Salah

Post-medieval warfare is interesting to me, but hardly an area of special understanding. So I would like to call upon the aid of anyone on Historum with specializes in warfare c. 1700-1900 CE

Far as I can tell, during this period European (and by proxy American) infantry simply formed lines and blew each other's metaphorical brains out. Granted, all forms of warfare are brutal and wasteful of human life, but this seems particularly moronic to me.

When experienced armies faced each other, how is it that not every man (at least in the front rank or two) got shot? Did armies just fire away until one's line crumbled? Wouldn't the resulting casualities be massive in comparison to previous methods of warfare?

I understand that muskets of this time period were comparatively crude firearms with far less range and accuracy than modern weapons, but still, it seems to me that it was a particularly barbaric and idiotic way to fight a battle.

It must have taken a whole lot of courage (or an enormous lacking in respect for one's own life) to fight in a pitched battle of the 18th or early 19th Centuries, especially if one was marching in the front rank.

So now I look forward to being enlightened and perhaps chastised by the armchair warlords of Historum

RoyalGovnaWatts

I believe it was sort of the transformation period of old-age warfare into modern. As you know, the military had always divided people up in batallions, regiments, maniples, what have you, for ancient or medieval combat. My guesstimation is that the tactics for enlightenment age warfare had simply not caught up with the evolution of the musket, resulting in mass casualties.

It can be debated that guerrilla warfare was superior in a number of ways;
For ex. Much less casualties, more kills/individual guerrilla soldier.

Overall, my point is that the tactics for musket age warfare were lagging far behind the weapon. Throughout all of history before this time, generally, the armies that were in best formation/array were victorious against there foe, this perhaps leading to the idea that it was best to continue in this fashion for musket age warfare. Also, in musket age warfare, the best way to defend against cavalry was to be in a group of over 100 men of so, whereas skirmishers or guerrillas would get destroyed by cavalry, naturally.

Son of Cathal

Moreover, I think the adoption of the infantry line strategy was to maximise the effectiveness of the largely inaccurate and notoriuosly slow to reload muskets.

The infantry square was really the only defence against cavalry and was particularly difficult to break without the aid of concentrated cannon fire.

A7X

It wasn't moronic or wasteful, it was the only way they could fight with the technology. The whole idea of the "lines blasting away at each other suicidally" is a huge myth. They're were plenty of tactics involved and it was not like the lines simply met, fired, and charged. It was much more complicated than that. You can imagine that the lines and columns are just like the formations of the medieval era, just that they killed each other from a distance. Of course, there was much maneuvering, and artillery, cavalry, terrain, elevation, numbers, and skirmishers made sure that it wasn't just lines blasted away at each other.

Son of Cathal

While I agree tat it was the only way they could fight, it was till moronic

Glorious_Leader

It wasn't the only way to fight, it simply was the norm. I'm surprised there was so little innovation in combat tactics at the time, considering how flawed the standard tactic was.

Belisarius

Warfare in this era was far more complicated than your summary suggests, and was no more moronic than marching towards a group of people that could throw sharp pointy sticks at you by various means, then cut or stab you.

The idea of "automatons" marching blindly into the face of enemy gunfire is also inaccurate. First hand battle accounts often refer to soldiers ducking, or falling flat to avoid cannon balls, and woods, buildings and ditches were often filled with temporary "deserters" of both sides who wanted to sit out the "worst bits" before rejoining their units to run away or take part in the victory celebrations. It's a fascinating subject, and a bit of a speciality of mine, thanks for bringing it up and I'm sure I'll post again in more detail in due course.

pugsville

The Sharp pointy end of warfare is normally pretty bloody no matter what the period. All periods have there idiocy and insanity. WW1, WW2, Vietnam whenever. A lot of stuff looks odd or insane with greater understanding of the period becomes more reasonable and understandable behavior.

Units and standing together is a lot about morale and cohesion, with Muskets that had limited range & accuracy that you stand up to load, with non smokeless powder obscuring everything, fighting in lines and formations had reasons behind them. Large scale armies of the period fighting as individuals was not really an option.

red4tribe

Muskets during this time period were incredibly inaccurate. You'd be lucky to hit an enemy soldier from 150 yards away. The general idea of warfare was really just to get the troops firing as fast a possible, the theory being that if you have so many men firing really fast, at least some bullets are bound to hit the enemy. Drill some holes in their lines, then charge at them with the bayonet. Hopefully they'd run away. Many battles lasted a half an hour or less.

This being said, it's not like the soldiers just stood then and didn't move the entire battle. They moved to attack each others flanks, moved to surround the enemy, moved to attack the weak spot in the opponents line.

Sure, it sounds crazy to us but it's how war was fought back then. As the weapons became more advanced in the mid 19th century, this style of fighting slowly began to die out.

redFusilier

armies fighting solely in lines is one of the great myths of the 18th/19th century, that still persists today. for example; one of the most interesting things about the american revolutotion is that the british army did not actually fight in line formation. from the very early stages, officers like William Howe trained their men to fight in open order formation, which favored rapid movement and the use of the bayonet. the british army would rarely even stand to fire when in battle, they would just bayonet charge. this tactic was decisive in almost every battle