Danish army supplied with Gatlings 1864

Would it make a difference if they have American Gatlings to defend the ancient Danewirke, the Fredericia battery and most important the Düppel battery ? Maybe some Civil War career officiers and Gatling lobbyists travel abroad and offer the Gatling to the Danish General staff ? (even though the Danish army hadn´t much reformed lately and still fought with outdated muzzle-loaders ). Could it give them an edge over the Prussians and their allies ?
 
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First off the Danes had their own muzzleloading organ gun the Espignol but they didn't have the tactical doctrine to use it direct infantry support and treated it like part of the artillery arm. They wouldn't be any wiser using Gatlings.
The Danes stuck with muzzleloaders as did the ACW armies because they were reliable and for fears of the soldiers blasting off the ammo inflicting too large costs on procurement of ammo.
However experiments with breechloaders had been carried out and rifled breechloading cannon considered but still rejected for the mentioned reasons.
Some muzzleloading cannon had been turned into rifles and the two 24-pounders present at Dybbøl did sterling service. However the tactical implications of rifled artillery hadn't been worked out.
I'm at a loss as to the tactical use of Gatlings by the US army of 1861-4 and do doubt said army employed them as heavy machineguns so do enlighten if possible.

Dannevirke was a rampart of close to zero tactical value in 1864 and the Danish general knew this; however the populace and politicians didn't and expected a heroic stand. In the depth of freezing winter the position could be and was expected to have its flanks turned and the Danish army trapped.
Something a decent commander won't let happen if possible. The Danish commander de Meza wasn't a fool and withdrew on the eve of Austrian assault upon Dannevirke.

If the necessary funds had been allocated to prepare the hights south of Dannevirke for battle and the Danish army equipped with breechloaders and modern artillery acquired and more armoured ships procured as well as fortifying Fredericia and Dybbøl things would have looked a lot better.
Then you would also have the Danish army NOT change organization prior to battle robbing battalions of half their officers in order to implement the square division and instead as we all know works the better stay with 2-5 battalion brigades tailoring units to needs.
And of course make army and navy able to communicate and cooperate.
And make politicians sane (which is of course in itself ASB) so they try finding a possible compromise with the German Confederation (close to ASB) or at least make preparations for war allocating if only those funds historically used during the war.
Or realize that the USA and Denmark had shared interests in not letting their enemies equip with armoured ships or a navy at all and cooperate in this endeavour and perhaps letting Danish army and navy officers observe or take part in the ACW to get some much needed experience of warfare and hopefully service cooperation.

If the Danish army had made a stand on the border of the Kingdom as the Prussian cavalry violated it that could perhaps have made for the war being confined to the Duchies.

Gatlings as such no edge given. Even if the Prussians were reluctant to mobilize too many troops out of fears of internal political consequenses and the Austrians were anyway reluctant to partake in Bismarcks scheme and only sent a corps of five brigades the two would have been able to defeat Denmark squarely by calling up reserves. Austria certainly so.
 
I think what Denmark needed was foreign intervention. The Royal Navy perhaps, or France. I suppose the former had little interest in this but how foolhardy for Napoleon III to allow Bismarck a free hand in Germany at this time. So I agree with arctic that weaponry was not going to salvage this for Denmark.
 
I think what Denmark needed was foreign intervention. The Royal Navy perhaps, or France. I suppose the former had little interest in this but how foolhardy for Napoleon III to allow Bismarck a free hand in Germany at this time. So I agree with arctic that weaponry was not going to salvage this for Denmark.

France is up to its neck in problems in Mexico at this time, so they're out. This is Bismark, so it's not like he hadn't considered all the angles before committing to war.
 
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