Changing History, Just A Little

History, The Gun Thing

This little flight of fantasy was inspired by Chris Muir’s cartoon from yesterday and the day before.

In the spirit of our Crossing America series, imagine that you and a dozen of so of your best buddies were able to go back to any time during the Civil War and enlist in the army of your choice, at an appropriate age and level of fitness.  In your travel back through time you could take the battle rifle and sidearm of your choice and 500/50 rounds of ammo for each piece respectively, subject to the following conditions:

  • no full-auto rifles or machine guns of any type;
  • no explosive ordnance e.g. hand- or rifle grenades
  • no fanciful crap like lasers or photon pulse guns — you know what I’m aiming for, here.  You’d be a foot-soldier but by the standards of the time, a Starship Trooper.

To make life even easier, let’s assume that you could pick the campaign or battle you’d fight in, under your choice of battlefield commander, but you and your platoon would have a certain degree of autonomy.

Your choices and supporting arguments in Comments.

My weapons of choice:

Swedish Mauser M96 (6.5x55mm) as equipped below:

…with a bagful of loaded stripper clips, to save on weight.

Next (to nobody’s surprise):

Springfield 1911 in .45 ACP:

…ammo pre-loaded in five 10-round Chip McCormick magazines.

As to the battles and such, I’ll have to think about that for a while longer, but I’m leaning towards Stones River, on the Confederate side.

19 comments

  1. I’d stick with what I am most familiar with. My self built AR15, which is proven reliable out to 600 yds, and my Beretta 92FS in it’s Kydex 4 oclock holster. The battlefield of choice would be my birth town of Gettysburg.

  2. Probably roll with my AR semi. Just because of weight.

    I’d probably roll with a Glock (don’t judge me) because close range fighting was still a thing.

    Because there’s no Hague convention all my boolets would be hollowpoints.

    Battle of Glorietta, Confederate side.

      1. Its the one battle where one guy like me with equipment like that, could possibly affect the outcome.

  3. Does everyone in the squad have the same gear?

    I guess I’d pick the long range rifle you posted this year or last year with the scope. and a 1911. I like the S&W SW1911 I bought decades ago.

    Why not start right at Bull Run and start picking off the Confederate leaders? Take out Jackson and that would eliminate his brilliant defense of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862. Hopefully that would give a chance to Commissary Banks, Fremont etc enough of a chance to take the valley and come at Richmond from the West. Also, that might accelerate Lee’s assignment to lead the Army of Northern Virginia.

    JQ

    1. We must be in the same platoon, those were exactly my thoughts. Wax the Confederate leadership, especially Jackson, Stuart, Longstreet, but ESPECIALLY Jackson.
      Give the Union a victory and a march to Richmond, although I personally think a lot of their leaders couldn’t have gotten laid with a $100 in gold in a Washington City whorehouse, so they could still have screwed that pooch, but the better Rebel Leaders would have been out of the game.

      Because the most important thing is preventing the Federal (Union) government from ever learning how to manage to arm and equip as large an army as they fielded by 1865.
      Having them learn to fund, acquire, supply, and generally manage 4 years of war was probably the single worst outcome of the war.

      It taught them to BE the Federal Government. Too many private individuals and too many politicians learned first hand how profitable it could be, and how much power they could acquire and wield.

      Federalism was the name of the game prior to the war, State pride, allegiance to your STATE.
      Once the war ended the Federal Bureaucracy began it’s entrenchment because it wasn’t all just going to go away and here we are.

  4. DPMS 24″ heavy barrel .308 AR-10 with Leupold 8-25x scope for the rifle.
    Glock 20 10mm for the pistol

    Battle of Shiloh, Confederate side. Hoping to keep General Johnston alive and kicking.

  5. I like your rifle choice. Am assuming the scope mount does not allow for loading with stripper clips. A big plus for acquisition of an M/96/1941 is the info on the brass disk in the stock.

    My choice would be a similarly set up Mauser 98 in 7 X 57mm. I like the firing pin disassembly plate in the stock. Scope would be on quick disconnect mounts so I could switch to iron sights if need be. Part of my thinking is that this setup is simple enough to operate that I could teach others to run it in case I go down.

    Yes, a 1911 by all means. I would add another 50 rounds.

    My battle choice would be this one, serving under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early–

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-washington-dc-came-close-to-being-conquered-by-the-confederacy-180951994/

    1. The M96 sniper rifle had a side-mounted scope, specifically to allow clip feeding.

  8. I can’t think of a better military pistol than the M1911. If you went back before Minie balls, it would even out-range and be more accurate than the smoothbore muskets most troops carried, and I think not much inferior in range to a Kentucky rifle.

    A plain vanilla 5.56mm AR-15 out-ranges any rifle I know of in common military use before the .45-70 cartridge and Springfield 1873. In a Civil War battle, each man with an AR-15 would be the equivalent firepower of a squad armed with rifled muskets, and hitting at somewhat longer ranges. But it would often take more than killing a few hundred men to turn a Civil War battle, so the 500 rounds per man would be a serious limitation. You can carry considerably more weight of .556 ammo than that, so if you’re limited in number of rounds, heavier and longer-range rounds would be better.

    So, M1 Garands or M14’s. A possible pivotal point to shorten the war by months: Cold Harbor. Climb trees within your range of the fortifications but out of contemporary weapons range, knock down all the Confederate officers you can identify, then clear one narrow area of the ramparts of men while the Union troops climb up. (Then run back to your time machine before someone comes looking for how that range and rate of fire was possible.)

    Taking the fort at Cold Harbor would trap enough of Lee’s men to considerably shorten the trenches Lee could build and man to protect Richmond, and it might have allowed Grant to stay too close on Lee’s heels for Lee to establish a strong defensive line in the first place.

    Or could you save Custer at the Little Bighorn? (Would you want to? But saving most of the men in his fraction of the 7th Cavalry would be a good thing.) This bends Kim’s foot-soldier rule, but American cavalry of this era fought better as mounted infantry, so say you had a squad with M14’s trained to jump off their horses to use their rifles. I think this squad in Reno’s or Benteen’s column would make their survival easier, but be quite insufficient to cut through thousands of Indians before they finished off Custer’s column. Re-arming all of Reno’s column might do it, but after that miracle, someone would found a religion in your name.

    OTOH, if you joined the guys who fought from their horses (because that idiot Custer didn’t give them a choice when he charged right into the middle of a large body of mounted Indians), pretty soon you’d be using your rifle as a club, same as all the guys with 1873’s, because the Indians were too close to shoot with such a long gun. An M3 Grease gun or two M1911’s and 500 rounds in magazines would be better, but break Kim’s rules. Maybe a sawed-off shotgun?

  9. Busy day so I’m getting in on this one late.
    I’d equip my guys with Garands. Accurate, very good rate of fire, and reliable. In the pistol department like many here I’d go with a 1911 – several more rounds than a cap and ball army or navy Colt (depending on what magazines you’re using), lots of stopping power, and reasonable accuracy.
    If I was wearing blue I’d be proud to stand with Professor Chamberlain out at the end of the Union line on day two of Gettysburg. With 500 rounds per rifle he might not have to charge down the hill – and if he did I’d make sure that I had the long 15″ bayonets for my guys.
    If I was wearing grey I’m not sure that I’d want to charge across the fields with Pickett. The Union Napolean guns could do pretty serious damage at long range, probably before we could get our 06s into effective range. So I’ll take a pleasant walk through the Shenandoah valley with Stonewall Jackson. I know its a campaign, not a battle. Even so long range, rapid fire musketry would be a thing to see.
    Given the limitation of numbers and ammunition a small group of men armed with sort of modern weapons would be much more effective in a scout/sniper role. Civil war era rifled muskets had decent enough accuracy and when you lined up a bunch of guys you could get a good rate of fire, so I don’t think that a dozen guys on the battle line are going to do much to change the outcome of any battle.
    Take those same dozen or so guys with Garands or M-14s or even ARs and show up in George Washington’s camp and the Revolution is going to take a significantly different course. How about Canada as the 14th state?

  10. The expected answer:
    I invite Dear Leader Lincoln and Congress and their families to an afternoon at the theater.
    Lock the doors.
    The fire was completely unexpected.
    A tragedy.
    .
    Real-World:
    I visit New York bankers around supper time.
    Them, their family, their staff… off-grid, off-line, off-track, erased from history.
    It was probably something in the water.

  11. Battle: Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, on team Confederate
    Reason: to have a chance at knocking out Grant (nothing personal, BTW)

    Rifle: AR15 chambered in 6mm ARC with a 20” barrel

    Handgun: S&W 627 8-shot revolver, 125 gr. JHP

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