Boy I hate to nitpick but your assertions are not very historically accurate. British regulars 'regularly' spanked American militia in straight up fights. 'Marksmanship' was not even a factor with the smoothbore weapons of the period.
Warfare at that time was conducted in mass formations because it made sense. In order to maximize firepower you had to have massed formations that could fire volleys. Disciplined maneuver and reload was far more important than 'marksmanship'. In order to beat the British the Continental Army had to learn to fight effectively in mass formations, hence the importance of Von Steuben teaching drill and discipline to the regulars. George Washington hated the militia, it was considered a 'success' if they got off one good volley before the broke and ran. Riflemen, while useful in certain situations, could rarely win a battle, their weapons were far to slow to reload and required a much better trained and disciplined soldier than was readily available. Riflemen could not compete with the sheer firepower of a disciplined unit of British regulars. Nor could a dispersed formation provide any resistance to the follow up bayonet charge, they could only flee.
The "American's won because we hid behind rocks, walls, and trees and outshot them myth" is just that, a myth. It is contemptibly referred to as the "Rock Wall Tree myth" by few Revolutionary War historians that I know.
It was not until the advent of the minie ball that made rifled weapons easy to reload that the mass formation warfare model became outdated.
Link to article discussing Revolutionary War tactics.
Edited by rifleman2000, Jan. 31 2012 - 12:09 PM.
) to be a discourse on military tactics of the Revolutionary War.
