Just Cringe Worthy

They did not show up to give each other massages. The whole point was to kill each other. They used the best tools they could get their hands on for the job.

Imagine taking a M4 carbine back in time and telling them it was our nation's standard issue military rifle in 2019. Take a round out and showing them what 21st century soldiers are using in war.

Bet they'd have a good laugh.

Times change.

Back then they used what they knew. They wouldn't consider it insane, they'd just pray God was on their side .....

Yeah ive looked at the size of them bullets and its like "eeek!...ooooouch!". Not to mention they were made of pure soft lead that deformed into a larger peice when it hit. Ever see pics of the wounds they made?! These bullets tore entire limbs off and sometimes barely hanging by a string of flesh. Shattered bones into splinters. Then you have to think of the medical attention...everything was crude on the battlefield, nothing sterile, amputations common, and if you survived any wound you probably wouldnt survive the infection. I think if them soldiers saw the m4 today they would be in awe over how clean they shot and the amount of bullets shot. I think they might smirk and look at one another when shown the bullets but still not underestimate its potential considering they are meant for a weapon that is like nothing theyve ever seen and everything theyve hoped and dreamed about in a weapon. I bet theyd feel a soldier was practically invincible if armed with the M4, but they also might be very shocked to see how warfare on the feild has changed. I always wondered how much the civil war would have changed had one side been given todays military tech as far as rifles are concerned. Just imagine how much history would have changed if the south had been given the technology to mass produce M4's for their soldiers...even if only half or a quarter of the soldiers had them.

Yeah i never understood why they would charge one another shoulder to shoulder going head to head shooting at eachother. Id be the one wanting to shoot from cover...not running straight into another guys line of sight of his rifle and bayonet. Im reallt surprised they did that for so long especially after the native americans in the french and indian wars showed them how to hide and surprise attack from cover etc with amazing results and not lose as many lives and win more battles. Im just mind boggled as to why wars were fought the same way for so long and not once did generals take a step back and asses the situation and think/say "....this whole charging eachother in shoulder to shoulder lines isnt working...lets not ever do this again", especially if youre outnumbered its not a good tactic.

Captain LaGarde wrote his book "Gunshot Injuries" in 1916 and says somewhere in the book that the projectiles of the American Civil War causes worse wounds than the front line weapons used in the second year of WW1. I did find this exact quote:

"The stopping power of the reduced caliber rifle bullet, thous less than those of its predecessors, the .45 caliber Springfield, Martini Henry, old Mauser, or Gras, is still considered sufficient for all the purposes of civilized warfare"

I would say, if the 45/70 was better than the 303 British, 7.62 Russian, 8 X 57 mm, than the 58 caliber Minie was even better, in terms of nasty wounds. Civil War Minie balls tended to be either 460 grains or 510 grain of pure, soft, lead. That pure, soft, lead Minie ball had the habit of deforming when hitting bone. They just shattered joints, arm and leg bones.

I found these videos interesting:

Ballistic gelatine tests of the M 1867/77 Werndl rifle




Lorenz bullet vs .58 Minié test in ballistic gelatine




Round ball vs cut lead - gelatine tests, accuracy, ballistics, historical background





19th century roundball vs 7,62x39 ammo in ballistic gelatine

Ballistic gelatine test of muzzleloading lead bullets vs modern 8x57 JRS hunting ammo.


Mannlicher M95 8x50R rifle ballistic gelatine tests

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXAQOq-ScNA

Remington 45-70 tests in ballistic gelatine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-0XtRfwZPg

Shooting the Swiss Model 1851 Feldstutzer rifle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMBfUxmXK1c&list=PLIGg3pcPWcaJltGCC98OKAWsvPVALUp8Z

45/70 Sharps gelatine tests

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCpSmYmPKxs

Mr. Slamfire...thanks for the links! Ive seen some of them vids and it just makes me cringe when i think about men on the battlefield and seeing other men succumb to the injuries right before their eyes or having to see the bodies and body parts that were mangled just from a single bullet. That will surely give them some nightmares for many years after or even the rest of their lives.

People lined up shooting this and bigger at eachother.

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Yes they did, and my Great Grandfather took one of them in the leg. Messed him up pretty bad from what I understand. Didn't lose the leg, so it must not have hit bone. He did get disability pay, or something.

Tommygunn said:

Imagine taking a M4 carbine back in time and telling them it was our nation's standard issue military rifle in 2019

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Try https://www.amazon.com/Guns-South-Novel-Harry-Turtledove-ebook/dp/B004JHYS12


.

Muskets are one thing, but the first time a load of canister touches off at a crowd a man has to have some serious problems to keep marching in formation. Canister and bouncing balls through ranks had to be mentally destructive.

skeeterfogger said:

Some time ago I came across some letters and diary entries on the internet from soldiers in the Napoleonic war. Many comments about having to stand in ranks durring enitial artillery barages. Cannon balls ground bouncing into the ranks. Many chilling accounts about legs and arms flying around. Heads vaporizing. Bodies torn in half. If you broke ranks it was firing squad or guillotine. Just reading the accounts were enough to cause disturbed sleep.

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There was, as bizarre as it sounds by present day standards, an "ethic" (I have a hard time thinking of this from the standpoint of "ethics! ) that seemed quasi-religious; that bouncing cannonball coming at you was destined "by God" to do whatever God willed. If you ducked (which was often physically possible if you saw it in time) you were not only a coward, you were against God.
This attitude existed prior to Napoleon, but I suspect it persisted up until that time.
Thankfully it no longer esists .... however, on the downside, our soldiers have to worry about far gnarlier and faster weapons that are beyond being seen or avoided by simply ducking.

Revolutionary War was mostly .69 and .75 caliber. Two cannonballs connected by a length of chain going through a crowd sounds pretty nasty. You often hear the gun grabbers say that 2nd Amendment should apply only to arms available at the time it was written. Those fools seem to think that the 18th century weapons were primitive and rather harmless. Got shot with a modern M4 and you will most likely survive. A shot from an old time musket resulted almost always in either death or amputation.

skeeterfogger said:

Gettysburg I believe. When the Confederates assaulted the Union artillery line. They would rush a point but be hit by grapeshot. Instead of pushing on before the Union could reload the officers would order slide left. Made no sense. They just slide left directly in front of another battery over and over.

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There's an explanation for this. Pickett's charge was along a fairly wide front. As the ranks got thinned down, the plan was to concentrate on the "copse of trees" in the center of the Union line. The Confederate units on the right flank would be sliding left to achieve this concentration. This is actually historically accurate.

TheOutlawKid said:

Yeah ive looked at the size of them bullets and its like "eeek!...ooooouch!". Not to mention they were made of pure soft lead that deformed into a larger peice when it hit. Ever see pics of the wounds they made?! These bullets tore entire limbs off and sometimes barely hanging by a string of flesh. Shattered bones into splinters. Then you have to think of the medical attention...everything was crude on the battlefield, nothing sterile, amputations common, and if you survived any wound you probably wouldnt survive the infection. I think if them soldiers saw the m4 today they would be in awe over how clean they shot and the amount of bullets shot. I think they might smirk and look at one another when shown the bullets but still not underestimate its potential considering they are meant for a weapon that is like nothing theyve ever seen and everything theyve hoped and dreamed about in a weapon. I bet theyd feel a soldier was practically invincible if armed with the M4, but they also might be very shocked to see how warfare on the feild has changed. I always wondered how much the civil war would have changed had one side been given todays military tech as far as rifles are concerned. Just imagine how much history would have changed if the south had been given the technology to mass produce M4's for their soldiers...even if only half or a quarter of the soldiers had them.

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There is a book that explores this very idea. I forget the name of the book, but you can look it up by author...
The author's name is Harry Turtledove. The main difference is he equips the South with AKs rather than M4s.

The author's name is Harry Turtledove.

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See Post #11






See also:

MEHarvey, I didn't read all of the posts and skipped right over yours. Good job on knowing the book title. I had to look it up after I suggested the author.

skeeterfogger said:

Historically accurate yes. Sliding right in front of one load of grapeshot after another. Not a lot of sense.

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The mindset was different in those days. I've heard it said that to survive -- without going to pieces mentally -- you had to consider yourself already dead from the time you entered the ranks. Merely surviving a battle was an unexpected bonus.

This attitude persisted through WW1. That's why people were willing to go "over the top" into certain death. The meaningless slaughter of WW1 finally discredited that thinking. By the time of WW2, the generals -- at least of the Western powers -- were trying to find ways to minimize casualties. The mindless waste of lives was not accepted any more.

AlexanderA said:

The mindset was different in those days. I've heard it said that to survive -- without going to pieces mentally -- you had to consider yourself already dead from the time you entered the ranks. Merely surviving a battle was an unexpected bonus.

This attitude persisted through WW1. That's why people were willing to go "over the top" into certain death. The meaningless slaughter of WW1 finally discredited that thinking. By the time of WW2, the generals -- at least of the Western powers -- were trying to find ways to minimize casualties. The mindless waste of lives was not accepted any more.

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Well the mind set was different, but more from the top ranks on down, and there was a lot of ignorance....

See the last known "war" for the Americans was the Napoleonic Wars which were just "reading" not experience, and the relatively small Mexican American War. BOTH were still with smoothbores. So it's the same old story as was the AWI, aka the "Revolution". You might be unlucky and get hit, but most of the men in your company would not be shot during a battle, and the bayonet charge would decide the outcome. Same ****, different uniforms.

Then they gave everybody a rifled musket. Nobody had any idea of what that would really do in large numbers. Nobody. So you get the 1st Battle of Bull Run and the men are in three waves, spaced at proper smoothbore musket distance...100 yards or perhaps less, apart.. The bullets that don't hit the men in the chest in the first wave, hit the men in the thighs in the second wave, and those that have still missed continue on, drop into or even bounce and hit the men in the third wave in the shins. The carnage was totally unexpected. They still tried to deal with the battles with massed bayonet charges. Remember this as it happens again....


Chain shot, or bar shot, really wasn't employed against infantry. Those were anti-ship projectiles. At the ACW you had solid shot or explosive shells, and cannister or grape. Get too close to artillery (and they did) and if you didn't knock out the crews, since the previous wars had used a lot smaller, more mobile artillery in smaller numbers (except Napoleon but that was only in books for the Americans), but now they were facing "batteries" of multiple guns.... too close and your infantry got hit with cannister or grape. and often iron not lead balls so it carried a bit farther than an old style musket volley or the old style canister. (see Gettysburg day 3)

Same thing with WWI and "over the top". The Europeans didn't learn from the Crimean War, and the Boer War for the British was vs. guerillas, not a standing, national army. So by WWI the machine gun had been introduced in large numbers. Thinking didn't change. The French, for Pete's sake, were still wearing Kepi's and planning on massed bayonet charges. At least the British were going to charge at "extended open order", but remember the British professional army had been dealing with colonial uprisings under Queen Victoria for almost 60 years when WWI hit. So no real idea of what was going to happen.

They did have an idea from the first two years of WWI, that up against machine guns straight on was stupid, but thought they could handle them. Casualties had been bad but not staggering up until July 1916.

So..., on June 25th, 1916 the British artillery started a 7 day pounding of the German lines at a place called the Somme. The idea was to kill off the Germans in the trenches, and cut the barbed wire to bits....Tommy and his SMLE rifle with a fixed bayonet would dash across a couple hundred yards of "no man's land" with huge gaps in the wires from the shelling, and only a few if any Germans left alive in the trenches. Once into the German trenches, the Brits would move using the German trench system to the rear trench, where they'd find more dead Germans. Casualties would be moderate to light...for the Brits.

What the Brits didn't understand is that the Germans had implemented heavy artillery in large numbers first. They knew what the guns would do, SO..., they also knew how to construct artillery proof bunkers in their trenches where their soldiers would wait out the barrage....even for 7 days. The Hun wasn't supposed to be able to hide out for that many days, and so those that did would have to come out to get food and water from the rear, as the barrage continued, and that would get them killed too.

On July 1st, 1916, the Brits went "over the top" as the artillery barrage lifted. They expected a tough but manageable day. The Germans heard the artillery lift, and out from each bunker went the unlucky guy picked to be the first guy out to "check" and when he saw the advancing line of infantry, he alerted the rest. Out came the machine guns, because....It's one thing to dash across 300 yards of football fields, and quite another to cross through something akin to the surface of the moon, with wire obstacles not quite as destroyed as the British and thought would be the result. German machine guns cut the Tommies to pieces.

As the wounded and dying made it back to British lines, they clogged the connecting trenches trying to make it back to medical aid. The additional waves of infantry in the second trenches could not move up to the front trench under cover, So (remember 1st Bull Run) they had to go out over the ground between the front trench and their trench, and the 8mm Mauser bullets being fired at the first wave, carried beyond, and slammed into the lads moving forward to the forward British trenches. Add to that very slow communication, and by the time the nature of the disaster was known, it was too late to stop it.

60,000 men died in the first day of that battle. It was the worst day in the history of the British Army, ever, and still is.

Moral of the story.....don't expect to fight the next war as you fought the last war.

LD

Tommygunn said:

Imagine taking a M4 carbine back in time and telling them it was our nation's standard issue military rifle in 2019. Take a round out and showing them what 21st century soldiers are using in war.

Bet they'd have a good laugh.

Times change.

Back then they used what they knew. They wouldn't consider it insane, they'd just pray God was on their side .....

Click to expand...

Imagine taking that same M4 and mowing down a whole row of redcoats at Bunker Hill or such. Wouldn't even need full-auto, knock 'em down like plates at a 3-gun shoot. Not very sporting (which the British accused our ancestors of anyway with their 'rifles') , but very effective. Part of being a soldier then was the courage to stand in that line while volleys came whistling by. I would think they would soil themselves if they saw how modern battle is undertaken.
Also note the British did learn from their experience in the Rev. War, and formed small Rifle companies not too long after.