Why did you queue up for shooting at that time, and the background of the times?

Vicenta 2021-11-14 08:01:25

that age

The American Civil War started in 1861. Before we talk about "queuing to shoot", we must first form an understanding of this time. For non-military fans, everyone is confused by this form of war because This in itself is a modern war that is quite a few years away from us, not a modern war. According to our view of history, before the First Opium War (1840), it belonged to ancient history, and the dividing line between modern history and modern history was 1919.

Major events in the world in 1861 affected the future world structure. At that time, the First World War had not occurred and the German Empire had not yet been established. Because of Russia’s crushing defeat of the British and French coalition forces in the Crimean War, Russia saw the gap between the army composed of serfs and the army composed of free men in Britain and France, which prompted Russia to carry out serfdom reforms and return the freedom of serfs. Capitalism in Russia developed rapidly. The aftermath of the war produced a series of chain reactions, leading to the kingdom of Sardinia unifying the whole of Italy and establishing the Kingdom of Italy. After the unification, the development of Italian capitalism was also promoted. With the fruits of the first industrial revolution, the world structure has gradually evolved to modern times, accumulating energy for the outbreak of the second industrial revolution.

Qing Dynasty in 1861

1861 was the Qing Dynasty in China. At that time, China was going through the Second Opium War. The British and French forces occupied Beijing and burned the Old Summer Palace. Taipingtian was partially split but still fighting everywhere. Three years later, Hong Xiuquan died of illness.

The Forbidden City is also undergoing great changes. This year, when Emperor Xianfeng passed away, Empress Dowager Cixi launched a coup and officially embarked on the stage of history. The curtain of government has controlled China for more than half a century. Outside the Forbidden City, China also started the Westernization Movement that lasted for 35 years. China was on the road to industrialization and modernization. At this time, Zhan Tianyou, the father of Chinese railways, was just born and Yuan Shikai was just two years old.

Until the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of Sino-Japanese War 33 years later, the Beiyang Navy was destroyed, the Korean nation became independent from the Qing Dynasty, and the Korean Peninsula was annexed after being controlled by Japan. The Westernization Movement completely failed. Later, due to the well-known movement in textbooks, Chinese history entered the modern era from modern times.

Line infantry

"Line up to shoot" is actually a form of infantry used in combat. It is generally called "line infantry", but there are also some other names. The line infantry was developed with the evolution of infantry combat tools from traditional cold weapons to firearms.

The characteristic of the line infantry is that the infantry armed with firearms are lined up in wide 2~4 rows. During combat, they listen to the orders and carry out volleys, forming a dense rain of bullets to kill the enemy.

At this time, the problem is that this wide and shallow formation lacks depth. Wouldn't the cavalry be completely chaotic with a charge? This is indeed the case. On the field battlefield where machine guns and tanks have not yet appeared, cavalry is still the enemy of infantry.

Before answering this question, let us first introduce the three formation concepts of linear infantry: linear, square, and vertical.

Infantry battle formation: line

Linear array type

At the beginning of the movie, the Northern Army launched an offensive against the Southern Army in a line formation. This is the origin of the queue for shooting. Here are some typical line formation shooting methods.

There are three rows of soldiers on the left. The first row shoots in a kneeling position to give space to the second row of standing soldiers behind to shoot. The third row shoots through the gap between the first two rows of soldiers, but this has a disadvantage. It is easy for the third row of soldiers to be blocked by the hat brim or shoulder accessories of the front row of soldiers when shooting (see the military uniforms of the British and French armies in modern times)

The second method on the right is also three rows of soldiers. The first row shoots in a kneeling position, the second row shoots in a squat position, and the third row shoots from a standing position. This method also has disadvantages. Steady, the sternum was injured due to recoil force during shooting.

On the basis of these stances, there is also a "three-stage shooting" that can maintain continuous firepower. After the first row is fired, the guns are handed over to the back row for loading, and the loaded guns delivered by the back row are received. Continue shooting, reciprocating. And the "Xu Jin-style shooting" suitable for charging. After the first row is shot, it is loaded on the spot. At this time, the third row advances to the front of the first row and becomes the first row. After the shooting is completed, it is loaded on the spot, and then the second row is loaded. When the platoon advances to the forefront, it becomes the first row to shoot back and forth, so that it can continue to advance while maintaining the firepower output, until it reaches the charging distance and rushes into the enemy line for hand-to-hand combat.

Battle cavalry formation: square formation

Phalanx formation

In the era of line infantry, the way the infantry opposed the cavalry was a hollow phalanx formation. When the infantry encountered a cavalry impact, it quickly converted into a phalanx, and could shoot at the surrounding parade cavalry. If there were cavalry charging, the first row would squat on the ground. Use the bayonet rifle to act as a pikeman to resist the cavalry. Even if there are cavalry rushing into the square, they will face shooting and bayonets from all directions in the inner layer.

Marching formation: column

Tandem

When advancing in a linear phalanx, the speed is very slow. Even the armed forces of various countries have detailed requirements on how many steps soldiers can advance within a specified time. When maintaining a linear formation under different terrains, they will tear the formation when they encounter obstacles. This is a very test of the training and organizational capabilities of the troops, so the formation is generally only deployed when defending at a fixed position or approaching the enemy. In order to ensure speed, the vertical formation is generally used when traveling, and sometimes this formation is also used when charging.

About Commander Xiao

In the movie, we can see that the black soldiers of the 54th Corps are all soldiers with no combat experience. Xiao has conducted very strict training on the soldiers, which can be roughly summarized as formation training, shooting training, and assassination training. This is a very organized method. of.

On the one hand, formation training is to train the soldiers’ discipline, and another very important reason is to train the ability to maintain formation on the battlefield. In the film, many black soldiers can’t distinguish between left and right. How can we ensure that the phalanx is not blocked? Torn.

Xiao’s harsh attitude towards black soldiers is not understood by his colleagues. This is not just a matter of military capacity and discipline, but also a practical issue of maintaining the formation in a battlefield environment. If the formation cannot be maintained, once it becomes a skirmish under artillery fire (Skirmish, This is also a kind of combat phalanx. It can rely on bunkers to contain the enemy or flexibly intersperse against local flanks and line formations to form a flanking attack. With the development of weapons, modern warfare individual tactics are also skirmishers in a certain sense). It can resist the impact of the cavalry, and cannot defend the position, and cannot face the line formation.

Moreover, the characteristic of the line infantry is that it does not require high individual quality, and the training cost is low. Soldiers only need to maintain a good formation and shoot. Military training in various countries often relies on tough methods to train soldiers. A soldier in a phalanx is just a screw, without thinking, the training method is "rote memorization."

After experiencing the defeat of the film, Xiao realized the challenges to people in the battlefield environment, including the psychological challenge to outstanding shooters during shooting training later. He hoped to turn his experience on the battlefield into training, so that his subordinates could be in the real world. Can survive on the battlefield. I have seen some Douyou film critics saying that this actor has nothing to do with Washington and Freeman. I think that’s the role modeling. He grew up in an upper-class white family and couldn’t understand black people. It's normal to not be able to integrate into them. As a link in the chain of command, he is destined to be unable to have a brilliant personality. This is the image of a qualified commander who is kind-hearted and responsible for the lives of soldiers.

Weaponry

As mentioned earlier, the line infantry evolved with the evolution of infantry combat tools from traditional cold weapons to firearms. In the shooting training session in the film, the film showed in detail the loading method of the firing rifled gun at that time. It also mentioned that "a good shooter can shoot three times a minute", which is very close to reality.

Why line infantry tactics were used at that time? In the final analysis, the guns had slow firing speed and poor accuracy. To kill the enemy's vital force as soon as possible, it is necessary to hit more enemies in the shortest possible time, so that the tactics of using wide and thin line salvos can be produced. To give a realistic example, the AK47 that everyone knows has a theoretical rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute. At that time, 200 people were required to shoot at the same time to achieve the firepower output of an AK47. In front of an automatic rifle, a line step was used. Formation, then it is really queued to be shot, this is the disparity of the times.

During the Civil War, light weapons and firearms evolved from front-loading rifles to rear-loading rifles and muskets to rifled guns. In the later stages of the war, post-loading rifles and machine guns gradually appeared. After the Civil War, the era of pre-loading rifles came to an end. With the drastic improvement in the lethality and accuracy of infantry weapons, the in-line infantry combat method of queuing and shooting has gradually been abandoned.

firearms

During the Civil War, history was at the junction of the evolution of individual weapons, so the guns that appeared in this war were dazzling and varied.

According to the scene of the gun in the movie, the 54th regiment in the movie should be equipped with Enfield rifle-musket (Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle-musket). It is really hard to recognize. At first, I thought it was the spring field that occupied the mainstream of the Northern Army, but later Checked that the equipment of the 54th regiment was Enfield. This is a rifle made in the UK. The model in the UK is P1853. After arriving in the United States, it was renamed M1853 (M means model, with different naming conventions).

Do you remember the background of the times mentioned at the beginning? Because of the pace of British wars all over the world, this gun appeared in both the Crimea mentioned above and the Second Opium War. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has also imitated it, yes, The Chinese also died from this gun.

This is a front loading - firing style - rifled rifles , using Migne bombs , using percussion cap firing, the evaluation of this film is realistic gun, inexpensive, stable, durable, it is its biggest advantage.

Enfield M1853

In order to feel the feeling of being a line infantry queuing to be shot, you need to briefly introduce a few modern firearms knowledge, mainly from the latitude of the bold keywords in the previous line, and I will not expand it in detail. Too much understanding.

Front loading / back loading

Front loading: The loading steps of the front loading can be clearly seen in the film. When loading a traditional front loading rifle, the muzzle first needs to be raised up, and then the gunpowder is loaded from the muzzle inward, and then the warhead is loaded. Then use a long rod to reach from the muzzle to compact the warhead and gunpowder, thus completing the pre-launch loading action. The early long rod was made of wood, and it was easy to break when the soldiers were tense in the battlefield environment, so it was replaced later. Up a metal rod. The long rod can be carried in the gun, which is the rod under the muzzle in the picture above.

Post-loading: With the development of firing methods and the integration of ammunition, post-loading rifles appeared. Modern firearms are not strictly considered post-loading rifles. The integrated bullets of warhead, gunpowder and primer are loaded from the rear of the barrel. The advantages of this method are obvious, the loading speed is greatly accelerated, and the rifle as an individual weapon has finally become a high-efficiency killing weapon.

Matchlock/Flintlock/Percussion Gun

Matchlock gun: Unlike modern rifles that can fire bullets by pulling the trigger, the principle of the matchlock gun is more like setting off firecrackers during the Chinese New Year. You need to ignite a matchlock as a lead and burn it to a small bowl containing the bottom powder ( Also called fireware), the small bowl usually has a lid. You can cover it first when you are not launching it temporarily to prevent gunpowder from spilling or getting damp. Take a closer look at the photo below. There is a small hole on one side of the small bowl, which leads directly into the barrel. After the primer in the small bowl is ignited, the combustion is transmitted through the small hole to the previously filled gunpowder in the barrel. After the gunpowder is ignited Fire the warhead out, this is the firing principle of the matchlock gun.

Match cord ignition device close-up

The reliability of this firing method is very poor, and the waiting time before launch is very long. The shooter has to pre-ignite the match rope and then aim with the gun. During this time, the shooting opportunity may have been missed, and there are many unexpected situations in the battlefield environment. The shooting failed, the primer was damp, the matchstick could not be ignited, and so on. In the era of cold weapons, matchlock guns cannot be used as the main weapon. In the movie "Red River Valley", there was a scene of a matchlock gun. In a critical moment, he couldn't hit the matchlock with a flint and the whole army was wiped out.

Fighting like crazy, just can't fight

Flintlock Gun: The main improvement of the Flintlock Gun against the matchlock gun is to improve the point that it relies on the matchlock to ignite. The flint gun produces sparks to ignite the primer in the fire vessel through the strike action of the flint, but the reliability is also relatively low. , Imagine a disposable lighter that is almost out of breath. You never know if you can use it next time. But in this way, there is no time to wait for the fire rope to burn, which greatly reduces the waiting time for shooting and allows the shooter to seize the shooting opportunity. And the cost of retrying is very low. You don't need to change a fire rope, just pull the trigger again.

Percussion gun: The main ignition method of the percussion gun is through the flash hider. Modern rifles are also fired by the flash hider. The simple understanding is that the flash hider is in the bullet, and the flash hider is fired by the firing pin.

In the shooting training clips in the movie, you can clearly see the process of installing the flash hider. The flash hider replaces the bottom powder in the match rope and the fire cup. After the hammer hits the flash hider, the flash hider can directly ignite the gun powder in the barrel. (When I was a kid, I played with cannonballs, similar to that). The advantages of the flash hider are obvious. First of all, it greatly saves the firing steps. It is no longer afraid of damp and rain. The disadvantage is that it is easy to install it in a hurry. The first installation in the movie is due to tension, and it is taken out of the pocket. One out.

In order to improve this, Springfield 1855 replaced this kind of flash hider with a special Maynard primer. The principle is a bit like a thermal printer for printing receipts. After the first firing, a new section is automatically rolled out for the next use. This concept is very close to modern times, but because the primer belt is easily damp, the reliability of roll paper transmission is also too poor, and the error rate in the early test reached 50%.

This little thing hurriedly pretending to be a flash hider

Smooth-bore rifle/rifled rifle

Early front-loading rifles were basically smooth-bore. The inside of the barrel of the smooth-bore rifle was smooth. The bullet was pushed out of the barrel by gunpowder, but in order for the bullet to be loaded into the barrel smoothly, the diameter of the bullet should be smaller than the diameter of the barrel. As a result, part of the gas will be leaked when the gunpowder burns, wasting thrust, and the range and accuracy of the shotgun will not be high.

Later, people discovered that the rifling was carved into the barrel (but the original rifled rifle was straight), allowing the warhead to rotate along the rifling when it was fired. The warhead could fly farther and hit more accurately. Since the appearance of the rotating rifled rifle, the front-loaded musket has withdrawn from the stage of history.

There are also modern muskets, such as flare guns, flare guns, shotguns for hunting, etc. These guns do not have particularly high requirements for accuracy.

ammunition

The early ammunition loading was very primitive. The shooter needed to bring a gunpowder bottle and pour it into the muzzle. If it is filled, it may explode. If it is filled with less warhead, it is not lethal.

Gunpowder bottle

In order to improve this situation, the paper shell fixed ammunition appeared later. People packed the ammunition needed for one shot in a paper bag, so that when filling, only the small paper bag needs to be torn open with the mouth, and the gunpowder can be poured into the barrel. The bullets are also wrapped in paper, and the bullets can be stuffed into the barrel along with the paper shell when filling, which greatly saves the time of loading.

Later, the primer (the flash hider) also joined the paper shell bullet family. The primer in the paper shell was fired by the firing pin, which ignites directly in the barrel of the gun. Since then, the barrel of the gun is finally closed and no longer leaks.

The picture searched on the Internet, the right side is the paper shell fixed ammunition, the gunpowder and the warhead are packed in a paper bag

In order to further improve the accuracy of the rifled gun, people hope that the bullet and the barrel are as close as possible, so the part of the gunpowder at the back of the barrel is made narrow, so that the bullet can be stuck in a narrow place after being loaded, and then compacted with a long rod. , The warhead can fit the rifling.

The gunpowder chamber below is narrower than the barrel

Later, in order to improve the lethality and rotation ability of the warhead, the cone bullet was finally invented. After being squeezed by gunpowder, the warhead can still maintain a better cylindrical shape, and the flight stability of the warhead has been improved. The warhead finally approached its modern appearance.

Cone-nosed bullet

But there is still a problem that needs to be solved at this time. It is still necessary to use a long rod to compact the warhead when loading the bomb, so that the warhead can fit the rifle, and the warhead can rotate along the rifle. Finally, the Miner bomb was invented.

The image of the Migne bullet is like a waffle head. The bottom of the warhead is a cavity. When the gunpowder is ignited, the cavity is compressed by the gas and expands outwards, so that the outer wall of the warhead and the rifling in the barrel squeeze and fit. Since then, the rifled rifle has initially solved the accuracy problem.

Extruded by gunpowder gas, the cavity expands

Then came the metal fixed-loading bullet (the paper-shell fixed-loading bullet was replaced by a metal shell), the bullet was finally not interfered by external factors, and the reliability was greatly improved. The emergence of smokeless gunpowder has solved the problem of smog on the battlefield, and the shooter's vision has been greatly enhanced.

After these evolutions, the rifle has been on the stage of history, and the cold weapon is the metabolic screen. (It's still far away from AK47)

U.S.-Mexico War·Civil War Fuse

The U.S. is a real deal

After the American War of Independence, the territory of the United States was not as vast as it is today. From then on, it was bought while playing (yes, you can buy it) to form today's territorial scope. You can see the picture above.

Texas Independence

Texas was a former possession of Mexico. Mexico was a colony of Spain. After the Mexican War of Independence (11-year war of independence, it’s worth knowing about), Mexico is going to be developed when everything is ready to go. In response to the food shortage after the war, Texas, with rare human traces, also had to fight against the local Indians, so it relaxed its immigration policy. With the increasing number of American immigrants (Is it thinking of a country in Southeast Asia), the proportion of American immigrants in Texas is much higher than that of Mexicans, and Mexico has begun to prohibit American immigrants from moving to Texas.

American immigrants want to grow cotton to make money (which is very valuable for export to Europe), but Mexico requires immigrants to grow food crops due to food shortages, and Mexico requires Texas to comply with the abolition of slavery regulations and change from a federal system to a central government. Centralization.

So the federal Southerners who wanted to grow cotton and hold slaves clashed with the Mexican authorities. The final result was the Texas Revolution and Texas independence.

American-Mexico war

Although the war is over, Mexico still does not recognize Texas independence and there is a border dispute. Mexico threatened the United States not to interfere in Mexico's internal affairs with war. The United States, which was in the upsurge of expansionism, announced that if Texas joined the United States, the United States would recognize the border line claimed by Texas. Texas joined the United States in 1845.

In 1846, the US-Mexico War broke out. The war ended with the invasion of Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, by US troops. After the war, the United States acquired most of the land in the 8 Mexican states.

Slavery was the fuse of the U.S.-Mexico War, and it also became the appearance of the American Civil War. But behind it was the development of industrialization, the irreconcilability of tariff contradictions between the plantation economy and industrialization, and the conflict between the state government and the federal government. The conflict of power eventually led to the outbreak of civil war.

Many soldiers who participated in the US-Mexico War later also participated in the North-South Civil War, such as Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In the early stage, the Southern Army had more soldiers with combat experience, but in the later stage it was no longer able to compete with the sufficient number of soldiers and industrial capabilities of the Northern Army.

Summarize

The purpose is to provide more background information for everyone to watch the movie. Actually, there has not been a very conclusive statement about the North-South Civil War itself. Until now, there are many Southerners in the United States who are confederated.

The Civil War has condensed the epitome of the development of the times from all aspects. No matter which field you look at, you can find some interesting discoveries.

View more about Glory reviews

Extended Reading
  • Johanna 2022-03-26 09:01:04

    I tried my best to make an epic. There are big aspects and no small details. Too abrupt. It's like a love without a reason. It's hard to believe

  • Garett 2022-04-21 09:01:46

    In fact, some places are very moving, but I don't know what I am moved by.

Glory quotes

  • Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Never, question my authority in front of others

    Major Forbes: Well I is sorry, mas'sa. You be the boss-man now and all us chill'ins must learn your ways.

  • Trip: Let me tell you something, boy. You can march like the white man, you can talk like him. You can sing his songs, you can even wear his suits. But, you ain't NEVER gonna be nothing to him, than an ugly ass chimp... in a blue suit.