• @[email protected]
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    3510 months ago

    It’s my understanding that they really didn’t. The American Revolution was won in part because the Americans more often “adopted Native tactics” (I.e. attacking from tree lines, on paths on unsuspecting units moving from place to place, aiming for officers, etc).

    The big Napoleonic blocks were done, but often just out of honor and so officers had some sense of “control” over the battle so they could both easily pull out before it descended into a large brawl where they might actually be killed

    • Tar_Alcaran
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      3110 months ago

      The American Revolution was won in part because the Americans more often “adopted Native tactics”

      The American Revolution was won because Britain was fighting a real war against France, Spain and the Netherlands. And those countries basically used the US as a cheap way to distract the British.

      • @rambaroo
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        010 months ago

        This just in, it’s a fake war if it doesn’t meet my weirdly politicized definition of warfare.

    • @Nobody
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      2710 months ago

      Not really. The American Revolution was still fought with the same Napoleonic tactics used by the regular army. The irregulars might have adopted more guerrilla methods in the frontier, but they weren’t widely adopted.

      Reinforcements from the French army and navy won the war. The French Revolution followed shortly after.

      And IIRC those Napoleonic tactics were still used in the American civil war and beyond. The “big Napoleonic blocks” led to trench warfare in WW1.

      • @[email protected]
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        1610 months ago

        I agree, also important to note that the “big square” actually served a purpose in preventing cavalry from picking off separated infantry and detering cavalry charges. From my understanding the formation was genuinely effective until horses stopped being a factor in war.

        I mean maybe “honour” played a role in why they did things but i think we’re sometimes too quick to assume people in the past were idiots.

        • @Harbinger01173430
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          410 months ago

          I mean, ancient people could make proper megalithic buildings and we can barely make prefabricated houses that resist a few tremors…so yeah, they were intelligent as well, except they had different tools

    • @[email protected]
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      1510 months ago

      Coordination is essential to any military action. The better you can coordinate your actions, the greater the objectives you can achieve.

      When your ability to coordinate is limited to the distance that people can hear a drum or a trumpet, you’re not capable of coordinating across any area larger than a few city blocks. You’re a sitting duck against any massed troops, unless you also mass enough troops to stop them from marching right through you.

      Small unit tactics are largely ineffective against massed troops until the invention of the telegraph, 30-40 years after the revolution.

      • @niktemadur
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        10 months ago

        Then there was wireless, and that makes me think of the French or Dutch Resistance during WWII - units of even just one individual.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months ago

          Yep. Trench warfare was a thing because effective communication was only possible through wires, and wires required fixed locations. Defense could be effectively coordinated, but advancing more than a couple thousand yards put attackers out of communication with commanders.

          People like to argue that armored vehicles put an end to trench warfare, but it wasn’t really the armor or the vehicle. It was the radio carried inside those vehicles that allowed units to coordinate their attacks.

      • @rambaroo
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        110 months ago

        They didn’t use guerrilla tactics against massed formations. They used them against the British supply lines, and they were effective at it.

    • @Jomega
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      510 months ago

      From what I recall from my history classes, one of the most critical battles of the American Revolution was won because a bunch of red coats were slacking off and taken by surprise. So while the use of guerilla tactics was an important factor in victory, sheer dumb luck also played a major role.

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      Sort of. My understanding is the Revolutionary War was won by causing enough attrition (disease and deserters) among the British that they decided it wasn’t worth it. Washington lost more battles than he won, but he mostly focused on supply lines and whatnot, so he generally caused enough damage to be successful. American soldiers could resupply locally, the British had to ship it in, and Britain wasn’t super invested in keeping the supplies coming.

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        Please refer to the “in part”, part of my comment.

        But yes, you’re correct on those fronts as well. Again, attacking supply lines and such is essentially what my comment is describing

    • @Chriswild
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      010 months ago

      The colonial army fought in the same manner as the British. The British just had awful leadership and were preoccupied with other things. The battle of bunker hill set the tone of the war from the start if you want to look it up.