What were the fighting tactics used during the American Revolution?

Answer 1

The native Americans changed the face of warfare. They taught the colonist how to fight a guerrilla war. Instead of always fighting in picket lines or in neet box formations. Which we had done since the days of Rome.

The natives fought from cover and by surprise. Giving a smaller force of soldiers a chance to succeed over a great force.

Yet in some engagements they still used the picket lines.

Answer 2

Early colonies in what is now the U.S. of A. were established in the late 1500s in what is now Virginia, North and South Carolina and in New England. None of them were successful. Beginning with Jamestown in 1607 and Plimouth Colony in 1620, the settlers had many skirmishes with the Indians. They quickly learned that using suits of armor and swords, as the English (and other Europeans did) was not a successful way of fighting the Indians and quickly adapted the Indian style of fighting.
By the time of the Revolution, Colonists had had 2 centuries to learn to fight Indian style, so they used it to fight the British. Although there were more people living in the Colonies than in England at the time, there were far fewer soldiers on the American side, and few had experience or training in the warfare of Europe. But they did have experience fighting the Indians, so that was the best style to use: shooting at the Brits as they marched in their "lobsterback" red uniforms and white breeches, an easy target, from behind the stone walls they used for fences for their cattle and horses and from behind trees. They could fire a volley, kill a few Brits, run ahead and shoot some more.
The Brits imported Hessian soldiers to fight the Colonists; the French aided the Americans and taught them how to fight European style, which is what the battle of Georgetown was.

Answer 3

They used what is called linear tactics. The men were put into lines, called ranks, two deep. The rear rank and front rank would normally fire together, with the rear rank placing their forearms on the shoulder of the man in front of them, so the barrel of their musket was well out in front of the front man.
The front and rear man together are called a file- thus, rank and file.
Volleys could be fired at regiment (10 Companies), battalion (several companies), grand division (two companies), division (company) or platoon (half a company) levels. If less than a battalion fired, they would rotate unit firing, so that they might start firing by companies from the right, so that a fairly steady fire was being put out while the first company reloaded.
Due to the use of the unrifled musket, which could be loaded faster but was inaccurate but took a bayonet, they fired volleys to increase the chance of a hit at long range where most battles were fought. Then they tried to manuveur so they could break the enemy lines with a volley and follow with a bayonet charge to drive them off the field.
They made no effort to hide usually. Both sides used the same tactics. It is a myth that the Americans hid and shot the British as they stood in the open...The Americans only became effective when they mastered linear fighting like the British.
Even the partisan warfare of the militia was fought linearly, but they attacked the sides of marching columns in ambushes instead of standing in front of the column- this caused the British to divert large numbers of troops to protect their flanks.

Answer 4

Remember, the initial tactics of the American Revolution was British Military tactics because most of the military belonged to them. When the numbers dwindled, as the body of people choose their sides; tactics began to change. Initial they engaged directly, but as bodies and supplies bacame scarce, they moved to more modern infantry tactics. Have you ever heard of minute men, they used gorilla warfare to attack and evade enemy counterfire. Eliminating the colorful clothes and brilliant weapons was one weapon of warfare. The other was a lot of prayer. They said that there were a lot of miracles that were performed in the process. Mysterious fog in the very first battle, shot up clothes, etc with limited death.

P.S. Most did not know Indian style, that was the soldiers during the Alamo. Most were farmers and etc, not having propler trianing to implement masterful plans like that.

Answer 5

The Americans used two different fighting styles against the British.

First was mainly used by the militia and was the same tactics the Indians used against Americans during the French and Indian War. Hide behind trees. Shoot the officers. etc. The British thought this was not according to the "rules of war" and when they caught militia members who fought this way, they hung them. It was an effective way to piss off the British and "terrorize" them but it was not effective at destroying the British Army.

Second way was we fought just like the British did, specially near the end of the war. Nice uniforms, lined up in rows, marched forward in lines, fired volleys. Etc. It was facing the British and taking out their Army in mass that finally got them to surrender.

Go watch the movie, THE PATRIOT with Mel Gibson. It clearly showed the two different ways of fighting and what even OUR generals thought of the Indian tactics used by the militia. It was "ungentlemanly."

Answer 6

The colonials used both both trditional formation tacits and guerilla warfare. The guerilla tacits were adopted from the style that the native americans used and were learned in the French and Indian war.

Answer 7

you're able to desire to argue the Puckle Gun is a style of gadget gun. The scuffling with is named Napoleonic conflict and is composed of lining up approximately 50 yards faraway from the enemy and shooting them till the enemy breaks or your unit breaks.

Answer 8

For which side? The Americans used guerilla warfare against the british.

Answer 9

formally, armies used a basic method of one row kneeling down and the row behind them standing up and both of them shooting. the colonists also used guerilla warfare

Answer 10

Both guerrilla style and traditional style line formation