>let me stand perfectly still while a group of soldiers thirty feet away is trying to shoot my face
You will never convince me that line infantry tactics had any inherent advantage other than to satisfy the egos of autistic generals who played too many board games.
>muh cavalry charge
Just shoot the fucking horses. What is wrong with you?
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to begin with, what the fuck is this painting
You do know that the rifles were inaccurate, correct?
>Just shoot the fucking horses
Oh yeah, with a gun that takes 20-30 seconds per shot if you don't fumble, which isn't accurate, and the shooter has no marksmanship training.
The cavalry would cut them to pieces, so they had to form lines.
I'll bite. OP, are you baiting us do you genuinely think line infantry tactics were ridiculous?
>rifles are inaccurate
>let's make it easier for the enemy to hit one of us by standing together in a group
I genuinely think it's one of those retarded ideas that caught on because no one bothered to try something better.
Okay, so why not dig trenches to neutralize cavalry?
>square formations
At first, it seems stupid, but warfare was this way due to the nature of muskets. Muskets are very unreliable when shooting past 200 yards, sometimes even before that. Flintlock muskets didn't have rifling which increases accuracy. By lining up men and shooting at the same target, you increase your chances of hitting the enemy...essentially a wall of lead.
There were also light infantry skirmishers such as Voltigeurs that were marksmen and used cover.
The painting you posted is not a good example.
Because then you're stuck in a fucking trench all the time unable to move because cavalry destroys you?
Are you retarded?
Yeah, great, what happens when you need to advance? Dig another trench 15 feet away?
The point is that the muskets were so inaccurate that you had to bunch them all together in a line for them to be effective. Since both sides are bringing a bunch of infantry with muskets they naturally have to use line tactics. Military doctrine is constantly evolving, line formations grew out of earlier block formations as the firearms improved.
Infantry formed square to brace themselves against cavalry. The front ranks would keep their bayonets infront while the rear ranks fired at cavalry. Square formation negates the ability to be flanked by cavalry.
Why would you need to advance if you're defending?
Because you're not defending?
The only retard here is you, user. What makes you think you could have realized this ahead of Napoleon?
Because line infantry need to attack too?
>lets sit still in this heavily fortified position while the enemy encircles us
Come the fuck on, guy. At least try to hide your autism power level
Sure the attacking side may have to resort to something as retarded as line infantry. But surely the defending side would have better options like trenches? Yet nearly all depictions show both sides playing at being human shields.
Don't you need to be in formation for trenches to be effective?
>what is communication
>what is local superiority of fire
Warfare is mobile, defenders don't just sit in a trench and wait, the enemy will just walk around them.
Why were trenches so heavily used in WW1 then?
You seem to think battles were just lines shooting at each other for hours. They fucking weren't. It was highly mobile. Infantry doesnt have time to dig a fucking trench.
Because machine guns.
Because we'd finally developed fast firing and extremely accurate firearms (the total opposite of muskets) which indeed made standing in the open and shooting at each other a complete massacre, but we hadn't invented the technology to counter these deadly weapons, namely tanks, better planes, and better tactics.
Because armies weren't 10-50,000 men. They were 4-5 MILLION men. And you reached a point where your line extended from sea to the alps, and you could present a solid wall of "front" facing the enemy.
If you're dealing with 1/133 or so the amount of men, that's not really an option.
Because manpower allowed you to have kilometres of trench, enough to not get outmaneouvered
WW1 served the example of showing the western world line tactics were outdated because the technology and manpower reserves had far advanced what line tactics supported. They didnt realize thia before because there hadnt really been a truly great war since the induatralization perios set it, that wasnt against savages
This thread is some "it takes years to travel to sardinia by boat" level. Holy kek
That really isn't the reason they fought in trenches, stop confusing the retarded fucker.
Yes, it is. WW1 style trench warfare was something you only saw on the Italian and Western Fronts, where you did have enormous density of troops (and thus fire). You saw fare greater levels of mobility in the Balkans, the Middle-East, and the Eastern Fronts, where the fact that you didn't have nearly as many soldiers per contested kilometers meant that digging in like that meant you just got maneuvered around.
Okay I'm starting to understand why line infantry tactics were used even thought it still feels retarded. But could we come up with something better using modern understand of military tactics? What would a modern general do?
No, it isn't. You claimed they fought in Trenches because of the huge population of soldiers. This is completely untrue, if that were the reason, then WW2 and every major war since would also have been trench warfare.
Density of troops is A reason but it is not the reason, and definitely not the leading reason.
Do what Napoleon did and spam Artillery and then assault with a column of infantry in melee
WW2 didn't have trench warfare because new technologies like sophisticated tanks and aircraft allowed us to break the stalemate you dunce.
Use line tactics. They didnt "appear" out of the blue, all tactics take decades if not centuries of evolution. Evolution means its a survival of the fittest contest, and line won because it was the best at that period
A smart modern general would use the tactics of the time, as those practicing them knew the limitations of the time. There is no radio, no small teams below company size, no force identifiers beyond the colors of coats. We cannot prescribe modern war theory on anything earlier than ww2. Even then, it's shaky as fuck.
Skirmisher and artillery spam
Then let me amend that density of troops sans ability to focus firepower in ways that you saw post WW1, (and even in the later parts of WW1) is the reason you saw the development of widespread trench warfare. Fortification along such a wide band is only sensible when there is no obvious weak point to bypass or break through and exploit, and you can present a strong front anywhere the enemy chooses to attack.
But the main immediate change that saw the development of such away from 19th century warfare and into WW1 was the colossal growth of troop density; even the Franco-Prussian war saw less than half the troops committed to the entire duration as what you saw on the Western Front circa 1915. That's why you saw it then and not earlier or later.
> You claimed they fought in Trenches because of the huge population of soldiers.
I actually didn't; I claimed that the primary factor was density, not overall number. Again, you saw huge forces being thrown around on the Eastern Front in WW1, and again in something like WW2, but they were still less dense than say, the Italian front (either war). Hell, places where you do have enormously dense concentrations of troops, even into the modern era, tend to have very trench warfare setups. Check out Italy 1943-1945, the siege of Leningrad, or the Iran-Iraq wars, where poor road and rail infrastructure ensured that the 1983 onwards fighting was pretty much confined to 60 miles in either direction of Basra.
>in a time when muskets were inaccurate as fuck
>in a time when artillery was still immobile as fuck
Great chioce kiddo, you lose every battle you fight
The exact same thing. Everything in an 18th century army had a purpose:
>Bright uniforms so generals and soldiers can actually tell who's who in all the smoke
>Musicians to keep a steady tempo for marching and to deliver orders that can be heard by the entire unit
>Marching slowly so the soldiers aren't exhausted before they even get into firing range
etc.
Artillery was NOT immobile, it was pulled by fucking horses.
Yes exactly you fucking moron, you just proved me right and you wrong, the lack of stalemate breaking technology is what caused trench warfare in WW1, not larger populations.
First off, that's not even me you're responding to.
Secondly, WW2 technology like air warfare, armored warfare, etc. expanded operational zones while army sizes were generally not all that much bigger and sometimes were even smaller. That makes density of soldiers way, way less. Soldier density was way lower than what you saw kicking around in the trench warfare heyday of WW1.
Because they wanted to make a total war game with line warfare in the future
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>4 replies
>no mention of artillery
wew
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Trenches were not really that effective for artillery at first
yes the survival rate if you're in a trench compared to the open is like 60% higher but early packed straight line trenches were pretty suspect to it,only when they became zigzagged and enfilading did they become much more capable of withstanding bombardment.
defilading*
The men standing in a line aren't emotionless automatons. Many of them were conscripts and most of them weren't particularly disciplined or motivated. Even more than tactics I think the formation was good because it lent itself to barely trained soldiers, made commanding large numbers of troops easier, and maybe most importantly made it much harder for people to break and run in the middle of combat. For much of history bows were superior to firearms in many ways, but logistics and training among other things dictated changes. You're looking at this in a ridiculously simplistic way.
Even if we're assuming you're using something like the leather cannons which don't require a ton of horses or men to pull, you still have ammunition. It's not just getting the gun in place. Also every second that artillery is moving is one that it's not firing. There's a reason that unless your artillery can fire and move simultaneously, it tends to stay put until the enemy is out of range, even now
Dude. Have you bothered playing Warband: Napoleonic wars?
Shits hard to hit while moving and if you miss it takes 20-30 seconds to reload.
Which is why you need bayonet but you need to be standing in formation to be effective.
I guess you could hide in the woods, but then the enemy would just take the farms and towns while you live off acorns and squirrels.
You apparently have no clue about the history of rifles.
The American Civil War was the first major war with trenches longer than a mile. During the last months of the war, Lee had a 21 mile trench around Richmond to defend against superior numbers of Union Soldiers that Grant was human wave attacking with.
The reason was that by 1860's most guns were rifles and had a pretty accurate range. So much so it was discovered that formation tactics were fairly useless again men either dug in trenches or behind cover (say the stone fence at Fredricksburgh the Union kept piling corpses at).
Longstreet knew rifles were a problem for attacking troops and advised against Pickett's charge against Union defense positions but Lee wouldn't listen.
By the end of the war Lee adopted Longstreet's advice and just dug trenches.
en.wikipedia.org
It was mostly effective. Union even tried to blow up some of the trenches with a mine but their troops got stuck in the crater and got slaughtered.
en.wikipedia.org
Again, the main reason for trench warfare was that the rifle got gud in accuracy.
Muskets before then required formation combat to be effective and stand up to cavalry charges.
Each soldier didn't carry a lot of ammo.
They did it in the Crimean War too.
Wrong. They had rifled muskets back then and shit was accurate as fuck. They just kept on doing the line infantry shit with smoothbores because so that aristocrat generals could jack off to their own deluded idea of superiority 'for the nation'.
it was the most effective way of maneuver and combat for large formations at the time. For the vast majority of history the role of infantry was to march right into enemy fire, but Line Infantry depended heavily on drill. Usually the better drilled Unit would get away alive. Only in the mid 19th century did the Prussians do away with massed blocks of infantry and developed the Schwarmlinie as a new way of firing position, while still keeping the massed blocks for maneuver.
And this development only came about due to the Needle Rifles high rate of fire effectively negating the Schwarmlinies weakness to the bayonett charge.
>they had rifled muskets back then
Back fucking when?
That's what a skirmish line was for. In a skirmish formation the soldiers would spread out and possibly take cover as well. But in this formation you can not achieve MAXIMUM FIREPOWER, so it's not optimal, for example a massed cavalry charge would absolutely slaughter a skirmish force.
What would you rather do?
Standing in a line and shooting is an overblown meme, the point was to constantly move forward and fire a few volleys to cause a few losses and weaken morale, then charge to win the field.
Our perception of how it is or how devastating it would've been is massively skewed, it was mainly like other battles throughout earlier history where you would skirmish a bit but it was about just causing a rout.
One of the reasons the US civil war was so devastating was because the fucking idiots literally stood around shooting each other until they sustained massive losses and then charged down a few last men, that's not how it's supposed to be.
Also cav didn't charge directly into a line of men front on, usually that line would already be in a skirmish and cav would charge the flank when they were distracted, there probably were a few people on the flanks that took pot shots at the cavalry when they saw them coming but how effective can it be when almost all your unit is focusing on another enemy and it takes 25 seconds to reload your rifle.
>They didnt realize thia before because there hadnt really been a truly great war since the induatralization perios set it, that wasnt against savages
This isn't really true though. The first war which really showed the limitations of line infantry tactics was the American civil war. Aerodynamic bullets and rifles resulted in horrendous losses on either sides.
And it most definitely became clear during the Austro-Prussian war where the Prussian breech-loaders allowed for infantry to be much more mobile since the Prussian soldier could reload in prone position, while the Austrian soldier with his muzzle loader had to stand up.
Fenians invading Canada
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The Russians did that at Borodino
And guess what? They lost
Not this shit again.
It's not the reason why they did but why it worked.
I mean, God, the Germans had so many men that they could form a cohesive front of trenches while at the same time always having reserves to send to the hotspots and fighting a full scale war on the other side of Europe. Which means that the modern Train influenced the WW1 atleast as much as all the modern Weapons.
This is atleast the third time this shit came up.
Napoleonic Wars, but this idiot forgets cavalry, price of the weapons and time to reload.
The thing is that nations still relied on the amassing of men and therefore firepower on one place. Seems crazy today but back then the opposite is true, an army consisting of de facto skirmishers would have been seen as madness (partially because people overestimated cavalry)
i hate this board
The most hilarious thing is how in the Franco Prussian war a lucky cavalry charge got through because of French incompetence and achieved its objectives (though with 50% deaths) leading to everyone saying LOOK CAVALRY STILL WORKS GUISE
Cavalry still works even today
You breed strong horses, armor em up and give the riders long lances or pistols. Organize em properly and make sure the captains know what they're doing. Boom, nothing from the era of pike and shot can defeat you.
oh look it's one of those funny roleplayers
I really hope this is bait.
1. Move arty
2. It get raped because we didn't have time to fortify.
3. ???
Do a little research on modern operational horse cavalry and see your facade of self-assured superiority melt away.
1. Move arty
2. Save Protestantism
3. Inspire Napoleon
This
Napoleon didnt fall for the musket gunfight meme
He knew that bayonet was the queen of the battle
*kills all your officers and generals*
Yeah nice battle Frenchie lmao
It had nothing to do wjth the accuracy of the muskets and everything to do with the low rate of fire.
>The first war which really showed the limitations of line infantry tactics was the American civil war. Aerodynamic bullets and rifles resulted in horrendous losses on either sides.
Uhhh sweety the casualty rates in the ACW weren't any higher than earlier European wars. You're parroting a myth.
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Haig remained convinced throughout WW1 that cavalry was going to be the key to breaking the stalemate.
>sweetieposting
It's not about casualty rates, it's about tactics. I'd say not the Civil War but things like the Spanish American and Boer Wars where self-loading cartridge rifles were used really made line tactics obsolete.
In a pursuit capacity, not in breaking the trench lines. After all, you had numerous examples of trench lines being broken but being unable to exploit the gaps opened. It's not entirely stupid.
fucking LOL I never knew that happened
>irish americans literally invaded canada
this is why I love coming to Veeky Forums
Its not exactly bait and "cavalry" doesn't exist anymore. I think what he meant to say is mounted infantry, which definitely does exist. We had a few in afghanistan in areas with limited access, or if you are low on logistics, it makes sense.
>But could we come up with something better using modern understand of military tactics?
not really, not if the technology was limited to what was available to the generals fighting in the period of line tactics. weapons capabilities dictate tactics to a fairly large degree
>What would a modern general do?
probably worse than a general of the period, its not that modern generals are innately worse as tacticians than their predecessors but most are used to a far greater degree of information flow and far better communications, the shock of losing that would probably be rather disconcerting to a general of today even if they understood the theory as well as possible the reality would still be a shock.
OP's picture is of the Fenian Raids into Canada. This picture makes the operation much more organized than it actually was. The Canadian militias wernt organized enough to mass any effective defense; the Fenians squandered the occupation of Canada when they realized they had no real means to communicate with each other, no coherent supply lines; the Americans were too protestant/scared to help.
They let the whole operation go ahead; after they were like "shit they actually did it. We cant let Britain find out we helped!" So they began arresting all the reinforcements; the Fenians had to pull out without a real fight.
I'm glad someone is bringing up how retarded line battles with muskets were. Almost as stupid as the concept as war trains like how did they even work just blow up the fucking tracks or put a big rock in its way.
Why do you insist on bumping this bait? OP is that you?
sage
Found the battlefield kiddie.