Posted on 12/17/2019 12:40:01 AM PST by Swordmaker
But the technology wasn’t quite ready for Robert E. Lee’s air cavalry
It’s the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 and Union forces on Cemetery Ridge await the final Confederate assault. But instead of witnessing serried ranks of rebels marching across a mile of open ground into the maws of Yankee cannons, the bluecoat regiments are shocked to hear the thud of rotor blades.
It is the the sound of Confederate general George Pickett’s 13,000-strong division landing behind Union lines.
Is this a neo-Confederate dream? The Red Badge of Courage meets Apocalypse Now?
No, it turns out that a Confederate engineer actually did design a helicopter back in 1862.
William C. Powers was an architectural engineer in Mobile, Alabama. Frustrated by the Union blockade of Mobile and other Southern ports, which prevented the Confederacy from exporting cotton and importing weapons, Powers resolved to devise a way to destroy Union ships.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
Libs, like the AG of Pennsylvania consider the parts of a firearm the same as a fully functional one.
Lee and others gave them some advantages, defending their own territory also gave them some advantages, but these advantages cannot equal a 4 to 1 manpower over match.
The how was the Confederacy able to hold on for four years.
The North had that 4 to 1 advantage from the day Sumter was fire on. By your theory, all the Yankees had to do was line up, lock arms and march South. The whole affair should be over in a short while.
Well you have to get your supply lines set up, but yeah. :)
Actually, the politics wouldn't have worked. Nobody would have believed it was necessary to mobilize that kind of force to defeat the South, so they kept trying to do it on the cheap. Ended up costing even more blood and treasure.
Grant had the right idea. Just keep sending men into the meat grinder until you broke through.
Like I have said all along, leadership is more important than a manpower advantage. Knowing how to effectively use the manpower advantage is greater in importance than having one.
“What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?”
Reminds me of some of the inane questions on Quora.
“submarines are tricky in that way. It is a fine line between doing it on demand, or just because!“
Gotta keep that screen door on the submarine closed so it won’t sink. :D
“...highlights just how inventive the Wright brothers were when they came up with a fixed wing craft...” [exDemMom, post 6]
“...it didn’t take long for that Wright [propeller] advantage to be mooted by advances in engine design.” [conservatism_IS_compassion, post 42]
Wrong.
Wilbur and Orville Wright weren’t even close to being first: not in using fixed (non-rotating, non-flapping) wings. Not in getting aloft either.
In 1894, Hiram S Maxim (inventor of the self-powered machine gun) got off the ground in a flying machine of his own design, powered by a 360 hp steam engine turning two propellers - its main wingspan was 110 ft and it weighed about 7000 pounds. It generated so much lift it broke free of the restraints on the track he’d had made for the experiment. He throttled back, declared he had achieved his objectives, and went no further.
In France, Clement Ader flew 164 ft in a steam-powered craft he had designed and built. Or so he claimed: that was in 1890, supposedly. The French Army furnished some financial backing; during tests they observed in 1897, Ader couldn’t get off the ground. The Army lost interest.
The Wrights’ greatest insight: success would hinge on control. Other inventors had tried to build an inherently stable craft that would right itself and return to a safe, stable orientation without corrective input from a pilot. The Wrights devised the first machine that could be controlled in all three axes - roll, pitch, and yaw. In so doing they transformed the pilot from a passive passenger into an active participant, in monitoring the flight path of the machine and correcting misalignments to maintain safe flight.
Their success in designing a propeller was almost as noteworthy: the ones they installed on their Flyer were more efficient in converting applied power to thrust than any other designs then extant, by a huge margin. No other designs came close to theirs for many years.
Often a smaller, better organized force handled aggressively wins the day. Superior numbers at the point of the attack are important, however.
“Actually, the politics wouldn’t have worked. Nobody would have believed it was necessary to mobilize that kind of force to defeat the South”
Lincoln initially only called 90,000 militia for short-term. More troops than had ever been mustered, but far short of what would be required.
agree
Exactly. They had no idea what they were in for. They had the theoretical necessary power to defeat the South, but they would never believe they would need to muster it until they suffered a sufficient number of defeats to convince them to get more serious about the effort.
They always had the manpower, they just didn't realize they were going to need it until later.
Not quite four to one.
The usual numbers are roughly one million Confederate soldiers vs. 2.5 million Union troops.
These from populations of roughly 9 million Confederates vs. 22.5 million Union citizens.
Both of those numbers are 2.5 to one, not 4 to one.
Yes, of course, the tricky part is, how do we count slaves?
Union slave-states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware) included about half a million slaves, total.
Confederate populations included 3.5 million slaves.
If, for sake of argument, we subtract those out, then we are left with 5.5 million white Confederates vs. 22 million white Union, and there it is, indeed, four to one.
But why subtract out slaves?
In fact about 100,000 Confederate ex-slaves plus another 100,000 Union freedmen served as Union colored troops.
And my guess is the total of slaves serving Confederate armies is likely at least that number, if not more -- consider, it's said Lee had 30,000 slaves with his army at Gettysburg alone.
Even without serving directly in combat, Confederate army slaves performed innumerable vital tasks that often Union soldiers to did for the North.
Think of building fortifications, repairing roads, driving supply wagons, etc.
Plus, away from the front lines, Confederate slaves quickly switched over from growing cash crops like cotton to growing food for Confederate armies.
Today pro-Confederates tell us that many Confederate slaves also served in combat, to which the response is: only those who could pass as white.
But regardless of how many bullets slaves fired at Union troops, the fact is they were integral to both Confederate armies and the wartime Confederate economy.
So, bottom line: when we count slaves in, then the ratio of Union to Confederate populations and armies is 2.5 to one, not 4 to 1.
Now consider: traditional military strategy & tactics teach that given the natural advantages of defense, attacking armies should have at least a three to one advantage in numbers over defenders.
The overall Union advantage was barely 2.5 to one, meaning barely adequate for the job.
Further, there were very few major battles (I can't think of one) where Union troops outnumbered Confederates even two to one.
So four to one is a myth.
well stated.
And sank itself. Hardly a glowing record.
So the confederates invented the concept of kamikaze runs?
/s
Looks like he could have been a vested member of E Clampus Vitus in good standing. LOL.
Yes, that’s the guy. I do recall seeing a contemporary Grass Valley Newspaper in a museum in the town recording the flight, but that was more than 50 years ago. My Dad showed it to me. . . He was a life-long aviation enthusiast.
Beats sitting out the war in a dry dock. Moreover "Sank itself" isn't something that the researchers who have studied Hunley for years claim to know.
But back to the point, the Hunley actually sailed and fought, while the Invisible Whale that you were hailing as a superior submarine never even left its berth during the war.
What Sunk the Confederate Submarine, the Hunley? New Clue Emerges
It wouldn't have stayed in the air, due to the empennage.
That is, all of the undersides coated with bronze arrowheads. ;)
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