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Subject: America's Worst Enemy in History
mongyu    1/2/2008 8:16:10 AM
The title says it all: Who do you think has been the greatest enemy ever to threaten America? My vote goes to the British hands down. No other country ever came as close as the British to physically ending the United States in our history. The Germans and the Japanese were formidable in their own right, but neither [or even both] could reasonably invade the United States. The Soviet Union had the theoretical potential to destroy the United States, but I think everyone agrees that this was not a practical capability in the way the British Empire's ability to take Washington DC was. The Soviets were a dangerous enemy ideologically in the way it could convert adherents in America, but they never out-did the British who successfully supported a rebellion in the United States by funding, arming, and giving moral support to the Confederacy. So what country would you choose?
 
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paul1970       1/9/2008 7:15:01 AM



As for Mahan, He recognozed that the US lost the Atlantic then and there was NOTHING the US could do about that.He did note something though that you rule Britainia chestr thumper idiots ignore which we in the United States have pounded into our antiu-colonialist skulls  We  in 1812 could do something about the Great Lakes [Battle of Lake Erie] and  we did do something we on our internal waterways. There we could face you cretins on EVEN terms, and there we taught you what it means to lose command of the sea. You lost the Great Lakes and NEVER got it back. It was your first DEFINITE PERMANENT defeat in an [inland] sea, and it presaged your eventual global downfall a century later.

You better stick to what you do best, buffoon, which  is  make stupid assertions with no evidence and leave the factual stuff alone. You don't handle facts well, either the number crunching or the history.

One last thing. CREF my comments on rivers. Jackson was ready to descend on Lambert when Lambert received the order to withdraw. Riverine warfare and amphibious warfare in general is something of an American art form. You British were never very good at it. Jackson was.

If you look at the history of American warfare from the Seven Years War onward you would know why.

Fort Ticonderoga, Lake Erie, Dearborn, Trenton, Saratoga, New Orleans just to mention British defeats at our hands because you guys are just no good on the rivers and the lakes in this North America.

Herald

so blockaded and not trading.... how long before that saps the backing for the war hawks....

 
having to defend whole coastline as you have no idea where the British can strike either from Canada or Bermuda...  the only place you can strike the British is into Canada...
 
 
what extra did Jackson have that he did not have at NO to go against the British at Mobile? and why on earth do you think he would suceed in a battle that he had to initiate????
 
how much more reserves of decent troops could the US call upon??? and how many did the British now have to call on since the Napoleon wars were over. they had commited very little while Napoleon was at play.
yes you had 400000 militia but what use were they on the offensive... 4 years and they had achieved squat.
 
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Herald12345       1/9/2008 7:38:17 AM
Look moron.

Baltimore. So much for raiding after Washington

New Orleans where the one British stab  was repulsed.

And Lake Erie where our militia beat the hell out of the Royal Navy led by one USN officer and a few technical experts, Same militia good enough to beat the crap out of Wellington's regulars consistently where and when it mattered.

Herald

 
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paul1970       1/9/2008 7:39:54 AM

Ask the Swiss after Francis the First mowed them down, or "Father" Tilly after Gustavus Adolphus handed him his ASS.

How can you be so STUPID?

Herald


I fail to see the longbow in either the Swiss army (who didn't exactly have much shot anyway and would get beat by anyone sensible enough to put a ditch in the way) or Tilly's Imperial army... 
 
you fail to point out what you are talking about so I guess it must be cavalry versus pike...
Bretenfied....... as I seem to recall that cavalry did squat against the infanty and it was a lot to do with Swedish firepower and artillery rather than Swedish horse going against pike blocks....... the horse finished it off but that is easy to do once the enemy is disrupted and outflanked. or are you on about another battle? (Tilly not my fav Imperial and cannot remember all his actions.)
 
 
why do you keep ignoring the fact that we are talking longbows versus a ECW army? you keep trying to divert from the point. from your last on ECW I realise that you didn't have any in depth knowledge of the war so why did you rashly comment on it in the first place?
 
simple fact is that longbow is a far better weapon against unarmoured troops than arquebus or musket. how can you argue against that?
 

 
 
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paul1970       1/9/2008 8:28:39 AM

Ask the Swiss after Francis the First mowed them down, or "Father" Tilly after Gustavus Adolphus handed him his ASS.

How can you be so STUPID?

Herald


I fail to see the longbow in either the Swiss army or Tilly's Imperial army... 
 
you fail to point out what you are talking about so I guess it must be cavalry versus pike...  
 
the Swiss relied on h2h which they tended to win because they were very good at what they did... problem was that they had little shot and their dense formation means they are vulnerable to artillery....
 
Bretenfied....... as I seem to recall that cavalry did squat against the infanty and it was a lot to do with Swedish firepower and artillery rather than Swedish horse going against pike blocks....... the horse finished it off but that is easy to do once the enemy is disrupted and outflanked. or are you on about another battle? (Tilly not my fav Imperial and cannot remember all his actions.)
 
 
now since neither of these had longbows I fail to see how you can compare properly.
 
 
why do you keep ignoring the fact that we are talking longbows versus a ECW army? you keep trying to divert from the point. from your last on ECW I realise that you didn't have any in depth knowledge of the war so why did you rashly comment on it in the first place?
 
simple fact is that longbow is a far better weapon against unarmoured troops than arquebus or musket. how can you argue against that?
 

 
 
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Herald12345       1/9/2008 8:35:14 AM
Compute the strike energies for a longbow arrow and the arquebus 7 gram musket ball, cretin.

Then we'll discuss how really stupid you are.

Herald

 
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Ehran       1/9/2008 11:41:30 AM
 

In 1814 you had that same cadre of officers and FAILED [Packenham among them]. Do you even READ the stupidity you write?

Herald


the british didn't pay much attention to north america rightly feeling it was a sideline to fighting napoleon.  once napoleon was finished however attention began to swing toward the north american fighting.  interestingly enough the us gov't got very interested in peace negotiations right about then apparently not sharing your confidence in us invulnerability. 
in 1820 the usn is still far too small to maintain coastal freedom of movement and with no rail lines yet that's a problem for the american economy, nothing along the coast is actually secure unless it's more than a day's march inland, the us army is still mostly a pipe dream and so on.  it's not that the british couldn't have it's that the british never figured north america was worth the trouble.
 
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Ehran       1/9/2008 11:54:14 AM

Compute the strike energies for a longbow arrow and the arquebus 7 gram musket ball, cretin.

Then we'll discuss how really stupid you are.

Herald


gee herald you think that a rof at least 6x higher than an arquebus operator could manage or an effective range at least 4x what the arquebus guys have could be factors in the outcome? 
 
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paul1970    ECW   1/9/2008 12:06:55 PM

Compute the strike energies for a longbow arrow and the arquebus 7 gram musket ball, cretin.

Then we'll discuss how really stupid you are.

Herald



fortunately there are plenty of people who have already done this.. and the results are that if you unarmoured (or less than decent plate) and get hit with a longbow anywhere important then you are dead or injured and out of the fight...
same with the musket ball...  
doesn't matter how much kinetic energy hits you... if you are dead then you are dead.
 
the only factor is that longbow penetration range on good plate is very short or none and only stuns but since the whole point here is that ECW armies didn't have full plate armour then penetration of it doesn't matter unless Arthur is on the battlefield then I am happy to use bow.
 
now the longbow has better range, is more accurate and has a far faster rate of fire....
 
DO YOU DISAGREE WITH ANY OF THOSE LAST 3 POINTS?
 
 
 
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Herald12345    Apples and oranges moron and not relevant.   1/9/2008 12:43:17 PM
For one thing the musket is more a massed direct fire weapon and the strikes would be more flat trajectory.

The bow being a rather low velocity weapon to get range relies on loft and  ballistic lob.

These factors plus your failure to show me you understand basic employment of type reveals to me that you continue to make asinine challenges and statements out of your league.

But for grins and giggles

Your 45 gram clothyard arrow launched at 20 meters per second has a potential of 900 joules.

Your 7 gram  lead ball  at 375 meters per second  has a  potential of  2625  joules.

Now the arrow has a surface strike area roughly equivalent to the bullet fired so you do the  SMASH  calculation for 24mm^2 strike area

THIS is why you are an idiot.

Herald



 
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Heorot       1/9/2008 3:33:32 PM
Your 45 gram clothyard arrow launched at 20 meters per second has a potential of 900 joules.

Where did you pluck 20mps from? Quote your source.

I used to do target archery and I can tell you that 6 arrows per minute is easily exceeded,

My arrows at 100 yards would penetrate a couple of inches through a hard packed straw target and it had a draw weight of only 36lbs. Longbows had variable draw weights in excess of 90lb. I saw recently a 90lb longbow penetrate a modern manufactured tempered steel breastplate at 40yards. At 100 yards it still broke through the steel. This was using bodkin heads. Imagine the result of facing that essentially unarmoured.

Also consider tactics. In the 100YW archers in pitched battles shot from behind set stakes and dug pit holes. Essentially, the cavalry couldn't get at them. As for the caracole tactics using wheel lock pistols, they were a joke. To be sure of hitting the infantry, they needed to be at the most 40 yards away. Try that in the face of fast firing bowmen. Caracole was abandoned when snaphaunce and flintlock muskets arrived because the practice was no longer survivable for the cavalry.
 
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