Originally Posted by
The Fearless Hussar
First of all this has gone a bit off topic. the topic was whether rifles could be reloaded by people behind the main firing Line during an engagement. well THIS IS ALREADY IN GAME. just drop your rifle and the guy behind you can take it and reload it and then you can take it back and fire it. ta da DONE! if you want sth quicker than this like immediatly giving the rifle to the guy behind you this means that a brand NEW animation, which is also not all that necessary, will have to be implemented and since it wont be so important i guess it wont be included till later in the development.
Second what you proposed is useless in the attack, at least in most offencive situations. It is mostly useful in defence. Also it was used in the acw in the battle of fredericksburg on marye's heights by confederate troops. BUT there is a reason it was used there. how many people can fire from a wall to a charging enemy? Apparently those WHO are behind the First Line will have a hard time doing so. Those WHO are in front will mostly be able to shoot so it is logical enough for the people behind them to reload their guns for them. This tactic isnt all that useful for a standing unit WHO may be defending but not behind some kind of defending structure like a wall because it obviously slows down the firing rate. It takes time to pass guns from front to the back and vice versa all the time especially under fire from the enemy. The tactic also isnt all that useful for the Weapons we are using at least not in every situation like i have mentioned above. Our guns in game take about 15secs to reload. This is not much. To give an example of the contrary my ancestors WHO fought in the War of Greek Independence of 1821 carried muskets(a kind of them) that were very hard to reload and took a lot of time to do so. So there were many cases where sb else would reload their gun for them while they used another gun.
Third many minor Civil war battles were very costly as mentioned by many already. Battles that are rarely known like the 2nd battle of Corinth, gaine's mill, glorietta pass(the gettysburg of the far west!), malvern hill and a major battle that gets overlooked soooooo often CHIKAMAUGA. There is no point in saying no to that it is true.
Fourth though Civil war minor battles were costly that doesnt mean that napoleonic minor fights were not costly. Quite the contrary: i am mentioning 2 battles that i learned about recently 2nd Polotsk and Krasnoi. Few know them but they were costly but still arent considered major. I have limited knowledge on the napoleonic warfare but i know that a lot of minor battles even in the peninsular campaign had High casualty rates. But that in no way undoes the fact that Civil war minor battles were costly as well. After all dead to wounded ratio in the napoleonic wars was much higher than in the acw.
Fifth about skirmishing i know that in almost if not in every Civil war battle most regiments used picket Lines in front of their main Lines. a notable example is the battle of the fallen timbers where General forrest passed the Union picket Line and fell just by himself on the main Union brigade Line. also if you read about the 33rd alabama regiment(very important reg of the south because one of their privates kept a diary or sth like that where he mentions a lot of the ordinary stuff happening in a Civil war reg during the war) you'll find that in many cases it is mentioned that the enemy came in contact with their pickets. I am saying that because there were many WHO said that light inf tactics were used much more in the napoleonic wars. the sole diference in the napoleonic wars was that french battallions had at least one company of voltigeurs WHO were the best shots and there were trained units of tiralleurs and chassuers a pied even in the imperial guard WHO were trained marksmen. this was obviously very difficult to happen in the acw save for few exeptions that have been already mentioned by others. having trained marksmen demands having a regular army and in the acw both armies with a few exceptions like gen sykes lead brigade(i think the whole division was made up of regulars but i am not 100%sure) of union regulars in the battle of chancellorsville did not happen. even the goverment recognised the fighting armies as volunteer and they were provisional armies not regulars that would be disbanded after the end of the war.
P.S. When i mentioned that the french during the napoleonic wars had organised light inf i by no means meant that only the french had organised light inf. Other Nations like britain had organised light inf as well.