I've noticed that claiming the American Civil War was the "first modern" or "first industrial war" gets rebutted pretty drastically here. I assume by those who think World War 1 is more deserving of the title but the argument never gets fleshed out, so who is right?
Civil War was Napoleonic.
WW1 was the first modern war.
>airplanes
first industrial I'd have no problems with, that was a pretty big deal in the ACW
first modern, just no, it was decidedly Napoleonic/Jovinian (BUT, weirdly enough, in a worse manner than the perfected N/J European warfare!) at a time when Europeans were quickly adopting loose infantry formations armed with breech loaded rifles
>>1128862
The common smoothbore muskets at Waterloo were only effective to 30-50 yards and the cavalry fought mainly with swords.
>>1128874
>Jovinian
lel
our lord Jupiter is obviously not invoked, Jominian is the word
Just look at his smug mug.
>>1128856
Civil war lacked true industrialism to become the first modern war... sure, there were a lot of protoindustrial ideas in manufacturing, but it lacked things like electricity, modern tactics and modern weaponry (which obly appeared in the very late stages of the war)
>>1128884
The first true Industrial war was the Franco-Prussian war, where two conscript armies with a professional officer core fought each other with the industrial power of their entire nation behind them.
The Civil War was fought by modern armies, but not by two truly modern nations.
>>1128874
Tactically Napoleonic? Did Civil War soldiers fight in box formations against cuirassiers?
>>1128856
It was the Franco Prussian War.
Modern(ish) guns, modern(ish) artillery, conscription, massive battles over huge areas, no longer just a battle on a battlefield.
>>1128908
not against cuirassiers, because appropriate cavalry forces or their use (appropriate to the overall tactics employed) were severely lacking in the ACW, but yes, close order was the, err, order of the day
to expand on the cavalry issue, a virtually complete lack of a proper cavalry arm (again, proper to the tactical and operational realities of the kind of warfare) in either army was a chief reason why so many battles lacked the decisiveness a better force would achieve through the use of (heavy) cavalry
>>1128917
Yep. The Franco-Prussian war was the first large-scale war to be fought on a front as opposed to just isolated battles.
Modern war starts when planes are introduced.
Army
Navy
Air Force
>>1128902
Surely the ACW was more reminiscent of this than the Napoleonic wars. I think people understate the shift that industrial replication had with firearms and warfare.
>>1128856
Honestly I think it's a silly statement to make, [x] was the first 'modern' war because it depends what you mean by modern. There weren't knights beating the snot into each other then suddenly planes trains and automobiles. I think the Crimean was the first industrial war, the civil war was the end of muzzle loading weapons and saw the beginning of modern military firearms, first world war saw the invention of tanks the sort of scale of war that hadn't been seen before etc.
I mean you could even call Vietnam the first modern war because it was a guerrilla proxy war which has largely defined late 20th century conflict through to the current day.
tl;dr each war was a bit different in some way since the turn of the 19th century and picking one to be the first 'modern war' is pointless.
>>1128933
Modern war starts when our so-called leaders prostituted us to the West...
destroyed our culture...
our economies...
our honor
>>1128933
>air force
>ww1
>>1128934
Not on the battlefield it wasn't. The vast majority of engagements had tightly packed huge bodies of linear infantry armed with rifled muskets facing each other, except they didn't have the cavalry which in this kind of warfare was essential, the regiment would often be the smallest tactical unit and so on. Meanwhile in Yurop, you had infantry being broken down to progressively smaller units in loose order armed with breechloaders.
>>1128940
>royal air force and fliegertruppen and service aeronautique don't real mang
>>1128945
Civil war did see major developments in field artillery and siege warfare with stuff like parrott rifles and siege guns. Nothing brand new just yet but it was the beginnings of WWI style warfare. If you look at scenes like the seige of Vicksburg and consider the rage of the guns, then the nature of trench warfare it looks more like a matter of scale than a reinvention of war, IMO.
>>1128856
Nah. 1st industrial war was Franco-Prussian 1870/71
>submarine warfare
>Napoleonic
>>1128975
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunley_(submarine)
>>1129041
even better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_%28submersible%29
>>1128939
Fuck off Zakhaev, don't you have nukes to steal.
The fuck, other than naval combat Civil War was backwoods antiquated shit. Crimean war was far more modern.
