I quote directly from the review by Mark Grimsley
"An old adage has left us still believe that the slaughter of the American Civil War was caused by the precision and range of the musket rigato.Per first Earl J. Hess denies this assumption in a comprehensive and far more than any Another historian has done up to oggi.Vale la pena leggere questo libro e dovrebbero farlo non solo gli appassionati della Guerra civile americana,ma anche tutti quelli che sono interessati alla storia della guerra."
Stavo cercando uno spunto per avviare un tema che mi stà molto a cuore e l'ho trovato.Non credo che riuscirò ad esaurirlo in due parole anche perchè data l'entità della materia sarebbe riduttivo.Grimsley l'ho già presentato in queste pagine,ma vale la pena di spenderne due su Earl J. Hess.Insegnante di storia della guerra civile americana presso l'università di Harrogate ,nel Tennessee,direttore di diverse riviste specializzate E' uno degli autori più brillanti dell'ultimo ventennio,al suo attivo ha quasi un centinaio di pubblicazioni.Personalmente I very much enjoyed his version of Pickett's charge, but Hess is a person who wants to surprise with his latest effort certainly did.
things first though.
As is clear from the review point at issue is the rifled musket, and the amendment made by Captain Claude Etienne Minie bullet used to the weapon. In fact, the common wisdom has always held and continues to support the use revolutionized the weapon of war. JFC Fuller made it one of its flagship products, to the point of inserting a dissertation in part in a study done on Grant and Lee, he wanted to demonstrate the superiority of the former over the latter, or rather the membership of one the ranks of the leaders of the new era and the second time the two napoleonica.Nessuno fully understand the terrible power of the new weapon, but Aloro partial excuse there is to say that 50 years later, ie in the middle of the 1st World War generals continued to order dozens of fruitless frontal assaults against machine guns!
Even during the civil war many of his contemporaries were impressed by the increasing range of new weapon, in fact the rifle shooting ruled with absolute accuracy up to 500 yards, where the smooth-bore musket stopped to 100.Furono so impressed by this factor as to believe that was the determining factor that had prolonged the war of Secessione.Gli later historians have always maintained that he did dramatically increase the number of casualties in a battle that had reduced the number of decisive victories and had reduced much of the role of cavalry, making vain and moving charges at large distances the 'artillery.
First, according to Hess the impact was somewhat smaller than what we have always thought and in particular was limited mainly to the operations of sniping and fighting in the first linea.Inoltre the author is convinced that the capacity of the gun ruled to cancel the tactical line, widely used in the Civil War, was in fact limited by the low level of training of armies of two parts, the preference of most for shooting at short range, but more importantly the inability of the time you can shoot the enemy in considerable distanze.In Hess particular, focuses on the fact that the new bullets followed a parabolic trajectory, the average distance that flew over the heads of the enemy and creating two separate areas on the field of battglia, among whom was the sicuto who was shot by the enemy.
This is a little summary of the book, but go ahead and leave it to the author to speak
"He was right Paddy Griffith, who in 1986 argued that the rifled gun had affected little to change the face the battle in the war Civil?
Most historians have rejected this idea, but slowly some of them have begun to seriously consider this suggerimento.Io I saw the matter from a different perspective and I have written a book to share with readers my conclusions "
As Hess says makes us open another finestra.Nel 1986, Paddy Griffith, English teacher Academy Sandhurst and historian had written a book Battle Tactics of the Civil War, at least in part to refute earlier works and notably Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage by Grady McWhiney , that there had been a revolution in tactics in the Civil War through the introduction of the rifled gun, and that the reason for the heavy losses in battle was the fact that the generals of the time did not fully understand this revolution.
Griffith in his book came to three conclusions
1) It 's true that the range of the gun was increased, but this advantage was more theoretical than real and in fact the range of the clashes of the American Civil War practice was not very different from the era of Napoleone.Le CW's losses were comparable to those of the European wars in the period 1800-59.
2) Second, a Napoleonic war was still possible, there had been no revolution
3) The American Civil War was not the first modern war as it has often been said, but the last of the wars napoleoniche.La first modern war was the Franco-Prussian conflict
Initially Military historians of the civil war looked with deep suspicion in Griffith's book party for the iconoclastic manner with which the author had brought forward the subject and partly because of the limited evidence base that adduceva.Con time but something has changed and some have started to become interested in this thesis, is a manifestation of the fact that a few months after its release the book by Hess has already become a landmark and the thesis Griffith, the new orthodoxy.
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