So, first off I want to say I'm not American or British so forgive my ignorance if this is obvious, but I had just finished watching a very good movie called "The Patriot." In the movie, both sides, Americans and English, line up in a long horizontal lines where they would face, and march towards each other, causing many soldiers from both sides to be completely slaughtered by the other sides bullets.
I'm mainly curious as to why this was the case? To me, this doesn't seem very strategic at all, lots of unnecessary death occurred, and they didn't seem to even want to protect themselves it seemed. Surely even wooden shields of sorts, at a certain distance, would be more favorable to have than just literally walking towards your own death? So, why did they do it that way? Or i guess, why did the soldiers' commanders and generals use this tactic?
I know the patriot is just a movie and like every movie has exaggerations but in other forms of media I've seen this too and was just curious if anyone could explain this? Also, I'm writing this on mobile so I apologize for any errors or formatting issues it might cause.
Surely even wooden shields of sorts, at a certain distance, would be more favorable to have than just literally walking towards your own death?
The Japanese used some, but the main problem of such a shield is that any shield capable of providing sufficient protection would be hideously cumbersome. Move with one and you tire out your men; staying behind them to spare fatigue means you've given up movement.
The rest of it lies in a mess of other considerations. I first commend to your attention the appropriate section of the FAQ, specifically the headers 'Why did European armies use Linear Tactics?' and 'Mechanics of Linear Tactics'.
Adding onto that section, a few more posts:
Edit: dandan_noodles has just pointed to me their post on personal shields against musketry.