Anybody with military history knowledge?

Question

When did army's stop lining up and shooting each other in plain view (with muskets and canons etc.) i.e. Patriot/Last samurai.

Was this caused by Guerilla warfare, if so why didn't Guerilla warfare develop sooner. Did more powerful artillery effect this transition?

Answer 1

Guerilla warfare has been in existence forever. In fact the American revolutionaries used it against the British who just lined up.

I'd say that trench warfare killed that once and for all (WW1)

Artillery wouldn't have much to do with it since artillery wasn't close to accurate until after WW2

But I'd imagine it was dieing out sometime before that. Probably late 1800's (post civil-war) to early 1900's (pre-WW1)

Answer 2

the environment in which they had to fight had a great deal of effect i assume. and technology and weapons definately contributed to change. nobody would want to line up against a tank.

Answer 3

Because up until the early 19th Century there where what was called "Articles of War" which were laid out several years (a hundred or so) prior. They dictated the way armies would fight and that was by "Gentleman's Agreements". It was "dirty fighting" or "ungentlemanly" to hide in bushes and sneak up on your enemy.

Answer 4

"Would it be fair to say it died out an an effective battle tactic between 1854(Charge of the Light Brigade) and 1916?"

Yes.

There are lots of good answers already.

Some things that led to the transation:

a. the development of the rifled musket, followed by the development of the repeating rifle and the machine gun.  When armies were equipped primarily with single shot muskets, the range of bullets was such that a group of men charging another could expect to receive only one volley of bullets before they reached their oponents.  With rifles, this was no longer true.  With machine guns, as in the first World War, a group of soldiers charging across the field might never make it to the enemy line at all.  Somebody--sorry I can't remember who--called the machine gun "essence of infantry."

b.  linked to this, the development of smokeless powder, which meant after firing once, infantry could actually still see and aim their shoots.  Black powder combat had been too smokey to allow for much aimed fired.

c.  the development of indirect fire techniques by artillery.  As artillery developed recoiless guns, artillery did not have to be out in the open to fire on charging infantry.

d.  as mentioned above, battlefield communications.

What was a huge problem in military tactics for the 19th century until the second half of the First World War, is that armies still had to attack even though attacks suffered three times as many casualties as defenders.  Thus in the First World War, the British developed the tank, the French the so called box barrage, and the Germans "stormtrooper" tactics ("infiltration tactics.)

But as recently as the Iraqi/Iran War, the world has seen mass assaults by infantry.

[Sorry--this senile old man is wandering off the subject...Again.]

Answer 5

it has been suggested that us revolutionaries played a big part in implementing guerrilla warfare.  this is untrue of course as the technique was used at least 500 years earlier in england.  indeed Sun Tzu (c. 544—496 BC) describes the technique.

Answer 6

yeah ur right

Answer 7

Lining up in large groups and marching onto a battle field was a tactic developed to be able to command larger numbers of troops. Keeping troops in this large groups made it easier to get the right people in the right location and also made those units easier to find for a messenger.

As our ability to communicate more effectively on the battlefield developed so did the normal tactics of warfare. In a sense the radio is what really killed off the line up stand here and kill those guys tactics.

Answer 8

once we developed armoured vehicles and stopped using Cavalry  

although trench warfare was only slightly different

remember ?? Anzac Cove face to face shooting at each other  

over the top where one side would climb out of their trench an run across no mans land while the other side shot at them end result 100 of thousands died for nothing in every battle the object is to collect real estate until the enemy has no where to go or you have killed them all as in the Zulu

Guerrilla warfare had started several 100s of years earlier the American war of Independence was one Example

In the American war the British were upset because the guerrillas where killing the officers first  cleaver that is why they won so many battles shoot the officer and the troops did not know what to do the American Guerrillas Hide shoot the red coats then run regroup come back the next day and do it again

But many years later the US military went backward dug trenches WW!

Over the TOP got Dead had truce picked up dead went back to trench

the problem was the senior officers in Europe Purchased their Commission  where not trained and had no knowledge about tactics even in the second War some of our Senior Officers where so stupid they would rather Surrender than fight Singapore is a perfect example

By the second world war it was all tactics and Trained officers The German Blitzkrieg was a Magnificent strategy against inferior odds The allies had to reduce the Germans will to fight and the ability to wage war

In the summer of 1942  General Paulus Later Field Marshall advanced toward Stalingrad with 250,000 men, 500 tanks, 7,000 guns and mortars, and 25,000 horses. the Russians cut off the German supplies and shelled them with Field artillery  

When the battle for Stalingrad was over. Over 91,000 men were captured and a further 150,000 had died during the siege. The German prisoners were forced marched to Siberia. About 45,000 died during the march to the prisoner of war camps and only about 7,000 survived the war.

what a terrible waste all 243.000 died for nothing

sorry if i have Give more info than you want even after 38 years in the  Air Force i am still a war buff

and I really hope you never have to live through another world war.

Peace

Answer 9

I think it stopped shortly after the Civil War. It was a well recorded and ineffective war tactic. It just never made sense to me.

Interesting question!

Answer 10

In America it started when a band of rebels ambushed government forces, crossing a bridge at Lexington, attempting to disarm the local citizens.

Answer 11

I think you can narrow it down to around the era of the Boar war in South Africa. The British troops still drilled in this fashion due to most of their conflicts involved fighting poorly equipped native troops. It is about this time that it became common for troops to be armed with fast fire/reloading repeating rifles and the British suffered horrendous losses.

This conflict saw the first changes in military doctrine with more emphasis on trench warfare and smaller squads of soldiers but it wasn't until WW1 (mainly in the western sectors) that the practice of standing still and shooting the h**l out of each other was finally discarded.

WW1 started with most soldiers wearing cloth caps and the French troops still had bright red trousers (Exactly has it had been in Napoleonic times). Long range repeating rifles and machine guns made short work of slow marching, brightly coloured targets.

Basically, new tactics were created as soon as an army faced an enemy that could fire faster and more accurately than they could.