Debunked: Left Oblique Aiming Over Right Shoulders

[Silas]

Re: Debunked : left oblique aiming over right shoulders

Hermann, you're my hero. Seriously. It was your "Support for Support Arms" which caused me to question other accepted practices we do without question and wonder if they are legit. Left oblique firing has bugged me for years. I needed to do some digging on my own and reveal what I found regardless of which way it went. Now I know. It went left from the left, not left from the right.

[FranklinGuardsNYSM]

Re: Debunked : left oblique aiming over right shoulders

Excellent, as usual. Thank you for this.

[Silas]

From the 1820's through the 1870's, no compiler of American drill tactics instructed rear-rank troops to aim and fire over the right shoulders of the front-rank men. Yet, that's how we were all taught and have taught others.

After going through a slew of manuals and other sources from Scott to Upton, I am convinced that left oblique aiming was through the left interval, not over the right shoulders of the front-rank men. There is no good reason why we aim over right shoulders when compilers who specified a side all instructed aiming through the left interval and when no compiler instructed aiming through the right interval or over the right shoulder. Here's a link to the twenty-two page article of which two and a half pages are sources:

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

I broke the article into bite sized bits for easier consumption. I've included illustrations of the foot movements per the instruction of Hardee, Gilham and Casey. The results surprised me as they are very different than what I thought they would be. They're certainly not what I was taught twenty years ago, nor are they what reenactors are still taught today. I've also broken down the movements for left oblique into individual movements for better understanding. Upton provides a necessary tip which should have been included in the manuals of Hardee and company.