[Puncha]

Not too sure if this is a stale question but I just had to ask....

Would Gen George Washington and the continental army be able to force Lord Cornwallis to the negotiating table within 6 months if someone from our time with a suitable time machine travelled back to 1776 and made sure that:

1)40% of the continental army were given 1903 Springfield bolt action rifles.
2)Another 25% were armed with 30.06 M1 rifles.
3)And the rest were given civil war rifled muskets?

I'm assuming here that each continental soldier was given enough training for shooting and maintenance, maintenance kits are provided and modest facilities set up for ammo manufacture and basic spare parts fabrication.

Please also assume that the artillery of the day remained authentic and that the tactics remained the same. I'd imagine that the Washington and his boys would starting from 200 - 300 years in their skirmish lines as opposed to 80 - 100 yards ordinarily. :D

Would we even need the assistance of the french to defeat the British if we had late 19th and early 20th century infantry rifles?

[BowStreetRunner]

it wouldnt have taken 6 months, it would have taken 6 weeks :)

enough time for cornwallis's ships to get back to england in one piece

BSR

[Gabe]

I'm not sure how to anwer your question, is this part of some role-playing game or something? Why is your weapon question so specific?

The British had but 8,000 troops trying to pacify the colonies. That we took 4 years to beat them suggest the Contenental Army was incredibly ill prepared.

In your alternative universe world. A modern infantry company would wipe the British out in one battle. Give me a brigade and a superfreighter and I can conquer all of England in 6 months.

[SodaPop]

Would we even need the assistance of the french to defeat the British if we had late 19th and early 20th century infantry rifles?


Sometime the trials and tribulations of the hard road is what brings out the best in people. If people have the easy road they tend to end up with egos.

[Moparmike]

I always wanted to imagine what the Revolutionary War would have been like if, say, Carlos Hathcock and a tricked out Rem700 in .308 with all requisite gear were to suddenly appear in 1776.:D :D :D

[Carbonator]

There's a similar book out there about the Civil War, and the Confederates get ahold of some Uzi's or something similar (time machine I guess), and turn the tide of the war. I'm sure someone here knows the title and author.

[Majic]

If the British captured the ammo facilities then the weapons would quickly be rendered useless. Factor in weapons lost and casualties as surely some are going to try to load the muskets and cannons with smokeless powder hoping to increase the effectivness. We won't even holding our own with our men in battle. Now you have to staff these extra munition factories which depletes the manpower further. You have supplied better weapons, but reduced numbers in the fields. Not a real advantage.

[telewinz]

We would have lost the war, the weapons would have been used against us. Our problem was a people problem, poor leadership (Washington's own Generals had little respect for him), and poor quality troops. You can't win a war if you are runing away from the enemy. The British were the BEST at that time, we weren't even in the top ten. Without the French troops, fleet and supplies we could never have won. Within 8 weeks most of our advanced weapons would be battlefield pick-ups (or turned-in for the bounty) and in the hands of British troops. They of course would study them and maybe use them against us (doubt it) but they would be out of of hands one way or another. The British would have used their mighty industrial base to make copies of the weapons and ammo and gone on to defeat America and rule the land as well as the oceans of the World.

Carbonator:

They were armed with AK47's. In that book the North lost but went on to invade Canada using copies of captured AK's. Round II would have turned out different plus the North would have had the research to apply the technology to other weapons systems.

[spartacus2002]

the book is "Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove. Very fun read.

[RandyB]

I doubt that the improved weapons (1903 and M-1) would have made much of a difference if the tactics did not iprogress along with the weapons. Afterall look at the Civil War. Shoulder-to-shoulder masses of men firing at each other.

[AJ Dual]

RandyB has it.

Tactics would have made more of a difference than any rifle. Marching in formation to about 50-25 yards away and blasting away? Dosen't make much difference if it's a .30-'06 or a musket ball.

I suppose that 5 round bolt action, or an 8 round semi with en-bloc clip would be a force multiplier, but only for those still standing after the first British volley.

The colonists allways did better when exploiting hit and run, guerilla tactics, harrasment, and fighting "indian style".

While sharpshooting at an officer, and fighting in the woods made it impossible to avoid from time to time, firing from cover or ambush was generally considered "dastardly" at least when facing other uniformed European style armies, up unti the time of the Civil War, when sharpshooter regiments, and other kinds of small unit manuver and fire fighting became more formalized. Even then, the old "line" mentality was evident to some degree until WWI where it reached it's logical extreme in trench warfare..

Someone who could convince Gen. Washington to invest 90% of his efforts into logistical preparedness, and 10% in making sure all engagments with the British were all ambush, harrasment, logistical interdiction etc. would have had much more impact IMO.

[Nathanael_Greene]

One of the real issues of the Revolution wasn't so much combat as logistics. (Valley Forge was a logistical nightmare, not a military one.) The transportation of those days was incredibly slow, except by sea--which the British controlled.

In combat, performance in battle was more a matter of will than anything else; the British superiority in discipline was a deciding factor in many engagements. The rebel militiamen weren't as useful as one might expect, but sometimes (such as King's mountain) militia was the only game in town, and did very well.

Powder and shot were in short supply; if Washington's army had had decent supplies of any sort, the war might have been shortened.

In other areas (such as my namesake's Southern Campaign), every single battle was lost, yet the British were still worn down and trapped at Yorktown.

Anyway, to answer your original question, I think that yeah, all other things being equal, the British would have been pretty much run off the continent in pretty short order. But it's a bit like asking, "Would the war have been shorter if all 13 colonies occupied a space no larger than three acres?"

[jdege]

Harry Turtledove's 1993 "Guns of the South" involves time-travelling South African's supplying the Confederacy with large quantities of AZ47's and ammo.

Harry Harrison's earlier (1983) "A Rebel in Time" involves a single time-traveller trying to provide the Confederacy with plans for a Sten and a cartridge-stamping machine, and a single time-traveller going back to stop him.

[hops]

Taking back penicillin probably would have the greatest impact of all. In fact, when Steuben showed up, the first thing he did was establish proper camp set up in a sanitary manner. Kitchen at one end and the Latrine at the far other end. (logistics in a sense)

Until Steuben's arrival, the Americans had more casulties due to disease, than those inflicted by British musket fire. Just setting up proper camp, increased the combat effectiveness of the American troops. Then some Prussian musket drill and basic formation maneuver, and now the American's had a force that could and did fight the Brits on even terms.

Washington spent most of his time fighting the logistical side, but he never had enough of anything. In fact, taking back 1000 pounds of GOLD would have a greater effect than 1000 pounds of 1903 springfields. An army moves on its stomach.