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The US Civil War and Military Innovation

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J.A.W. View Drop Down
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  Quote J.A.W. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The US Civil War and Military Innovation
    Posted: 16-Apr-2015 at 05:56
Earlier mention of 'Cold Harbor' with the dreadful mine blast  'Crater' debacle,
( & graphically shown in the movie) was something that was re-tried in WW1,
although a similar scheme was also presented inthe movie  'Captain Alatriste',
set in the 17th century.. 

Interestingly, neither ACW movies  'Cold Harbour' nor 'Glory' accurately represent the harshly
'gun fodder' nature of the Union Army usage of  'coloured troops' Afro-American soldiery units..
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  Quote J.A.W. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2015 at 02:03
Odd that the Europeans 1/2 a century later - had to re-learn most of the costly lessons
so hard-learned in the ACW, but at least the 'rules' of campaign conduct had been written..
..& which were still largely part of the 'Gitmo' style..
..'Military Commission' type of 'justice' utilized by Cheney/Rumsfeld neocons.. 
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  Quote BergoXX Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Mar-2015 at 17:52
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Dec-2012 at 11:19
The crew of US observation balloons had a cap badge bearing the letters BC (Balloon corps). However, this was quickly discarded to avoid mockery from other soldiers
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-ballooning/ballooning-during-the-seven.html
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Oct-2008 at 15:34
Originally posted by gcle2003

I'm not sure why you mentioned Warrior, which wasn't turretted, and wasn't the first ironclad, that being La Gloire a year or so earlier.


I think probably because Warrior was not really just a steel-clad ship like La Gloire, but the first steel hulled warship and thus an extremely important first in the evolutionary line of modern warships. 

Edited by edgewaters - 25-Oct-2008 at 16:00
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2008 at 17:04
^
You are welcome.
 
As a side note....
The sports teams of the University of Kansas are called Jay Hawks, after the pro union militias with brutal reputations.  Meanwhile the word to Bushwack (brutal pro confederate militias) means in American English to killy by ambush, treachery, or deception. 
 
No sports team would be called The BushWackers, but the name Jayhawks is ok. I guess it just shows that there are different standards for victors in any warWink


Edited by Cryptic - 08-Aug-2008 at 17:15
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  Quote Cezar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2008 at 08:07
Originally posted by Cryptic

Originally posted by Cezar

While for civilians being directly targeted, most use Sherman's incursion as an example. 
Sherman systematically targetted civilian infrastructure.  Civilian casualties during Sherman's march, however, were very few.
I stand corrected. That's what I meant. Thank you.
 
The only part of the ACW where civilians were specificlly targetted on a large scale was the dirty war in Kansas / Missouri. In these states, most of the fighting both before and during the war was carried out be irregular units (Union "Jayhawker" militias, Confederate "Bushwacker" groups) using terror tactics. To the Confederacy's credit, most irregular Bushwackers or Ranger groups were never officially part of the Confederate army. The Union Army not only directly sponsored "Jay Hawker" militias, but converted several vicious militia groups into offical Union regiments.
 
In other areas civlians were specifically targetted, but on a far smaller scale. These areas include:
Appalachian Areas of Tennesse, North Carolina (Pro union locals targetted by Confederate militias
West Virginia (Pro Confederate Partisan Rangers / Pro Union militias terrorize opposing civilians)
I know almost nothing about these. Sorry.
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2008 at 03:27
Originally posted by Cezar

While for civilians being directly targeted, most use Sherman's incursion as an example. 
Sherman systematically targetted civilian infrastructure.  Civilian casualties during Sherman's march, however, were very few.
 
The only part of the ACW where civilians were specificlly targetted on a large scale was the dirty war in Kansas / Missouri. In these states, most of the fighting both before and during the war was carried out be irregular units (Union "Jayhawker" militias, Confederate "Bushwacker" groups) using terror tactics. To the Confederacy's credit, most irregular Bushwackers or Ranger groups were never officially part of the Confederate army. The Union Army not only directly sponsored "Jay Hawker" militias, but converted several vicious militia groups into offical Union regiments.
 
In other areas civlians were specifically targetted, but on a far smaller scale. These areas include:
Appalachian Areas of Tennesse, North Carolina (Pro union locals targetted by Confederate militias
West Virginia (Pro Confederate Partisan Rangers / Pro Union militias terrorize opposing civilians)


Edited by Cryptic - 08-Aug-2008 at 03:41
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  Quote Cezar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2008 at 12:32
Originally posted by Temujin

yeah thats exactly where i wanted to get to. so all conflicts ever that involved tribal forces are Total Wars according to definition because in tribal societies each able man is a warrior and tribal forces like Huns deliberately also kill civilians, or for example natives killing settlers in their lands. therefore we can exclude the ACW as first Total War unless we restrict the definition to "civilized" industrial societies.
Point taken, indeed the conflicts at the beginning of the human society are total wars, according to the definition so it is probably restricted to conflicts starting from the late midlle age, I don't know exactly. Some of our leaders adopted  the scorched earth tactic when fighting the ottomans, and that also comes close to the definition.
I'm not an expert on ACW so my statement was only based on what I've read in several articles regarding this conflict. And large populations were indeed mobilized (not the whole p[opulation which is slightly different). While for civilians being directly targeted, most use Sherman's incursion as an example. I reapeat, I don't have extensive knowledge of the ACW.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Feb-2008 at 19:35

I agree with Temujin, but don't agree that the ACW involved the mobilisation of entire populations. I also don't think the inclusion of civilians as targets was either widespread or indiscriminate.

Even WW2, at least for the British and Americans, wasn't total by the 'entire population' criterion, but it was closer to total than the ACW.

 

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  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Feb-2008 at 17:36
yeah thats exactly where i wanted to get to. so all conflicts ever that involved tribal forces are Total Wars according to definition because in tribal societies each able man is a warrior and tribal forces like Huns deliberately also kill civilians, or for example natives killing settlers in their lands. therefore we can exclude the ACW as first Total War unless we restrict the definition to "civilized" industrial societies.
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  Quote Cezar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Feb-2008 at 14:34
Try wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war
Total war is distinguished by its unprecedented intensity and extent. Theaters of operations span the globe; the scale of battle is practically limitless. Total war is fought heedless of the restraints of morality, custom, or international law, for the combatants are inspired by hatreds born of modern ideologies. Total war requires the mobilization not only of armed forces but also of whole populations. The most crucial determinant of total war is the widespread, indiscriminate, and deliberate inclusion of civilians as legitimate military targets
 
I think the underlined phrases apply to American Civil War.
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  Quote drgonzaga Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Feb-2008 at 12:26
Originally posted by Temujin

whats the definition of total war?
 
Depends if you wish to follow Clausewitz and Absolute War or Ludendorff's premise of war as the subordination of politics to military exigency. In either event, you would still have to consider the ramifications raised by 16th century Just War Theory wherein any and all actions for a satisfactory conclusion, if the cause is correct (despite their questionable morality), are justified. Some wish to apply the definition soley with respect to the resutls of industrialization upon the technological capacities for the conduct of war so as to restrict definition within the parameters of the 19th and 20th centuries; while others seek to emphazise the historical spectrum and underscore that even under the Ludendorff premise, total wars have an ancient lineage. Guess much of the controversy stems from one's perception of war as either formalized ritual conducted under accepted mutual conventions and rules of engagement or as the full mobilization of one society for the purpose of "eliminating" another.
 
Some might state there is scant difference between the total destruction of Baghdad in the 13th century (1258) and the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945) as a means to terminate conflict, and the recourse to technological finery nothing more than a sophistry.
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  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Feb-2008 at 19:01
whats the definition of total war?
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  Quote Cezar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Feb-2008 at 13:27
I agree that Monitor is not an original design or idea. The point is that a warship proves to be good or bad only when it fights. Battlecruisers looked good, Jutland, showed their prowess. Therefore Monitor is not as important as MonitorvsMerrimack. It was the ship plus the battle that were important.
Anyway, I think that the Civil War was important as a whole, since many agree that it was the first total war.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jan-2008 at 19:10
 
Originally posted by drgonzaga

Gcle wrote:

But I'm disputing the particular importance of the gun turret, at sea or anywhere else, as opposed to hull composition, hull length (Warrior was 100ft longer - nearly 50% - than any previous warship), breech-loading heavy guns, abandonment of cold-boring for guns, propulsion by propellor, and for that matter steam itself. The turret started with Monitor, agreed. Every other aspect of Monitor led nowhere, except for limited application in rivers and inshore.

In that respect the same can be said of the battlewagons that were the ultimate result of iron-hulled technology. They too were technological dead-ends with the advent of new offensive technologies.
The same can be said of anything, including probably as I've been arguing elsewhere, aircraft carriers.
 
That isn't what 'dead-end' means. 'Dead-end' means there were no subsequent developments from that particular innovation. And, as far as sea-going vessels are concerned, Monitor had no such descendants, whereas Warrior for instance did. So did Dreadnought. (That's not a criticism of Monitor, which was never intended to be used in the open sea.)
 
One could I suppose consider something like Affondatore as a dead-end since though she was turretted, she was purpose-built as a ram, and rams were never used in battle apart from Lissa (as far as I know), But at least sea-going rams continued to be built for the next half-century or so, so it was not an immediate dead-end, whatever the ultimate result.
 
The truth of the matter is that in the mid to late 19th century the field of naval development was wide open and all sorts of innovations were taking place, with every navy looking over the shoulders of every other one, and Britain in particular playing the part of shipbuilder to the world. Singling out one aspect in particular as particularly important is as pointless as trying to determine what was of most importance in the development of the tank: the turret, the gun, the tracks, the armour, the internal combustion engine, possibly something I've forgotten, when they are all inseparable and all necessary to the development.
 
Nothing about Monitor was unique or essential to the development of sea-going warships.
 
 
 The battleship as a direct descendant of the ship-of-the-line is obsolete as an offensive weapon (no matter the fiasco off the Lebanese coast in the 80's). World War II settled that question.
Are you suggesting that's news to anyone?
Only crafts conditionally designed (as was the Monitor) prevail.
 
Truism. Or wrong. Depending on what it means.
 
It's a truism in that all craft are designed for the conditions in which they are intended to operate: otherwise they fail.
 
It's wrong if it means that there are craft that are not conditionally designed.
 
And in this context the plural of 'craft' is 'craft'.
 
 
 
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jan-2008 at 18:51
The question was whether the fleet was more important to Russia than the US fleet to the US. The defeat by Japan is pretty much evidence that the fleet was strategically important to Russia, since it pretty much cost them the war.
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  Quote rider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jan-2008 at 17:31
Actually, the Russian fleet during the 1904 War with Japan wasn't ready. IT might have been strong in numbers but it lacked the strategic plans to operate successfully on both sides of the planet.
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  Quote drgonzaga Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jan-2008 at 13:22

Gcle wrote:

But I'm disputing the particular importance of the gun turret, at sea or anywhere else, as opposed to hull composition, hull length (Warrior was 100ft longer - nearly 50% - than any previous warship), breech-loading heavy guns, abandonment of cold-boring for guns, propulsion by propellor, and for that matter steam itself. The turret started with Monitor, agreed. Every other aspect of Monitor led nowhere, except for limited application in rivers and inshore.

In that respect the same can be said of the battlewagons that were the ultimate result of iron-hulled technology. They too were technological dead-ends with the advent of new offensive technologies. The battleship as a direct descendant of the ship-of-the-line is obsolete as an offensive weapon (no matter the fiasco off the Lebanese coast in the 80's). World War II settled that question. Only craft conditionally designed (as was the Monitor) prevail.
 
Edited in the never ending gotchas between gcle and myself.


Edited by drgonzaga - 29-Jan-2008 at 21:26
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jan-2008 at 11:17
 
Originally posted by Cezar

The particular importance of an innovatio/invention is relative, gcle.
So is pretty well anything. Relative to the development of modern warships in general,  Monitor is not a significant innovation. As a design she was much too specialised, and moreover the design didn't introduce any new theoretical principles. Within that speciality she was of course a significant precursor of other craft. Outside it, Merrimac was more in the main evolutionary stream, though, if course not particularly innovative.
 
That evolutionary stream goes back to the 1840s with Guadeloupe and HMS Birkenhead (aka Vulcan) marking the introduction of iron hulls and steam, though again, being paddle-wheel driven, they were even more of a dead end.
Funny, sea faring vessels are much more important for USA than for Russia, for example. So monitors were a far more useful ship for the russian than for the americans,
I don't see how you can say that. The Russian fleet throughout most of modern history (say, 18th-20th century) was more powerful than the American.
 
In terms of the strategic importance of the sea to them, I'd say they come out about even. Of course more wars have been fought on Russian territory than on US territory, but in those wars in the US shallow water boats have been of important strategic value, whether on the Mississippi or Lake Erie.
 . Maybe gunboats could be considered an offspring, though distant, of Monitor. 

River gunboats, yes.



Edited by gcle2003 - 29-Jan-2008 at 11:18
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