rayban1 wrote:
Not withstanding your "awesome" knowledge of history and your penchant for putting us to sleep at every opportunity
If it bothers you, don't read it.
Quote:.........my POINT was that Lincoln's war cost the lives of 600,000 men because of.....WEAPONS PARITY on both sides.
Not much of a point. During the Hundred Years War, the English often decimated the French knights with the longbow they had adopted from the Welsh. The French Beauvais archers were every bit as good, and additionally, the Constable of France habitually hired Genoese crossbowmen. But that parity meant nothing in the face of the hubris of aristocrats on horseback, who not only insisted on charging the English on the worst of occasions, but even once rode down the Beauvais archers who had come forward to drive back the English longbowmen. But after Agincourt, when the French aristocracy had so devasted themselves with their stupidity, the French began to use their artillery more effectively. The English had artillery as well, but that parity did them no good, because they didn't use it.
During the American civil war, the use of the troops was far more important than weapons parity. Read a life of Francis Barlow some time. As one of his fellow officers put it, he raised skirmishing to an art. Frequently, his entire division approached Confederate positions in skirmish order, negating the effect both of artillery and mass musketry. Weapons parity, or even superiority, means little in comparison to effective tactical doctrine. But i don't expect right-wingers to understand this, they're so clueless about these things, and think you can just throw fire-power at an enemy, and that's an end of it.
Quote:This catastrophe was brought about by the stupid military thinking of that day which forced men to fight with antique weapons (muzzle loaders that required several seconds to reload even by an expert without the stress of actual combat). Modern weapons were available ......the Spencer 7 shot repeater which used a rimfire cartridge......and a little later the Winchester repeating rifle. The Generals wouldn't buy these weapons because the rationale was that they couldn't keep the men supplied with ammunition. ? ! ?
This is a specious contention. As Walter's link demonstrates, these weapons were
not commonly available. Furthermore, the objection about the availability of ammunition is completely valid. Infantrymen of the day commonly moved up to the firing line with 60 rounds--so, for example, Albert Sidney Johnston's 40,000 infantrymen at the battle of Shiloh required well over two million rounds just to fill their cartridge boxes, nevermind a resupply during combat. Even at a relatively slow rate of fire such as three volleys in a minute, 60 rounds are gone in twenty minutes. The Winchester repeater was not available in quantity until well after the war. The Henry repeating rifle was the one weapon available at the time in quantity, and the Seventh Illinois Regiment of United States Volunteers at Shiloh in the spring of 1862 was equipped with these weapons. They emptied their cartridge boxes, and then the regimental ordnance wagons in less than two hours. They had to be withdrawn, and a resupply was not managed for three weeks. None of the manufacturers of repeating weapons were prepared to provide the literally tens of millions of rounds per year which would be needed to support the wide-spread use of these weapons.
Quote:I don't want to diminish Lincoln's achievement of holding the Union together........just pointing out that he was probably described as a butcher, a moron, and an idiot during the time.
Actually, at the time, one of the most common slurs was to refer to him as "the original gorilla," and thereby take a swipe at him and Darwin at the same time. It was not until the spring of 1864 that the states began to balk at new calls for volunteers. By then, conscription had been instituted--but Grant filled his needs by getting garrison troops off their dead asses and out in the field. Although some people might have called him a moron and a butcher, it was certainly not common enough to have survived and entered the historical record. Although estimates run to more than a million, the most commonly cited figure is 800,000 Americans dead. That, however, refers to dead on both sides, and it refers to civilian as well as military casualties. No figure even approaching 600,000 can be supported for Federal casualties alone. Few people at the time would have had a grasp of the casualties being sustained. Those with good information and a sophisticated knowledge of military history would not have necessarily been appalled--Napoleon lost more than 300,000 men in Russian alone. He probably lost more than 500,000 in the bleeding insurrection in Spain, but no one can be sure, because it became embarrassing enough that records were quietly destroyed, and officers in Spain were no longer asked to provide returns. At "the Battle of the Nations," at Leipsic in 1813, the total forces brought to the battle nearly equalled the entire butcher bill for our civil war. All in all, the casualty rates were not considered by well-informed people to have been extravagent. By 1863, the Confederate States kept about a half million troops in the field and in garrison, and the United States about one and a half million. It requires detailed knowledge, based upon years of reading to make assessments which are worthwhile in these cases, but that doesn't seem to stop you from just tossing off statements. Statements which you are unprepared to substantiate.
Quote:Compare 600,000 with 1800, and our vast and awesome weapons superiority of today with Weapons PARITY during the civil war.
That technological superiority doesn't protect our troops from improvised explosive devices. In four years of civil strife in the 1860's, when up to two million troops were under arms at any given time, the 600,000 (800,000 is probably more accurate, as i've pointed out) was not a high figure, especially in light of the primitive medical services of the day. Our relatively light casualties (and you are not including the figures for the English, the Poles, the Spanish, the Australians, the Ukranians or any of other members of the "coalition of the willing) result as much from first class medical services as from any comparison of weapons. Furthermore, the insurgents are just as likely, if not more likely, to target Iraqis as Americans. So the figure is still low, because it does not include the Iraqi police, military and civilians who die at the hands of the insurgents. Finally, your comparison is specious for another reason. We maintain a force in Iraq which is actually smaller than the total number of Black Americans who served Mr. Lincoln under arms in our civil war. The United States military establishment at the end of that war was nearly ten times the size of the force we maintain in Iraq.
To summarize, your analogy fails because you ignore casualties in groups other than Americans, you ignore the stupendous discrepancy in the quality of medical services now as compared to then, you ignore how often Iraqis are the target of the insurgency, you ignore that this war has not gone on as long, and you ignore the huge discrepancy in the size of the forces committed. You'll need to do much better than that. I have a hint for you--read history in order to learn something, as opposed to trotting out silly misstatements about history designed to bolster what you choose to believe about the present.
Quote:BTW.....parity means weapons of equal quality,design, and firing ability. Over the centuries....weapons parity has caused far more total deaths than religion......and that is a monumental comparison. No.....I can't prove that but common sense would support that thinking.
It is sad how often "common sense" is wrong. A good estimate of how often black powder weapons caused a casualty in period 1700-1900 is about one tenth of one percent. At the battle of Mollwitz, the Prussians expended 350,000 rounds of small arms ammunition (this was the subject of a study by a 19th century German military historian). They inflicted just fewer than 7,000 casualties on the Austrians and Saxons--yielding a figure of 2%. But that ignores that the 7,000 includes those who were listed on returns as missing, and may well not have been wounded or killed. It ignores those casualties caused by artillery rather than small arms. It ignores casualties caused by "white weapons"--i.e., lances, sabres, swords and bayonets. So your silly insistence on the significance of "weapons parity" is actually meaningless. To revert to my original point, its not the quality or quantity of either the weapons or the troops available--its how they are used. You don't even get a nice try for this.
Yep......you never did let.....facts......deter you from making statements like you just made
What hope is there?????
