|
Fantastic thread Railtus. I was wondering what you thought of some of the ideas that this guy comes up with in his video series, for example his theories about how pikes were used in the renaissance period: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbhANeJL_T4 Railtus posted:A more complicated version is called Nine Mens Morris. I cannot remember what the basic version is called. I am listening to Dorsey Armstrong, the Medieval World (the Great Courses are awesome), to find out what the game was (she was my source). Nine Men's Morris was also called Merrelles, and it was actually a Roman game! There was a bunch of different versions, with the simplest one being Noughts and Crosses and continuing to be popular to this day. It got featured in the latest edition of Assassin's Creed, which is why I found out about it. You can actually play it against the computer here (where it will proceed to make you feel like a fool over and over again): http://merrelles.com/English.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Men%27s_Morris quote:My suspicion is the modern man would become a beggar. Look at the conveniences we are accustomed to? Our futuristic knowledge is mostly theoretical, I know gunpowder is a mix of charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur, but that does not mean I am in any way qualified to make it. I know adding carbon to iron produces steel, but that does not mean I could use it effectively. Maybe being literate would help? Although even that would need adapting. I think the best chance for a modern man would be the monastery. Well I think that you might be surprised at how much you know. Even if a modern person had no real scientific or engineering background, they still would be extremely well educated in comparison. If nothing else, virtually every modern person would be a better doctor with a fuller understanding of curative treatment than anyone prior to the American Civil War (excepting Roman surgical prowess). Kaal fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Jan 26, 2013 |
#
¿
Jan 26, 2013 10:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:31 |
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:As far as I know, the Egyptians were pretty skilled as well, doing stuff like plastic surgery. The ancient Egyptians were certainly skilled for their time, but they were never particularly good at surgery. They made prosthetics and they performed circumcisions, but I've never heard anything about cosmetic surgery being performed on the living. Their burial practices required a decent understanding of the body, but that knowledge wasn't passed on to their day-to-day practitioners. I did some reading and found that Indian surgeons were the first to perform plastic surgery in the form of rhinoplasty. Pretty cool stuff. The story of medicine, written in extremely broad strokes, is thus: The Egyptians developed pharmacology, the Greeks developed pathology and epidemiology, the Romans developed surgery, and the Chinese and Indians developed therapy. Obviously the word "developed" is problematic since all cultures had some knowledge of the diverse array of medical disciplines, but those were the cultures that built those practices into something significant enough to be copied and disseminated. quote:None of that is going to make you the Great Inventor Emperor of Europe and Beyond though, at best you could be rewarded with a cushy job working for a king/emperor doing "science". Really, there are plenty of things we take for granted nowadays that would blow people's minds back then, not to mention the stuff people know that's not general knowledge/skills. It's more a matter of actually making it useful and accessible I think. Which might also have been the case for inventors in the time period? What was the scientific environment like at the time? Well certainly you'd need to have a firm understanding of engineering and chemistry to become the Great Inventor Emperor of Europe and Beyond. More than the average modern joe is likely to have. But really I think that most folks would be perfectly capable of single-handedly causing a renaissance and a regional power shift. Even boring things like bureaucracy and agriculture would see significant improvements from basic concepts, and would have major impacts on the world. Of course the problem is getting those concepts to be received - women and minorities of all kinds would struggle to be listened to. The scientific environment was very variable in Europe throughout the Medieval period. At some times and places, suggesting a bunch of scientific advancements would have been ignored or gotten you charged with heresy. Whereas in 1500 Italy, they nearly had a renaissance right there in Florence and you could have easily tipped the scales. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jan 26, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2013 18:35
|
|
|
I am super enjoying this video series. World History, Literature, Ecology, Biology, all wrapped up in pretty little videos!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2013 20:29
|
|
|
Third Murderer posted:Anyway, I have an actual question. How common was it for the western European kingdoms to claim to be inheritors of Rome? I know Charlemagne was crowned emperor, probably to the annoyance of the Roman emperor over in Constantinople. I would think that, after hundreds of years of Roman rule in places like France and Iberia, that linking your kingdom to the Empire might have been a good way to claim legitimacy? I mean, pretty much everyone called themselves Tsar of this or Kaiser of that. The one exception might be England, but on the other hand their kings did pretty much declare themselves to be the pope.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 27, 2013 03:41
|
|
|
Evasion is a pretty important part of any martial art, and it certainly shouldn't be understated. But we should also remember that for the most part these European fighters were wearing very effective steel armor that could take hits. While the kind of stylized combat that was posted is impressive, it would appear that few of the attacks would have been capable of penetrating chainmail, much less plate. The popularity of two-handed weapons in the late medieval era was dependent upon the increasing ability for knights to rely upon their armor to shrug off blows. This is particularly true of any glancing blow, which includes most counter parries. Only powerful thrusts would have a real chance of success, and even that would be very problematic. Indeed the Royal Armouries Museum at Leeds conducted a study of medieval armor with the conclusion that "it is almost impossible to penetrate using any conventional medieval weapon". The response to overly elegant point fighting techniques was to simply take it on the armor and move in for a powerful disabling blow. This resilience is sometimes easy to forget, as it is not featured in our modern depictions of medieval combat; our film heroes rely heavily upon being able to cut through a swath of enemy fighters through a series of one-hit kills. Combined with the fact of group fighting, the reality would have been much more drawn-out - with fighters striking at vulnerable points of opportunity (less armored joints and extremities), and seeking to disable their opponents (even just momentarily) to allow their comrades to strike at the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-ec6Ub7FM Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 7, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2013 02:13
|
|
|
Fatigue was definitely an issue, but people often over-estimate the impact that armor had. It was uncomfortable, but at 50 pounds (armor plus weapons/shield) it was still less of an encumbrance than that facing a modern-day soldier who is loaded down with upwards of 100 pounds of gear and still expected to sprint, leap and climb. Certainly fighters needed to be physically fit, but the most significant impact on fatigue was in the use of combat arms - constantly moving, striking and blocking at full strength is extremely tiring. It is my understanding that combat would periodically slow as the opposing sides caught their breath and reorganized themselves for the next attack, just as they do today. I know that the condition of the horses was a major concern, and so cavalry units would have strings of remounts to help mitigate that. A human can be pushed a lot further than a horse before breaking. One thing that people will talk about is that leg armor constitutes much more of an encumbrance than its weight would indicate. They're the moving parts that everything else relies upon, and any loss in efficiency will have the greatest impact there. It's one of the reasons that legs were typically less armored throughout history. But even then I would note that people have been wearing shin guards and thigh guards for a long time without an appreciable lack of mobility, so I'd keep that in mind. As a counterpoint, this study takes are more critical view on the weight of plate armor. It's worth reading, though I'd note that their 15th century armor was twice as heavy as normal since it was designed to stop bullets and heavy crossbows. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14204717 Kaal fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Feb 7, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2013 11:13
|
|
|
Blut posted:While the study does say the participants "regularly re-enact battles for the Royal Armouries in Leeds" I would imagine conditioning would also be a big factor in the influence of armour on fatigue. Someone who has spent 10+ years wearing frequently, and training intensively in, heavy plate mail would find it much less tiring to wear than a re-enactor who is not at a similar level of cardiovascular fitness (and who doesnt have years of muscular development related specifically to armour wearing/combat). Yeah, definitely. People underestimate the relative level of fitness that is expected in warfare. As a modern example: I had a couple journo buddies come back from an embed tour in Afghanistan, and they talked about how tiring it was to keep up with the troops even with all their gear. One story that has stuck with me is that they were following a foot patrol that was crossing a big open field that was covered in long berms, and while the journos had to run up and over each of the berms, the Marines simply leaped from berm to berm in a sprint - quickly disappearing into the distance. My buddies, who were in decent shape and carrying much less weight than that of the Marine platoon, were fairly worried about simply being left behind. Kaal fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Feb 7, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2013 22:20
|
|
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:Your comment on the fluting in armour is interesting, because I had always been told that it provided more glancing surfaces, rather than that it made the armour sturdier. It could certainly do both, of course. It does do both. The fluting (more broadly known as corrugation) created more glancing surfaces, increasing the odds of deflecting away a strike. But corrugated materials also have increased bending strength against the axis of the corrugations (thanks to the power of arches). The fluting meant that the armor was more resistant to buckling, such as when hit by a mace or hammer. The technique is great for making strong yet light-weight materials, and is often used in construction. Kaal fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Feb 16, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2013 06:35
|
|
|
New Coke posted:Was there any kind of analogue to the guerrilla/asymmetrical warfare of today? You mention that hit-and-run tactics were common among professional armies, but was organized resistance to invaders common after the official army had been defeated? You tend not to hear about things like this nowadays, and I can think of a few reasons why that might be, but I'd be interested in hearing whether or not there were instances of that happening, or how common it was. You'd see a lot of banditry, but not the kind of guerrilla warfare that we see today. The technological and political realities didn't really permit it. First off, most cities were surrounded by a wall that would fend off any small-time attacker, so attacking the establishment required a real commitment of troops. And the limitations of medieval weapons also limited the capability of guerrilla forces. You needed a real army of trained warriors to do any real damage, and that army would attract a lot of attention and would lead to widespread reprisals against your supporters. Lots of insurrections would get started but then would be put down extremely harshly once the nobility rallied their troops and marched on the rebels; if the rebels fled then their homes and families would be put to the torch, and they wouldn't have anyone to support their guerrilla activity. This state of affairs continued until the modern-era, where powerful weapons and philosophical changes on the use of force made it much more possible for a rebel force to wage war effectively without being put down. The one real exception to all this are the so-called Free Companies, or mercenary forces that were well-trained and had no homes and families to protect. They would basically ravage the land wherever they went, taking payment to fight (or bribes to stay away). But they were only asymmetric in the sense that they only fought when they knew they could win (i.e. fighting against helpless peasants), and their only interest was accumulating wealth. Free Companies were born out of the Carthaginian merchant empire, morphed into Mediterranean pirate activity when Carthage fell, then got pushed onto the Iberian peninsula when Rome seized all the ports, and then became part of the Western European experience. They eventually disappeared with the advent of large national militaries after the 100 Years war.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2013 03:00
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:If memory serves, judging by how the Church operated at the time (at least, before Protestantism was invented), this was probably not a bribe in the traditional sense but rather an indulgence. One of the things that Catholicism gets fire for is that, way back in the day, it was believed that you could literally buy your way out of sin. God would forgive you if you gave the Church money because, you know, House of God and all of that jazz. Indulgences get a bad rap because people don't understand the scale of history. They're a penance for sin that is intended to introduce the sinner into the virtue of charity. They don't forgive the sin itself, not any more than the modern version of "tithing" means that all sins are automatically forgiven. They were a progressive reform in the 6th century that replaced the severe corporal penances that were popular at the time. They eventually became a problem in the mid-late medieval era, culminating with the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent, but that was 1,000 years later. Obdicut posted:This is really bizarre. The impetus for the anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim fervor came from the church, obviously. It was church teaching that war and conversion under threat of violence was acceptable. It was the Church that turned the reconquista from a reclamation of land to a holy war. You can claim the Inquisition is fairer than a lynch mob, but that's about as weak praise as you can get and the existence of the Inquisition validates the ideas behind the lynch mobs in the first place. The Reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition was spurred by the monarchy that directly profited from it. Torquemada was the confessor and adviser to Queen Isabella, and led the drive to create the new inquisition as well as expand it into a religious purge in Spain. He did not have the particular support of the Holy See, so when he died 15 years later that mission dissipated with him. And certainly holding a trial governed by laws is better than having lynch mobs and feudal lords doling out arbitrary punishment. These nuances between secular and religious authority, or the difference between the Inquisition and a lynch mob, might seem meaningless to you, but they served as a foundation for medieval society and were the political catalysts for the Renaissance. Kaal fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Feb 21, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 21, 2013 13:10
|
|
|
Scionix posted:Also, because I am a dork that grew up with ridiculous video games tropes, was wielding two swords, or a dagger and a sword, or two daggers, etc, ever a smart thing to do? You'd sometimes see that sort of thing in dueling, but generally there's not a lot that you can do with two melee weapons that you can't do with one. In open combat you want a shield, because it has a lot of utility, so it's almost always a better idea than dual-wielding. However, you would certainly see folks carrying multiple weapons to use in sequence - javelins, axes, knives, etc. - and they might be brought out if your shield breaks and you can't find a replacement.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2013 22:57
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:Speaking of which, what happens if you're a Spartan and your shield breaks? Not sure you're even allowed to drop it Spartans used extremely strong and heavy duty shields called hoplons, which made out of 30 lbs of bronze and wood. They were great for phalanx warfare where mobility was not critical. They hardly ever broke, but if you did then presumably you'd move to the rear of the formation which used their spears a lot more than their shields.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2013 23:18
|
|
|
Mitchnasty posted:What sort of advantages/disadvantages would a left-handed swordsman have had? Did they exist? A left-handed swordsman could not join a shield-wall or anything of that sort, because their equipment wasn't in the same place as their fellows. They would have an advantage in dueling though, because not many people would be used to fighting "backward". But there were few lefties in the European middle ages, because right-handedness was equated with godliness. Even in areas outside the Christian world, I'd expect that the rigidly formalized nature of period martial education would limit the number of lefty warriors.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2013 15:56
|
|
|
Railtus posted:The idea is that tower staircases went up clockwise; meaning that on the way up the wall was on your right side, giving you less space to swing your sword. While the guy defending the tower had the wall to his left side, giving him more room to use his sword freely. Tower staircases were often narrow enough that both fighters were crowded, but if both were right-handed, the defender would have more room and be in a better position to thrust around the wall than the attacker would be. On the other hand, not all tower staircases went up clockwise. Yeah definitely. The right-handed defender will retreat up the steep clockwise-spiraling stairs, which means that when they are facing their attackers (down the stairs) their shield will be against the inner wall to their left, and their sword will be in the relatively open area on the outside of the spiral (to their right). Due to the spiral, their attacker will always be below them to their left. Conversely, the right-handed attacker coming up the stairs will always have the defender above them to their right - with the wall partially obstructing any movement of their sword (also on their right), and their shield not being supplemented by the inner wall. It's a real position of strength for the defender when everyone is right-handed. This is something that is fairly evident if you use a spiral staircase regularly, but they're fairly rare here in the US. Maybe this will help visualize it: 
Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Mar 13, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2013 19:42
|
|
|
I love the tradition of describing "sinful barbarians" in something that is less of a history and more of a sex fantasy.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2013 17:09
|
|
|
Genpei Turtle posted:This photo shows what Japanese shields looked like. They were actually really important, because the bow was the dominant weapon in Japanese warfare until the arrival of firearms and defense against arrows was paramount. In Europe those types of standing shield-walls are known as pavises. They were used extensively by archers and crossbowmen during medieval sieges. Japanese soldiers used them similarly. But in truth they're more of a field fortification than a personal shield. To my understanding, Japan stopped using shields relatively earlier than Europe because of the scarcity of metal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavise
|
|
#
¿
Apr 17, 2013 16:28
|
|
|
Chamale posted:I just look at the video; I don't watch the show. Clearly they're in love and know they're being watched so they're pretending to fight while trying not to hurt each other, right? I was grumbling that she should just take his attacks on her armor throughout the entire scene. What's Jaime going to do? Cleave through steel plate?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2013 18:07
|
|
|
Great explanation Evan. I'd love to watch a film that was built from the ground-up to portray medieval fighting done correctly, but it sounds like it would certainly be more difficult to do.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2013 02:39
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Well that's too bad to hear about Game of Thrones. The one fight scene was odd in that one of the characters was specifically trying not to injure or kill the other one. Game of Thrones did actually have a character using armor intelligently in a fight scene that really was over in like 10 seconds, so at least that's nice. It's the part where Jorah just lets the guy whang him in the side with a scimitar because his opponent is used to unarmored combat, then traps the blade with his arm and slices the guy in the face. I had totally forgotten about that scene. Yeah it actually holds up pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRYM6B7CTs8
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2013 03:36
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:I'm no expert, but I bet the only real difference in terms of amusements to modern times would be the relative popularity of bloodsports, and even then only when we're talking about as compared to middle-class Americans. We still love bloodsports and orgies and all that, we just legitimate it by televising it. Action movies and football are crazy popular for a reason.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2013 06:13
|
|
|
Litmus Test posted:I take it this is totally unrealistic? I think that it does a pretty good job of portraying the potency of armor, as well as the intensity of the melee. The pushing and running is fairly reasonable - they just aren't finishing it up with a killing stroke once the guy is on the ground.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2013 02:31
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:If it actually happened on a regular basis that people were just body checking eachother to the ground in tourneys, duels, and battles, we would expect to see that attested in documents. Which we don't. Again, when somebody is trained in wrestling and specifically on how not to get knocked down, it is really difficult to knock him over just by running into him and shoving his chest unless you're dramatically larger than him. People who train in real martial arts learn how to fall well, not how to avoid it in the first place. Wrestling teaches that sort of thing because it's a controlled duel, without equipment, and "falling to the ground" is a technically specific thing that loses you points. No amount of wrestling training is going to keep you on your feet when you get surprise body-checked by 300 pounds of armored knight, nor when you're being pushed back by four ranks of spearmen. As for historicity, remember that we're looking at a small subset of medieval warfare. The vast majority of medieval combatants were poorly armed peasant levies that couldn't defend themselves well against an armored knight in the first place. Combat would start in organized ranks and then devolve into a general melee as time went on. And the medieval documents are pretty clear that wrestling while in armor happened all the time, particularly when knights were facing other knights en melee. EvanSchenck posted:This doesn't address the question of why we do not see fechtbucher recommending flying tackles, or accounts of tourneys or battles where dudes body checking eachother played a major role. It probably happened commonly after battles, as the losing side gave up fighting and fled for their lives, but if it had any utility against an enemy who was actually resisting, we would expect to see it attested in the documents. Which, again, it isn't. You may be looking at the wrong material. The Fechtbucher focuses primarily on unarmored combat, but it does speak somewhat about fighting while in plate armor, or Harnischfechten. It makes it clear that different techniques are involved, and that most combat was concluded with a wrestling maneuver that made the opponent vulnerable. Body-checking a distracted enemy might not be very sporting or elegant, but it is certainly effective. Kaal fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Aug 1, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2013 17:59
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:This is wrong. The only martial arts that do not train takedown defense are sporting forms whose rules specifically ban grappling, such as boxing. This is backpedalling. "Training in takedown defense" is a far cry from ubermensch wrestlers that cannot be knocked down. Knocking someone to the ground is the key to fighting an armored opponent, and it's a lot easier than you think it is. quote:This is actually a modern myth; most medieval battles involved professional soldiers, probably in part for the very reason you say--that peasants could not resist men-at-arms. "Professional soldiers" or no, they're still levied peasants and they're still poorly armed compared to a knight. That doesn't mean that they're wielding farm tools, but a spear and shield isn't comparable to armor.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2013 19:57
|
|
|
Namarrgon posted:I think they mean mercenary legions. Which are most certainly not levied peasants by virtue of being neither peasants nor were they levied. Well-equipped mercenaries were common in certain areas and periods, but they were by no means the majority. And we're launching into a semantic argument at this point. Perhaps a soldier is a landless freeman, rather than a peasant, and is motivated by payment rather than feudal obligation, but that doesn't make him particularly different than a peasant levy when it comes to fighting a knight. Rodrigo Diaz posted:It is not only knights that wore armour. Indeed, by the time of full plate harness I would say a quite small minority of armored men had been knighted. Additionally, while the levying of peasants did sometimes occur (Louis VI's use of the 'commune' system is one example) these men did not tend to fight in major battles, nor were they the vanguard in siege assaults. We also do not know how the commune system worked, exactly, and whether the men that it brought were wholly amateur, semi-professional, or professional. But in these earlier times, the ownership of a horse was the key point of distinction between 'well-armed foot-soldiers' (super armatos pedites) and knights (milites, miles, or equites). I don't think that someone's title had very much to do with how well they do on the battlefield. Getting into that kind of distinction only muddies the discussion. The reality is that having armor is a significant advantage over folks who don't have it, whether or not they have the proper heraldry and royal title to be "technically called a knight". Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Aug 1, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2013 21:09
|
|
|
pulphero posted:they guy I study under wrote up an article on the nationalistic debate during the Napoleonic era over strait vs curved sabers. Amusingly, this dichotomy continues to the modern day. The ceremonial swords of U.S. Army officers, for instance, are curved sabers, while those of the NCOs are straight-swords.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2013 05:20
|
|
|
Buried alive posted:But are the NCO's swords referred to as sabers? From your post I assume that they are, but some googling tells me they're just called swords. As far as cavalry goes, I never connected being used by cavalry as what makes a saber a saber. I understand that cavalry frequently used sabers because curved blades are handy for that sort of thing, but that's it. Is that how it first got started? Some uppity army general or something just went all "Look, our cavalry use sabers, so even if you give us a straight sword, we're still calling them sabers. Now kindly STFU and GTFO." That would explain the Paton 'saber' I suppose. Army NCO swords are sometimes called sabers, but I think that's probably out of general ignorance. Marines use sabers*, and Army officers use sabers, so it's an easy mistake to make. Sabers are essentially slashing weapons, which is why they were heavily used by light cavalry and naval marines. The term "saber" is also typically used to generally differentiate Napoleonic-weapons from those used during the Medieval periods. It also has something of a dashing and heroic connotation - bad guys carry cutlasses or scimitars, but heroes carry sabers. *Amusingly though, the Marine Corps apparently does not call them sabers because of tradition. But the weapon type is clearly a traditional saber. Similarly, West Point clearly has a straight sword and yet they refer to them as sabers. Doesn't make any sense, but there you go. http://www.militarysabers.com/military-sword-information/m-us-army-sword.html Kaal fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Sep 18, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2013 05:57
|
|
|
Mongolians were awesome, don't get me wrong, but horse archers attacking a fortified longbow contingent would be suicidal. English longbowmen represent everything that the Mongolians had problems with: heavier foot-archers, entrenchment, and rain. A horse bow is half the poundage of a warbow, which leaves the Mongolians significantly out-ranged (and larger targets to boot). Horse archers also need relatively flat and dry terrain to fight effectively, and do poorly attacking walled defenses - whereas Western Europe is characterized by plentiful castles and marshy forests. And finally (and perhaps most importantly) the Mongolian composite bow is reliant upon water-permeable glues to function - the heavy rains and constant humidity of Western Europe would quickly warp and ruin the bows. The weather is why the English preferred their longbows made out of single staves of yew, ash or elm - woods which Mongolians did not have ready access to. It's all well and good to imagine that the Mongols would perform some kind of tactical coup, but the reality is that the odds would be significantly stacked against them. It's precisely why the Mongolian Empire did not attempt to conquer western Europe in the first place, and why horse archery eventually waned throughout the world.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2013 18:32
|
|
|
Namarrgon posted:I was under the impression that the reason the 'expedition' to Europe stopped was because of a succession crisis. We don't really have to imagine the Mongols doing a tactical coup. It is exactly what they did on the rare occasions they did venture into Europe. It's not that they are mystical superior ubermensch, it is just that when it came to war they were in a higher league than Europe or Asia Minor. That's painting Europe and Asia Minor with a pretty broad brush. I don't think that steppe peasants or the decaying Kievan Rus' can really be equated with the armies of medieval England. Mongolian expansion continued apace after the succession crisis, but they never attempted to break into Western Europe. The closest they came was when they trounced some field armies of knights in Poland and Hungary.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2013 19:18
|
|
|
Obdicut posted:Mongols fought against a lot of foot archers both in China and the Middle East, so this is going to need some revision on your part. They also did wonderfully while attacking walled defenses, when they decided to attack them, so again, I'm not sure what your point is there. They didn't, of course, just charge at the walls of the castles with horses and hit at it with a sword, they built siege engines, diverted rivers, used refugees as mass human wave attacks, set fire to the cities, poisoned water supplies, etc. You seem to be combining multiple things here, and imagining a horse archer charging at a castle. Also, Western Europe is not characterized by marshy forests. It has some marshy forests, but it's hardly the majority of the terrain. That's all great, but horse archers aren't doing any of that. If you're expanding the contest to the entire Mongolian army, then you're shifting the goalposts pretty well. What you're describing is simply the tactics of medieval warfare - Europeans did the same things - and in this comparison the Europeans would have had 100 - 200 years of advancement as compared to the Mongols. The differences in equipment quality and design would be pretty stark. Namarrgon posted:I don't know, defeating the Byzantine Empire around 1265 has to count for something. The Mongols plundered Eastern Thrace, and Nogai married the Emperor's daughter. Not really the same thing as "defeating the Byzantine Empire".
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2013 19:40
|
|
|
Namarrgon posted:In general, when the daughter of a defender marries the attacker (and sends goods as tribute to the attacker afterwards), that is considered surrendering under certain terms. Not all wars are total wars. The Mongols didn't take any defended cities, and Byzantium retained control of its territory. They paid the Mongols to stop raiding. As far as Mongolian prowess over organized European armies goes, it's a pretty limited comparison. And Byzantium was relatively weak and decaying itself at the time. Obdicut posted:What goalposts? What are you talking about? If you're talking about single foot archer vs single foot archer, then the fortification stuff you were saying doesn't make a ton of sense. I don't really understand what points you're trying to make, and it really seems like you're more interested in declaring Mongolians to be total badasses than actually, you know, talk about medieval history and combat. So yeah, Mongolians were total badasses.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2013 19:55
|
|
|
GyverMac posted:How feasible would caltrops be as a good area-denial weapon agaisnt cavalry? I imagine the amount steel needed to make thousands of caltrops big enough to not just get trampled into the dirt would probably be too expensive for the average nation during that period. Jack B Nimble posted:Would they really need to be made of steel? What would a metal caltrop/spike do that a wooden stake couldn't? Most caltrops throughout history were made simply out of a little wooden ball with iron spikes sticking into it. They're quite small, so you really need the metal to puncture the horse's hooves and the infantry's shoes. Punji sticks would be the wooden alternative, and they usually needed to be larger and therefore better camouflaged. The iron also rusts and is quite effective at causing infection, in a way that wood does not. That said, they were very cheap to make since the quality of the iron doesn't make any difference. They were used all over the place, and the Romans in particular loved using them since they didn't have a strong cavalry tradition. Caltrops were certainly effective against cavalry, and even the invincible Mongols had problems with them. There's a great article about them here: http://www.historynet.com/weaponry-the-caltrop.htm
|
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2013 16:04
|
|
|
Railtus posted:I do not see clearly how Ragnar deflects the attack, but he redirects the axe swing aside and stuns him by using the butt of the axe in a stabbing motion like a dagger or ice-pick/reverse grip to the chest. From my reading of it, Ragnar side-steps in the middle of the strike and that puts the Earl's controlling arm in the way of his own ax. The Earl is forced to overcompensate in order to avoid chopping off his own hand while killing Ragnar, and that leaves the Earl offbalance and undefended.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2013 23:06
|
|
|
Basically people like fancy hats. Judging from the booming virtual hat economy in TF2 et al., I think that it's a pretty safe bet that the first thing homo habilis did after inventing the pointy stick was put it on his head.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2013 06:16
|
|
|
the JJ posted:Well, there's some research that points out that constant stress and factors of the unknow magnify PTSD more than single incidents. Or is more likely to cause it or whatever. Supposedly this is why we see more PTSD out of WWI trench fighters or 'Nam vets and Iraq vets who are always waiting for that next IED. I dunno if I buy it 100%, but things like hyper-vigilance it sort of make sense not to see in folks who didn't have to deal with asymmetrical war/WWI style constant shelling for weeks. This is a good point - the realities of the combat were fundamentally different. Similarly, ancient societies had a more well-defined role for soldiers - they weren't expected to repeatedly transition between the martial and civilian worlds. If you were a member of a warrior caste, it was acceptable to be aggressive and openly find fulfillment in battle - whereas a modern soldier risks social shunning if they admit to killing - much less enjoying it. A medieval knight could live much of his life entirely within the martial perspective, while a modern soldier might go out on a combat patrol during the day and then come back that night and chat with his wife about their kids on Skype. That kind of juggling act engenders a lot more mental stress.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2013 07:54
|
|
|
veekie posted:How big a force could a typical castle hold to harass invaders if left unattended? That actually begs the question because there really isn't a standard-sized castle. There's the little ringforts that used to carpet European countrysides, all the way to the massive city walls that could stretch for kilometers. How big is a typical castle? Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Dec 10, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2013 02:10
|
|
|
WoodrowSkillson posted:I brought this up a while ago, and what it really comes down to is that for the purposes intended, they pretty much mastered it. You could maybe improve a little bit, but the actual differences would be pretty small in practice. Pretty much. We could make it more comfortable and more reliable with things like rubber seals and foam grips, but it wouldn't be appreciably safer. Pretty much the biggest improvement would be replacing the visor-slit with protective glass for improved visibility. Of course if we really went all Iron Man on it we could also do things like put in communication electronics, cooling systems, advanced light-weight materials, etc., and that would certainly increase overall fighting power.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2013 02:19
|
|
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:This is a fine example of using horses to scatter a mob of protesters. It is not a good example of using horses in medieval warfare, and should not be treated as analogous to one. It really isn't a very good example of police-work either. Even if using horses like this was good public policy (which it isn't) they did a poor job of supporting the salient. If the crowd hadn't already been so passive and peaceful the horsemen would have been immediately surrounded.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 28, 2013 22:37
|
|
|
Nektu posted:If its coming right at you, hmm, who knows. A spear would just be ripped from your fingers when 1000 pounds of horse ram into it. Yea, you would injure it, but I doubt that a spear would be able to penetrate through the sternum (which shields that area) or the ribs and all that muscle into the heart/lungs which you would need for a killshot. Thanks for posting those great videos. This is good point, which is why many classical and medieval spears would have a butt-spike that could be buried in the ground against a charge, which meant the spear itself would take the force of any impact. It also meant that any horse that speared itself against a spear-wall would almost certainly die.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2013 20:18
|
|
|
veekie posted:As for sharpness, is there ever a reason to keep the operating edge and point at less than maximum sharpness? It's difficult to keep an edge perfectly sharp all the time, and trying to do so can allow it to become frail. Blades need to be sharp, but also strong. Remember that they are often going to be catching on metal, wood and bone.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2014 09:58
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:31 |
|
|
DandyLion posted:If John Clements was contradicted and then 'schooled' via a practical assessment (actual full on steel clashing), he would quickly re-assess his position on something and leave behind any 'outdated' understanding. There have been several of these epiphanies over the last decade in ARMA (so its not terribly rare to occur) and merely emphasize that John Clements and ARMA are not going to cow-tow to other organisations under the guise of politeness or manners unless they prove through a true test of practical application rather than a scripted drill. We're hear to practically re-learn a lost art, and we don't have the time to deal with people who aren't. The first rule of fight club is that the leader is right unless you fight him for the crown.  I don't have any issue with ARMA, but if this is the attitude of a typical member then no wonder the other groups don't like them. Also, if you're going to adopt a superior attitude then learn to loving write, mate. Do you also not have time for spelling and basic grammar like they're/their/there?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2014 18:30
|
|