Did the American Civil War have such high casualties because line warfare was being employed when for the first time many of the weapons available were rifled?
>>29240034
Also better artillery and shells
>>29240034
>some of the earliest battles of world war 1 were fought line warfare
That must have been a shell shock.
Yes. The weapons were ahead of the tactics. The rifle sent a big ass lead slug at a low muzzle velocity. When it hit, it would just obliterate the tissue. That's why there were so many amputations. But they believed that to take a position you had to advance and give the enemy the bayonet. So they all lined up and got blown away. Add to this that they didn't know about antiseptics and germ theory and it's a miracle that anyone wounded survived.
>>29240034
Better artillery desu
Rifled muskets had approximately the same effective range due to the rainbow trajectories preventing all but the best range estimators from making use of its theoretical precision
>>29240125
>The weapons were ahead of the tactics
Yes
>The rifle sent a big ass lead slug at a low muzzle velocity. When it hit, it would just obliterate the tissue
Just like a musketball
>But they believed that to take a position you had to advance and give the enemy the bayonet
The bayonet charge was never the first resort, which you would know if you didn't learn about Napoleonic tactics from History Channel pop-history misinformation
>>29240206
Fuck you, asshole. I learned it from Shelby Foote and Ken Burns. Let me guess: you're a re-enactor.
>>29240206
>Just like a musketball
>9mm is a bullet
>Just like a 5.56 !
For fuck's sake godammit.
>>29240154
I highly doubt they had only 60-70~% precision at 120m against a full line of men while the earliest shit rifled guns of the napoleonic era with shitty ammunation in comparison had a 80-90% chance to hit.
>>29240034
Yes, to grossly over-generalize the offense-defense balance was heavily skewed defense.
>>29240034
You just answered your own question in that post. You truly are a fucking idiot. Well done.
>>29240544
y-you t-t-too
Most casualties were from disease (75%).
Also a lot of it was the shotshell they used in artillery. Basically turned their field guns into massive shotguns and aimed it at advancing lines.
So line formations and shot-based artillery lead to entire lines of men dying all at once.
>>29240034
Both
>>29241701
Canister is the name of shot-like load. I make the distinction because "shot" refers to solid shot and "shell" refers to one of the exploding projectile types (case being the other) when speaking of canon loads.
>>29240034
No, there were such high casualties because medical and sterilization practices were essentially barbaric. 67%-75% of deaths were caused by infection or disease.
