On Tuesday 19 November 2002 01:57 pm, Trei, Peter wrote: > > Kevin Elliott[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Correction in the interest of historical accuracy. The idea that we > > succeeded in the revolutionary war by "inventing a new form of > > warfare". The reality is that the british were marching in > > formation for very, very good reasons. Their tactics were an early > > form of Napoleanic tactics (the techniques perfected by Bonaparte > > and used to SMASH most of the rest of Europe). They evolved from > > several factors notably: [snip] > > Actually, they were marching for quite another reason - they were > in retreat back to Boston, via Lexington. The redcoats had very light > casualties up to the point when Gage decided to pull back.
If I might ask, if they had suffered light casualties, why were they in retreat? > Untrained at small-unit tactics (and tired - they had been on > the move all the previous night marching from Boston), > they marched along a road flanked by ridges, stone walls, > and farmhouses - great cover for the well-rested militia > who had no particular place to get to, friendly civilians, > and great local knowledge. The British set out flankers > to guard the line where they could, but topography > sometimes made them useless. This is how I remember reading about it. Home court advantage. > On the retreat, the Gage's men suffered 20% casualties. -- Mike Diehl PGP Encrypted E-mail preferred. Public Key via: http://dominion.dyndns.org/~mdiehl/mdiehl.asc