Around what point did battles no long include soldiers lining up and shooting together like in Napoleonic times and the Civil War? I notice they don't often show the fighting against the Indians being like that, but was it because the Indians didn't have the organization and discipline for it, so the US didn't need the line formations, or had the technology & doctrine already moved on?
Infantry tactics stop becoming linearly-oriented and more skirmish-oriented in the late 19th/early 20th-century. You saw von Moltke develop changes with the Prussians against the French in 1870, the Brits had moved to extended order by the Boer War, but the French army was still using linear tactics in 1914. New technologies like the Maxim gun, more advanced artillery pieces, and rifles with greater ranges led to the breakup of the formation fighting of previous eras to a looser, tactical skirmish type position.
Thanks for the question, Anon.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
