Ceejay Writer: Welcome one and all to the Aether Salon! Sera Puchkina is the R.F. Burton Library’s librarian, and a brave soul indeed for giving the Salon free rein of the first floor. Show your support by dropping a little something in the library’s donation box near the front door.
Ceejay Writer: Please join the inworld Aether Salon group for reminders of upcoming salons.
https://world.secondlife.com/group/cbdd8d19-4c68-802c-8523-a95ea4181afc
Ceejay Writer: You are also welcome to join my Ceejaytopia group for assorted literary event notices. The “bookpile” info kiosk behind me has a book that’ll give you that link when touched.
Liz Wilner: hi Wild 🙂
Ceejay Writer: The transcript of today’s salon will be posted on the website: https://aethersalonhome.wordpress.com in a few days. The website’s front page also has links to join our Discord group, an application to be a salon presenter, and other handy links.
Wildstar Beaumont: greetings everyone
Ceejay Writer: Wild!!!
Liz Wilner: waves to Ronald
Ronald Smith: waves
Ceejay Writer: Today’s speaker is no stranger to Salon. In fact, she’s one of the original Salonistas. She was part of the first salon, “Curses!”, which was a group-speaker in 2008, stepped down from salon management along with the rest of the original Salon staff in “Forks!” in 2011, presented “Peelers!” in 2014, and “Pinkertons!” in 2020. Transcripts of these Salons are archived at the website for your perusal. My thanks to Viv Trafalgar and Serafina Puchkina for coming up with the Salon notion in the first place and giving us all an outlet to blather on endlessly on topics we are passionate about. Goodness knows I’ve abused the privilege often enough grin.
Ceejay Writer: Now, before you can holler, “Stop talking, Ceejay!” I will do just that! Jedburgh Dagger, the room is yours!
Jedburgh Dagger: Today’s topic was a confluence of coincidences.
Ceejay Writer: Oh?
Jedburgh Dagger: Ceejay was looking for a presenter, and I had just crawled out of a rabbit hole caused by a movie
Tepic Harlequin: Alice in Wonderland?
Jedburgh Dagger: So, I went to see Young Washington, and of course someone made the comment about ‘Silly British standing in lines’
Wildstar Beaumont: !!!!
Jedburgh Dagger: as a military historian and reenactor, I immediately took great umbrage at this
Wildstar Beaumont: British line broke Napoleon!
Flower Ansar: been debating whether to see Young Wash or not
Jedburgh Dagger: because, yes, Americans used irregular tactics and rifles to fight during the war, primarily as specialist units
Jedburgh Dagger: but by the end of the war, the US was using continental line tactics just like the line British units did
Jedburgh Dagger: HOWEVER, oddly enough the British had starting using the same tactics with rifle armed troops then, and the experience in the US revolution led to the formation of the British Rifle Regiments
Liz Wilner: hi Bixyl 🙂
Bixyl Shuftan: hello Liz 🙂
Wildstar Beaumont: Sharpe!
Jedburgh Dagger: But the big question still remained, why did armies use line formations as long as they did?
Wildstar Beaumont: hi Bixyl
Tepic Harlequin: errrr….. cus they worked?
Flower Ansar: hi hi Bix 🙂
Wildstar Beaumont: volume of fire
Bixyl Shuftan: Hey Wild, hey Flower smiles
Jedburgh Dagger: The TLDR for the salon: The persistence of what works, even in the face of technological innovation.
Ceejay Writer: Very steampunky attitude, that
Jedburgh Dagger: The advantages of more accurate and longer ranged weapons did not displace linear formations and tactics for large force formations until the advent of one particular weapon.
Jedburgh Dagger: Even so, linear tactics are still used to this day by smaller units
Tepic Harlequin: flipin Maxim!
Liz Wilner: I’m a fan of the Viking Shield Wall..lol
Jedburgh Dagger: there.
Jedburgh Dagger: So even now, lines of troops are still used.
Jedburgh Dagger: No, I’m not in that picture, but I was, at some point in my career
Liz Wilner: !
Ceejay Writer: Yikes
Bixyl Shuftan: chuckles
Tepic Harlequin: yer was a rozzer?!!!
Jedburgh Dagger: Riot squad formation is not much different than Romans or Greek or Vikings…
Tender Dragon: isn’t it dependent on what the battle field presents, what strategies are used?
Jedburgh Dagger: You see over to the right of the portrait wall, the big 3 things that face a commander on the field
Jedburgh Dagger: the modern acronym has more letters, but I am trying to hit the basics,
Jedburgh Dagger: and yes it does, but I’m gonna be pushing to get the high level overview with as much nuace as possible so…
Jedburgh Dagger: Anyways, to lead a force on the field, the 3 C’s
Jedburgh Dagger: Command, go there. Control, stay together. Communications, tell them to go there too
Ceejay Writer: Got it!
Jedburgh Dagger: Let’s start around 700BC
Jedburgh Dagger: The Greeks, and later the Romans, used a big block formation for the line infantry units
Jedburgh Dagger: The Romans were big on multiples of 10, for the record
Ceejay Writer: Any particular reason?
Ronald Smith: It was Called A Phalanx
Jedburgh Dagger: it makes for even maths
Ceejay Writer: True.
Ronald Smith: The Formation that you’re talking about.
Dizzi Sternberg: and easy decimation
Flower Ansar: cuz they counted with their fingers and toes
Jedburgh Dagger: That is a sidebar, we can talk decimation afterwards
Jedburgh Dagger: so Control, everyone is close
Flower Ansar: had no idea that was where the word “decimate” came from until now
Ronald Smith: Those men are in a Phalanx.
Jedburgh Dagger: Let’s talk about communication
Jedburgh Dagger: Comms for the next 3000 years or so are either in person, or by audible signal
Jedburgh Dagger: Drums, bugles, horns…something to tell the troopies what to do, or some guy in a funny hat pointing
Jedburgh Dagger: War, as a whole is noisy and chaotic
Tepic Harlequin: Bombards! Bagpipes!
Jedburgh Dagger: so, with folks in closer proximity to each other, it is easier to pass the word
Jedburgh Dagger: so, the nuts and bolts of things with a few changes here and there stayed the same up until 1419
Wildstar Beaumont: in a nice fictional example , in World war Z (the book, not the movie) there is this big failure in the Army communication that leads to the zombies to prevail. Eventually the humans fall back to a line formation using bayonets as spears
Jedburgh Dagger: That was the first introduction of firearms on the field in Europe
Jedburgh Dagger: and shovels Mister Beaumont
Jedburgh Dagger: A-Hem
Ceejay Writer: Don’t make Jed mad!
Jedburgh Dagger: So, in 1525 the first battle that was pivotally decided by firearms was fought in Italy.
Jedburgh Dagger: Battle of Pavia, when the cavalry found out that you can’t run pell mell at a block of musketeers
Jedburgh Dagger: But even so, guns ended up not changing the formations a great deal
Tepic Harlequin: just meant yer had ter make sure yer weren’t in the front…
Jedburgh Dagger: the bulk of the grunt infantry used pikes
Jedburgh Dagger: the muskets were reliant on the pikes for protection
Jedburgh Dagger: I know everyone loves the sword guys that Dumas wrote about…
Jedburgh Dagger: but their primary weapon was a musket
Jedburgh Dagger: The problem was pikes have pokey bits on the end
Flower Ansar: The One Shot Wonders *giggles*
Jedburgh Dagger: muskets didn’t at first, so that meant you ended up using a sword, which is a less that optional solution
Jedburgh Dagger: So technology said, hey why not make a pokey bit for the muskets?
Ceejay Writer: Yes? Why not indeed?
Jedburgh Dagger: so someone made a knife you stick into the end of your musket, so you have a pike yourself
Ceejay Writer: that is one heck of a pokey stick up there.
Jedburgh Dagger: the problem is, of course, the plug bayonet ruins the idea of having a gun…
Jedburgh Dagger: so, lets talk about the first of my 3 portraits
Jedburgh Dagger: on the left is King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
Dizzi Sternberg: sorry Jedburgh, everyone, I must go and feed my cat or face his wrath
Ceejay Writer: Firing a knife might work…. once.
Ceejay Writer: Thanks for coming Dizzi!
Dizzi Sternberg: 🙂
Dizzi Sternberg: ty Jed
Jedburgh Dagger: GA is knows as the first modern general, and the man who started the widespread use of ‘combined arms’
Ceejay Writer: (BTW, in lieu of a tip jar, I suggest any tips be covertly slipped into Jed’s pockets)
Jedburgh Dagger: (or give it to the Library..)
Ceejay Writer nods in agreement
Oriella Charik: Scissors, paper, rock. Infantry, cavalry, cannons
Jedburgh Dagger: What he did was use cavalry, artillery, and infantry together, each using their strengths to offset the weaknesses of the other
Jedburgh Dagger: Cavalry has speed, and the ability to conduct rapid shock attacks, but cav is very weak on defense
Jedburgh Dagger: Artillery has range, and strength of fire, but is also slow to displace and weak on defense
Jedburgh Dagger: Infantry is Slower to deploy, but is flexible, can exploit terrain defensively, fluid and adaptable
Jedburgh Dagger: So, GA would send out the cav units to strike then pull them back behind the infantry for protection. He developed small light cannons that could be moved easily by the crews to provide extra firepower against oncoming troops
Jedburgh Dagger: His doctrine changed the cadence of war in Europe, but he died leading his men in the 1620s.
Jedburgh Dagger: But, his innovations carried on.
Jedburgh Dagger: Back to the bayonet…so in 1720, a French officer figured out how to make a bayonet that allowed for the use of the musket
Jedburgh Dagger: this killed off the last of the pike formations, if anyone still used them
Jedburgh Dagger: because now everyone had a shooty pokey thing
Jedburgh Dagger: Ok, I managed to roll past this bit and I wanted to bring it up
Jedburgh Dagger: Someone usually brings up ‘what about bows?’
Ceejay Writer: So, Jed. what about bows?
Jedburgh Dagger: and it is simple math and logistics
Jedburgh Dagger: Archers have to be raised.
Jedburgh Dagger: They have to be trained, for years.
Jedburgh Dagger: You can take any mook farmer, give them a musket, minimal training, and they can shoot
Ceejay Writer: true. I have some experience here.
Jedburgh Dagger: I know, we can argue accuracy one on one. but…we’re talking by the hundreds
Liz Wilner: or as Scarlet O’Hara said…I can shoot straight if I don’t have to shoot far…lol
Oriella Charik: Crossbows! Banned by the Pope because amateurs can use them.
Jedburgh Dagger: and they have a horrifically slow rate of fire
Jedburgh Dagger: Crossbows are great for sieges, not for field fights
Oriella Charik: Too slow
Tepic Harlequin: Only one army trained regulary with live musket drill….
Jedburgh Dagger: So, 1710, we have socket bayonets and things didn’t change much
Ceejay Writer: So, arrows go up, bullets go across.
Jedburgh Dagger: We did touch on rifles.
Jedburgh Dagger: They are good for specialists, but they are slow to fire as well
Oriella Charik: Rifles are expensive
Jedburgh Dagger: well, they required a little more work…but mostly yes
Jedburgh Dagger: what makes a regular flintlock rifle accurate is the ball is patched with a bit of cloth so it grabs the rifling in the barrel and spins
Jedburgh Dagger: this as I said takes longer to load
Jedburgh Dagger: so in 1830 or so a French officer designed a projectile that could be loaded loose like a smoothbore, but expanded into the rifling to make it more accurate
Jedburgh Dagger: so now you could arm everyone in the infantry with a rifle accurate to 400 yards or so
Jedburgh Dagger: but the tactics really didn’t change much
Jedburgh Dagger: still linear, marching at each other in opposed lines
Jedburgh Dagger: the 1860s saw the advent of self contained cartridges
Jedburgh Dagger: still didn’t change much tactically
Jedburgh Dagger: what happened was because of portrait #2
Jedburgh Dagger: Someone said it already
Jedburgh Dagger: Hiram Maxim
Jedburgh Dagger: an American who went to Europe to make his fortune
Jedburgh Dagger: if you didn’t know, he designed the Maxim gun.
Ceejay Writer looks at shiny weapon.
Ceejay Writer: I didn’t know
Jedburgh Dagger: Water cooled, belt fed, fully automatic.
Oriella Charik: The villain who ruined war!
Ceejay Writer: Wow, elegant
Machine Gun Anti Zombie: whispers: Press ‘M’ to enter mouslook and the mouse button to fire
Jedburgh Dagger: well, there is one other bit I want to bring up at this point
Machine Gun v4 Bashable: whispers: Press ‘M’ to enter mouslook and the mouse button to fire
Jedburgh Dagger: It goes into the 3rd C
Oriella Charik: Cue all movies where the machine gun jams and the heroes charge and win
Jedburgh Dagger: #3 is Marconi
Machine Gun v3 Bashable: whispers: Press ‘M’ to enter mouslook and the mouse button to fire
Machine gun freestanding with script: whispers: Press ‘M’ to enter mouslook and the mouse button to fire
Jedburgh Dagger: so towards the end of the 19th century, artillery could shoot well beyond line of sight
Jedburgh Dagger: but, you couldn’t shoot things you couldn’t see
Jedburgh Dagger: Arguably in WW1 forward observers used field telephones to spot targets
Oriella Charik: Airships! Er, airplanes
Jedburgh Dagger: but the radio did a couple of things
Jedburgh Dagger: you could command people you are not in contact with
Tepic Harlequin: very often they didn’t work….
Jedburgh Dagger: you can apply control to other units for coordination of attacks
Jedburgh Dagger: and they didn’t work well in the 90s when I was still in the Army either 😛
Ceejay Writer: Yeek
Jedburgh Dagger: but the point was, it took Maxim’s gun to provide huge amounts of fire that ended the large unit use of line formations, and also killed colored uniforms for that matter…
Jedburgh Dagger: and Marconi to send messages faster and further
Tepic Harlequin: think the Maxim killed everyone…..
Tepic Harlequin: found it!
Jedburgh Dagger: anyways, but like I said, there is still a use for the line. I’ll end with the latest edition of US Army Field manual 7-8 Infantry Squad/Platoon still teaches line formations for infantrymen
Jedburgh Dagger: so even today, the riot squad and the infantry squaddie still do the same thing their Greek ancestors did…
Tepic Harlequin: drink too much and fight the locals?
Ceejay Writer: nod line formation looks very familiar
Bixyl Shuftan: I think I recall something about in WW1 machine guns killing over ten percent, artillery over 20 percent, and rifle fire over 60 percent. Got that from a book on weapons developlent
Jedburgh Dagger: Thank you for coming, it ran kinda long but it was a damn meaty subject with lots of rabbit holes
Liz Wilner: Applauds!!!
Liz Wilner: well done, Jed! thank you!
Jedburgh Dagger: the highest casualty causation was dysentary
Oriella Charik: Applauds!!!
Tender Dragon: thank you Jed 🙂
Ceejay Writer: Thank YOU for sharing so much information with us. I’ll be getting the transcript up at the website as soon as I can for review and study!
Bixyl Shuftan: Yes, I;m writing a science fiction series taking place on a colonial age world. It does deal with this kind of technology
Bixyl Shuftan: welcome and thank you
Ceejay Writer: Before everyone goes, just want to say we do not have a speaker for next month, but we do for the rest of the year.
Oriella Charik: WArfare is a constant technology arms race
Tepic Harlequin: where is the tip jar?
Ceejay Writer: Sooooo, anyone interested…. fill out the form!
Ceejay Writer: Tip the library, Tepic! Or stuff it in Jeds pocket.
Jedburgh Dagger: and someone said something about terrain, and I had written up a diatribe about Crimea and the light brigade and it got dropped for time
Tepic Harlequin: opppsss….
Jedburgh Dagger: so yes, terrain matters
Ceejay Writer: You’re welcome to do a Part Two down the road if you like, Jed.
Bixyl Shuftan: Yepic if I write about this event …
Liz Wilner: Tepic! don’t blast Ceejay with that thing! LOL
Bixyl Shuftan: that is SO getting mentioned
Oriella Charik: Don’t charge down valleys without infantry support
Jedburgh Dagger: I also had a dogleg into boats, but that is Wild’s party 😛
Liz Wilner: lol
Tepic Harlequin: last baynet charge was by our lot in 2011…
Ceejay Writer: Ah, Wild will be speaking in September!
Jedburgh Dagger: and there are arguments about the last Cavalry charge
Liz Wilner: hi Neuro 🙂 didn’t see you come in
Wildstar Beaumont: thank you Jed
Wildstar Beaumont: good night everyone
Ceejay Writer: Thank you all for coming! Have a great rest of your weekend!
Ceejay Writer: Oh my gosh, TEPIC IS HERE. Were you here all along?
Oriella Charik: 1917. Beersheva.
Bixyl Shuftan: welcoem Ceejay
Bixyl Shuftan: tips his hat
Bixyl Shuftan: see you all soon
Liz Wilner: tc Bixyl 🙂
Tepic Harlequin: course i were, master of camoflage i is! hehehehe
Bixyl Shuftan: you too 🙂
Jedburgh Dagger: Yes. The Poles seem to argue that one
Ceejay Writer: Well you sure fooled me, kid.
Liz Wilner: ty Jed!
Liz Wilner: ty Ceejay!
Ceejay Writer: Welcome! And thanks as always for the chair service!
Tepic Harlequin: the Polish cavelry charges were mostly reasonably successful
Liz Wilner: always a pleasure 🙂
Liz Wilner: have a great evening!
Ceejay Writer: I’ll be off shortly for cat dining service.
Jedburgh Dagger: My favorite Pole story is the destroyer Prion
Tepic Harlequin: not sure cats will make very good servers…..
Ceejay Writer: cackles
Ceejay Writer: Chives expects excellent cuisine at precisely 6:30 pm
Jedburgh Dagger: The Fluff and Bagel give me the LOOK
Ceejay Writer: I know THE LOOK. Big eyes.
Jedburgh Dagger: Fluff is kinda crosseyed, so there is always that
Tepic Harlequin: well, i gotta go, thanks fer the talk!
Ceejay Writer: Okay, I need to zoom and cope with a couple inworld things before that. Thank you again Jed!!! So much!
Jedburgh Dagger: My pleasure
Ceejay Writer: Have a good evening! hugs and bounces
Aether Salon 