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Post by bc on Oct 21, 2008 12:59:24 GMT -6
From the accounts I've read, I don't think you classify NA fire as indirect. When they crawled up deep ravine from bush to bush, they popped up to fire their weapons. They may have used a higher trajectory depending upon their range (aka windage & elevation) but it was direct fire whether it was arrows or rifles. There might have been some on the east side of LSH who fired blindly over the hill but not many. I think ammunition and arrows were too precious by the NAs to be wasted by some type of blind firing. It wasn't their style.
Beginning in the 1860's the NAs were given large amounts of rifles and ammunition by the Indian Agencies for hunting. Firearms surpassed bows and arrows as the preferred method of hunting after they came available. That was one of the main reasons for the NAs to go to the reservation in the first place is because they were being given large quanties of guns and ammo. If bow and arrow hunting was so good and the best deal for hunting by the NAs, then they would have said no to the Gov's offer of guns, ammo, food, blankets, etc. The fact of the matter is that bow and arrow hunting did not feed the NAs in their assigned hunting grounds through the winter so the Gov's offer was what they were forced to take. Buffalo hunting changed after Buffalo Bill and the whites started killing off the large herds.
I think for the most part, NA rifle fire is what broke the back of the soldiers. Some of the braves without firearms would have used bows and arrows but they would be in the minority. The final minutes would have been close up firing but without time to reload in the waining moments, both NAs and soldiers would have been going hand to hand. The last soldiers to die were the ones who layed there and played dead or were too wounded to resist any further.
I don't mind this discussion of indirect fire by the military tacticions/theorists/West Point instructors which may fit a West Point message board a little better but I'm not sure it is all that applicable here at the LBH. It would be good term paper material for the West Point indirect fire 101 class. This is my term paper, what would be my grade and class rank with this?
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Post by Dark Cloud on Oct 21, 2008 13:12:13 GMT -6
Well done and dead on, bc.
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Post by conz on Oct 21, 2008 13:25:41 GMT -6
Thanks...my comments for your consideration... From the accounts I've read, I don't think you classify NA fire as indirect. When they crawled up deep ravine from bush to bush, they popped up to fire their weapons. They may have used a higher trajectory depending upon their range (aka windage & elevation) but it was direct fire whether it was arrows or rifles. There might have been some on the east side of LSH who fired blindly over the hill but not many. I think ammunition and arrows were too precious by the NAs to be wasted by some type of blind firing. It wasn't their style. Yet we have evidence that they did just this, both in combat, and in training, eh? So you don't think that evidence is very worthy. Note that arrows are rarely wasted...they can be recovered and used again. Ammunition, however, would not be so easily wasted, and that is certainly a consideration. There is an important tactical reason for firing arrows above their required trajectory for the range...in order for them to come nearly straight down. This has been used for centuries, using bow and arrow, for both hitting enemy behind cover, and for avoiding the heavier frontal armor and shields of enemy formations. You imply that the Natives were not "smart enough" to figure out that firing a "plunging," which I call "indirect" fire has advantages over firing direct fire with bows. I think that they were very astute and accurate at this, and trained well for it. My sense of the evidence is that the Warriors RARELY used their rifles for hunting...that would be quite a luxury, since they were always short of ammunition, and long on enemies. Most tribes, I believe, reserved their precious ammunition for fighting...other tribes mostly, and Americans sometimes. You disagree with this? Almost all hunting was done with bow and arrow. They were cheap. Do you refute the quite clear evidence that the vast majority of Warriors did not have rifles? Even fewer, a small minority, had modern weapons. Most of the Warriors used bows to fire at the Soldiers, it seems quite clear. What makes you think most used firearms? "Breaking" units with firearms, at a distance, takes a LONG time...too long for the best scenario of the Custer fight, I would think. What makes you believe that most of the Soldiers of Custer's command were hit by rifle fire before they were killed by lances and hatchets? I agree with this, and maintain that 80% of the Soldiers probably died in hand-to-hand combat without previously being seriously hit by arrows, or rifle fire. Too picky for this cavalryman...leave it to the anal artillerists. <g> My interest is military Art, and terminology useful here to describe the distinction between firing a bow directly at the point target, or firing at a very high trajectory at an area target. Good Warriors would know which method best suited the situation, and were good at both distinct methods. Clair
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Post by bc on Oct 21, 2008 14:08:36 GMT -6
My implication is that the NAs were "too smart" to be wasting arrows by firing at something they can't see.
Would anyone/everyone agree with me for sake of argument, that if you just won a great battle, you would use the same tactics and methods of fire 30 minutes later against the remaining enemy over on another hill? It is my humble opinion that whatever the NAs did versus Reno & Benteen, they had just done the same at LSH, Calhoun Hill, etc. Which are also the same tactics used against Reno in the valley fight that was observed by Benteen.
I'm still a new student at all this and haven't read that much about the fight over on Reno Hill from 6-25 to 6-27. But I haven't read anything to indicate that masses of NA archers were firing massive amounts of arrows at Benteen & Reno, et. al, and killing beaucoup soldiers and horses with direct or indirect arrow fire. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please. It is my recollection that the Reno hill was completely surrounded (except for water carriers ravine) and that most NA fire and/or soldier casualties were with gun fire.
Unless there is evidence of indirect arrow fire at Reno Hill, then I think Clair's indirect fire horse is dead and it is time to quit beating it.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Oct 21, 2008 14:39:08 GMT -6
Dead on arrival, in fact, but isn't the mane braided attractively?
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Post by wild on Oct 21, 2008 15:39:05 GMT -6
Only weapons which are mounted and have a traverse system can be fired indirectly.For example the vickers machine gun could be fired indirectly because it had a mechanism which allowed accurate graded traversing which in turn allowed predetermined targets to be engaged.For example fire could be brought to bear on approach routes or assembly areas at night.
I also think that The Indian just did not do "indirect".These are people whose tactics were based on individual heroism such as counting coup.Showering arrows on the enemy was a group activity and totally foreign to their way of thinking.
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Post by eaglewizard on Oct 21, 2008 17:47:35 GMT -6
Wild:
Dee Brown - The Fetterman massacre:
This from the attack on a wagon train:
"Not long after the establishment of the defensive position, a shower of arrows zipped in from the left without warning, wounding three men. [...] The arrows came again, seeming to fly out of the ground, but closer observation revealed their source as a narrow ravine, cutting its way down towards the creek. The Sioux had crept up this ditch unobserved until they were in arrow range."
This shows that this tactic was used and to some effect. I think it would have been quite possible to observe a target and then use terrain features, vegetation, a horse or even puffs of smoke from rifles to aim indirectly for it.
Douglas D. Scott estimates 1500 warriors of which 25% had repeaters and 25% muzzle loaders. The rest would then have had to use bows.
All nine arrowheads reported found on the field is from the Custer part. No arrowheads are reported found on the Reno-Benteen defense field. So it's possible that bow and arrow was used only against Custer. The reason can be loss of arrows or unsuitable terrain. Also, after beating Custer, the Warriors arsenal would have increased with about 200 Springfields.
eagle
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Post by AZ Ranger on Oct 21, 2008 18:04:54 GMT -6
It is still direct fire they had to observe the targets first and then fired which makes it direct. How hard is to believe the Indians did know the distance and direction an arrow would travel with different angles of release.
The majority of casualties of Reno's time in the valley were firearms which occurred before they had Custer's weapons. I am not sure of any arrow casualties.
"but closer observation revealed their source as a narrow ravine, cutting its way down towards the creek" Does it explain what they observed. Maybe they popped and went back down and but the time the arrows got there they would not be in sight.
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Post by sherppa on Oct 21, 2008 18:20:22 GMT -6
sherpa Correct me if I'm wrong but surely angle of elevation is necessary for targeting in indirect fire? bc I agree with your last sentence. I would think most of the casualties came from close quarter combat. Just stating that the definiton supplied says nothing about angles or elevation. sherppa
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Post by BrokenSword on Oct 21, 2008 18:32:27 GMT -6
Bc - “My implication is that the NAs were "too smart" to be wasting arrows by firing at something they can't see … Would anyone/everyone agree with me for sake of argument,..”
For the sake of argument I will disagree. The lay of the land was rather different between the ‘Reno in the timber’ and ‘Custer on exposed hillside’ fights. The warriors’ motivation and goal in the ‘Reno on the hilltop’ and the ‘Custer on the bluffs’ situations were different as well.
The timber was nothing but obstacles, when trying to fire arrows directly at or arching them up and dropping them into the enemy. The timber and underbrush gave cover to the soldiers as well. Once on Reno Hill, the soldiers had been driven far enough away from the village(s) to cease to be a great threat, as long as they were confined to it. Enough Indians with rifles were scattered around the soldiers to accomplish that and to make them mostly keep their heads down. We explored the question on another thread of whether or not it was a blunder to not wipe out the soldiers on Reno Hill. I believe the general agreement was that the Indians weren’t willing to pay (in casualties) the price to accomplish that. To have driven Reno’s men away, and prevent a renewed attack was enough to suite their goal.
Custer was a different matter. His men were literally on top of the village and completely within sight of it. Custer’s positions were exposed. No trees to fire arrows through, and no limbs over head to prevent arrows from falling all the way to the ground. I don’t know where along the way, the idea of massed warriors firing masses of arrows in volleys came into the picture here. From the gullies the Indians could arch arrows up and down unto the soldiers who were exposed on LSH and Calhoun Hill to a lesser extent, I would imagine.
It really isn’t that hard a thing to do. When I was a teenagers some friends and I played it as a game. A cardboard box roughly two feet square was a target we set out, and then arched arrows up as high as we could so that they would come down and hit the box. We got pretty good at it in a surprisingly short time. Thirty or forty ’boxes’ set out on LSH wouldn’t be that tough to do for decent bowmen.
They all had bows and arrows so why would many of them not have done so? Just for argument’s sake, again, would 200-300 warriors arching 2 or 3 arrows a minute not have been a real disruption to an enemy’s defensive ability. I don’t see that any soldiers had to have been hit for it to have been effective. Dozens of arrows hitting the ground around and among the LSH troops (seemingly dropping out of nowhere) would have been enough to distract from calmly taking aim and shooting at targets popping up, firing and then ducking back down. Hit only a horse or two and the herd mentality might well kick in, and the Seventh’s horses would quickly implement their own agenda.
Custer was on the village’s front doorstep and he wasn’t leaving. All of the Indian's families were there and in great peril. So what was it that they would have been saving arrows and cartridges for?
M
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Post by sherppa on Oct 21, 2008 18:53:12 GMT -6
eagle wizard,
I agree with your point.
sherppa
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Post by sherppa on Oct 21, 2008 18:59:35 GMT -6
brokensword,
I agree with what you are saying also.
sherppa
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Post by sherppa on Oct 21, 2008 19:11:21 GMT -6
Actually an arrow falling form the sky, depending on the angle could reached a velocity greater then that of the arrow when originally launched. The whole terminal velocity thing, the math of which I am not real sharp on. But would guess, and I stress guess would be 150 + feet per second. And an arrow at that speed will penetrate skin and bone.
sherppaSince gravity and drag have little effect on an arrow " when originally launched" I find it hard to believe an arrow "could reached a velocity greater then that of the arrow when originally launched" due to solely to the effects of gravity. The density of the atmosphere and the drag coefficient of the particular arrow would determine its terminal velocity. Once the drag force equals the weight of arrow terminal velocity is reached. AZ Ranger AZ, Gravity and drag affect the arrow the instant that it leaves the string. And it has a greater effect on arrows traveling a slower speeds, simply because of flight time. As for terminal velocity and arrow launched reaching a height of 300 ft will develop a velocity of roughly 125 fps. (forgive me if my math is off). Which is only 25 fps less then the 150 fps average arrow speed for bows of the era, more then enough speed to penetrate flesh. Especially with a steal broadhead attached to it. sherppa
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Post by conz on Oct 21, 2008 19:18:22 GMT -6
My implication is that the NAs were "too smart" to be wasting arrows by firing at something they can't see. I agree with you...I don't think this happened much at all. For your first statement, no...different situations call for different tactics, so I don't think that is a sensible rule of thumb. In the second, the Natives couldn't get close enough to Reno's position to use arrow fire, looks to me. Otherwise yes, they would have saturated his position with arrows...that is, once they had recovered most of the arrows they had just shot at Custer. But the Reno fight was a long-distance rifle firefight. The Natives that DID get close were driven back by dismounted cavalry charges. Exactly right, because of the range. Any Natives that got closer got plunked by Trooper carbine fire. Some even got knocked off at long range by rifle fire by some of the expert shots in the command. Love the analogy, <g>, but no, that won't work, because of the range problem. If Custer's commands had had solid fields of carbine fire around them, they wouldn't have been showered by arrows, either, and would never have been overrun...they would have been found by Terry just like Reno's command was. Clair
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Post by sherppa on Oct 21, 2008 19:24:15 GMT -6
Only weapons which are mounted and have a traverse system can be fired indirectly.For example the vickers machine gun could be fired indirectly because it had a mechanism which allowed accurate graded traversing which in turn allowed predetermined targets to be engaged.For example fire could be brought to bear on approach routes or assembly areas at night. wild, What about the M97 or M203, they didn't have a mount or TE for them and we were able to hit targets using direct and indirect fire. sherppa
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