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Considering how much internecine warfare and plunder took place between Christian states in the middle ages/early modern I'm surprised there wasn't more of a movement to attribute your towns and villages being raped and plundered as divine punishment for your own soldiers going off to rape and plunder. Surely people realized there was something deeply morally hosed up about some of your largest 3rd born sons going off and returning with great riches after adventuring in other European lands, then soldiers from that neighbor coming in to return the favor.Ithle01 posted:As to uneducated and manipulated that's a serious misrepresentation of life in this time period. It's not like that never happened, but it's not really at all a good way of looking at soldier life styles (or life in general) and the soldiers themselves might seriously disagree with it. Trust me, these guys expected to get paid for their service and if they weren't then you had drat well better prepare for what happens next. Once again, to use the 30yw as an example, the actual war could have ended in 1646, but dragged on for two more years due a breakdown in negotiations. The disagreement was over getting the money to discharge soldiers and it wasn't resolved until one side managed to loot multiple economic centers in Europe that the cash was on hand to actually disband armies of men who were angry over being owed back pay. I swear I've read a quote by some ruler back then, was it Charles the Bold, or Maximilian I? I can't remember. Mocking his men for fighting and dying for what he considered a pittance.
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Jun 14, 2021 12:23
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Why did the modernized USS New Jersey lack a distinctive platform structure near the top that the other three Iowas had?
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Jun 14, 2021 12:30
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human garbage bag posted:Is it true that until very recently in history, soldiers often fought in wars because they were uneducated and were manipulated into fighting? Basically I'm looking for info on the psychology of young men from around the early 1900s and back. Like the 30 years war is a big one, it seems like some rulers had feuds and told the peasants to all fight and the peasants just went with it? some goons who joined the iraq invasion have said that those were the reasons they joined
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Jun 14, 2021 12:32
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Alchenar posted:Also if you are looking into the motivations of young men fighting from 1800 to the early 1900's then the answer is often going to be 'I was conscripted'. Changes in farming/land ownership also weigh in too as well the Industrial Revolution appearing on the scene.
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Jun 14, 2021 12:39
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Fangz posted:Worth pointing out that in a broad range of historical societies, going off to fight was the chief hobby of the higher classes. Even in wars where most of the soldiers were "uneducated", this is in the context of societies where the vast majority of the population is uneducated. Since we're bouncing around history a lot anyway, for societies that rely on extensive food strategies, going off to fight was and often still is simply part and parcel of being a young man. Obviously not universal but pretty common that raiding to either kill members of another group in order to more easily encroach on their land, or raiding to take people or livestock, or raiding to kill people just out of security concerns, was the sort of thing you did when you had a minute to do so.
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Jun 14, 2021 13:16
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In a bit of a rush right now so can’t post details but I believe this is what you’re looking for: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Motivation-War-Experience-Soldiers-Old-Regime/dp/1316618102 Short version: No, soldiers were not dumb brutes kept in line only by the lash. There was a strong sense that they were morally and socially “better” than common laborers. Phobophilia posted:Considering how much internecine warfare and plunder took place between Christian states in the middle ages/early modern I'm surprised there wasn't more of a movement to attribute your towns and villages being raped and plundered as divine punishment for your own soldiers going off to rape and plunder. Surely people realized there was something deeply morally hosed up about some of your largest 3rd born sons going off and returning with great riches after adventuring in other European lands, then soldiers from that neighbor coming in to return the favor. On the other hand, see the Biblical conquest of Canaan. Taking from the Other to benefit Yours is cool and good (at least according to the Old Testament!) Tomn fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Jun 14, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 13:17
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FPyat posted:Why did the modernized USS New Jersey lack a distinctive platform structure near the top that the other three Iowas had? Can you mspaint a circle around what you’re asking about? A quick glance and I didn’t see an obvious difference.
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Jun 14, 2021 13:24
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ChubbyChecker posted:some goons who joined the iraq invasion have said that those were the reasons they joined One angle of military recruitment is always going to be 'young people looking for adventure' who aren't perhaps doing a full geopolitical analysis of tge conflicts of the time, another angle will always be that the recruiting offer will always involve the state leveraging the unconventional ways it can offer value that the private sector can't. (such as the gi bill)
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Jun 14, 2021 13:34
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Influence of the T-34 on German tank design Queue: Medium Tank T25, Heavy Tank T26/T26E1/T26E3, Career of Harry Knox, GMC M36, Geschützwagen Tiger für 17cm K72 (Sf), Early Early Soviet tank development (MS-1, AN Teplokhod), Career of Semyon Aleksandrovich Ginzburg, AT-1, Object 140, SU-76 frontline impressions, Creation of the IS-3, IS-6, SU-5, Myths of Soviet tank building: 1943-44, IS-2 post-war modifications, Myths of Soviet tank building: end of the Great Patriotic War, Medium Tank T6, RPG-1, Lahti L-39, American tank building plans post-war, German tanks for 1946, HMC M7 Priest, GMC M12, GMC M40/M43, ISU-152, AMR 35 ZT, Soviet post-war tank building plans, T-100Y and SU-14-1, Object 430, Pz.Kpfw.35(t), T-60 tanks in combat, SU-76M modernizations, Panhard 178, 15 cm sFH 13/1 (Sf), 43M Zrínyi, Medium Tank M46, Modernization of the M48 to the M60 standard, German tank building trends at the end of WW2, Pz.Kpfw.III/IV, E-50 and E-75 development, Pre-war and early war British tank building, BT-7M/A-8 trials, Jagdtiger suspension, Light Tank T37, Light Tank T41, T-26-6 (SU-26), Voroshilovets tractor trials, Israeli armour 1948–1982, T-64's composite armour Available for request (others' articles):  Shashmurin's career T-55 underwater driving equipment T-34 tanks with M-17 engines NEW  Oerlikon and Solothurn anti-tank rifles Evolution of German tank observation devices
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Jun 14, 2021 13:53
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Tulip posted:Since we're bouncing around history a lot anyway, for societies that rely on extensive food strategies, going off to fight was and often still is simply part and parcel of being a young man. Obviously not universal but pretty common that raiding to either kill members of another group in order to more easily encroach on their land, or raiding to take people or livestock, or raiding to kill people just out of security concerns, was the sort of thing you did when you had a minute to do so. Ok I think I get it now. The 30 years war was started by a few men wanting to fight for honor, but the subsequent economic devastation caused many more men to fight for survival, which became a feedback loop that made the war as long and devastating as it was. Does that sound about right?
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Jun 14, 2021 14:30
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Abongination posted:Meant folks on the ground haha. Yes, but you still need to live/be under all that brass and debris, so outside of towns/cities its like getting hit by lightning, possible but unlikely.
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Jun 14, 2021 14:39
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Roughly D day This is something straight out of that Superstitions book I was posting about a while back.
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Jun 14, 2021 14:41
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human garbage bag posted:Ok I think I get it now. The 30 years war was started by a few men wanting to fight for honor, but the subsequent economic devastation caused many more men to fight for survival, which became a feedback loop that made the war as long and devastating as it was. The person you are quoting was talking about raiding societies like the Vikings.
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Jun 14, 2021 14:56
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Alchenar posted:One angle of military recruitment is always going to be 'young people looking for adventure' who aren't perhaps doing a full geopolitical analysis of tge conflicts of the time, another angle will always be that the recruiting offer will always involve the state leveraging the unconventional ways it can offer value that the private sector can't. (such as the gi bill) Just tag me next time, geez.
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Jun 14, 2021 15:04
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human garbage bag posted:Ok I think I get it now. The 30 years war was started by a few men wanting to fight for honor, but the subsequent economic devastation caused many more men to fight for survival, which became a feedback loop that made the war as long and devastating as it was. I do not think that the best frame for understanding why the 30YW started is to start with motivations of individual soldiers. The 30YW is a pretty exceptional event, so it's best to look for what was exceptional in the lead up. Plus as mentioned I was more referring to societies like 19th century Comanche, pre-European contact Australia (we have a decent amount of oral history here), 11th century Mongols, and yeah to a certain extent Vikings. And sorry for using a term that I think is mostly an anthropology thing: extensive food strategy means very low land intensity, very far ranging, generally migratory food strategies. The other end of the pole is intensive food strategies, which is used to describe very land intense, very stationary food strategies. Think of the difference between migratory herding and year-round stabling or factory farming - they're both animal-centered strategies, both could be considered pastoralism, but there's a very definite difference in the economics and social effects from the strategy.
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Jun 14, 2021 15:41
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human garbage bag posted:Ok I think I get it now. The 30 years war was started by a few men wanting to fight for honor, but the subsequent economic devastation caused many more men to fight for survival, which became a feedback loop that made the war as long and devastating as it was. Absolutely not, no. And looking at the motivations of the individual soldiers (who are mostly professionals fighting for pay) will not reveal the cause or duration of the war. To drastically oversimplify it, the war started because various elites within the Empire desired political change (which was initially motivated by religious disagreement). The war took forever to resolve because it raised fundamental questions about the power and legitimacy of the Emperor and every European power had a stake in it. If you're interested in the motivations of the soldiering classes, go dig up the older threads and look at posts by Hegel/Hey Guns/whatever they're going by these days. He (it is he, right?) did his post-doc on a unit fighting in the war, and made many interesting posts about things that research turned up. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jun 14, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 15:51
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:Absolutely not, no. And looking at the motivations of the individual soldiers (who are mostly professionals fighting for pay) will not reveal the cause or duration of the war. My question pertains to why the ordinary foot soldier fought in the war. So at first the soldiers fought to get paid. Then they fought to get food. Is that right? Or were ordinary foot soldiers also religiously motivated?
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Jun 14, 2021 15:56
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Most individual soldiers fought for pay at the beginning, middle, and end. That's that being a professional soldier was all about. They also foraged the poo poo out of whatever area they happened to be in, because soldiers need to eat. Many of them had strong religious convictions; many of them were also Protestants fighting for the Catholic-Imperial side (because they're professionals). For real, go find and read those Hegel posts. E: vvv absolutely it does. Looting and sacking poo poo are kind of like performance bonuses, and they were hella lucrative. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jun 14, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 16:01
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"Pay" also includes looting.
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Jun 14, 2021 16:02
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Should be noted that a bunch of Swedish soldiers were conscripted during the war as well (usually at the start as the extensive wars Sweden was getting into was causing manpower problems, so they relied more on German mercenaries as time went on). Also the war did not ravage the whole of Central Europe equally - there were plenty of areas that barely got touched until the end and only had armies go through them as alliances shifted, while other areas got ransacked repeatedly to the point they are still depopulated today. So the motivations for any particular soldier are going to vary, not to mention all the soldiers on Spanish and French service from outside of Central Europe.
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Jun 14, 2021 16:27
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FPyat posted:Why did the modernized USS New Jersey lack a distinctive platform structure near the top that the other three Iowas had? She was the only one of the four reactivated for Vietnam, and received electronics and radar refits leading up to deployment. If I had to guess, that structure relates to that, while the other three got more advanced/different radar systems in the 1980s when they were modernized for the 600 ship navy.
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Jun 14, 2021 16:57
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MikeCrotch posted:Should be noted that a bunch of Swedish soldiers were conscripted during the war as well (usually at the start as the extensive wars Sweden was getting into was causing manpower problems, so they relied more on German mercenaries as time went on). Did the conscripted soldiers know how high the casualty rate was? If they didn't, then their ignorance contributed to them fighting.
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Jun 14, 2021 17:29
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human garbage bag posted:Did the conscripted soldiers know how high the casualty rate was? If they didn't, then their ignorance contributed to them fighting. What's the point you're trying to make here? You seem to have something you want to argue or suggest, but you're doing it via leading questions.
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Jun 14, 2021 17:32
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This is a period where the soldier death rate isn't crazy different from the civilian death rate, no? It's not like the west today where there's a very high chance that an 18 year old never so much as sees a dead body out of maybe a funeral after the coroner has done their work.
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Jun 14, 2021 17:35
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Yeah this is firmly in the "most people, soldier or civilian, are dying of disease or hunger" period. Their death rate is probably higher than the rural civilian populace, but lower than the urban civilians.
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Jun 14, 2021 17:39
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human garbage bag posted:My question pertains to why the ordinary foot soldier fought in the war. My understanding is that they recruited for physiological and safety needs but stayed for love, esteem and self-actualization needs. 
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Jun 14, 2021 17:53
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human garbage bag posted:Did the conscripted soldiers know how high the casualty rate was? If they didn't, then their ignorance contributed to them fighting. I think you should go read a book on the 30yw first before you try to crowbar it into your lions-led-by-donkeys narrative.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:00
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Fangz posted:I think you should go read a book on the 30yw first before you try to crowbar it into your lions-led-by-donkeys narrative. Which in this day and age with modern scholarship doesn’t even really hold up that well for WW1 anyways.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:05
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human garbage bag posted:Is it true that until very recently in history, soldiers often fought in wars because they were uneducated and were manipulated into fighting? How recently we talking? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93MBSOwK2fQ
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Jun 14, 2021 18:12
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Yeah in WWI you were 6 times more likely to become a casualty as a junior officer (who were usually upper class) than as a private. Re. Sweden, the system at the time had government officials demanding a certain number of military aged men join the army from each village. You couldn't exactly say no. This was required because Sweden was pretty underpopulated and economically backward (relatively speaking) at the time so required more extreme measures than other countries to get an army big enough to meet the imperial ambitions of the monarchy. It's estimated somewhere between 10-20% of the Swedish population (including Finland) were killed during the 30YW and the wars around it.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:21
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Sweden's conscription was usually done along the lines that one in 12 or so households is expected to provide one soldier, and the ratio for households under a noble was lower, around 20, depends the time and the place. This was supplemented with recruiting random dudes for money, which then included both locals and random foreigners in Sweden. Sweden is generally a poor example for looking at medieval/early modern feudalism, since the model is completely different compared to say, the UK. There was no serfdom, but what did exist was an old concept of mass levy, which was extremely rare and practically not done ever called "man ur huse" which roughly means every strapping young lad and oldtimer and everyone in between is now drafted to fight for a short stint of the time. Resistance to conscription in the early modern refers from time to time to this principle as late as the 18th century as far as I know. Sweden during the 17th century was moving towards absolutism, but according to Englund's idea, Sweden was very much a consensus society, where the monarch's practical power was always reliant on actually talking the Estates into doing war, which the nobles generally were for and the commons against. While the common folk had less interest in doing war, they could often be convinced into doing a war. A country where there are generally not too many nobles around and the commoners actually hold political power in the form of actually being a part of parliaments, it's always a balancing act for the monarch.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:26
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Kemper Boyd posted:Sweden is generally a poor example for looking at medieval/early modern feudalism, since the model is completely different compared to say, the UK. There was no serfdom, but what did exist was an old concept of mass levy, which was extremely rare and practically not done ever called "man ur huse" which roughly means every strapping young lad and oldtimer and everyone in between is now drafted to fight for a short stint of the time. Resistance to conscription in the early modern refers from time to time to this principle as late as the 18th century as far as I know. I love how Swedish phrases, especially centuries-old ones, just look like shitposts
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Jun 14, 2021 19:15
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There's a lot of social value put on the idea of being a war hero or doing your civic duty to fight for the place where you live that you can sorta get from some people's treatment of the Iraq War, but it's waaaaaay stronger when the war is actually somehow imperiling your country like in the world wars. But aside from that, a lot of soldiers can get drawn in by just the fact that it's a job that often at least promises good pay and has low requirements, so the opportunity for material gain isn't something to sneeze at. Something I wonder about soldier salaries is how much of an effect is there from soldiers who don't spend much while doing their service and so after they come back from service they'd have a big pile of money the equivalent of being paid a competitive salary in the real world for the duration of their duty but saving all of it because they didn't have rent, groceries, or other regular expenses.
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Jun 14, 2021 20:19
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A thing that fundamentally needs to be understood about 'why people sign up to be soldiers' is that recruitment always goes up in war and down in peace. Yes there's a lot of complex dynamics going on but by and large professional armies do not consist of people who don't expect to ever get in a fight. Soldiers tend to want to do the bit of the job thats actually soldiering.
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Jun 14, 2021 20:23
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Cyrano4747 posted:What's the point you're trying to make here? You seem to have something you want to argue or suggest, but you're doing it via leading questions. I have a theory that wars would be much less frequent if the soldiers knew the real casualty rate. I'm looking for evidence for this theory with records of soldiers not knowing the casualty rate in various wars. I know that in the end of WW1 the french soldiers refused to fight because they found out the casualty rate. I'm also looking for evidence of leaders deliberetly hiding or skewing casualty numbers to keep morale high.
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Jun 14, 2021 20:33
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Gustavus Adolphus used Lappish witchcraft to make the bodies of slain Swedish soldiers invisible 
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Jun 14, 2021 20:46
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human garbage bag posted:Ok I think I get it now. The 30 years war was started by a few men wanting to fight for honor, but the subsequent economic devastation caused many more men to fight for survival, which became a feedback loop that made the war as long and devastating as it was. I know people have answered this, but I want to clarify something I said earlier which is that I meant soldiers are fighting because they expect to get paid. In the 30yw soldiering is a job you do because it pays good money - skilled artisan wages if you're lucky and even higher if you're able to loot a wealthy city like Prague. Food insecurity is an issue depending on where you live, but that's just part of the calculation of joining up and that's also the reason why everyone works so soldiers are no different in this regard. Soldiers fight for all sorts of reasons, but money is generally the main reason. Whether or not it's a reasonable wage is questionable - like Phobophilia pointed out, but in a conflict like this it can pay well. At least when the money was available. Commanders were often in arrears. Discharging mercenaries has been problematic at many points in time, but that's not a like a universal thing just something that shows up from time to time. The 30yw dragged on for a shitload of reasons, some of which were money, but trying to make an sort of generalization about this war is impossible given the length of time, the number of combatants, and the different objectives. I included the example to show that soldiers were not rubes, but expected to be rewarded for their services and this factored into some decisions by commanders (the sack of Prague in 1648 appears to have had a significant financial aspect). edit: okay so nevermind because holy poo poo you're looking at this the wrong way. First off: most soldiers do not have any say in how conflicts start or how often wars are fought. These decisions are far over their heads. Ithle01 fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jun 14, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 20:46
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human garbage bag posted:I have a theory that wars would be much less frequent if the soldiers knew the real casualty rate. I'm looking for evidence for this theory with records of soldiers not knowing the casualty rate in various wars. I know that in the end of WW1 the french soldiers refused to fight because they found out the casualty rate. It was more a refusal to attack, the country being invaded as A Bad Thing was mostly agreed on, even if you didn't hate the individual boche on the opposing team.
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Jun 14, 2021 20:48
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human garbage bag posted:I have a theory that wars would be much less frequent if the soldiers knew the real casualty rate. I'm looking for evidence for this theory with records of soldiers not knowing the casualty rate in various wars. I know that in the end of WW1 the french soldiers refused to fight because they found out the casualty rate. You can look for and find evidence of people fudging casualty numbers all the time for any number of reasons. Similarly, you can find all kinds of evidence of how aware or unaware new enlisted soldiers were of the reality on the ground. None of that will necessarily support your thesis though, because your thesis, as I understand it, is "people are afraid of dying, therefore if they knew that becoming a soldier would likely result in their death, they would not enlist." And yet we can find any number of situations where people knowingly go into scenarios that are extremely likely to kill them! Kamikazes are an obvious example, but any sufficiently risky venture qualifies, including e.g. search and rescue work, wilderness exploration (ask the first Antarctic explorers what they thought their odds of survival were), firefighting, offshore oil rig work, etc. It's a mistake to assume that the people participating in these activities are particularly exceptional people. With the right culture, mindset, ideological motivation, whatever, you too could find yourself thinking "this may well kill me, but it's worth it".
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Jun 14, 2021 20:56
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human garbage bag posted:I have a theory that wars would be much less frequent if the soldiers knew the real casualty rate. I'm looking for evidence for this theory with records of soldiers not knowing the casualty rate in various wars. I know that in the end of WW1 the french soldiers refused to fight because they found out the casualty rate. "Casualty rate" isn't remotely a predictable number in that sense. Most of Napoleon's guys made it through every battle, and then welp they went to Russia and everyone died.
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Jun 14, 2021 20:58
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