Revolution War Era Tactics-other options

[Langenator]

Disease[strike]The irregular fighting[/strike], TMK, caused the largest losses to the English - that, and we produced very little tax revenue for them, relative to the headaches we gave.

The colonial forces were adopting rifles as much as they could, I believe (my ancestors were part of the local junta that issues some orders to local rifle makers to sell all rifles to colonial forces.), but they weren't being mass produced at that time.

I have no idea if they were harder to use, etc - I know they were far more expensive and the colonial forces were pretty well broke

There's some interesting speculation as to exactly how much malaria contributed to the victory at Yorktown. Cornwallis' troops had been operating in the South for many months, and thus their sick rolls were heavy with malaria cases. Washington and Rochambeau's troops, relatively recently arrived from New England, hand not yet begun to suffer heavily.

Until the invention of the Minie ball, more the 50 years after the War of Independence ended, rifles had an incredibly slow rate of fire, due to the ball having to be big enough to engage the rifling and thus having to be literally hammered into the barrel.

I'm not sure if the American armies could have made use of Napoleonic tactics effectively, for a couple of reasons. First, they didn't really have that many troops. A single one of Napoleon's corps would be far larger than the whole Continental Army, or even the largest single body of the British army in the colonies. Second, the Continental Army probably lacked enough trained and experienced officers to try to pull it off. The British Army's officers probably could have, if they had trained for those sorts of tactics - they were well trained, and many of them had experience in the Seven Years' War.

(Interesting trivia bit - the 'patron saint' of the U.S. Army Rangers, Robert Rogers, remained loyal to England, and led the troops that captured Nathan Hale. So it wasn't like the British Army didn't have men on in their ranks who didn't know light infantry tactics and irregular/frontier warfare.)

[Vonz90]

I knew that we'd get some awesome ideas, but I was really focusing more on the tactics piece.

Introducing irregular/guerrilla warfare on a large scale across the colonies would have had devastating results to the British, and is would likely be the most feasible option to quickly change the course of the war.

Of course, if we start trying to alter weaponry, logistics, chemistry, and metallurgy, we come out on top much faster if we're using our historical knowledge as our number one weapon.

Tactics wise, I would say there probably was not a lot to change. The war was fought pretty much with the same technology as the Seven Years War and thus mostly with similar tactics. The major problem was that the rate of fire/accuracy was too low to base all of your tactics around a firepower solution. Rifles added accuracy but at the loss of rate of fire (slower to load) and the rifles of the day did not take a bayonet, so you loss your hand to hand ability. In General the Prussians relied more on fire power and less on bayonet than most of the other armies of the day (in part because they were always outnumbered) and that is the emphasis that von Steuben brought, but it was only a matter of degree not of kind).

Another large issue was logistics, because it was very hard to keep an army in the field at the time and the open spaces of the US made it even harder. As Aesop said, working on sanitation and such would help (a big point of emphasis by von Steuben actually in terms of camp set up and so forth) but I don't think it would have been a game changer in terms of what was available at the time.

The big change from 7Y War to Napoleonic war was making the armies bigger by conscription and solving the logistical problems by living off of the population - and we saw where the limits of that when he ran into a big country with a limited central population like in Russia. I think the same limits would apply to the US.

The militia was mostly not very successful, but it did keep the Brits busy and bought time.

The short answer is that I don't think there is a short answer.

[MiddleAgedKen]

In General the Prussians relied more on fire power and less on bayonet than most of the other armies of the day (in part because they were always outnumbered) and that is the emphasis that von Steuben brought, but it was only a matter of degree not of kind).

Platoon fire* and drill, baby, drill. The Prussian infantry of 1756 and 1757 could keep up high rates of controlled fire while advancing, which was just this side of terrifying to observers from other armies. According to a really good series of articles by Richard Riehn circa 1980, the Prussians also stripped down the drill book and emphasized what Riehn called "speed and snap" (which supposedly carries in the German Army to the present day) rather than precision and elegance.

*Under the platoon fire drill, rather than a volley by the entire battalion or fire by the individual rank, the platoons in a battalion in line would fire in a specified sequence. Each platoon (two at a time, if memory serves) advances a certain number of paces, front rank kneels, second and third ranks lock on, platoon fires as a body, then reloads in place while another platoon advances and repeats the process. In battle it breaks down to "battlefire" pretty quickly, but while fire discipline holds it's a pretty impressive sight, one's told.

[randy]

Introducing irregular/guerrilla warfare on a large scale across the colonies would have had devastating results to the British, and is would likely be the most feasible option to quickly change the course of the war.

Possibly, in certain places. Successful insurgencies rely on acquiescence (through sympathy, apathy or fear) if not support of the local population. IIRC (and I know some one here will have the actual number) a large percentage of the population either actively supported the British or just wished both sides would go away.

[Langenator]

I knew that we'd get some awesome ideas, but I was really focusing more on the tactics piece.

Introducing irregular/guerrilla warfare on a large scale across the colonies would have had devastating results to the British, and is would likely be the most feasible option to quickly change the course of the war.

I'm not sure how effective irregular warfare would have been in the Mid-Atlantic and Northern colonies. There, the British largely remained in the major cities (New York and Philadelphia, especially), leaving the Continentals largely free run of the countryside, but also depriving any potential guerillas of anything to target.

It was successful in the South, particularly the Carolinas. The militia there made it impossible for the Cornwallis to gain good control of anything beyond Charleston and Camden, although down there they did try. Outposts and small garrisons were constantly harrassed, until eventually Cornwallis realized he couldn't gain any decisive results there and moved the bulk of his force to Virginia.

[JAG2955]

I knew that we'd get some awesome ideas, but I was really focusing more on the tactics piece.

Introducing irregular/guerrilla warfare on a large scale across the colonies would have had devastating results to the British, and is would likely be the most feasible option to quickly change the course of the war.

I'm not sure how effective irregular warfare would have been in the Mid-Atlantic and Northern colonies. There, the British largely remained in the major cities (New York and Philadelphia, especially), leaving the Continentals largely free run of the countryside, but also depriving any potential guerillas of anything to target.

It was successful in the South, particularly the Carolinas. The militia there made it impossible for the Cornwallis to gain good control of anything beyond Charleston and Camden, although down there they did try. Outposts and small garrisons were constantly harrassed, until eventually Cornwallis realized he couldn't gain any decisive results there and moved the bulk of his force to Virginia.

I was thinking less of the French Resistance* and more of a CIA/ODA style assassinations/sabotage style irregular warfare. Officers would have been quartered in citizens houses, away from bases, lightly guarded. Slit their throats in the middle of the night. A few well-placed carcasses, human or otherwise, could either render a water source undrinkable, forcing the relocation of a camp, or even the deaths of hundreds. Counterfeit money and goods, sabotage infrastructure, infiltrate all levels of command. Less of "The Patriot", and more of "Assassins Creed 3".

*I know the French did these things too, but I'm thinking of them donning their armbands, shooting some guys, then melting back into the populace.

[Mike OTDP]

Standardize on buck-and-ball loads. Make sure all officers understand how brittle militia are...but while brittle, they are good for about three volleys IF you tell them that's all you ask for. Or use them behind cover.

Honestly, the Americans were far more skilled than people realize.

[kapikui]

From what I've read, one of the big problems was that Congress was understandably hesitant to approve enlistments for more than six months. Once someone got trained and proficient, his enlistment was up. Changing that would make a huge difference. You would have trained and experienced troops instead of dealing with perpetually green troops. Of course that was a problem that Washington himself wanted fixed.

[skb12172]

Standardize on buck-and-ball loads. Make sure all officers understand how brittle militia are...but while brittle, they are good for about three volleys IF you tell them that's all you ask for. Or use them behind cover.

Honestly, the Americans were far more skilled than people realize.

Please elaborate.

[Jered]

If you're talking simple yet effective technological advances, the minie ball is the absolute easiest thing to do for rifles and should be well within the capabilities of the period.