Thread by @alexdecampi

I have tequila and want to yell about the Crimean War and how rapid innovations in gun technology, as perfectly encapsulated in one charge during the Battle of Balaclava (1854) marked the twilight of horse cavalry on European battlefields!#AlexDrunkHistory

(The Crimean War, 1853-55, was ENG / FRA / TUR vs opportunistic RUS expansionism into the tottering Ottoman Empire, but the Russians claimed it was actually about ethics in videogame journalism. Took place on the west and north Black Sea coast.)

Hahaha, no, I’m *not* going to talk about the Charge of the Light Brigade

...Besides, all you need to know about it is that the guy leading the charge named his horse “Ronald”

You can tell a lot about a military leader by what he names his horse

Charlemagne: Tendencur (“Strife”)

Robert E Lee: Traveller

Ulysses S Grant: Cincinnati

Lord Cardigan: R O N A L D

*cough* sorry, got distracted. We’re going to talk about the Thin Red Line.

But first, why cavalry?

I mean, why NOT cavalry? Badass uniforms, getting to ride eveywhere instead of trudging along on foot with a heavy pack, and of course the social hangover from the middle ages which said anyone on a battlefield on a horse was necessarily of high social status

(In the Middle Ages it also meant you were less likely to die, because capturing you and ransoming you was a way better idea than killing you)

So why didn’t everyone who had a choice where they enlisted (erm, only officers) sign up for the cavalry? Welp

All British army officers (except Artillery) had to pay for their 2LT commission, and then EVERY promotion afterwards. Cavalry officers also paid for their own uniforms and (IIRC) provided their own horses, and cavalry commissions cost the most. Officers received NO training.

For enlisted men in Britain, it was mainly geographic luck of the draw — regiments tended to pull from specific locations. Glasgow? You ended up in the Scots Guards, f’rex. Also your enlistment period was I think 10 years by then (previously: life).

By 1850, there was no practical distinction between types of British cavalry regiment. All were mounted the same; all carried a sabre, a cavalry carbine, and a pistol.

For example: when the 11th Light Dragoons became Hussars in 1840, their uniforms got more expensive. That’s it.

Seriously, look at these extra-ass motherfuckers. Left: as 11th light dragoons at Waterloo. Right: as 11th Hussars in the Crimea.

L E O P A R D S K I N

but sure, your tanker boots are cute too

(hang on; @LindsaySmithDC and I are going to a different bar)

“But Alex, surely, artistic licence?!?!”

Here’s Henry Wilkin, assistant regimental surgeon, 11th Hussars, post Charge of the Light Brigade which was a thing he survived

yes in cavalry even the medics are extra AF

So make your own assumptions about the quality of the cavalry officer class

But still, if you wanted to smash up the infantry on an open battlefield, a cavalry charge was the way to go

Not because cavalry was amazing

But because muskets were SHIT

The Brown Bess musket had an effective range of 50-100 yards, mainly because it was inaccurate AF

The calibre was .75” but the ball was only .69” so the bullet rattled out of the muzzle and whizzed off in who the fuck knew what direction

You know “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes?” That wasn’t just Bunker Hill Masshole bravado; it was accepted infantry tactics of the time: don’t fire until the enemy was 50 yards in front of you

because muskets

And that’s why cavalry worked.

There’s a regiment of cavalry galloping at you at 30mph (aka 880 yards/min)

Your muskets can fire 3-4 rounds a minute with a 50-100 yard effective range

If you don’t get the massed fire EXACTLY right, your odds of surviving are *bad*

The classic Napoleonic tactic against cavalry is to form square, so it’s harder to go through or around your line

A whole infantry battalion would form into a hollow square of 2-4 ranks and volley fire at the cavalry at point blank range as they charged and circled

Now we get back to Balaclava. About 200 men of the Sutherland Highlanders led by Colin Campbell, vs 400 Russian cavalry keen to trash the British camp beyond them

Campbell didn’t form square

Because his men had just been issued a new gun: the Minié rifle

The Minié was a rifled musket (muzzle-loading) with an especially fat, rifled lead bullet (0.702”) that deformed on firing to fit the 0.71” calibre barrel and engage the rifling

it was if anything a little slower to load than old Bess

But it was accurate to 600 yards

So Campbell tells his men in their red jackets to line up two deep and basically says “you die where you stand” (C- for inspiration; A+ for honesty)

And the Russians are like LOL look at these skirt-wearing fools

And then the first Russian eats dirt 600 yards away

So remember I said life comes at you fast and so does galloping cavalry?

The Sutherland Highlanders only got off three volleys, at 600, 300 and 150 yards. But it was enough.

The Russians:

Infantry weapon improvement didn’t stop there. Between 1850 (Pattern 1842 Musket) and 1853 (Minié), the British infantry’s main weapon gained 400-500 yards of range thanks to rifling

(ofc the Baker rifle during the Napoleonic wars, but that was rifle / scout regiments only)

By 1855 the Minié was being replaced by the Pattern 1853 Enfield, still a muzzle loader but it gained the infantry even more range (max 1250 yards; effective 600)...

...and was directly responsible for the Indian Mutiny two years later

but that is, as they say, another story

1866 saw the 1853 Enfield replaced by the breech-loading Snider Enfield, which had a maximum range of 2000 yards and could shoot 10 rounds a minute, with a muzzle velocity 50% greater than the 1853 gun. Also, cartridges!

tl;dr the British infantry weapon stayed the same for *125 years* and then suddenly in the space of 12 years went from

3-4 rounds/minute, 50 yard effective range

to

10 rounds/minute, 600 yard effective range

and charging at infantry on horseback became a losing proposition

But Alex, muskets couldn’t have been THAT BAD, yes? Modern-day musket apologists on youtube say—

Yyyeah. Here’s an 1846 weapons test:

Look at these fucking things. What a palaver. Look at the process to load and fire this thing (note the percussion cap he adds; that replaced flintlock from the 1840s muskets)

(In an actual battle there’d be a bayonet on that thing, and your man would need to cut that reload time down to 15 seconds or less)

(and yes, he’s biting the end of a paper cartridge off, pouring the charge, then spitting the bullet down the barrel.)

Muskets were stupid long (mandated: with bayonet, long enuf to stab a cavalryman before his sabre could reach you). The black powder charge was so filthy that the the ball had to be much smaller calibre than the barrel so as much debris could be expelled as possible.

Also, note that the actual firing part of the Thin Red Line engagement lasts approximately ONE MINUTE. The entire battle was about 5 minutes long and then the Russians made like:

Anyway. Horse cavalry kept on keeping on, as a scout & frontier force in many places (the US west; the Indian Northwest Frontier, etc), but the Crimea was the last time it was relevant on a large-scale battlefield

I mean

By the end of Crimea folks were already digging trenches

Dude about to get into my mentions about Bataan or any late yet adorable cavalry actions: if it’s a single platoon, and reading it makes you go “well bless their hearts”, it doesn’t really count as a major cavalry action

Lastly: if you are interested in this stuff and haven’t read either Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books or George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books you should get on that pronto

it is, no lie, how 90% of British public schoolboys learn their 19th cen military history

Also, hello, I write books, you can buy them. Latest: amazon.com/Bad-Girls-Alex…

Tip your drunk historian: ko-fi.com/alexdecampi