There's an interesting read in 'American Rifle: A Biography' by Rose about the impact the American Jaeger rifle had on the civil war.

Food for thought

EXACTLY what I was going to say. The British monarchy didn't have a clue about what he was upagainst.

Someone posted distance from Britain but I think the Atlantic Ocean sounds better.

The British soldiers didn't consider the American frontier their home, they wanted to go back home to Britain when it was all done and over with. The Americans had already decided America was going to be their home and they were committed to defending it.
A man defending his home and family is a force to be reckoned with. I don't believe that even if Washington and his army had "lost" to the Brits that the rest of the colonists would've just rolled over, I believe the guerilla warfare would've continued for years.
I believe the attacks on the occupiers would've been incessant and it would've eventually caused them to leave.

Every Army wants to claim God on their side. Its good for morale, and its not like God will part the clouds, tap the leaders on the shoulder and say " I'm actually for the other side'.

Since GB eventually lost the bulk of its colonial holdings, as did most of the European powers, maybe you could more correctly infer that God is not European. We just happened to be first in line.

I have to admit that I didn't read every post in this thread. It's just too long and I have limited time. I would like to comment on the French entering the war, which has been brought up here many times. It's been said often that Franklin was largely responsible for bringing the French into the war through his political moves but that's only part of the story. The French played games with Franklin until they saw that the Americans were making progress in winning the war on their own. The French didn't want to enter a war that they were going to lose quickly or one that didn't have any real chance of success. It would have been pointless to use their navy and risk losing large numbers of ships on a losing cause. So they waited quite a while before they decided to enter the war and they sometimes treated Franklin really well and at other times they treated him very badly.

It wasn't until British General Burgoyne attempted to move south from Montreal to capture Albany and was humiliated in the back country and eventually defeated at the Battles of Saratoga that the French started to think that the Americans had any chance at all of winning the war. Burgoyne was one of Howe's best commanders and in typical British style he expected to cakewalk through his campaign and beat the untrained Americans with ease. But here is where the tactics of the Americans really made a huge difference. The long rifles of the Americans picked off the advancing soldiers day after day with no pitched battle where the Americans squared off with the Brits in standard European style. Instead the Americans used the style they had learned from their years of fighting the American Indians. They hid and fired and then they ran and they hid and fired and ran again and again and again. By the time the armies had reached Saratoga the issue was settled almost. England had lost in a huge way and the victory gave much needed confidence not only to the northern theater but down to the southern theater also when they heard of the victory. The Brits had been threatening Philadelphia itself but now the Americans had a major victory.

This victory also had the affect of convincing the French that entering the war on the side of the Americans was not a guaranteed losing proposition. So they finally sent their navy to help and they arrived just in time to put an end to the war at Yorktown. Yes they had fought to an extent before but they had not sent their "ship of the line" battle ships into harms way until that point. Those ships brought a great deal of pressure to bear on any city near water and the combination of the US troops pressuring from the west and the French navy from the est was too much for Cornwallis.

The politics going on in England at the time shouldn't be ignored either. The country was tired of war. They wanted to get back to making money and another long and costly war with their American cousins became less and less appealing to the populace and especially the powerful middle class. They had refused to support sending those extra troops that were needed to control the American frontier and there was just too much space to be adequately controlled by the Brit army. So in the end they were doomed to lose despite their role as a world power. The Americans knew all about their tactics and strengths and it's not so easy beating your up and coming little brother.

UPDATE:

I finished reading through the thread and I have another comment or two. First those who say tactics didn't play that much of a role in the war are just wrong. The campaign I described above was very much decided by tactics and the fact the Americans won that campaign gave tremendous hope to the colonists and their French friends. Obviously the role of tactics was not central to the win. But it was a big advantage for the Americans and it did give them a much needed victory over one of England's best armies. Burgoyne was the veteran of several wars and had been successful in each. But he lost big time in the campaign which was designed to split the US forces leaving the New England armies unsupported. It was a crushing blow to England both logistically and politically. BTW one of the American generals responsible for the victory was none other than Benedict Arnold.

About the only rifles at Saratoga were carried by a handful of German Jaegers or Daniel Morgan's riflemen. Oriskany was smooth bore v smooth bore. Ambush tactics were used by the Indians and the Americans were encircled but stubbornly fought on. While the relief column never reached Ft Stanwick, a raid upon the Indian village along with their heavy casualties demoralized them entirely. Combined with the deception br Benedict Arnold that another relief column as numerous as the leaves on the forest floor did it for St Leger. He retreated. The other victory at Bennington was mostly smooth bores. The Green Mountain boys had muskets and fowlers and only the Germans had rifles. Still, the Green Mountain boys surrounded Baum and defeated him. They then defeared the relief column sent by Burgoynne.

At Saratoga itself, Morgans men would not have survived save for Major Henry Dearborn's light infantry behind whom Morgan's men fled to when based by bayonet. It was thanks to Washington that Dearborn accompanied Morgan north to join Gates. It was the first successful integration (In the New World) of riflemen and light infantryman on the battlefields.

It was in the South that riflemen distinguished themselves at Cowpens, King's Mountain and other small skirmishes (Fort Sackville in Vincennes, Beattie's Mill, Fort Watson,Fort Granby and Fort Galpin and the Siege of Ninety-Six). The major battles like Guildford Court House, Camden, Siege of Charleston and Yorktown were conventionally fought battles on the European model. In Yorktown's case, it was a siege in the tradition of Vauban. Cornwallis wanted a battle and so did Washington, but his French allies persuaded him to spare lives by laying siege.

By the war's end, the Continental Army had only Major Parr's provisional two company strong rifle battalion on its ToE. The Continental Army fought in the pattern it was trained by von Steuben.

The Brits got tired of paying for the war.