Both sides, separated by time and history, end up meeting face to face in a cotton field in Georgia. The Union and CSA Army never expected to bump into each other, and coming across the Japanese Army was a surprise to both. Knowing that the Japanese shouldn't be there, they combine forces to combat a threat that outnumbers them by 2000 more troops.
Neither side has any ammo for their muskets and rifles, only their bayonets, rifle butts, swords, and their will to be victorious.
Who comes out on top in an all out charge to battle? The dreaded banzai charge or the feared Rebel yell and mighty Union resolve?
i think i'm going to reluctantly give it to the japanese, numerical superiority and unit cohesion would probably win them the day against two previously opposed forces.
civil war era americans also didn't have the same size advantage over the japanese that ww2 era americans did, and i suspect the two cultures would be about equal in melee combat in that size sample group.
Brody Russell
The Japanese. Bayonet charges during the ACW had completely different tactical and strategic considerations than WW2 Japanese bayonet usage. The Japanese would have also had more training in their use.
Ryan Turner
>The Japanese would have also had more training in their use. >zerg-rushes American machine guns until the corpses are piled high enough to make a human pyramid
Japanese have a significant numeric advantage and maybe even a morale advantage, especially when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. They bravely banzai charged WW2 U.S. troops who had machine guns, semi automatic rifles, and sub machine guns. Many Napoleonic armies (excluding the Russians) and U.S. Civil War groups would break and flee rather than actually get in a prolonged melee, there are stories of French fusiliers desperately racing to reloading their musket with a Prussian counterpart doing the same just 10 feet apart. Our modern societies have not prepared people for hand to hand combat like ancient ones did, outside of Special Forces.
To elaborate, I’m not saying bayonet battles didn’t occur between western militaries, they were just rare and ended quickly with one side or the other fleeing. If you were to take a random group of Los Angeles citizens and train them to fight in a phalanx as hoplities, they would get btfo by an Ancient Greek one despite the nutritional advantage and our modern knowledge of training because ancient societies much better prepared their citizens psychologically for melee combat. Modern (1800+) western sensibilities mean we get PTSD from it.
Lucas Baker
.... PTSD has been a thing for thousands of years user.
Evan Reed
I don't know... Both sides held their own pretty well at the Bloody Angle. >The combat they had endured for almost 24 hours was characterized by an intensity of firepower never previously seen in Civil War battles, as the entire landscape was flattened, all the foliage destroyed. >An example of this can be found in the Smithsonian Museum of American History: a 22-inch stump of an oak tree at the Bloody Angle that was completely severed by rifle fire. >There was a frenzy to the carnage on both sides. Fighting back and forth over the same corpse-strewn trenches for hours on end, using single shot muskets, the contending troops were periodically reduced to hand-to-hand combat reminiscent of battles fought during ancient times. Bodies piled up four and five high, and soldiers were forced to pause from time to time and throw corpses over the parapet since they formed an obstacle in the way of the fighting. Dead and wounded men were shot so many times that many of them simply fell apart into unrecognizable heaps of flesh. >Surviving participants attempted to describe in letters, diaries, and memoirs the hellish intensity of that day, many noting that it was beyond words. Or, as one put it: "Nothing can describe the confusion, the savage, blood-curdling yells, the murderous faces, the awful curses, and the grisly horror of the melee." Some men claimed to have fired as many as 400 rounds that day. May 12 was the most intensive day of fighting during the battle, with Union casualties of about 9,000, Confederate 8,000; the Confederate loss includes about 3,000 prisoners captured in the Mule Shoe.
Well we could know for a fact that the Rebs would be shooting the US army in the back because Traitors they are and thats all they know how to do.
So they should be joining the Empire of Japan.
Ya just can't trust a slope or a slack jawed faggot from Georgia
Jonathan Parker
Whitey >longer rifles/bayonets on average >much more numerous and generally more effective dedicated melee weapons as melee combat is a much more common concern >much more experience in hand to hand warfare in general, likely trained by men who themselves had even more experience in the field than people born in the 1900s Japs >more soldiers >crazy ass kamikaze motherfuckers
On a soldier to soldier basis the unions/confederates would almost without a doubt be more comfortable with, better trained in, better equipped for, and more experienced in hand to hand fighting than the average japanese soldier. That being said being reasonably well equipped, considerably numerically superior, and absolutely willing to fight to the last man, the japanese would likely win in an all out melee.
Julian Anderson
the confederates wouldn't even necessarily have bayonets
Jaxon Rodriguez
The way PTSD manifests is different. Americans grow up watching Disney movies and playing high school football then suddenly find themselves in a brutal war, just to be sent back to their sanitized society where nothing has changed and they have to sit in a cubicle as a salaryman. An ancient Roman grew up living a hard laborious life where they slaughtered livestock by hand and were exposed to a lot of brutality, alchohalism, and crime like wife beating and rape that those societies didn’t have the proper institutions to prevent. Not to mention gladiator matches and public crucifixions. And these societies encouraged bloodlust in their religion and culturally. Spartan boys had to secretly murder Helots and get away with it as part of their training in the agoge for example.
Ancient societies didn't prepare people for hand to hand combat either. If you used modern training sensibilities and applied it modern people in the context of a phalanx and pitted them against an ancient Greek phalanx of equal combat experience you'd see the modern phalanx prevail in most cases since modern training includes direct weapons training and mock combat under a framework designed to desensitize the trainee to violence and dehumanize their enemy. What we know of ancient Greek training was closer to formation drills with actual combat training being derided. The only thing the ancient force would have is a greater desensitization towards death due to the higher mortality rates of the time period. Also, we have written accounts dating back to Assyria describing PTSD-like symptoms in veterans.
Mason Cox
Slaughtering livestock, which wouldn't have happened that frequently in ancient times, or watching gladiator matches, which weren't actually bloodsports, and public executions doesn't actually desensitize you to killing human beings. Also only a portion of Spartans participated in the Crypteia and even then that was when they were 17-19.
Elijah Lewis
I'd think that the Enfield and Springfield long rifles would give you more reach with a bayonet, but I doubt that'd be of any use. Using them as a club might be a good ieda, though since they're just heftier. The Japanese are pretty good at camouflaging themselves, but when it comes down to it I doubt they'd keep a cool head and actually employ tactics. But since the Americans have the home advantage, I'd go with them winning.
>What we know of ancient Greek training was closer to formation drills with actual combat training being derided. Only among the Spartans. As far as our sources go city-state miltias didn't even train in formation drills nor could they stay on formation on the move. At best they could deploy in a formation but any sort of movement killed it. I think Xenophon said it best that Greek armies on the move are more akin a crowd leaving a theater.
At best armies would focus on exercising in agility and endurance.
Connor Richardson
Hoplite phalanxes in general don't do well with movement.
Oliver Miller
Depends on what you mean by movement. They did well in the sense that your average phalanx went into battle at a mad charge at 100-200m in which they went screaming and running into battle as a mob. So they did move and try to cover ground quickly.
If by movement you mean any tactical maneuver, that was pretty much out of the question for these amateur citizen militias.
Kayden Perry
Um, the Japanese? They have a numerical advantage of 65%, a range advantage of 100-150 yards, heavier weapons (what less than a direct hit from a cannon is going to disable even a single light tank?), and a doctrine better suited to taking advantage of all that.
Joseph Howard
>thinking most japanese bayonet charges were against americans >thinking the japs hadnt been cutting down millions of chinese with bayonets for a decade before pearl harbor
Eli Lopez
>Neither side has any ammo for their muskets and rifles, only their bayonets, rifle butts, swords, and their will to be victorious can you not read?
