Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Wars won Wars lost
This discussion has been closed.
-
Message 1.Β
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
The battle of Waterloo could have been easily one (or lost) if one side had the use of a modern GPMG
or could it ????
st -
Message 2
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Sunday, 29th August 2010
It could probably have been more easily won if Wellington had archers of Agincourt quality instead of the infantry he did have. Better range, better rate of fire, and nasty b*ds with a big sword in hand as well!
-
Message 3
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 30th August 2010
giraffe47,
It could probably have been more easily won if Wellington had archers of Agincourt quality instead of the infantry he did have. Better range, better rate of fire, and nasty b*ds with a big sword in hand as well!Β
Excellent behind stakes - much like the square formations Wellington actually used - but they may well have been of dubious use on the general advance at day's end. -
Message 4
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Monday, 30th August 2010
That's where the big sword comes in, WhiteCamry!
Besides, there would have been less opposition by then - not so much 'la Guarde Recule' as 'la Guard est dartboard' -
Message 5
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
I guess you could also argue that the French would have been better of using pikes (and bullet proof armour?)
But more seriously: Wellington's tactics were not primarily about superor firepower. They were more about keeping his troops protected from French artillery (behind the crest of the ridge) until the French infantry came within bayonet-charge distance.
So Agincourt-style archers wouldnt have helped him as they would still need to hide behind the ridge and would hardly have been able to shoot from there at targets they couldn't see. -
Message 6
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
The battle of Waterloo could have been easily one (or lost) if one side had the use of a modern GPM Β
Well, do you mean if one side had one Gimpy, or one side had a load of them? If the Allies had had a single GPMG, then the Der Kindermord bei Ypern would have been anticipated - just think of the Old Guard, in column, under fire from 800 metres out at a rate of at least 600 rounds/minute. Less certain the other way round -at an effective range the MG crew would have been vulnerable to the Baker rifle - and I'm sure Sharpe would have found a way of dealing with it.
I'd say that quantity posession by either side of any weapon from the Minie musket onwards would have sealed the other side's fate. -
Message 7
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
Having machine guns didn't help the French in the Franco-Prussian War.
You also have to know how to use them properly... -
Message 8
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
I'd say that you also need a machine gun that actually works, and you have to deploy it sensibly. The mitrailleuse wasn't deployed with the infantry, but as an artillery support weapon.
-
Message 9
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
The archers might have been more effective, in that case, as the infantry had to wait till the French came in sight, when they stood up, and poured volleys into their front and side ranks, at close range.
The archers did not need to aim at the enemy - They fired up in the air, so that arrows would have rained down on the entire column, and they could have fired them, with a 'spotter' to correct their range, before the French column could even see them over the crest - beginning several hundred yards before the infantry fire would have become effective. A French column would have been a much more closely packed, less armoured, and more vulnerable target than the horsemen at Agincourt.
I could not see how they would have made it as far as the British line under that volume of plunging fire. The archer was not replaced because the gunman was better, but because he took a lifetime to train! -
Message 10
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Wednesday, 1st September 2010
The archers did not need to aim at the enemy - They fired up in the air, so that arrows would have rained down on the entire column, and they could have fired them, with a 'spotter' to correct their range, before the French column could even see them over the crest Β
As someone who has done archery (especially shooting at a flag at 180 yards as opposed as target archery), that would simply not work. It is not very easy to change your range based on what a spotter is telling you when shooting a bow, you really do need to be able to see where you are shooting. An experienced archer shooting a longbow with no sight is in some ways like throwing a stone, with instinct being very important - try lobbing a stone over a ridge or wall at a moving target you can't see, and then try and change where you throw it based on someone telling you where it should go. Not easy at all.
And having one spotter trying to direct the arrows of even a few archers to fire in the same area would be impossible! Multiply that by however many archers you really would have had and there would have been arrows falling all over the place, many of which would have been no where near the enemy. That is such a waste of no end of resources.
Longbows had had their day, and the French developed tactics to deal with them, hence the Battles of Formigny and Castillon at the end of the Hundred Years' War. Muskets were a more efficient method of getting large numbers of relatively untrained men into the field - a longbow archer took years to master his weapon, far in excess of the time to master a musket and its bayonet.
I'm sure a number of longbow archers might have had a surprise element had Wellington had some, but to have a huge chunk of your infantry composed of them would have resulted in carnage for the British in the end. -
Message 11
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 1st September 2010
The archer was not replaced because the gunman was better, but because he took a lifetime to train!Β
And also because late medieval armour was largely arrow proof. In 1424 (a mere 9 years since Agincourt) English archery proved ineffective against mounted knights in the latest armour.
As you mention, the archer took a lifetime to train and if British society had still invested in doing this, would others not also invest in armour?
By the way, I'm not aware of any medieval system of spotters and indirect fire. -
Message 12
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
Archer against rifle fire in 1805? I think I'll go for the archer considering that an arrow could penetrate four inches of oak at close range and prove very effective at a hundred yards against infantry. I think the effective range of the 'Black Bess' the standard weapon of the British Infantry was about fifty yards ... and there would be no black smoke to impede the vision either. Has anyone out there tried firing a muzzle loader using black powder charges? Now how about a nice quick-firing artillery piece with grape shot and shrapnel?
-
Message 13
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
My point exactly, Spruggles!
The archers at Agincourt opened fire at up to 250 yards, and could have had another 1 or 2 arrows in the air before the first fell. Thousands of arrows plunging into the massed columns from above, long before the 'Brown Bess' user could fire his first volley.
The French colomns withered when confronted with steady volley fire from the front and sides only - what would they have been like if the arrows were dropping from the sky, and the middle of the column was being slaughtered with no opportunity to reply? And then, just when they reached musket range, the front and sides came under the same volume of fire as the 'Brown Bess' man could manage, but with greater accuracy?
Archers could certainly have scored a greater proportion of hits at 100 yards than the musket, and no misfires to worry about! -
Message 14
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
The conditions at Waterloo - heavy overnight rain - might also have been an advantage for archers, proviided that, as the British bowmen did, they were using flax bowstrings, which didn't react to getting wet by being unusable. Perhaps an archer-based army could have attacked before the enemy were able to respond?
-
Message 15
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
<quote>
-
Message 16
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
Archer against rifle fire in 1805? I think I'll go for the archer considering that an arrow could penetrate four inches of oak at close range and prove very effective at a hundred yards against infantry.Β
One against one? How about 80,000 musket armed levies against 80,000 men who'd fired no arrows in their lifetime (and certainly not capable of accurately hitting that 4" of oak)? I'll have my money on the muskets thank you.
Has anyone out there tried firing a muzzle loader using black powder charges? Β
I doubt that in 1815, anyone had tried firing a longbow for quite a while either, so I expect their results would have been woefully short of anything produced in 1415. But then again, the results of 1424 onwards were pretty woeful too.
The entire asumption that the longbow was a supreme weapon is based on the belief that the French would have been unarmoured and as ineptly handled as at Agincourt (the last battle of the Hundred years war where the longbow was of any use).
The entire history of the bow reveals its massive weaknesses in the hands of untrained amateurs, yet this whole what-if is based on Britain having an army of skilled, professional longbowmen fighting against an army that had abandoned all the medieval techniques for beating longbows.
At best the French would have stood off and bombarded the Allied positions (are we to assume the majority non-British proportion of the army were also longbow armed?) only to be saved by musket armed Prussians?
Despite the myth of the longbow, there was a serious reason why Britain abandoned the bow for a far worse musket than the Brown Bess - it simply failed to do the job. If you read some of the accounts of Agincourt, the bow didn't do that much of a job their either - the willingness of the archer to stand with a hammer and shield had much to do with the victory and the archers were considered seriously over-paid by the wars of the roses. -
Message 17
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Sunday, 5th September 2010
The French colomns withered when confronted with steady volley fire from the front and sides only - what would they have been like if the arrows were dropping from the sky, and the middle of the column was being slaughtered with no opportunity to reply?Β
But you haven't answered the question of how the archers could shoot at the column at all when - because of their reverse-slope position - they couldn't actually see it?
If they had formed up facing the French (as happened at Agincourt) they would have been blasted by artillery fire. -
Message 18
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Monday, 6th September 2010
If you bring a Gimpy - better bring boxes and boxes of ammo (pre-belted) and quite a few spare barrels. One GPMG crew against Napoleons Army - going to be on helluva busy gun group!
And when the light horse start outflanking you - better have a land rover standing by with the engine running..... -
Message 19
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Tuesday, 7th September 2010
Now look here ... if I'm not allowed 400 fully trained archers at the battle then I'm not playing anymore!
-
Message 20
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Tuesday, 7th September 2010
The question was about whether a GMPG at Waterloo would have won the battle - clearly a ridiculous idea.
I remarked that if the Brown Bess infantry were replaced with the same number of Agincourt level archers, they would have been equally effective - an equally ridiculous idea. Never mind the lifetime it took to train an archer - it is not relevant when you are talking nonsense anyway! Neither is the effectiveness against medieval armour - the Old Guard were not wearing any. Take away all the practicalities, the 'but they wouldn't have done thats', the 'what would other armies have been doing in the intervening centuries' - none of that is relevant.
If some God of War had gone 'Pouf', and dropped a few GMPG teams into the British line (changing nothing else) would they have made a difference? Yes!
If the same perverse God had suddenly replaced the musket battalions with fully-trained archers, would that have made a difference? I'm sure it would have!
The musket men lay down behind the hill untill the French were 100 yrds away, stood up, and opened fire. The archers could have done the same, only at 300 yrds, and begun firing in the air, as they did at Agincourt, lowering the bow untill they were firing directly into the face and sides of the column, as it got closer.
Only I doubt if it would have got much closer! The sheer volume of descending fire would have decimated the columns. If they did get to 100 yrds, the bow was much more accurate that the musket, and did not misfire.
5000 archers would have had a similar effect to a GMPG! -
Message 21
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Tuesday, 7th September 2010
Sorry - that should be GPMG.
Dis-lecks-yah Rools KO! -
Message 22
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Tuesday, 7th September 2010
giraffe47,
Sorry - that should be GPMG.
Dis-lecks-yah Rools KO!Β
Lesdyxia is so foncusing. -
Message 23
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Tuesday, 7th September 2010
Disleckzia Rools Uk
I offen found when I wuz young
Mi spellin wuz not grate
Teechers gave me sum thik ears,
and did offen me berate
But now I see theze kidz wit fones
send txtz abbreviatid
Now I find I kin spell as well
as them wotz educatid! -
Message 24
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Wednesday, 8th September 2010
giraffe47,
Wot a zoopa pom. Is ti yor uwn? Az wun hoo haz ti zins a kid, kan i oze it?
Regards,
Sprugs. -
Message 25
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Wednesday, 8th September 2010
Thanks, Sprugs -
All my own work, and free for any purpose!
I was suddenly overcome by the muse last evening, while waiting for my supper. It's a dirty habit, but my only excuse is that 'Da hunger wuz gnawin me to da bone' . . . -
Message 26
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Wednesday, 8th September 2010
Overcome by a muse ... dirty habit at supper time - are you in holy orders?
-
Message 27
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Friday, 10th September 2010
Long bows at Waterloo?
Deary me, the French ended the longbow as a serious weapon at Formigny and Castellon when they massacred the English. That was almost 400 years before Waterloo.
This Agincourt inspired misty eyed romantic vision of the longbow is ridiculous. Those defeats consigned it to the bin of obsolete weapons that was already overflowing with pikes and maces and lances and a hundred other outdated weapons. -
Message 28
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Friday, 10th September 2010
Yes, George, we know it was overtaken by history, and all that - proper tactics, proper armour, etc, all rendered it obselete.
Which is totally beside the point.
Read msg 1, and msg 20, and tell us why they are wrong?
Please explain how would a closely packed mass of men with NO armour, struggling up a muddy hill, with guns that were almost useless at anything over 100yds, (and only the front rank could fire anyway!) survive against a hail of arrows falling from the sky? -
Message 29
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Friday, 10th September 2010
"...Which is totally beside the point..."
Well, no, it is not.
In effect, it is a silly question.
What you are actually saying is 'If the British had archers at Waterloo, and if the French had, presumably, no knowledge of this, so came competely un-equipped, and used entirely the wrong tactics, what would happen ?'.
Well, when armies are badly equipped, and if they use the wrong tactics, they tend to lose. There, are you happy now ?
What no one has yet explained is how the British army could acquire the archers, why the French could remain ignorant of them, and, once they found out about them, why they would fail to equip their armies and train them in proper tactics.
Some 'What Ifs' are just silly, and this is one of them.
What if the Zulus had a thermo-nuclear weapon at Rourkes Drift. History would be a bit different then, eh.
About this Board
The History message boards are now closed. They remain visible as a matter of record but the opportunity to add new comments or open new threads is no longer available. Thank you all for your valued contributions over many years.
or Β to take part in a discussion.
The message board is currently closed for posting.
The message board is closed for posting.
This messageboard is .
Find out more about this board's
Search this Board
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iD
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ navigation
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ links
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Β© 2014 The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.