Competency of the Continental Army
At what moment, if ever, do you believe the Continental Army became the equal of the British Army on the battlefield?

Well I can say for sure not before Von Steuben and Valley Forge,so it would have to be 1778 at the earliest.They were able to hold their own at several places during the battle of Monmouth if I had to pick a battle at which it started to show some real promise for the reputation of the Continental troops. As far as their equal across the board then that's a bit of a stretch and probably never as a whole,but without a doubt some units were at least their equal and I'd advocate that even a few units like Morgans rifles were superior to many units the British could field. This topic could prove to be quite interesting as it's largely opinion based and not a yes or no.Just like the Tarleton topic,this could shape up to be another fun thread to follow. Nice question. :) Cheers Christopher

Interesting question Cornet... The battlefield performance was pretty good at Saratoga - a definite victory on the field, whatever Sgt Lamb and others might say. Some regts, like Morgan's Riflemen were evidently excellent in that campaign. They managed that prior to the 77/78 Valley Forge training. Some people write great paeans of praise to the Marylanders at Guilford. They were undoubtedly smart and well drilled regiments, nb the 1st, but what about Camden and the trouble the Maryland troops got into at Brandywine ? I'd put the 1st Maryland in 1781 on a par with an average British regt - certainly not up there with the 33rd or 23rd. There are some other impressive moments or outfits - Stony Point, the Continental LI in the Yorktown campaign for example. The truth is that the Continentals improved, but so did the British. Cornwallis's regiments in the Carolinas were far tougher and more flexible than the Bunker Hill Regts. EC

The battlefield performance was pretty good at Saratoga - a definite victory on the field, whatever Sgt Lamb and others might say. Some regts, like Morgan's Riflemen were evidently excellent in that campaign. They managed that prior to the 77/78 Valley Forge training. Oh yes indeed your absolutely correct,I answered with the impression of the continental army as a whole in regards to lining up face to face and blazing away without taking into account commanders and terrain that were what I believe to be a large factor in the Saratoga campaign. Both you and I cited Morgans rifles who were consistently excellent or at least good wherever they fought and not just Saratoga. Some people write great paeans of praise to the Marylanders at Guilford. They were undoubtedly smart and well drilled regiments, nb the 1st, but what about Camden and the trouble the Maryland troops got into at Brandywine ? I'd put the 1st Maryland in 1781 on a par with an average British regt - certainly not up there with the 33rd or 23rd. That's a tough one to answer while your right at Camden and Brandywine,they fought exceptionally well at Guilford Courthouse and just about won the battle for the Americans if Cornwallis didn't intervene with canister. I'd say a bit above the average British regiment,but not on par with Morgan's rifles or the top British regiments. There are some other impressive moments or outfits - Stony Point, the Continental LI in the Yorktown campaign for example. The truth is that the Continentals improved, but so did the British. Cornwallis's regiments in the Carolinas were far tougher and more flexible than the Bunker Hill Regts I agree with you here in that just as the Americans got better,so did their British counterparts.While I believe the American's did reach the status of professional soldiers,they never as a whole came on par with the British. In time this probably would have happened had the war progressed longer.

Competency is very situational. Breastworks, terrain, suprise, ammunition, hunger, desperation, training, leadership, just to name a few, are all factors that influence the success of any unit. My best guess is that by 1777 or at least 1778, Continetal regiments were on an equal footing with British and Allied units. Other factors contributed to their success or lack there of, as mentioned above. The British army, as a whole, was much better than the Americans. The British were better supplied and their leadership was better able to place thier regiments in an advantageous stituation. When they couldn't, more often than not, the Americans won or severly bloodied the British. As an extreme example, someone mentioned the 23rd and 33 rd Foot. If you measure them by their success at Yorktown then they might not be all that good afterall. Even though, through no fault of their own, they found themselves in a defensive postion without naval support and were forced to capitulate. It would be silly to blame them for the army's failure at Yorktown, yet they ended up as prisoners of war. The same could be said for the British/Allied units in the Saratoga campaign. One of the things I enjoy about BG! is the morale ratings of the units. Most often Continetal units are on par with the majority of British units. Militia, well, they are another story. We just finished a small game. The Americans/Rebels had three brigades, 2 of Continetals, 1 of militia. The British were attacking with 3 brigades; 1 of "grenadiers and light infantry; 1 of British regulars and 1 of Hessians. We used a 'blind set-up and the British ended up with their Grenadiers/Lights up against the Militia. It was the deciding factor in the battle, as the other two British brigades could make no headway, frontally, against the Continetals. I would argue that circumstances in which a unit finds itself fighting is the key ingredient of its success or failure. Mike B

I agree with everything you said to one extent or another,but as an ex soldier I will say the most crucial element to being a soldier is training and discipline. These factors allows soldiers to deal with the various conditions or situations he finds himself in.By and large and as a whole the British were better trained and more disciplined and remained so throughout the war. I would say it would be hard to point out a great many situations were the British Regular was engaging on more or less equal footing and came out on the short end of the stick. In addition,there are but a few circumstances were they actually broke in combat and most often when the gave up their arms it was when their commander surrendered thus removing the responsibility. Like I said there are some American units that were the equal of any British regiment if not better,but speaking in terms of a whole then I'd say no regardless of situations just on the premise of training and discipline. Of course I could be way off base as it may be true I've absorbed a great deal of information since I first started posting,I'm still aware I'm way behind most of the posters here in terms of material studied and read. My opinions of course are based largely on what I've read so far and not from a vast amount of intense study. Anyways,I'm looking forward to further reply's as I'm very curious as to what folks think on this subject. :)

Axebreaker I agree with you about the importance of training and discipline. There is also the hard to quantify issue of 'spirit' or 'morale'. If you look at the British Army in Boston it is possible to argue that its discipline was not good (eg high desertion rates, degrees of theft and drunkenness) and the training of many of its soldiers may have been inferior to that of the enthusiastic amateurs drilling frequently in the surrounding countryside. For this reason in Boston scenarios there are good arguments for grading many British units as 2nd Line. In the meeting of these very dissimilar enemies - the 'regulars' who actually really weren't much good, and the 'amateurs' who were actually well trained and highly motivated - we see the reasons for what happened at Lexington and Bunkers Hill. You find other episodes too where the performance of British units just seems to be below par. I was very tempted to make the British regts in the Newport 1778 scenario in SB2 2nd Line too. Their performance in the field was pretty slack. I certainly think that some of the Rhode Island or other Continentals there were on the same level of competance. mikeb I agree about the importance of situation in trying to judge this equation. Put your militia behind a breastwork on top of a hill and you will nullify the combat advantage of those attacking Line redcoats. Evidently that's what Washington et al tried to do. On the British units - even in the strategic disaster that was Yorktown, Cornwallis's regts fought very well. The 23rd defended the Fusulier's redoubt against a withering weight of French artillery. The LI's sally was also highly effective EC

Why did Lord Howe insist on flanking manuvers with a clearly superior army in 1776? It was because he realized that the "situation" an army finds itself in can nullify any training and morale advantages those units had. I would argue that the British Regiments at Bunker Hill (in spite of their extended stay in Boston) were superior in training to the American militia. But they "surrendered" the situation to the Rebels, or rather their commandes did. So situation and leadership are the key factors to a unit's success. Keegan and every US Marine I know would argue differently. :wink: One discussion that often comes up in our wargames is how best to model a unit's performance in a battle. Should the unit be given some sort of morale and/or combat advantage or was their success simply a combination of better leadership, in the case of a game; the player, and/or better dice? Do the 300 Spartans 'never' break or did they just roll very good dice?? Mike B

The Effectiveness of the Continental Army
If the question is asking for a date when the Continental Army became the 'equal' of the British Army, and their German and Loyalist allies, on the battlefield, then that would probably be 1779. The Continentals by that time had become a professional army, thanks in great part to the influx of European professionals that helped train and form them such as Duportail, von Steuben, Fleury, Gimat, and de Kalb. The performance of the newlyformed provisional Continental Corps of Light Infantry that summer in the storming and taking of the British fortified post at Stony Point, New York, is an indicator of the growing and permanent professionalism of the Continental Army. There were two main problems that the Continental Army faced during the war. The first was the development of a professional NCO corps, and the second was in end strength, as recruiting was hampered greatly by the states maintaining militias (whom the Continentals nicknamed 'long faces' because of their usual attitude of being called into service) as well as state lines. This definitely stopped Washington realizing his goal of an up-to-strength army for the war. While the Continentals had defeated the British at Trenton and Princeton, as well as the Saratoga campaign (where the overwhelming majority of the American units actually engaged in the major battles of Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights were Continental regulars and not militia), and almost winning at Germantown, the army was changed much for the better with the advent of von Steuben in the winter of 1777-1778. The uniform system of drill introduced by von Steuben gave the Continentals a tactical finesse that they had not had previously and the battlefield performance in the open fighting European-style greatly increased. Continental units were the backbone of the greater majority of the remaining battles, with exceptions such as King's Mountain, and their performance at Monmouth, Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk's Hill, Eutaw Springs, and Yorktown was the equal at least of the best of the European regiments they faced. The Maryland and Delaware Continentals performed superbly in Gates' mismanaged disaster at Camden in August 1780, were the main reason Morgan won at Cowpens in January 1781, and definitely inflicted most of the casualties on the British and German regiments at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781. In the latter action the 1st Maryland (which included one Delaware company) had a hand in defeating the 33d Foot and later engaged and mauled the 2d Battalion of Guards. Sincerely, G

I think the referance to the 1st Maryland at Guildford Courthouse is not a good case here. From memory, the regiments discussed had marched and fought across almost 1 mile of wooded terrain whilst the 1st until that point been un engaged. I also believe that the 1st broke without recieving fire.

I also believe that the 1st broke without recieving fire. Wasn't it the other way around with the 5th actually reported to have broke without receiving fire and not the 1st who did everything Gassendi said. :wink: Also,some believe it was 2nd Maryland and not the 5th who broke to further add to the discussion. Cheers Christopher

Interesting, I will check over the weekend.

1st Maryland 1781
The 1st Maryland was formed after Camden with the survivors of the Maryland Brigade. This was a veteran outfit and included at least one of the two surviving Delaware companies, which was commanded by Captain Jacquett. The other Delaware company was commanded by Robert Kirkwood and was later formed into a provision legion with Washintong's Continental Light Dragoons and Lynch's volunteer rifle command. The 1st Maryland and the Delaware companies were considered the elite of the southern army. The Maryland Regiment was commanded by Col Gunby and ably seconded by LtCol John Eager Howard. The other Maryland infantry regiment at Guilford Courthouse, the newly designated 2d Maryland, had been until it was transferred to the southern army, a state unit and was composed of recruits, though it was given some veteran officers from the 1st Maryland, but still broke under attack by the 2d Battalion of Guards at Guilford after firing one half-hearted vollet. Colonel Otho Holland Williams, the brigade commander, was not happy. In some references, the 2d Maryland is mistakenly identified as the 5th Maryland. It was the 1st Maryland that assisted on of the Virginia Continental regiments present in repulsing the attack of the 33d Foot and mauling the 2d Brigade of Guards. For references to the action see Babits' and Howard's Long, Obstinate, and Bloody; Spring's With Zeal and Bayonets Only; Hatch's The Battle of Guilford Courthouse, and Kirkwood's and Seymour's journals of the southern campaign. Sincerely, G

Will read the referances and get back to you :D

Re: The Effectiveness of the Continental Army
After reading this thread, I would have to say that I am more disposed to support the opinions of Eclaireur and Axebreaker as the most likely answers. If the question is asking for a date when the Continental Army became the 'equal' of the British Army, and their German and Loyalist allies, on the battlefield, then that would probably be 1779. I can understand 1779 as a date at which the Continental Army fully achieved “professional status,” but where is the evidence to suggest combat equality? From Monmouth to Yorktown, there was no major action involving large enough numbers of Continentals and Regulars directly opposing each other, to make any sort of valid comparison of the two armies in their entirety (IMO, whilst Stony Point says much about the Corps of Light Infantry, it is not much of an indicator about the army in its totality). Not only that, but at no time in the war did the Continental Army ever undertake a prolonged, offensive campaign of the kind that the British undertook at least once every year from 1776 to 1781. Without being able, for example, to analyse a battle in which a Continental force, outnumbered 2:1, attempted to fight its way through three lines of Crown forces in a good defensive position, we cannot possibly evaluate the relative merits of the two sides as complete armies. The uniform system of drill introduced by von Steuben gave the Continentals a tactical finesse that they had not had previously and the battlefield performance in the open fighting European-style greatly increased. Personally, I have always thought that this aspect of Steuben’s influence is overestimated, and that his real value to the Continental Army was in improving the higher echelons of command and staff work via the Blue Book – in effect, a manual for running an army in the field. Prior to Steuben’s arrival, the individual State Lines had each adopted one of the existing systems (or in a few cases written their own), but the diversity across the army was rarely, if ever, much of an issue in combat, since brigades – the highest command level at which the choice of unit tactics and formations was controlled – were almost always homogenous (i.e. composed of units from one State). Unfortunately, there is no real evidence for this "tactical finesse" outside of the Corps of Light Infantry. The absence of any major field actions after Monmouth, and the defensive tactics employed in the vast majority of those smaller battles that did occur, means that there were virtually no opportunities for the line infantry of the Continental Army to manoeuvre en masse in the open against the highest quality opposition. Even the exceptions to this could be problematic: after Green Spring, one of Wayne’s officers (presumably as criticism of Steuben, who became quite unpopular with sections of the Continental officer corps) decried the adoption of “stiff German tactics” in contrast to the looser formations of the British. Continental units were the backbone of the greater majority of the remaining battles, with exceptions such as King's Mountain, and their performance at Monmouth, Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk's Hill, Eutaw Springs, and Yorktown was the equal at least of the best of the European regiments they faced. The use of the phrase “the equal at least of the best of the European regiments” suggests that you believe some Continental units were superior to even the elite of the Crown forces. I would be very interested in how you arrived at this view, and which units you have in mind (other than the respective corps of Engineers, which was the Achilles Heel of the British Army anyway). In my view, none of the seven actions you cite suggest equality, let alone superiority: Monmouth was at best a losing draw, failing to achieve either of its primary objectives of isolating and defeating Clinton’s rearguard and catching the British baggage train; Camden, Guilford, Hobkirk’s and Eutaw were defeats to numerically inferior opposition – at least two of which were due to sub-standard performances by Continental units; Cowpens owed as much – if not more – to Tarleton’s arrogance and predictability, and Morgan’s innovative use of militia; and Yorktown was only possible because of the French navy and army, with the latter doing most of the fighting on land. The Maryland and Delaware Continentals performed superbly in Gates' mismanaged disaster at Camden in August 1780, were the main reason Morgan won at Cowpens in January 1781, and definitely inflicted most of the casualties on the British and German regiments at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781. I am surprised to learn that one Continental battalion, in opposing just two of Cornwallis’s units (one of them the smallest in his command), was responsible for “most” of his casualties on the day. Do you have any figures to support this contention? In the latter action the 1st Maryland (which included one Delaware company) had a hand in defeating the 33d Foot and later engaged and mauled the 2d Battalion of Guards. Yes, everyone gets very excited about the 1st Marylanders at GCH, don’t they; possibly because it involves the Guards, perhaps? However, let us not forget that the two British units they repulsed a) had had virtually nothing to eat for the previous 48 hours; b) in the same period, had marched many miles – including 12 miles that morning; c) had just fought their way through two previous lines of defenders, taking serious casualties in the process; d) were attacking uphill in an amphitheatre; e) were heavily outnumbered - in the case of the Guards at least 2:1 (and possibly 3:1 by that stage in the day); and, f) (again in the case of the Guards) were being attacked in the flank by cavalry at the same time. Without in any way decrying the bravery of the individuals concerned, in wargames terms the Marylanders had every “plus” going for them; and yet they still did not manage to do enough damage to remove either British unit completely from the battle. If we are to consider their performance as somehow typifying the Continental infantry, where does this place the performances of some of the many “anonymous” British line regiments during the war? For example, the 38th Foot, which suffered the heaviest losses of any unit at Bunker Hill as a result of making three assaults against the main redoubt - a feat rare enough in European warfare? Or the 17th Foot fighting their way through half the Continental Army (and then back again) at Princeton? Or the 62nd Foot standing for several hours against repeated attacks by fresh Continental units – occasionally from more than one direction simultaneously – at Freeman’s Farm? (And to show there’s no bias, how about the stand of the 2nd Rhode Island at Vauxhall Bridge during the Springfield Raid in 1780?). None of these units is ever rated as particularly special yet I would submit each of the above actions was more meritorious - in the sense of overcoming considerably greater obstacles/opposition - than the GCH situation. Third, in citing this unit as an example of Continental prowess, we should also remember that a month later at Hobkirk’s Hill, the 1st Maryland snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for Greene by collapsing in panic during a relatively simple manoeuvre (and whilst, in battlefield terms, under no immediate pressure) that one would expect any British line unit to have taken in its stride. Another Continental unit, the 4th Virginia, then did much the same thing. Hardly redolent of the “tactical finesse” mentioned earlier. My own view of the Continental Army is that, like the famous curate’s egg, it was good in parts, and some of these were the equal of their opponents. Others, however, manifestly were not. Had the war gone on for longer, then possibly the Continental Army in its entirety could have matched the British Army. However, the interpretation of three-year enlistments (i.e. three years or the duration, whichever was shorter rather than longer, as in the British service) resulted in a constant drain of experienced personnel, and the consequent difficulty in establishing the sort of dependable corps of NCOs that the British had. Corps of Light Infantry – certainly as capable as their British counterparts, but it would be good to have more examples to draw from than just Stony Point (at Redoubt 10 they outnumbered the defenders by almost 10:1, which doesn’t really tell us much). To this group, I would add Kirkwoood’s Delaware Company, the only Continental line unit good enough to be used as light infantry, in the mould of the 23rd, 24th, 33rd, 42nd and 71st Foot on the other side. Light Cavalry / Legionary Corps – I would suggest the equal of the British/Queen’s Rangers horse on the battlefield (and far more consistent than the British Legion), but less proficient at outpost/recce/escort work. Artillery – every bit the equal of the RA and RIA, and even ostensibly with a slight edge via its militarised corps of drivers, although in practice, the commitment of the Loyalist civilian drivers used by the British negated the disadvantages normally associated with this kind of arrangement in Europe. Engineers – clearly superior, although given the weakness of the British arm and the input/participation of the French (the best military engineers in Europe - probably the world - at that time), not much of a contest. Line Infantry – far too variable in quality, even in the later years, to be considered the equal of the British Line, but the majority of regiments were on a par with the best Loyalist and German units; unfortunately, for every Camden and Vauxhall, there was a Hobkirk’s Hill and Bull’s Ferry. One thing I have noticed is that the best/most reliable contingents seemed to come from the smaller State Lines – NH, RI, DE, MD – whilst the larger States – such as MA, PA and VA - tended to be much more variable in quality, possibly because their greater number of regiments proved to be unsustainable, resulting in repeated amalgamations. Incidentally, in 1777, the paper establishment of the infantry arm of the Continental Line was 116 battalions: 88 – eventually 92 - State Line, 14 Additional, 5 Extra, and 5 Canadian (the 2nd Regiment had 4 battalions). The paper establishment of the British infantry was only 84 battalions: 7 Guards and 77 Line (the 1st and 42nd had 2 battalions, the 60th 4 and the 71st 3, later 2). Again, on paper, each Continental battalion had 120 more men than its British counterpart; had Congress realised its aims (clearly far too ambitious), Washington would have had 82,000 infantry in America, the British just 53,000 worldwide.