With Zeal and With Bayonets Only
With Zeal and With Bayonets Only

Author: Matthew H. Spring

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2012-11-08

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 0806184221

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The image is indelible: densely packed lines of slow-moving Redcoats picked off by American sharpshooters. Now Matthew H. Spring reveals how British infantry in the American Revolutionary War really fought. This groundbreaking book offers a new analysis of the British Army during the “American rebellion” at both operational and tactical levels. Presenting fresh insights into the speed of British tactical movements, Spring discloses how the system for training the army prior to 1775 was overhauled and adapted to the peculiar conditions confronting it in North America. First scrutinizing such operational problems as logistics, manpower shortages, and poor intelligence, Spring then focuses on battlefield tactics to examine how troops marched to the battlefield, deployed, advanced, and fought. In particular, he documents the use of turning movements, the loosening of formations, and a reliance on bayonet-oriented shock tactics, and he also highlights the army’s ability to tailor its tactical methods to local conditions. Written with flair and a wealth of details that will engage scholars and history enthusiasts alike, With Zeal and with Bayonets Only offers a thorough reinterpretation of how the British Army’s North American campaign progressed and invites serious reassessment of most of its battles.

The Silver Bayonet
The Silver Bayonet

Author: Joseph A. McCullough

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-11-11

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1472844866

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As the wars of Napoleon ravage Europe, chaos and fear reign and the darkness that once clung to the shadows has been emboldened. Supernatural creatures – vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and worse take advantage of the havoc, striking out at isolated farms, villages, and even military units. Whether they are pursuing some master plan or simply revelling in their newfound freedom is unknown. Most people dismiss reports of these slaughters as the rantings of madmen or the lies of deserters, but a few know better... The Silver Bayonet is a skirmish wargame of gothic horror set during the Napoleonic Wars. Each player forms an elite band of monster hunters drawn from the ranks of one of the great powers. Riflemen, swordsmen, and engineers fight side-by-side with mystics, occultists, and even those few supernatural creatures that can be controlled or reasoned with enough to make common cause. The game can be played solo, co-operatively, or competitively, with players progressing through a series of interlinked adventures with their soldiers gaining experience and suffering grievous wounds, and their units triumphing... or falling in the face of the shadows. It is a game of action and adventure, where musket and sabre meet tooth and claw.

Fix Bayonets!
Fix Bayonets!

Author: John Norris

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2016-01-03

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1473883784

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The bayonet is an essential item of a soldier's kit even on today's modern hi-tech battlefield. This work examines the origins of this humble weapon and the 'cult of the bayonet' as espoused by the Russian General Alexander Suvorov who asserted that The bullet misses, the bayonet does not. The first bayonets appeared in France in the early 17th century and soon they were being used by every army in Europe. The author examines the spread of this simple weapon and how it led to fundamental changes being made in battlefield tactics. Over 300 years later, in the age of hi-tech warfare and weapons of mass destruction, the bayonet is still in service with armies around the world. British and US forces in Afghanistan regularly have their bayonets fixed. Fix Bayonets illustrates how tactics changed and the design of the weapon, although fundamentally the same, has evolved over the centuries.Much myth and legend surrounds the subject of bayonet charges and the weapon has become an icon of defiance and the determination to do whatever it takes to win. The author examines evidence for the reality of such actions. How did the ordinary soldier feel to be told 'fix bayonets'? John Norris draws on personal accounts of soldiers using bayonets in combat from the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars, various Colonial campaigns, through the World Wars, Falklands War and into the 21st century in Afghanistan. In so doing he explains the seemingly anachronistic survival of this simple weapon on the modern battlefield.

The 16th Mississippi Infantry
The 16th Mississippi Infantry

Author: Robert G. Evans

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 9781578064861

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"The words of these common soldiers fighting in one of the most notable units in the Army of Northern Virginia will fascinate both civil war buffs and historians.".

The Bayonet
The Bayonet

Author: Bill Harriman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-04-15

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 147284534X

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Although muskets delivered devastating projectiles at comparatively long ranges, their slow rate of fire left the soldier very vulnerable while reloading, and early muskets were useless for close-quarter fighting. Consequently, European infantry regiments of the 17th century were composed of both musketeers and pikemen, who protected the musketeers while loading but also formed the shock component for close-quarter combat. The development of the flintlock musket produced a much less cumbersome and faster-firing firearm. When a short knife was stuck into its muzzle, every soldier could be armed with a missile weapon as well as one that could be used for close combat. The only disadvantage was that the musket could not be loaded or fired while the plug bayonet was in place. The socket bayonet solved this problem and the musket/bayonet combination became the universal infantry weapon from c.1700 to c.1870. The advent of shorter rifled firearms saw the attachment of short swords to rifle barrels. Their longer blades still gave the infantryman the 'reach' that contemporaries believed he needed to fend off cavalry attacks. The perfection of the small-bore magazine rifle in the 1890s saw the bayonet lose its tactical importance, becoming smaller and more knife-like, a trend that continued in the world wars. When assault rifles predominated from the 1950s onwards, the bayonet became a weapon of last resort. Its potential usefulness continued to be recognized, but its blade was often combined with an item with some additional function, most notably a wire-cutter. Ultimately, for all its fearsome reputation as a visceral, close-quarter fighting weapon, the bayonet's greatest impact was actually as a psychological weapon. Featuring full-colour artwork as well as archive and close-up photographs, this is the absorbing story of the complementary weapon to every soldier's firearm from the army of Louis XIV to modern-day forces in all global theatres of conflict.