U.S joins Crimean War in late 1854/early 1855- how is it likely to go down?

[yboxman]

I found this, which seems to author the best quantitative summary of the issue of domestic manufacture capabilities Vs imports in the context of a "trent war":

"Section 2h: Summary

Summarising the above statistics clearly shows that the picture at the national level is consistent with the picture at the state level. In the event of a Trent war, these seven states alone would have fallen short of their arms requirements for 1862 by almost 165,000 weapons- 25,000 more than the total of all weapons produced domestically by both private firms and the Springfield armoury to June 1862.

State;Total weapons issued in 1862;Foreign weapons issued in 1862;Arsenal and militia weapons in January 1862;Net surplus/(deficit);As percent of weapons issued;
New York;152,540;77,143;14,370;(62,773);(41.2%);
Ohio;100,061;86,553;20,956;(65,597);(65.6%);
Massachusetts;25,131;13,324;6,956;(6,368);(25.3%);
Iowa;19,614;19,014;10,276;(8,738);(44.5%);
New Jersey;11,862;9,072;9,630;558;4.7%;
Maine;9,671;6,151;1,069;(5,082);(52.6%);
Wisconsin;20,148;16,375;1,273;(15,102);(75.0%)
Total;339,027;227,632;64,530;(163,102);(48.1%)

As the model used to calculate the deficit incorporates the emptying of the State arsenals, the only place from which this shortfall could be made good would be the Federal arsenals. Unfortunately, detailed records no longer exist from the point at which a Trent War would have broken out to show us what was in store. The earliest record that exists dates from 30 June 1862, almost a year after the last call for volunteers, seven months after the December 1861 instruction that no further regiments should be raised, and three months after the recruiting offices were closed down.[84] This interim period had allowed stores of weapons to build up once more: the annual return listed 335,896 weapons as being held.[85]

However, like the weapons in state arsenals, these were often the worst available to the Union. Commissioners complained that ‘tens of thousands of the refuse arms of Europe are at this moment in our arsenals, and thousands more still to arrive, not one of which will outlast a single campaign,’ while Ripley himself commented at the start of June 1862 that ‘the number now on hand of good rifled arms, both American and foreign, for issue to troops in service is about 94,000.’[86] If the Union were forced to increase its troop requirements following the outbreak of war with Britain, this precarious margin of safety would be swallowed up filling the deficit of the seven states listed above.

Conclusions:

Looking at armaments distributed at the state level confirms the picture at the federal level, of domestic smoothbores succeeded by foreign rifles.
The Union’s reserves of weapons were dwarfed by its purchases overseas, and weapons in store were often unsuitable for issue.
It is probable that, had the Union been severed from the European arms market, it would have struggled to maintain its historical troop deployment levels even with poor quality weapons.

[84] L Thomas, Adjutant General, General Order No. 105, 3 December 1861: War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 1 p. 418 [link]; L Thomas, Adjutant General, General Order No. 33, 3 April 1862: War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2 pp.2-3 [link]
[85] James W. Ripley to Hon. E.M. Stanton, 21 November 1862: War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2 p.858 [link]
[86] J Holt and Robert Dale Owen (commissioners) to Hon E.M. Stanton, 1 July 1862: War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2 p.191 [link]; James W. Ripley to Hon. E.M. Stanton, 7 June 1862: War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2 p.113 [link]"

Of course, this model is for a Trent war and does not quite fit the described scenario.

In this model the USA enjoys certain advantages:
1. The USA has the machinary of Harper's ferry intact, not just springfield.
2. The resource distribution and economic activity of the Union is not disrupted by seccesion.
3. A war Vs Britain would involve less active troop activity, and smaller numbers, leading to lesser wastage of weapons.
4. A British blockade would have to cover much more of the coastline and can not be assumed to be 100% effective
5. The president would be faced with less domestic problems in mobilizing the country for war against a foreign foe than to force states back into the union.

But on the other hand:
1. The absence of barrel rolling equipment would reduce domestic arms production.
2. The 1855 springfield rifle had not yet entered production and would have to be rush produced.
3. There would not be a year and a half to build-up forces and arms production (and import arms from Europe) as well as debug various other issues that popped up in the ACW OTL.
4. the Presidential election in November 1856 might throw the whole country into a tizzy.

All in all my guesstimate from this exercise is that the USA would be able, by mid 1856, to repel any overly critical naval raids on the Atlantic coasts (Though at the cost of a lopsided casualty rate) but would not be able to make any real advance into Canada before mid 1857 at the earliest. That probably means Fremont is elected president in November 1856 with a majority of the electoral college but not the popular vote and that opens up a whole new can of worms.

 

[Saphroneth]

Still, just because I can't THINK of another particular spark, doesn;t mean that such a spark does not exist- where there is kindling a spark will be sure to land.

But we're talking about something which (in interviews) the sepoys agreed was the main problem.

The pre war situation in this scenario is rather more definitive than the Pig War and is not really comparable to the tensions leading up to the civil war (where passing a budgest for importation of weapons to forcibly keep wavering states in the Union would have unleashed a firestorm).

You know that in the 1858 war scare there were fiery speeches, militia volunteering for service and ships deployed to patrol around the potential war zone? It's pretty similar to the buildup to an actual war.

The primary reason the Union did not import Prussian arms seems to have been that it COULD import British (and other) arms in much larger quantities, not that the Prussians were deliberately holding out.

The Union imported everything it could get hold of, including Tbis rifles (i.e. french flintlocks converted to percussion and then to rifles) and the dross of the armouries of Europe - and the Confederacy got everything else - and yet there doesn't seem to have been a single Dreyse imported. Why?

Yes, the absence of access to relatively inexpensive and high quality British Iron will (slightly) hurt productive figures, (somewhat) decrease arms quality and (significantly) drive up production costs.The absence of barrel rolling equipment is a more significant issue- But I think I took that into account in the lower projected figures.

I'm not sure you did, since:

It does not seem to be much of a stretch to assume that if the Harpers ferry armory is not destroyed, and economic disruption caused by secession and high intensity land warfare is avoided, production in the 20 months between March 1855-November 1856 should be in the 100,000-150,000 range. if anything I think those figures are conservative.

There was no major disruption due to "high intensity land warfare" in Connecticut (where Springfield is). What your argument here is, essentially, is that the production advantage of barrel rolling equipment was so minor that an armoury could expand its production in a very similar way without it.

As for why you're starting at March 1855 - I can't see your logic there. If the crisis starts in March 1855 (or any time before August, which is when the British actually committed to Calamita) then there's no Crimean invasion and the US has to deal with 30,000 British troops landing around Baltimore one month after the start of the war.
Game over.

I think we've established that the USA has sufficient muskets to arm a half million troops.

We haven't, not really. We've established they had half a million muskets, but poor quality muskets in the hands of untrained troops is going to lead to immense wastage - to put it in perspective the Union had (imported, produced and stockpiled pre-war) approximately 1.3 million firearms by 30 June 1862, but they had stocks of 300,000 and had an army of half a million. They'd broken hundreds of thousands of weapons.

1. The USA has the machinary of Harper's ferry intact, not just springfield.

This to a first approximation doubles US production.

2. The resource distribution and economic activity of the Union is not disrupted by seccesion.

This doesn't really have much effect - the main thing you get is Harpers Ferry.

3. A war Vs Britain would involve less active troop activity, and smaller numbers, leading to lesser wastage of weapons.

But the wastage of weapons documented was mostly in training. It amounts to a cost of perhaps two weapons to produce one soldier, instead of one-to-one.

4. A British blockade would have to cover much more of the coastline and can not be assumed to be 100% effective

Blockade the North and you've done a lot of the necessary work. Blockade New York, Boston, the Delaware, the Chesapeake, Charleston and New Orleans and that's already hugely disrupted the US economy - especially as most of the US merchant marine is sail (and thus very easy prey for a steamer).

5. The president would be faced with less domestic problems in mobilizing the country for war against a foreign foe than to force states back into the union.

I don't know about that - imagine if the south works it out and decides the annexation of Canada would permanently cripple the Southern ability to have their say in the US Senate and Congress? (and the election of a President).

1. The absence of barrel rolling equipment would reduce domestic arms production.

Yes - and we don't have any good figures for how much, but we do know that barrel rolling machinery was considered a huge benefit wherever it was introduced - among other things it meant far fewer barrels failed proof.

2. The 1855 springfield rifle had not yet entered production and would have to be rush produced.

This means the US is a musket army and the British is a well-trained rifle army - not full Hythe yet, but these are the men who could defend against several times their number of Russians at Inkerman.

3. There would not be a year and a half to build-up forces and arms production (and import arms from Europe) as well as debug various other issues that popped up in the ACW OTL.

Yes - depending on when you have things kicked off you could end up with 16,000 US troops trying to fight what in OTL went to the Crimea at Calamita Bay! That's a recipe for a humiliating defeat.

4. the Presidential election in November 1856 might throw the whole country into a tizzy.

If it's not there already. Do you think the South would appreciate their economy being badly damaged for a "free soil war"?

 

[cerebropetrologist]

I found this, which seems to author the best quantitative summary of the issue of domestic manufacture capabilities Vs imports in the context of a "trent war":

Yes, it's by the same guy who wrote this:

Domestic supplies of iron proved inadequate in both quality and quantity to make an average of 33,219 guns a year

Could you explain why you reject the author's statement that domestic supplies were inadequate to make 33,219 guns per year, in favour of your assertion that they could make between 60,000 and 90,000?

even witness a Russian expeditionary force facing off the Indian army in Bushire

Bushire is on the coast of the Persian Gulf. The easiest way for a Russian expeditionary force to get there would be to abandon the siege of Kars and march a thousand miles overland. The alternative, if you don't want to abandon Kars, is to detach forces from the Crimean army, then march them overland to Georgia (no access to the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov because of the Allied campaign, so around 750 miles) and overland to Bushire (950 miles). Alternatively, you can march them overland to somewhere like Astrakhan (700 miles), hope you can find transport to get them across the Caspian sea, and then march them all the way over Persia to Bushire (about 500 miles).

Of course, It is possible that given a prologed Crimean war the British might simply decide to let the Persian capture of Herat slide (maybe the Persians decide not to use Russian advisers during the siege), but the potential for greater escalation still exists.

Why? As of our point of departure, the Presidential Armies have zero units deployed overseas. Their role is exclusively the protection of India: they are raised and paid by the East India Company. There are 29 regular and 10 irregular native infantry regiments in the Bombay army, 52 regular in the Madras army and 74 regular and 37 irregular in the Bengal army. India could have supported a deployment twice the size of the army that brought Persia to terms in 1856, approximately equivalent to the Burma deployment of 1852, without breaking a sweat.

One is the aforementioned rumors or reality of shipment overseas, particularly if the Persian war escalates

Rumours are not enough, and the reality of the Enfield rifle was that all units were getting it: by no conceivable stretch of the imagination are the British going to need to ship every unit in the Bengal Army overseas simultaneously. This leaves the avenue of keeping local service units who do not wish to go overseas in India, as was done with the 38th. Moreover, transport overseas is only an issue for the Hindu sepoys and not the Muslim ones, whereas the cartridge rumours affected the two most significant sectors of the Bengal Army.

Another is pay cuts/ cuts to provisions, pensions etc if the prolonged war results in the BEIC financial straits.

You don't know how the East India Company worked. The EIC paid its own army with its own taxes raised in India, and hired British troops from the UK government. In what way would a prolonged war affect their finances?

Still, just because I can't THINK of another particular spark, doesn;t mean that such a spark does not exist

It's certainly suggestive, though.

a high casulty assignment overseas may not appeal to units that are simmering with grievances for other reasons... where there is kindling a spark will be sure to land.

By this token, how many United States units do you predict mutinying during the campaign?

Did the 40th, 67th and 37th Bengal native regiments not raise any objections in spite of their contractual obligations? Asking, not arguing.

No. Which rather suggests that your proposed spark of overseas service is a damp squib.

Difficult (and expensive. and slow), yes. impossible, no.

It seems rather convenient that the United States is going to be able to route thousands of troops, tons of supplies, and also vast quantities of imported material through rail networks in the South, when five years later in the Civil War the poverty of these rail networks caused the South all sorts of trouble. Particularly when you bear in mind that the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes are also not going to be available for civilian transport. When you put all these factors together, I don't see how you can conclude that:

The resource distribution and economic activity of the Union is not disrupted

This to a first approximation doubles US production.

The capacity at Harpers Ferry was about 80% that of Springfield, based on total production of the M1841 rifle and M1842 musket between 1844 and 1855. So a little under double, if we want to be pedantic. However, the limiting factor is not the amount of productive capacity at the arsenals: it's the quantity of domestic iron suitable for forging into barrels under a trip-hammer.

 

[yboxman]

Yes, it's by the same guy who wrote this:

Could you explain why you reject the author's statement that domestic supplies were inadequate to make 33,219 guns per year, in favour of your assertion that they could make between 60,000 and 90,000?

He wrote that in the context of barrel rolling production which the U.S machinary had converted to AFTER this scenario takes place and for which British Iron ore was the only ore of high enough quality to work. Later on, he points out that in order to make more weapons following a Trent War blocakde The US would essentially need to completly retool their armories back to the previous trip hammer machinery which did not require British quality ore (though it would certainly still be better for it). This is one aspect in which a mid 1850s war the US would actually be somewhat better placed than in a Trent war as the arsenals are still operating trip hammering machinary and British iron production had (temporarily) crowded out native production in the late 1850s due to a number of new processing formulas.

I could be wrong in my interpetation, though, and rob certainly seems to have approached these issues in the most objective and methodical fashion of anyone on the board. I'll dig in a bit more.

Bushire is on the coast of the Persian Gulf. The easiest way for a Russian expeditionary force to get there would be to abandon the siege of Kars and march a thousand miles overland. The alternative, if you don't want to abandon Kars, is to detach forces from the Crimean army, then march them overland to Georgia (no access to the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov because of the Allied campaign, so around 750 miles) and overland to Bushire (950 miles). Alternatively, you can march them overland to somewhere like Astrakhan (700 miles), hope you can find transport to get them across the Caspian sea, and then march them all the way over Persia to Bushire (about 500 miles).

Sea transport on the Volga-Caspian would probably be the way to go which has the advantage of going through a very different supply and manpower bottleneck than that used to supply either kars or the Crimea. The thing, is, OTL Bushire was where the campaign ended- but there were plans for operations in the interior and (on the Persian side) resistance to them. That would impose a greater Logistical and manpower burden on the British.

Why? As of our point of departure, the Presidential Armies have zero units deployed overseas. Their role is exclusively the protection of India: they are raised and paid by the East India Company. There are 29 regular and 10 irregular native infantry regiments in the Bombay army, 52 regular in the Madras army and 74 regular and 37 irregular in the Bengal army. India could have supported a deployment twice the size of the army that brought Persia to terms in 1856, approximately equivalent to the Burma deployment of 1852, without breaking a sweat.

You are disregarding the internal peacekeeping roles of the presidential armies. they aren't really there to protect India from external invasion, but to enforce BEIC rule on the masses and keep the princely states in line. Said princely states are at their most agitated following SIndh and Oudh annexations. But yes, I'll agree- the persian expeditionary force can probably be recruited entirely from the Bombay presidential army if the BEIC decides that it should be so.

Rumours are not enough, and the reality of the Enfield rifle was that all units were getting it: by no conceivable stretch of the imagination are the British going to need to ship every unit in the Bengal Army overseas simultaneously. This leaves the avenue of keeping local service units who do not wish to go overseas in India, as was done with the 38th. Moreover, transport overseas is only an issue for the Hindu sepoys and not the Muslim ones, whereas the cartridge rumours affected the two most significant sectors of the Bengal Army.

I am not one to disregard the importance of taboos and rumors of their violation on men. But in this case the rumor of the mixed pork and cow grease seems to have been crafted to appeal to preexisting resentment, not to have been the cause of that resentment. Furthermore, the BEIC company DID end production of the greased bullets and take a number of steps to reassure their sepoys that there was no such grease in the bullets they were issued. that the rebellion still broke out and that new permutations of the rumor spread (eg; grease impegranated paper) just goes to show that it wasn;t about this particular taboo. To steal a meme from my neck of the woods it is like the "AL Aqsa is in Danger!" slogan- it doesn;t really have anything to do with the supposed target of the slogan but is a rallying cry for adressing other, more persistant problems.

Service overseas, in contrast is not JUST a matter of religous taboos- it also involved putting your life in risk after you signed up to what you expected, whatever the dotted line on the contract you signed said, to be a cushy garrison job. If this is all happening on the background of cut wages and benifits, a less than sterling performance in earlier wars and wild rumors of the British being defeated by the Russians (which is how a withdrawal from Crimea would look like, regardless of the reality) you get the components of a perfect storm. Now suppose that a unit in which a rumor of overseas service spreads demands reassurance from it's officers that no such deployment is planned. There is, in fact no such deployment planned in the immediate future (just as no such artridges were distributed at the focal point of the rumor OTL) but the principal of the thing is such that the officers refuse to give such an assurance punish the ringleaders, and, concerned at the resulting unrest attempt to disarm the rest. The dynamic which follows is pretty much the same as the greased bullets spark.

You don't know how the East India Company worked. The EIC paid its own army with its own taxes raised in India, and hired British troops from the UK government. In what way would a prolonged war affect their finances?

For one thing higher demand due to the Crimean war might raise the cost (or reduce the avaliability) of British troops that the UK raises. For another, higher excise taxes in England (needed to finance the wars) and American commerce raiders might indirectly cut into the amounted of land revenue the company can collect. For another, the need for more extensive operations in Persia means more expenses.


1854-1855 were relatively bad years for the BEIC
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/37829/1/WP153.pdf

Cutting costs may seem like an attractive option.

By this token, how many United States units do you predict mutinying during the campaign?

USA troops are fighting for their country. Indian troops are not. Though to be sure, desertion rates were high in 1812 and the ACW. Still, given the lower force sizes ITTL compared to the ACW I think conscription would be less of an issue.

It seems rather convenient that the United States is going to be able to route thousands of troops, tons of supplies, and also vast quantities of imported material through rail networks in the South, when five years later in the Civil War the poverty of these rail networks caused the South all sorts of trouble.

Who's talking about troops? Look, the confederacy needed to ferry massive amounts troops and supplies because they were facing a HALF MILLION+ STRONG ARMY and had to maintain men in the field capable of facing them. this is not the same thing as transporting a few hundred thousand rifles that make a run through the British blockade with Cuba as a probable intermediatary drop off point.

The capacity at Harpers Ferry was about 80% that of Springfield, based on total production of the M1841 rifle and M1842 musket between 1844 and 1855. So a little under double, if we want to be pedantic. However, the limiting factor is not the amount of productive capacity at the arsenals: it's the quantity of domestic iron suitable for forging into barrels under a trip-hammer.

I will note that the confederacy, which generated perhaps 8% of the pre war USA pig iron manged to produce some 60,000 rifles, mostly over three years, mostly utilizing the machinary they canibalized from Harper's ferry which, if I understand correctly, had already been converted to Barrel rolling and therefore seemingly required higher quality ore than trip hammering.

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=6BnGBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Now, I can't find anything about Iron importation by the confederacy during the civil war. Not saying it didn't happen but that wasn't the bottleneck that brought production to a halt- it was the absence of wood, of all things that was the crucial bottleneck. All in all, I would tend to suspect that this particular bottleneck is not as critical as you are making out, at least not for trip hammering (as opposed to barrel rolling. I agree the evidence for this seems strong)- but I think I need to dig in a bit more into this.

 

[Saphroneth]

But in this case the rumor of the mixed pork and cow grease seems to have been crafted to appeal to preexisting resentment, not to have been the cause of that resentment. Furthermore, the BEIC company DID end production of the greased bullets and take a number of steps to reassure their sepoys that there was no such grease in the bullets they were issued. that the rebellion still broke out and that new permutations of the rumor spread (eg; grease impegranated paper) just goes to show that it wasn;t about this particular taboo. To steal a meme from my neck of the woods it is like the "AL Aqsa is in Danger!" slogan- it doesn;t really have anything to do with the supposed target of the slogan but is a rallying cry for adressing other, more persistant problems.

But, when asked, all the sepoy troops testified that it was the cartridges which were the problem. Do you believe they were lying?

 

[yboxman]

But, when asked, all the sepoy troops testified that it was the cartridges which were the problem. Do you believe they were lying?

Think, rather than believe, but yes. Either to themselves or their interrogators or both.

The cartridge story was simple, easily understood story which enabled the mutineers to place themselves on the moral high ground, and those who captured them to paint the whole incident as being caused by insensitivty that could be easily corrected rather than a more deep seated problem in BEIC methods, or British rule generally.

By playing to this the captured mutineers tried to assure themselves a more sympathetic treatment. They were mostly disapointed. If the only problem HAD been the cartidges then Britian would not have felt necessary to perform the various post mutiny safeguards that it had.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

He wrote that in the context of barrel rolling production which the U.S machinary had converted to AFTER this scenario takes place and for which British Iron ore was the only ore of high enough quality to work.

No, he didn't: he said 'Domestic supplies of iron proved inadequate in both quality and quantity to make an average of 33,219 guns a year' which relates to the period before the adoption of barrel rolling in 1858. It's explained further elsewhere:

Although much more publicity is given to the adoption of American machinery by the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, the Springfield Armoury had been envious of British barrel-manufacturing techniques long before the British commission made their inspection. In America, barrels were formed and welded under a trip hammer, a laborious process which produced barrels which frequently failed under proof, while British barrels welded by rolling were quicker to produce and more reliable.[108] Attempts to roll-weld barrels using American machinery and iron failed: it was only in 1858, when the Springfield Armoury bought an English rolling mill, 50 tons of English iron and a Birmingham operative by the name of William Onions to supervise the work, that the Armoury successfully rolled its first barrels.[109] Onions remained the only trained barrel-roller at Springfield until the outbreak of the Civil War, when necessity led to the importation of four more machines and the training of other workers in the art. But English iron was as important as English machines to this roll-welding technique: only the iron produced by a single English firm was sufficiently homogeneous, contained the right quantity of phosphorous, and possessed a ‘fine, uniform distribution of slag particles’ with ‘relatively low liquidus temperature’.[110]

[108] 'Norwich Armory,' Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, March 1864 [link]
[109] Robert B. Gordon, ‘English Iron for American Arms: Laboratory Evidence on the iron used at the Springfield Armory in 1860,’ Historical Metallurgy vol. 17 no.2 (1983) p.92
[110] Gordon, ‘English Iron’ p.97

To make the most of their limited supply of iron, Springfield switched to the rolling technique. They then found that Connecticut iron could not be rolled properly, and bought both machines and iron from Britain.

The thing, is, OTL Bushire was where the campaign ended- but there were plans for operations in the interior and (on the Persian side) resistance to them. That would impose a greater Logistical and manpower burden on the British.

We know what the British plans were:

'Our accounts from Shuster describe the Persian army there... in a deplorable plight. Scarcely any ammunition... no tents- and badly off for supplies, which they are no longer in a condition to exact by force from the tribes.. had not the advance to Ahwaz (or Shuster) been arrested by the official intimation of peace which reached me on the 4th instant, the Persian army, with the Prince at its head, would certainly have surrendered unconditionally...In the meantime I should have disposed of the Sirkesheechee Bashee's army at Naneezuk [36 miles from Bushire]... Thus would all the forces Persia possesses (beyond those occupied in Afghanistan) have been utterly destroyed in one short campaign, had the war continued.'

I'm really struggling to see how the British advancing 52 miles from Ahwaz to Shuster or 36 miles from Bushire to Naneezuk is a greater logistical and manpower burden than a Russian expeditionary corps advancing over 500 miles of Persia.

You are disregarding the internal peacekeeping roles of the presidential armies.

No, I didn't: I said they were there for the protection of India, which implies from both external and internal threats.

that the rebellion still broke out and that new permutations of the rumor spread (eg; grease impegranated paper) just goes to show that it wasn;t about this particular taboo.

If the grease taboo didn't matter, then why did new permutations of the existing rumour spread? Why didn't an entirely different rumour arise? The answer is that the grease taboo was the only one which could rationalise the revolt.

Service overseas, in contrast is not JUST a matter of religous taboos- it also involved putting your life in risk after you signed up to what you expected, whatever the dotted line on the contract you signed said, to be a cushy garrison job.

Wow, you have completely misunderstood the problem. The Bengal army didn't sign up for a cushy garrison job: they signed up for active service against the Queen's enemies. The problem came when they had to cross a body of water in order to do so, because that caused religious difficulties for the Hindu troops. It was the crossing of water, and not the putting their life at risk, that they had trouble with.

(which is how a withdrawal from Crimea would look like, regardless of the reality)

Nobody's said that the entire British army would withdraw from the Crimea, as far as I've seen. They've argued that reinforcements would be diverted, or that a limited portion of the force would be transferred, but not that the whole force would go.

The dynamic which follows is pretty much the same as the greased bullets spark.

No, the dynamic is entirely different. We know how the British treated the regiment which declined active service in 1852, which was not to punish them. We also know that there were a large number of Muslim troops in each regiment who had no objection to serving overseas, but who did have an objection to eating lard. And, to cap it off, we know that the British have two presidential armies consisting of troops who are stationed closer to the coasts and who have no issue with serving overseas.

For one thing higher demand due to the Crimean war might raise the cost (or reduce the avaliability) of British troops that the UK raises.

The UK didn't vary the charges- it was a standard amount for each battalion- and if there are fewer troops stationed in for India, the overall cost to the East India Company is lower, not greater.

For another, higher excise taxes in England (needed to finance the wars) and American commerce raiders might indirectly cut into the amounted of land revenue the company can collect.

The British financed the Crimean war through income tax, not excise taxes. This war rate was applied at 9d in the pound (3.75%) to incomes over £150 per annum.

1854-1855 were relatively bad years for the BEIC

If by relatively bad, you mean that the surplus dropped from £3.1m in 1853 to £1.3m in 1855. However, 1853 was an outlier: the average surplus between 1849 and 1855 was only £1.9m. We need to distinguish here between relatively bad and actually bad.

USA troops are fighting for their country. Indian troops are not.

I find the suggestion that 'love of nation conquers all' distastefully Eurocentric. I don't think it's appropriate to imply that the emotional connection that Indian troops had with their regimental identity was somehow inferior to US national identity, particularly when you consider how many people in 1850s America identified with their state in preference to their nation.

Who's talking about troops?

So the invasion force is going to come exclusively from the Northern states? How are Southern politicians going to react to a Free States army invading and occupying Canada for the purpose of making more Free States?

this is not the same thing as transporting a few hundred thousand rifles that make a run through the British blockade with Cuba as a probable intermediatary drop off point.

You're right. For a start, men can put themselves on and take themselves off trains, and if the rail network is snarled up, they can march instead of sitting in sidings. Furthermore, we're also talking about moving vast quantities of raw materials like saltpetre and iron ore- none of which the existing network is geared up to transport.

Incidentally, if your drop-off is Cuba, the British are going to have a really easy time running interception patrols from the Bahamas. You're also going to have to transport your guns 1,300 miles as the crow flies from New Orleans before you can put them into the hands of troops invading Canada. Somewhere like Charleston would be better- only 900 miles.

Now, I can't find anything about Iron importation by the confederacy during the civil war.

No, because they found a domestic source:

After running out of skelps of Marshall iron captured at Harpers Ferry, the Confederacy managed to find brown haematite ore in Patrick County Virginia that, with careful rolling under the instruction of Colonel Burton who had worked at Enfield, could replace imported materials.

However, if there had been a source of iron in the Confederacy which could have been trip-hammered effectively, don't you think the American government would have found it when the Connecticut iron supply started to have problems? If there was such a supply, and the American government failed to find it historically, what makes you think they were capable of finding it and ramping up the supply quickly enough to produce guns at a rate of over 60,000 to 90,000 a year within the first 20 months of the war?

If the only problem HAD been the cartidges then Britian would not have felt necessary to perform the various post mutiny safeguards that it had.

Alternatively, Britain changed its enlistment procedures because the old type of sepoy (high-caste Hindus) had been beaten pretty handily by irregular regiments formed of the new type of sepoy (Sikhs, Gurkhas, Pathans, and other northern tribesmen).

 

[Saphroneth]

Nobody's said that the entire British army would withdraw from the Crimea, as far as I've seen. They've argued that reinforcements would be diverted, or that a limited portion of the force would be transferred, but not that the whole force would go.

I've sort of argued that there would be the full force sent, but that's only because it was suggested the crisis would start as early as March (to allow the US to manufacture rifles) and I pointed out that the British Army didn't actually land in the Crimea until 13 September.
In that case you'd functionally have the army able to go to America instead, either on schedule or (if being sent to Canada) earlier.

 

[yboxman]

I've sort of argued that there would be the full force sent, but that's only because it was suggested the crisis would start as early as March (to allow the US to manufacture rifles) and I pointed out that the British Army didn't actually land in the Crimea until 13 September.
In that case you'd functionally have the army able to go to America instead, either on schedule or (if being sent to Canada) earlier.

I feel uncomfortable arguing the point with you because you clearly know more about Crimean War history than I do, but I think you have your years mixed up. As far as I understand the British army landed in Crimea in September 1854 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alma.

By September 1855, OTL, the siege of Sevastopol was over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sevastopol_(1854–55). Whether it will be in this scenario depends, in part on whether the British transfer forces to the Americas (or fail to reinforce and replace losses of existing forces) before the job is done.

This scenario has the siege of Petroplask occur a bit earlier than OTL's date in Septemebr 1854 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petropavlovsk but has the tension surrounding the purchase/occupation of Alaska by the USA/Britain explode into open war around Febuary-March 1855 (tentative date)

The US-UK tensions certainly would not and could not predate the Crimean invasion. since it occured around the same time as the pacific operation which starts the whole confortation rolling in this scenario.

No, because they found a domestic source:



"After running out of skelps of Marshall iron captured at Harpers Ferry, the Confederacy managed to find brown haematite ore in Patrick County Virginia that, with careful rolling under the instruction of Colonel Burton who had worked at Enfield, could replace imported materials."

However, if there had been a source of iron in the Confederacy which could have been trip-hammered effectively, don't you think the American government would have found it when the Connecticut iron supply started to have problems? If there was such a supply, and the American government failed to find it historically, what makes you think they were capable of finding it and ramping up the supply quickly enough to produce guns at a rate of over 60,000 to 90,000 a year within the first 20 months of the war?

.

You do realize that this datum supports the "neccesity is the mother of all invention" argument, right? I mean if the bleeding confederacy could identify this ore and process it for a much more demanding technique does it not seem that if the undivided USA is blocked out of imports they would be able to do much the same? I'll respond to the rest later, including your interpetation of what rob wrote- got to run.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

You do realize that this datum supports the "neccesity is the mother of all invention" argument, right?

Not really. The Confederacy relied on a combination of exceptional luck and the knowledge of Colonel Burton to find a new source of iron. Even then they only produced 40,000 guns in the first two years of fighting, many of which were made with pre-war skelps of Marshall iron. The US government has had twenty years to resolve its dependence on Connecticut iron, and has been unable to do so. The mantra 'necessity is the mother of invention' overlooks the fact that shortages of strategic raw materials lose wars.

However, iron is only one of the problems with what you're suggesting:

by the end of 1856 the USA can probably manage to rush produce 100,000-150,000 of the 1855 model.

You're not arguing that they could manufacture 150,000 M1841 rifles and M1842 muskets, for which they have plant in place, and for which the main bottleneck is finding sufficient domestic iron. You're arguing that they can introduce an entirely new weapon, iron out all the problems in its production (problems which historically required a complete change in barrel-rolling techniques), and produce 150,000 of them within 20 months- when in reality they didn't manufacture a single weapon until 1857.

 

[Saphroneth]

I feel uncomfortable arguing the point with you because you clearly know more about Crimean War history than I do, but I think you have your years mixed up. As far as I understand the British army landed in Crimea in September 1854 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alma.

Sorry, I did get mixed up. In my defence, however, your real argument makes even less sense:

It does not seem to be much of a stretch to assume that if the Harpers ferry armory is not destroyed, and economic disruption caused by secession and high intensity land warfare is avoided, production in the 20 months between March 1855-November 1856 should be in the 100,000-150,000 range.

Given that the Seige of Sevastopol concluded historically in September 1855, then to measure from March 1855 to November 1856 when attempting to gauge US land forces readiness for a full-on war with Britain is frankly amazing. The US by this model would have six months to build up their armies as best they can (in a time period when British reinforcements can steam right into Montreal and are producing absolutely ridiculous numbers of coastal-attack gunboats) and then the entire Army of the East is freed up to do something inconvenient - like, say, land in Connecticut and march to Springfield.

You do realize that this datum supports the "neccesity is the mother of all invention" argument, right? I mean if the bleeding confederacy could identify this ore and process it for a much more demanding technique does it not seem that if the undivided USA is blocked out of imports they would be able to do much the same?

Not really, no, because it took them an expert trained at RSAF Enfield; as of 1855 he's just starting his period working there and doesn't have the expertise in question. The US was unable to discover this ore themselves.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

Given that the Siege of Sevastopol concluded historically in September 1855, then to measure from March 1855 to November 1856 when attempting to gauge US land forces readiness for a full-on war with Britain is frankly amazing. The US by this model would have six months to build up their armies as best they can (in a time period when British reinforcements can steam right into Montreal and are producing absolutely ridiculous numbers of coastal-attack gunboats) and then the entire Army of the East is freed up to do something inconvenient - like, say, land in Connecticut and march to Springfield.

Don't forget the foreign legions as well. The British German Legion and the British Swiss Legion were recruited in early 1855, and were on the verge of being sent to the East when Sebastopol fell. In this scenario, they can go to Canada in October-November 1855 instead. The British German legion consisted of six light infantry battalions, three Jaeger battalions, and two regiments of Light Dragoons; the Swiss legion consisted of four light infantry battalions. The total strength was 12,978 officers and men.

Incidentally, we've been misstating the strength of the United States regular army. As of December 1854, it was 10,745 officers and men: here are their stations.

 

[Saphroneth]

Incidentally, we've been misstating the strength of the United States regular army. As of December 1854, it was 10,745 officers and men: here are their stations.

Whoops, that should be a salutatory corrective to me on the matter of taking numbers from memory!

...wow. The German and Swiss legions were actually more numerous than the regular US Army.
I wonder if they'd be sent to Canada to train up?

 

[cerebropetrologist]

Whoops, that should be a salutatory corrective to me on the matter of taking numbers from memory!

You're right in remembering that it was 16,000 by 1860, but it had expanded in strength in the meantime.

...wow. The German and Swiss legions were actually more numerous than the regular US Army.

Reasonably veteran, too, at least among the Jaegers:
'they are all armed with the modern rifle, and their uniform resembles closely that of the British Rifle Brigade; their knapsacks are covered with cowhide, with the hair outwards, and a flap-piece shelters their great coat from the wet. Many of the men wore the Cross of Merit for service in the Schleswig-Holstein war, and King William of Prussia's medal.'(Times, 12 October 1855, p 10)

I wonder if they'd be sent to Canada to train up?

I can't see why not: it would have freed up space at Shorncliffe and Aldershot. They could have been put in garrison at Quebec or Halifax while they trained, then sent to the front when they were ready for action.

 

[Saphroneth]

You're right in remembering that it was 16,000 by 1860, but it had expanded in strength in the meantime.

Impressive proportional growth.

Actually, that number reminds me - we know the RCR was an oversized battalion and that there may or may not have been regular battalions in Canada (depending on kickoff time) but do we know the size of the Canadian and Maritimes "active militia" (or similar) during this time? On this scale a few thousand men could really matter...

 

[cerebropetrologist]

do we know the size of the Canadian and Maritimes "active militia" (or similar) during this time? On this scale a few thousand men could really matter...

A Canadian volunteer militia was introduced by the 1855 Militia Act, but a few amateur units existed before the act (e.g. Montreal Light Infantry, West York Cavalry Troop). The Maritimes are reliant on the sedentary militia, though, and had cut down almost all the training requirements.