Thread 64412484

Did they seriously march in lines towards enemy guns? Why not spread out? Yeah I know the enemy had cavalry but you have guns and can always counter charge.

>>64412484 (OP)
lines maximized the amount of firepower in a single direction while minimizing the impact of a cannonball

>Yeah I know the enemy had cavalry but you have guns and can always counter charge.
those guns need to be in a dense formation to be fully effective and trying to charge enemy cavalry on foot is a death sentence

>>64412488
Ok but why didn't they carry pavise with them at least? Im sure at range it can stop a musket ball while yours will hit them.

I always wondered where you actually aimed as the guys in line. Do you just point in the general direction of the other line? Pick a specific target and aim for it? Aim at whatever guy is closest to your own position?

>>64412495
>Im sure at range it can stop a musket ball
Not likely, unless you made it so thick that it would be too heavy to carry around.

The pavise was effective against arrows not because it stopped the arrowhead from penetrating, but because once the arrowhead penetrated, the shaft would continue to experience friction as it passed through the wooden shield, stopping the arrow after a few inches. With a musket ball, once it penetrates, that's it. It will continue on and hit the man, having been only slightly slowed.

>>64412484 (OP)
We just had that thread. Read it up there.

>>64412507
Can you link it i cant find it on the catalog

>>64412495
>Im sure at range it can stop a musket ball while yours will hit them.
you needed 4-5 inches of wood or 3-4mm of steel, probably thicker because they would have used iron
either way, the shield would weight several kilograms and be difficult to carry long distances

and formations would move around a lot during the battle, so your men would need to repeatedly deploy and then pick up these shields every time the enemy moved
and the enemy would move once they see your troops placing shields down

>>64412534
Ok but at the very least shouldnt they wear cuirasses or helmets?

>>64412484 (OP)
you try co-ordinating ten thousand dudes without any radios and see if you can come up with anything better

>>64412564
those dont stop bullets either

>>64412564
cavalry wore cuirasses to stop sword slashes but they could only stop pistol rounds from enemy cavalrymen and couldnt stop fullsized muskets at any reasonable range

giving them to infantry would have cost a lot of money for only a small amount of protection

If they are allowed to disperse, some soldiers will try to stay in a safe area.
Dense formations and lines seem to be very effective in forcing soldiers to participate in battle.

>>64412495
Every extra pound of gear is not just more cost, it also slows the formation not only at the tactical level (moving around in a single battle) but the day to day "how fast we reach XYZ battlefield" strategic one as well.

>>64412506
>>64412534
That scale is an exaggeration.
No historical battlefield loading for a musket is penetrating four inches of dried hardwood at 100 or even fifty paces. That would be exceedingly good performance for a modern hardened lead shotgun slug let alone a musket. The difference between woods, the range, and the fact that undersize balls were routinely used for fast loading (which can drastically bleed velocity) is quite significant here, in case you're thinking of some test you've seen.
I doubt it would make it to three inches, even.

I doubt you could find any quality of steel at 4mm that would be penetrated under those conditions either.

>Kilograms
Well that explains a few things lol

>>64412564

You could make helmets and chest armor capable of stopping musket rounds even at close range, but the massive cost and extra baggage would probably not be worth it. The army that goes further in the day and arrives first and can maneuver further and better in the battle wins, even if your men are superior on the small scale of an exchange of fire.

You could have given everyone multi barreled firearms too, and there were some niche cases of their use, but cost and weight kept them rare.

>>64412484 (OP)
>You and 2-3 of your mates standing practically by yourselves in an open field
>See this coming at you
>"Hey guys, let's counter charge!"

>>64412778
With your own cav

>>64412495
>just triple the weight of the equipment your men carry around
the used to have corporal punishment for pike men cutting down their pikes. but still kept doing it because long pikes are heavy and hard to carry.
those passives are going to get "lost" on the third day of the march at the latest

>>64412484 (OP)
Battles/wars in the past were different
>2 people killed
>1 person lost his wallet
>one lost the will to live

This is a silly thread, but let's put it this way: Gunpowder armies existed for several hundred years at a time and place of rapid military innovation a& competition.

Many different things were tried, whether different formations, tactics, and even some variations on the basic "row of guys with single-shot muskets".

But the fact that nearly EVERYBODY used this formation/tactics for hundreds of years and uncounted battles should clue you in that this was the optimum method, despite its obvious downsides. It is military evolution at work.

>>64412964
a weirdly common sentiment online, including here, is "this thing is very stupid but I can apply rationality and logic and do things better"

>>64412484 (OP)
Am I actually going crazy or didn't we just have threads for this specific subject twice already recently?

>>64412812
>those passives are going to get "lost" on the third day of the march at the latest
i love how to this day things for some weird reason gets mysteriously lost during long marches.

>>64412982
You left out the most important part.
>this thing sounds very stupid, but because I am ignorant of the details I think I can do better

>>64412999
Yes we did and retards still couldnt wrap their heads around the idea of multiple things aligning that made line warfare the best way to fight with the militaries of the day. People can't look past the 'men shooting at each other on the battlefield' and realise that's the smallest aspect of it.
Most campaigns had more men die from disease and other environmental conditions than fighting.

>>64412936
You're retarded, and so is anyone ITT claiming muskets have a practical, man-sozed-target range of anything less than 100 yards

>>64412982
it's a side effect of the "march of progress" mentality that we have.
the idea that things will only get better and since we are further along we have it better.
this get's confused with because we are further along we are better. we have gay marriage they didn't that means they where meanies and big dumb dumbs for not accepting love is love.
and since I have all this modern knowledge I can do better than them.

>>64412484 (OP)
Man, we just had this thread: >>64352164
The tl;dr is
>communication and control becomes easier with a dense formation
>maximizing firepower for the shock value
>apes together strong and confident
>>64412495
Making a shield that can stop musket balls would requite a thick and thus heavy piece, which will weigh down the soldiers even more. And making yourself a static position gives the tactical initiative to your enemy. And lastly: at range they are perfect targets for lighter field artillery (3 to 6 pdr guns) and the enemy line infantry can always close in and give a volley at closer range.
>>64412497
Musket had simple sights. While nowadays they are often described as bayonet lugs (and they did fulfill this function) in the period they were called sights. And depending on the distance you would either aim at the formation or specific men within it.
>>64412564
Those were expensive as well and at best protected only against pistols and maybe carbines. The strenght of the 18th/19th century musketeer was that he was very cheap while still being armed with a very potent weapon.
>>64412812
In "The Recollections of Rifleman Harris" he states that his company abandoned their heavy cookware in Spain because 1) they were lazy and didn't want to carry that stuff around and 2) they wanted to move faster. The next chapter is about the complaints about the shitty non-cooked rations.

>>64412511
>>64412999
see >>64352164


>>64412564
>Ok but at the very least shouldnt they wear cuirasses or helmets?
The cavalry did. Mainly because they are on horses unlike infantry who have to walk. Every pound or kilo counts for the infantry man that have to walk. You can test it yourself. Do a 10 mile march with 60 pounds of gear and then do another with 80 pounds of gear.

According to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258883795_The_History_of_the_Soldier's_Load
Then french during the napoleonic war carried a load between 27.5 kilo or 25 kilo and they marched 16-43km per day. If you throw in a extra 10 kilo of weight (cuirass and helmet) and then have them do a 144km march in 72 hours then you are gona kill them with the weight, they might shoot you for focing them to wear that armor.

>>64412584
Actually a cuirass that can stop a pistol shot has a reasonable chance to stop a fullsized musket at 30 meters+ (assuming the cuirass thickness is greater or average around 5mm). However you cant reasonably armor the face, arms, legs and the horse and have the mobility demanded for the napoleonic war at the same time.

So while the cavalry can resist musket balls even at closer range on the torso, they still get fucked by musket volleys hitting the unprotected areas.

>>64412484 (OP)
>french
They liked their columns. Shorter, fatter lines that made it easier to move on the enemy in a mass.
>you have guns
And large spaces between you and your besties because holding a line formation while moving is hard. Cavalry have broken the odd square if they get an opening, so I don't know how the fuck you think your line is going to hold

>>64412484 (OP)
At the time of Napoleon, line was'nt a march formation anymore.
Line is either a transition formation, a iddling formation or a defensive position.
At the time of Napoleon, skirmishers also played a much more central role than during the Barry Lindon meme era : armies had up to 25% skirmishers proportions, not working in formation. They relied on terrain, could hide in building, behind tree, crouch, react infividually. They were used to scouting, to harass the ennemy but also for urban fighting and assaults on defensive positions.
But skirmishers alone cannot win the battle. They lack the powerforce to decisively break the ennemy. You need line infantry to effectivelly hold the line and occupy the terrain. And too much skirmishers became an annoyance to manoeuver on the battlefield.

>>64412495
>muh pavise
Great, now you get a shitload of wood spall on top of a musket ball.

>>64412708
>four inches of dried hardwood
Dude. Pavises were like 8-12mm thick at best. 2cm was considered extreme. Can't really go much over that without making them prohibitively heavy.

>>64413419
Because it's easier to use a shovel to ditch an earthwork, instead of carry this shit. What they did.

>>64412484 (OP)

Yo know they skirmish troops fighting in dispersed formations too, right?
Fun fact: in Napoleon army the Voltigeurs could only be no higher than 4 feet 11 inches. Rat manlets rage.

>I know I could find out the objective factual answer to my question by googling it, but I'd rather put my trust in /k/ strangers
People who want to be spoon fed information don't deserve information

>>64413469
This is an internet forum where you talk, fart sniffer

>>64413612
Yeah, I know the most valuable objective information I've ever received was in casual conversation with strangers.
Just admit you're too lazy to research anything

>>64412778
Well you cant run away so may as well shoot one and die trying to poke a horse

>>64413629
Well some fag in 2010ish told me about bitcoin. So yes.

>>64412778
>>"Hey guys, let's counter charge!"
Uh, they did, and they got fucked by lancers.

>>64413438
>Pavises were like 8-12mm thick at best
You seem to think I said pavises were four inches thick, rather than responding to a specific point about how much wood a musket can penetrate with standard loads at standard range.
Re read what I said and what the post I responded to said very carefully.

>>64413691
Koreans actually had 5 inch wooden pavises designed to stop arquebus bullets.

how many times do we have to have this thread
if you can think of doing something differently from the comfort of your armchair, then the people actually doing it for a career whose lives literally depended on doing it as well as possible surely could too; it's possible that they actually did and you're just not aware, or otherwise there was more than likely some other reason that made it not as viable as you think
linear warfare only seems nonsensical to normies in current year because their understanding of it is based on current year media made by equally clueless people
>>64412484 (OP)
>Did they seriously march in lines towards enemy guns?
how else are you going to coordinate a batallion of 500-ish dudes without any radios?
consider roman legionary tactics: they would advance towards their enemy, throw javelins into the enemy formation, and then charge in to attack with their swords before the enemy regains cohesion
linear warfare is fundamentally identical, just with muskets and bayonets instead of javelins and swords
>Why not spread out?
They did: armies possessed light infantry/skirmisher troops which fought in such a manner, so they obviously were aware of the possibility
this wasn't done as standard in pre-smokeless powder warfare because within the limitations of period technology, it was only really viable in niche situations (harrassing, skirmishing, screening for the main body of infantry, fighting in rough terrain), were absolutely helpless against cavalry or a bayonet charge, and still depended upon the big wall of bayonets for protection if things went south

1/2

>>64413278
in the example they use where they say that a cuirass of sufficient protection would be 7kg; do they actually consider that the back on a cuirass would be much thinner?

2/2
>>64413758
>Yeah I know the enemy had cavalry but you have guns
you've only got time for one shot before they close in; once you've fired it you're basically helpless and they know it
the conventional anti-cavalry tactic for infantry would therefore be for everyone to hold your fire until the last possible second, so that if they don't think better of it and break off, it'll be as devastating as possible and hopefully ruin their charge
the cavalry on the other hand is trying to panic you into running or taking your shot too early, either way leaving you at their mercy; if they decide it's not going to plan then they can use their superior mobility to just turn and leave
it's basically a big game of chicken
>and can always counter charge.
when a squadron of cavalry advances, they form a line & advance at a steady trot (roughly 8mph or 13km/h) for the sake of easily keeping cohesion and not tiring the horses
if they decide to commit to a charge, they will break into a gallop for the last 23m/25yds or thereabouts (otherwise just breaking off and leaving if they decide it's not worth it)
by the time the charge connects, they should have reached full speed of about 25-30mph/40-48km/h
next time you're walking by a road with such a speed limit, look at the cars going past and ask yourself if you can really just "counter charge" that

>>64413758
>linear warfare is fundamentally identical, just with muskets and bayonets instead of javelins and swords
No at all. linear warfare was shooting enemy with muskets over and over until no enemy is left. Musket casualties were 70%, bayonet casualties were about 2%.

>>64413278
>The cavalry did. Mainly because they are on horses unlike infantry who have to walk. Every pound or kilo counts for the infantry man that have to walk. You can test it yourself. Do a 10 mile march with 60 pounds of gear and then do another with 80 pounds of gear.
Why didn't they just have wagons carry the infantry supplies and have them pick up the extra gear during battle? They could even use the wagons for extra bulletproof protection. Are they stupid?

>>64413823
Wagons were part of the supply train and having form handout queues for equipment (such as dedicated infantry cuirasses) takes away valuable time and requires even more coordination.
>They could even use the wagons for extra bulletproof protection.
The usage of Wagon Forts diminished in in the early 16th century as field artillery became lighter and more mobile. Emperor Maximilian I. fought a czech hussite style army (they relied on their wagon forts for defense) in 1504 at Wenzenbach and while the wagon fort did repell the assault of the mounted knights, it was blasted apart by the imperial field artillery and taken by the Landsknechte. And in the next centuries field artillery became ever more numerous and mobile.

>>64412484 (OP)
managing large groups of men, when your only means of controlling them is shouting orders - battle tends to be noisy so officers had to be near to their men, and the men had to be closely packed so they could all hear the orders

>>64413823
Wagons were confined to good roads and tracks and have fun coordinating tens of thousands of men resupplying themselves from a wagon train mid battle.

>>64413784
No, I think they are just focusing on the frontal breastplate so a 7 kilo half-curiass in practice. A full curiass with the same frontal protection as a 7 kilo half-curiass would be roughly 3.5 kilo heavier (assuming the rear plate has roughly half the thickness of the front so half the weight). It would be 10.5 kilos. It could be less then 10.5 kilo if the rear plate has even lower thickness then half of the frontal plate.
>https://en.topwar.ru/173358-kirasiry-i-kirasy-napoleonovskih-vojn.html
The French in 1825 adopted a cuirass that protected from a musket bullet at distance of 40 meters. It had a variable thickness: 5,5-5,6 mm in the center and 2,3 mm at the edges. The back was very thin - 1,2 mm. Weight 8-8,5 kg.

https://docslib.org/doc/9035893/thickness-mapping-of-body-armour-a-comparative-study-of-eight-breastplates-from-the-national-museum-of-slovenia
Two austrian cavalry curiass breastplates from the 19th century are listed of having the weight of 4.9 and 4.57 kilo with each having max thickness of 5.9 and 5.7mm and a min thickness 1.1 on both.

For comparisson in 1618-1648, the earlier three-quarters armor worn during the earlier period of the thirty years war ( hand protection. arm protection, half-leg protection, face protection, helmet, neck protection) that offered full frontal protection had an average weight of 25 kilos with some examples having whooping weight of 42 kilos but at later periods of the thirty years only the curiass (front and back) and helmet was retained by the curiasser with the total weight dropping down to around 10-13 kilos.

The weight of the breastplates ballistically tested in the pic related study was 5.48 kilo and 2.42 kilo with the 2.42 kilo being not proof against pistols and later concluded to have been a victorian era replica of a 17th century design while the 5.48 kilo plate was geniune 17th century breastplate and it was proof against pistols and some muskets.

>>64413108
its not even that
most people will have a conclusion in mind based purely on argumentation like "this sword is better than that sword because of its shape and size" and then solely use argumentation to support their conclusion

in essence, reality supports their argument rather than vice versa
a certain weapon being used for decades if not centuries is proof that people were being dumb for not using a more optimal version of it rather than using the historical longevity of a weapon as proof that it may have excelled in a certain role

>>64412484 (OP)
We just had this thread, anon.
https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/64352164/

>>64412484 (OP)
training and equipping soldiers is expensive, and making elite soldiers is even more expensive.
during the early Napoleonic Wars era, countries could afford to deploy smaller elite infantry like mounted infantry, skirmishers, and grenadiers.
but by the late Napoleonic wars era, shit got so expensive and troop quality declined massively, that countries could no longer afford elite mobile infantry.
thus they had to conscript every dumb mouthbreather possible, and the only thing a mouthbreather can do is be a line infantry in massive blocks of fellow mouthbreathers.

>>64413057
There was some quote I can't remember but basically "if you gave any ancient army 10 machine guns you could affect the outcome of one battle, but if you gave any ancient army 10 walkie talkies you could change world history." Communication and battlefield transparency have always been underappreciated. The lack of literal and figurative visibility when a battlefield is covered in smoke and your best methods of relaying orders are physical messengers, trumpet signalers, and looking for the right flag makes line formations arguably the best at maintaining proper order. Add to that the speed at which innovation spreads and the extremely unequal amounts of education to where lots of people could neither read nor write and it's like that Crecy line from picrel:

>>64412484 (OP)
>spread out
How do you intend to issue orders or maintain any sort of unit cohesion when your only means of communication are horns, drums, and trying to shout louder than twenty thousand dudes shooting at each other?

Whenever a thread like this comes up it's the same shit.
>Why didn't they just try x maneuver or y strategy
I don't think people realize how immensely difficult it is to coordinate an army of that size - and the smaller units within it for that matter - in an era before the invention of radios.

>>64415851
not that you would want to spread out too much in the first place, since it leaves each individual soldier exposed and ready to get sliced by cavalry

>>64415856
How is cavalry even a problem? Horses are fucking huge, just shoot them. And if you have a palvaise wall that'll block the horses too.

>>64415872
>How is cavalry even a problem?
such a huge problem that the square formation exists solely to help survivability against cavalry despite making them more vulnerable to gunfire and cannonfire in exchange

>>64415872
by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, cavalry were pretty much relegated to scouting/skirmishing/harassment.
melee focused cavalry like dragoons and especially cuirassiers were heavily diminished, because they're simply too expensive and took too much casualties from newer infantry tactics.

>>64415872
Cavalry can close the distance for an effective charge to infantry faster than they can reload and being spread out is detrimental to the confidence of the soldiers.
And paveses will do nothing against charging horses.
>>64415896
No. Heavy cavalry was kept by most european states up until WW1

>>64415980
>No. Heavy cavalry was kept by most european states up until WW1

always wondered why they insisted on all these special cavalry types up until ww1.
After the Napoleonic Wars, they should've just followed the American generalist cavalry type, a cavalry that can do everything with a slight focus towards shooting and less stabbing.

>>64415997
Actually Europeans went the opposite direction and fell for the lancer/uhlan meme. The low point was probably the time when a British cavalry regiment dumped a new shipment of carbines into the manure pile.

>>64415872

When a cavalry regiment faced off against a regiment of line infantry, the cavalry would generally dick around beyond effective range of their muskets doing feints to threaten a cavalry charge, but breaking off each time just beyond effective range. In return, the infantry had to stay in close order with their muskets at the ready in case the cavalry did charge for real, which of course they weren't going to do. What they were trying to do is bait out the infantry to fire their volley, which at that range wouldn't do any real damage.

Normally, the stalemate would continue for a bit, and then the cavalry would leave. Alternatively, if the infantry had a light company of skirmishers with rifles, they could go out and take potshots and the cavalry and force them to leave.

However, if the infantry were poorly drilled, they could take the bait and a few of them would panic and fire, causing a chain reaction where the rest of them also panicked and fired. The volley would be at too great a distance to be of any real effect. The cavalry could then immediately initiate a charge for real, and close the gap before they could complete a reload and fire a second volley, and the result would more than likely be a complete slaughter.

>>64415997
Try convincing all the rich ponces in all the different cavalry regiments that they're now all the same as each other. It all comes from knightly autism.

>>64415896

It wasn't newer infantry tactics, it was a series of technology improvements which began to rapidly decrease reloading time and increased accuracy and effective ranges, such as the self-contained cartridge, the percussion cap, the Minie ball, the breechloader, and the repeating rifle.

>>64415896
I'm going to say something controversial and say that heavy cavalry reached it's peak during the high middle ages in the 13th century, and then kept declining further and further.

Heavy cavalry kept declining each century from the 14th century onwards until it died for good by the 20th century.

>>64415997
Because they were still effective. It wasn't until the late 1840s that rifled muskets became widespread. Single shot rifles and metallic cartridges became common in the 1860s. There was no need to forsake existing cavalry structures after the Napoleonic Wars.
And dragoons (the generalist cavalry type you mean) were the most common type of cavalry since the late 17th century.
>>64416045
>The volley would be at too great a distance to be of any real effect.
There is also the opposite scenario of firing too late for repelling a charge. At the Battle of García Hernández in 1812 french infantry in square only shot their volley once the KGL dragoons were too close and the dead/dying horses & troopers, carried forth by their momentum, crashed into the square and created gaps - gaps which were then exploited by the other KGL cavalry squadrons, who hacked the square to pieces.
>>64416066
And those technological improvements only occured 20 to 40 years after the Napoleonic Wars had ended.
>>64416105
The french gendarmes of the 15th and 16th century would clown on 13th century knights.

>>64412572
Checkmate, historyfag

>>64415872
>Horses are fucking huge,
You just answered your own question.

If you're seeing a huge animal with a screaming dude charging straight at you, you're not holding your ground unless you have a solid mass of your buddies to back you up

>>64413810
What?
Linear warfare depended on the bayonet charge as one of the core principles of it's operation, and depending on the army and exact time period even more so than musket fire

>>64416450
He's conflating casualty rates with effectiveness.

>>64413810
>obligatory disclaimer that linear warfare is a very broad topic with much more variety and depth than it's often given credit for, so exact tactics and usage will likely vary depending on exactly when/where one looks, and it's not impossible that we might both be recalling correct information from sources of different contexts
From what I've read, bayonet charges were quite decisive, with the low casualty rate being a result of them typically being resolved before connecting: the ultimate purpose is not to inflict harm upon the defenders with the bayonet, but to force them into giving up their position under threat of it. Either the defenders get the message and withdraw (at risk of routing if the order is delayed too long), or the advancing attackers decide it's not turning out as well as they hoped, cut their losses, and break off the attack.
>>64415851
>I don't think people realize how immensely difficult it is to coordinate an army of that size - and the smaller units within it for that matter - in an era before the invention of radios.
I suspect that many aren't fully aware of the true scale of such battles in the first place
movies for one are obviously incentivized to cut down the amount of people involved, because coordinating more extras requires more budget and effort
it's not really their fault but reenactors have a similar problem, because no matter how passionate and well-informed they are, the hobby is simply too niche to represent the actual numbers either: the end result is reenacting battles with maybe a dozen or two people per batallion, often with the field itself being downscaled for lack of space or being easier for spectators to observe (I've seen videos where they're stuck "fighting" so close together that even without any shot, they have to aim extremely high above the enemy due to the risk of harming them)

>>64417898
I watched the Battle of Audterliz from the new Napoleon film on YouTube the other day. I reasoned if they did it justice then mayhe the rest of the film might be worth a watch.
It was like 30 real people and 100 CGI ones running around like retards while Joquin Phoneix pretended he was some sperg playing total war.

>>64418321
The only good thing about that movie were the costumes.
Watch waterloo if you want some actual scale, and even then the number of extras involved is like 1/10th of what the actual numbers were at the battle

>>64418398
I have and while the scale is impressive its really constrained by the filming capabilities and effects of the day.