The Evolution of Warfare to 1914 - Nicholas Murray

Comments · 54

• JC

  @jcameronferguson · 2 years ago

  An important point about the changing nature of rifle fire: the three-part combination of smokeless powder, small-caliber rounds, and jacketed bullets created a much larger point blank range. In essence, point blank means the length between your bore and infinity where a man-sized target can be hit. This is why ladder and tangent sights became common on guns, you have to arc fire to predetermined ranges with old rifle tech. Previous generations of firearms used fat, relatively slow, cast lead bullets that had to be fired in an arc to hit anything farther away than about 200 yards due to drag and gravity causing dramatic bullet drop; there was a range between "whites of their eyes" and the end of a bullet arc where volley fire would simply sail over the heads of advancing soldiers. Accelerating the projectiles (with more potent propellant), making them more aerodynamic, meant that there wasn't really a "safe zone" between your lines and the enemy's anymore -- and it dramatically simplified marksmanship for the common soldier. Soft lead bullets mushroom and cause awful wounds (where jacketed bullets clip bone, they tend to simply shear it away), but jacketed rounds don't break up at high velocity. Metallic cartridge ammo made the volume of fire Dr. Murray cites possible. Package loading systems like en bloc and stripper clips sped up the rate of rifle fire. The screaming hot, flat trajectory of that fire made life above the trench line unsurvivable. Hence movement to fully below-the-ground shelter for soldiers. The generals were not stupid, but they were captives of their prior experience: experience of paper cartridges, range tables, an outdated manual of arms, solid-shot line-of-sight artillery, and the primacy of elán. Their soldiers were fighting on a totally different plane of reality by the time they realized their mistakes.

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• DO

  @Doc_Tar · 6 years ago

  Among the most thought providing lectures from a number of fascinating topics and knowledgeable presenters.

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• MI

  @michaeloc14 · 6 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cbq7iu8FrI&amp;t=1353">22:33</a> great bit on the complexities of a modern military industrial complex

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• CA

  @carsonhaught9934 · 8 years ago

  Great talk makes me want to read his book.

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• TO

  @tomkelley7174 · 7 years ago

  A modern rifle squad does, however, has very good communication and location equipment. The most decisive weapon I know of is tac coms, aka a radio.

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• WI

  @WildBillCox13 · 6 years ago

  A riveting lecture. &nbsp;Thanks for posting it, NWW1MaM!

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• RE

  @RemoteViewr1 · 9 years ago

  Beginners discuss tactics, experts talk logistics.

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• RH

  @rhysnichols8608 · 2 weeks ago

  Strict, disciplined, ordered and (usually large) formations were the bedrock of military tactics for millennia, countless examples of disciplined Roman formations beating less organised and chaotic ‘Barbarian’ armies, by ww1, this had finally become obsolete in most tactical situations, and it was understandably a very hard lesson to unlearn given ordered mass formations were a corner stone of battlefield success since Ancient Greece.

• JE

  @jezalb2710 · 4 years ago

  Interesting

• 0L

  @0ldb1ll · 3 years ago (edited)

  The majority of injuries came from air-burst artillery and shrapnel. That is why troops started wearing helmets. Bullets go straight through helmets so they are little protection against bullets. The smallest cross sectional area from above is given when a body is vertical. To achieve this a trench has to be deeper. It was the increase in artillery that influenced the change of shape of trenches.

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• DA

  @danesorensen1775 · 7 years ago

  My calculator says the right wing of the Schlieffen Plan needed 81 million rounds. Go tell your officers.

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• MI

  @mirrorblue100 · 5 years ago

  Great lecture - thanks. &nbsp;Quibble - studies have shown that the true effective range for infantry combat is around 100 meters - thats how we wound up with the AKs and the M-16 and its derivatives. &nbsp;These are bush guns that can spray a lot of rounds effectively at 100 meters. &nbsp;Just because your weapon can reach out to 300 meters doesn&apos;t mean you&apos;re going to hit anything.

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