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mike snook 2
| Joined: 04 Jan 2006 |
| Posts: 920 |
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 Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:56 am |
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The key point about firepower is not that it should be 'overwhelming', which I think is suggestive of firing as fast as possible, but that it should be effective (as in accurate). At Abu Kru, also known as Gubat, Lt Col Boscawen (in executive command of the square) ordered his bugler to sound cease firing, after the Mahdist charge had started, because he considered that the men were firing wildly. Much to Sir Charles Wilson's surprise (by now in command of the column following the wounding of Sir Herbert Stewart) there was a flawless response to the call. The interval obviously allowed the company officers and sergeants to get a grip of their men, and when firing was resumed a minute or so later, the range also having of course shortened in the interim, it was absolutely deadly.
As I have argued in HCMDB, it doesn't actually require a whole lot of firepower to grind a massed charge to a halt. The idea that it does is based on the faulty notion that courage can be unfaltering, which it cannot, a notion which leads people to imagine that the firers have to shoot everybody in sight, in order to check such a charge. In fact the checking effect is a largely psychological and instinctive one, (the instinct to self-preserve) and is brought about by sheer noise, smoke, and several dozen men around you being knocked over at once, with various bits of their anatomy hanging off. It suddenly becomes very clear that avoidance of a taking a volley whilst in a standing position has to be the way ahead. The very bravest of enemies such as the Zulus and the Hadendawa might take three or four volleys to get the message, but nobody could stand five or six.
As a matter of interest, it was not invariably the practice to put artillery or machine guns at the corner of a square. At Abu Klea the 3 x RA screw guns were positioned in the centre of the front face. Beresford's Gardner was in the centre of the rear face, though he moved it to the left rear corner after the Mahdist attack had begun in order to get into the action. In doing so he must have contributed to the chaos at the left rear corner, that I described above.
I rather fancy that the corner of a square was not really a corner at all but that as soon as the formation halted, the section occupying the 'corner' would have arced itself into a crescent shape so as to neutralise the blind spot. As yet I have not come across any good references to this, but it would be such good common sense that I am inclined to think it would have happened as much out of instinct as anything else.
Another point of interest is just how do you go about attacking a 'corner'. Is it really the weakest point? Riflemen do not just fire to their front. They are just as capable of firing at angles left and right of say up to 60 degrees without shifting position. Draw a 2" square on a piece of paper and take a �2 coin out of your pocket. Your coin is your death squad - call it 500 men spearheading your assault. 1" = 100 yards. There are 400 men on each face of the square. The closest you can start your coin to the corner of your square is 8". If you have placed it a perfect diagonal you will observe that at maximum range, two whole faces of the square (800 men) can fire on your death squad. Attack front and centre on any given face of the square and only the men on that face (400) can fire on you. By attacking from a corner you have doubled the potential fire effect. Only at very close ranges does the number of men able to fire start to reduce, but at no point will it fall below 400 firers. It would also take a degree of organization not present in most 'tribal ' armies and indeed stalking tactics, fit to grace the Scottish highlands, to manoeuvre into position to make such an attack. At no point can you come within 800 yards without being fired on (ignoring artillery fire out to a mile and a half). Don't forget that although people cite Abu Klea as an instance of a square being broken, the Mahdist attack was lauched from a front left diagonal and at that corner of the square was defeated by fire. They veered for the left rear corner and enjoyed success there because of the disruption that I have described above, and because of the ill-considered deployments by a combination of Burnaby, Gough and Beresford. In fact the square was not broken at Abu Klea - at the moment critique there was no square. The effect of the Burnably Gough deployment was to create a 5 coy firing line with an open left flank. (Ring a bell?).
I cannot immediately bring to mind a case in the Victorian era where a British square was actually broken. Egyptian yes but not British.
As ever
Mike
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a.j
| Joined: 30 Aug 2005 |
| Posts: 80 |
| Location: Thornaby-On-Tees, Great Britain |
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:43 pm |
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British squares have been broken on THREE occasions once at Albuera on 16th May 1811, Tamai on 13th March 1884 and Abu Klea on 17th January 1885.
If I had to choose I would choose a square over a circle because then at least you are prepared, if you have made the wrong decision, it doesn't take long for a force to get themselves into lines or to spread out into a circle.
Also with a square soldiers know that all they have to worry about is what is happening to their front. But in a circle you have to worry about whats happening to your right and left as you are on a constant curve. Also a circle is less robust and is potentially vulnerable at all points, a square is vulnerable only on its corners.
But also it would depend on what sort of enemy you were fighting, a sqaure is only of any use if your facing an enemy which either has no/ very little firearms/projectile weapons, as they have to close with you to win, and if they vastly outnumber you you have to be able to defend yourself from all angles.
But if you were facing an army with a lot of firearms/projectile weapons then a sqaure would be the wrong formation because the soldiers are packed together in a very small area and it would be slaughter. A circle in the 'Custer sense' would be appropriate a sort of circular skirmish line. Why not a square skirmish line? because if it was a square then the enemy would be able to fire right down one side of the square, as a circle is on a curve they would not be able to do that.
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Last edited by a.j on Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
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mike snook 2
| Joined: 04 Jan 2006 |
| Posts: 920 |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:30 pm |
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That scene form Waterloos is impressive to camera but of course is potentially misleading as a series of battalion squares across a brigade or divsional formation would be staggered like draughts pieces on a board so as to prevent squares firing into each other.
There are two great defences by infantry against cavalry from the ECW - Newcastle's Whitecoats at Marston Moor and Prince Rupert's Bluecoats at Naseby. Of course this pre-dates the invention of the bayonet, so the defence against horse was provided by an inner ring of pikemen. On both occasions the Parliamentarians had to bring up infantry and dragoons (mounted infantry in those days) to blast a break-in. Horse alone could not do it. Primary sources are irritatingly few but it is clear that in both cases the hard-pressed Royalist infantry held out for a very long time and sustained the most awful casualties, in the region I suspect of 80-90%.
The square in so far as it was still on the books in 1879 (see the 1877 Field Exercises) was very definitely a 'receive cavalry' formation. In the war of the 1870 the Prussian cavalry charged things en masse much as their Naopleonic forbears had done - so the reason the square was still practiced regularly was for European warfare. Only post Isandlwana was it adapted (by Lord Chelmsford) for colonial use, though prior to that Wolseley of course had used loose squares (an improvised formation) to achieve all round defence against the Ashantis in the forest/jungle of West Africa. The other variant offered by the 1877 regs was the 'rallying square' (precisely so-termed in the regs) for when things had gone bottom up. This essentially had no shape or form and was formed by as many men as possible rallying into close order with levelled bayonets around their company commander.
What is interesting is how very tiny the receive cavalry battalion square was - this was because it formed in close order and in 4 ranks. 800 man battalion at best, sometimes 600, often only 450-500. Do the maths for yourself. At Abu Klea, by contrast, the companies were in close order but only two ranks. There were about 1200 men in the square in all with about 300-350 per face. I can't remember off the top of my head how many ranks there were in the square at Ulundi. Anybody know? There were 33 companies - which compared to the normal half-strength eight companies of the typical battalion is, relatively speaking, huge. But not that huge. I think we would all be surprised at how small these formations were - this gave them inherent strength as a means of resisting cavalry - lots of firepower on a very concentrated frontage.
Regards
Mike
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Peter Ewart
| Joined: 31 Aug 2005 |
| Posts: 1797 |
| Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England. |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:57 pm |
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Mike/Keith
Further confirmation of "a hollow square four-deep" comes from Bandsman Joseph Banks, 90th LI, in his letter to his wife dated 21 Jly which was published in the Dover Express of 12 Sep 1879 and used by Frank Emery in The Red Soldier (p234). An anonymous 17th Lancers NCO also mentions the "open square formation of fours deep" in his letter publ. in the N Devon Herald of 18 Sep (Emery, p232). I'm sure there are others.
Spare a thought for "Parson Smith." Having survived R/Drift, he finds himself surrounded (deliberately, as it were, this time) by a Zulu force almost Isandlwana-like in its size, less than six months on (as did one or two others, I appreciate) this time with no barricades, so no doubt highly appreciative of the four-deep square. And (again, with one or two other Ulundi survivors) endures much the same experience at El Teb, Tamai and Ginnis, at least one of which also involved a tribesmen-surrounded square. I suppose he was getting used to it by then.
Those who have David Jackson's Hill of the Sphinx will no doubt enjoy being reminded of the very humorous opening para in his Introduction, brought to mind by this thread.
Peter
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