Confederacy Bicycle Infantry saves the day...

jgoodguy

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I'm just wondering how the bicycles of the day would do through the terrain most of the war was fought through. Not a lot a paved roadways. But who needs a bike when you've got cavalry?
Horses have four-foot all-terrain drive.
 

diane

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You all know bicycles were used to beat our nation in a war in the 20th century. Yes, a bicycle used not for combat but for resupplying an army... In the Vietnam war the North Vietnamese used reinforced bikes to carry supplies down the famed Ho Chu Mein Trail to their troops. My point is if the Confederacy had just some ingenuity bikes could have won the war for them... In combat, resupplying and quick strike force along the trenches...

View attachment 5670

View attachment 5671

Its amazing a bike beat us in the Vietnam war. We dropped bombs after bombs on the Ho Chi Mein trail but we could not stop these reinforced bikes from doing their mission...

https://enemymilitaria.com/product/north-vietnamese-army-ho-chi-minh-trail-reinforced-bicycle/

snip...

The porters who pushed these down the trail were typically men but women also made the journey. Rice, ammunition, ordnance, uniforms, mail, canned food, small arms and all manner of military supplies were strapped on for the long journey South. The journey might have taken as long as six months.

snip...

The Ho Chi Minh Trial was the supply line running from North Vietnam to hundreds of supply bases in Laos, Cambodia and RVN. Before it was improved, with the exception of what individual soldiers carried on their backs and waists, 100% of the cargo sent to the South from Hanoi came on these bikes. After the HCM Trial was improved, Chinese and Russian made trucks carried increasingly more of the supply load but these reinforced bicycles were used all the way until Liberation in April 1975.
It's a little amazing what they could do with bicycles, but they didn't go in for horses and mules the way we did - got to have different climate and landscape for such large animals. Not to say they didn't have horses - they had tough little fellers, almost ponies. Here's an article of today's Vietnamese mounted police...and don't laugh at 'em - they will kick your butt!

 

jgoodguy

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It's a little amazing what they could do with bicycles, but they didn't go in for horses and mules the way we did - got to have different climate and landscape for such large animals. Not to say they didn't have horses - they had tough little fellers, almost ponies. Here's an article of today's Vietnamese mounted police...and don't laugh at 'em - they will kick your butt!

The warhorses of the middle ages were about as that size carrying a fully armored knight around to battle.
 

O' Be Joyful

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- they had tough little fellers, almost ponies. Here's an article of today's Vietnamese mounted police...and don't laugh at 'em - they will kick your butt!
Whoa--pardon the pun ;) --how many hands high do those ponies avg. Di?
 
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diane

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Whoa--pardon the pun ;) --how many hands high to those ponies avg. Di?
I thought they were miniature horses! (California will let you keep those in your apartment as assistive animals...) They are actually way tough horses descended from the same ones took Mongolia's Golden Horde all over the place, prized there for their great stamina and ability to eat just about anything and little of it - and still thrive. These horses are raised in the north, where there is still grassland - not all Vietnam is a steaming rain forest!
 

diane

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The warhorses of the middle ages were about as that size carrying a fully armored knight around to battle.
The war horses - chargers - of the knights were usually a breed such as Frisian or Percheron. You're definitely not riding to the Holy Land on one of those! Ka-bang, ka-pow, ka-thunk every step... Soooo - you had your palfrey with you. LOTS easier on the seat!
 

O' Be Joyful

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I thought they were miniature horses! (California will let you keep those in your apartment as assistive animals...) They are actually way tough horses descended from the same ones took Mongolia's Golden Horde all over the place, prized there for their great stamina and ability to eat just about anything and little of it - and still thrive. These horses are raised in the north, where there is still grassland - not all Vietnam is a steaming rain forest!
But do you know their average height/in hands? Mini-horses avg. 8.5-9.5 hands/34-38 inches.

Weight: 150 to 350 pounds
Height: Typically under 8.5 hands (34 inches) to 9.5 hands (38 inches)
Body Type: Small, muscular build; many have similar proportions to larger horses
Best For: Anyone who wants a companion animal, not a horse for riding
Life Expectancy: 35 years


Those guys look a bit taller.
 

diane

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Thanks, Obi! I know zip about Southeast Asian horses except they are strong and really durable. Ancient as I understand - from North America as the fossil records seem to indicate instead of the other way around. During Conquest the Spaniards brought the European horse here...which was a completely different animal!
 

O' Be Joyful

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I know zip about Southeast Asian horses
I and now you know more now.

Breed Characteristics
The Vietnamese Hmong Horses are believed to have originated from horses of Mongolian, Sichuan or Timorean descent with a later inclusion of Arab blood from the late nineteenth century French colonization of the region. They are diminutive in size standing between 10 and 11 hands high. They have a broad forehead, intelligent eyes with a slightly dished face. Their manes are thick and are kept cropped making them stand up to form a crest. They range in color from bay, sorrel, buckskin dun, pewter dun with eel-stripe, light palomino, paint to grey and are found if various coat patterns. Their temperament is good-natured and malleable and they are especially sure-footed in the mountains.

 

5fish

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Lets talk stone age horse rediscovered in Tibet in 1995 along with a new snow monkey...


Riwoche horse
The Riwoche horse, as the explorers have named it after its home region in northeastern Tibet, is close to four feet high, about the size of a pony. Its head is triangular and has the same wedge shape as the zebra or as the vanished horses of European stone-age drawings.
 

Leftyhunter

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My point of this is the technology was available to the Confederacy if they spend the energy in imagination and innovation and they could have created thier own warrior bikes.
But it wasn't. No technology you have advocated was practical for widespread use in the 1860s. Technology is practical when it is the right time and the 1860s was not the right time for bicycles and self propelled armoured vehicles.
Leftyhunter
 

Mike12

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I don't even like the idea of them having the technology. Do they like the idea of them having the technology? I just got here from Virginia, its a hard road to travel... You forgot your religion... Mountain people of the mountain... We have the declaration of independence of slavery... our fathers fathers got the god of our Old Time Religion... Robert E Lee the humble general of George Washington's descent in Virginia. A Mother lineage of Presidents. Robert E Lee's rocking chair and Ulysses Grant's swivel chair photo... I'm just an old time back woods store, of general thomas jackson in those appalachian hills I want no slavery or trouble. This isn't no revolution or social upheaval and no government has changed except for the relations of the states. Preserve the way of life and ok...
 

5fish

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Technology is practical when it is the right time and the 1860s was not the right time for bicycles and self propelled armored vehicles.
I humbly disagree... All the practical pieces for a modern bike was attainable if someone with money, imagination and skill could have created it sooner than it was. I argue armor vehicles could have been created if the South or North had true R & D departments...

Our space program example of what I am talking about... All the pieces of it were available but it took bunch of money, forward thinking, a bunch skilled people to pull it off but they put us on the moor at least a generation sooner than it would have been.

Jet airplanes were a generation away until us and the Germans put money, imagination and skilled people to create them...

This vaccine we all waiting to get was again develop quickly because money , imagination, cutting red tape , and a bunch of bright people to create it years ahead of it time...
 

5fish

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I want to point out the U S Army proved bikes could go cross country, just like horses minus food for the horses... They used the Buffalo Soldiers to do it... before they saved Teddy on San Juan hill...


snip...

More than a century ago, in 1897, U.S. Army soldiers road bicycles 1,900 miles, from Fort Missoula, Montana to St. Louis.
The 20 soldiers who made the trip were part of the 25th Infantry, a racially-segregated group known as Buffalo Soldiers. The term refers to black soldiers who served west of the Mississippi River in regiments initially formed in 1866, after the end of the Civil War.


This tells more of the story... below...


snip...

Tired and hungry, their bright blue Army-issue blouses tattered and wet from rain and snow, the men of the 25th Infantry Regiment reached Alliance, Nebraska, on July 4, 1897. They had covered 1,000 miles in 21 days, having mastered the Rockies, crossed the Yellowstone and Little Bighorn rivers and surmounted drifts of hail said to be “fully 8 feet high.” The 20 buffalo soldiers, led by Second Lieutenant James A. Moss, still had another 900 miles to go, including a grueling 200-mile trek through Nebraska’s notorious sand hills. Each man carried his own rations, cooking utensils, blanket, tent and other necessities rarely toted by soldiers in the American West—extra parts for needed repairs and spare tires. Yes, tires, because these St. Louis–bound soldiers from Fort Missoula, Montana, were sitting tall on bicycle seats not saddles.
 

O' Be Joyful

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I humbly disagree... All the practical pieces for a modern bike was attainable if someone with money, imagination and skill could have created it sooner than it was. I argue armor vehicles could have been created if the South or North had true R & D departments...
 

Leftyhunter

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I humbly disagree... All the practical pieces for a modern bike was attainable if someone with money, imagination and skill could have created it sooner than it was. I argue armor vehicles could have been created if the South or North had true R & D departments...

Our space program example of what I am talking about... All the pieces of it were available but it took bunch of money, forward thinking, a bunch skilled people to pull it off but they put us on the moor at least a generation sooner than it would have been.

Jet airplanes were a generation away until us and the Germans put money, imagination and skilled people to create them...

This vaccine we all waiting to get was again develop quickly because money , imagination, cutting red tape , and a bunch of bright people to create it years ahead of it time...
Not exactly. The British had operational jets to but they weren't used in combat other then shooting down V1 rockets. All the pieces were not in place for bicycle development in the 1860s. Even if they were it wouldn't make a difference since cavalry can easily intercept someone pushing a bicycle.
Both the US and the Soviets had a space program but the Americans had more money and more German Rocket Scientists.
No nation had steam powered armoured vehicles and the internal combustion engine had to wait to be invented by Damiler Benz in 1878.
Leftyhunter
 

Leftyhunter

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1897
I want to point out the U S Army proved bikes could go cross country, just like horses minus food for the horses... They used the Buffalo Soldiers to do it... before they saved Teddy on San Juan hill...


snip...

More than a century ago, in 1897, U.S. Army soldiers road bicycles 1,900 miles, from Fort Missoula, Montana to St. Louis.
The 20 soldiers who made the trip were part of the 25th Infantry, a racially-segregated group known as Buffalo Soldiers. The term refers to black soldiers who served west of the Mississippi River in regiments initially formed in 1866, after the end of the Civil War.


This tells more of the story... below...


snip...

Tired and hungry, their bright blue Army-issue blouses tattered and wet from rain and snow, the men of the 25th Infantry Regiment reached Alliance, Nebraska, on July 4, 1897. They had covered 1,000 miles in 21 days, having mastered the Rockies, crossed the Yellowstone and Little Bighorn rivers and surmounted drifts of hail said to be “fully 8 feet high.” The 20 buffalo soldiers, led by Second Lieutenant James A. Moss, still had another 900 miles to go, including a grueling 200-mile trek through Nebraska’s notorious sand hills. Each man carried his own rations, cooking utensils, blanket, tent and other necessities rarely toted by soldiers in the American West—extra parts for needed repairs and spare tires. Yes, tires, because these St. Louis–bound soldiers from Fort Missoula, Montana, were sitting tall on bicycle seats not saddles.
1897 is a good thirty two years after the end of the ACW. Either armies were using bicycles by 1865 or they weren't.
Leftyhunter
 

5fish

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Not exactly.
You seem to forget my point. Money, imagination, skilled people and desire, you can cut short the time of innovation. Have you ever wonder why war bring forth invention because the great desire to help with the war effort or make money off the war so money, imagination, skilled people, and desire come together to kill our fellow man...

All the pieces of the bike were there rubber for tires, peddles being invented in France, and so forth... Same with steam powered armor wagons all the pieces were there for it as well... what was lacking imagination, money and desire... people come later...
 
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