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HEY GUNS posted:except when you flank a 17th century block you can also just have everyone right or left-face (the problem there is if you catch them from two directions at once, then they're hosed) Alexanders dudes could do it, and all other kinds of advanced maneuvers. They definitely would adjust the front line if flanked, though his army also was a combined arms approach with non-phalanx infantry as well as good cavalry. The later successor states armies degraded as they fought each other relentlessly which is why you saw them go to longer and longer pikes to get more spearheads in the front line and the phalanx become more unwieldy, and the near sole focus of the army. I do not know what a phalanx in the 500-900s Byzantine (Roman) Empire would be like exactly, and this could be a strategy for deploying less well trained troops than your guys. Hell even for your dudes getting flanked is never a good development.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:58
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The typical Greek city phalanx couldn't pull a maneuver like that either, because they never drilled except when it was time to go to war. They could hold a basic formation, but that was it. Sparta was the one exception, that's where their reputation comes from.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:16
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Kassad posted:The typical Greek city phalanx couldn't pull a maneuver like that either, because they never drilled except when it was time to go to war. They could hold a basic formation, but that was it. Sparta was the one exception, that's where their reputation comes from. my dudes don't drill either (according to david parrott and myself), they just spend most of their adult lives in the military subculture and eventually learn how to do a thing
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Feb 14, 2018 22:18
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I guess it's still a step up from random shopkeepers and artisans mustering up a couple weeks before an actual battle 
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Feb 14, 2018 22:28
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Kassad posted:I guess it's still a step up from random shopkeepers and artisans mustering up a couple weeks before an actual battle 
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Feb 14, 2018 22:40
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HEY GUNS posted:except when you flank a 17th century block you can also just have everyone right or left-face (the problem there is if you catch them from two directions at once, then they're hosed) Isn't "engage from two sides" the whole point of flanking a phalanx? You don't flank until they're engaged to the front. Hell isn't that flanking in general? At least until the musketry era. I did british re-enacting as a summer job and at that point, yeah, a line is hosed trying to wheel around and shoot you even if no one is shooting from the front.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:49
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Tree Bucket posted:Hmm. What does double phalanx mean exactly? Twice the Phalanxy goodness with only half the calories!
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Feb 14, 2018 23:19
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Isn't "engage from two sides" the whole point of flanking a phalanx? You don't flank until they're engaged to the front.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:23
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WoodrowSkillson posted:I do not know what a phalanx in the 500-900s Byzantine (Roman) Empire would be like exactly, and this could be a strategy for deploying less well trained troops than your guys. Hell even for your dudes getting flanked is never a good development. These guys would have been far better prepared than the typical Republican era Roman soldier, who was often raised on short notice and quickly thrown into battle. I forget the exact length but Byzantine authors described how fresh soldiers shouldn't do poo poo for x months after being raised. I'm not sure if they got "drilled" as in modern armies but there was definitely a lot done to season men before they could be deployed. I too couldn't help but look up some of the formations in the list. Form the Fulkon and Proceed in Fulkon stood out at me. Apparently the fulkon was a development of the testudo formation of earlier eras, in which a formation advanced with the first rank locking shields as if in a phalanx, while the second and third rank presented shields raised high over their heads. Everybody else advanced normally. Seems like it provided almost as much protection while allowing men to move faster under fire. These guys would have deployed in formations more like a classical Greek phalanx then something from the Hellenistic age. Look at their spears, they were only like 7 ft long:  This is supposed to be a depiction of Flavius Stilicho from the early fifth century in the outfit of a common soldier, as was fashionable for portraits of this eras leaders. Of course unlike a Greek phalanx these guys would have had a rear row throwing darts, another rear row shooting arrows and light field artillery, mounted archers to harass the enemy, and heavy cavalry possibly including Cataphracts on the flanks.
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Feb 15, 2018 05:49
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The "Sparta was a bad Polis" post mentioned that Spartas preferred battleground was the Isthmus of Corinth, was that small enough for a Greek army to actually obstruct?
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Feb 15, 2018 11:18
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Looks like it. Six kilometers wide. Obviously you wouldn't actually have a line that long but that's a short enough distance you'd be able to see anything going on and maneuver to be in an opposing army's way. The Romans put up defensive works in the area, I don't know if the Spartans did.
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Feb 15, 2018 11:26
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Kassad posted:The typical Greek city phalanx couldn't pull a maneuver like that either, because they never drilled except when it was time to go to war. They could hold a basic formation, but that was it. Sparta was the one exception, that's where their reputation comes from. Therr was a quote from the milhist thread about Sparta that said their opponents would often just give up on the spot when the Spartan phalanx realigned itself against a flanking threat because this was such a feat at the time
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Feb 15, 2018 11:29
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Grand Fromage posted:Looks like it. Six kilometers wide.
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Feb 15, 2018 11:34
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Baron Porkface posted:Ancient or modern? Modern. No idea about ancient but it was narrow enough that even back then there was talk about digging a canal through it.
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Feb 15, 2018 12:05
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HEY GUNS posted:except when you flank a 17th century block you can also just have everyone right or left-face (the problem there is if you catch them from two directions at once, then they're hosed) I know that the Romans used a square formation in their center at times, and a block is clearly a continuation of that trend. Both could be seen as derivatives of the double phalanx concept - exchanging frontal surface area for defensive depth. And some phalanxes could be quite deep: there's writing of lines having eight or sixteen ranks. It's what gave historians such confusion about the push of battle, and has caused a lot of debates about whether those guys were literally just trampling the enemy. I'm not sure how well a tercio formation would have worked in the classical or early medieval era. It seems like it's just difficult to know how to balance the offensive and defensive elements of a formation. Even modern military formations are constantly changing depending on the conditions of battle - a feat they're capable of only because of modern comms and the loose order of contemporary warfare.
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Feb 15, 2018 15:03
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Grand Fromage posted:Modern. No idea about ancient but it was narrow enough that even back then there was talk about digging a canal through it. Narrow enough to have boats carried across to save time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diolkos
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Feb 15, 2018 20:51
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Grand Fromage posted:Modern. No idea about ancient but it was narrow enough that even back then there was talk about digging a canal through it. More than just talk apparently by browsing Wikipedia, Nero wanted to dig it and they got about 1/10th the way before he was assassinated and the money/willpower dried up
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Feb 16, 2018 07:37
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It seems that Roman priests knew the importance of keeping your head high, you will suffocate to CO2 otherwise..Science posted:This Roman 'gate to hell' killed its victims with a cloud of deadly carbon dioxide http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/roman-gate-hell-killed-its-victims-cloud-deadly-carbon-dioxide
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Feb 16, 2018 15:09
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Kemper Boyd posted:Narrow enough to have boats carried across to save time. Aristophanes apparently made a sex joke about this
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Feb 16, 2018 15:22
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I have an early medieval question: can anyone point me to a source for the square mileage of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms? This info seems to be spotty and hard to find by Googling, though I'm sure it must be something generally known to historians. I'm trying to get an idea of the scale of petty kingdoms from the smallest to largest. I know that, for example, Essex was about the size of the county I grew up in, but I can't gauge the size of Northumbria.
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Feb 16, 2018 18:31
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Depending on when exactly you're interested in there may not even have been rough borders. I believe when Christian missionaries arrived, they reported that the kings considered themselves rulers of people, not places--e.g., there was a king of the west saxons, but no king of wessex, and wessex didn't exist yet because there was no need for the word. Also, even once the kingdoms start resembling states more, with real borders, those borders of course changed over time due to war and such, so knowing your period of interest matters for that reason too.
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Feb 16, 2018 18:56
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Also a some of those place names that survive are basically descriptors of the area itself, not necessarily political or tribal borders. Northumbria, for example, is just the terrain north of the Umber river. There used to be a "Southumbria" designation as well, but that faded out sometime around the 15th C iirc. Some of them are going to be easier, though. Mercia has pretty well established borders by the 7th century for example. THAT said, then you get into issues of "effective control." Borders don't work in the ancient/medieval world the way they do today. Is a village on the frontier between Wessex and Mercia Mercian or Saxon? The titular lord, effective lord, and linguistic/cultural identity of the people living there might provide three different answers.
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Feb 16, 2018 19:16
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cheetah7071 posted:Depending on when exactly you're interested in there may not even have been rough borders. I believe when Christian missionaries arrived, they reported that the kings considered themselves rulers of people, not places--e.g., there was a king of the west saxons, but no king of wessex, and wessex didn't exist yet because there was no need for the word. Also, even once the kingdoms start resembling states more, with real borders, those borders of course changed over time due to war and such, so knowing your period of interest matters for that reason too. Actually, it gets even more bizarre when you look at this particular case. When Pope Gregory sent Augustine of Canterbury to Britain to convert the Anglo-Saxons he specifically sent him to the King of Kent with a letter that addressed him as "King of the Angles" (or King of the English, depending on how you want to translate it). This despite the fact that Kent wasn't settled by Angles. It was being used as a generic term for everyone on the Island (well, distinct from the Romano-Britains). The king of kent was chosen specifically because he had been elected as a king of general warlord for all the Anglo-Saxon groups at that time, something they would do when involved in a large communal project like conquering a bunch of Celts and Latins. So in this case you actually have the Pope sending a dude out specifically because he figures he is a good chief-man to talk to re: religion in the British Isles, and who did have some relatively high authority over a body that included multiple tribes, but who we probably can't describe as a "king of england" in the sense that the title will assume in the 9th century.
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Feb 16, 2018 19:22
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Halloween Jack posted:I have an early medieval question: can anyone point me to a source for the square mileage of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms? This info seems to be spotty and hard to find by Googling, though I'm sure it must be something generally known to historians. I'm trying to get an idea of the scale of petty kingdoms from the smallest to largest. I know that, for example, Essex was about the size of the county I grew up in, but I can't gauge the size of Northumbria. This might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_(unit) Otteration fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Feb 17, 2018 |
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Feb 17, 2018 16:41
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Rare Roman boxing gloves found near Hadrian's Wall quote:Roman boxing gloves have been discovered near Hadrian’s Wall, thought to be the only known surviving examples, even though the sport was well- documented on Roman wall paintings, mosaics and sculptures.
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Feb 19, 2018 20:06
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Looks more like a mma glove.
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Feb 19, 2018 21:03
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Jack B Nimble posted:Looks more like a mma glove. I don't think they had Queensbury rules in 120 AD.
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Feb 19, 2018 21:14
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Jack B Nimble posted:Looks more like a mma glove. Welp I guess the next UFC game will straight-faced have a roman soldier playable character, with the advertising explaining that in many ways the ancient Romans were the first proponents of MMA.
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Feb 20, 2018 00:33
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My point being that the article say it's an ancient roman boxing glove, but then points out it only goes over the knuckles and leaves the fingers exposed, unlike modern boxing gloves. You know, just a like a MMA glove. I know the article is saying "boxing glove" because it's the most common term for the thing, but calling those leather...knuckle straps? a boxing glove could give you a certain impression about what their match would look like, probably a wrong one. This I will assert with no evidence: based on what little I know about gouging/non-queensbury boxing the roman "boxing" probably I involved a lot of grabbing, clinching, and throwing. It was just something I wanted to bring up. Also EA better get Ray Stevenson to give me that authentic roman accent. Oh, also, it's interesting to me how much it looks like an MMA glove since those were developed a while after MMA was a thing; it was considered a pretty big deal to design some gloves that could keep your hands (and hopefully your opponents face) intact while still letting you grab. I recall some self-defense oriented martial artist in the 90s tried to train around the lack of mma-style gloves by starting his sparring matches standing up with traditional gloves on, but if the fight went to the ground both participants would stop for a second and onlookers would quickly yank off the gloves. It's interesting to me that the Roman's apparently had this settled; it makes me curious how well these pads worked, but the answer is probably "well enough for ancient Romans, but not well enough for our standards today". Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Feb 20, 2018 |
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Feb 20, 2018 05:50
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Jack B Nimble posted:I know the article is saying "boxing glove" because it's the most common term for the thing, but calling those leather...knuckle straps? a boxing glove could give you a certain impression about what their match would look like, probably a wrong one. Handals?
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Feb 20, 2018 07:42
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Jack B Nimble posted:My point being that the article say it's an ancient roman boxing glove, but then points out it only goes over the knuckles and leaves the fingers exposed, unlike modern boxing gloves. You know, just a like a MMA glove. I know the article is saying "boxing glove" because it's the most common term for the thing, but calling those leather...knuckle straps? a boxing glove could give you a certain impression about what their match would look like, probably a wrong one. This I will assert with no evidence: based on what little I know about gouging/non-queensbury boxing the roman "boxing" probably I involved a lot of grabbing, clinching, and throwing. It was just something I wanted to bring up. On the one hand you're right if you're talking about what your average person today thinks of when he sees the word "boxing," but boxing has a much longer tradition of being done bare-knuckle or with minimal hand coverings than it does with the modern gear.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:10
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The obvious explanation is that Romans had no fingers. They were invented by the Dutch in the 16th century.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:16
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My understanding of both Greek and Roman boxing is that it was guys whacking the poo poo out of each other with hand coverings that would be considered deadly weapons today, though they changed over time. Pankration was more the ancestor of MMA, and MMA enthusiasts aren't unaware of that. (In fact, it was popular to brand stuff as modern pankration during the years when MMA was really struggling to gain mainstream acceptance. There's also a guy named Jim Arvanitis whose whole career has been establishing "modern pankration," but it's entirely a reconstruction.) Pankration was also not well regarded, because the ability to punch, kick, tackle, and strangle a guy isn't a terribly valuable military skill.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:37
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Halloween Jack posted:Pankration was also not well regarded, because the ability to punch, kick, tackle, and strangle a guy isn't a terribly valuable military skill. The Navy Seals would differ: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/us/politics/navy-seals-team-6-strangle-green-beret-mali.html
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Feb 21, 2018 11:27
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Arglebargle III posted:Handals? I think it's called a cestus.
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Feb 21, 2018 12:52
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I thought a cestus had a lead dust filling. I.e. It was a weapon, not a protective covering.
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Feb 21, 2018 13:53
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https://twitter.com/KrangTNelson/status/968228331014500353
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Feb 27, 2018 00:30
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Caesar adsum iam forte. Brutus aderat. Caesar sic in omnibus. Brutus sic in at
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Feb 27, 2018 13:11
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I googled this, and all I found was a Turkish 1951 production: why have there been so few (if any) epic films about the 1453 capture of Constantinople? I mean, I can understand why nobody's making that kind of thing today, since white supremacists have thoroughly appropriated any section of history that could even remotely be characterised as "Christians v Muslims", but it seems exactly like the kind of thing Hollywood would have made sixty years ago. I can very easily imagine the emotional climax: the white, Christian emperor (no doubt played by a Kirk Douglas type), now alone and surrounded, casts off his regalia to reveal the muscles underneath and raises his sword in defiance as the music swells and he's rushed by the faceless mass of brown stereotypes, dying heroically to buy time for His People to flee the city. Seems perfect for audiences of the 50s or 60s who wanted to see some bravery, swordfighting and tragedy and be reassured in the superiority of Dudes Who Look Like Them
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Mar 1, 2018 11:38
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peer posted:I googled this, and all I found was a Turkish 1951 production: why have there been so few (if any) epic films about the 1453 capture of Constantinople? I mean, I can understand why nobody's making that kind of thing today, since white supremacists have thoroughly appropriated any section of history that could even remotely be characterised as "Christians v Muslims", but it seems exactly like the kind of thing Hollywood would have made sixty years ago. by that point, we were The Wrong Kind Of Christian. exotic but faintly corrupt, etc. Definitely not blond. how many movies exist in the west about byzantium at all?
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Mar 1, 2018 12:07
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