When I was a kid the Maynard cap rolls were still being used in toy guns. I believe that the company that manufactured the rolls got rid of the Fulminate of Mercury but kept the black powder content. They were fun to play with.
Logistics. It is easier to supply ammunition if ordnance is standardized. .58 cartridges would fit springfields, Enfield, and all contractor built muskets such as colt and many others. It becomes more difficult when there are multiple firearms using specific ammunition such as the many breech loading cavalry carbines of the union army. Virtually none of them had interchangeable ammunition. Each carbine had unique cartridges. Some had paper cartridges that were close to interchangeable but that lead to misfires. For example it was thought that sharps cartridges would work in the starr carbine. This lead to misfires and subsequent condemning of the starr. However, use of the proper cartridges eliminated the misfires. Pity the ordnance officer who has to supply all different calibers of small arms, plus multiple artillery shot, shell, cannister. Not to mention the supply trains and wagons
Cutting edge technology was adopted, on a small scale. Spencers and Henrys and Sharpes saw service with specialized units. The real advances were in improving mass production, interchangeability, other manufacturing techniques.
Would still like a Schmidt Rubin 1889. They were hardly used, and can still he found with immaculate bores and actions. Just a little challenging to make the ammo.
I love the Maynard primer system. Especially because my childhood capguns used his system. I wonder if he would be happy or depressed that his invention survives as a toy.
Explains a lot. The toy gun caps that go bang do not actually “cap” anything. But their predecessors did. One of my favorite toy guns was a sort-of scaled down version of the Civil War infantry musket that used the cap to blow a cork out the barrel. Not much range or accuracy, but having recently moved to New York State I kind of wish I still had it. Might actually be legal.
@@zacharyrollick6169 I had pistol version that used the stick on toy type caps. It "shot" cork loose fitting balls that you dropped in the barrel. At 5 or 6 feet it barely had enough power to knock over a 2 ounce size paper cup. I still have it. I oughta see if I can find some balls for it. Thanks to Ian. I like the single question videos and the comments they generate.
The fact that the South had limited manufacturing capability also factors into the equation. Most foundries and gun manufacturers were in the North. Equipping an army with weapons, clothing,food, training, and shelter is a logistical nightmare that hasn't changed since the beginning of War and never will. Thank you sir as always very informative and well done!
@@SimuLord it didn't help that when it came to defending the south's important ports and rail roads infrastructure they abandon It with out a fight Corinth and Chattanooga. leave it hopelessly under defender new Orleans. Or internal politics amongst the states prevent them from sending aid Vicksburg campaign. They were just doomed from the start
@@SimuLord That's what the South was wanting. State succession is never addressed in the Constitution, so the Southern States felt they had every right to strike out on their own. After the War, no Confederate soldier, or government official was ever charged with treason... Long ago, we used to follow the Constitution in this country...but no longer.
I’m ex British Forces, and our std aircon was holes in the walls of wooden buildings in the winter, & heating was those rare days of sun cooking up a storm on the roofs of the same huts. Luckily, that was transit or training camps, not permanently occupied barracks (at least by the time I served) lol
Another thing you've mentioned elsewhere in the past is ammunition supply. Even if Ripley could have found manufacturing capacity to get every soldier an 1860 Henry within the year, he ALSO would have needed to secure manufacturing capacity for ammo. If everyone sticks with rifled muskets you need less ammo and it will be easier to create manufacturing capacity. Lots of companies already made gunpowder and percussion caps at the time so the only custom tool you might need to provide is the mold for Minie bullets in the right caliber. Teaching a company to make ammo for a Henry and making the tooling would have taken far longer and required a lot more resources before a single cartridge was made.
To add to your point. There would have been additional training and testing necessary to ensure that it was a good combat rifle. The manufacturing had to be pretty consistent. The price to manufacture full cartridges of ammunition was more than just the Minie ball, powder, and primer/cap. As brass or copper would have been needed to create the cased ammunition. Cased ammunition use would have to be trained as well. Manufacturing for cased ammunition including forging consistent brass and acquiring the all copper and zinc to make the brass. There’s a bunch of chains involved that complicate the whole problem.
Soldiers wo also end up having to carry the extra rounds along with them - a lot of them. The US cavalry got around this by having a horse for that task. As for the common line soldier, they very quickly realized that standing in thick formations out in the open was a bad idea. Breastworks and field fortifications got very popular, and a lot of shooting just attracted unwanted attention.
Dealing with variations of caliber or chamber of a variety of guns is also an issue. Much easier on the logistic team to just send lead to the front and the soldier or unit can then cast their own projectiles, rather than boxes of ammunition that don't fit.
This sort of thing has been the most interesting part of firearms history I've learned about since I started watching FW regularly: the HUGE difference between inventing a good gun, and developing the industrial capacity to manufacture it in tens or hundreds of thousands. And related to this is the opportunity cost mentioned in this video - if you want to equip a modern mass army with a new weapon, that means there are other things you must choose not to do.
This is one of the things that the Civilisation games teach you. You have to make a choice between having an opera house in each city or having masses of horse archers. Until you develop artillery, at which point you can have anything you want because you can bombard the other cities from outside their defensive range.
In recent years, it’s really begun to strike me that the more one looks into it, logistics affect military decisions much more than military enthusiasts give it credit for.
Hell then even historians used to give it credit for. I read a book called the Persuit of Power that went into detail about the logistical difficulties of the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian War, and then spent like 15 pages excoriating the upper echelons for being slow to adopt the machine gun and modern breech loading artillery as if one didnt cause the other.
Ding, ding, ding... we have a winner for a post. The US Army went into WWII using the .30-06 because there were tens of millions of rounds left over from WWI and the ammo manufacturers were still producing .30-06 ammo. Many rifles the US Army has made to replace the M16/M4 weapons have failed because it's a change of 5.56, Congress goes ballistic over the change cost. Civil War guns had two issues: first, it was hard to produce the necessary amount of cartridges (and they were not centerfire). Second, if they didn't use a metallic cartridge then there was a breech sealing issue. That means qualified unit armorers to repair the breeches (the French solved that issue on the Chassepot by issuing a tool for repair and spare breech seals).
Logistics is not a flashy topic, but it is what gets the job done. A large portion of the war was won simply on petroleum or the lack of. It was all that Texas oil getting shoved all over the world that the Japanese and Germans did not have. Tanks, ships, and planes needed tons of it. The ability to supply things like high octane aviation fuel gave aircraft better performance for example. Even something as simple as the invention of SPAM, the meat of course. Was a game changing bit of logistical Supply. The ability to keep people civilian and Military supply with a shelf stable protein that did not require cooking or Refrigeration is a game changer. It's little things like these that make the difference rather than guns and bullets.
I raced off-road motorcycles for many years, ending about 30 years ago. Long before my time, bikes were far less specialized and guys actually road their bikes TO THE RACES. At that time, the sentiments were “Run what you brung” and “Dance with the one that brung you”. Same idea here. Thanks, Ian. Good one.
The fact that Russia uses T-62 tanks, Mosin-Nagant Rifles and Maxim machine guns in The current war in Ukraine shows that these concerns are still relevant almost 160 years later.
Russia had warehouses full of captured German weapons & ammunition from WW2 that they sent to North Vietnam in the 60s (along with Mosin-Nagants & others) , which is one reason the US & others captured all sorts of weird & wonderful weapons.
Right, and they get a lot of criticism by armchair generals when the reality is that that's the first war of its kind that's been fought since, what, the 50s? and as far as we know we'll be doing the same the next time we get into a real war.
The UK used obsolete Mark VIII 533mm Torpedos from 1927 into the 1980s (including Falkland War). It's not that uncommon to use old equipment. M113 in Israeli service is another example, or M60 and Leopard 1 (both comparable to T-62) which are still in active service in both Turkey and Greece.
Another major concern of Ripley was ammunition. allot of the new weapons (Both good and real) used different ammunition. Not really a selling point when you are managing supply lines.
That's one reason a capping breechloader like the Burnside was good. It was primed with a standard percussion cap. As long as a soldier saved his brass, the only thing he needed to do was cast some bullets if they weren't being given precast bullets already.
If the civil war had continued another 5 years, you’d start to see most infantry with Henry’s, and a lot more Gatling guns being used in the ‘HMG’ category, maybe even smaller personal shoulder-fired Gatling guns chambered in the same cartridge the Henry was in...
I have a Rifled musket one of approx. 500 made at Norfolk before it was overrun by the South along with the mold for casting the correct thick-walled proper Mini ball bullets. It took a seventy-grain charge of 2F powder and dad removed the service sights for closer to match sights of a custom design. Many reenactors use a longer thin-walled design of the Mini concept that only takes a charge of 35 grains of 2F safely. The Current nipple is for standard pistol caps cheaper and more reliable ignition. The musket caps tended to not sit square on the original issue nipple which was quit worn.
While making sure Union troops were equipped across the board with rifled, percussion muskets the Ordinance Department still equipped cavalry units with Burnsides and especially Spencer rifles seeing the advantage of breech loaders for mounted units that was quite new technology. They also weren't afraid to manufacture rifled artillery in quite large numbers even though their range was far ahead of any effective fire control. Thanks for putting a new light on Ripley, often referred to as 'an old fossil afraid troops would waste ammunition with repeaters'.
It's amazing how people think that once a new weapon is adopted, then "poof" everyone immediately has that new weapon. I still see people argue that 1911's were not issued during the 1st Gulf War because "the M9 was adopted six years prior."
Although it's not military science, that is one of the things the early XCOM games teach you - you can research all kinds of futuristic weapons and armour, but you end up equipping your soldiers with a hodge-podge of things because you still have to manufacture everything.
Yeah, RTS games play at the general concept of an evolving military, but make tech changes propagate way too quickly. Factorio in having a good chunk of tech upgrades as physical items in game gets to that with how modules and firearm ammo works.
Also interesting is that Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, had been Secretary of War of the USA (1853-1857) and was recognized as one of the most capable administrators to hold that office. Davis focused on increasing the army’s size and improving national defenses and weapons technology, as well as providing protection for settlers in the Western territories. Davis also strengthened coastal defenses, and directed three surveys for railroads to the Pacific. He was also a forceful advocate for what became the Gadssen Purchase. When South Carolina withdrew from the Union in December 1860, Davis opposed secession and was a frequent and vocal advocate for peace as he knew how much he had upgraded the USA military during his time serving as Secretary of War. Very ironic that the war machine Davis helped create ended up being unleashed against him.
Jeff Davis also advocated for the Maynard Tape priming system, which was a forward thinking concept but ultimately flawed, ironically more so in the south as the humidity wrecked the tape. It did lead to the Maynard carbine, probably the most underrated Civil War firearm for its ability to easily reload brass cartridges in the field with a simple hammer yet providing the best gas seal of any breech loading small arm used in any large numbers. It was ultimately passed on in production for the Sharps Carbine in larger numbers, in part due to the Maynard's association with Jeff Davis.
Another single word: blockade. Part of the Southern defensive strategy was to build a million man army from scratch. A lot of these troops brought their own guns while the communities that these troops came from sewed their own uniforms and set up their own ammunition factories and grew their own food and some Southern towns raised money to build their own ironclads to fight the blockade. While the Northern war effort utilized imports and factories, the Southern war effort was grassroots and effectively impoverished the South. Southern agricultural exports rotted at the docks, their crops were burned, their cities sieged, their economy based on slavery shattered, their railroads tied around trees, the CSA was divided down the Mississippi by blockade and being blockaded by sea thus could not import or export.
@@Voron_Aggrav I feel like in addition to all that, some mention should go to the quality of execution of plans. It takes talent to make a perfect plan, but it takes practice to know how to execute it.
@@purplespeckledappleeater8738 Not entirely true. The Confederate army at Vicksburg was armed most commonly with Enfield Rifled Muskets. While some soldiers may have brought weapons from home the reality was that the supply system wasn't set up to provide ammunition for a lot of non-standard personal firearms. Also a standard manual of arms and loading and firing drill depend on standardized weapons. Bayonets were still in common use, and personal weapons didn't have bayonet lugs. So regardless of what you've heard or what you've seen in photos standardization was key. Importation of firearms and ammunition continued despite the blockade. Which brings us back to Logistics.
Something similar happened on every side of WW1, where after the first battles, they suddenly couldn’t keep up with manufacture of their modern rifles and so fall back on the previous generation of rifles while scrambling to import or ramp up production of modern stuff. Even the US had trouble getting their hands on their own equipment since by the time the US joined, a huge number of US arms factories were already under contract with other countries (mostly Britain and France). Countries also seemed to have trouble with their side-arms because they were, well, a secondary issue, but were nonetheless proving to be extremely useful weapons in the trenches. A lot of European military pistols were underpowered and fairly old, with cumbersome features like a revolver that must have the cylinder turned after every round is loaded.
Everyone looks at the battles in the east, but if you look at the western campaigns you see a monumental leap in tactics if not small arms, essentially Blitzkrieg using purpose built gunboats mounting 32 and 42 pound rifled Dahlgren guns with contact explosive shells instead of tanks. The many tributaries of the Mississippi and Ohio became roads into the heart of the Confederacy. The boats (City Class are the most common) were impregnable to normal field artillery, but able to flatten the earthwork forts guarding cities and entrances to tributaries. The boats would knock down the strong points and the cavalry would, like aircraft in WWII, take out bridges, railways, mills, warehouses, etc, for miles around. Grant understood that simply occupying ground wasn't enough, a modern war required destroying production and transportation behind the enemy. Read of the battle of Arkansas Post, the fort guarding the Arkansas River below Little Rock. A Division of infantry was landed below the fort and then the gunboats went to work. The fort surrendered before the infantry could even arrive.
@@davidrox4591 It wasn't until Guderian in WWII that the idea of static warfare between opposing armies was dropped in favor of armored spearheads into the enemy rear. Grant, and then Sherman had that figured out in 1862, but could only implement it through the river network in the west. Every large southern city was on a navigable river. I don't know if Guderian studied those tactics, but he did the same thing when tanks developed into formidable fighting machines.
@@kodiakkeith Atlanta is nowhere near a river. It was built up round train tracks. Yes, it's an oddity and Georgia is still begging Tennessee for water as a result. That said, once Lee abandoned Longstreet's defensive trenches and left Atlanta, it made easy pickens for Sherman. Grant & Sherman on the Union side along with Forrest & Jackson on the Confederate side all have elements that seem to come to fruition in Patton. All were hesitant only in withdrawal, all were known for hard and fast strikes.
Another thought I’ve had is that .44 Henry rim fire and other early cartridges (like for the Burnside) are really weak…. I wonder how much that thought went into it, too… if I know I’m going to be engaging cavalry at about 200 yards, .44 rimfire isn’t going to get the job done, but a 58 minie is still packing quite a lot of heat
@@steveh1792 if I was General Custer, it's definitely not something I'd want to be packing. Fiddling around with a single shot trap door while Indians are about to kill me? I'll take a huge pass.
Sorry, gotta say, the U.S. Army budget for weapons and the U.S. Army budget for barracks will never ever be written on the same spreadsheet. I love Ian's videos. Happy New Year.
They want you to kill effectively, not be comfortable. In fact it's crucial soldiers are only as comfortable as is necessary to get the necessary respite.
@@ivareskesner2019 I would disagree with your assessment. Happy troops are well disciplined and motivated troops. They're also the kinds of people who sign up and to reenlist. That's why we offer tons of benefits, bonuses, housing and other amenities. This is more so in a modern military which no longer relies on conscription and requires quality over quantity.
@@WALTERBROADDUS I was a junior conscript in Soviet Latvia so my experience was of a very different military. Of course you're right. The volunteer militaries are basically national mercenaries and as such a very different approach is needed. You need to sell these guys on staying and coming back.
Even today, Force Modernization does not happen overnight or uniformly. I was in a CONUS unit on early deployment to Desert Shield. I had a new M16A2, but my issued sidearm was still a1911a1. Likewise, there was another unit that still had M16A1 but were issued new M9s. My unit even had to be re-equipped in the field after deploying with M1s and Firsts Generation Bradleys. I still remember having to use M1s with M113s which really hampered the advantages in mobility that the new tank had.
True. I was in field artillery during Desert Storm. We had a mixed bag of M16A1, 1911 and M9. Some of the tracked vehicle crews were even issued M3 submachine guns.
This video title surprised me since to my recollection they improved a fair bit over the course of the war. Nothing completely superseded the rifled musket but by the end it was very clear what developments would take hold in the future.
2:01 "Making sure that the barracks have proper heating and air conditioning systems." *Me watching this video while in my barracks room at Fort Drum freezing cuz they haven't fixed the heaters since the building was made*
"Heaters? What on earth for? The soldiers are issued woolen long underwear for a reason. Besides, there's a Franklin stove in each barracks to make coffee with..." [echoes of the ghost of the Fort Drum architect] 😄
I'd add two things, Ian; after the shooting contest and all that, the next thing the military purchasing officer want to know is "how fast can a soldier break one of those" followed by can these people supply the product and then the service and parts reliably. You views on how manning numbers and conditions play is spot on- what you unfailingly do, Ian! Happy New Year! FR
This is a subject that I always thought I had a fairly good understanding of, but am glad to expand and correct, with additional information from gun Jesus. Thanks Ian.
That makes a lot of sense from a logistical standpoint. It doesn't matter how good the guns are if you've only got a few. better to equip the entire army with the same thing and you can always modernize after the war is over.
👍 Analogous situation arose in the War of the Pacific. The Japanese built two of the most magnificent battleships of all time, the Yamoto and Musashi. They simply couldn't keep up with our production, which led to the Japanese having to fight more cautiously with the aim of not losing as opposed to simply winning. (Action off Samar -> Leyte Gulf)
@AdamantLightLP The Germans lacked fuel, that's why they had to try and produce crazy off the wall tanks to make up for their inability to field large numbers of vehicles. If they had as many as the allies, they would be sitting unused (irl many did, hence the limited scale operations after Barbarossa by theGermans). It ultimately didn't work as simple upgrades to the Sherman and T-34 kept pace, and of course could be fielded in 4:1 or better ratios than every German tank combined by the last 3 years of the war.
All Babyboomer boys in the 50s had cap guns, both cowboy and semi-auto. Caps were cheap, especially if bought in large size and I loved the smell of the burnt caps. My favorite was a Thompson and each throw of the bolt would create about a ten round burst. On the Civil War issue, wasn't the whole S&W patent issue the main reason cap and ball pistols were the primary side arms?
I've heard this a lot in WWII where they're making tanks and planes with thousands of parts. If you want to bring a new tank on line, you have to close down a factory that's rolling out the old model for months while new tools, dies, and machines are created and brought on line. Was that as much a factor in the Civil War where a new rifle had a hundred parts or less?
Hello Ian, You did a fine job explaining the question! I, like you, spent a good amount of time studying history. A lot of which was military, weapons and the general history of wars. I am a lot older and you have vastly more experience traveling and meeting people firsthand. With that said, it is interesting that the answers to so many questions are clear to the people who have studied extensively in these fields. I would like to add a couple of things though. Like you said, during a time of war, the most important thing is having weapons and ammunition for the soldiers! Even if there was some 'Majic' 'Garuntee' that a Henry (or any other weapon) would operate perfectly; HOW do you ensure that the people using it always get the right ammunition? Can you manufacture it in huge quantities? If you can, Can you garuntee that it gets to the right soldiers? Not No, but hell NO! There has been a lot of hate about the supply officers of both the North and the South, during the Civil War. This is Stupidity! Those men had to make the hard choices to outfit every man with weapons that could be fed by the same ammunition! Think about any major battle of the Civil War... If you have 100,000 troops firing a few rounds per minute... for days... Do the math and think about how much ammo is needed now and in a day, for resupply! And then resupply after that! They had to be ready to supply many millions of musket caps, many millions of projectiles and many many millions of pounds of black powder! This was the very basic, minimal supply for small arms! PLUS cannon projos, hard tack, medical equipment, socks, drawers, AND this is never ending! Without even getting to Food-stuffs! If an Arms General picked the 'New Best Thing' for a weapon, He would have killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers by shear Stupidity! Ian, I do love your 'Polite' responses to questions that accidentally upset me a bit! Ya'll Take Care and be safe, John
The things that I find really cool about Ian are his grasp of and appreciation for all things technical about guns. The other thing is his deep understanding and knowledge of the history of warfare. The historical knowledge doesn't always come to the forefront, but man when it does...
Basically, it came down to the fact that the guns that were being used at the start of the war were 'good enough' for the job at hand, and the risks associated with trying to build better guns outweighed the benefits that those potential guns would bring to the battlefield. Though it would have been interesting to see if, at least the union army, could have equipped NCO and line officers with repeater rifles to give their squads and company's a little bit more firepower, but then again, logistics would probably have been an even bigger nightmare than it already was.
Some soldiers, mostly Union, did buy such modern weapons with their own money in order to get a personal edge on the battlefield. The southern soldiers referred to repeaters as "That damn Yankee rifle that can be loaded on Sunday and fired all week."
@dennissullivan1651 Bullets for such weapons were bought by the man who owned the rifle through private suppliers. The American Civil War was not like World War I or later, the logistics were much closer to those of the Napoleonic era. Ammunition expenditure was tiny by comparison to twentieth century wars, a man could easily carry all the ammo needed for an entire campaign on his person. It is notable that the South never experienced any shortage of weapons and ammo, but a crippling shortage of clothes, shoes and food. The proportion of men using such rifles was very small in any case, a handful of men in an entire regiment.
I really enjoyed your video! I thought it was also worth mentioning that many generals in the U.S. Army, especially Sherman, were concerned that more advanced weapons like the Henry would require far more ammunition to operate effectively. As such it created a concern that these weapons in high quantities would use up ammunition far more quickly than it could be produced.
They were the first of waves of generals and ordnance officers around the world who feared the ability to fire multiple shots would lead to banging away out of fear and adrenaline. This continued into the adoption of magazine fed rifles. Up into WW1 ordnance boards were demanding magazine cut-offs - the troops would load 1 round at a time into the breech until given the order at a crucial moment. Then they'd disengage the cut-off and use up the rounds in the magazine.
And they were right in that supply was all horse drawn and then by hand carriage. An army in the field can only carry so much ammunition around with them and it can take days for it to be replaced from central stocks. Weeks in some circumstances. The ACW saw the first major impact of railways upon logistics to bring ammunition and troops forward fast to distribution from the railheads. In European contemporary wars the distances were shorter and the rail system denser so there were more and closer railheads but the issue was still very real. By the Great War motorised transport could bring ammunition up behind the front lines with far more speed and in far more volume. With an ACW logistics supply to the Great War western front the machine guns would have run out of ammunition in hours and the rifles in days. There was no point in increasing the firepower on an army beyond the ability to re supply it. The Austrian Prussian war in 1866 was a face off between breech loading and muzzleloading rifles. Had the Austrians used to superior range of their muzzleloading rifles to hold off the Prussians at a distance the comparative rate of fire of the Prussian breechloaders would have left them out of ammunition before the Austrians would have closed with them. Ripley, as Chief of Ordnance, had the task of arming an entire army, not just cherry picked bits of it. He was quite right to maximise available rifle musket production and purchase whilst, in parallel, experimenting with small numbers of breechloaders for the cavalry.
It's worth remembering that genuine big advancement is very rare, and that small advances are seldom attractive enough to make them worth the investment. Especially with small arms, which already work fine, the advance to breech loading paper catridges is super small - Sure, something like that is a better gun, but you also have to completely retrain troops to use them and also pay for all the guns and also pay for new ammo and also run parallel logistics until the new rifle takes over. The breach loader is faster, but fast enough to justify that kind of change?
I know you said southern volunteer units were self equipped. I thought there were northern units that were also self equipped at least in the beginning of the war as well.
That is true but like most other things in the war, it depends on where and when. For confederates, If you were out west, big chance your rifle came from home (especially early war). If you were a confederate out east, likely you were issued a captured. Most troops tried to get their hands on a quality federal rifle if they could, Northern troops were almost always armed by the government, except in specific cases in the western theatre with loyal southern union guerilla/cav groups, and a few times in Maryland and Virginia where union militia took up arms against Lee's antietam and gettysburg incursions.
"Self-equipped" also has two meanings really. The first and obvious one meaning: bring your own shit because we can't supply you. The second meaning was to procure the arms yourself via taking it from the enemy. I'll give you an example. When General Forrest was given his command and had to raise troops and equip them, the first thing they would do is go around requesting donations from local families. If anyone had a spare weapon, would they be willing to donate it? Once that was accomplished, they would set up camp, and Forrest would take enough men armed with what weapons they could find and go ambush an enemy unit. Bring that enemy units' weapons and other supplies back to the camp and repeat the process over. They would do this repeatedly until everyone under his command was equipped with weapons, ammunition, and other gear.
Thanks to Ian and Othias I already knew what Ian was going to say, mostly. In previous years I'd read an article saying old stick-in-the-mud Union generals prolonged the war by not adopting this or that breech-loading rifle and think "damn, how could they be so blind." Now I know about how hard breech loaders would be to produce quickly enough, and with good quality. And let's not forget how difficult and expensive brass cartridges were to produce, and how hard it was to keep up quality control on them.
See this is what makes this channel great. I *knew* the answer to this question right away, but I had a little faith and still listened - and Ian added so many more angles that turned a really boring straightforward answer into a really interesting one!
Spencer repeating rifles issued to Union troops toward the end of the war were breach loading weapons that used a metallic cartridge. I would call that an improvement over the Springfield 1861 muzzle loader that was the standard issue rifle for the Union. The Union also purchased around 90,000 Sharps rifles, another breach loading metallic cartridge rifle, but it saw more limited use.
The Hall rifle, modified: Same basic action, .58 but the breech does not just go up and down but also a little bit back and forth. Because there's a brass liner in the breech that extends a bit. And the barrel has a matching cut. Great gas seal, standard ammo.
Adopting the newest rifle technology < Making shure the toilets continue flush. You might laugh at this at first, but this is really paramount to maintaining a functioning military.
Ian covers the salient points well, but there are some details worth considering. A smoothbore musket cost $14 to make. A rifle-musket cost $18. And a repeater cost $50. If you assume that cost was proportional to machining time, the Federal Ordnance Department had a choice between arming two men with Henry rifles, or five with M1861 rifle-muskets. And they were in much better position to supply ammunition for the latter. The story of foreign arms in the Great Unpleasantness is a story in itself. The Confederates had the production of the Birmingham small arms industry under contract, having got there first. The Federals? They went scraping. Bought a lot of Lorentz rifle-muskets from Austria...then fed them undersized bullets with predictable impact on accuracy. (I've got a friend working on a book on the subject - already suggested he talk to Headstamp Publishing)
A very revolutionary weapons development during the American Civil War was in metallic cartridges for breech-loading firearms. Such as with the British .577 Snider-Enfield breech-loading rifle designed in 1860 which the British Army adopted in 1866 as a conversion system for their Pattern 1853 Enfield muzzle-loading rifles. - Forgotten Weapons: British Breechloaders and Trials Rifles th-cam.com/video/NSyxpvIZXxY/w-d-xo.html - Britishmuzzleloaders: The Mk III Snider-Enfield: Introduction th-cam.com/video/DJ-f11hM4Sk/w-d-xo.html
Lack of weapons while ramping up production for war is something the modern U.S. military wants to avoid. It's part of the reason our military spending is so ridiculous even in peacetime. For example, M1 Abrams tanks. The Army has said they don't need any more of them, so there are just huge lots of unused tanks sitting around because the factories keep making them at Congress's behest. While people usually attribute this to "pork-barrel" politics, there's actually a very good reason not to stop making Abrams tanks: if they do, all the people who make them will go work elsewhere. Then, if the military needs more tanks for some reason, those people will probably not come back, and even if they do, they may have forgotten much of what they know. This would be a major problem. It's always a problem when experienced workers leave and a factory needs to ramp up production, but for the Abrams it's an even bigger one because there is a very small number of people who know how to make the Abrams's armor. It's top secret information. Sure, it's written down somewhere, but there is a big gap between having a recipe and being able to produce it correctly. That can be overcome eventually, but "eventually" isn't soon enough when you need tanks NOW. And that's assuming they can find the recipe in the first place. We don't know how to make the Saturn V rocket anymore because the plans were lost or destroyed. As a result, NASA had to design the Artemis 1 superheavy rocket from scratch instead of being able to base it on the Saturn V, which set the project back by anywhere from two to ten years depending on who you ask.
I didn't know that about the Saturn V. That is interesting and disturbing at the same time. As a kid I was in a NASA "fan club" and got newsletters and photos/posters of that stuff in the mail regularly. This was the late 60s and early 70s. Sad the way it is now. 😢🤔🤓🍻
It should be also stated that the industrial capacity to retool for the new technologies developed during the war was very limited. People tend think manufacturing in the 1800's was the same as it was in 20th Century, it was not. The revolutions in mass production and even the assembly line (as we know it) did really exist until 1900. So in those days the more advanced and complicated a technology like single shoot breech loading rifles that used just paper cartridges required ridiculous amounts of man power to create using the manufacturing technology of the time. In the 1860's a Henry lever action multi-shot rifle using self contained metallic cartridges might as well had been a F-35 of today in terms of complex and time to build. They could do it, but it would take a long time and be very expensive. The Union needed men on front lines and need weapons that were cheap and simple enough to produced quickly enough for the 100,000's of Union soldiers to be equipped in time to fight war. Not have to wait 5 years to spool up production to making few thousands guns.
So I actually own a Model 1855 Springfield and I want to clear up a few misconceptions people who have never handled them have. The first is that it is designed to use either the Maynard tape primers or the standard musket cap, not just the tape primers. This was a good idea on the Army's part because they were concerned about running out of the new tape primers but had a stockpile of the older musket cap. Luckily, once they realized the newly developed tape primers were crap they didn't have to modify the rifle because it was already set up to use the cap (also a plus because I can actually still shoot it now 150+ years later). The second is that although the toy cap gun paper rolls are conceptually the same as the Maynard, the original Maynard wasn't as crappy because instead of paper they were typically made of foil and were obviously a lot more powerful with the fulminate of mercury. You cannot run a modern toy cap roll through it because they are considerably wider.
Spencers were seven shot repeaters. You might be thinking of Trapdoor Springfields, which were breechloading single shots, but firing a much heavier cartridge than the Henry or Winchester.
By late 1862 early 1863 the majority of Confederate armies around Vicksburg had been outfitted with .577 Enfield and Tower muskets. Grant's Army of the Tennessee still had a mix of long arms and calibers, .69 smoothbores, .577 British rifles, .54 Austrian rifles, and the .58 US rifles. The supply issues this caused were nightmarish, in at least one case a US unit was resupplied during an assault with ammunition they could not use in their rifles. After the siege of Vicksburg when the Confederate army turned in their arms Grant gave orders that any US unit equipped with an obsolete long arm was to exchange them for the new Confederate surrendered weapons. At a stroke he simplified his logistics issues to just .58 and .577 ammunition (which in a pinch can be used interchangeably). Born out of that is the legend that the Confederate army was poorly armed and equipped since if you look at just the ordnance returns of captured small arms at Vicksburg they're a hodgepodge of weapons and calibers. There may be some truth to that but he weapons turned in by the US units are included in that mix.
if they promise it in three months. you arn´t going to see it. before six month. then you have to solve the problems with it and the soldiers have to learn how to use it. so it might start to come in to service in a year. If you are lucky
At least one more advanced rifle was used in significant numbers in the Civil War. About 56,000 Spencer carbines and rifles were produced under military contract before the war ended. The Spencer was a 7-shot repeating lever action rifle chambered in the .56-50 rimfire cartridge. It launched a 350 grain bullet at ~1200 fps, making it nearly the ballistic equal of the rifled muskets in general issue at the time. They were first issued in 1863 to the Navy. The carbine was by far the most numerous model. It was very popular with cavalry units. The Ordinance Department didn't want the Spencer as they feared troops would fire so much ammo so fast that logistics wouldn't be able to keep up. But President Lincoln himself stepped in and ordered contracts be issued to procure as many as could be manufactured.
The Gent who does the Paper Cartridge channel points out the the modern rifled muskets that had the ability to hit a man sized target at beyond 300 yards were not able to be utilized to their capacity to to the lack of training in range estimation. The rainbow curve of the standard Minie Ball made range estimation critical beyond 200-250 yards. So smoothbore Muskets firing “Buck and ball” were arguably as viable an arm at the 150 yard ranges most Civil War battles were fought.
As well as the development of technology, tactical use of this technology was also a big factor in effectiveness. The American (US and CS forces) had, as a result of government doctrine of the time, adopted a French approach, which was to use the rifled musket as a more accurate version of the old smoothe bore. This was to place an emphasis on the bayonet as the decider after one or two volleys. Britain and Prussia had adopted "fire tactics" which maximised the potential of the new weapon, the ability to be effective at a distance and training the of troops to be capable of bringing that effectiveness to the field. The British army set up a school of musketry, training trainers to take the skills (calculating distance etc) back to their regiments, so producing a skilled rifleman capable of engaging an enemy effectively at many hundreds of metres. The US army did not have an equivalent until the turn of the century. During the Crimean war it is recorded that British riflemen could render artillery ineffective at ranges in excess of 800m with controlled fire, think of what effect such shooting could have had in the American Civil War. The potential would have been to drive US gunners from their cannon, probably giving a different outcome to such actions as Picket's charge. The French at that time leaned heavily toward the bayonet as THE weapon, not, as they sadly found in 1914, a good choice.
The rapid adoption of new technology of the Civil War that I'm aware of was in naval technology. The Iroclads were a huge evolutionary leap, both inside and out. Hampton Roads was a wake up call for a lot of the world. Bigger and bigger cannons, lower and lower decks that barely sat above the waterline, rotating turrets, etc.
@@ianfinrir8724 : As a German Person, i assume, the pikes with different Tips, had been either produced as Last ditch weapons, or to arm the slaves, as a source of manpower. . An other possibility would be the Lack of muskets in early days. So equipping may be 3000 men with a mix of pikes and rifles was (only) in early stages of war no ,rxtraordinar, Ything
@@brittakriep2938 As I understand it, the Confederate Army had a plan to create units of pikemen in the early days of the war, but they were able to procure enough rifles and so the pikes were left in storage. However, during the American Revolution, pikes were issued and used by the Continental (American) Army for a brief period.
@@CountArtha : In german language countries, last use of pikes was at end of napoleonic wars. To eqip all volunteer units of prussian Landwehr, there had been at start enough muskets, so that some units had a mix of few muskets, much pikes and some axes. For war success reason, the pikes had been replaced with captured french muskets more and more. Also because nearly no troops had remainded in Württemberg, so the King ordered to build four ,rural regiments' basicly Landsturm for Police and guard duties. The regiments had only half size and the men elderly.Their main weapon was a pike, 2m shaft and 15cm blade. Also in 1848/49 Revolution attempt, many units of Citizens Militia/ Bürgerwehr had been armed with warskytes. As far as i know , in last Swiss war, Sonderbundkrieg' 1847, some few soldiers of poorer cantons had only warskytes.
Extremey interesting. I'd read rief references to smoothbore muskets being used, but this is the first time I have heard about it in ny detail. Many thanks.
Generally - there were two ways to put more lead down range on an advancing targets. Increase the range and start firing first, or fire more rapidly. In a time where rail transport is still fairly new, and most stuff is moving via cart - increasing the supply of ammunition to match rapid firing becomes difficult. Even into fairly modern warfare the allotment per soldier was limited. A WWII paratrooper expected to be out of contact would only have a bit less than 200 rounds for their Garand. The early issue for an AK-47 was a chest rig with four mags, and two stripper clips for reloading - 180 bullets total. (and maybe some boxes for post-combat refill) Around the time of the Civil war, just having 30-60 shots was a large number of bullets.
30 to 60 shots of black powder cartridges....imagine if you actually lived through a battle to fire that many shots. The muskets rifles would be so fouled it'd be close to a smoothbore and you'd probably start having a hard time loading the thing. Cleaning it would not be much fun either.
@@DevinAlden At least with revolvers, you would expect to be cleaning after twelve to eighteen shots. No-one really talks about the fouling on early lever guns, but that is another good reason why stuff didn't advance.
Hi Ian, something I have long pondered something that is slightly off- topic but in line with your discussion. Why no smart raccoon invented the "tank" during the civil war? Steam driven tractors, breech loading cannon & Gattling guns! A terrifying beast can be imagined- Tyler
A month late, but the reason is likely that there really wasnt a need for tanks tactically yet. The reason they were created in WWI was to serve as mobile pillboxes and break the stalemate that the trench warfair had devolved into. The ACW was a mobile war with fluid fronts, so the need simply wasnt there.
My friend’s father found a flintlock rifle in a crack in a rock at Devil’s Den in Gettysburg circa 1938. So Southern forces did arrive with them, but tossed them when nice new Union weapons were abandoned. They still have it!
My G G Grandfather was equipped with surplus (non-functional) surplus smooth bore Belgian muskets with the barrels stuffed full of grease. 84th Pennsylvania- deployed straight to the front and barely able to actually defend themselves January 1862
I like how ian is referring more to a general topic , that is still very relevant for todays war over seas but manages to never make it about anything going on today and just stays concise
Ian is VERY good at that. When he does occasionally mention modern politics he somehow makes it completely non-confrontational. I myself can't do that, kudos. 🤔🤓🍻
Yes, elite special forces are often allowed to choose the very latest kit and the infantry not, but this isn't because special forces soldiers are believed by the government to be better judges (the SAS freely chose an AR variant which needs to be wrapped in cloth to stop it burning the shooter's supporting hand) but because letting them have their way is how the minister of defence finds out, (very quickly because the specials often see combat in "peace" time) what definitely does not work before too much money is wasted and even more importantly, without the infantry having to rely on it in a situation where national survival is actually at stake. And when UK special forces succeeded in buying 7,000-odd Balister-Molina pistols, which were much better than than a lot of stuff that UK special forces actually used, they stayed in storage for nearly two decades until sold off to hobby shooters (in happier times than now.) The other issue is that sometimes technology is evolving so fast that the "new" stuff is about to be outdated anyway: The UK chose but never quite produced, in very quick succession; a slimmer .45" cartridge for the Martini-action (possibly because they were using the .45" Gardner in machine-guns and the more clunky .577-450" in rifles and the latter was never going to feed well from a magazine) and then a .400" version of the slimmer cartridge which would have been much better all round _than what they already had_ . Then, just as they were about to tool up for this, they noticed a new Swiss development which led to the .303" cartridge which was used for nearly seventy years and in four major wars. Being slow off the mark saved the British Army from facing Boer 7mm Mausers with .45" or .400" Martini-variants and the British economy from having to fund the complete replacement of all of its rifles between the disaster that the Boer War would have become and the beginning of WW1. And it also led to the British Army fighting the Second World War with a rifle that was "good enough" for the Korean War: there really was no way that UK could have afforded to re-arm between 1945 and 1950, so that was actually another disaster averted. What money there was got spent on developing the atom bomb and building enough Meteors and Vampires to defend UK airspace in the jet age. And though the British Army was slow off the mark with almost everything until they saw the forerunner to the .303", at that point they moved faster than they had ever moved before.
Just to clarify in case anyone misunderstood, the French Chassepot was marginally superior to the German Dreyse and did not contribute to the French defeat, that being due more to French leadership and better German artillery.
Leave it to Ian to teach me new things from a simple question. I'd love a long form video on this subject, even though it would have to be abbreviated still.
I remember learning the 69th infantry “Fighting Irish” used smooth bore because they didn’t trust the new weapons and liked being able to fire grape shot or buck and ball (I can’t remember which)
The biggest war contemporaneous to the American Civil War was the Taiping Rebellion in China. It dwarfed absolutely every other war in the entire 19th century (including the Napoleonic Wars) in both numbers of combatants and numbers of casualties. The typical weapons used were bronze cannons, matchlock muskets and pikes, because those were the weapons readily available to the combatants. Armies often obtained weapons from caches that were over 200 years old and sent them to the front, because they were still tactically useful. European and American forces who became involved in the war (and those directly equipped by them) often fought with state-of-the-art weapons like revolvers, Sharps rifles and breech-loading artillery, but they had little direct effect on the outcome of the war because their numbers were so small compared to the huge numbers of Chinese soldiers on both sides, and because of international reluctance to strongly commit to backing either faction.
I read once, can't remember where that it took the Prussians a long time to completely adopt the Dreyse needle rifle due to slow manufacturing of said weapon and refusal to subcontract out because it was a 'state secret' or some legal matter regarding patents. This, and the rapid expansion and reorganisation of the Prussian army from 1850 onwards saw the old smoothbore muskets remain in service for much longer than any other European army and it was only by the Danish war was reequipment finally completed. If this is true I wonder if it had a hand in Prussia holding back her expansion until then as her prime opponents (Austria and France mostly) all had a complete rifle muskets and Prussia's hi-tech/low tech would have been hard put to compete.
I hadn't realised that the Maynard tape primer system was actually used on a standard issue firearm. I had always thought of it as just a novelty, probably because of owning several cap guns as a kid.
I still think that switching to a 58 caliber breech loading rifle for the Infantry that use the same paper cartridges would have been a good idea even knowing that it was a dead end technology.
Two other factors. The logistics people didn't want a fast firing weaponry since they felt the cost in ammunition would balloon and ammo would be wasted ( suppressive fire). It was faster and cheaper to modify older guns. An example is modification of muzzle loaders to trap door breech loaders which was continued for years after the civil war ended
Ammunition stocks are a very important argument against replacing rifles in the army. For small special forces, it's a small problem, but change thousands of tons of ammunition in hundreds of magazines! Maybe changing the rifle doesn't always mean changing the ammo, but it often is and it's a problem on a large scale. Another typical argument against the introduction of a small number of new small arms - such a slogan in the military "all have bad equipment, but the same" (in my original language it is said in obscene words). There is also a psychological reason for this. You don't want to divide soldiers into those with old weapons and those with new, more expensive ones.
Hooray for mentioning Assistant Armorer Burton who simplified the two piece Minie Ball with cup into a simple swedgeable monolithic lead ,hollow based projectile .My European friends insist on using the french'' Minie'' complete with correct pronunciation . ''Burton ball'' is so much easier to pronounce ;>).Interestingly Burton left the Federal Armory and worked for the Confederacy .His bullet was quite lethal as far as inventions go , however Maxim's machine gun would soon surpass the death toll of the Burton ball.
I have Model 1816 Maynard Tape Primed Rifled and sited in 1857 by Remington. It's one of only 10,500 converted it's in my never gonna effing sell it category.
One thing people do not often think about is the logistics of a new gun with greater rate of fire. If you give people a gun that can fire 500 rounds per day but you can only get them 100 rounds per day then they have not really gained much or even worse you can not manufacture the 500 rounds per day because its some fancy new kind of amo that people do not know much about making ( and rim fire metallic cartridge was jut that in the 1860s) . There is also the issue of firing a lot of black powder cartridges en mass in a short period of time - there is going to be a lot of smoke and that will make it impossible to aim your weapon ( we are not talking about 2 or 3 guys letting go 10 rounds in a minute but 200-300 in a space of maybe 100 yards hear and I have series questions about how long you could even see the target in that situation ) Finally its important to remember that the new guns were firing much less powerful loads then the Springfield was and so had a lot less range and sometimes range matters
The North-South Skirmish Association will put 500 competitors on the line for the musket team matches - and I can assure you that under the right conditions, seeing even 50 yards can be a challenge.
This kind of thing became even more common in the mass-mobilization wars of early-20th-century Europe. eg the Soviets had a lot of tank designs better than the T-34, and even upgrades to substantially improve it, but they could not afford retooling and working out the bugs when they needed some tank in large numbers. Eventually they upgraded to the 34-85, but even that made a lot of compromises to minimize retooling needs.
As an amateur (and neutral) American Civil War historian, I thank you for recognizing the southern armed forces as equally American. I'd like to add that there's also a moral aspect to weapons technology amongst the soldiers of that war. The men doing the fighting saw the opposition as countrymen whereas the brass (moreso the northern flavor according to extensive research) saw it as a war of numbers. If the men of either side had access to semiautomatic arms, they'd seem to throttle themselves in combat to allow for a fair fight. This mindset is taken from a shitload of research and accounts from unpublished soldiers' memoirs (grief me if you will). Given my direct Missourian research and knowledge as one who had ancestors fight for both sides, I'd say that bleeding-edge weapons tech would've had no affect in that conflict. Adamantly, it was a war of politicians and the socially popular causes of which are horribly false IMO. Just saying if the combatants were dead-set on killing each other outright, the north would've quadrupled Gatling production and the south wouldve allied with their friends south of the border and amongst the nations in an all-out guerilla war.
Another point to remember is that new weapons tend to have problems. A few years later, the British lost the Battle of Islandwarha against the Zulu spearmen. One contributing factor was the problems with the Henry-Martini rifle the British Army used. It kicked like a mule and tended to jam. So, it takes a while to develop a "finished " weapon.
A major problem in the Civil War thru to WW2 was Patent Rights in government war production. Many like S&W would hold tight patents like the bored thru cylinder from other producers. This is one reason US Armories designed and manufactured or sub contracted equipment.
After Gettysburg the US Army studied a number of the weapons discarded on the battlefield. A considerable number had been rendered useless by repeatedly loading and failing to discharge the weapon. This confirmed the expectations of experienced officers who realized the relatively modestly trained soldiers of the day tended to get flustered under fire and probably couldn’t be relied upon to care care for and effectively use a far more complicated weapon. The logistical train of the Army was already strained trying to provide ammunition for the relatively simple weapons in use at the time. The idea of placing a weapon that would allow a soldier under stress to blaze through every round he could carry ( and black powder ammo was heavy) in very short order seemed sure to tax the logistical system beyond its capacity. Lacking any form of modern field communication, it took time to position soldiers where you wanted them. If steady controlled fire was hard to achieve with slower weapons, the idea of having whole regiments blast away all the ammunition you could reasonably give them seemed a recipe for disaster. The muzzle loading weapons of the time were robust, easy to maintain, and an established body of doctrine was in place to dictate their deployment and use in combat. Considering the consequences of failure, a conservative approach was deemed the safest option.
The “paper company” hazard may point to another issue: Factories to make new systems take time to build, themselves, and that’s under the best of circumstances. With manpower being pulled away to the military, factories may take even LONGER to build. That may do a good bit to tip the scales in favor of sticking with an older technology that’s still “good enough” in order to leave resources free to help handle the NEEDS of the country.
Material concerns never disappear. The Confederacy collected plantation and even church bells by the thousands for the precious brass to make cannons and small arms frames. Warehouses full of bells were found in New Orleans when it was captured. After the Battle of Atlanta, the federal occupiers traded food with the populace for baskets full of collected lead bullets because the line of communication (supply) back to Chattanooga/Nashville was long, narrow and tenuous.
I find it refreshing that someone is actually asking questions that to me, at 76yo, have obvious answers. That says a lot about "modern" education (or lack thereof).
In the beginning, a typical southern Cavalryman was a good ol' boy with a bare-back horse, a double-barreled shotgun loading from pouch & powder horn, barefoot.
I think you were the first youtube channel i ever subscribed to, and i dont regret it. I wonder if there is any way i can check if im right about that.
US purchasing agents scoured Europe for both rifled muskets and anything large bore with a percussion lock. This was partly to supply US troops and partly to deny them to the Confederates. They bought hundreds of thousands of surplus arms. A friend of mine has his great-great grandfather’s CW musket. It is a so called Potsdam musket made in 1818 and converted to percussion in 1842. Smoothbore, 69 caliber. It was issued to the Michigan volunteers. I’ve read that some soldiers actually preferred the hard hitting, faster loading buck and ball loads for close in fighting.
When I was a kid the Maynard cap rolls were still being used in toy guns. I believe that the company that manufactured the rolls got rid of the Fulminate of Mercury but kept the black powder content. They were fun to play with.
Used to have a pair of Colt 1860 cap guns with white grips.
Those were still kicking around in the 90s when I was a kid, but I don’t think they stayed on the market even during my childhood.
Man that brought me back! I had a pair of “single action army” cap guns. Silver with white grips!
@@spazzypengin you can definitely still find em around
Logistics. It is easier to supply ammunition if ordnance is standardized. .58 cartridges would fit springfields, Enfield, and all contractor built muskets such as colt and many others. It becomes more difficult when there are multiple firearms using specific ammunition such as the many breech loading cavalry carbines of the union army. Virtually none of them had interchangeable ammunition. Each carbine had unique cartridges. Some had paper cartridges that were close to interchangeable but that lead to misfires. For example it was thought that sharps cartridges would work in the starr carbine. This lead to misfires and subsequent condemning of the starr. However, use of the proper cartridges eliminated the misfires. Pity the ordnance officer who has to supply all different calibers of small arms, plus multiple artillery shot, shell, cannister. Not to mention the supply trains and wagons
Cutting edge technology was adopted, on a small scale. Spencers and Henrys and Sharpes saw service with specialized units. The real advances were in improving mass production, interchangeability, other manufacturing techniques.
It led either directly or indirectly to a golden age of firearms innovation. ✌
I like the Swiss model. "This is your rifle. Really. You get to take it home with you."
I still prefer the US model. "You don't need to join the military to have a rifle. Buy what you want."
@@cmtptr in Switerland you can also just buy a rifle without joining the military, we also have cooler guns like the Sig550 and B&T APC 223...
@@jannetling1615 Germany did it better
But it can lead to obsolete weapons. They used black powder revolvers until 1970s or so.
Would still like a Schmidt Rubin 1889. They were hardly used, and can still he found with immaculate bores and actions. Just a little challenging to make the ammo.
I love the Maynard primer system. Especially because my childhood capguns used his system. I wonder if he would be happy or depressed that his invention survives as a toy.
Explains a lot. The toy gun caps that go bang do not actually “cap” anything. But their predecessors did. One of my favorite toy guns was a sort-of scaled down version of the Civil War infantry musket that used the cap to blow a cork out the barrel.
Not much range or accuracy, but having recently moved to New York State I kind of wish I still had it. Might actually be legal.
@@old_guard2431 "Do not cap anything". I'm confused. Cap guns detonate a primer (cap) for noise and smoke. Are you referring to a pop gun?
@@zacharyrollick6169 It’s hood for a bullet getting sent. Like “Imma cap yo ass”
@@zacharyrollick6169 I had pistol version that used the stick on toy type caps. It "shot" cork loose fitting balls that you dropped in the barrel. At 5 or 6 feet it barely had enough power to knock over a 2 ounce size paper cup. I still have it. I oughta see if I can find some balls for it.
Thanks to Ian. I like the single question videos and the comments they generate.
@@servicetrucker5564 Yeah, I've heard that phrase. Short for "bust a cap" referring to the primer aka the modern percussion cap.
The fact that the South had limited manufacturing capability also factors into the equation. Most foundries and gun manufacturers were in the North. Equipping an army with weapons, clothing,food, training, and shelter is a logistical nightmare that hasn't changed since the beginning of War and never will. Thank you sir as always very informative and well done!
@@SimuLord it didn't help that when it came to defending the south's important ports and rail roads infrastructure they abandon It with out a fight Corinth and Chattanooga. leave it hopelessly under defender new Orleans. Or internal politics amongst the states prevent them from sending aid Vicksburg campaign. They were just doomed from the start
Start a Civil War but _can't even into Canons_ or properly feed themselves. oops.
@@TheGM-20XX The South didn't start the hostilities. They were invaded...
@@Jreb1865 lol, lmao even.
@@SimuLord That's what the South was wanting. State succession is never addressed in the Constitution, so the Southern States felt they had every right to strike out on their own. After the War, no Confederate soldier, or government official was ever charged with treason...
Long ago, we used to follow the Constitution in this country...but no longer.
I’m ex British Forces, and our std aircon was holes in the walls of wooden buildings in the winter, & heating was those rare days of sun cooking up a storm on the roofs of the same huts.
Luckily, that was transit or training camps, not permanently occupied barracks (at least by the time I served) lol
Another thing you've mentioned elsewhere in the past is ammunition supply. Even if Ripley could have found manufacturing capacity to get every soldier an 1860 Henry within the year, he ALSO would have needed to secure manufacturing capacity for ammo. If everyone sticks with rifled muskets you need less ammo and it will be easier to create manufacturing capacity. Lots of companies already made gunpowder and percussion caps at the time so the only custom tool you might need to provide is the mold for Minie bullets in the right caliber. Teaching a company to make ammo for a Henry and making the tooling would have taken far longer and required a lot more resources before a single cartridge was made.
To add to your point. There would have been additional training and testing necessary to ensure that it was a good combat rifle. The manufacturing had to be pretty consistent. The price to manufacture full cartridges of ammunition was more than just the Minie ball, powder, and primer/cap. As brass or copper would have been needed to create the cased ammunition. Cased ammunition use would have to be trained as well. Manufacturing for cased ammunition including forging consistent brass and acquiring the all copper and zinc to make the brass. There’s a bunch of chains involved that complicate the whole problem.
Soldiers wo also end up having to carry the extra rounds along with them - a lot of them. The US cavalry got around this by having a horse for that task. As for the common line soldier, they very quickly realized that standing in thick formations out in the open was a bad idea. Breastworks and field fortifications got very popular, and a lot of shooting just attracted unwanted attention.
Dealing with variations of caliber or chamber of a variety of guns is also an issue.
Much easier on the logistic team to just send lead to the front and the soldier or unit can then cast their own projectiles, rather than boxes of ammunition that don't fit.
This sort of thing has been the most interesting part of firearms history I've learned about since I started watching FW regularly: the HUGE difference between inventing a good gun, and developing the industrial capacity to manufacture it in tens or hundreds of thousands.
And related to this is the opportunity cost mentioned in this video - if you want to equip a modern mass army with a new weapon, that means there are other things you must choose not to do.
This is one of the things that the Civilisation games teach you. You have to make a choice between having an opera house in each city or having masses of horse archers. Until you develop artillery, at which point you can have anything you want because you can bombard the other cities from outside their defensive range.
In recent years, it’s really begun to strike me that the more one looks into it, logistics affect military decisions much more than military enthusiasts give it credit for.
Hell then even historians used to give it credit for. I read a book called the Persuit of Power that went into detail about the logistical difficulties of the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian War, and then spent like 15 pages excoriating the upper echelons for being slow to adopt the machine gun and modern breech loading artillery as if one didnt cause the other.
Ding, ding, ding... we have a winner for a post. The US Army went into WWII using the .30-06 because there were tens of millions of rounds left over from WWI and the ammo manufacturers were still producing .30-06 ammo. Many rifles the US Army has made to replace the M16/M4 weapons have failed because it's a change of 5.56, Congress goes ballistic over the change cost. Civil War guns had two issues: first, it was hard to produce the necessary amount of cartridges (and they were not centerfire). Second, if they didn't use a metallic cartridge then there was a breech sealing issue. That means qualified unit armorers to repair the breeches (the French solved that issue on the Chassepot by issuing a tool for repair and spare breech seals).
Logistics is not a flashy topic, but it is what gets the job done. A large portion of the war was won simply on petroleum or the lack of. It was all that Texas oil getting shoved all over the world that the Japanese and Germans did not have. Tanks, ships, and planes needed tons of it. The ability to supply things like high octane aviation fuel gave aircraft better performance for example.
Even something as simple as the invention of SPAM, the meat of course. Was a game changing bit of logistical Supply. The ability to keep people civilian and Military supply with a shelf stable protein that did not require cooking or Refrigeration is a game changer. It's little things like these that make the difference rather than guns and bullets.
As the old adage goes "Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics"
I remembered a sentence from a fantasy novel a long time ago. It went something like this: "Any idiot can raise an army. The problems start at lunch."
Smoothbore with buck n ball. Turns the musket into shotgun. Very common at Shiloh.
Yes - more effective at short range, and a common practice in general to make the most of smoothbores.
@@ForgottenWeapons from what I've heard the boys in the Irish brigade was kinda fond of smoothbore 69 calibers with buck and ball.
thanks for the info but also, my god, the actual thought of that. shiloh was such a nightmare.
@@vcostello712 As was every battlefield...
Very common in most large scale battles of that war, even late. Some commanders and units actually preferred them.
I raced off-road motorcycles for many years, ending about 30 years ago.
Long before my time, bikes were far less specialized and guys actually road their bikes TO THE RACES.
At that time, the sentiments were “Run what you brung” and “Dance with the one that brung you”.
Same idea here.
Thanks, Ian. Good one.
The fact that Russia uses T-62 tanks, Mosin-Nagant Rifles and Maxim machine guns in The current war in Ukraine shows that these concerns are still relevant almost 160 years later.
Russia had warehouses full of captured German weapons & ammunition from WW2 that they sent to North Vietnam in the 60s (along with Mosin-Nagants & others) , which is one reason the US & others captured all sorts of weird & wonderful weapons.
IIRC Maxims are mainly used by Ukrainian TDF
Right, and they get a lot of criticism by armchair generals when the reality is that that's the first war of its kind that's been fought since, what, the 50s? and as far as we know we'll be doing the same the next time we get into a real war.
@Jakub Knotek You’re right ! I’ve seen pictures of some DPR and LPR forces with it though.
The UK used obsolete Mark VIII 533mm Torpedos from 1927 into the 1980s (including Falkland War). It's not that uncommon to use old equipment. M113 in Israeli service is another example, or M60 and Leopard 1 (both comparable to T-62) which are still in active service in both Turkey and Greece.
Another major concern of Ripley was ammunition. allot of the new weapons (Both good and real) used different ammunition. Not really a selling point when you are managing supply lines.
After the Battle of Shiloh, Grant spent a day having units turn in weapons and reissuing them in the same caliber.
That's one reason a capping breechloader like the Burnside was good. It was primed with a standard percussion cap. As long as a soldier saved his brass, the only thing he needed to do was cast some bullets if they weren't being given precast bullets already.
Nearly ever gun brought before the Army also used proprietary ammo that would muck up the process even further.
And that's the primary reason the M1 Garand was chambered in .30-06. The 1903 Springfield was in .30-06, and there were huge stocks of it.
And the South was right.
If the civil war had continued another 5 years, you’d start to see most infantry with Henry’s, and a lot more Gatling guns being used in the ‘HMG’ category, maybe even smaller personal shoulder-fired Gatling guns chambered in the same cartridge the Henry was in...
I have a Rifled musket one of approx. 500 made at Norfolk before it was overrun by the South along with the mold for casting the correct thick-walled proper Mini ball bullets. It took a seventy-grain charge of 2F powder and dad removed the service sights for closer to match sights of a custom design. Many reenactors use a longer thin-walled design of the Mini concept that only takes a charge of 35 grains of 2F safely. The Current nipple is for standard pistol caps cheaper and more reliable ignition. The musket caps tended to not sit square on the original issue nipple which was quit worn.
While making sure Union troops were equipped across the board with rifled, percussion muskets the Ordinance Department still equipped cavalry units with Burnsides and especially Spencer rifles seeing the advantage of breech loaders for mounted units that was quite new technology. They also weren't afraid to manufacture rifled artillery in quite large numbers even though their range was far ahead of any effective fire control. Thanks for putting a new light on Ripley, often referred to as 'an old fossil afraid troops would waste ammunition with repeaters'.
It's amazing how people think that once a new weapon is adopted, then "poof" everyone immediately has that new weapon. I still see people argue that 1911's were not issued during the 1st Gulf War because "the M9 was adopted six years prior."
Although it's not military science, that is one of the things the early XCOM games teach you - you can research all kinds of futuristic weapons and armour, but you end up equipping your soldiers with a hodge-podge of things because you still have to manufacture everything.
Yeah, RTS games play at the general concept of an evolving military, but make tech changes propagate way too quickly.
Factorio in having a good chunk of tech upgrades as physical items in game gets to that with how modules and firearm ammo works.
@@AshleyPomeroy And the "HTF DID I MISS WITH A 99%?"
@@JnEricsonx That's XCOM, baby!
I know they were issued during desert storm, my buddy has deployment pics with his chocolate chip camo and a 1911 side arm
Also interesting is that Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, had been Secretary of War of the USA (1853-1857) and was recognized as one of the most capable administrators to hold that office. Davis focused on increasing the army’s size and improving national defenses and weapons technology, as well as providing protection for settlers in the Western territories. Davis also strengthened coastal defenses, and directed three surveys for railroads to the Pacific. He was also a forceful advocate for what became the Gadssen Purchase. When South Carolina withdrew from the Union in December 1860, Davis opposed secession and was a frequent and vocal advocate for peace as he knew how much he had upgraded the USA military during his time serving as Secretary of War. Very ironic that the war machine Davis helped create ended up being unleashed against him.
Jeff Davis also advocated for the Maynard Tape priming system, which was a forward thinking concept but ultimately flawed, ironically more so in the south as the humidity wrecked the tape. It did lead to the Maynard carbine, probably the most underrated Civil War firearm for its ability to easily reload brass cartridges in the field with a simple hammer yet providing the best gas seal of any breech loading small arm used in any large numbers. It was ultimately passed on in production for the Sharps Carbine in larger numbers, in part due to the Maynard's association with Jeff Davis.
In a single word: LOGISTICS.
Another single word: blockade. Part of the Southern defensive strategy was to build a million man army from scratch. A lot of these troops brought their own guns while the communities that these troops came from sewed their own uniforms and set up their own ammunition factories and grew their own food and some Southern towns raised money to build their own ironclads to fight the blockade. While the Northern war effort utilized imports and factories, the Southern war effort was grassroots and effectively impoverished the South. Southern agricultural exports rotted at the docks, their crops were burned, their cities sieged, their economy based on slavery shattered, their railroads tied around trees, the CSA was divided down the Mississippi by blockade and being blockaded by sea thus could not import or export.
@@purplespeckledappleeater8738 sounds like a specific part of logistics (or a thing that caused problems in logistics)
Battles win wars, Logistics win Battles,
@@Voron_Aggrav I feel like in addition to all that, some mention should go to the quality of execution of plans. It takes talent to make a perfect plan, but it takes practice to know how to execute it.
@@purplespeckledappleeater8738 Not entirely true. The Confederate army at Vicksburg was armed most commonly with Enfield Rifled Muskets. While some soldiers may have brought weapons from home the reality was that the supply system wasn't set up to provide ammunition for a lot of non-standard personal firearms. Also a standard manual of arms and loading and firing drill depend on standardized weapons. Bayonets were still in common use, and personal weapons didn't have bayonet lugs. So regardless of what you've heard or what you've seen in photos standardization was key. Importation of firearms and ammunition continued despite the blockade. Which brings us back to Logistics.
Something similar happened on every side of WW1, where after the first battles, they suddenly couldn’t keep up with manufacture of their modern rifles and so fall back on the previous generation of rifles while scrambling to import or ramp up production of modern stuff. Even the US had trouble getting their hands on their own equipment since by the time the US joined, a huge number of US arms factories were already under contract with other countries (mostly Britain and France). Countries also seemed to have trouble with their side-arms because they were, well, a secondary issue, but were nonetheless proving to be extremely useful weapons in the trenches. A lot of European military pistols were underpowered and fairly old, with cumbersome features like a revolver that must have the cylinder turned after every round is loaded.
Everyone looks at the battles in the east, but if you look at the western campaigns you see a monumental leap in tactics if not small arms, essentially Blitzkrieg using purpose built gunboats mounting 32 and 42 pound rifled Dahlgren guns with contact explosive shells instead of tanks. The many tributaries of the Mississippi and Ohio became roads into the heart of the Confederacy. The boats (City Class are the most common) were impregnable to normal field artillery, but able to flatten the earthwork forts guarding cities and entrances to tributaries. The boats would knock down the strong points and the cavalry would, like aircraft in WWII, take out bridges, railways, mills, warehouses, etc, for miles around. Grant understood that simply occupying ground wasn't enough, a modern war required destroying production and transportation behind the enemy. Read of the battle of Arkansas Post, the fort guarding the Arkansas River below Little Rock. A Division of infantry was landed below the fort and then the gunboats went to work. The fort surrendered before the infantry could even arrive.
Longstreet's ideas about trenches certainly played a hell of a role in WW1.
@@davidrox4591 It wasn't until Guderian in WWII that the idea of static warfare between opposing armies was dropped in favor of armored spearheads into the enemy rear. Grant, and then Sherman had that figured out in 1862, but could only implement it through the river network in the west. Every large southern city was on a navigable river. I don't know if Guderian studied those tactics, but he did the same thing when tanks developed into formidable fighting machines.
@@kodiakkeith Atlanta is nowhere near a river. It was built up round train tracks. Yes, it's an oddity and Georgia is still begging Tennessee for water as a result. That said, once Lee abandoned Longstreet's defensive trenches and left Atlanta, it made easy pickens for Sherman.
Grant & Sherman on the Union side along with Forrest & Jackson on the Confederate side all have elements that seem to come to fruition in Patton. All were hesitant only in withdrawal, all were known for hard and fast strikes.
@@davidrox4591 nothing new in using trenches. It have been done as long as men have build walls.
Nicely explained. A concise, pithy, history lesson in less than two hundred words.
Another thought I’ve had is that .44 Henry rim fire and other early cartridges (like for the Burnside) are really weak…. I wonder how much that thought went into it, too… if I know I’m going to be engaging cavalry at about 200 yards, .44 rimfire isn’t going to get the job done, but a 58 minie is still packing quite a lot of heat
However keeping it with that mindset of long-range Firepower led to them keeping single shot trapdoor Springfields long into the repeating era.
@@WALTERBROADDUS At distance those Trapdoors were the next thing to indirect-firing artillery.
@@steveh1792 if I was General Custer, it's definitely not something I'd want to be packing. Fiddling around with a single shot trap door while Indians are about to kill me? I'll take a huge pass.
How many rounds will you get out of that Henry in the critical minute it takes to blunt the attack. You'll get three from a rifled musket.
@@msspi764 17 - 19, about as fast as you can work the lever. Reloading is a little slower. It's not like it was a Spencer in that regard.
Sorry, gotta say, the U.S. Army budget for weapons and the U.S. Army budget for barracks will never ever be written on the same spreadsheet. I love Ian's videos. Happy New Year.
Spreadsheet? They are not that advanced! Navy and Air Force, yes but not the Army.
At least you can drink the water on US Army bases.🙄🥤
They want you to kill effectively, not be comfortable. In fact it's crucial soldiers are only as comfortable as is necessary to get the necessary respite.
@@ivareskesner2019 I would disagree with your assessment. Happy troops are well disciplined and motivated troops. They're also the kinds of people who sign up and to reenlist. That's why we offer tons of benefits, bonuses, housing and other amenities. This is more so in a modern military which no longer relies on conscription and requires quality over quantity.
@@WALTERBROADDUS I was a junior conscript in Soviet Latvia so my experience was of a very different military. Of course you're right. The volunteer militaries are basically national mercenaries and as such a very different approach is needed. You need to sell these guys on staying and coming back.
Even today, Force Modernization does not happen overnight or uniformly. I was in a CONUS unit on early deployment to Desert Shield. I had a new M16A2, but my issued sidearm was still a1911a1. Likewise, there was another unit that still had M16A1 but were issued new M9s. My unit even had to be re-equipped in the field after deploying with M1s and Firsts Generation Bradleys. I still remember having to use M1s with M113s which really hampered the advantages in mobility that the new tank had.
True. I was in field artillery during Desert Storm. We had a mixed bag of M16A1, 1911 and M9. Some of the tracked vehicle crews were even issued M3 submachine guns.
This video title surprised me since to my recollection they improved a fair bit over the course of the war. Nothing completely superseded the rifled musket but by the end it was very clear what developments would take hold in the future.
2:01 "Making sure that the barracks have proper heating and air conditioning systems."
*Me watching this video while in my barracks room at Fort Drum freezing cuz they haven't fixed the heaters since the building was made*
"Heaters? What on earth for? The soldiers are issued woolen long underwear for a reason. Besides, there's a Franklin stove in each barracks to make coffee with..." [echoes of the ghost of the Fort Drum architect] 😄
@nunyabidniz2868 god I wish we had Franklin heaters
@sgtsnake8234 probably can't have a space heater for "reasons" lol.
@@Dr.Zoidberg087 big old flapjack facts
I'd add two things, Ian; after the shooting contest and all that, the next thing the military purchasing officer want to know is "how fast can a soldier break one of those" followed by can these people supply the product and then the service and parts reliably. You views on how manning numbers and conditions play is spot on- what you unfailingly do, Ian! Happy New Year! FR
This is a subject that I always thought I had a fairly good understanding of, but am glad to expand and correct, with additional information from gun Jesus. Thanks Ian.
And the South was right.
That makes a lot of sense from a logistical standpoint. It doesn't matter how good the guns are if you've only got a few. better to equip the entire army with the same thing and you can always modernize after the war is over.
👍 Analogous situation arose in the War of the Pacific. The Japanese built two of the most magnificent battleships of all time, the Yamoto and Musashi. They simply couldn't keep up with our production, which led to the Japanese having to fight more cautiously with the aim of not losing as opposed to simply winning. (Action off Samar -> Leyte Gulf)
@AdamantLightLP The Germans lacked fuel, that's why they had to try and produce crazy off the wall tanks to make up for their inability to field large numbers of vehicles. If they had as many as the allies, they would be sitting unused (irl many did, hence the limited scale operations after Barbarossa by theGermans). It ultimately didn't work as simple upgrades to the Sherman and T-34 kept pace, and of course could be fielded in 4:1 or better ratios than every German tank combined by the last 3 years of the war.
All Babyboomer boys in the 50s had cap guns, both cowboy and semi-auto. Caps were cheap, especially if bought in large size and I loved the smell of the burnt caps. My favorite was a Thompson and each throw of the bolt would create about a ten round burst. On the Civil War issue, wasn't the whole S&W patent issue the main reason cap and ball pistols were the primary side arms?
I had one of those. When it came playing army, I was king of the hill - the Sargeant Saunders of Glenwood Ave.
I've heard this a lot in WWII where they're making tanks and planes with thousands of parts. If you want to bring a new tank on line, you have to close down a factory that's rolling out the old model for months while new tools, dies, and machines are created and brought on line. Was that as much a factor in the Civil War where a new rifle had a hundred parts or less?
Yes. even more so.
Hello Ian, You did a fine job explaining the question!
I, like you, spent a good amount of time studying history. A lot of which was military, weapons and the general history of wars. I am a lot older and you have vastly more experience traveling and meeting people firsthand. With that said, it is interesting that the answers to so many questions are clear to the people who have studied extensively in these fields.
I would like to add a couple of things though.
Like you said, during a time of war, the most important thing is having weapons and ammunition for the soldiers! Even if there was some 'Majic' 'Garuntee' that a Henry (or any other weapon) would operate perfectly; HOW do you ensure that the people using it always get the right ammunition? Can you manufacture it in huge quantities? If you can, Can you garuntee that it gets to the right soldiers? Not No, but hell NO!
There has been a lot of hate about the supply officers of both the North and the South, during the Civil War. This is Stupidity!
Those men had to make the hard choices to outfit every man with weapons that could be fed by the same ammunition!
Think about any major battle of the Civil War... If you have 100,000 troops firing a few rounds per minute... for days... Do the math and think about how much ammo is needed now and in a day, for resupply! And then resupply after that!
They had to be ready to supply many millions of musket caps, many millions of projectiles and many many millions of pounds of black powder! This was the very basic, minimal supply for small arms! PLUS cannon projos, hard tack, medical equipment, socks, drawers, AND this is never ending! Without even getting to Food-stuffs!
If an Arms General picked the 'New Best Thing' for a weapon, He would have killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers by shear Stupidity!
Ian, I do love your 'Polite' responses to questions that accidentally upset me a bit!
Ya'll Take Care and be safe, John
Love these Ask Ian videos, I've been using this channel to learn more about firearms and firearm developmental history. Love technical videos!
The things that I find really cool about Ian are his grasp of and appreciation for all things technical about guns. The other thing is his deep understanding and knowledge of the history of warfare. The historical knowledge doesn't always come to the forefront, but man when it does...
Basically, it came down to the fact that the guns that were being used at the start of the war were 'good enough' for the job at hand, and the risks associated with trying to build better guns outweighed the benefits that those potential guns would bring to the battlefield. Though it would have been interesting to see if, at least the union army, could have equipped NCO and line officers with repeater rifles to give their squads and company's a little bit more firepower, but then again, logistics would probably have been an even bigger nightmare than it already was.
Some soldiers, mostly Union, did buy such modern weapons with their own money in order to get a personal edge on the battlefield. The southern soldiers referred to repeaters as "That damn Yankee rifle that can be loaded on Sunday and fired all week."
And the South was right.
@dennissullivan1651 Bullets for such weapons were bought by the man who owned the rifle through private suppliers. The American Civil War was not like World War I or later, the logistics were much closer to those of the Napoleonic era. Ammunition expenditure was tiny by comparison to twentieth century wars, a man could easily carry all the ammo needed for an entire campaign on his person. It is notable that the South never experienced any shortage of weapons and ammo, but a crippling shortage of clothes, shoes and food. The proportion of men using such rifles was very small in any case, a handful of men in an entire regiment.
I really enjoyed your video! I thought it was also worth mentioning that many generals in the U.S. Army, especially Sherman, were concerned that more advanced weapons like the Henry would require far more ammunition to operate effectively. As such it created a concern that these weapons in high quantities would use up ammunition far more quickly than it could be produced.
They were the first of waves of generals and ordnance officers around the world who feared the ability to fire multiple shots would lead to banging away out of fear and adrenaline. This continued into the adoption of magazine fed rifles. Up into WW1 ordnance boards were demanding magazine cut-offs - the troops would load 1 round at a time into the breech until given the order at a crucial moment. Then they'd disengage the cut-off and use up the rounds in the magazine.
And they were right in that supply was all horse drawn and then by hand carriage. An army in the field can only carry so much ammunition around with them and it can take days for it to be replaced from central stocks. Weeks in some circumstances. The ACW saw the first major impact of railways upon logistics to bring ammunition and troops forward fast to distribution from the railheads. In European contemporary wars the distances were shorter and the rail system denser so there were more and closer railheads but the issue was still very real. By the Great War motorised transport could bring ammunition up behind the front lines with far more speed and in far more volume. With an ACW logistics supply to the Great War western front the machine guns would have run out of ammunition in hours and the rifles in days. There was no point in increasing the firepower on an army beyond the ability to re supply it.
The Austrian Prussian war in 1866 was a face off between breech loading and muzzleloading rifles. Had the Austrians used to superior range of their muzzleloading rifles to hold off the Prussians at a distance the comparative rate of fire of the Prussian breechloaders would have left them out of ammunition before the Austrians would have closed with them.
Ripley, as Chief of Ordnance, had the task of arming an entire army, not just cherry picked bits of it. He was quite right to maximise available rifle musket production and purchase whilst, in parallel, experimenting with small numbers of breechloaders for the cavalry.
It's worth remembering that genuine big advancement is very rare, and that small advances are seldom attractive enough to make them worth the investment.
Especially with small arms, which already work fine, the advance to breech loading paper catridges is super small - Sure, something like that is a better gun, but you also have to completely retrain troops to use them and also pay for all the guns and also pay for new ammo and also run parallel logistics until the new rifle takes over. The breach loader is faster, but fast enough to justify that kind of change?
I know you said southern volunteer units were self equipped. I thought there were northern units that were also self equipped at least in the beginning of the war as well.
That is true but like most other things in the war, it depends on where and when. For confederates, If you were out west, big chance your rifle came from home (especially early war). If you were a confederate out east, likely you were issued a captured. Most troops tried to get their hands on a quality federal rifle if they could,
Northern troops were almost always armed by the government, except in specific cases in the western theatre with loyal southern union guerilla/cav groups, and a few times in Maryland and Virginia where union militia took up arms against Lee's antietam and gettysburg incursions.
@@alias6967 excellent, thanks.
"Self-equipped" also has two meanings really. The first and obvious one meaning: bring your own shit because we can't supply you. The second meaning was to procure the arms yourself via taking it from the enemy. I'll give you an example. When General Forrest was given his command and had to raise troops and equip them, the first thing they would do is go around requesting donations from local families. If anyone had a spare weapon, would they be willing to donate it? Once that was accomplished, they would set up camp, and Forrest would take enough men armed with what weapons they could find and go ambush an enemy unit. Bring that enemy units' weapons and other supplies back to the camp and repeat the process over. They would do this repeatedly until everyone under his command was equipped with weapons, ammunition, and other gear.
@@KossoffFan That sounds more like what I remember reading or being told about in school. Thanks.
@@ShorterThanYouKnow No problem. I only recently learned it from reading a book on General Forrest.
Very nuanced explanation of how rapid development constraints play out in reality. Well done.
Thanks to Ian and Othias I already knew what Ian was going to say, mostly. In previous years I'd read an article saying old stick-in-the-mud Union generals prolonged the war by not adopting this or that breech-loading rifle and think "damn, how could they be so blind." Now I know about how hard breech loaders would be to produce quickly enough, and with good quality. And let's not forget how difficult and expensive brass cartridges were to produce, and how hard it was to keep up quality control on them.
See this is what makes this channel great. I *knew* the answer to this question right away, but I had a little faith and still listened - and Ian added so many more angles that turned a really boring straightforward answer into a really interesting one!
Spencer repeating rifles issued to Union troops toward the end of the war were breach loading weapons that used a metallic cartridge. I would call that an improvement over the Springfield 1861 muzzle loader that was the standard issue rifle for the Union. The Union also purchased around 90,000 Sharps rifles, another breach loading metallic cartridge rifle, but it saw more limited use.
What a great answer!
I really love when Ian goes into more gun-adjacent subjects such as military history. It's always very interesting!
The Hall rifle, modified:
Same basic action, .58 but the breech does not just go up and down but also a little bit back and forth. Because there's a brass liner in the breech that extends a bit. And the barrel has a matching cut.
Great gas seal, standard ammo.
Adopting the newest rifle technology < Making shure the toilets continue flush.
You might laugh at this at first, but this is really paramount to maintaining a functioning military.
The virgin flush toilet vs the chad hole in the ground.
@@theguy9208 Ah, a lover of dysentery I see.
Ian covers the salient points well, but there are some details worth considering. A smoothbore musket cost $14 to make. A rifle-musket cost $18. And a repeater cost $50. If you assume that cost was proportional to machining time, the Federal Ordnance Department had a choice between arming two men with Henry rifles, or five with M1861 rifle-muskets. And they were in much better position to supply ammunition for the latter.
The story of foreign arms in the Great Unpleasantness is a story in itself. The Confederates had the production of the Birmingham small arms industry under contract, having got there first. The Federals? They went scraping. Bought a lot of Lorentz rifle-muskets from Austria...then fed them undersized bullets with predictable impact on accuracy. (I've got a friend working on a book on the subject - already suggested he talk to Headstamp Publishing)
A very revolutionary weapons development during the American Civil War was in metallic cartridges for breech-loading firearms. Such as with the British .577 Snider-Enfield breech-loading rifle designed in 1860 which the British Army adopted in 1866 as a conversion system for their Pattern 1853 Enfield muzzle-loading rifles.
- Forgotten Weapons: British Breechloaders and Trials Rifles th-cam.com/video/NSyxpvIZXxY/w-d-xo.html
- Britishmuzzleloaders: The Mk III Snider-Enfield: Introduction th-cam.com/video/DJ-f11hM4Sk/w-d-xo.html
Lack of weapons while ramping up production for war is something the modern U.S. military wants to avoid. It's part of the reason our military spending is so ridiculous even in peacetime.
For example, M1 Abrams tanks. The Army has said they don't need any more of them, so there are just huge lots of unused tanks sitting around because the factories keep making them at Congress's behest.
While people usually attribute this to "pork-barrel" politics, there's actually a very good reason not to stop making Abrams tanks: if they do, all the people who make them will go work elsewhere. Then, if the military needs more tanks for some reason, those people will probably not come back, and even if they do, they may have forgotten much of what they know.
This would be a major problem. It's always a problem when experienced workers leave and a factory needs to ramp up production, but for the Abrams it's an even bigger one because there is a very small number of people who know how to make the Abrams's armor. It's top secret information. Sure, it's written down somewhere, but there is a big gap between having a recipe and being able to produce it correctly. That can be overcome eventually, but "eventually" isn't soon enough when you need tanks NOW.
And that's assuming they can find the recipe in the first place. We don't know how to make the Saturn V rocket anymore because the plans were lost or destroyed. As a result, NASA had to design the Artemis 1 superheavy rocket from scratch instead of being able to base it on the Saturn V, which set the project back by anywhere from two to ten years depending on who you ask.
I didn't know that about the Saturn V. That is interesting and disturbing at the same time. As a kid I was in a NASA "fan club" and got newsletters and photos/posters of that stuff in the mail regularly. This was the late 60s and early 70s. Sad the way it is now. 😢🤔🤓🍻
It should be also stated that the industrial capacity to retool for the new technologies developed during the war was very limited. People tend think manufacturing in the 1800's was the same as it was in 20th Century, it was not. The revolutions in mass production and even the assembly line (as we know it) did really exist until 1900. So in those days the more advanced and complicated a technology like single shoot breech loading rifles that used just paper cartridges required ridiculous amounts of man power to create using the manufacturing technology of the time. In the 1860's a Henry lever action multi-shot rifle using self contained metallic cartridges might as well had been a F-35 of today in terms of complex and time to build. They could do it, but it would take a long time and be very expensive. The Union needed men on front lines and need weapons that were cheap and simple enough to produced quickly enough for the 100,000's of Union soldiers to be equipped in time to fight war. Not have to wait 5 years to spool up production to making few thousands guns.
So I actually own a Model 1855 Springfield and I want to clear up a few misconceptions people who have never handled them have. The first is that it is designed to use either the Maynard tape primers or the standard musket cap, not just the tape primers. This was a good idea on the Army's part because they were concerned about running out of the new tape primers but had a stockpile of the older musket cap. Luckily, once they realized the newly developed tape primers were crap they didn't have to modify the rifle because it was already set up to use the cap (also a plus because I can actually still shoot it now 150+ years later). The second is that although the toy cap gun paper rolls are conceptually the same as the Maynard, the original Maynard wasn't as crappy because instead of paper they were typically made of foil and were obviously a lot more powerful with the fulminate of mercury. You cannot run a modern toy cap roll through it because they are considerably wider.
Overall very informative. There’s a lot of angles to war and what decisions to make
I read a historical book where US calvalry using single shot Spencer's against Native Americans using Henry repeaters.
Sometime other times it was unarmed native Americans
A good amount of the time the native warriors were better equipped than the federal troops
Spencers were seven shot repeaters. You might be thinking of Trapdoor Springfields, which were breechloading single shots, but firing a much heavier cartridge than the Henry or Winchester.
Great video Ian thanks. This obviously includes even modern conflicts. Hence the T90 tank production over the Armata.
I loved the episode on the Whitworth Rifle....Amazing accuracy, but issue really was cost.
By late 1862 early 1863 the majority of Confederate armies around Vicksburg had been outfitted with .577 Enfield and Tower muskets. Grant's Army of the Tennessee still had a mix of long arms and calibers, .69 smoothbores, .577 British rifles, .54 Austrian rifles, and the .58 US rifles. The supply issues this caused were nightmarish, in at least one case a US unit was resupplied during an assault with ammunition they could not use in their rifles. After the siege of Vicksburg when the Confederate army turned in their arms Grant gave orders that any US unit equipped with an obsolete long arm was to exchange them for the new Confederate surrendered weapons. At a stroke he simplified his logistics issues to just .58 and .577 ammunition (which in a pinch can be used interchangeably). Born out of that is the legend that the Confederate army was poorly armed and equipped since if you look at just the ordnance returns of captured small arms at Vicksburg they're a hodgepodge of weapons and calibers. There may be some truth to that but he weapons turned in by the US units are included in that mix.
The weapon you have now is always better than the one that you get in three months
if they promise it in three months. you arn´t going to see it. before six month. then you have to solve the problems with it and the soldiers have to learn how to use it. so it might start to come in to service in a year. If you are lucky
At least one more advanced rifle was used in significant numbers in the Civil War. About 56,000 Spencer carbines and rifles were produced under military contract before the war ended.
The Spencer was a 7-shot repeating lever action rifle chambered in the .56-50 rimfire cartridge. It launched a 350 grain bullet at ~1200 fps, making it nearly the ballistic equal of the rifled muskets in general issue at the time. They were first issued in 1863 to the Navy. The carbine was by far the most numerous model. It was very popular with cavalry units.
The Ordinance Department didn't want the Spencer as they feared troops would fire so much ammo so fast that logistics wouldn't be able to keep up. But President Lincoln himself stepped in and ordered contracts be issued to procure as many as could be manufactured.
Good question, even better answer. Thanks Ian.
The Gent who does the Paper Cartridge channel points out the the modern rifled muskets that had the ability to hit a man sized target at beyond 300 yards were not able to be utilized to their capacity to to the lack of training in range estimation. The rainbow curve of the standard Minie Ball made range estimation critical beyond 200-250 yards. So smoothbore Muskets firing “Buck and ball” were arguably as viable an arm at the 150 yard ranges most Civil War battles were fought.
As well as the development of technology, tactical use of this technology was also a big factor in effectiveness. The American (US and CS forces) had, as a result of government doctrine of the time, adopted a French approach, which was to use the rifled musket as a more accurate version of the old smoothe bore. This was to place an emphasis on the bayonet as the decider after one or two volleys. Britain and Prussia had adopted "fire tactics" which maximised the potential of the new weapon, the ability to be effective at a distance and training the of troops to be capable of bringing that effectiveness to the field. The British army set up a school of musketry, training trainers to take the skills (calculating distance etc) back to their regiments, so producing a skilled rifleman capable of engaging an enemy effectively at many hundreds of metres. The US army did not have an equivalent until the turn of the century.
During the Crimean war it is recorded that British riflemen could render artillery ineffective at ranges in excess of 800m with controlled fire, think of what effect such shooting could have had in the American Civil War. The potential would have been to drive US gunners from their cannon, probably giving a different outcome to such actions as Picket's charge.
The French at that time leaned heavily toward the bayonet as THE weapon, not, as they sadly found in 1914, a good choice.
The rapid adoption of new technology of the Civil War that I'm aware of was in naval technology. The Iroclads were a huge evolutionary leap, both inside and out. Hampton Roads was a wake up call for a lot of the world. Bigger and bigger cannons, lower and lower decks that barely sat above the waterline, rotating turrets, etc.
Some notes to older weapons. In US civil war not only smoothbore and flintlock weapons had been used, also thousands of pikes had been produced.
Pikes were produced but not issued.
@@ianfinrir8724 : As a German Person, i assume, the pikes with different Tips, had been either produced as Last ditch weapons, or to arm the slaves, as a source of manpower. . An other possibility would be the Lack of muskets in early days. So equipping may be 3000 men with a mix of pikes and rifles was (only) in early stages of war no ,rxtraordinar,
Ything
@@brittakriep2938 As I understand it, the Confederate Army had a plan to create units of pikemen in the early days of the war, but they were able to procure enough rifles and so the pikes were left in storage. However, during the American Revolution, pikes were issued and used by the Continental (American) Army for a brief period.
@@CountArtha : In german language countries, last use of pikes was at end of napoleonic wars. To eqip all volunteer units of prussian Landwehr, there had been at start enough muskets, so that some units had a mix of few muskets, much pikes and some axes. For war success reason, the pikes had been replaced with captured french muskets more and more. Also because nearly no troops had remainded in Württemberg, so the King ordered to build four ,rural regiments' basicly Landsturm for Police and guard duties. The regiments had only half size and the men elderly.Their main weapon was a pike, 2m shaft and 15cm blade. Also in 1848/49 Revolution attempt, many units of Citizens Militia/ Bürgerwehr had been armed with warskytes. As far as i know , in last Swiss war, Sonderbundkrieg' 1847, some few soldiers of poorer cantons had only warskytes.
Extremey interesting. I'd read rief references to smoothbore muskets being used, but this is the first time I have heard about it in ny detail. Many thanks.
Generally - there were two ways to put more lead down range on an advancing targets. Increase the range and start firing first, or fire more rapidly. In a time where rail transport is still fairly new, and most stuff is moving via cart - increasing the supply of ammunition to match rapid firing becomes difficult.
Even into fairly modern warfare the allotment per soldier was limited. A WWII paratrooper expected to be out of contact would only have a bit less than 200 rounds for their Garand. The early issue for an AK-47 was a chest rig with four mags, and two stripper clips for reloading - 180 bullets total. (and maybe some boxes for post-combat refill) Around the time of the Civil war, just having 30-60 shots was a large number of bullets.
30 to 60 shots of black powder cartridges....imagine if you actually lived through a battle to fire that many shots. The muskets rifles would be so fouled it'd be close to a smoothbore and you'd probably start having a hard time loading the thing. Cleaning it would not be much fun either.
@@DevinAlden At least with revolvers, you would expect to be cleaning after twelve to eighteen shots. No-one really talks about the fouling on early lever guns, but that is another good reason why stuff didn't advance.
Hi Ian, something I have long pondered something that is slightly off- topic but in line with your discussion. Why no smart raccoon invented the "tank" during the civil war? Steam driven tractors, breech loading cannon & Gattling guns! A terrifying beast can be imagined- Tyler
A month late, but the reason is likely that there really wasnt a need for tanks tactically yet. The reason they were created in WWI was to serve as mobile pillboxes and break the stalemate that the trench warfair had devolved into. The ACW was a mobile war with fluid fronts, so the need simply wasnt there.
With that first question you really read my mind
Henry Bessemer. The mass production of steel didn’t start until just before the civil war. Steel made wrought iron obsolete.
My friend’s father found a flintlock rifle in a crack in a rock at Devil’s Den in Gettysburg circa 1938. So Southern forces did arrive with them, but tossed them when nice new Union weapons were abandoned. They still have it!
Excellent explanation of the question...happy new year
My G G Grandfather was equipped with surplus (non-functional) surplus smooth bore Belgian muskets with the barrels stuffed full of grease. 84th Pennsylvania- deployed straight to the front and barely able to actually defend themselves January 1862
I like how ian is referring more to a general topic , that is still very relevant for todays war over seas but manages to never make it about anything going on today and just stays concise
Ian is VERY good at that. When he does occasionally mention modern politics he somehow makes it completely non-confrontational. I myself can't do that, kudos. 🤔🤓🍻
Yes, elite special forces are often allowed to choose the very latest kit and the infantry not, but this isn't because special forces soldiers are believed by the government to be better judges (the SAS freely chose an AR variant which needs to be wrapped in cloth to stop it burning the shooter's supporting hand) but because letting them have their way is how the minister of defence finds out, (very quickly because the specials often see combat in "peace" time) what definitely does not work before too much money is wasted and even more importantly, without the infantry having to rely on it in a situation where national survival is actually at stake. And when UK special forces succeeded in buying 7,000-odd Balister-Molina pistols, which were much better than than a lot of stuff that UK special forces actually used, they stayed in storage for nearly two decades until sold off to hobby shooters (in happier times than now.)
The other issue is that sometimes technology is evolving so fast that the "new" stuff is about to be outdated anyway: The UK chose but never quite produced, in very quick succession; a slimmer .45" cartridge for the Martini-action (possibly because they were using the .45" Gardner in machine-guns and the more clunky .577-450" in rifles and the latter was never going to feed well from a magazine) and then a .400" version of the slimmer cartridge which would have been much better all round _than what they already had_ . Then, just as they were about to tool up for this, they noticed a new Swiss development which led to the .303" cartridge which was used for nearly seventy years and in four major wars. Being slow off the mark saved the British Army from facing Boer 7mm Mausers with .45" or .400" Martini-variants and the British economy from having to fund the complete replacement of all of its rifles between the disaster that the Boer War would have become and the beginning of WW1. And it also led to the British Army fighting the Second World War with a rifle that was "good enough" for the Korean War: there really was no way that UK could have afforded to re-arm between 1945 and 1950, so that was actually another disaster averted. What money there was got spent on developing the atom bomb and building enough Meteors and Vampires to defend UK airspace in the jet age.
And though the British Army was slow off the mark with almost everything until they saw the forerunner to the .303", at that point they moved faster than they had ever moved before.
The 303 cartridge was close to being replaced by the British at the start of Ww1.
Just to clarify in case anyone misunderstood, the French Chassepot was marginally superior to the German Dreyse and did not contribute to the French defeat, that being due more to French leadership and better German artillery.
Leave it to Ian to teach me new things from a simple question. I'd love a long form video on this subject, even though it would have to be abbreviated still.
I remember learning the 69th infantry “Fighting Irish” used smooth bore because they didn’t trust the new weapons and liked being able to fire grape shot or buck and ball (I can’t remember which)
The biggest war contemporaneous to the American Civil War was the Taiping Rebellion in China. It dwarfed absolutely every other war in the entire 19th century (including the Napoleonic Wars) in both numbers of combatants and numbers of casualties. The typical weapons used were bronze cannons, matchlock muskets and pikes, because those were the weapons readily available to the combatants. Armies often obtained weapons from caches that were over 200 years old and sent them to the front, because they were still tactically useful.
European and American forces who became involved in the war (and those directly equipped by them) often fought with state-of-the-art weapons like revolvers, Sharps rifles and breech-loading artillery, but they had little direct effect on the outcome of the war because their numbers were so small compared to the huge numbers of Chinese soldiers on both sides, and because of international reluctance to strongly commit to backing either faction.
I read once, can't remember where that it took the Prussians a long time to completely adopt the Dreyse needle rifle due to slow manufacturing of said weapon and refusal to subcontract out because it was a 'state secret' or some legal matter regarding patents. This, and the rapid expansion and reorganisation of the Prussian army from 1850 onwards saw the old smoothbore muskets remain in service for much longer than any other European army and it was only by the Danish war was reequipment finally completed. If this is true I wonder if it had a hand in Prussia holding back her expansion until then as her prime opponents (Austria and France mostly) all had a complete rifle muskets and Prussia's hi-tech/low tech would have been hard put to compete.
I hadn't realised that the Maynard tape primer system was actually used on a standard issue firearm. I had always thought of it as just a novelty, probably because of owning several cap guns as a kid.
I still think that switching to a 58 caliber breech loading rifle for the Infantry that use the same paper cartridges would have been a good idea even knowing that it was a dead end technology.
Two other factors.
The logistics people didn't want a fast firing weaponry since they felt the cost in ammunition would balloon and ammo would be wasted ( suppressive fire).
It was faster and cheaper to modify older guns. An example is modification of muzzle loaders to trap door breech loaders which was continued for years after the civil war ended
Ammunition stocks are a very important argument against replacing rifles in the army. For small special forces, it's a small problem, but change thousands of tons of ammunition in hundreds of magazines! Maybe changing the rifle doesn't always mean changing the ammo, but it often is and it's a problem on a large scale. Another typical argument against the introduction of a small number of new small arms - such a slogan in the military "all have bad equipment, but the same" (in my original language it is said in obscene words). There is also a psychological reason for this. You don't want to divide soldiers into those with old weapons and those with new, more expensive ones.
Hooray for mentioning Assistant Armorer Burton who simplified the two piece Minie Ball with cup into a simple swedgeable monolithic lead ,hollow based projectile .My European friends insist on using the french'' Minie'' complete with correct pronunciation . ''Burton ball'' is so much easier to pronounce ;>).Interestingly Burton left the Federal Armory and worked for the Confederacy .His bullet was quite lethal as far as inventions go , however Maxim's machine gun would soon surpass the death toll of the Burton ball.
I have Model 1816 Maynard Tape Primed Rifled and sited in 1857 by Remington. It's one of only 10,500 converted it's in my never gonna effing sell it category.
@6:46 aka "the bankrupt while making guns during a war" episode lol
Maynard primers were susceptible to moisture, while percussion caps were all weather. Therefore, Maynard tape primers didn't catch on like brass caps.
One thing people do not often think about is the logistics of a new gun with greater rate of fire.
If you give people a gun that can fire 500 rounds per day but you can only get them 100 rounds per day then they have not really gained much or even worse you can not manufacture the 500 rounds per day because its some fancy new kind of amo that people do not know much about making ( and rim fire metallic cartridge was jut that in the 1860s) .
There is also the issue of firing a lot of black powder cartridges en mass in a short period of time - there is going to be a lot of smoke and that will make it impossible to aim your weapon ( we are not talking about 2 or 3 guys letting go 10 rounds in a minute but 200-300 in a space of maybe 100 yards hear and I have series questions about how long you could even see the target in that situation )
Finally its important to remember that the new guns were firing much less powerful loads then the Springfield was and so had a lot less range and sometimes range matters
The North-South Skirmish Association will put 500 competitors on the line for the musket team matches - and I can assure you that under the right conditions, seeing even 50 yards can be a challenge.
This kind of thing became even more common in the mass-mobilization wars of early-20th-century Europe. eg the Soviets had a lot of tank designs better than the T-34, and even upgrades to substantially improve it, but they could not afford retooling and working out the bugs when they needed some tank in large numbers.
Eventually they upgraded to the 34-85, but even that made a lot of compromises to minimize retooling needs.
As an amateur (and neutral) American Civil War historian, I thank you for recognizing the southern armed forces as equally American.
I'd like to add that there's also a moral aspect to weapons technology amongst the soldiers of that war. The men doing the fighting saw the opposition as countrymen whereas the brass (moreso the northern flavor according to extensive research) saw it as a war of numbers. If the men of either side had access to semiautomatic arms, they'd seem to throttle themselves in combat to allow for a fair fight. This mindset is taken from a shitload of research and accounts from unpublished soldiers' memoirs (grief me if you will).
Given my direct Missourian research and knowledge as one who had ancestors fight for both sides, I'd say that bleeding-edge weapons tech would've had no affect in that conflict. Adamantly, it was a war of politicians and the socially popular causes of which are horribly false IMO.
Just saying if the combatants were dead-set on killing each other outright, the north would've quadrupled Gatling production and the south wouldve allied with their friends south of the border and amongst the nations in an all-out guerilla war.
Another point to remember is that new weapons tend to have problems. A few years later, the British lost the Battle of Islandwarha against the Zulu spearmen. One contributing factor was the problems with the Henry-Martini rifle the British Army used. It kicked like a mule and tended to jam. So, it takes a while to develop a "finished " weapon.
A major problem in the Civil War thru to WW2 was Patent Rights in government war production. Many like S&W would hold tight patents like the bored thru cylinder from other producers. This is one reason US Armories designed and manufactured or sub contracted equipment.
After Gettysburg the US Army studied a number of the weapons discarded on the battlefield. A considerable number had been rendered useless by repeatedly loading and failing to discharge the weapon. This confirmed the expectations of experienced officers who realized the relatively modestly trained soldiers of the day tended to get flustered under fire and probably couldn’t be relied upon to care care for and effectively use a far more complicated weapon. The logistical train of the Army was already strained trying to provide ammunition for the relatively simple weapons in use at the time. The idea of placing a weapon that would allow a soldier under stress to blaze through every round he could carry ( and black powder ammo was heavy) in very short order seemed sure to tax the logistical system beyond its capacity. Lacking any form of modern field communication, it took time to position soldiers where you wanted them. If steady controlled fire was hard to achieve with slower weapons, the idea of having whole regiments blast away all the ammunition you could reasonably give them seemed a recipe for disaster. The muzzle loading weapons of the time were robust, easy to maintain, and an established body of doctrine was in place to dictate their deployment and use in combat. Considering the consequences of failure, a conservative approach was deemed the safest option.
The “paper company” hazard may point to another issue: Factories to make new systems take time to build, themselves, and that’s under the best of circumstances. With manpower being pulled away to the military, factories may take even LONGER to build. That may do a good bit to tip the scales in favor of sticking with an older technology that’s still “good enough” in order to leave resources free to help handle the NEEDS of the country.
Very good analysis of the logistics of war.
Thank you , Ian .
🐺
Material concerns never disappear. The Confederacy collected plantation and even church bells by the thousands for the precious brass to make cannons and small arms frames. Warehouses full of bells were found in New Orleans when it was captured. After the Battle of Atlanta, the federal occupiers traded food with the populace for baskets full of collected lead bullets because the line of communication (supply) back to Chattanooga/Nashville was long, narrow and tenuous.
I find it refreshing that someone is actually asking questions that to me, at 76yo, have obvious answers. That says a lot about "modern" education (or lack thereof).
In the beginning, a typical southern Cavalryman was a good ol' boy with a bare-back horse, a double-barreled shotgun loading from pouch & powder horn, barefoot.
I think you were the first youtube channel i ever subscribed to, and i dont regret it. I wonder if there is any way i can check if im right about that.
US purchasing agents scoured Europe for both rifled muskets and anything large bore with a percussion lock. This was partly to supply US troops and partly to deny them to the Confederates. They bought hundreds of thousands of surplus arms.
A friend of mine has his great-great grandfather’s CW musket. It is a so called Potsdam musket made in 1818 and converted to percussion in 1842. Smoothbore, 69 caliber. It was issued to the Michigan volunteers.
I’ve read that some soldiers actually preferred the hard hitting, faster loading buck and ball loads for close in fighting.
Intel vs R&D may have been influential... Awesome to hear a historical evaluation on sound military decisions!
Our Guard unit aircrews were still issued 38 revolvers in Gwar 1