For example, Lee decides to attack the center of the U.S. Army with all its army in Gettysburg.
Saphroneth
Banned
That wouldn't be surprising because nitre beds have a long setup time. They'd go from having a shortage early in the war to a glut late on.
If they started nitre beds in 1858 or so, they'd be nicely mature for when the war broke out. Actually, the CSA buying up the DuPont purchase as well would be a nice touch - that way the Union's actually in a bit of a powder famine in 1862-3!
Or, to be more precise, they do a proper assault - one with the proper European quality, an advance at a walk to extreme small arms range which becomes an all-out charge.
I'm talking the kind of charge which the Zulu do - sprinting over the last couple of hundred yards, absorbing maybe one volley, and breaking the position right there and then.
It's doable (and was done) in Europe.
The Sandman
Banned
In July heat, over two miles of open fields, where there are still multiple lines of unbroken fences that need to be climbed over, with the enemy artillery on a ridge overlooking the entirety of the march, and with your own artillery completely failing to do effective counter-battery fire?
I'm sorry, I just don't see it.
Saphroneth
Banned
It's quite possible - I mean, they got to within a hundred yards OTL and then bogged down, and the bogging-down was where most of the casualties took place (and what I'm suggesting would be possible to avoid with a sprint).
Consider battles like Solferino, where the French charged at a run through the deadly zone of the rifles (the last five hundred yards), or the Alma where the British charged up 130+ metres of hill. Indeed, consider the Zulu attacks at Isandlwana, which were made against extremely deadly rifle fire (about a hundred times as effective per man as Union rifles) and which carried the position at a charge.
The Zulu had a rather significant numerical advantage at Isandlwana, something the Confederates don't enjoy. Not only don't they have that, but the Union had reserves to throw in.
Besides, looking at this strategically, a Confederate victory at Gettysburg means even more hubris from Lee, and probable destruction of his army at Pipe Creek later. It's the wrong POD.
Saphroneth
Banned
Well, my point was that the Zulu managed to charge home against withering rifle fire - ten shots a minute per man, ~10% hit rate - while the CSA failed to do so against two shots a minute and 0.25% hit rate. The relative lethality of the rifle fire is at least sixty times greater at Isandlwana, so the Zulu charge would have been as successful against something like (750 * 60 = 45,000) Union soldiers as it was against the British regulars.
Most of the casualties were within a hundred yards or so at Gettysburg - they're not the result of long range cannon fire but the result of canister and rifles ripping into a stalled opponent for 20 minutes or so. No stall, much less in the way of casualties.
It's true this is probably the wrong PoD, but I was mostly pointing out that a bayonet charge was possible (not necessarily with the existing troops, but with troops with realistic capabilities) which could swing any battle you choose to pick.
ED: therefore, importing the French tactical system in full (1859 version) would be a possible PoD.
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Anaxagoras
Banned
Well, for one thing, the Battle of Gettysburg is NOT an event with as much AH potential as many other events in the American Civil War. For another, this thread is about what economic changes in the prewar South might have enabled it to fight the war at a lesser disadvantage vis-a-vis the North.
It'd be a grim dystopia - I think the mental cost of writing a really fleshed out dystopia prevent us from seeing a lot of good CSA timelines. The sort of South that does that sort of slave industrialization, and starts its irregular warfare effort during the period of regular warfare might win - but it makes a timeline less friendly to those looking for Albion's Handmaiden or a Gone With The Wind-style of timeline, and that's a ton of the 'market' right there.
Or Custoza in 1866, when the Austrians charged up and down hills covered in terraced vineyards for ten hours in late June. Good article on French and Austrian tactics in 1859 here, incidentally, for those who haven't seen it.
EDIT:
Solferino: 24 June 1859. Average June temperatures: 28 Celsius high, 17 Celsius low.
Custoza: 24 June 1866. Average June temperatures: 25 Celsius high, 15 Celsius low.
Gettysburg: 1-3 July 1863. Average July temperatures: 30 Celsius high, 17 Celsius low.
And those are averages for the whole months: Gettysburg was barely a July battle, and Solferino and Custoza barely June. Gettysburg in June is 28 Celsius high, 14 Celsius low; Solferino in July is 30 Celsius high, 19 Celsius low; Custoza in July 28 Celsius high, 17 Celsius low. Basically, no climatic difference between the areas.
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StephenColbert27
Banned
The reality is that there are no circumstances in which Pickett's Charge could succeed. There are multiple factors preventing this. First of all, the Federal Artillery devastated their advance. Very few got close enough to actually engage the line. Second, the flanks were greatly exposed, and this was taken advantage of on both the left and the right of the attack, with Stannard's Vermonters on the right, and Pennsylvanians on the left. The only way to deal with these guys was to halt the attack and turn, thus exposing the flank to close-range artillery and rifle fire. Third, even if the attack produces a more successful break-through, what forces are there to exploit it? The only forces on stand-by were two small brigades of Anderson's division, barely over a thousand men. Longstreet wasn't lying when he supposedly said he couldn't take the ridge with any 15,000 men on this earth. The Federals, on the other hand, have an entire corps (and their largest at that), the VI, which hadn't seen any fighting so far. The attack was doomed before it was ever made. As others have said, the POD must be way, way earlier.
Saphroneth
Banned
True that the PoD must be earlier, but to my mind that's as much about troop quality as about the tactical situation. If some ASB replaced the CS troops with troops of the same quality as some European armies of the same time (British, French, possibly Prussian) at the moment of stepping-off then the charge would have been quite capable of succeeding. Of course the British would have sniped out enemy artillery at ~600 yards or so...
As for the climate, the average high for July is 30 degrees C - warm, certainly, but not a huge amount warmer than Solferino (average high for June 25 degrees) and essentially the same as Isandlwana (which has hot days of 34 degrees).
Something I'll admit I'm wondering is this - what are the casualty breakdowns at Gettysburg? Specifically, how many casualties were due to artillery on the approach, and how many due to artillery or rifle fire at the culminating point? (versus retreat, of course.)
As for the climate, the average high for July is 30 degrees C - warm, certainly, but not a huge amount warmer than Solferino (average high for June 25 degrees) and essentially the same as Isandlwana (which has hot days of 34 degrees).
Something I'll admit I'm wondering is this - what are the casualty breakdowns at Gettysburg? Specifically, how many casualties were due to artillery on the approach, and how many due to artillery or rifle fire at the culminating point? (versus retreat, of course.)
Saphroneth
Banned
Okay, new suggestion - someone in the South manages to get hold of the secret for Marshall and Mills iron in the mid 1850s, and sets up a manufacturing centre which actually can compete with British iron for quality. This could at a stroke result in a North dependent on Southern iron for weapons manufacture (hence improving things in 1861 for the CSA), and a strong source for the South of high quality barrel metal.
Suggestion adapted from
http://67thtigers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/guest-post-rifles-trade-and-blockade_21.html?view=classic
Suggestion adapted from
http://67thtigers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/guest-post-rifles-trade-and-blockade_21.html?view=classic
The Sandman
Banned
You may want to avoid anything involving Tigger. He's one of those cases of a stopped clock who can't manage to be right even once per day.
Saphroneth
Banned
This isn't even him, it's Robcraufurd guest posting (an article RobC's been working on for over a year, actually), and the post is very well cited. I recommend reading it.
Mind you, in conversation with 67th I've found he does often source from places which are useful to have - like, say, the armament and layout of the east coast forts of the Union in the early Civil War, or how the British Armstrong heavy guns could go several feet into masonry walls (like those aforementioned east coast forts).
Really?The mods don't like chit chat about long banned (4 years now IIRC) members, though I can understand that when people are discussing the history of the American Civil War its hard to do so AND avoiding mentioning the forum's long standing most extreme historical negationist (1). The less said about his opinions regarding the 19th century vis-a-vis the USA and the British Empirethe better. Save for that he seemed to agree very much with Lee's assertions about just showing the flag would get the enemy to run away. Provided, of course, that it was the "right flag".
1) 67th Tigers
The same thing happened on spacebattles.com, where 67th Tigers got himself banned, and his Meat Puppet took up his cause and got himself banned as well. The Meat Puppet's username? Tigger!
2) Negationism =/= Revisionism, as some people may believe.
Revisionism can be helpful, as some revisionist evaluations of U.S. Grant have moved his rating as a US President from near the bottom to the middle-of-the-pack. The last of the Neo-Confederate Lost Causers' influence on the history of Reconstruction having finally had their stranglehold on that subject being broken had something to do with that. For all his weaknesses as a POTUS, Grant did more as president to advance the cause of civil rights for African-Americans until the coming of LBJ!
Negationism, OTOH, is the taking of a set of prejudices and cherry-picking data to suit the needs of bigotry. Espousing the belief that George B. McClellan as a better general than history's judgement of him is revisionism. Espousing the George B. McClellan was a genius in all things military but still second-rate to any British flag officer (never mind that US Grant being a military moron and Abraham Lincoln being both profoundly evil and incompetent) is just the sort of thing that drew such contempt of 67. That his contempt for not only AH.com's membership but every last ACW historian (hacks!) who didn't share his prejudices [using the same set of "real historians" again and again, some of whom did not say what he said they said
3) Meat Puppet = Someone who agrees to post in your name, if not in exactly your words. As opposed to Sock Puppetry.
Start off by flat out saying the "Mods" don't like people talking about previously Banned members. Then proceed to make a lengthy post about more than one Banned member. This is called feeding the trolls. Worse you posted it in the "open" part of the Board where anyone can read the response.
You know better then this. Do NOT repeat.
But back discussing the idea, I think it's of a piece with Jared's idea about Birmingham as iron center. Plausible, but the economics of the thing is perhaps not as simple as all that. Why some new iron process is being done in the equivalent of the bonnies, and not in the established centers of iron and steel production in the US, needs to addressed. I think that this would have to be in tandem with the slave industrialization done above, because the one conceivable competitive advantage the South has over the industrial North in this time period is a working population cannot say no and can be worked even closer to death. I also think ten years is an awful quick time to have such a complete re-working of industrial capacity of United States.
Saphroneth
Banned
Well, the reason I think it could be done relatively quick is that it was done really quick in OTL in the US (at least to some quality level) and Tregedar was already arguably the best iron rolling mill in the US pre-Civil War (it could produce 2" thick plate for 1862, it took until 1864 for Union ironclads to do the same).
Quality - certainly. Quantity though, quantity is the vital determinant. (And part of me wanted to get the thread back onto the question and off of, ah, "sociological" concerns.)