The best study on this I’ve read is by Richard Fox, an archaeologist who after the big fires in that region in the 1980s took teams of students with metal detectors and mapped every remaining cartridg3e on the battlefield. He then assembled a story that looks nothing like the “Custer’s Last Stand” circle-of-men fighting Indians riding around them.
According to the story of the shell casings, Custer’s five troops came under steady, but not whithering, long range fire for about 20-30 minutes upon reaching the ridges. Keough with about half the men was some distance from Custer’s half (”Custer Hill” and “Keough Hill”). Meanwhile, the Indians were crawling through the grass, getting extremely close. When they rose up all at once, the cavalry was immediately overwhelmed and fell back down the opposite side of the hill.
Fox’s research shows there was never a circle, and that Custer’s men were in such disarray and retreat that they never even formed a single skirmish line. He found carbine casings all down the back side of the hill as troopers fired, then ran and reloaded.
Moreover, the Sioux had Winchester repeaters. Maybe not a lot, but “some” of the Sioux were better armed than the soldiers they fought. While Fox agrees that some carbines may have jammed, he discounts this as a major factor as the soldiers never fired enough rounds per weapon to come close to jamming.
It is possible, based on Fox’s description, to envision a scenario in which Custer kept all 700 men together, including his ammo. If he had consolidated them into lines, with adequate ammo, he might have done enough damage to the larger force that by the time they figured out how to outflank him, they would be significantly “attrited” to use Gen. Schwartzkopf’s words.
I think it was basically a live game of Risk.
Custer was way outnumbered.
The Sioux just whittled them down like a final battle on a Risk board.................
Richard Fox may be an archaeologist, but he is a joke as an amateur military “expert.”