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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Important study of Civil War combat realities, September 4, 2008
This review is from: The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
The flyleaf of Earl J. Hess's "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth" promises "a completely new assessment of the rifle musket, contending that its impact was much more limited than previously supposed" and at the start of the book's Introduction Hess states that "the prevailing view of this weapon has been that it revolutionized warfare because of its increased range." Well, back in the 1980s in his "Battle Tactics of the Civil War" British military historian Paddy Griffith stated that "it is difficult to find any evidence at all to support the suggestion that Civil War musketry was delivered at ranges much longer than those of Napoleonic times" and furthermore concludes that "Civil War musketry did not ... possess the power to kill large numbers of men, even in very dense formations, at long range." For the past twenty years, this understanding has, among those of us who study and think about such things, been pretty much the orthodox view, not heresy. See, for example, Brent Nosworthy's "The Bloody Crucible of Courage" and Joseph Bilby's "Civil War Firearms" and "Small Arms at Gettysburg" for quite clear statements about the matter. (To be fair, Hess in his new book cites Griffith, Nosworthy, and Bilby for their work in this area.)
But, if Hess's "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat" might not be as groundbreaking as the flyleaf description and author's introduction indicate, the book nonetheless provides a solid, detailed underpinning for this relatively new understanding of the practical use and limitations of the prevalent American Civil War infantry weapon; and the book may spread that notion to a wider spectrum of Civil War readers than heretofore has been the case. Hess has performed a valuable service in digging through mountains of primary source material to quantify the impact of rifle muskets on Civil War combat, yielding numerous statistics in support of his conclusions that firefights occurred mostly at ranges far under the theoretical capacity of the weapons and that Civil War battles were no more bloody or indecisive than earlier battles when smoothbore muskets were the rule.
Perhaps of particular value is Hess's assessment of the impact of rifle muskets upon skirmishing, sharpshooting, and sniping (Hess takes pains to differentiate between the terms, noting that they are often incorrectly used interchangeably). He concludes that the widespread use of the weapons permitted large numbers of soldiers to act in the skirmishing role, not concentrating that duty upon a couple of picked companies from each regiment or in elite units such as described in Fred L. Ray's "Shock Troops of the Confederacy: The Sharpshooter Battalions of the Army of Northern Virginia." Hess states that "Lee's sharpshooter battalions were unique and impressive examples of Civil War specialist units. But there is no convincing evidence that they consistently dominated the skirmish line or regularly outshot their opponents during the Overland or Petersburg campaigns ... In the long run, it might have been the wiser course for the Federals to insist that all their regiments be able to skirmish rather than rest that important duty on a small cadre of elite troops."
I might have wished that Hess, perhaps in an appendix, gave a little more technical information about the performance and trajectory of rifle muskets, although in his basic text he does provide a clear description of limitations imposed by the high arching flight of the bullets. And I could wish for a specific comparison between rifle muskets and smoothbores at close range (say, less than a hundred yards), the smoothbores firing both the traditional single round balls or the more effective "buck-and-ball" ammunition, although it may well be that there is insufficient primary source material available to do a meaningful study (based upon records of test firings and modern experiments, I think that rifle muskets and smoothbores with buck-and-ball were at least roughly equivalent at such ranges, and decidedly more effective than smoothbores firing single round balls alone; this may in part explain what firefights during the American Civil War tended to be at somewhat longer range than those during Napoleonic times. even though at distances far less than the theoretical capabilities of rifle muskets.)
Any small quibbles or unfulfilled wishes aside, I find Hess's "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat" to be an important contribution to better understanding the realities of Civil War battles, and to place those battles in their proper context in the general history of warfare.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A book about firearms by a firearms neophyte, November 14, 2009
This review is from: The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
Hess's book is an interesting compendium of anecdotes about Civil War soldiers' relationships to their weapons. It is based on a diligent survey of original and second source literature. It is, however, based on little understanding of actual firearms. Hess also seems to lack an understanding of real world military technique, except as described by others. This is a common failing in book historians.
His justifiably reviled statement about parabolic trajectory is a result of this lack of understanding. The only reason the parabolic trajectory is not a problem with a smoothbore, is that you can't hit anything at range, so you never shoot at long range. Parabolic trajectory and dead zones is a problem with modern ammunition as well. If Hess had researched modern literature, he would have understood this. Hess correctly recognizes that the problem requires training to fix; training that was generally absent during the Civil War.
Hess states that the muzzle velocity of the .58 rifle musket was inferior to that of the older smoothbores. Others, who have actually fired the weapons over a chronograph, indicate otherwise. Hess relishes complaints of the .58's mighty kick without wondering how a weapon that throws a heavier ball at the same velocity would kick less. Maybe our revolutionary forbears were made of stouter stuff than the Civil War weenies. Or more likely, Soldiers have been complaining about recoil until the M16 came along. The venerable British Martini of a later period was described by Tommy Atkins as "The rifle that kills at both ends."
"The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat" would have been a far better book, had Hess taken the time to pick up a good replica 1795 or Brown Bess Musket and a replica 1858 Rifle Musket, taken them to the range, and pounded his shoulder to pulp. Fire them over a chronograph. Learn the drill of loading and firing. Do the shooting. Do the boring statistics. It is inexcusable to write a review of an obtainable weapon without actually having used it.
Hess reviews the butcher bills of Civil War, Revolutionary, and Napoleonic battles, and compares the casualty rates. But without an analysis, even a superficial analysis, of what caused these casualties, the raw numbers mean little. Livy reported that 45,500 foot soldiers were killed at Canae. Does that imply that the sword and spear were superior to the machineguns and artillery of The Somme?
What could have been a great book, a standard reference in the field, is merely a good book. It's a shame.
Beware of writing books about firearms. The firearms world is filled with people who will argue with you.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Voodoo Ballistics, January 26, 2009
This review is from: The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
This is a reasonably interesting book except for one error. Unfortunately this error is one of the major points made by the author. He notes that "bullets fired from the new musket followed a parabolic trajectory unlike those fired from smoothbores" I wish he had let us all in on what kind of miraculous trajectory is followed by the ball fired from a smoothbore musket. ALL ballistic projectiles follow a parabolic trajectory. The ultimate range and the steepness of the trajectory at various ranges is dependent on the initial velocity of the projectile and its shape, not on whether it was fired from a rifled barrel or a smoothbore.
If the smoothbore had such a superior trajectory, why would the army want to switch to a more expensive, less capable weapon?
I think the authors point that the average soldier's lack of training in estimating ranges and making the sight adjustments necessary to hit at those ranges was well taken. This one fact would negate a lot of the rifles theoretical advantages, and probably explains why the ratio of hits to shots fired was so low.
Another important factor in explaining why the rifle musket failed to live up to its potential is simply the stress of combat inevitably degrades both the weapon and the soldiers theoretically possible level of performance. Its one thing to be able to hit a target at 500 yards on a target range, it's something else entirely when the target is shooting back.
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