What if? 1916 rising

mbiking123

if they hadnt done this and used michael collins tactics eg hit and run they may have won as they did not havve the skill or fire power to take on the british army

Michael Collins was himself involved in the rising, and the IRA formed a new type of tactic, which I believe is the one that is referred to. This hit and run was learned from the rising, in this way the 1916 rising achieved something with regard to tactics, the learned the best way to take on British army. This same tactic lead to Michael Collins himself being shot by same tactic

There is no point in handing a rifle to a man who does not know anything about shooting accurately at long distance

extremely hard to shoot at a moving target at long ranges and for a short time limit of exposure of the target, this is usually left to snipers and not Infantry. Infantry usually lay down a volley of fire, in the hope that one bullet will hit the target. Take the MG42 from WWII, this was not an accurate GPMG but this was favoured as it lay a volley of fire over an area. The british Bren was more accurate, in fact too accurate. During WWII the british army were so good at reloading their SMLE bolt action rifle that sometimes germans thought they have semiautomatic rifles. Firisng a bolt action rifle quickly and fairly accurate in a group of riflemen is better that a sniper firing just one shot very slow/taking his time with breathing etc but very accurate.

If I was training IRA back then fast reloading is what I would be teaching them with priority over accuracy.

Good accuracy can be achieved with just correct holding of the weapon and aiming, little firing practice is needed to achieve this. Good rifle handling techniques practice takes time and does not need any ammo. A person could be trained to engage targets up to 300m with this type of training

Urban conflict usually involves close range contact, sniper engagements usually in open ground when the target can be observed a long distance away. Urban conflict sometimes involves using Sub Machine Guns as long range is no good, and a shorter barreled weapon with short range is better. As it can be manoveured better around corners

brosy

tac foley wrote: »

It is thanks to the effectiveness of that bombing that you are able to post your opinion on this site. Without it you would be either speaking German, or more likely, Russian.
tac

Got news for ya buddy, we are all posting in English.

tac foley

brosy wrote: »

Got news for ya buddy, we are all posting in English.

You have made my point for me.

Thank you.

tac

booom

the last post hit the nail on the head- it was a local affair. sure, there was mis-communication regarding other actions in other cities, but a sucessful rising in dublin would only have caused far greater suffering. i dont say that lightly, the following years were noted for their bouts of savagery; but the various bodies involved in the rising gave no thought to the near half million northern unionists who had signed the covenant (a large proportion of whom were armed as uvf members) who would not have sat idly by.

littlejo

the warship that sailed up the liffey was the helga it destroyed the unoccupied liberty hall
not the brightest crayons in the box

Dannyboy83

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

One of the interesting comments I heard about the Rising and Arthur Griffith and Sinn Fein was " Sinn Fein did not make the Rising, but the Rising made Sinn Fein ".

I believe it's widely accepted that the conscription crisis made Sinn Fein.

Maoltuile

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

I believe it's widely accepted that the conscription crisis made Sinn Fein.

Conscription Crisis was in 1918. Sinn Féin started getting MPs elected before that, based on the obvious.

Maoltuile

littlejo wrote: »

the warship that sailed up the liffey was the helga it destroyed the unoccupied liberty hall
not the brightest crayons in the box

And then we bought the damned thing, which says a lot about the new Free State.

Maoltuile

mbiking123 wrote: »

British soldeirs always pride themselves as being the best trained in the world however in WW1 it is widely accepted that the soldiers had poor training especially Kitchener's army. Those troops themselves accepted after some time they had poor training. They passed by the fields of poppy's and when the reached the front line their lives changed forever, they did not understand war, never explained the effects etc. I would say the troops stationed in Ireland would have had the same type of training.

The British had been involved in a major war (the Boer War) not two decades before, and a number of NCOs and officers had war experience going back further than that. Their musketry was also recognised as being second to none, so "poorly trained" doesn't pass muster as an excuse for why Paddies were able to fight them and win.

jonniebgood1

Maoltuile wrote: »

The British had been involved in a major war (the Boer War) not two decades before...

As were many Irishmen in the Boer conflict also. In fact there were instances of Irishmen fighting Irishmen in South Africa with affiliations on both sides of the war bizarrely.