Verdun on the Rappahannock?

[Jason Sleeman]

What if the Spencer and Henry (or a similar model) were standard issue by the outbreak of the American Civil War?

Would the trench warfare doctrine catch on or would it just mean more slaughter for both sides?

Could a trench war open up a greater possibility for an independent Confederacy?

Thoughts?

Jason Sleeman

 

[Dave Bender]

U.S. Civil War Repeating Rifles

Repeating rifles increase the strength of the offense as much as the defense. So I do not see a drastic change in tactics during the American civil war.

It was long range, indirect fire artillery plus machineguns that turned the WWI western front into such a slaughterhouse. These weapons were not perfected until the early 1900s.

 

[MrP]

One of the ways of restoring firepower to the infantry is by providing them with portable equipment for when artillery cannot be used to obtain superiority. This is especially the case in the ACW, where the terrain frequently prevents the use of artillery at its maximum range. One might well see the early development and mass production of grenades and mortars for close range fire support. Anyone got any sources on when these lovely little tools were developed OTL.

N.B. Clearly, I'm aware of grenades supplied to grenadiers in preceding centuries, and the use of grenades in defensive preparations pre-WWI in German defensive fortresses on the French border. This is a more specific question about "modern" or "proto-modern" grenades.

There might be a nastier knock on effect from this, too. OTL Prussia was badly roughed up by Chassepot rifles in the FPW. She might have been even worse damaged in this ATL.

 

[Dave Bender]

Grenades and Mortars

mass production of grenades and mortars for close range fire support

It is my understanding that Germany introduced these weapons into wide use just prior to WWI. They also began general usage of howitzers in the same period. After a year or two of war everyone else followed suit.

Grenades are pretty low tech. I see no reason they could not be widely issued during the U.S. civil war.

 

[robertp6165]

[Grenades are pretty low tech. I see no reason they could not be widely issued during the U.S. civil war.

In fact they were used in the Civil War, and in large numbers. But not nearly on as universal a scale as in WWI. The development of reliable fuses late in the 19th century really is what made the grenade a practical weapon. Civil War grenades had a bad habit of blowing up in your hand before you could throw them...or of not going off once they were thrown.

 

[robertp6165]

Repeating rifles increase the strength of the offense as much as the defense. So I do not see a drastic change in tactics during the American civil war.

It was long range, indirect fire artillery plus machineguns that turned the WWI western front into such a slaughterhouse. These weapons were not perfected until the early 1900s.

Given that for the Spencer or Henry to be widely issued right at the beginning of the war, an industry capable of producing large quantities of cartridge ammunition would have to be in place, this could also make the Gatling Gun practical right from a very early date. The Gatling was first introduced in 1862, but, firing paper cartridges and loose percussion caps which made it extremely prone to jamming, it was not practical. The Confederates also had machine gun designs which could have benefited from such an industry. So machine guns would probably dominate the battlefield, as in WWI, by the end of 1862 at the latest.

 

[robertp6165]

What if the Spencer and Henry (or a similar model) were standard issue by the outbreak of the American Civil War?

Would the trench warfare doctrine catch on or would it just mean more slaughter for both sides?

Given that by the time of the 1864 campaigns in OTL, both sides were using trench warfare as a matter of course...and this when both sides were armed predominently with single shot muzzle-loaders...I think it pretty obvious that the wide distribution of repeating, cartridge firing rifles would hasten that development.

Could a trench war open up a greater possibility for an independent Confederacy?

Thoughts?

Jason Sleeman

I am not sure about that. It is certainly possible, if the Confederacy early on adopts a defensive-only strategy which would force the Union armies to attack impregnable Confederate defenses. But even then I have my doubts. There simply weren't enough Confederate troops to man a defensive line across the entire northern border of the Confederacy...in contrast to the Western Front in WWI, where it was a relatively short length of front with the flanks anchored by the Swiss border and the sea...so the Union would be able to maneuver the Confederates out of their prepared positions.

 

[NHBL]

Industry advantage...

If the Spencer repeater was state of the art, I could see a shorter war--the ammunition would be far harder to make in the small, and sometimes improvised, factories in the south. Even so, it would be a long, bloody mess...

 

[LDoc]

Trench warfare isn't exactly natural to the large confederate/us border. One of the reasons it was so developed ont he Western front is that the area they were fighting in wasn't very large or easy to manuvere in. Unfortunetly most of were the Civil War was fought is the exact opposite.

 

[Paul Spring]

Trench warfare isn't exactly natural to the large confederate/us border. One of the reasons it was so developed ont he Western front is that the area they were fighting in wasn't very large or easy to manuvere in. Unfortunetly most of were the Civil War was fought is the exact opposite.

The overall frontier between the USA and CSA was very long, but I think that geography, terrain, and supply routes tended to limit the areas in which really large armies were most likely to be concentrated. In the east, there was a pretty large area cut through by the Appalachian mountains, relatively thinly populated and with only a few roads and fewer rail lines, where it was a lot more difficult to operate with a large army. West of the Mississippi, a very thinly scattered population and lack of many railroads seriously limited the number of troops that either side could effectively deploy or supply. Even along the Mississippi, there were large areas that had few people or roads and were dominated by swamps and bayous. All in all, this is going to mean that in a trench warfare type situation, the thick trench lines will probably tend to be concentrated in the more suitable terrain, such as eastern Virginia, the Shenandoah valley, western and central Tennessee, and/or parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The other areas would probably have much more thinly spread troops in a series of camps and outposts.

Even in OTL World War I there was a similar phenomenon. The trenches and defensive works in Alsace, the mountainous southern end of the western front, tended to be more lightly held than areas further north, and in some places they were more like a series of outposts than a continuous line. On the front between Italy and Austria-Hungary, the heaviest troop concentrations were in the east, where the land near the frontier was relatively flat, while the mountains were usually held by troops more thinly spread out in a series of outposts. On the eastern front, the line was generally too long to get the troop density that existed on the western front, but both sides tended to concentrate more troops in what they considered the most vital areas, so those parts of the front could develop a fairly thorough network of trenches.

 

[PJ Norris]

F.Y.I.

Jason Sleeman: What if the Spencer and Henry (or a similar model) were standard issue by the outbreak of the American Civil War?

Would the trench warfare doctrine catch on or would it just mean more slaughter for both sides?

Could a trench war open up a greater possibility for an independent Confederacy?

During the Siege of Vicksburg, shelters and trenches were a must against the Union shells. Eventually bloody trench battles on the cliffs of the town generated and it was there that the grenade was born. The simple invention of a slow burning fuse in a can of gun powder forced both sides to improvise - the Confederates, always with an acute shortage of materials were forced to either a) throw back the ones that failed to explode of b) catch them as they fell in and threw them back before they exploded. Some Confederates tampered with some shells and rolled them into the Union lines reaping terrible havok.

Vicksburg was a WW1-like battle because mortars could be easily deployed thanks to the river, Petersburg was a WW1-like battle because of the flat land and the nearby railroads. I somehow doubt that if every soldier in the ACW was equipped with repeating rifles that the war would be vastly different. The Enfield muskets were considered very lethal and had a long range in the first years of the war, also the musket and minie balls used were probably more lethal than the bullets of rifles in the last decades of the 19th century. If you read the soldier's accounts of the deadliness of musket vollies you may understand - it was all quite harrowing.

Repeating rifles in the last stages of the war were thinly distributed and anyhow the few companies equipped with them fought in the same way as everyone else. The generals at the time weren't going to throw years of training at West Point into the wind just because a new gun (they still wouldn't 40 years later). Only in a state of seige, accessible with heavy mortars and artillery are we going to see trench battles. In fact I would believe that with the huge casualties on both sides, that support for the war would diminish, generations of men would die and with this sapping of manhood the war would finish much quicker. So more slaughter, more Petersburg/Vicksburg sieges and overall a shorter war.

 

[Redbeard]

A dense railway network, but no noteworthy motorisation, is probably more important for defense-dominated warfare than the weaponry itself, and of the weaponry quick firing artillery probably is more important than any small calibre fire arm.

With railway you could move huge numbers of troops in no time, but once they had left the railway carts, they moved no faster than a Roman army. So you could always deploy troops to block an enemy breakthrough, but the attacker soon got out of range of his supporting artillery and supplies. The problem wasn't moving the new field guns in the 75mm range, but getting enough ammo forward. In 20th century most logistic capacity was used for artillery ammo. Next came horse fodder and later fuel, and with handgun ammo, food and water only taking up small proportions.

In this context you will not necessarily need a long uninterrupted line trenches, but an advancing army outstreching their supply lines would easily be stopped by fresh troops deployed and supplied by rail.

Let the ACW happen say two or three decades later, and that might well be the scenario, no matter if they're all armed with pointy sticks or M16's.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard