Civil War with better weapons

I am just wondering how the CW would play out if the weapons of late 1890's to 1910 were invented earlier. I realize that the tactics would have to change and the body count would go up.

What I am thinking was what would change if a rifle similar to the Winchester 1885 lever action become available to both sides in limited numbers, as well as pistols of the same era (like the Mauser C96)
 

Remark

Banned
Well, there were lever actions available to the Union; see Henry and Spencer.

You could see the US adopt something like a Dreyse rifle, but German gunworks will be too far away and too busy and too under control of Prussia to sell the USA very many of those. At any rate, opposition to repeaters by US generals and officers will be high.
 
Well, ignoring the hand waviness of it, the South is SCREWED. They don't have the capacity to manufacture weapons or ammunition at anywhere nearly the rate needed for mass use of repeaters, and buying them would be really, really expensive. They will simply be using powder too quickly to replace it.
 
Well, ignoring the hand waviness of it, the South is SCREWED. They don't have the capacity to manufacture weapons or ammunition at anywhere nearly the rate needed for mass use of repeaters, and buying them would be really, really expensive. They will simply be using powder too quickly to replace it.

^^^THIS^^^
 
Don't forget the Gatling early models and other "machine guns" like the "coffee mill" were available to the Union, conservatism in the ordnance bureau prevented wide scale use.
 
Well, ignoring the hand waviness of it, the South is SCREWED. They don't have the capacity to manufacture weapons or ammunition at anywhere nearly the rate needed for mass use of repeaters, and buying them would be really, really expensive. They will simply be using powder too quickly to replace it.

I agree... although to a certain point. The North had OTL and will have 'here' as well the far better industrial base while the South had stockpiles of 'old money' they could spend in the first couple of months, before they ran out. So in the long run better weapons play in the advantage of the Union as they can manufacture them more quickly... in many cases they even are the only side that could manufacture them. The Confederacy could use its initial supply and use its riches to buy the hardware abroad. However both its caches of weapons and money are bound to run out eventually, especially if- as OTL- the North ends up with most of the navy and uses this to blockade the Southern ports.

However, in the first two to three months, the advantage will be with the South, even more then OTL, as the new weapons make it easier to overrun the lightly armed and generally unprepared defenders of the border states. In this scenario, we might well see the initial push of the Confederacy go all the way to the gates of Washington. However, once the North gets its war machine going, and especially once it succeeds in blockading the Southern ports, the South IS screwed as OTL.
 
Also, you're asking for smokeless powder weapons, which means MAJOR advances in chemistry (pure enough acids to make guncotton that doesn't explode when you don't want it to).

That would have huge effects on the rest of the world, dwarfing the shortened US civil war. (as others have pointed out, the CSA would in deep, deep trouble)
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Well, ignoring the hand waviness of it, the South is SCREWED. They don't have the capacity to manufacture weapons or ammunition at anywhere nearly the rate needed for mass use of repeaters, and buying them would be really, really expensive. They will simply be using powder too quickly to replace it.

True. Historically, the South performed logistical miracles in building a war industry up from scratch, thanks largely to the genius of Josiah Gorgas. But if would more difficult for this to happen if the technology required is significantly more advanced.

On the other hand, we can also assume that the South would see the virtues of defensive tactics earlier ITTL than they did IOTL. Historically, they did not fall back upon a purely defensive tactical approach until 1864, after rather too many Pickett's Charges and Malvern Hills. If we're assuming all other things being equal, the Southern preference for offensive tactics would still exist at the outbreak of hostilities, rather like that of the French in 1914. They would disabused of this far more quickly in this scenario, though they would also suffer much heavier loss of life.
 
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