The Franchise Should Be Limited

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Originally Posted by Kralizec

Is it like Germany's sytem? Meaning, a vote of non-confidence can only succeed if it also appoints a successor at the same time?

Otherwise I don't think it's really different at all, and you're describing a "minority government". Which is perfectly workable until a majority in parliament is fed up and accepts a motion of no-confidence. In many countries (mine included) there's some sort of compulsive taboo against the idea of a minority government though, despite that there are plenty of precedents.

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It's different from the Belgians, who have to have a majority vote in order to get things started, which was the point.

And no, the vote of no confidence is just that - no confidence. It doesn't include anything else. The succesor is appointed by the booted PM, and his choice isn't restricted legally, but rather by tradition, meaning that the leader of the strongest bloc gets the job. If that leader doesn't want it, he'll recommend the leader of the second strongest bloc(which is what happened when Bondevik I was appointed).

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

It's different from the Belgians, who have to have a majority vote in order to get things started, which was the point.

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We don't, there have been minority governments in Belgium, but it's far too easy to delay/destroy any law they propose, so we always seek a majority.

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Originally Posted by Conradus

We don't, there have been minority governments in Belgium, but it's far too easy to delay/destroy any law they propose, so we always seek a majority.

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Yes, you do(in fact your system is the standard one), and that's not an obstacle for forming minority governments.

When a new Belgian government is formed, a minimum of 51% of the representatives have to vote in favour of the government, but that doesn't mean they have to be a part of the government.

In short:
In Belgium, the government has to have the confidence of the parliament.
In Norway, the government doesn't need any confidence, it just needs to not have no confidence.

Any new government in Belgium is voted in. The Norwegian government isn't voted in at all.

Basically you can just make a deal with a party to give the goverment the starting support it needs. But I see your point. The government doesn't need to have that support the entire time though.

(You could actually form a legal goverment here with only 1/4 of the votes if enough people abstain.)

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Originally Posted by Conradus

Basically you can just make a deal with a party to give the goverment the starting support it needs.

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That's what "a majority vote of confidence" means ~;)

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Yes it does not automatically mean their lives were crap, but the second part of the sentence deserves qualification: their prospects were so bad they were willing to migrate quite a distance with nothing to go on but a gamble. It was their big bet.

That is true. Skeletal remains alone suggest quite strongly that the Industrial Revolution was by far the worse catastrophe ever to befall the common man, as the 19th century Industrial Revolution people are the shortest by far. But you know where this leads to, by the same token (skeletal remains) Medieval peasants are worse off than their Hunter-gatherer ancestors too...

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Well - poor people have always been surprisingly open to upping sticks, be it from France to Germany, England to the Americas, or from the East Coast to the West Coast across the Great Plains. Those are just the most obvious examples - the same impetus is behind the Viking and Mongol expansionism as well.

Consider what our own skeletal remains will say about us - endemic obesity and muscle wastage, ravaged by cancers, heart disease, diabetes... You'll be hard pressed to find most of these in medieval peasants, and not because they died young.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

That's what "a majority vote of confidence" means ~;)

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Yeah, but I thought you meant they needed that support the entire time. My bad :)

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Well - poor people have always been surprisingly open to upping sticks, be it from France to Germany, England to the Americas, or from the East Coast to the West Coast across the Great Plains. Those are just the most obvious examples - the same impetus is behind the Viking and Mongol expansionism as well.

Consider what our own skeletal remains will say about us - endemic obesity and muscle wastage, ravaged by cancers, heart disease, diabetes... You'll be hard pressed to find most of these in medieval peasants, and not because they died young.

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there aparantly is this, http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep...rain-shrinking, too

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Well - poor people have always been surprisingly open to upping sticks, be it from France to Germany, England to the Americas, or from the East Coast to the West Coast across the Great Plains

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indeed, my forbears are french hugenot on one side and irish catholic on the other, and various members of either moved out to hong-kong, india, australia and new zealand during the course of the 20th century.

my immediate family lived in east africa for six years!

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

there aparantly is this, http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep...rain-shrinking, too

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I don't care for the argument that people are getting dumber, it reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/603/

There are more factors when it comes to brain size than just volume. During the trend towards smaller brains, was there a corresponding trend for the average density of synaptic connections? If brains became smaller but more dense, then we saw a trend towards efficiency, not idiocy.

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

there aparantly is this, http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep...rain-shrinking, too

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I suppose, though there is the bit saying it's a universal change, if it was a result of diet or lifestyle in recent human history I'd think there would be some variation.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Britain also had a strong social contract and a powerful yeoman class.

Helps if your peasants can skewer a Knight at 300 yards.

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Early armorings, yes. Bodkins didn't punch through plate except at spear range. As the middle ages aged, the "pointy end" of the social contract was city-born pike and halberd blocks and not the famed yew staves of the English.

Didn't punch through strong plate but it did hit with a lot of force, even ignoring the chance for a lucky hit on a weak point, arrow strikes would be like getting hit with a hammer, concussions and fractures abound and it is a very good way to dissuade a charging knight.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

I don't care for the argument that people are getting dumber, it reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/603/

There are more factors when it comes to brain size than just volume. During the trend towards smaller brains, was there a corresponding trend for the average density of synaptic connections? If brains became smaller but more dense, then we saw a trend towards efficiency, not idiocy.

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it doesnt say ppl are getting dumber, that would be a claim they cant investigate i guess, since they dont really know how smart ppl were back then. it just says brains are getting smaller.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Early armorings, yes. Bodkins didn't punch through plate except at spear range. As the middle ages aged, the "pointy end" of the social contract was city-born pike and halberd blocks and not the famed yew staves of the English.

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Originally Posted by Greyblades

Didn't punch through strong plate but it did hit with a lot of force, even ignoring the chance for a lucky hit on a weak point, arrow strikes would be like getting hit with a hammer, concussions and fractures abound and it is a very good way to dissuade a charging knight.

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This debatable - modern bows rarely have a pull weight of over 60lb, medieval ones were in the 120-180 range, occasionally higher.

Having said that the shorted clipped bodkin could piece some plate at 100 yards, but not the best Milanese.

Given the forum, I guess it's unavoidable for any given topic to derail into a discussion of medieval weaponry eventually...

Eat that, Goodwin.

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

it doesnt say ppl are getting dumber, that would be a claim they cant investigate i guess, since they dont really know how smart ppl were back then. it just says brains are getting smaller.

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The message of the article itself doesn't say that, but one of the scientists interviewed does:

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Which brings us to an unpleasant possibility. “You may not want to hear this,” says cognitive scientist David Gearyof the University of Missouri, “but I think the best explanation for the decline in our brain size is the idiocracy theory.” Geary is referring to the eponymous 2006 film by Mike Judge about an ordinary guy who becomes involved in a hibernation experiment at the dawn of the 21st century. When he wakes up 500 years later, he is easily the smartest person on the dumbed-down planet. “I think something a little bit like that happened to us,” Geary says. In other words, idiocracy is where we are now.

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I was disagreeing with the man's hypothesis. The article itself does a good job of getting many different opinions on the matter.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

This debatable - modern bows rarely have a pull weight of over 60lb, medieval ones were in the 120-180 range, occasionally higher.

Having said that the shorted clipped bodkin could piece some plate at 100 yards, but not the best Milanese.

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Nice piece on this issue: actual tests

'blades' point about non-penetration damage is a fair point as well. The under-gear was designed to spread some of the impact force, but wouldn't have disapated it with the same efficacy associated with modern ceramics. I suspect it would minimize fractures, but contusions, possible light concussion, and getting dumped on your posterior would certainly have been possible.

Apparently the best piercer was the needle bodkin.

I think all of these numbers presume the use of steel. Iron tips -- which some argue are more likely because of cost -- would have been less effective at penetration.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Nice piece on this issue: actual tests

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It looks nice but unfortunately it is a rather bad test. If one wants anything close to the real thing then the metallurgy is important, and in this test it seems they did the usual thing with some soft steel for the armour. That is how the needle bodkin suddenly becomes so great against the plate.

Quite. Especially with steel the amount of carbon in it and other "impurities" tend to have a noticeable, if not drastic, effect on strength, flexibility and so on.

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Originally Posted by CBR

It looks nice but unfortunately it is a rather bad test. If one wants anything close to the real thing then the metallurgy is important, and in this test it seems they did the usual thing with some soft steel for the armour. That is how the needle bodkin suddenly becomes so great against the plate.

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As armor improved the effectiveness of the bodkin point and the longbow declined. By 1429 it was completely out classed by heavy armor.

It is not like they were using high quality steel armor from the start.

Steel was a rare commodity when the longbow came into military use.

It is almost impossible to replicate what arrows of the period would do to armor of the period because iron is not available and all materials would need to be processed as they were in the era.
I find no fault with the test procedures. I doubt that actual materials would have rendered a widely different kill ratio, though the penetration may have been greater. The main reason I say this is because both the armors used and the arrow points were steel. The only thing missing would have been using hardened steel plate to signify top armor grades.

Iron arrow heads would have been forged and quenched to harden them. Plate armors were work hardened by hammering. Chain was not hardened nor were the plates for a coat of plate. Only the best quality of plate armor would have been heated and quenched. Some of it would have had a high temper but ascetics would also have played a part. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Te...cksmithing.JPG

If you examine paintings of battle scenes of the time you will also note the color range of armor indicating the use of tempering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ba..._froissart.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vi...les_VII_48.jpg

Blast furnaces were spreading to the west so actual steel was becoming easier to obtain in the early 1400s. Agincourt (1415) was the last great victory for the longbow. By Patay (1429) the tables had been turned.

It is not as if it was never effective.

No fault in the test procedures?

Needle bodkins found and tested so far are shown to be of unhardened iron and of lesser quality than the type 16. He use iron and steel wire for the mail armour. Yeah, because metallurgy is just either steel or iron and that is it! The jack coat (of unknown quality) is just 15 layers when it should be 25 to 30. That he use just two layers of linen for the mail test is also pretty low. This test simply has way too little information to draw any conclusions from. And the little information we do have shows a bias against the armour. If I was to make a Tiger tank replica of mild steel and fire AT rounds at it, I won't get very far in convincing anyone about the accuracy of the results by claiming that steel is steel.

So I find many faults.

If the metallurgy of medieval armour is your thing then you should go for The Knight and the Blast Furnace. It has hundreds of pages of microstructure and hardness for all kinds of armour.

AFAIK the various colours of plate generally comes from the ways of rust protection and would give blue, black or brownish colours. Fancy armour might be gilded too.

There is a difference between finding fault with a test vs. finding fault with the test procedures.

It is also not surprising that only unhardened points have been found. Most all finds of iron objects in the ground are of unhardened iron. Hardened iron and steel are much more prone to rust away in a very short time. We know from a 1405 statute that steel points were proscribed and Medieval requisitions state the requirement for “well steeled” arrowheads.

I would also doubt that unhardened points would pierce plate or coat of plate armor. I also would rather the jack coat to have been at a minimum of 25 layers of starched or treated linen.

Further estimated draw weights of war bows went as high as 185 lbs pull. (Some estimates go as high as 200 lbs., but the best modern bowmen are topping out at about 180 lbs to date.) The test was to simulate a 100 lbs. pull bow at range. We know that battle reports stated problems with penetrating plate armors as early as 1346 at Neville’s Cross. The reports I have seen say plate armor was safe at ranges beyond 100 feet. By Verneuil in 1424 armor technology had out stripped the capabilities of the longbow to match it.

In point of fact, there have been no accurate tests performed that I can find.

The half inch military arrow should not be fired from a bow under 110 lbs. pull and preferably in the range of 150 to 165 lbs. The arrow weight should be between 1200 and 1500 grains. Judging penetration should be done on the actual armor and protective garment assemblies as worn into battle not just a sheet of steel. Judging penetration vs. plate armors should be done using varying ranges under 100 feet. Arrow heads should comply with statutes and at a minimum be case hardened materials.

It is not skimpily a matter of using the correct armor, it is also a matter of using the proper archers kit.

I find little reason to doubt that the war bow was driving improvements in armor and materials to a point. Otherwise there was little reason to go to the added expense for armor just as the English demand for yew resulted in imports from ever further a field.

In other words, you find a lot of faults in the test procedure too ~D

One interesting tidbit is that plate ended up being cheaper than mail. Maybe the Black Death did its bit to accelerate armour development too. Either way, I think Italian armourers worried more about crossbows than bows, if missile weapons was the reason for a change.

Not the procedures only the materials as tested And armor was never proof against crossbows.

The procedures used were those of the NIJ for testing modern body armor. They should be equally as good testing a bow or a .50 cal firearm. His actual tests of weapon and materials were where I find fault.

The physics of the bows may be different. I would not except a test on armor using a .22 cal. to simulate 30 cal. Testing the armor as worn because it is an assembly. We also have relative data on how components stand up using lesser weapons. The full assembly needs to be tested to assess its relative effectiveness. In the test in question, the author says he used the under padding but a full assembly of complete armor would be a more reliable gage. Also the bows should be of military standard with draw weights similar to the estimated original draw weights of the Mary Rose bows.

Crossbows had been in use even before this time, seemingly without spurring on a lot of development. A mounted man need worry about only one or two volleys of crossbow bolts from the time he came into range and the time he completed his charge.

The only advantage the war bow/longbow ever had was rate of fire. At the beginning of the era we find most knights using chain armor with unbarded horses. By the end knights are heavily armored with plate and horses are fully barded. Also Europe had gone from have vast quantities of yew to a point to were they were nearly exhausted.

Armor may possibly have developed at the same pace but England spent vast sums over the years and passed laws to ensure it had ample bowmen, bows, and arrow stocks. It was either the greatest boondoggle in history or the history of an effective weapons system that, for a time, changed the way wars were fought. Either way a definitive answer is needed.

Of course there will always be some who will not except the outcome no matter how it turns out.

I don't know why you think the bow suddenly is supposed to be have been a boondoggle? Warbows were comparable in power to strong one-foot crossbows. Good protection was always important against such missile weapons. We see a gradual increase in armour protection (like coat of plates from around mid 13th century) before the English appeared with large numbers of archers, and same thing for barded horses.

All this has little to do with the flawed test: bad armour and a non-historical arrowhead, with the needle bodkin as the winner against plate being the prime example of a suspect result (they have a tendency to bend in other tests)

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Originally Posted by CBR

I

All this has little to do with the flawed test: bad armour and a non-historical arrowhead, with the needle bodkin as the winner against plate being the prime example of a suspect result (they have a tendency to bend in other tests)

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Explain?


If regulations required steel or at a minimum case hardened points even if we have not discovered on it does not make them non-historical. It means that either case hardening has corroded away and left only the iron or that we uncovered evidence of cheating on the standards. It does not alter the standards.

Steel and case hardened iron rust quicker. Many of the swords we find in the ground are only iron. Does this mean they didn’t harden their swords? They would be useless. in battle. What it means is that the hardening is not in evidence because it rusted away.

The regulations does not tell us the types of arrowheads they used. http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-w...ing-arrowheads It is my understanding that they don't have that many arrowheads to go by, but apparently no needle bodkins have been found from 15th century and after. If we then go by the large numbers of crossbow bolts found, then it is the short stocky types that is the most common. Since plate became the common type of armour, the needle type should have found more use if it was so good against it.

A much better test would be the Defense Academy warbow trials http://www.ingentaconnect.com/conten...00001/art00005 that shows Lozenge and short bodkins being better. The test does have its flaws with the arrowheads being too hard and the armour at the lower end of what it should be, but at least the authors acknowledge it. The needle type is simply too fragile when the armour gets too thick or the bow too strong, and it is quite likely that the angle of impact has to be very good or it is useless. (My Skydrive is a mess so I forgot about that test, otherwise I would have posted it earlier, sorry)

Huh, and here was me wondering why the War of the Roses game's bodkin only had a bonus to drop off reduction instead of armour penetration.

Also seems to be putting a bit of a crimp in my memories of Bernard Cornwell's "Azincort", makes me wonder if the English shouldn't have bothered waiting for the knights to get close before switching to bodkins.

Anyroad back on topic.

This is why some people should'nt have the vote. I think they're called the hard of thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skw-...layer_embedded