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Post by stevewilk on Apr 7, 2008 23:38:13 GMT -6
Gatlings were used in combat at least a few times. During the Red River War in 1874 (at least I think so), at the battle of Clearwater during the Nez Perce war in 1877 where they strafed the Indian village, and in the Bannock war of 1878, where one of the guns was carried aboard the steamer Spokane, transforming it into a makeshift river gunboat. Bannock positions amongst the rocky shore were fired on from the ship.
One of the more creative uses of the gun occured during the Sioux war aboard one of the steamboats. Forget which vessel, but a disabled gun was being carried below deck. Floating down the Yellowstone, a group of infantrymen spotted a flock of geese or ducks upon a nearby sandbar. The soldiers dragged the gun up to the main deck and proceeded to rake the sandbar with Gatling fire. A delicious supper was had aboard the boat that evening.
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Post by conz on Apr 8, 2008 8:57:06 GMT -6
Gatlings, even with all the crew mounted, as in "horse artillery," may have been able to keep up with normal marches, but no way they could keep up with a cavalry force in pursuit of Hostiles. That was Custer's concern.
Clair
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Post by AZ Ranger on Apr 8, 2008 20:09:02 GMT -6
Could they keep up with the packtrain?
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Post by alfuso on Apr 8, 2008 23:15:43 GMT -6
the gatlings were usually the last out and the last in each day.
Reno cached his arter a few days on his scout to pick it back up on the way back.
Gatlings might have made a difference at LBH IF -- as I said above -- you could completely surprise a village so that you had time to set the guns up and so the Indians couldn't flank or get behind you and and pick off the gatling crew.
For some reason, the Army didn't see the gatlings then as an **offensive** weapon.
The weapon Indians didn't like was any kind of cannon, mountain howitzer.
alfuso
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Apr 10, 2008 11:46:19 GMT -6
the gatlings were usually the last out and the last in each day. Reno cached his arter a few days on his scout to pick it back up on the way back. alfuso
That was because the gun got broken and was unusable, not simply because it was slow moving, though I am quite sure that Reno would have regarded the accident as a blessing! H
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Post by Dark Cloud on Apr 10, 2008 12:35:48 GMT -6
Hey, in WWI Haig still considered the machine gun a great defensive weapon, with two sufficient for each brigade/batallion. Haig, of course, was a cavalry officer and as late as 1907 was terribly concerned that the cavalry sabres be of updated design. A Grip Gap with German swords would doom the Allies war effort......
Men died that useless horses and food and cavalry officers could be shipped overseas RATHER than Maxim guns or artillery or anyone but the moronic cavalry theorists. The four years of static war was just until the breakthrough and the cavalry could dash ahead.....and be mowed down. Idiots. No other word.
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Post by pohanka on Jun 4, 2008 18:27:15 GMT -6
Not only were Gatling's cumbersome, prone to jamming, and,essentially, impossible to transport across coulées, gullies, and ridges there was far more serious problem with them. They were most effective only when the enemy was willing to stand before the guns in pristine rows like accommodating bowling pins.
Indian warriors were, of course, not accommodating. They quickly dispersed when the odds were not immensely in their favor.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 4, 2008 19:08:42 GMT -6
They're such an absurdity outside a turret mount on, say, a fort or steamboat (requiring high shielding for the crew) that it's hard to say what they were thinking.
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Post by pohanka on Jun 5, 2008 17:54:16 GMT -6
Absolutely! When one peruses the philosophies, actions, and habits of the military intelligentsia of that era it does become extremely, "hard to say what they were thinking."
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Post by conz on Jun 6, 2008 7:45:58 GMT -6
Absolutely! When one peruses the philosophies, actions, and habits of the military intelligentsia of that era it does become extremely, "hard to say what they were thinking." Because we are so much smarter, better educated, and superior to the people of that day? Are the Army officers today better leaders and tacticians than the officers of that day, do you think? Does anyone believe that the Indian Wars would have been conducted differently with today's military, than the Army of the 1850s-1880s? I believe the pack train could keep up with a cavalry column MUCH, MUCH, easier than any gatling guns, or any wheeled contrivance, across the bluffs and badlands... Just to keep this post pretending to be on topic. <g> Clair
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Post by pohanka on Jun 6, 2008 18:49:42 GMT -6
The one thing I have never understood is why Terry was so incensed by Reno's Scout? He discovered information, critical information, that was heretofore unknown. Custer's ire was understandable. To have picked up the trail and not attack was foreign to him. While it is true that Reno's foray could have spooked the Indians, we know that it did not. Seems to me that Reno was robbed of a "job well done." Just a tad bit of ungratefulness if you ask me.
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Post by conz on Jun 7, 2008 10:35:02 GMT -6
Well, nobody personally liked Reno, so any excuse to criticize him is going to be taken...
Think of Terry and Custer, twiddling their thumbs while waiting for Reno to show up. I think it was as much a time factor problem as it was wasting the horses. Not only the extra time Reno took while the rest of the command was doing nothing, but also the extra time to put a bit more meat on those wasted animals.
And to show for it, while Reno has some information, it was not anything Terry needed at that time...he would find it out in due course anyway by his already planned movements, which were delayed because of Reno. He would rather have had less information, and Reno back on time with better horses.
Terry deliberately did NOT want Reno in the Rosebud valley. He didn't want to take the time to scout there, since he had to go that way anyhow, and he didn't want such a small part of his command going in the more dangerous area and either spooking the Natives or getting into a fight...Reno's was a true recon mission, not a combat mission like Custer's was later.
Custer figured that it would have been worth it if Reno had actually overran a village. Reno gambled on this, and lost. Reno changed his own orders to a "strike mission" ala Custer's...probably got a big head and figured he finally had his independent command...but he screwed it up, as everyone expected Reno would in such a situation. Everyone knew Reno was no Custer.
So when he tried to be, and flopped, wasting time and horses to boot, everyone was a little piqued. Had Terry been more severe, Reno might have been arrested and relieved, sent to the rear. But Terry was a pretty nice guy.
Clair
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Post by elisabeth on Jun 7, 2008 13:42:51 GMT -6
One big problem, I think, was Reno's lack of interpersonal skills. His first report to Terry -- "I can tell you where the Indians are not" -- comes across as positively flippant in tone, and offers no explanation of his rationale for doing what he did. If he'd (a) worded it more respectfully, (b) given his reasons, and (c) pointed out the military value of what he'd discovered (i.e. that the Indians weren't where the Grand Plan assumed they were), he'd probably have been welcomed with open arms. As it was, before he got to see Terry face to face and remedy those omissions, there'd been time for Terry (no doubt with Custer's help) to build up a fair head of steam, and the damage was done.
Can't help wondering, though: was Custer right? With hindsight, if Reno had attacked, he'd have been attacking a mere 400-lodge village. Possibly even a poorly-defended one, if he'd caught it when most of the warriors were away fighting Crook. Plus this would have been closer to the time of the sundance, so Sitting Bull -- the main quarry, after all -- would have been more incapacitated than he was on the 25th, and thus easier to capture. An attack here just might have averted the LBH disaster. And recon or not, it can't have been totally outside Reno's remit: he had the Gatlings along, and also a doctor, so the possibility of combat must have been in Terry's mind ...
Wondering also: did the intelligence Reno brought back have a fatal effect on the expedition's mindset? It was useful as to location -- but by confirming Bradley's sighting a month earlier of a 400-lodge village, it could have suggested the hostiles were not being reinforced. Earlier in the year, Terry had reported expectations of "1,500 lodges"; by the time Custer's command sets off on its final march, that's come down to "1,500 warriors". Custer's decisions about the Gatlings, and about Brisbin's cavalry, could well have been different if he'd not had from Reno these reassuringly constant figures for the opposition he was likely to face.
Maybe Reno was to blame -- however unwittingly -- in more ways than just the failure of his valley attack?
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Post by pohanka on Jun 7, 2008 18:17:29 GMT -6
Thank you Conz and Elizabeth for your informative and enlightening summations. Putting it all together, as you both did, made this previously cloudy episode (for me) clear as crystal. Again, many thanks.
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Post by herosrest on Oct 3, 2017 10:03:34 GMT -6
It was interesting, some many years back, to discover which of those amongst the expeditions senior members, had an interest in artillery. Terry was legal and did involve with small arms but the big stuff was...... gIBBON'S BABY. THE ARTILLERIST'S MANUAL COMPILED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES, AHD ADAPTED TO THE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES. ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS. BY Brig.-Gen. JOHN GIBBON, U.S. Vols., CAPTAIN FOURTH ARTILLERY, U. S. ARMY.
SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.
NEW YORK: D. VAN NOSTRAND, 192 BROADWAY. LONDON: TRUBNER & C0. 1863. Before outbreak of Civil War, he saw service in Mexico, against Florida Seminole Indians, and at West Point where he was on duty for 5 years as an artillery instructor and Quartermaster. In 1861 he was Captain of the 4th Artillery stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Although his wife was from Baltimore and three of his brothers entered the Confederate Army, he adhered to the Union. After some months as Chief of Artillery in Irvin McDowell's Division, he was made Brigadier General of Volunteers May 2, 1862, and assigned to command of the "Iron Brigade," which he led at 2nd Manassas and in the Maryland Campaign. In November 1862, he was advanced to command of the 2nd Division of John F. Reynolds' I Corps and was badly wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg the following month. Back to duty after a 3-month convalescence, he directed the 2nd Division of Winfield S. Hancock's II Corps - and on two occasions the Corps itself - with conspicuous gallantry and distinction at Gettysburg, until he was again wounded and carried from field. (Interesting wounding)
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