this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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[–] Nobody@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not really. The American Revolution was still fought with the same Napoleonic tactics used by the regular army. The irregulars might have adopted more guerrilla methods in the frontier, but they weren’t widely adopted.

Reinforcements from the French army and navy won the war. The French Revolution followed shortly after.

And IIRC those Napoleonic tactics were still used in the American civil war and beyond. The “big Napoleonic blocks” led to trench warfare in WW1.

[–] Lyre@lemmy.ca 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I agree, also important to note that the "big square" actually served a purpose in preventing cavalry from picking off separated infantry and detering cavalry charges. From my understanding the formation was genuinely effective until horses stopped being a factor in war.

I mean maybe "honour" played a role in why they did things but i think we're sometimes too quick to assume people in the past were idiots.

[–] Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I mean, ancient people could make proper megalithic buildings and we can barely make prefabricated houses that resist a few tremors...so yeah, they were intelligent as well, except they had different tools