Sunday, August 24, 2008

  1. For the majority of troops Napoleonic tactics made sense.

    Most of them did have muskets ... repeating arms were still rare, and muzzleloading cannon were still common.

    The real exception was Cavalry ... revolvers made them into fast short range killing machines ... skirmishing modern cavalry would annihilate a unit far faster than a Napoleonic era heavy cav charge.

    The folks who really learned from the civil war were the Prussian observers. They took it all down ... and armed themselves with reapeting rifles, pistol armed cavalry and carbine armed dragoons, and breach-loading artillery ... and ditched Napoleonic formations for skirmishing.

    And taught this all to the French in 1870.

    Heh.

    Posted by Kristopher on August 25, 2008 at 1210 hrs


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