Great Post!
Yikes! Great post...
T Y for posting...
.705 caliber....my, My, MY!
Great Post!
American long rifles were used decades before in this manner. We changed the way rifles were used.
'This proved to be an embuggerance of the highest degree,.........'
A private picks off a general. Too much power in the hands of a common soldier! Unseemly!
(That was the prevailing view in those days.)
I just finished watching the Sharpe’s Rifles series. Good stuff. A sergeant of the 95th Rifles rises through the ranks to Colonel with lots of adventure along the way.
If you study history you will find that after the rifle can along and American revolutionaries begin the practice of shooting generals and other officers without regard to their status in society that the wealthy and privileged gradually withdrew from leading troops directly in the field.
Ya think? In addition to the Battle of Saratoga being won by a rifleman killing British Gen. Fraser, so too, the Battle of Kings Mountain (1780)--which turned the tide of the war--was won by riflemen (plural) vs. muskets. The loyalist with muskets atop the knoll were no match for the patriots below, in the trees with long range rifles. (The irony is their commander, one Fergusson, had actually invented a practical breechloader....but it was ignored by the British high command.)
Use of a patched ball easily pushed in by a ramrod (vs. one hammered in, like the German Jaeger rifle was), was an American innovation--first allowing fast reloading for rifles. Before this, with slow reloading, rifles were impractical to use in warfare.
It was the Baker rifle which copied the American Pennsylvania Long Rifle--especially in using the patched ball, which revolutionized warfare first in the American Revolution--which continued the evolution to rifles, not the Baker Rifle itself.
The fact that the Baker Rifle was mass-produced...was all that was revolutionary about it--not that it was a rifle--as rifles were first proven in warfare right here in America.
“What are ye doing there Rifleman Plunkett?”
“Why, I yam pickin’ off French Generals at 600 yards, Sergeant.”
“Wid yer eyes closed, you lazy sod? Get up off your arse and reload.”
Ralph, you’ll shoot your toe off.
The true power of the British army was the ability to fire three rounds a minute, in ranks of 2 or 3 (something that could only be done with muskets, as rifles took much longer to load). They were the only army of the time to practice with live ammunition, instead of just going through the motions. The effective range of those muskets was only about 40 yards. That devastating volume of fire broke the backs of the French columns, and eventually won the Napoleonic Wars for Britain and her allies.
The Richard (Dick) Sharpe series are wonderful books for getting a solid understanding of the tactics, equipment, training and overall strategies of the time.
Obviously the author is ignorant of similar feats of sniper marksmanship 50 years before during the American Revolution. It was getting so out of hand for the British that they complained about our snipers were shooting their officers.
L8r
bttt
