Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcat
the reason Custer's men lasted as long as they did was because that single shot rifle everyone loves to malign was excellent for long range where as the pistol caliber repeating rifles sucked at the ranges that battle was mostly fought at. the thing that killed Custer was numbers.
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True, to an extent. In 1983 a range fire burned off most of the ground cover on the Custer-Reno-Benteen battlefields this allowed the first archaeological study of the battlefield and it was released in the book "Archaelology, History and Custer's Last Battle". Its an intresting study in that they used modern police techniques to match bullets and casings to specific firearms and used this to trace troop/indian movements.
While Custer's battalion was initially able to hold off its attackers by using their range advantage, the Indians were able to use the terrain to get close enough to use the real advantage of the Henry/Winchester rifles, i.e. its rapid range fire that allowede them to overwhelm the troopers, unit by unit and cause the disintegration of the 7th Cavalry's cohesion, this allowed the Indians to get to within hand-to-hand range and swamp the remaining troopers.