American War of Independence

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

OT

But since you mention it, do any of you know of a good military history of the American War of Indepedence?

With any major war, or the Luftwaffe for that matter, I do not believe there is any one volume that gives adequate coverage.

Politics aside, you will also find confusion about the methods used on the battlefield. Essentially, there were two kinds of wars going at the same time: conventional land battles and guerrilla activity. Those fighting styles were distinctly different, and while the irregular forces certainly did "hide behind trees and rocks" whilst shooting at British troops, they never expected to defeat large conventional armies in set-piece battles.

Sometimes the colonists used a combination of guerrilla warfare and European style battle formations in the same engagement. The British response did not always follow a consistent pattern either. It's difficult to make generalizations but unfortunately that is usually the purpose of general histories.