More powerful military in the 1860s: CSA vs. Great Britain
- Thread starter Hongfan91
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Britain could conquer the CSA 50 times over and they still wouldn't expend 1/10th of their military power. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but c'mon.
Anaxagoras
Banned
Oh, I agree completely. I was simply trying to point out that one would have to stretch considerations far beyond the limits of the absurd to arrive at any conclusion in which the CSA matched Britain in military power.
You are comparing the World's superpower with a backwards, continually broke nation that doesn't have a navy to speak of? I think GB would probably have problems conquering the entire CSA considering the 3,000 mile supply lines but anything short of that....
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RamscoopRaider
Donor
I think the most one sided poll ever was before the OP's time, when one of the Mods edited a locked poll so one side had a few million votes
Although the Belgians did recently go over a year without a government because the French-speaking and Flemish-speaking parties refused to co-operate, so...
Even then I'm not sure that would be enough. Soldiers on both sides of the US Civil War were often pretty poorly trained.
So it did still maintained public order and not collapsed or even suddenly declined. A country being able to stand on in spite of inner political troubles is pretty much the opposite of a failed state to me.
OTOH they had real life experience which trumps training. It is one thing to practice, it is another to do it for real. However the CSA would have to win quickly as the Brits would soon have the experience and they would have the training on top of it.
Admiral Halsey
Banned
Oh yeah he's the guy who did that "What if the Luftwaffe used Zeppelins in World War II" thread.
In any war, the British navy could have destroyed the pitiful Confederate navy and blockaded the entire country until the CSA's economy collapsed.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
I think I might have been mistaken, the OP did make a much one sided poll, the Cheney vs. Obama one that I might be mistaken, but I could swear there was a more heavily mod edited poll somewhere
I remember reading somewhere that at the start of the war the American armies were basically mobs, but that by 63 or 64 they were more than a match for the European armies. I can't remember where, though.
Well, the Brits had fought, inter alia, the Crimean War, the Second Opium War and the Indian Mutiny in the ten years preceding 1863, so they'd have been quite experienced already.
May have been Harry Harrison:
"When the Civil War ended the combined armies of the North and the South contained hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers. Not only could this combined force have destroyed a British invasion, but they could have won in battle against the combined armies of Europe- not defeating them one by one but could very well have defeated them even if they had united all of their forces."
And experience isn't everything; delivering volleys at fifty paces won't teach you how to estimate range and set your sights correctly for a target at eight hundred yards, for instance, or change front on a flank company, or compensate for a lack of formal bayonet training. We also forget that these aren't units in a computer game, who automatically receive +1 to ranged fire after three battles, but real people who are forced to internalise extremely traumatic experiences- the deaths and mutilations of their friends, being forced to kill or be killed, knowing that it's only fickle fortune that keeps them alive from battle to battle. British troops in Normandy were undoubtedly more experienced than their American counterparts, but did that count for them- or against them?
At sea its no contest. Any engagement in the UK would be between a very powerful British force and the pitiful remnants of a CSA force that had been shot to pieces crossing the North Atlantic.
In theoretical April 1863 North America land battle it is a far less easy decision. Infantry weapons are very similar, identical in around 3/4 of the cases.
Artillery isn't a decider, although the Armstrong 12 pdr was a much more advanced technical weapon it was also noticeably more difficult to maintain in the field, and based on the limited amount I have read on the weapon, it was not a 100% issue to all formations. There is also the reality that the British Army tactically was not really capable of taking full advantage of the weapon (this is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that, after testing the British Army returned to MLR guns in 9 & 16 pdr in 1871). Regardless of type European guns tended to have better range than those used in North America (this might be a matter of European armies using heavier charges, although I have only seen that in one, less that 100% reliable, source).
Cavalry is an interesting comparison. European armies maintained Lancer units well into the late 1800s and used single shot carbines as their primarly firearm. CSA forces never deployed a lancer unit, and while carbines were also part of the weapon load out, CSA cavalry was also extremely enamored with revolvers, with many troopers carrying two or more. The variables would makes for a fascinating series of encounters (interestingly, the Federal forces mainly used cavalry as mounted infantry, in combat the preferred method was to dismount and fight on foot, with one trooper in four holding the reins for the other three members of each squads mounts, adding another entirely different wrinkle to events).
The overwhelming majority of the British Army were long service professionals, with exceptional discipline. The CSA, with the exception of a portion of the officer corps, was more or less militia; however, by 1863 it was a veteran forces that had demonstrated enormous cohesion even in the face of truly withering fire on more than one occasion.
An additional question is if the "British Army" would encompass the Indian Army as well, given the status of India at the time.
Still, I would submit that the answer is less cut and dried than it initially appears.
In theoretical April 1863 North America land battle it is a far less easy decision. Infantry weapons are very similar, identical in around 3/4 of the cases.
Artillery isn't a decider, although the Armstrong 12 pdr was a much more advanced technical weapon it was also noticeably more difficult to maintain in the field, and based on the limited amount I have read on the weapon, it was not a 100% issue to all formations. There is also the reality that the British Army tactically was not really capable of taking full advantage of the weapon (this is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that, after testing the British Army returned to MLR guns in 9 & 16 pdr in 1871). Regardless of type European guns tended to have better range than those used in North America (this might be a matter of European armies using heavier charges, although I have only seen that in one, less that 100% reliable, source).
Cavalry is an interesting comparison. European armies maintained Lancer units well into the late 1800s and used single shot carbines as their primarly firearm. CSA forces never deployed a lancer unit, and while carbines were also part of the weapon load out, CSA cavalry was also extremely enamored with revolvers, with many troopers carrying two or more. The variables would makes for a fascinating series of encounters (interestingly, the Federal forces mainly used cavalry as mounted infantry, in combat the preferred method was to dismount and fight on foot, with one trooper in four holding the reins for the other three members of each squads mounts, adding another entirely different wrinkle to events).
The overwhelming majority of the British Army were long service professionals, with exceptional discipline. The CSA, with the exception of a portion of the officer corps, was more or less militia; however, by 1863 it was a veteran forces that had demonstrated enormous cohesion even in the face of truly withering fire on more than one occasion.
An additional question is if the "British Army" would encompass the Indian Army as well, given the status of India at the time.
Still, I would submit that the answer is less cut and dried than it initially appears.
Well why is the theoretical battle in America? Because the CSA couldn't possibly perform in another theatre, the British could.
You are presumably pitching the entire CSA army (which is the largest it could probably get as they were in a war for their existence) against a Britain in no such danger. If you allowed the full army of the empire against the CSA - there is no contest. (An unlikely scenario, but so is Britain bothering to land an army when it could just choke the CSA to death by blockading its ports.)
The only way the CSA wins is if the British are kept to an artificial set of circumstances which clearly favour the CSA.
But that is like me saying that the USA could be defeated by North Korea as they would be fighting a strictly ground war, with no nukes etc etc until you're left with the deck stacked favourably for the North Koreans.
Actually I'm not at all sure that the CSA would be victorious, only that it is much less of an automatic than seems to be believed.
There is no doubt that if the battle were on the Salisbury Plain the CSA would be hard pressed to get 2,000 troops into position, a force that would obviously be ridden down and obliterated. On the other hard, it is equally unlikely that the British could get more than 40,000 men into the field anywhere in the Confederacy, especially fully equipped and with proper transportation (total British forces available in the Crimea consisted of 4 ID, a "Light Division" and a cavalry Division, around 30,000 combat troops). A force this size would be hard pressed to handle the Army of Northern Virginia or the Army of Tennessee. This being the case all you are left with is the "theoretical battlefield".
There is a tendency to denigrate CSA and even Federal forces compared to their European counterparts. This has very little basis in fact, just as is the case when the Red Army is denigrated as being nothing but a battering ram when compared to the WAllies in 1944-45, or when Americans overstate the capabilities of the U.S. in the ETO compared to British Empire forces.
British troops faced mainly irregular and native forces throughout the Victorian Era, the Crimea being a noteworthy exception. This sort of combat is similar to that conducted by the U.S. Army post-Civil War against the Indian Nations, it is, however, a relatively poor indication of how it would perform in a multiple Corps level engagement.
It is also an open question, one that I believe was first brought up in my earlier post, if the Indian Army was meant to be considered in the OP.
A lot of what you say I don't dispute, certainly not the denigration of the CSA. The issue I have is that restricting one side to the most unfavourable terms possible, while allowing the other to have the best terms possible, hardly makes your case. The CSA fighting on home soil would have immeasurable advantages and removing the navy (Britains Senior Service) does not give a fair reflection of their respective abilities. Britain could win without landing troops. They could blockade and bombard the coast at will.
I think we are just looking at it differently. Yes in the event of a land battle in CSA territory Britain could easily lose, for all the reasons you state. I just don't see why they would ignore their clear naval superiority and allow their opponent the advantage. So while a CSA victory in the right circumstances is possible, it doesn't seem plausible for it to happen.
Similarly if you gave the Qing a 'fair' fight in the Second Opium War (around the same time) they may have been a lot more successful. (Though 10:1 in terms of troops already implies you'd need very favourable conditions anyway) The British didn't allow them the opportunity though. Blockades and port seizures to strangle the economy followed by small scale landings to harass the enemy to the table.
Of course the CSA was better equipped etc but the lack of naval power would doom them - Britain could destroy their economy (by the by largely based on exports to Britain anyway) without having to land a single soldier.
An Experienced Soldier is a scared soldier!
Regarding Harry Harrison's quote - this implies that the Europeans had not had any battles or wars during this time which is blatantly un-true
It was within living memory when Europe had amassed armies during the Napoleonic wars that numbered in their millions!
Apart from some very savage Colonial Wars.......
Crimea - Britain and France between them 650,000
In the Austro Prussian War of 1866 - Austria and Prussia each mobilised over half a million men.
The Franco Prussian War of 1870 - 1871 the combatants mobilised twice that
Basically what I am saying is had Europe mobilised* to the same extent that the USA/CSA had then they are going to exceed to 2 million odd Soldiers that the American Forces could muster by several orders of magnitude - with a core of experienced officers and men.
*And there would have to have been something amazing in it for them to do such a thing