AHC: Formation warfare lasts longer

Have something cause a failure of the American Revolution (which essentially first let Guerillas loose upon a formation army) and cause Britain to fail economically before the 1820s.

Just a simple billions of lives never created...
 
You'd have to have a POD that shuts down technological development before the invention of bolt action rifles and machine guns. Shuts it down cold. The American Revolution has nothing to do with it, nor 'guerilla warfare'. It's simple mathmatics.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Have something cause a failure of the American Revolution (which essentially first let Guerillas loose upon a formation army) and cause Britain to fail economically before the 1820s.

Just a simple billions of lives never created...

The American revolution was won by naval and linear warfare - the role of the guerillas is vastly overestimated vs the role of the continental army and the french expeditionary corps.
 
Even if the American war of independence fails, it won't be so long before some other rebels realise this strategy works.
In order to have Musket-warfare today, you must shut down the whole milliatry thechnology advancment, includes air warfare. A good bombing can crush the best soldiers in a formation. Pretty hard to get such PODs, not talking about a single one....
 
1) rule out rifled guns
smooth bore guns are less effective an you need a lot of them to make their fire effective

2) make some cavalry-based country more succesful (othman, austrian, maybe south russian).
with more cavalry to confront, infantry must remain in their squares.

3) make nationalis less effective. less motivated amies must rely on compact units not to rout
 
1) rule out rifled guns
smooth bore guns are less effective an you need a lot of them to make their fire effective

2) make some cavalry-based country more succesful (othman, austrian, maybe south russian).
with more cavalry to confront, infantry must remain in their squares.

3) make nationalis less effective. less motivated amies must rely on compact units not to rout

Nice one, except air support that you haven't mentioned. Any single POD to make all this?

Edit: Ho... I thought the thread is to have formations today. Nice one anyway.
Edit 2: Mounted, royal coosaks decisively defeated (or however I spell it) Napoleon in the very early 1800's. POD is a stronger Russian cavalry institution. Must be a wonderful TL.
 
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Didn't all the Big Powers try this sort of style of warfare at the very start of the Great War? Either way, it wouldn't last beyond the introduction of machine guns.
 
In the ACW both sides used rifles and formation warfare. The only way to contue this style of warfare is to prevent the discovery of smokeless powder in the 1880s. It is what really made machineguns practical weapons.
 
the tread asked for formations of massed musket, really don't see that happen, too much development.

However the continued use of mass formation could only only be attainable in 2 ways.

1. like others already said no machineguns.
or
2. No major conflicts that show the concept has become flawed.

and p-m no need to not have have smokeless powder invented, just make them not find a nitrocellulose stabilizer, without a stabilizer it simply is too hazardous to use.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
1) rule out rifled guns
smooth bore guns are less effective an you need a lot of them to make their fire effective

Supposing someone doesn't get the idea that rifling guns will make them more accurate?

The problem is that stopping such developments after the Renaissance is ASB. Somebody, somewhere, is going to think of it. To really stop it, you'd have to perpetuate the intellectual deep freeze of the Middle Ages, stop the invention of the printing press, and so forth.
 
I've not got my copy of From Waterloo to Balaklava with me, but certainly by the 1840s the British army had indicated that all soldiers would in future be expected to act both as line infantry and skirmishers. I can't remember when exactly the Prussians introduced their schwarm tactics, but it's clear that even before the introduction of smokeless powder and machine guns, massed formations are on the way out except for extremely inexperienced or unreliable troops (Austrians in 1866, Union and Confederacy in the Civil War, etc.)
 
I've not got my copy of From Waterloo to Balaklava with me, but certainly by the 1840s the British army had indicated that all soldiers would in future be expected to act both as line infantry and skirmishers. I can't remember when exactly the Prussians introduced their schwarm tactics, but it's clear that even before the introduction of smokeless powder and machine guns, massed formations are on the way out except for extremely inexperienced or unreliable troops (Austrians in 1866, Union and Confederacy in the Civil War, etc.)

Could a Pre-Napoleonic POD help?
 
Could a Pre-Napoleonic POD help?
Sorry, I've caused some confusion by being too lazy to quote. I was responding to the idea that it was smokeless powder and the machine gun which killed off formation warfare. In practice it's dying some time before that. It's not even the introduction of the Minie ball and the improvement of accuracy from a few hundred yards to half a mile and beyond that does it, because the British are urging light infantry practice on their troops while they've still got the P1839 percussion musket.

In the hope of redeeming myself, I'll suggest some (concerningly Anglocentric) events which could have contributed to the continuation of formation warfare longer than it did historically.
  • A less successful French use of skirmishers in the early Revolutionary Wars.
  • Have the British light infantry camp at Shorncliffe never set up.
  • Wellington's insistence that the relatively junior general Craufurd kept in post at the head of the Light Division is ignored.
  • The policy of making British colonies organise their own defence is enacted earlier, denying a lot of irregular warfare experience to the British army.
  • Keep the Prussians from developing schwarm tactics- I suspect a different result at Jena is required for this, but don't know enough about the Prussian army to suggest exactly how it would work.
  • Discredit the percussion cap (e.g. when they come to be tested against the flintlock, a batch of faulty caps which misfire are used).
 
Perhaps approach the problem from the opposite side? What if defensive technologies against rifle fire (e.g. the sort of armor US troops wear presently) were refined and perfected earlier? This would put more of a premium on shock and melee, which favors formations. Perhaps skirmishers and snipers would be used against artillery.
 
Perhaps approach the problem from the opposite side? What if defensive technologies against rifle fire (e.g. the sort of armor US troops wear presently) were refined and perfected earlier? This would put more of a premium on shock and melee, which favors formations. Perhaps skirmishers and snipers would be used against artillery.

I was going for something like this in my TL. Because of severe population reductions, due to my POD, the use of small professional armies will remain the norm in European warfare. I wanted to explore this further, with the development of tech to deal with this, such as faster development of armors; except I really don't know how feasible this is. Any one else have some ideas for this?
 
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