The bullet that changed history

[meles meles]

An interesting article here, oomans, on the Minie ball and its influence on the US Civil War

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... /?src=recg

[Tower75]

Hmmm, I think I know where the article is trying to go, but, for me, it didn't seem to have anything of substance, and it's got nothing in it that we don't already know.

Plus... the minie bullet did not change or revolutionise warfare at all.

The above statement is based on fact - Union and Confederates, hell, even the Brits 10 years earlier in the Crimea still fired mass volleys into their enemies from under 100 yards range - that's the range of a smooth-bore. There's even recorded evidence that some volleys in the ACW were given at less then 30 yards! Not what you would call revolutionary tactics. If the bullet did "change warfare" this would be evident if by the end of the war both sides were using tactics that they had leant through the use of the new weapon. The actual truth, though, was that nothing changed. The battlefield was still ruled by the mass-volly.

Soldiers were not taught about parabolic trajectories, the minie rifles having some of the worst - if was recorded that if you set your sights of your P1953 to 300 yards and aim at a man at 200, you'd miss. The bullet would have hit a man standing at 100 yards, jump over the 200 yard mark and landed in the 300 yard mark.

A ver large number of volleys and firefights in the ACW ended up with soldiers on both sides over-shooting their targets.

The only thing that was "changed" was skirmishing and "sniping" to some degree. Hunters and trappers and people who knew how to shoot could benefit from the extended range of a minie rifle, but the ranks and files were still using linier-tactics, the minie bullet had to affact on the main-battles at all.