To: 
From: "Vern Humphrey" 
Reply-To: r_catholic-l{at}yahoogroups.com

To: goffscalif{at}aol.com [mailto:goffscalif{at}aol.com]
>
>
> > But war would soon become very different with the
> > Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.  Far larger,
> > longer, and with vastly greater armies.
>
> And then the Civil War brought modern weapons into play with Napoleonic
> tactics.  Massed formations standing upright and firing volleys
> was one thing
> with smooth bore muskets.  With rifled barrels it was slaughter,
> as Pickett's
> Charge (among many examples) demonstrated.  By the end of the
> Civil War we
> saw, not the tactics of the Napoleonic Wars, but the tactics of
> World War I
> (though it's worth noting that both Lee and Grant descended into trench
> warfare of necessity - Lee because Jefferson Davis had ordered
> him to hold
> Richmond which meant a static defense, and Grant because he was
> unable for a
> while to turn Lee's flank; both preferred maneuver).
>
You should watch "Gallipoli" with Mel Gibson.  The climax is an
attack the Australians made on the Turkish trenches (a disasterous
failure), and there is one scene taken from real life.  The troops are in
the trenches, Lee-Enfield rifles with fixed bayonets leaning against the
paraphet, ladders in place to climb over the top, and officers and NCOs
checking and rechecking everything.

The battalion commander comes walking down the trench and asks if something
has been checked.  What's the ONE thing the battalion commander wanted to
be SURE was checked?

"Has anyone checked these rifles to be sure they're unloaded?  This is
supposed to be a bayonet attack, you know."

Now, General Ripley (the Union Chief of Ordnance) has been criticized by
generations of historians for not adopting breech-loading rifles during the
American Civil War.  And that one scene answers all those criticisms -- if
you're NOT going to load your rifles, what difference does it make if you
don't load them from the breech, or you don't load them from the muzzle?

And this was 50 years after the end of the Civil War.  And a modern
European Army (the Australians were under British regulations and trained
by the British) was STILL using Napoleonic tactics!
>


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