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The american civil war was a full 50 years before WWI.
by soperj 3y ago
The american civil war was a full 50 years before WWI.
- bjourne 3y agoYeah, but during the later stages of the American Civil war, machine guns mowed downs entire cavalry regiments. Many European officers didn't realize that made cavalry shocks useless and thus rapid advances would not be possible. Only infantry advances were possible and only under slower moving artillery cover. That made shock tactics mostly impossible until mechanized warfare became a thing in world war ii.
- soperj 3y agoThe germans used Calvary units in WW2 as part of of the blitzkrieg.
- ffgjgf1 3y agoFranco-Prussian happened after the civil war and had a much bigger influence.
- philwelch 3y agoI’m assuming you mean Gatling guns, since machine guns hadn’t been invented yet. Out of curiosity, do you have an example of an “entire cavalry regiment” being destroyed by Gatling guns in the Civil War?
- bjourne 3y agoYou are right and I misremembered. I think mowing down "entire cavalry regiments" is something I read about the Second Boer war where indeed British cavalry charged against Boers equipped with machine guns with disastrous results, whether "entire cavalry regiments" is an exaggeration or not. However, I would say that already by the time of the American civil war traditional cavalry tactics had been proven to be ineffective. American generals learned their lessons and changed their use of cavalry during the war. European generals did not and continued to emphasize the use of sabres and lances. Thus, the early stages of the First world war featured some cavalry charges which ended in blood baths for the charging side.