|
Tbf the "Marian reforms didn't happen" argument merely posits that there were a series of incremental changes starting around Marius and ending with Augustus, not that Roman infantry kit and supply didn't change between the Punic Wars and the early imperial period
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 17:32 |
|
|
# ? May 25, 2024 13:10 |
|
Frosted Flake posted:When you do wargames professionally, you see beyond the lunar sphere. How many Abrams can dance on the head of a pin?
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 18:04 |
Takanago posted:isnt w&r 0% off right now though. no capitalism discount they probably don't want to put it on sale again a week after it came off a 2 week publisher sale
|
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 18:14 |
|
Implying W&R is capitalist would be counter revolutionary, comrade You do not want to get a visit from the NKVD, yes?
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 18:19 |
|
StashAugustine posted:Tbf the "Marian reforms didn't happen" argument merely posits that there were a series of incremental changes starting around Marius and ending with Augustus, not that Roman infantry kit and supply didn't change between the Punic Wars and the early imperial period People like doing this about army reforms in the 18th century too. The reality is, even to people in the lifetime of those changes, attributing reforms to one transformational figure is more satisfying than trying to work out when plug bayonets gave way to socket. “Louis the XIV did it.” emotionally connects the gradual shifts to a idk “pleasant” periodization. “Marian” should be understood akin to “Georgian” and “Victorian”. Did Queen Victoria supervise the issue of the Martini-Henry rifle? Of course not! But “Victorian army reform” explains when changes happened.
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 18:42 |
|
When I stopped Vanheim's attempt to rush my Ermor down in year 1, I was absolutely obnoxious posting this everywhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLGwTggO8U&t=177s
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 20:59 |
|
Frosted Flake posted:People like doing this about army reforms in the 18th century too. That’s different though, the reforms happened during the reign of Victoria, so calling them ‘Victorian’ adds context. Most of the changes to the Roman military didn’t happen during the consulship of Marius, which reduces helpful context and needlessly confuses the historical record in favour of a ‘satisfying’ simplification. Satisfaction be damned!
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:00 |
|
Endman posted:That’s different though, the reforms happened during the reign of Victoria, so calling them ‘Victorian’ adds context. Most of the changes to the Roman military didn’t happen during the consulship of Marius, which reduces helpful context and needlessly confuses the historical record in favour of a ‘satisfying’ simplification. I agree with you, I'm only telling you that gradual and incremental improvements by institutions was and is not attractive to people who prefer the Great Man and brilliant inventor stories. You see this with Edison and the lightbulb, Patton and the Louisiana Manoeuvres etc. Now, if you can create basically a folktale about gradual institutional developments, I think you're onto something. is much more exiting to people than Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 22:13 on Jan 9, 2024 |
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:07 |
|
Frosted Flake posted:is much more exiting to people than This problem is simply beyond me, because I do find this way more interesting than the former. One of the most hilarious parts of Total War games, to me, is that armies just move from A to B. Whereas, at least for the pre-Napoleonic games, they should be leaving a terrible trail of economic destruction in their midst as they eat everything they can reasonably chew.
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:20 |
|
Tekopo posted:i've had a situation where someone was surprised that I was on the left because i played wargames and heavy economic games, but I don't think the trend is a prevalent nowadays as it used to be There's definitely going to be a new spate of wargames where Azov Ubermensch gun down hordes of Russian orcs with the side dlc being epic IDF tankman who has to solo capture the Hamas headquarters perfidiously located under the orphanage.
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:27 |
|
good poo poo so like canning must have been a pretty significant development in military history?
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:38 |
|
redleader posted:good poo poo Yeah canning and then obviously rail and motor transport. I've heard it argued potatoes as well, since they're more dense (and also a lot easier for peasants to hide from foraging soldiers)
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:40 |
|
You can unironically apply the rocket equation to a pre-modern army's non-looting logistics. e: Hell, in many ways, it's measuring the same damned thing. It very quickly demonstrates both why 'refueling' along the way is so much preferred to bringing things along with you from the start, why even minor savings matter, and how loving expensive it very quickly gets for any kind of large 'delta v' requirements my dad has issued a correction as of 22:55 on Jan 9, 2024 |
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:52 |
|
installed civ4: colonization and immediately installed the We the People mod. playing as the dirty dutch, gonna make bank
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:56 |
|
While we're on the subject of military reformers I've always like the theory that Maurice of Nassau ripped off his ideas from the Japanese
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 23:00 |
|
Endman posted:This problem is simply beyond me, because I do find this way more interesting than the former. redleader posted:good poo poo I was worried about a derail but this is the Strategy thread and I'd love to get into it. Yes, armies had to stop and bake bread once they marched to a point where the bread they had when they started started to turn stale, or worse mouldy, or simply run out. There was no way getting around the problem.To avoid this, they stopped every four days to bake bread: "Professor Perjes has calculated every aspect of the problem of supplying an army with bread. On the basic assumption that 60,000 men required 900 quintals or hundredweight of bread a day (made from 675 quintals of grain or flour), at least 60 ovens operated by a staff of 240 bakers would be needed to undertake the baking of four days' rations. Armies habitually marched for three days and halted the fourth, which was needed for rest and re-supply. To build a single oven called for 500 two-kilogram bricks, so to supply the basic requirements for 60 ovens called for 60 carts of bricks, and it required several days' work to establish an efficient bakery and the necessary stores around it. The fuel problem was even more dramatic. To fire the 60 ovens seven times a month required all of 1400 waggon-loads of fuel (a single baking called for 200 loads)." Baking bread required collecting fuel and building ovens, plus the time to bake. It's really cool so I'll just provide the text, but before I do I want you to consider something from the WW3 thread: Why do (did) armies turn to having bakers-in-uniform rather than relying on contractors as a result of this experience? ...
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 23:14 |
|
Anyone been playing any AOE? I don't know what they changed but AOE4 no longer runs like poo poo on my computer so I have been playing it a lot. The campaigns are like history channel style of documentaries but they're fun. I only played a few games with friends but it seems pretty balanced?
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 23:14 |
|
AnimeIsTrash posted:Anyone been playing any AOE? I don't know what they changed but AOE4 no longer runs like poo poo on my computer so I have been playing it a lot. The campaigns are like history channel style of documentaries but they're fun. I only played a few games with friends but it seems pretty balanced? If you can endure him being somewhat of an edgelord, BeastyQT (A Serbian player who I think is something like 2nd or 3rd best ranking AoE4 player) has a bunch of very good multiplayer guides on his Youtube channel. I mostly know the guy back from his Starcraft 2 days, when he did challenges like "sentry only to grandmaster" which other SC2 youtubers later picked up on
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 23:26 |
|
Perry Miniatures have just about every type of wagon in their Napoleonic French range, only no bakery! A shocking oversight, tbh
|
# ? Jan 9, 2024 23:57 |
|
KomradeX posted:How many Abrams can dance on the head of a pin? As many as you are willing to buy according to GDLS.
|
# ? Jan 10, 2024 02:22 |
|
AnimeIsTrash posted:Anyone been playing any AOE? I don't know what they changed but AOE4 no longer runs like poo poo on my computer so I have been playing it a lot. The campaigns are like history channel style of documentaries but they're fun. I only played a few games with friends but it seems pretty balanced? The AOE 2 campaigns are very good: they're deep enough to be a legitimate challenge, but not so demanding that you need to be multiplayer-competitive to stand a chance. I played through the Italian and Byzantine campaigns last year and it was great. I think over the lifetime of the game they've added a campaign for every civilization by now, which is an incredible amount of single-player content even if you never dip your toes into multiplayer. The Byzantines are probably my favorite civ because I like avoiding gold-cost units altogether, so the cheap trash spam means you always have an army at the ready.
|
# ? Jan 10, 2024 03:48 |
|
Danann posted:There's definitely going to be a new spate of wargames where Azov Ubermensch gun down hordes of Russian orcs with the side dlc being epic IDF tankman who has to solo capture the Hamas headquarters perfidiously located under the orphanage. There's one I've seen that came out in June 2022. It's called "Ukraine Defense Force Tactics". It's quite something. It's a hex-based, turn-based, combat system that works a bit like Advance Wars. You (Ukraine) only get 4 units while Russia constantly sends units to attack you from all directions, up to literally a 1000 total. It takes place on a randomly generated map with randomly placed apartment block hexes and forest hexes. You can garrison those apartment blocks (some of which have lights on to show that they're occupied) with your infantry, that way when you the Russians shoot at you the apartment block takes damage instead of your infantry. The game was developed around the time of the battle of Mariupol. When Russian units are destroyed they're destroyed (and drop stuff). When your units are destroyed the text instead says they retreated. Again, this game was made in June 2022, a full year before the counteroffensive and the whole "the entire crew survived and the vehicle will be repaired" thing. The game has a progression system. Each game you're trying to hold out as long as you can and destroy as many Russians as you can until you are defeated and your units "retreat". The more Russian units you destroy the more Glory (Slava) you earn. You then use that Glory to give permanent upgrades to your units. It is possible to win the game but you have to kill literally 1000 Russians and capture six points. The devs promised to donate all the profits to a Ukrainian charity. They donated $1000 to the "Come Back Alive" foundation. This is a charity has has trained Azov snipers and donated FPV drones to Azov. The game also has the line "Glory to the Heroes" at the start of every game. Here's the trailer. Do not buy this game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cm3keYxug4 BearsBearsBears has issued a correction as of 20:00 on Jan 10, 2024 |
# ? Jan 10, 2024 06:30 |
|
extremely good poo poo, cheers. i knew in a very abstract way that old-timey armies had big trains of followers and such, and that logistics is a huge part of military life. but you _never_ hear about it or see it portrayed or anything, and don't realise what 10,000 men marching around wherever means in practice, etc etcmy dad posted:You can unironically apply the rocket equation to a pre-modern army's non-looting logistics. the exact same thing occurred to me!
|
# ? Jan 10, 2024 06:39 |
|
StashAugustine posted:Yeah canning and then obviously rail and motor transport. I've heard it argued potatoes as well, since they're more dense (and also a lot easier for peasants to hide from foraging soldiers) Depending on the weather and variety of potato, potatoes have a much longer harvest window than grain, some even can be overwintered, so peasants could often leave potatoes in the ground and harvest them over a longer period of time as-needed during the time armies were actively campaigning before the armies set up camps for the winter or dispersed back home to re-form back in the spring, whereas grain has a much stricter harvest time and then is stored. A marching army has time to go to a village and demand all their stored grain, they don't have the time to go to villages and demand a lot of potatoes be dug up. There's a bunch of stuff that shows potatoes were adopted more quickly in areas where there were frequently armies on the march in europe. in prussia they even gave free seed potatoes to peasants and told them to grow them on marginal land with instructions on how to best grow them and told them to feed livestock with them, knowing that when there was war, they could have their armies take the cows, pigs, and horses, demand all the grain, and that the peasants would probably still survive so they wouldn't be demolishing their tax base as badly.
|
# ? Jan 10, 2024 07:05 |
|
more wargames should absolutely have a strong portrayal of logistics considering how critical it is to successful warfare Multi-Man Publishing's Operational Combat System is begging for a computer translation - the need to figure out how to allocate and transport individual pips of fuel and ammunition across Tunisia's sea of mud is critical if you want a realistic portrayal of the struggle to defeat Rommel in 1943
|
# ? Jan 10, 2024 07:15 |
|
An interview with a GMT designer about hia new non-historical game, The Plum Island Horror and he talks about his design process https://youtu.be/qXxiOjBfJqM?si=5nANYjYRkaZemv6v
|
# ? Jan 10, 2024 08:02 |
|
Typo posted:the game is easy because the A.I is stupid welp you're right, lmao. won the final Busan defense by just lining up a bunch of lovely AA along the southwest corner of the middle deployment zone and shooting ~600 points of heli/air out of the sky. too easy
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 03:56 |
|
redleader posted:extremely good poo poo, cheers. i knew in a very abstract way that old-timey armies had big trains of followers and such, and that logistics is a huge part of military life. but you _never_ hear about it or see it portrayed or anything, and don't realise what 10,000 men marching around wherever means in practice, etc etc yea, for early modern times an army of some tens of thousands plus all its associated camp followers and such would p much be the equivalent of a mobile medium-sized city except it has to bring all of its infrastructure with it
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 04:14 |
|
fermun posted:Depending on the weather and variety of potato, potatoes have a much longer harvest window than grain, some even can be overwintered, so peasants could often leave potatoes in the ground and harvest them over a longer period of time as-needed during the time armies were actively campaigning before the armies set up camps for the winter or dispersed back home to re-form back in the spring, whereas grain has a much stricter harvest time and then is stored. A marching army has time to go to a village and demand all their stored grain, they don't have the time to go to villages and demand a lot of potatoes be dug up. I just wanted to say this was fantastic and I'm sorry I didn't see it earlier because those are fantastic observations. Cerebral Bore posted:yea, for early modern times an army of some tens of thousands plus all its associated camp followers and such would p much be the equivalent of a mobile medium-sized city except it has to bring all of its infrastructure with it I don't have time to dig up the sources right now, but recent research on the demise of the Grand Armee in Russia shows that it was already falling apart before winter. The reason is that the supply lines got too long, which caused the army to disperse too widely for foraging, which caused desertion, straggling and exhaustion to shoot through the roof. The energy required to get food after supply from depots could not be reliably maintained caused the death of the army, though of course winter accelerated it. Winter quarters were not possible if the army could not be reliably fed even during the harvest! Charlie Cutshall posted:Napoleon knew of the failure of earlier campaigns into Russia. Throughout history Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 05:29 on Jan 11, 2024 |
# ? Jan 11, 2024 05:23 |
|
I've read more than one history of the Battle of Borodino, and some speculation on what Napoleon could have done better, but I haven't really read anyone even make a guess as to what Napoleon could have done to "win" in Russia in terms of accomplishing his political goals
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 08:05 |
|
What exactly were his political goals at the time again?
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 09:10 |
|
He wanted Russia to stop trading with Britain (join the Continental System). Napoleon had some idea of forming a stable political system in which Russian and France would be two poles working together across Europe to keep the Germans down and the British out. The invasion wasn't about raw conquest of territory.
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 09:22 |
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I've read more than one history of the Battle of Borodino, and some speculation on what Napoleon could have done better, but I haven't really read anyone even make a guess as to what Napoleon could have done to "win" in Russia in terms of accomplishing his political goals Yadoppsi posted:He wanted Russia to stop trading with Britain (join the Continental System). Napoleon had some idea of forming a stable political system in which Russian and France would be two poles working together across Europe to keep the Germans down and the British out. The invasion wasn't about raw conquest of territory. It feels like this would have been a lot easier to accomplish with diplomacy. Did he try any of that?
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 09:38 |
|
I think the only succesful invasion of "Russia" he could've done would be to bite off a small chunk of it and occupy it with troops dispersed along the border and back into the depth of Poland and Germany to be called up on short notice in case Russia mustered an army to take it back. Then either use that to come to terms or constitute a Polish Republic or whatever to administer the place and prepare to grab another chunk in the next campaigning season. Going for the throat is folly.
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 10:34 |
|
i'm sure it has been mentioned already, but 'Age of Napoleon' is an excellent one-man podcast about that era of the world. the show starts during Napoleon's life in Corsica, talking about the antics he and his brothers got up to, and is currently up to the Treaty of Tilsit. there's a bunch of bonus episodes about major geopolitical players, stand-out figures, and even poo poo like the diet of Grande Armée soldiers.
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 12:17 |
|
TheHoosier posted:the diet of Grande Armée soldiers. Snow and horse blood?
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 12:54 |
|
Orange Devil posted:I think the only succesful invasion of "Russia" he could've done would be to bite off a small chunk of it and occupy it with troops dispersed along the border and back into the depth of Poland and Germany to be called up on short notice in case Russia mustered an army to take it back. well, the problem with the slow approach is that france already managed to get bogged down in one grinding war of attrition down in spain and if you just go to take a chunk out of the border you're basically just walking into another quagmire not to say that marching straight for moscow was a better option, but rather that there really was no good way to invade russia in 1812
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 13:34 |
|
Cerebral Bore posted:well, the problem with the slow approach is that france already managed to get bogged down in one grinding war of attrition down in spain and if you just go to take a chunk out of the border you're basically just walking into another quagmire Stoke the flames of nationalism in the Polish parts, the Ukrainian parts, the Baltic parts etc. Or you know, figure out a way to achieve detente.
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 13:41 |
|
Orange Devil posted:Stoke the flames of nationalism in the Polish parts, They did this part, absolutely. But there was no Ukrainian nation to speak of because the partitions of Poland had just happened, and there was not yet a literate Galician middle class. Similarly, the Baltics had just traded hands between Sweden, Prussia, and Russia, and there was no literate Baltic middle class.
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 13:56 |
|
|
# ? May 25, 2024 13:10 |
|
yeah, after russia conquered the baltics the dominant class there was the baltic german aristocracy, who were extremely overprivileged and had absolutely zero reason to cooperate with napoleon
|
# ? Jan 11, 2024 14:00 |