Not a lot of things makes sense to me; math, how planes fly, women, electrolytes, how to be an adult, etc. Really, the only thing(s) that do make any sense to me are sports and words.
So last night when I was watching The Patriot I couldn’t understand why armies lined up 30 feet from each other and just shot. I know this isn’t an original idea but still, it has been driving me crazy.
You learn from the past and this technique was how ancient Greek and Romans would fight. But like, they didn’t have guns. A phalanx is great when you’re fighting with swords and spears but no shield is stopping a hot ball of lead fired out of a musket. You don’t need to be trained how to do that so maybe that’s why they kept that style of fighting for hundreds of years.
I wonder what the selection process for the front line was? Was it an honor? Like hey you get to go fire maybe one shot then die for the king. Or was it for the guys that fucked up? Maybe slept with their captains wife back home? If my name got called I am BOOKING it out of there.
I want to know who’s idea it was to start the militia. Probably some guy who looked around and said, “Why the fuck are we asking to be killed?” The Revolutionary war up to that point had nothing to do with strategy- it was a war of attrition. The Brits had more men willing to stare down the barrel of a gun and accept their inevitable death than the Americans did.
And why did this style continue into the Civil War? I imagine some high ranking officer for both armies being like, “We just went over this guys!” and being shut down.
At least we figured it out by World War 1. I guess it took the combined brain power of America and England to realize that was NOT a good idea, especially with the invention of automatic weapons. But why was the tradition carried on for hundreds of years too long?
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