This has been bothering me for quite some time. Perhaps someone has an explanation. So when warfare was conducted with swords and bows and arrows (e.g., Gladiator, Braveheart) the soldiers would duck down and cover themselves with their shields when vollies of arrows were fired at them. But by the American Revolutionary War (e.g., the Patriot), the soldiers would just stand there in straight lines and fire at each other. In the 600 years between Braveheart and the American Rev. War, did people become worse at warfare? Did they loose their instinct to duck when someone pointed a deadly weapon at them? Did it somehow become unmanly to try not to get shot in the head. I just don't get it. Even if I were carrying one of those log heavy old rifles I think I would duck if a line of British soldiers were pointing their guns at me. This seems obvious today. Why was it not so 200 years ago?

 

It was a pride thing, but it was also a psychological thing. It pcyched out the opponent to show they were not intimidated or scared to fight(or die), and that they felt strongly enough about their cause to die(take one for the team in a sense).

**This part is more of an educated guess rather then factual** However, those in the front were also just following orders. If they didn't stand to fight(and stay stood), they probably would be shot by their own commanders for not following orders.

Sounds like stupidity to me, in order to win, I'd preserve my men and keep as many alive as possible, for as long as possible. Screw psyching out the opponent, I'd just want to kill them and save ours.

 

It actually has a lot to do with the range and lethality of the firearm.

To backtrack a bit, ever since the time when man became a communal animal warfare was conducted to "kick the other tribe's ass" and take their land. This meant getting together and having a "royal rumble". Individual contests to decide the outcome of a war were popular only when neither side could deal with the aftermath of an all out war. This fighting in a group expanded into the army against army clashes of ancient times and was the style of major combat until the Revolutionary War.

The technology of ancient times (bows, spears, rocks, etc) allowed the shield to be an effective instrument, especially when massed ala the phalanx. Gunpowder changed all that and made the shield effectively usesless with guns becoming more and more destructive as time marched on. One problem with the gun up to the Civil War was that it was fairly innacurate which meant that contesting a battlefield still meant you needed massed soldiers firing volleys. Personal shielding against bullets was non-existant (reasonable body armor against bullets is a very recent invention) so there was nothing to duck behind. Once barrel rifling became practical guns became orders of magnitude more accurate and massed fighting as done in the 1700's became too costly. The Civil War is the defining example of this and warfare since then became more individual "shoot and duck".

This is just a way too simplistic explanation as there are a lot of other factors such as concepts of bravery and honor, strategy and tactics that involve other items like artillery, cavalry, fortifications and mines that shaped the style of land warfare.

An excellent book on this subject is John Keegan's "A History of Warfare".



A review

Bro

 

I would assume the style of warfare took a while to change even after muskets were introduced, so generals were using them in pitched battles to weaken the opposing force before a cavalry charge or hand-to-hand combat. So, it was likely seen as an offensive attack, in which the victor would simply out-kill the opponent (by getting more volleys off). I imagine they concentrated solely on training their troops to reload quickly and keep shooting, so ducking or using evasive movements were counter-productive.

Since a lot of past battles of that style were fought for reasons other than occupation of specific territory, I guess the pitched battle made sense to generals. They also likely didn't have the communication ability to do much else than meet in one place and fight.

 

Thanks, I forgot to mention the C3I aspects of warfare. Communication from intelligence sources was far from timely and the means to control scattered units fighting a modern cover and concealment style of warfare did not exist.

Bro

 

Bruinbro, very nice response

 

One of my favorite topics and Bruinbro takes the wind right out of my sails!

Great post!

 

Quick summary.

1600's: Ducking helped.
1700's: Ducking didn't help, as the officer in charge would shoot you if you ducked.
1800's: Ducking didn't help, as some minuteman or cowboy would pick you off anyway.
1900's: Ducking rendered fairly pointless:

 

So, post up anyway. There is a lot more that hasn't been touched on. I type with 2 fingers, so I wasn't going to get into any detail.

BTW, warfare is what I've been involved with professionally for over 25 years and it makes a fascinating if not sad study.

Bro

 

They did duck and try to find cover, then along the way came a SNIPERS bullet.