Where they stupid?

Is the movie the patriot an accurate portrayal of war battles back in the 1700s? where two large groups of men standing in formation would just take turns firing at each other and not moving?

couldn't one side come up with a better strategy to avoid mass casualties?

like how about the first row of men shoots, then ducks and runs to the back of the line and reloads. followed by the second row and the third row and so on and so forth? so there is a consistent stream of bullets heading toward the enemy.

as opposed to shoot, stand and reload, hope you don't die while reloading, shoot again.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(formation)
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

>ywn go back in time with modern weaponry and mow down entire armies by yourself and become undisputed ruler of the world and get a gf

Educate yourself about the History of Line infantry, marching and fighting in columns until new tactics and weapons emerged on the battlefield.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(formation)

so the movie was accurate

Yes it was. The tactics of the Independence war were heavily influence by the Seven Years war which also had Battle scenarios in North America.

Especially the Strategies and Tactics of Friedrich der Große ( Frederick the Great ) against opponents with far greater manpower/armies had a severe impress on the leading Military of that Era.

>tfw gf will never cuck you with Tyrone on national tv

we have different dreams, you and I.

>where they stupid?


Yes, the tens of millions of soldiers who fought in this way over the centuries were all stupid and not a single one of them tried anything else. If only you had been born 300 years ago you could teach them a lesson in warfare.

always wondered this, it makes zero sense
maybe they considered it to be the honorable and civilized way to die for a monarch?

>die for a monarch
lol this is what people believe

Guess what: Military strategies and tactics are a constant race based on technology, organisation, manpower, etc.
And therefore the CHANGE all the time due to new developments in the mentioned domains.

>like how about the first row of men shoots, then ducks and runs to the back of the line and reloads. followed by the second row and the third row and so on and so forth? so there is a consistent stream of bullets heading toward the enemy.

1) Because the formation now has to leave room for soldiers to pass through, it is more spread out. Therefore it is harder to maneuver, it is more vulnerable to direct charges, it is harder to mount its own charge and it is harder for division commanders to keep control of it.

2) You're creating a situation in which soldiers will get the impression of constant retreat. I'm sure the psychological effects on a soldier when he's constantly being drummed forward to a battleline he's seeing his fellow soldiers "flee" from (getting shot in the back too) can't be underestimated, especially on a smoke-filled battlefield with little visibility.

t. not a military historian but a good guesser

It was done primarily to aid officers communication to their troops, shouting only gets you so far in the midst of battle.

Have heard secondary rationales that it was also employed as means of reinforcing unit-cohesion.

The first reason is likely the largest consideration for line formations.

You have been visited by /k/.

why didn't the front line carry a portable wall with them to use as cover?

There was a reason why metal armour fully disappeared from the Battlefield when Muskets, Arquebus and finally Rifles appeared on mass.

There was nothing at that time that could stop a Bullet AND by light enough to be used/transported as a shield by common Infantry.

Nips tried that iirc

Didn't work out so well for them

Man, I spent a few minutes thinking about a topic, why didn't the men who lived through these events do it my way? Haha retards.

probably because they were uneducated. they would've benefited greatly from some of the ideas in this thread. for real

The people who came up with these tactics were smarter than your worthless NEET ass.

then why do I know what DNA is and they don't?

Because other people far greater and smarter than you didnt wasted their Life and discovered something you parrot about but not understanding at all.

Of course it was. Have you ever been to school? They teach the civil war like 4 fucking times by then end of high school

Without reading this article my understanding of line tactics was pretty much to focus fire and protect against cavalry. I might be wrong so I'm going to read it now.

Look out everybody, there's a genius in this thread!

Will DNA help you win wars? If this thread is anything to go off the answer is no.

I'm not a military expert or anything, but my personal understanding is that it allowed for control of the men by commanding officers, it was the most effective way to hit anything because guns had dogshit accuracy before rifling came along, and it usually worked wonders on a morale-shattering level for the really big armies who had a fuckton of guys they could march along in formation.

I always wondered why smaller countries didn't immediately look for different strategies because getting in a big line and shooting with masses of guys obviously favors the group with more guys.

Do it, especially about the tactics of Friederich der Große.

>I always wondered why smaller countries didn't immediately look for different strategies

Standing armies were damn expansives at these times. To support a professional military was only possible for few Nations.
Therefore these so called smaller nations were either stomped to the Ground or spared because another big player stepped in, just to stop the other nation from gaining more power.

how about instead of having a soldier run to the back to reload, a loaded gun is just passed to him?

what if i told you that was actually what they did, and it's better than your strategy?

>couldn't one side come up with a better strategy to avoid mass casualties?

Yes, its called guerilla warfare and the Minutemen and Continental Army did it all the time. In fact, its some of the earliest examples of guerilla warfare used with firearms.

why didn't they just have one guy sneak up alongside the enemy line and shoot an entire row in the heads with one bullet?

these were gentlemanly wars, no AWPs allowed

The average musket was really inaccurate.
You fire as many balls as you can and let God sort out the rest.

A line of infantry firing at once was basically a giant shotgun. Rifled guns didn't become standard till later.

They should make a sequel to Braveheart with Braveheart's son fighting these toy soldier fagets in cool and inventive ways.

not that guy but if they were so smart why didn't they come up with ideas as good as the ones featured in this thread?

Okay please educate me about the strategies and tactics of military combat in the year 2243.
Especailly in relation to the used combat gear and weapon systems of that time.

You forgot
>People getting up and running in front of people who are shooting.

>minutes
more like seconds. these questions are fine but the people that assume they are more clever than their ancestors are retards

>irrelevant nonsense
k

>implying they couldn't just stop drop and roll out of the way

>confusing knowledge with intelligence

Recounting facts that have been spoofed to you is not intelligence

don't see how assuming your ancestors were so brilliant is any better. you can critique people in positions of power today for beings morons, but it's unheard of to question people from a few hundred years ago? you're putting historical figures on a pedastal for no reason. some of the anons in this thread probably have more cobat strategy experience playing RTS games than those old losers had. don't see why you should write off their ideas so quickly

>two genders
>kings and queens
>stand in a line and go shooty bang bang

LMAO why were are ancestors so stupid?

That wasnt a reply to his question at all. Hes wondering why it took so long for guerrila tactics to come about

Inaccurate weapons drove those tactics. They were only really effective if they could be volley fired to put the maximum amount of lead towards the enemy.

You know that there are other boards beside Sup Forums, right?

Did you retards really not know how wars were fought back then? How old are you? Did you not have history class? Have you never seen any movie or show or documentary about this shit? You really can't be this clueless. You're almost as dumb as they were back in the day

>caring about white people doing stupid lineshoot

yea that sure is useful stuff to know

because until the invention of fast firing rifles in the mid-19th century massed infantry was the only way to counter these guys pictured.

also line infantry was only one part of armies that usually included light-infantry, light-cavalry, heavy-cavalry, field-artillery, heavy-artillery, sappers, engineer and hookers...lots of hookers.

some smaller countries like Portugal or Denmark had pretty solid armies during the 17th and 18th centuries.

t. Jamal Washingtonian

You can't possibly be serious

I honestly cant tell if most of these retarded posts are bait or Sup Forums is actually just that stupid.

hell no...by 1780 the Brits had guerrilla fighters of their own, Marion (the guy Mel is loosely based on) spent most of his time fighting these guys and not the main British army.

You should, considering they blew every nonwhite that they fought the fuck out using those tactics

This is exactly how the Yankee scum managed to get wins in over the British as says

Because they didn't live in the time of DNA.

You could go back in time as far as you like, but unless it was the time to build railroads, you simply could not build them.

We are talking about the board that spent hundreds of hours trying to (fruitlessly ) understand a simple gag from the Simpsons. Of course they are retards

Line formation creates a large effective amount of free space.
If you have people densely packed, then most shots that would otherwise be stray bullets find their home in your allies.

Also those rifles really weren't very accurate at range, and though you had to advance to get any effective use out of your weapons, advancing into a line of soldiers is still suicide.

Why didn't they at least use cover?

It isn't really accurate. for instance, it was incredibly rare for two large armies to come face to face in open field, so that entire ending battle in the patriot where the Americans win because Mel Gibson holds a flag up is total bullshit. The vast majority of battles during this time period, and in much of history, were assaults on towns, fortresses or one army being dug into trenches, which are usually no quarter given as the defending forces already had time to surrender. The United States effectively won the war by being terrorists and attacking unsuspecting troops and supply trains whilst the French blockaded the eastern seaboard.

>Line formation creates a large effective amount of free space.
>If you have people densely packed, then most shots that would otherwise be stray bullets find their home in your allies.

yep...lines are harder to hit with artillery. The French and Spanish figured this out by bashing the hell out of each other in the 17th century.

Imagine being this cucked.

>some of the anons in this thread probably have more cobat strategy experience playing RTS games than those old losers had.

how dare you question your forefathers!

idk user why did 12 year olds back then know how to ride horses and start a fire with nothing but a stick and leaves and you don't???

why were the english so fucking evil???

It's like an formation, it has it's pros and con.
For armies with no rifling.

Pro:
-Maximized firepower. Everyman is within range so you maximum the available fire power. This will dominate a scattered formation where only a limited number of men will be in range to fire at at a given time. Also, the scattered formation will be right fucked by cavalry
-Easy to give orders and peform strategies
-Stronger resistance to cavalry charges

Con
-You take more damage. However because you have the same muskets as the enemy, if you break whatever enemy is in range, you don't ttake much extra damage or break even. See the maximized firepower above.
-Artillery is amplified. However once the enemy front line breaks and you can charge in the artillery is fucked. The counterbalance is your own artillery.

>The United States effectively won the war by being terrorists and attacking unsuspecting troops and supply trains whilst the French blockaded the eastern seaboard.

the Brits were pretty good at defending their stuff but that was about it. the Rebels controlled the country-side north of Carolinas and east of Ohio for pretty much the whole war.

Both sides swapped rare major victories with the British slightly ahead until Yorktown.

That said it was French and Spanish support that let the war last in any significant form passed 1777.

Literally didn't happen, if you were wondering.

total war empire was a fantastic game

Holy shit you are retarded

Cool. That would have been a way better movie

explain to a non-american what role american natives played in the war, if any. did they just sit back and watch or did they have a horse in the race?

according to hippies they were peaceful and were run over by the white man

Nigga, it's a mother fucking declared war between countries and one military attacking another miilitary. It's not terrorism you anti-american ass.

supported the Brits

then explain WW1!

No they just needed the metal for other shit, dumb ass.

>and get a gf
i love you bruh

Rarely used and mostly ineffective.

You can't possibly believe that, can you?

your wrong go back in time with a way to manufacture viagra and become undisputed ruler of the world as the only way to give old kings bonners and charge whatever you want

umm, if it was rarely used, then why would Battlefield 1 make a whole campaign around it?
dumbass

make sense

it would have...Kings Mountain, Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse were probably the 3 most kino battles of the war and would be great in a movie.

Funny.

There's a technique called 'fire and advance' that's a little bit like what you described.

tfw no good Hollywood European ball & shot moobies
tfw everyone associates these firearms with Americans

Do they? Over here we associate them with the Napoleonic wars more than the Americans.

You know how expensive it would be to fit out all your infantry with armor? Not even really seen as worth it when they were using ranged weapons anyway.

Brits made a huge mistake and encouraged them to attack settlements...this vastly increased support for independence among the colonial population, led to decades of war between whites and indians and ultimately resulted in the virtual extermination of the tribes east of the Mississippi river.

Depends on the tribe.
But the french and indian war, part of the seven years war had french and indians on one side and british and colonial militia on the other. And that was a big precipitator to the revolutionary war. Namely the taxes to pay for it were what the colonist chimped out over.
During the revolutionary war they tended to side with the british because they made promises of land and borders. Stupid fucking red skins, every time.

niggas don't even remember Napoleon himself much less any wars surrounding him out of high school
far, far more exposure to American independence and the Civil War which is reinforced with movies belonging to those two settings

Barry Lyndon...

you're in Sup Forums user...

Cost was a factor, but the primary reason was that it was mostly ineffective. If it was actually effective, then there would still have been armoured units, they'd just have been rare and expensive - yet I don't know of any widespread use of armoured units besides cuirassiers, and they just wore breastplate.

Maybe in the States. Waterloo and such is a big deal here in the UK though.

>the Civil War
what a great name for a war

I kek'd

fun fact: countries other than america exist

You fucking moron. Read what you just wrote.