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Lo bueno que tienen estos libros es que como no los compra nadie - por su precio - luego los encuentras en la librerías de ocasión. A mí me pasó con alguno de los tomos de LES UNIFORMES DU PRIMIER EMPIRE del Cdt. Buckuoy. Sucedió lo mismo con una historia ilustrada de la expedición a Egipto (papel del bueno, encuadernación superior, etc.) pasó de las 30000 pesetas (de las de hace 10 años) a las 5000. El problema es tener la suerte suficiente de encontrarlos en librerias de segunda mano. Supongo que los que vivís en Madrid o Barcelona lo tenéis más fácil. Otra solución es dar la paliza a los amigos y amigas que viajan a París o Londres y obligarles a recorrer las librerías de ocasión y que nos traigan unos cuantos encargos.Lannes escribió:Je, tiene muy buena pinta, pero 192$... uff, eso son 30.000 pts , sera por ser una edicion limitada y de lujo...
Aprovecho para contestar úna cuestión planteada tiempo ha. Yo sí creo que chandler es parcial a la hora de sus análisis, auqne no llega al límite de la papanatada. Si uno lee sus comentarios sobre la primera parte de las guerras revolucionaras es muy crítico con los británicos, pero hay que entender que es imposible no serlo. Durante los años que transcurren entre el inicio de la revolución hasta el año 1808, lo que hace los ingleses es optar por la política de ataque indirecto, es decir, desembarcos en zonas alejadas del centro de acción de los franceses, para provocar que estos no puedan concentrar su poderío militar y distraer tropas. Pero esa política se torna nociva, como demuestra sus fracasos en Holanda, Dinamarca, Toulon, guerras de la Vendee, Sicilia y un largo etcétera. Como siempre, en la política británica hay errores, a veces mantenidos largo tiempo por el establishment militar y político inglés. Nadie puede sostener hoy en día lo acertado de la elección de los lugares, ni de los mandos, ni el desarrollo de las campañas. Aunque hoy tengamos la idea de los británicos como vencedores, pasaron cerca de 16 años de fracasos ininterrumpidos, lo que en españa hubiera costado muchas cabezas y probablemente una crisis de dimensiones impensables. Aquí Chandler es muy crítico con lo británico, pero tampoco se regodea. Queda además enmascarado por su mal disimulada admiración por Napoleón, lo que le da una apariencia de objetividad mayor de la que es en realidad.Haplo_Patryn escribió:PD: ¡Ah!, por cierto. De momento, por lo que llevo leído, David Chandler no es tan magnánimo con el ejército británico y, es más, critica duramente el estado del ejército británico para cuando la figura de Napoleón empezaba a emerger en la Francia revolucionaria. Leyéndoos a algunos de vosotros podría parecer que el autor pone por las nubes a los británicos pero de momento, por lo que he podido leer, no deja bien ni a su madre.
Excelente página... No la conocía. Al boteHaplo_Patryn escribió:Un página fantástica sobre Napoleón:
http://web2.airmail.net/napoleon/index.html
po zi, una caña...Camile Desmoulins escribió:Excelente página... No la conocía. Al boteHaplo_Patryn escribió:Un página fantástica sobre Napoleón:
http://web2.airmail.net/napoleon/index.html
Camille
Sí conocía valoraciones similares. Incluso hay un buen artículo en español de un profesor de Arqueología de la Autónoma de Madrid, Fernando Quesada - el mayor experto españo en armamento romano y español de época ibérica, y estudioso del de otras épocas- que hablaba sobre el tema en esos términos. No obstante, hay otros estudiosos (casi todos ellos militares) que elevan muy considerablemente el número de bajas causadas en esas circunstancias. También es cierto que el fuego concentrado genera a su vez el inconveniente de un blanco de gran tamaño, cuando quienes disparan sobn filas cerradas sobre filas cerradas.deibiz escribió:po zi, una caña...Camile Desmoulins escribió:Excelente página... No la conocía. Al boteHaplo_Patryn escribió:Un página fantástica sobre Napoleón:
http://web2.airmail.net/napoleon/index.html
Camille
un extracto de un articulo sobre el fuego de fusil en los combates de la epoca:
Concentrated firepower was essential because of the poor accuracy of the smoothbore muskets used during Napoleonic Wars. During firing in three ranks, "elbow-to-elbow", the infantrymen were struggling for space to load, aim and fire their muskets. Napoleonic infantry was formed on 3 ranks. A 600-men strong battalion had 200 men in the first, 200 in second and 200 men in the third rank. During a firefight the troopers of 3rd rank had to load their muskets and give them to those in 2nd rank. But in reality it was impossible to keep them doing this under fire. The pressure of loading and firing under tremendous stress resulted in wounds inflicted by the 3rd rankers on their comrades who stand in front of them, and fingers and elbows were shot away from the fire of the troopers of rear rank. French commander Gouvion St. Cyr (1764-1830) (external link) claimed that 1 in 4 casualties were inflicted by own fire.
While under stress many infantrymen fired without waiting for orders and as fast as possible. Even in recent war in 2004 in Iraq tens of thousand of rounds were fired before one casualty was inflicted. The fast firing relieved anxiety and occupied troopers' minds and bodies. Some soldiers were so stressed that they loaded their rifles time after time but they never fired. After one of the battles (Gettysburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barrel
One rifle had been stuffed to the top with 23 rounds.
In training the soldier was under close observation and the pressure upon him was to give satisfaction to his officer, whereas the man engaging the enemy was of necessity pretty much on his own, and the pressure on him was to remain alive, if possible. Thus the accuracy of fire in training was much higher than in combat. In 1755 two companies of Prussian grenadiers fired at a target 10 paces broad and 10 feet high. At 300 paces they scored approx. 12.5 % hits and at 150 paces 46 %. In another test out of 720 French infantrymen 52 hit the target of 3m x 100 m. At 200 m there were only 18 hits.
According to S.L.A. Marshall's "Men Against Fire" at best only between 15% and 55 % of a troop really participated in fighting and actively seek to kill the enemy with their muskets and bayonets. The other men fought more with the object of staying alive than of actively aiming to kill the enemy. They simply didn't aim at the enemy but fired wildly. This fact partially explain why such a high ratio of soldiers failed to hit the target.
A Prussian veteran of the Seven Years War wrote: "one is firing totally differently in battle than on the drill ground, then the advancing infantry opens fire, despite what is taught and drilled on the exercise ground, often at 800 paces against the enemy or at least at 600 paces." It resulted in very low casualty rate.
In the heat of battle the soldier often forgot that in close range it was necessary to point the musket at the feet of a target because the kick of the musket threw the barrel up, causing the ball to arc up, to pass over the target.
The majority of calculations below were done by counting all the expenditure of the amount of rounds fired and the number of soldiers wounded and killed. Some of the lightly wounded went uncounted and small part of ammunition nominally fired was thrown away by soldiers. The two factors greatly lowered the ratio of hits. Mark Adkin calculated the effectiveness of muskets at Waterloo. He wrote that in the prolonged fighting for Hougoumont "it took 224 French musket shots to secure a hit. This is not such a poor performance as it seems. Most defenders (Germans and Brits) were behind cover of some sort for much of the time, if only a hedge or a tree. The majority were behind brick walls."
According to R. Henegan the British infantry at Vittoria fired on average 459 rounds for 1 French casualty. (p. 344-345 in "Seven Years' Campaigning in the Peninsula and the Netherlands", 1846).
According to Guibert only 0.2 % of all shots hit the target.
Gassendi calculated that only 1 shot in 3.000 resulted in casulty.
Hughes calculated for Albuera, for several volleys at 100 yards the British achieved 5 % ratio of casualties.
Napier claimed that in Spain he witnessed volleys fired by British infantry where out of 300 musketballs fired none hit the target.
At Vittoria, the British infantry had on average 1 hit in 459 shots fired. I assume that the ratio for French infantry was lower, as they had much less time for training.
In 1813 at Gohrde 66 French infantrymen fired at 60-80 paces at Germans hiting 27 Hannoverians and Bremen-Verden (40 % hits). This very high ratio of hits can be easily explained, the most effective was the first volley, the next salvos were usually much worse. In this case the count is only for one volley.
In 1813 at Dennewitz a single squadron of 'Brandenburg' Dragoons (Prussians) attacked a French battalion formed in square. The infantry delivered volley at 30 paces killing 23 horses and 7 men, and wounding 18 horses and 21 men. Eighty dragoons were untouched by the musketry at close range.
