Repeating Rifles Civil War
What do you consider to be the first modern war: The American Civil War or World War 1?
The Civil war was the first war to utilize aerial reconesene (with hot air balloons and primitve zepplins) the first war to have mass produced weaponry in factories, the first war with repeating rifles and machine guns (Technically the Gattling Gun wasn’t a machine gun but it was definetly a prototype) the first war with large scale use of hand grenades and other explosives and the American war with troops being shipped to and from the front lines on trains and instant communication with teleagraph and with ironclad steampships. The American Civil War also started the massive use of trenches which would reappear about 49 years later in WW1.
World War 1 was the first war to use tanks and widespread usage of poison gas and aerial bombardment with airplanes and to have hand grenades as a primary weapon.
If I had to choose between the two, I would pick World War I. Both sides in the Civil War used Napoleonic tactics from 1861 up to Appomattox. World War I would bring, not only the origins of modern weapons, but the origins of modern tactics and the way nations fought wars.
Now, infantry tactics in WWI hadn’t changed all that much at the beginning of WW1, but the Germans would develop small assault squads that proved devastatingly effective and are the origin for the modern use of infantry.
The appearance of tanks in the First World War is only an example of modern technology. Modern tank tactics would not appear until 1939 with the Wehrmacht’s invasion of Poland, but the appearance of the weapon in WW1 would set the stage for potential use of armored vehicles, and how infantry could stop them.
The use of aircraft is the one sector where combat emerged in its modern tactical form. Modern fighter pilots, despite having stealth aircraft and missiles are taught the rules of air to air combat as taught by the Dicta Boelcke, written by German Ace Oswald Boelcke.
But what made World War I the first modern war was the concept of “total war”, that noncombatants were just as much a target as soldiers on the battlefield. The Civil War saw some of this with Sherman’s march through Georgia, but the overall attitude of warfare in the Civil War and the wars that followed (the Franco-Prussian War and the Boer War) was that warfare was limited to the armies only. This was not the case in WWI. In it, civilians reutinely became targets. The German army committed countless atrocities against Belgian civilians in 1914, they sent Zepplins to bomb English cities, the sent a squadron of capital ships to bombard English costal villages, they unleashed their submarines on all merchant shipping in the Atlantic, with the most famous incident of this type being the sinking of the Lusitania, and in 1915, the Ottoman Turks committed the century’s first genocide against the Armenian people. And both sides used propoganda, aimed at drawing public opinion in favor of the war by either portraying one side as heroic or demonizing the other side. Civilains played an important role in WWI, and that is even more true when you consider what prompted the collapse of th German Empire (the Second Reich) was war wearyness on the part of the German people.
The Plainsman
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COLT REPEATING MODEL 1855 RIFLE Gun U.S. CIVIL WAR CARD Albert James Myer $3.99 |
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Antique Henry Repeating Rifle Gun Guide – Civil War Era $99.95 |
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HENRY REPEATING RIFLE LEVER ACTION CIVIL WAR 44 CAL $227.05 |
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LINCOLN’S CHOICE by Buckeridge ~ Civil War Spencer Repeating Rifle 1956 1st Ed $49.99 |
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HENRY REPEATING RIFLE LEVER ACTION CIVIL WAR 44 CAL $239.00 |
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SPENCER REPEATING FIREARMS RIFLE CARBINE CIVIL WAR SUPERB REFERENCE BOOK $69.99 |
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OLD WEST REPEATING RIFLE BRASS FINISH NON FIRING REPLICA GUN $164.99 This Replica of the rapid fire and revolutionary rifle was used in the Civil War and the American Frontier and has been featured in numerous Western Movies. The tubular magazine under the 24″ octagonal barrel held 15 x .44 caliber metal cartridges. It was said this rifle could “loaded on Sunday and fired all week.” It features a working lever action, metal butt plate, wood stock, and comes in eith… |
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History Channel Civil War: A Nation Divided $19.99 Includes 12 of America’s most legendary battles Product Information Immerse yourself in the intensity, carnage, andchaos of the war that divided a nation! Play as a Confederate or Union soldier in America’s most legendary battles including Gettysburg, Bull Run and Antietam. Use authentic firearms, fight in intense hand-to-hand combat, place explosives,sabotage enemy artillery… |
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The Historic Henry Rifle: Oliver Winchester’s Famous Civil War Repeater $29.95 It was perhaps the most important firearm of its era. Tested and proved in the fiery crucible of the Civil War, the Henry Rifle became the forerunner of the famous line of Winchester Repeating Rifles that “Won the West.” To the amazed muzzleloader-armed Confederates who had to face this deadly “sixteen shooter,” it was “that damned Yankee rifle that was loaded on Sunday and fired all week.” Here i… |
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A Revolution in Arms: A History of the First Repeating Rifles (Weapons in History) $23.55 Historians often call the American Civil War the first modern war, pointing to the use of observation balloons, the telegraph, trains, mines, ironclad ships, and other innovations. Although recent scholarship has challenged some of these “firsts,” the war did witness the introduction of the first repeating rifles. Prior to the Civil War, muzzle-loading arms, limited to at most three shots a minute… |
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Lincoln’s Choice: The Repeating Rifle Which Cut Short The Civil War $43.92 … |
