…to tip the balance in the Civil War so the Confederacy would win? I think a hundred men with modern assault rifles, grenade launchers, and some machine-gunners could take on almost any army fielded during that war on their own.
Your company of light infantry would be easily able to out shoot any civil war period force, killing the first thousand or so soldiers they came up against. After that, they would be out of ammo. So, they would need an ordinance company to resupply them. Another platoon of infantry to guard the ordinance company. Then they could walk to the nearest other battle.
Lacking in the necessary skills to ride, they would have to maintain a very short supply line with the ordinance unit, which must have supplies as well. Of course you could add trucks, and transports, in which case you need another company of support troops for the equipment. Oh, yeah, and gas. You don’t have resupply, unless you have gas. And guards for those, as well.
It is turning into a battalion already. Of course, you have to move this battalion around most of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, since you have only the one. We might need more than one support echelon for the single company of effective modern riflemen, if we want them to withstand the entire Union Army. Assuming they are the key aspect of your superiority, you won’t be supporting them with a modern field hospital, of course. You can’t afford many casualties, since survival rates for wounded are grimly nineteenth century, unless we send a MASH unit along. And evac units. And more guards. Do we have communications people?
It looks like we really need to send a brigade of your light infantry, with a battalion of mixed support troops. With that, we can pretty much kick ass and take names all over the place. One battle at a time. In one place at a time. Assuming the Union doesn’t divide its forces and, oh, say, March to Savannah, laying Georgia to waste, or force us to defend Richmond, while they simultaneously blockade the Atlantic, and invade along the Mississippi, destroying our industrial base. Want to bring the Navy too? Maybe just one Aircraft Carrier?
Tris
Four Panzers, a coupla Harrier jets, and the war is won.
Wouldn’t you be able to break the battalion up, and use the existing supply lines to move the ammunition? You could have a few light infantry accompanying existing Confederate armies, providing enough extra firepower for them to beat forces they normally couldn’t. Use the modern troops to soften up the Union forces, then after they have used up their ammo the Confederates could mop up.
If you took the time to train your light infantry to ride horses, they would also be much more mobile. They could keep out of range of the primitive weaponry while wearing down the enemies forces.
Civil War cavalry dismounted to fight. In 1863, a man on a horse in battle was a dead man. Usually on a dead horse.
Your infantry can still be killed by cannon fire if they aren’t careful, and they’re going to get sick and most of them will be out of the war with illness within a year. Also, the Take some tanks.
If you haven’t already, read “The Guns of The South” by Harry Turtledove. According to him, an infusion of ten thousand+ AK-47’s is enough for Lee to attack and seize Washington in a month or two. The only problem he ran into, really, was avoiding Northern artillery, which even an assault rifle can’t automatically trump.
Half a dozen fighter/bombers would do it.
It would work somewhat like Hiroshima and Nagasaki…
The Union troops would be annihilated by a weapon they wouldn’t be able to see or defend against and the Confederate Air Force wouldn’t really have to kill that many Union troops. Union morale would fall to zero and desertion rates would soar. Surrender would follow when the Union saw they were fighting an enemy that could hit any targets no matter how well protected they might be. Levelling the White House would be a good demonstration of power wouldn’t it?
If I actually have to plan this Op, I want Special Forces A teams, and at least one post insertion supply drop.
I find General Lee, and give him the option of making the entire war a guerrilla action. The South wins by making it impossible for the Union to maintain forces beyond the Potomac, and simultaneously demonstrating to the North that strong industry produces big targets. Political will saps the ability of the Union to fight, the war drags on for a few years, and a negotiated settlement is reached.
The South has the advantages, not the least of which is that Robert E. Lee was sufficiently brilliant that he might even be willing to do it. (John Mosby becomes a far more important figure in the war, by the way.)
But, altogether not more than a company of actual operatives and a couple of hundred tons of supplies would be enough, if the leadership could learn three generations of military wisdom in a day. Remembering that most of the medals given in the war (on both sides) were awarded to people who charged fixed positions trying to capture the flags of opponents, rather than the militarily significant ground, we are pretty much relying on Robert E. Lee.
Of course I just guaranteed that slaves remain enslaved, and have had guerrilla warfare demonstrated for them. (This does not consider that my likely Special Force Team is one third black, and they might well make that demonstration personal.) That should make for a historically interesting post war period.
Tris
Two nuclear bombs will do it, set off one kill a few million, and let them know you have more. The sky will be full of white flags.
I doubt slavery would have lasted much longer, even had the Confederacy won. Some historians believe that a lot of post-war hostility towards blacks in the South was due to Reconstruction and being forced to let their slaves go. If the Confederacy had done away with slavery on their own, I’m sure there still would have been prejudice and a condescending ‘We owned you but let you go because you weren’t useful anymore’ attitude, but things might not have been as bad for blacks as they were in our history.
I think with a demonstration of modern military technology the leaders would believe us when we said we were from the future, and take our advice on how to handle the war - it was common knowledge that advances in technology changed tactics, they would be eager to learn what tactics were used with these new weapons.
As to cavalry with assault rifles, of course they would dismount before firing - but they would still be pretty much untouchable (except for artillery, which would not be such a problem if they kept on the move and didn’t bunch up). M-16s are accurate for hundreds of yards, they would have time to dismount, empty a few clips into the advancing Union infantry formation, and then remount and move before the Union troops could effectively return fire. Using these tactics a very small force could wear down a large army.
The South wouldn’t have to win EVERY battle, as pointed out the Union would probably give up when things began to look hopeless. They could just keep the fact their help was coming from the future secret (though one wonders what effect it would have on morale to know that people in the future wanted the South to win enough to go back and try to change things) and say that these new weapons were the invention of some Southern genius, and hint that more were on their way.
Hey, Badtz, in case you missed barton’s comment above, read The Guns of the South. It addresses all of your concerns, and slavery is actually one of the main issues in the book.
I don’t like Turtledove, but I might check it out if I can find it at a library.
Hell, you wouldn’t necessarily even need LETHAL technology to gain a huge advantage. A dozen walkie-talkies on any Civil War battlefield would have been invaluable. Think about it:
Lee: “General Ewell, I can see from here that Culp’s Hill is at present unoccupied by those people. Get up there, and call me in 30 minutes from the top.”
Ewell: “Yes, sir.”
And the war is won.
Historically, most casualties have been caused by artillery & machine guns. Rifles, pistols & bayonets have accounted for a very small percentage of total casualties.
So I say, screw M16’s, tanks and aircraft!
I’d take several batteries of towed 155mm howitzers, the gun crews, several forward observers, and a whole boat load of ammunition- mostly good old HE, but some of those submunition rounds would be good. Of course, we’d have modern maps & radio communications to get our fire on target.
The reason I say towed howitzers is that they’d be able to be horse-drawn, which would eliminate any sort of gasoline problems for my artillery force. All we’d need would be ammunition.
This would likely be the most effective force from the future you could actually field in that time period.
Barring artillery, if I had to pick infantry weapons, I’d get a bunch of M2HB machine guns & M240 machine guns & a bunch of ammunition, then train some Rebel soldiers in how to best employ these.