living near a bunch of Revolutionary War sites it's interesting how much American mythmaking there is around "the foolish Redcoats wore recognizable military uniforms and expected to engage on an orderly field of battle - the clever Patriots dressed like simple farmers and sniped them from the woods"
bro that's not a life hack that's a war crime
it's only a crime if it's illegal and that was before the Geneva Suggestion /s
you know I almost wrote in a disclaimer like "I realize this wasn't literally a crime but it's still a pretty big disservice to the actual simple farmers in your area" but I figured this isn't Twitter, everything doesn't need obvious disclaimers :p
I'm not sure how much that was a clever stratagem and how much that was simply a necessity of fielding an army largely made up of simple farmers before industrialized clothing manufacture.
Of course, that doesn't excuse that so many commentators nowadays keep trying to suggest clever stratagems that are just war crimes.
They did have uniforms later on in the war... which, despite the part of the myth that's like "can you believe the British wore bright red to war," also featured large areas of bright red
spose it's like old-tymey hi-vis, there's times when being visible to your own side is more important than being invisible to the other
(also, the fact that long-distance weapons were wildly inaccurate makes camouflage a lot less relevant. so what if the enemy can see you a mile away, what are they going to do about it)
Oh so it's cool and fine when the Americans do it, but when it's in a jungle and the Americans are on the other side and also its like two hundred years later suddenly it's a huge problem.
