Fugg, I got it wrong. Thanks for the correction though.
That said, it does make me wonder how long the Civil War would've lasted without the income tax. Despite having the most factories and rail, the war lasted much longer than it should have due to Northern draftees being absolute shit marksmen. It's why Union veterans founded the National Rifle Association, to educate civilians on firearms and prevent another embarrassment like that again.
It's not really wrong because it proves your point even further.
Despite having the most factories and rail, the war lasted much longer than it should have due to Northern draftees being absolute shit marksmen.
I doubt that that had a significant effect. The rifles and maintenance they were using were still old imports from Prussia, or were cheap American goods produced with no sights whatsoever. Meanwhile, many of the Confederates were using Smoothbore muskets well into the war (although some units did this intentionally because smoothbores could be loaded with a kind of additional buck shot behind the primary round, making them additionally lethal at close quarters).
When you combine the fact that you have no sights, heavy smoke, difficult terrain, cheap weapons, not excellently maintained weapons, and an enemy who is fighting as much as possible under some kind of concealment whenever they can, no one is going to regularly hit anything.
Compare this to Battle of Königgrätz. Both armies were good shots and professional, but while the Austrians were using rifled muskets, the Prussians were using Breech-Locking rifles that were a kind of proto-bolt-action rifle (they cleverly sold all of their old muskets to the Americans to arm their troops with these). Their sheer rate of fire, (and expert use of long range artillery) made the battle decisive. Accuracy was not the major advantage, rate of fire was.
Similarly, the Battle of Shilo involved a single Union platoon that carried Henry rifles and the Confederates misinterpreted the size of the unit to be that of a brigade due to it's rate of fire, and had a hell of a time dislodging them with their own brigade. Again, the Henry rifles were a) not armed with smokeless ammunition, and b) had no sights. The unit was also under concealment. The given accuracy of either groups would have been shit, but the rate of fire from the Union platoon was utterly shocking, particularly in 1862 when the Confederates may not have known that the rifle even existed.
Fugg, I got it wrong. Thanks for the correction though.
That said, it does make me wonder how long the Civil War would've lasted without the income tax. Despite having the most factories and rail, the war lasted much longer than it should have due to Northern draftees being absolute shit marksmen. It's why Union veterans founded the National Rifle Association, to educate civilians on firearms and prevent another embarrassment like that again.
It's not really wrong because it proves your point even further.
I doubt that that had a significant effect. The rifles and maintenance they were using were still old imports from Prussia, or were cheap American goods produced with no sights whatsoever. Meanwhile, many of the Confederates were using Smoothbore muskets well into the war (although some units did this intentionally because smoothbores could be loaded with a kind of additional buck shot behind the primary round, making them additionally lethal at close quarters).
When you combine the fact that you have no sights, heavy smoke, difficult terrain, cheap weapons, not excellently maintained weapons, and an enemy who is fighting as much as possible under some kind of concealment whenever they can, no one is going to regularly hit anything.
Compare this to Battle of Königgrätz. Both armies were good shots and professional, but while the Austrians were using rifled muskets, the Prussians were using Breech-Locking rifles that were a kind of proto-bolt-action rifle (they cleverly sold all of their old muskets to the Americans to arm their troops with these). Their sheer rate of fire, (and expert use of long range artillery) made the battle decisive. Accuracy was not the major advantage, rate of fire was.
Similarly, the Battle of Shilo involved a single Union platoon that carried Henry rifles and the Confederates misinterpreted the size of the unit to be that of a brigade due to it's rate of fire, and had a hell of a time dislodging them with their own brigade. Again, the Henry rifles were a) not armed with smokeless ammunition, and b) had no sights. The unit was also under concealment. The given accuracy of either groups would have been shit, but the rate of fire from the Union platoon was utterly shocking, particularly in 1862 when the Confederates may not have known that the rifle even existed.