Current Events > 300 Modern day US Marines vs British Army during American Revolution

(+) Yeah! (+)

300 Modern Day US Marines equipped with modern guns. Standard Military gear.

Vs

50,000 British Army soldiers from the American Revolution, equipped with weapons from their time.

Rules:
No outside help
No vehicles, drones, internet, etc
Rockets/ Cannons allowed

Battlefield is a 3km farmland with houses, Barns, cropfields, etc

US Marines have 24 hours prep time, before the British surround them and begin the battle

Who wins?

I think a fully automatic weapon might bring down the entire British army back then

i'd imagine the us marines cause they'll dig in and shoot from vantage points instead of lining up in columns against soldiers that shoot muskets.

Irony posted...

I think a fully automatic weapon might bring down the entire British army back then

lol they'd set the weapon to semi-auto to conserve ammo.

i think da modern guns would destroy da morale of dem old british army peeps

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/4/AAEhCpAADGB0.jpg

Marine marksmen pick off British artillerymen before they could get in range, and also inflict significant casualties upon any approaching infantry or cavalry before they get in range as well. Lack of coordination possible would delay coordinated British attacks while allowing for internal groups of marines to fairly easily respond to crisis areas. Marine mortar teams would wreck shop on attackers that got too close as well.

Marines got this.

PowerOats posted...

US Marines have 24 hours prep time, before the British surround them and begin the battle

Land mines: British are dead gg

A M60 emplacement would wreck the shit out of a musket line.

didn't the british army lose to the american army via american revolution

I can't see the marines killing more than a few thousand British before the British regroup and start bombarding them with artillery.

Xavier_On_High posted...

I can't see the marines killing more than a few thousand British before the British regroup and start bombarding them with artillery.

What artillery?

Irony posted...

What artillery?

Grapeshot cannon. That shit fucks shit up.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Grapeshot cannon. That shit fucks shit up.

This is like 10 years before that was a thing.

Irony posted...

What artillery?

Cannons. Cannonballs, grapeshot, explosive shells. Depends on the situation.

Irony posted...

This is like 10 years before that was a thing.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/6/AAEhCpAADGB2.png

Numbers are still numbers.

Questionmarktarius posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/6/AAEhCpAADGB2.png

It was invented in 1784 which was after the Revolutionary War

CreekCo posted...

Numbers are still numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae

I mean 50,000 vs 300 is pretty damn lopsided.

300 modern Marines with modern equipment and training versus a bunch of dudes that fight in straight lines?

Lol

The only way the British win is if the Marines run out of ammo

Irony posted...

What artillery?

I seriously hope you're not trying to argue that the British didn't have any artillery at all during the Revolution.

Irony posted...

It was invented in 1784 which was after the Revolutionary War

Okay, substitute grapeshot with canister for basically the same effect.

All they had were cannons and howitzers which by today's standards are inaccurate pieces of shit.

Seriously, though, if Davy Crocketts are still "modern", the British army is obliterated instantly.

To fight 50,000 British soldiers 300 Marines would need an unreal amount of ammunition.

This is also assuming that this battle takes place in like a span of 1-2 days. Brits could easily win via attrition if the Marines arent properly supplied from the outside.

If the Brits werent smart enough to re-strategize and keep marching into a hail of automatic gun fire then the Marines have a chance. Otherwise 50,000 is just too many soldiers for 300 Marines with small arms to take on. Theyd kill quite a few though.

modern gunpower and highly refined and well coordinated guerrilla tactics vs napoleonic formations and muskets? it would be a monumental bloodbath and a decisive american victory.

I've played enough Civilization to know enough musketeers can fuck anything up.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Seriously, though, if Davy Crocketts are still "modern", the British army is obliterated instantly.

The battle takes place on 3km of farmland. I can't see how they would be able to fire enough Davy Crocketts to destroy the British without destroying themselves.

"The current riflemans loadout in the US military is seven 30-round magazines for the M4 Carbine. So, youre looking at 210 rounds of 5.5645 ammo." -- 300x210 = 63,000 bullets for all 300 Marine.

"Cannon, mortars and howitzers made up the three types of artillery used at Yorktown by the Americans, French and British. The British surrendered at Yorktown with 244 artillery pieces." (and this was towards the end of the war, so at the beginning with the 50,000 troops you have stated, they'd have at least double, if not triple this amount).

"The exact firing ranges of the artillery pieces at Yorktown are difficult to determine. Factors such as piece size, amount of powder charge and quality of the powder affected the range. The following are rough averages:

CANNON ------ Maximum Range:2,000 yards/Effective Range:1,000 yards
MORTARS ------- Maximum Range:1,400 yards/Effective Range:750 yards
HOWITZER ------- Maximum Range:1,300 yards/Effective Range:750 yards"

The British just need to stay on the outskirts and bombard the farm with their cannons/mortars and Howitzers, it doesn't matter how inaccurate they are, as they'd have so many -- roughly 488 ~ 732.
The Americans closing the gap, risk Musket fire, and even losing 10 marines would be catastrophic for the bullet situation, and anyone they did lose, that the British could collect? They'd have gained themselves a modern firearm.

also, don't forget.
the British were wearing bright red coats. they'd be picked off from sniper fire.

Depends, would the British Army be stuck waiting for their atb bars to fill before they could attack still?

Michael_Booth posted...

"The current riflemans loadout in the US military is seven 30-round magazines for the M4 Carbine. So, youre looking at 210 rounds of 5.5645 ammo." -- 300x210 = 63,000 bullets for all 300 Marine.

Marines carry the M27 nowadays, but it doesn't change the numbers, so whatever.

In a Marine rifle company, there would also be a half-dozen M240 machine guns, so the total count of rounds would be higher, but still not anywhere near enough for 50,000 enemies.

Strider102 posted...

Depends, would the British Army be stuck waiting for their atb bars to fill before they could attack still?

We are assuming they have to attempt an attack however disadvantageous it is because realistically the British would just wait for the 300 to starve.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

but still not anywhere near enough for 50,000 enemies.

You don't have to kill them all. You just have to kill a lot of them quickly.
The rest will just nope out.

Questionmarktarius posted...

You don't have to kill them all. You just have to kill a lot of them quickly.
The rest will just nope out.

Yeah, in a pitched battle with those odds, the marines are banking on the british routing.

Don't fire until you see the whites of their iPhone screens.

PMarth2002 posted...

Yeah, in a pitched battle with those odds, the marines are banking on the british routing.

I feel like it's a fundamental assumption in these kinds of things that the fight continues until one side is entirely gone, because otherwise it would make the numbers kind of pointless

UnholyMudcrab posted...

I feel like it's a fundamental assumption in these kinds of things that the fight continues until one side is entirely gone, because otherwise it would make the numbers kind of pointless

I feel like that assumption makes the whole exercise pointless. Completely wiping out the enemy rarely ever happens. Usually one side flees or surrenders.

British would get annilated

You're cramming 50 thousand people in 3 kilometers of farmland? Is that even possible?

A musket rifle vs modern rifles might as well be unarmed vs armed.

so long as they have ammo it would be an absolute slaughter.

Isn't there a game that could simulate this?

Being unaware of modern snipers and their range, the British would cry witchcraft after seeing a heads continually explode like popcorn in a microwave

Given how clumsy and inaccurate Revolutionary era rifles were, I don't think they have a chance in hell of taking out 300 well-trained marines who know how to distribute their manpower, know how to scout, and know how to set up fortified positions.

It'd be something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke%27s_Drift

Except the Marines will have an optical advantage (better scouting equipment/weapon scopes), armor advantage (a musket isn't going to come close to penetrating level III body armor), communication advantage (walkies, smoke flares, etc), range advantage (a musket fires accurately to about 100 yards, at best--an M16 fires accurately to 600 yards. An M2010 Sniper Rifle fires accurately at 1200 yards, and a Barett MRAD fires accurately up to 1600 yards), the defender's advantage of entrenching before the fight starts, tactical advantages (we've made a lot of advancements in battlefield planning since the 1700s), and perhaps the most important of all--they know the lay of the land, since they're Americans in America.

I think the raw numbers of 50,000 troops might make it seem unwinnable for the Marines, but honestly, given how inaccurate the British weapons will be and how clunky their artillery will be to get into position, I think the Marines can move in a swift, relatively lightweight fashion to switch up their positions and run the attackers for a loop.

300 Marines is a lot of Marines. If we do the math, 50,000 British troops with muskets firing 2-3 rounds per minute will fire ~150,000 rounds per minute, which is a lot. But keep in mind the range and accuracy disadvantages at play here--plus shooting against hardened cover and advanced body armor and helmets.

Meanwhile, those 300 Marines are firing weapons like M240 machine guns. Let's use that as an example--an M240 Machine Gun on a tripod mount is going to put out around 800 rounds a minute at an effective range of almost 2,000 yards. If all 300 Marines have something like that, then they're putting out 240,000 rounds per minute with several times longer range, several times higher muzzle velocity, and several times higher penetrating power than anything the British would be able to use against them.

Basically, my argument is that...a group of marines in an entrenched position with some improvised cover and mounted machine guns will absolutely obliterate 50,000 Revolutionary War soldiers. Even the cannons used by Revolutionary soldiers tended to max out at about 1,000 yards of effective range, which means they'd have to wheel these huge, heavy pieces of equipment over a thousand yards closer than the Marines' range just to take a shot at them that might do some damage.

Never underestimate just how insane our modern weapons technology has become compared to back then. That's even without tanks or air support.

Well theres like 50 000 of them so I guess the marines would get wiped in like one volley

Turtlebread posted...

Well theres like 50 000 of them so I guess the marines would get wiped in like one volley

The British have to get close enough to shoot, for one. For two, they won't be shooting accurately, so the small number of marines will actually work against the larger force in terms of the likelihood that anybody gets hit. Also...the Marines will be behind cover and in strategic positions, so 50,000 muskets shooting in their general direction will mostly just plink off whatever they're fortified behind. Meanwhile, those heavy machine guns are going to each be tearing through hundreds of British soldiers per minute, often times more than one per bullet given just how insanely fast those rounds are moving.

Because with 50,000 targets approaching on a stretch of farmland, it's going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. Everywhere they turn they're going to hit somebody.

The 300 Marines don't have enough bullets. 50,000. 50,000 people can flank the 300.
I'd imagine they'd could just overwhelm them even if they were reloading as fast as they could.
50,000. What the heck were you thinking when you thought of this scenario?

Numbers wouldnt save them. Warfare is almost never a fight to the last man. Once the British soldiers see the absolutely massive casualties theyre taking to what to them would essentially seem like witchcraft they would abandon position in mass.