From flintlock to rifle

Steven T. Ross

In From Flintlock to Rifle, Professor Ross traces the development of infantry tactics from the mid-eighteenth century, when infantry fought in rigid linear formations, until the second half of the nineteenth century, by which time infantrymen with rifled weapons were learning to advance in open order and use aimed fire. The author demonstrates that this transition in tactics involved social and technological change as well as military innovation. Old Regime armies, recruited from a narrow social base and armed with slow-firing, short-range, inaccurate weapons, relied upon harsh discipline and formalized evolutions to attain tactical proficiency. When the French Royal Army collapsed it was replaced with a mass citizen army. This contained elements of the old tactical system but placed a new emphasis on mobility, flexibility, and individual initiative. Napoleon's rivals either...

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