The Revolutionary Wars Weapons and Tactics
By:
I am going talk a lot about the British’s and the Patriots use of weapons and strategy to fight each other. My main goal in this paper to explain why the Patriots prevailed because of there smart use of limited ammo supply’s, new ideas about warfare, and smart tactics on land and on the sea. I hope that you can learn more from this paper than you did before reading it. I will go into detail about all the weapons the British and the Patriots used. I will also talk about the tactics on the field used by both sides. Plus I will also cover the battles on the sea. Although the British had a very strong Navy the Patriots did put up a good fight on the water. Let’s not forget about the Guerilla warfare used by the Patriots which was very important to their victory over the British.
THE CANNON
The Muzzle loading cannon used were smaller than the ones used in later wars. Most were 3, 4 or 6 pound guns, mounted on wooden carriages with large wheels. Some 3 pound guns had iron legs to stand on and were called grasshoppers. Larger guns of 12 pounds were sometimes used in the field, and even larger guns were mounted in fortifications and ships.
The cannon fired either solid ball, various small shot, or sometimes shells. Shells are a hollow iron ball filled with black powder and had a fuse on it. The shot used could be buckshot, musket balls or grape shot, which are larger iron or lead balls about 1 inch in diameter.
Cannons had a range of several hundred yards. A 3 pounder ranged about 800 yards with solid shot, and 2 hundred yards with grape shot, maximum. At close range, loaded with shot, it could destroy an enemy company. Although the Cannon was a very effective weapon the Patriots had to avoid British armies that were in large supply of them because the Patriots didn’t have very many them selves
THE MUZZLE LOADER
The main weapons of the American Revolution were the muzzle loading flintlock musket, its...