From Flintlock to Rifle

Download or read book From Flintlock to Rifle written by Steven T. Ross and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Old Regime armies, recruited from a narrow social base and armed with slow-firing, short-range, inaccurate weapons, relied upon harsh discipline and formalized evolutions to attain tactical proficiency. When the French Royal Army collapsed it was replaced with a mass citizen army. This contained elements of the old tactical system but placed a new emphasis on mobility, flexibility, and individual initiative. Napoleon's rivals either imitated aspects of the French system or sought to copy the spirit of the new tactics, engineering social reforms from above and creating their own citizen armies.