect sense.
Shush little guy you don't even know about the crusades
>My currency isn't the worlds reserve currency
ignored
>my country doesn't rely on our currency being a viable store of value
oh so an African c**t?
double ignored
The arrogance of the goblin on full display
>doesn't understand finance
>hurr durr GOBLIN
tell me moar about how shit your c**t money is
I have a degree in economics you don't know what you are talking about, do you even understand what a store or value is and why the us dollar isnt that anymore?
>I have a degree in economics
Black person universities, no even once
From Yale actually
wow that's so cool anon, great to see people of color like you succeeding.
Didn't go to Yale so ignored dumb Mexican go mow someone's lawn
You're a paki.
Oh I'm from Pakistan now? That's funny coming from a Mexican go wash someone's car or something you dumb idiot... I mean do you think I could care less about what some dumb Mexican says? I'm laughing at you bro I'm laughing right now as I type this
>I'm laughing right now
I'm laughing so hard right now, you mad or something bro? You seem so mad right now
You spicy Mexican raging right now?
Pussy lmao
Mexican gayot
North Mexicans big mad rn can't even put it's anger into words
Why are you so mad bro? There isn't a spice shortage
How bigs your anime cope folder Juan?
Dios mio
Your mother's a paki.
>yale "graduate" on PrepHole
Seems about right.
>posts the logo as if it proves anything
Nigerian scammer tactics lmao
But enough about NA schooling
>I have a degree in economics you don't know what you are talking about, do you even understand what a store or value is and why the us dollar isnt that anymore?
Ask for a refund.
>multiple crusades failed
No every single crusade was a massive success there is no such thing as a failed crusade, idiot Mexican
lmao you'd think even thought the English school system failed you, your Turkish father would at least tell you who won more than half the crusades.
Idiot Mexican posting idiotic Mexican posts, pathetic really
Mexico is a success story in Crusading however.
>native population annihilated and entirely converted
>colonial government lasted hundreds of years
>current state remains thoroughly Catholic
lmao try not to be too jealous
You should get a job next
Shut up dumb Mexican
I've got a job
the napoleon shit concentrated firepower, pretty hard to zerg rush when you are running into several rounds of musket fire and then getting stabbed.
Plus there were still cavalry, cannons and light infantry skirmishers with rifles
who in the frick are those cucks on the left?
Basically French mercenaries.
Nobody on /k/ can be insulted by a non American. We know we are better than you simply by owning guns. The ultimate barometer
Yale alumni > Mexican idiots
>be barely disciplined tribal mob armed with spears and swords and the occasional stolen gun
>try to bum rush a line of muskets and cannon
>suddenly, with a thunderous roar, twenty dudes in front of you get cut down like chaff before they can even get within range of the foe
>it keeps happening
>the rest of them eventually lose heart and run away because they'd rather not die like buttholes
If you're facing exclusively melee infantry you might begin firing from a substantially higher range, but other than that a linear formation can often land at least three, if not several more, volleys before melee infantry can close the distance over level ground. That usually induces so much disruption and shock of the enemy force that bayonets and good organization can win the day. The ability of Linear formations to concentrate firepower is extremely high.
Chili and lime spice is in abundance bro chill out
Tranquilo por favor
anyone remember that ukrainian lunatic that used a flintlock when the russians invaded
https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/51724754/#51724754
Morel is 99% of pre modern warfare and massed musket fire is absolutely horrifying to receive. Euros broke under it all the time and they understood it and could generally fire back
They fought the way they did to maximize effective volley fire and a lot of the formation fight came out of having evolved from previous melee fights, which when combined with bayonets probably helped them when being charged by sword and board gang. Bongs blasted the Chinamen even before they had machineguns. Take into account that they also had cannons, so by the time by European standards unconventional forces could engage Europeans in melee, they'd have already suffered massive casualties and their armour wouldn't have helped them.
The Zulu tactics seen in the Zulu wars were also a relatively recent development by Shaka. Before him, Zulu tactics weren't really that deadly and so neither were their wars. Shaka basically took over by being a huge tryhard.
Absolutely dunked on the Chinese.
>manchu bannermen
Read about the First Opium War. It was basically a Napoleonic style British force bullying far bigger Chinese armies over and over.
Thats basically what happened in egypt. In the battle of pyramids, napoopan lost like 10 guys and wounded. The egyptians tens of thousands.
What beat napoopan army was malaria or the plague in egypt 5 to 1. Typhus in Russia 3 to 1 even with the fricking Berezina and the fact that Russians basically massacred their prisonners (1 in 24 prisonners came back for italian army).
>but how did they work against people not playing by those rules?
Nobody in Europe had the means to play against the rules.
>Like wouldnt it make more sense to wear armor instead of ridiculous uniforms when fighting against zerg rushing hordes of zulu warriors or manchu bannermen?
No, arming every soldier wasn't an option because of how expensive the armour would be. It would make more sense to give soldiers more powder and bullets, create better bullets like Minie ball, new strong powders, affordable rifled barrels with decent quality. As it happened irl.
>how did dudes with wool clothes and muskets marching in formation beat significantly larger hordes of melee combatants charging at them?
Superior firepower with bayonets attached and artillery support
>but how did they work against people not playing by those rules?
Inferior firepower in man-to-man because they don't have volley fires (keep in mind the typical firearm of this era had very short range and terrible accuracy, and it still was not uncommon to see large formations of sword/pike armies among non-euros in this period), inferior morale because they're not shoulder to shoulder with their mates encouraged by fife and drums and uniforms, inability to deal with a charge. Successful skirmishing required you to either outrange and outshoot the formation, and also be able to run away from it (and especially the enemy's CAVALRY).
If you weren't in a formation then you would be raped by cavalry who had still largely shaped the battlefield. Even a line was much more defensible than being scattered, although square was what you needed to survive.
Arguably the widespread proliferation of the rifle was what changed everything. It made every man very accurate at long range, which was the final deathblow to the cavalryman since he could no longer close to charge without taking massive casualties first. The rifleman could also pick off formations at greater distance from behind cover. Most damning of all however, force multipliers were really starting to come into their own; artillery was much more accurate and devastating, the Gatling gun appeared during the Civil War, suddenly you could have the firepower of a line with a much smaller formation while conversely bunching up in a line was becoming suicidal rather than safe; the then-new modern era of war saw everyone dig into the Earth and rely on cover. Rather than cavalry, the battlefield and maneuvers were now shaped by fires.
Oh sorry I've missed the entire point of OP's post. Well I'm too tired anyway.
But war was/is just as much morale, shock and awe as it was raw killing and wounding. Formations didn't break and flee when enough men in it died, they broke when enough men panicked, and it didn't take much to panic an often conscripted dipshit from nowhereistan when the big red men marching in an uncanny and imposing order are dropping yours before you even get into throwing distance of them, and suddenly everything is exploding around you, or you see a giant round stone (or a whole sheet of smaller ones) suddenly carve through your tribesmen and brothers at speeds that you'd think should not be possible.
>the widespread proliferation of the rifle
the repeating rifle
>artillery was much more accurate and devastating
not really a consideration for cavalry
>the Gatling gun appeared during the Civil War
was basically never used in the ACW
>the then-new modern era of war saw everyone dig into the Earth and rely on cover. Rather than cavalry, the battlefield and maneuvers were now shaped by fires
it was the repeating rifle that killed cavalry single-handedly, as can be seen in the ACW and the Prussian and Crimea wars around this time
>the repeating rifle
No, the regular rifle. It instantly obsoleted line tactics because it was too easy to hit what you were aiming at. The repeating rifle was just an incremental improvement on the regular rifle, and didnt even become the standard arm. Breach loaders and then bolt actions did.
>not really a consideration for cavalry
Cavalry was countered by accurate infantry, infantry was countered by accurate infantry and artillery. Cavalry still had value up until machineguns actually hard countered them. Cav was used effectively even in the era of bolt actions
> as can be seen in the ACW and the Prussian and Crimea wars around this time
No one used repeating rifles at scale in any of these wars
>the regular rifle
my mistake, you're right, I confused the Enfield 1853 for the Snider
>Cavalry still had value up until machineguns actually hard countered them
mainly as scouts and as mobile infantry (dragoons) however, because the car hadn't been invented yet. It was no longer a breakthrough unit, and against longer-ranged, more accurate rifle-muskets could not achieve the same kind of feat as before, when cuirassiers could ride down and smash ten times their number in infantry if not in square.
addendum: Spencers definitely tipped the scales against cavalry very shortly after the ACW
Fair points
what did cavalry counter before machineguns, but after the rifle?
It's still wild to me to think they were able to btfo them without machine guns and rifles and armor, while wearing overhearing layers of clothes in tropical weather. I'm surprised little bighorn and isandlwana are the exceptions rather than the rule when large zerg-like hordes are involved. Surely if the Qing werent massive morons or if the chinese had some sort of warrior culture willing to fanatically charge they would have actually done something besides do worse than zulus who had like 1/1000 their numbers?
>large zerg-like hordes are involved. Surely if the Qing werent massive morons or if the chinese had some sort of warrior culture willing to fanatically charge they would have actually done something besides do worse than zulus who had like 1/1000 their numbers?
Because you think real life works like a video game. There are not Zerg like hordes. Armies get slowed down, tripped up, confused, and panicked by mass casualties. The army that hits you is spread out and in disorder and you present them with a solid formation.
I don't know who in your education failed to tell you this but armies globally very rarely fight to even 30% casualties, let alone 50 or 100
>I don't know who in your education failed to tell you this but armies globally very rarely fight to even 30% casualties, let alone 50 or 100
Beside Russia obviously who fight for 200% casualty, they'll conscript the dead if they must.
>what did cavalry counter before machineguns, but after the rifle?
Undefended logistics trains, towns, or supply depots. Cavalry had lost their place on the pitched battlefield but they were still very important on the operational level as scouts, harassers, raiders, all the roles that armored cavalry still serves today.
>So Napoleanic tactics make sense as the meta when you are fighting other armies playing by the same rules, but how did they work against people not playing by those rules?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Pyramids
The Mamluks, being a force that is still largely feudal and medieval in all of its practical characteristics, including its military, were completely at odds with the modern standing French army. The majority of the Egyptian army was drafted Fellahin (peasants), its maw was the Mamluk horse. An episode during the battle that demonstrated the rift between the armies occurred when a Mamluk rider, dressed in heavy armour, rode to within only a few steps from the French lines and demanded a duel. The French responded with gunfire.[7]
....Then the column that came to fight Murad Bey was divided according to methods known to them (The French) in warfare, and it approached the barricades, so that it surrounded the soldiers from behind and in front of it, and its drums sounded, and it sent its successive guns and cannons, and the wind became fiercer, and the smoke became dark, and the world was darkened by the smoke of gunpowder and the dust of the wind. For people it seemed that the earth shook and the sky fell on it.
—ʻAbd al-Rah̤mān al-Jabartī's History of Egypt
Trapped against the river, many of the Mamluks and infantry tried to swim to safety, and hundreds drowned. The French reported a loss of 29 killed and 260 wounded. Murad's losses were far heavier, perhaps as many as 10,000 including 3,000 of the elite Mamluk cavalry, and his defterdar Ayyub Bey was also killed in the battle.[6] Murad Bey himself was also wounded in the cheek with a hit from a saber.[8] Murad escaped to Upper Egypt with his 3,000 surviving cavalry, where he carried out an active guerrilla campaign before being defeated by Desaix in late 1799.
>An episode during the battle that demonstrated the rift between the armies occurred when a Mamluk rider, dressed in heavy armour, rode to within only a few steps from the French lines and demanded a duel. The French responded with gunfire.
Perfidious French
It just kind of make sense. There's no reason to hamstring yourself by fighting on your opponent's terms when you're specced into just mass blasting them. Arguably they could have told him to frick off first, but that's just letting him waste their time that their opponents can use to prepare.
Pfff, frogs are pussies. I would've sent a cuirassier and let them have at it.
But you're just some future spergtard not anyone with stake in the outcome so of course that's your homosexual fantasy.
War is won by efficient violence. The enemy is to be destroyed, not played with.
Actually, you win wars by stopping your enemy from fighting. Destroying 100% of enemies is not feasible
The stopping process requires destruction. I nowwhere said nor implied destroying ALL of the enemy. Kill enough that they quit is the standard method for millennia.
Morale wins battles more often than attrition, that's why champion duels happened.
>1 mamluk would beat 1 french cavalrymen
>10 french cavalrymen is equal to 10 mamluks
>100 french cavalrymen would beat 300 mamluks
If I'm not mistaken Thomas Alexandre Dumas said that (if not Napoleon, I forgot); telling how European unit tactics was superior, even if man-to-man they weren't equal.
There was still a dueling culture at this time it would have been fun and they'd probably have won anyway.
>a Mamluk rider, dressed in heavy armour, rode to within only a few steps from the French lines and demanded a duel. The French responded with gunfire.
>An episode during the battle that demonstrated the rift between the armies occurred when a Mamluk rider, dressed in heavy armour, rode to within only a few steps from the French lines and demanded a duel. The French responded with gunfire.
Wtf I didn't know Indiana Jones was a frog
How ?
Didnt those morons know that this is what got them buttraped from ottomans ?
Their problem was that while individual Mamluks were superbly trained in martial arts and well armed, including abundant finely crafted firearms, they were never drilled to act as units in coordinated manner, beside doing Allahu Akbar charge with cold weapons, their guns only used melee. Their army consisted of separate retinues of their emirs, not used to coordination or joint maneuvers. The peasant conscripts, hailing from separate ethnic and social class (peasants were Arabs, Mamluks Georgians, Circassians, some Balkan Slavs, various other Turkic and Asiatic people) had no motivation or training and were at best haphazardly armed, since it was not in the interest of their lords to keep them well organized. Mamluk cavalry was good at chasing bedouin bandits and suppressing peasant rebellions, irregular warfare stuff, not the main battles against gunpowder and canon equipped infantry. Turks kept them in Egypt as their vassals due to their own temporary weakness and out of convenience. In 1830 they had enough of their insolence and incompetence so they sent Albanian mercenaries under Muhammad Ali who just exterminated Mamluks and set himself up as new Ottoman governor. It backfired badly, cause that sly dude hired western advisers, organized his own modern infantry based army, proclaimed independence, centralized and modernized Egypt and then almost dethroned the Ottoman Sultan.
your dates are all fricked
>how did dudes with wool clothes and muskets marching in formation beat significantly larger hordes of melee combatants charging at them
Marching in formation is how you win melee battles. If the battle was purely ranged, with zero possibility of melee, there'd be less need to march in formations.
The white man prevails. This is in 1882 btw:
RAINED on all day by the sun,
Beating through helmet and head,
Through to the brain.
Inactive, no water, no bread,
We had stood on the desolate plain
Till evening shades drew on amain;
And we thought that our day's work was done,
When, lo! it had only begun.
'Charge!' And away through the night,
Toward the red flashes of light
Spurting in fire on our sight,
Swifter and swifter we sped.
'Charge!' At that word of command,
On through the loose-holding sand,
On through the hot, folding sand,
Through hailstorms of iron and lead,
Swifter and swifter we sped.
Thud! fell a friend at my hand;
No halt, ne'er a stay, nor a stand.
What though a comrade fell dead?
Swifter and swifter we sped.
Only the red, flashing light
Guided our purpose aright;
For night was upon us, around,
Deceptive in sight as in sound.
We knew not the enemy's ground,
We knew not his force;
But on, gaining pace at each bound,
Flew man and horse.
Burst on the enemy's flank,
On through his gunners and guns,
Swifter and swifter we sped;
Over each bayonet-ranged rank,
Earthward their dusky waves sank,
Scattered and fled.
They ran as a startled flock runs;
But still we pursued o'er the plain,
Till the rising moon counted the slain,
And some hundred Egyptians lay dead.
Oh! 'twas a glorious ride,
And I rode on the crest of the tide.
We dashed them aside like the mud of the street,
We threshed them away like the chaff from the wheat,
We trod out their victory under our feet,
And charged them again and again;
For demons were loose on the hot-breathing wind,
And entered the souls of our men.
A feverish delight filled our bones,
Heightened by curses and groans—
The mind taking hold of the body, the body reacting on mind.
Ha! 'twas a glorious ride,
Though I miss an old friend from my side,
And sadness is mingled with pride.
Still, 'twas a glorious ride—
That race through the darkness, the straining, the shock,
The struggle, and slaughter by Kassassin lock.
Don't be a fool, anyone not playing by the book will be crushed under the pressure of a big organized army.
Modern armies require buzzcuts so your enemy doesnt have anything to grab onto in meleee combat. Wouldn't having all these fancy straps and tassels be highly impractical in melee combat? Like worse than just being butt naked?
They provided a little defense against sabres.
>Modern armies require buzzcuts so your enemy doesnt have anything to grab onto in meleee combat
Have you seen modern webbings? Grappling (or rather not giving the enemy something to hold onto) is not a concern. The buzz cut prevents the spread of lice, is easy to do with minimal equipment and makes the soldiers more uniform.
pfff, military hairstyle only exist to encourage order and discipline, same as pretty uniform outside of combat.
And obviously it make it simple to design/put on helmet without mr.afro or mr.hime-cut getting in the way.
Plus I'll be amazed if I hear Ukrainian even had occasion to fight the orcs hand to hands.
In the old napoleonian time, the uniform was meant to impress as part of PHSYKOLOGICAL WAFARE, if you can't put uniform together you are no better than a peon revolt.
Hand to hand doenst exist in modern warfare you fool
Buzzcut is for lice, uniformity and discipline
>but how did dudes with wool clothes and muskets marching in formation beat significantly larger hordes of melee combatants charging at them?
By shooting them.
The line of musketeers didn't just turn up out of nowhere and have all of Europe adopt it because it looked new and shiny. To simplify quite heavily the early "Napoleonic" armies faced off against the late pike-and-shot armies with a decent amount of armour all around and relying mostly on melee (pikemen and heavy chock cavalry) and shot them to bits.
Also keep in mind that the majority of these colonial campaigns would consist of you marching around in very warm weather. That does not endear people to armour. Even back when the main European armies used more or less all the armour they could get their hands on the conquistadors running around in central America tended to prefer a lot less.
There's a reason guns became the main weapon in the first place. A war doesn't just include you and your best friends, there will be tens of thousands of other troops near you. Good luck charging 3 infantry blocks who are fire-by-ranking you
You would need 3 solid inches of steel to stop a smooth bore rifle... its not practical... look at the Kelly Gang armor from the 1800s they were perferated
ALso napoleon summarily executed snipers caught with Giridoni air rifles... he wasnt having that shit
>You would need 3 solid inches of steel to stop a smooth bore rifle...
Are you joking?
>You would need 3 solid inches of steel to stop a smooth bore rifle
so a T-34 could be penetrated by a Brown Bess at 50 yards?
uhhhhhh
are you talking about the kind of steel they were using in infantry armor at the time anon? or some odd penetration chart?
because as these guys are getting at, there is a lot of shit you can do to make steel tougher, even in infantry armor. Not saying they did it... just wondering whats up with the 3" thing.
>wear armor
more expensive than wool clothing and completely ineffective against guns, most uncivilised peoples lacked the discipline to take a couple of volleys and broke the charge before they could reach for hand to hand, the zulus were the exception, that's why you know about them
Bumo
The hard part about war isn’t the killing the enemy part, it’s controlling and shaping the efforts of doing so. That’s what Napoleonic tactics where good for. It worked too, check out the K:D radio against Zulus and Qing.
>So Napoleanic tactics make sense as the meta when you are fighting other armies playing by the same rules, but how did they work against people not playing by those rules?
Yes. To quote Marcellin Marbot from Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot:
During our stay on the plateau of Pilnitz, the enemy, and above all the Russians, received many reinforcements, the main one, led by General Benningsen was of not less than 60,000 men, and was composed of the corps of Doctoroff and Tolstoï and the reserve of Prince Labanoff. This reserve came from beyond Moscow and included in its ranks a large number of Tartars and Baskirs, armed only with bows and arrows.
I have never understood with what aim the Russian government brought from so far and at such great expense these masses of irregular cavalry, who having neither sabres nor lances nor any kind of firearm, were unable to stand up against trained soldiers, and served only to strip the countryside and starve the regular forces, which alone were capable of resisting a European enemy. Our soldiers were not in the least alarmed at the sight of these semi-barbarous Asiatics, whom they nick-named cupids, because of their bows and arrows.
Nevertheless, these newcomers, who did not yet know the French, had been so indoctrinated by their leaders, almost as ignorant as themselves, that they expected to see us take flight at their approach; and so they could not wait to attack us. From the very day of their arrival in sight of our troops they launched themselves in swarms against them, but having been everywhere repulsed by gunfire, the Baskirs left a great number of dead on the ground.
cont.
These losses far from calming their frenzy, seemed to excite them still more, for without any order and in all directions, they buzzed around us like a swarm of wasps, flying all over the place and being very hard to catch, but when our cavalry did catch them they effected a fearful massacre, our lances and sabres being immensely superior to their bows and arrows.
[...]
Facing a terrible cannonade, and continual attacks, the French line remained steadfastly in position. Towards our left, Marshal Macdonald and General Sébastiani were holding the ground between Probstheyda and Stötteritz, in spite of numerous attacks by Klenau’s Austrians and the Russians of Doctoroff, when they were assailed by a charge of more than 20,000 Cossacks and Baskirs, the efforts of the latter being directed mainly at Sébastiani’s cavalry.
With much shouting, these barbarians rapidly surrounded our squadrons, against which they launched thousands of arrows which did very little damage because the Baskirs, being entirely irregulars, do not know how to form up in ranks and they go about in a mob like a flock of sheep, with the result that the riders cannot shoot horizontally without wounding or killing their comrades who are in front of them, but shoot their arrows into the air to describe an arc which will allow them to descend on the enemy. This system does not permit any accurate aim, and nine tenths of the arrows miss their target. Those that do arrive have used up in their ascent the impulse given to them by the bow, and fall only under their own weight, which is very small, so that they do not as a rule inflict any serious injuries. In fact the Baskirs, having no other arms, are undoubtedly the world’s least dangerous troops.
cont.
However, since they attacked us in swarms, and the more one killed of these wasps, the more seemed to arrive, the huge number of arrows which they discharged into the air of necessity caused a few dangerous wounds. Thus, one of my finest N.C.O.s. by the name of Meslin had his body pierced by an arrow which entered his chest and emerged at his back. The brave fellow, taking two hands, broke the arrow and pulled out the remaining part, but this did not save him, for he died a few moments later. This is the only example which I can remember of death being caused by a Baskir arrow, but I had several men and horses hit, and was myself wounded by this ridiculous weapon.
I had my sabre in my hand, and I was giving orders to an officer, when, on raising my arm to indicate the point to which he was to go, I felt my sabre encounter a strange resistance and was aware of a slight pain in my right thigh, in which was embedded for about an inch, a four foot arrow which in the heat of battle I had not felt. I had it extracted by Dr.Parot and put in one of the boxes in the regimental ambulance, intending to keep it as a memento; but unfortunately it got lost.
You will understand that for such a minor injury I was not going to leave the regiment, particularly at such a critical time…