Why in ancieant history were there butt naked soldiers.
ps i'm no historian.
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Why in ancieant history were there butt naked soldiers.
ps i'm no historian.
They liked to feel the power of the Gods between their legs.
I swear the reason they were naked is to scare the enemy or something.:dizzy2:Quote:
Originally Posted by TruePraetorian
Intimidation, and tradition. Simply that.
Besides wasn't being naked not such a cultural taboo back then? Still was quite scary to see a guy willing to forsake protection (HAHA) and charge at you wielding a rather large sword.
That sounded quiet 'Wrong'Quote:
Originally Posted by Rilder
Copied from a comment I made in the EB II Forum about Celtic Endowments (of all things trivial...).
Gaesatai, looking frightening, erect and naked, "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHRRR!!!! Die Roman Scum!!!"
Elephant, "How do you pick up anything with that?"
Gaesatai, puzzled and suddenly aware of his endowment compared to elephant, "Eh??"
Caius Cominius Dolabra, ducking low and with a precise stab, "There you go, problem removed".
Never understood the idea of running into battle with your knob swinging openly and exposed to cuts. Especially since I have had mine hit with a hard blow from a sword (fortunately a blunt) and I can tell you it definately takes you out of action.
Perhaps it is because many people have a deep fear of serpents and snakes. Or maybe it was a backup weapon.
Actually to my knowledge the reason men charged into battle naked was because of the drugs, to instill fear in the enemy, and I believe the main reason is because they did not need armor or shields because the power of their faith protected them.
I remember reading about how some vikings or nords or people of the sort charged into battle shieldless for this exact reason: their faith was the shield that protected them.
Were naked soldiers common in the past?
It probably did also to the Romans who were to be intimidated by such traditions, as it probably did to the other gallic soldiers who saw an incredible courage demonstrated.Quote:
Originally Posted by georgeman51
I hate it when I fight my hastati Head-To-Head with naked celtic spearmen and the spearmen win, my hastati had 3 chevrons and and a armour upgrade.
TP that is 99% one of those myths being perpetuated about my forefathers that is not true but tries to enhance their reputation though the truth should give them a large enough reputation as it is...
I guess fighting naked must have been a common part of tradition in several cultures, one of them being the Gallic cultures. Diodorus Siculus, Livius, Polybius and Dionysios of Halicarnassos all wrote of Gallic soldiers fighting naked.Quote:
Originally Posted by georgeman51
However, to be sure these recordings aren't a mere copies of one another, or even 'myths', one should confront them with a gallic source telling about naked soldiers. Are there any gallic statues, pictures, stories or some other source (perhaps even written by a conquered gaul) telling about naked soldiers?
Ah I see, so the whole faith thing is just a cover story then for all those "free willies?" :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
Probably, people used all sorts of exuses to make pron before pron was legalised ;-)
The Vikings were fearsome enough as it was, no need to add to it.
Nords? This is no Mount and Blade :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:. It is Norse. Nords only exist in M&B.Quote:
Originally Posted by TruePraetorian
Good to see a fellow fan :yes:. Or maybe simply a fellow absent-minded person :laugh4:.
:laugh4: Yes, I am sure that is exactly what men in war were making during battle. Forget about the women, they wanted naked men.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
As I recall Seutonius wrote:
"And the barbarians charged at Caesar's men with blood hurdling cries, naked in all their ferocity. But in the depths of the sound of battle, Caesar's voice was heard.
'Cut! Alright guys, line up and we will shoot it again. Oh, and Vercingetorix, put a little more sway into your hips this time.'"
EDIT:
Both :laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus
Add in weird magick symbolism to add to the overall intimidation effect, BTW. "Entrusting your survival to the Gods" type of thing from what I gather.
Well naked soldiers, were common in the past, not only in classical age, even in medieval age, i remeber, some ghazis of the empire ottoman, charge sometimes naked, or only wearing fur cloths.They usualy use drugs to get to a higher adrenalines rush, to deprive then selfs from fear. to be naked was a matter of proving himselfs, in battle to win honnor , also of course to intimidate the enemy, they usualy were used as cannon fodder, to confused the enemy in the first waves of assault.The use of drugs on soldiers, is a comon practise, even in recent days we have alots of exemples of this.
The notion of the politic wrong and correct is very relative, even today, and specialy today maybe. i dont find people been naked wrong...actualy is our natural form, whatever you like it or not. and i doubt that people in acient ages were afraid of naked mens, they were afraid yes of those maniac charges, and of people who were so fanatic,and brave, that they feel no need to wear nothing to protect then selfs.
They didnt need porn, they had bachanalias and dionysus orgies and other feast parties. with temple virgens, and slaves, etc.... hehe nice era.Quote:
Probably, people used all sorts of exuses to make pron before pron was legalised ;-)
The Vikings were fearsome enough as it was, no need to add to it.
What about caveman fights?
lepard print bikini?Quote:
Originally Posted by antisocialmunky
Speaking of modern-day Gaesatae: Joshua Blahyi a.k.a General Butt Naked
Basically a Liberian warlord who fought naked and took part in human sacrifices (to the Devil), blood drinking, etc. Now a big-wheel preacher in that nation :inquisitive:.
I read that as "Librarian Warlord" then imagined this naked guy throwing books at people..Quote:
Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus
To enter battle naked with no protection but a circlet, sword and maybe a shield was a sign of ultimate bravery. To come back alive was a sign of ultimate prowess. Think about how you'd have to prepare yourself to do that. Think about your enemy, how scared he'd be to see an angry Celt, 6 foot tall, completely naked, screaming, with woad paint all over him. Now think about hundreds of these guys running at you... you still haven't seen the main line of Celts too! This is just the first strike!
Fear. It's a force to be reckoned with. I think a lot of people around here discount the element of fear. Though I've never been under fire, or in combat, I've been privy to MANY stories, not just from Afghanistan, but older guys as well, such as Somalia, Cyprus, Bosnia. Fear is always there, and it can grab even the best of us by the balls. Some of the biggest guys my friends have seen have buckled in their boots when the RPG's start flying.
I imagine there is no difference in that respect from todays battlefield and yesterdays. Fear can be a powerful ally if you can harness it. It can also be your worst enemy. Forcing an enemy, whom already sees your people as hideous monsters to bear witness to a "grotesque" and frightening shock tactic could cause a massive rout. Even if not initially, the men who've seen the display still will have that image imprinted in their skulls.
Celtic warfare was heavily rooted in shock and fear tactics. Romans preferring a more modest and contained approach to warfare were horrified to see the Celts mooning them and shaking their bollocks in their face before an attack. It was all a part of how they conducted themselves in order to incite fear into the enemy. A brave or courageous man would however use this against them, using it to further dehumanize the enemy and make taking their lives all that much easier.
Moral is everything in battle. Look at the battle of the bulge, the airborne divisions were cold, tired, had no ammunition, but still held on. Despite losing many friends, they held on. They repelled assault after assault from the Germans even though their tanks rolled on them fast, but they still held... Thats because they kept together, organized and kept their moral up. Had they all been disheartened, and doubted they could survive, we'd have lost the battle of the bulge. The way we kill eachother changes, the human element never does.
EDIT: is that better? Suck my force!
https://img33.imageshack.us/img33/1592/enterkey.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
You know if you press this key every few sentences, it makes your post a whole lot easier to read.
quoted from wiki (again) ...
German sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority to be one of three forms of authority, the other two being traditional (feudal) authority and legal or rational (bureaucratic) authority. According to Weber, charisma is defined thus:
"...a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which one is "set apart" from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These as such are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as divine in origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader."
Political examples of charismatic authority include figures like kings, warrior heroes and absolute dictators. Religious examples of charismatic authority include prophets, messiahs and oracles. Whatever the case, the authority figure claims to have special powers or knowledge unavailable to others.
Naked warriors,heroes,berserkers,Ghazis,religious prophets,inspiring commanders, leaders and generals perceived as "divine" and "god-like" are all aspects of this same charismatic authority...
Stereotypes, we have mostly greek and roman sources who are sometimes quite gifted with fantasy. I doubt that the naked warriors were so common, for example the weather is an important factor. I doubt that people fought naked when it was snowing, or raining and such. Germania, the British isles and Gallia can be quite cold you know. So I'm quite skeptical about this.
Is it proven that this tactic actually works in some famous (or less) battle? I'm pretty doubtful this fear-factor was so huge in battle (Romans faced gauls, germans and celts, and very very seldom lost), i think the naked-fighting was more about a sign of bravery used in Celtic society to grow in prestige.Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
I'm quite doubtful about that. In antiquity you could actually SEE the enemy and you can DO something to avoid death. You could be succesful or not, but your destiny was influenced by your skills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
Today, death come from far away. You can do nothing against an hidden sniper, or even a good aiming enemy soldier with an assault rifle. Needless to talk about any form of artillery.
I think today a soldier is MUCH more subject to fear, because he knows that he could have nothing to do to avoid death.
I agree with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apázlinemjó
Oh there number would be relatively small anyway, since not nearly every celt was a fanatic to such a degree.... As for the weather.... The naked aspect was mainly meant to apply in Battle, so I doubt these men would be naked all the time.... Also Yes it can be very cold, but imagine people STILL charging naked into battle, even more intimidating I'd say...
I find myself in agreement with celtic Punk
Pff, mainland European and British winters. They ain't that cold.
Anyways, I don't recall anyone ever implying them nekkid d00ds were even relatively common; certainly the Celtic ones seem to have been rather unusual (some kind of warrior cult presumably), and seem to drop off the radar after a few centuries for the most part so eh...
Actually, it is quite the opposite. Both common psychological sense and a couple of books on military theory I have read stated it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikhail Mengsk
Basically, people are not afraid of what they cannot see as much as they are afraid of what they can see. Historians and psychologists often noted the strange calmness of people during the Battle of Britain. As long a certain group of people was not being bombed right that day, they seemed eerily calm whenever asked about the bombings. They simply could not comprehend that it could happen to them. Well; they could, but they still could not grasp it. Just like adolescents. They know that they can easily be killed; but yet they have an odd feeling that nothing bad will ever happen to them. Psychologists rationalised that we were not programmed evolutionary speaking, to respond to dangers from above, as we had no aerial predators.
Artillery and other long range weapons work similarly, as does the fact that people do not get murdered at close range, butchered with spears, swords, clubs, etc. Slaughter is much more sterilised today, even with the indiscriminate and often maiming nature of weapons. Getting shot simply doe not compare with being disembowelled by a seemingly utterly foreign, savage, barbarian, Gallic Swordsman. Another reason why units rout less and are more resilient nowadays.
As for naked warriors and weather, first of all, once a battle starts, even in the deepest of a winter, you are panting and sweating like swine after couple of moments of combat. The naked soldiers could take their clothing off at the last moment. Secondly, winter battles were rare, as winter campaigns were almost non-existent. "Finding a place to winter" was a common expression for a reason. Logistics was a problem back then, and due to the absence of motorized transport, it was a painfully noticeable absence. Romans had a nifty system, but really, until Napoleon (and the canned food one man invented in a competition created by Napoleon) no armies had a solid, regular, and highly organised and efficient supply system. Living off the land it was.
As for autumn and spring, some moments could be quite chilly, but forget not that one can condition himself to resist the cold. Such as Russian morzhi (walruses), to name a few. The morzhi are people who swim in the dead of the winter in freezing waters with nothing on but swimming trunks. It is not impossible, and the fact that they are moving, exercising, and not standing still, surely helps.
Most of this thread is a horrible goldmine of double entendres.
They might have done it to impress the ladies, too, unless of course they were Gayesatae.
What are Gayesatae?Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Dogs
its a pun of Gaesatae-note the Gay-esatae.Quote:
Originally Posted by georgeman51
You bitch about European winters! HAH!! I do the polar dip every year here in Canada. If I can last in below freezing waters, naked with nothing but swimming trunks. I'd have no problem with the cold if I was keeping myself warm with killing other men.
I think seeing thousands of angry heavilly armed men rushing at you is much more frightening than a sniper. To fight on the ancient battlefield you must mentally prepare yourself. I am more inclined to believe the fear factor on both the modern battlefield and those of the classical era would be quite similar. The same way you stand on the line and prepare yourself to go toe to toe with the romans, or celts, or persians, or whathave you, is the SAME mental preparation you'd have done to take that step out of your C-47, to step off the landing craft onto France, to go over the top! It's all the same. Every soldier must prepare himself for the moment that is to come. To take that first step out the back of your LAV in an ambush, its the same feeling the boys felt when they went over the top.Quote:
I'm quite doubtful about that. In antiquity you could actually SEE the enemy and you can DO something to avoid death. You could be succesful or not, but your destiny was influenced by your skills.
Today, death come from far away. You can do nothing against an hidden sniper, or even a good aiming enemy soldier with an assault rifle. Needless to talk about any form of artillery.
I think today a soldier is MUCH more subject to fear, because he knows that he could have nothing to do to avoid death.
You cannot make the assumption it's not. There is no way in Hell you could prove otherwise.
The word Nord is actually something which was appropriated from history by the fantasy industry. Nord was originally one of a few singular specific forms of Norse, the other most common being Norseman. I don't have a reference handy, but the word does appear in historical texts. It has fallen out of fashion with the academic community in direct proportion to its rising popularity in fiction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus
In ancient times, and even as recently as the late 1800s, language was far less standardized than it is now. Many slight variations existed for any given word, and Nord(ic) is an example of that. Most of these variations died out and were lost to history or filed under "archaic/obsolete" but that one survived for whatever reason. One form actually appears in Mirriam-Webster, although it is incorrect regarding the nominal form.
Regarding the OT it's pretty much been answered. Demonstration of bravery, intimidation of the enemy, paradoxical love of, and disregard for, one's mangina, etc.
There would definitely be a "brag factor". If you could go into battle without any sort of protection at all, and come out, not just alive, but also victorious, it definitely did something for your status as a brave man and a renowned warrior.
People don't seem to have been gettings PTSDs overmuch back in the day, though. One suspects the difference comes from the "dosage" of fear - in modern wars soldiers are under the threat of death, and hence considerable stress, more or less all the time they're in the war zone; and extended periods of stress are just plain unhealthy for anyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
And they still get the same brief, intense bouts of sheer terror in actual combat that were all the soldiers of bygone ages normally had to deal with, too.
By the by, by all accounts hand-to-hand combat is also much more... viscerally scary than getting shot at. Back in the musket-and-bayonet days for example your average line infantry unit could get shot to shreds and still hold its position quite stubbornly (period observers speak of "closing lines towards the center" as the men shifted to close the gaps that appeared in the line) - but a single determined bayonet charge was wont to put even fresh ones into flight in one go.
one of my my granpas fought in the Big War, he served in a destroyer of an allied naval force ... he told me that in times of crisis with planes bombing and flying around ,torpedoes running through, men blown up in pieces or burnt alive or amputated or ships sinking taking their entire crew with them sailors performed their duties in a strange "panickless" almost mechanised way... stress and fear was an everyday companion but somehow it disapeared during the battle durin which training and the need to take immediate actions prevailed... i would have liked to ask him more abt the subject but sadly he's dead :no:
Far as I know the modern training paradigm is to drill the soldiers in their tasks thoroughly enough that under fire they don't "freeze up" but do something if only on "autopilot" - hopefully the correct thing, but I understand that generally doing almost anything is much better than doing nothing.
Don't forget the inferior fellings from the Romans and Hellenes...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
You know I heard adrenaline - notoriously copiously produced by assorted glands in combat - mainly just shrinks your "Tower of Power"... :smash:
If I'm in the heat of battle the last thing I'm worried about is my penis size.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
this is true till the last part. Sometimes doing nothing is what you need to do. Training replaces instinct, which is what is going to get you killed in the firefight. You've got to shut down your brain and act on your aggression and training. Fear seizes up your instinct. all thats left is your training. Its the only thing that should be in your mind. "Clear your mind, your ass will follow."Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
You earlier said something about intense bouts of fear in firefights aswel, this doesn't happen in the war we fight today. A few of my buddy's in country right now send me back videos of firefights, arty strikes, airstrikes, all sorts of awesome stuff! one of my buds is a .50cal gunner on an HMMWV, hearing them scream "Wooohooo!" more than anything else tells me that their havin' the time of their lives.
"There's nothing in this whole world that makes you feel more alive than being shot at by a towelhead with an PKM", so he says. I bet you any warrior that fought under good old Vertingorix would tell you the same. "There's nothing in this world that makes you feel more alive than 10 000 romans running straight for you!", or something along those lines. Liquid courage probably went along way too for some of those battles.
The fact of the matter is there is something powerful when you have an army behind you... In this case you literally did have an army behind you. And though you might have pissed your pants thinking about being dizembowelled by a spear 20 minutes ago, Now that the lines are closing, its just like WWI when you went over the top, whether you were scared or not. You forgot about that fear, and you ran, and you ran, and you ran. And with 15, 20 000 men all smashing their shields together and yelling and screaming and being obscene, you couldn't help but become insatiably thirsty for the inevitable. After all, for a Celt, to die honourably in battle was the greatest thing a man could do. Same with the Spartans, and I'm sure many many other peoples from the books of history.
I guarantee you all the same goes for the professional class of warrior then as it does for now. Your time spent training gives you an eagerness. I myself am quite eager to fight a war. I've trained and trained, I've spent more than enough time shooting paper targets stabbing dummy's and clearing killhouses. We're all eager. Eager to kill, Eager to fight, Eager to test ourselves and our training. Its not that we're messed up in the head or anything. But its like when you learn CPR, you think about using it for real, you wonder, could you really save a life? Its the same thing, you train and train and train. You become eager to do your job. Your will to fight grows and grows. It will outweigh your fears 10 fold. I am 150% certain the same went for the professionals of antiquity.
I don't think your buddy would be so adrenalinic under heavy artillery barrage. When you are FIGHTING, adrenaline can overwhelm fear. When you are under fire, and you could do nothing against the enemy, is much different. Snipers are the most fearsome threat in urban warfare, because you KNOW that if you make the wrong move, he will kill you. Artillery can kill you even if you are far from the battle field.
Ancient warfare was all about the single battle. A few hours or a day of adrenaline and fear. In modern warfare, you are ALWAYS in danger. In WW1 and WW2 soldiers fired to themselves trying to be evacuated. The stress accumulates day by day, always growing.
WW2 american military studies stated that a soldier would reach the best of his battle conditions in the first weeks, but after 90 days the risk of a mental collapse was almost sure. Much depends on training and individual "strenght", but after 90 days an "average" soldier is very near to collapse.
There was a good point regarding PTSD in modern soldiers. I had always wondered what it was that changed things - whether modern men were simply more prone to mental difficulties or perhaps there was simply much lower reporting at the time, but the concept of a more limited scope of danger may have contributed greatly.
Do you have a reference where you got that concept from, or is it your original thinking? I would like to quote that in the future if it exists somewhere . . .
Regarding the penis size differential between Romans and Celts
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I think I may have died a little inside having participated in that conversation at an intellectual level. Thanks for that /wrist O.o
You are speaking about a conflict between two first rate militaries. Where battles result in numberless casualties on both sides. Where as on the MODERN battlefield things are not so brutal or bloody. The casualty counts are much lower. The amount of enemy ordinance fired as us is exponentially lower. And we're fighting people who have no damn clue how to fire a rifle, let alone execute complicated infantry manoeuvres. Hill boys, all of them, flippin' hillboys.
You can hear the rounds from the Taliban flying over their heads, green red and yellow tracers all up the line, and nobody cares. Its the most intense, incredible, and probably pretty fun experience anyone can experience. All this changes when a friend goes down though. Things change from counting the one's you drop to getting your buddy out alive if he still is. The gravity of the situation changes. collapsing back on your vehicle is probably a lot more scary than when you rushed out of it. Especially when you are providing covering fire for your buddy bleeding from his chest profusely. As long as everything is fine, your havin' the time of your life.
As far as snipers go? The vast majority of those clowns can't hit anything to begin with. Line up the top 10 shooters of the tallywally-ban, and I could outshoot em all on any given day. And you can quote me on that.
Like naked celts, the taliban rely on fear as their weapon. The only thing we're scared of is the road exploding. And even thats in the back of the mind of EVERY soldier, except the doctors that pick up the pieces afterwards. Its a lottery, when your number is picked, its your time. There's nothing you can do. If you live by that, nothing should scare you.
EDIT: to Mikhail Mengsk - Nearly every morning he's woken up by mortar barrages inside the perimeter. 81mm mortars are no howitzers, yeah, but thats still heavy duty ordinance. Thats an artillery barrage in my book, and the army's.
This is not 'Nam. The man in the black pyjamas was a worthy adversary. These clowns can't tell a receiver from a firing pin for chrissake.
All this is because the "war we fight today" is so horrendously lopsided - ragged urban guerillas and angry hill tribes with shoelace budgets and virtually no heavy weaponry to speak of versus some of the most grossly potent and best-equipped space-age military forces on the whole planet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
I suggest reading witness descriptions on what kind of great fun it is to be at the receiving end of an artillery barrage or a massed armoured attack, of which kinds of experiences the World War memoirs for example are quite full of, to get a more realistic and balanced perspective regarding what modern war between at least reasonable equals is like psychologically.
There are still significant numbers of PTSD sufferers coming out of the War On Terror though - much greater than those that came from, say, the Roman conquest of Gaul. How do you reconcile that?
Me ? I was just pointing out that said friend's perspective was clearly skewed by the simple fact he wasn't on the receiving end of all the heavy ordinance and general ghastly firepower and junk modern wars involve. Lopsided, as it were.
Also machoBS psychological coping mechanism, but I figured that was too obvious to require pointing out; doesn't keep people from coming back all scarred inside either, far as I know.
Don't get me wrong, I was by no means belittling that war. Read the earlier posts I made. There is not a single day that I get up and don't think about what kind of courage it must have taken my grandfather to get up every day, sometimes multiple times in a day to get into the cockpit of his spitfire, and rise up to meet hundreds of german aircraft. with only 20 seconds of ammunition and still take it in stride. Hell, what I remember of the man you'd never be able to tell that more than half of his friends died when he was no older than I am now. That's courage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
What was it that Churchill said? "Never in the history of man has so much been owed by so many to so few."
My grandfather was an infantry squad leader - and we fought the Soviets back then. Let's just say that reading firsthand accounts of what it's like to fight an enemy with vastly superior equipement and heavier weaponry, nevermind now general resources, helps put things in perspective.
Simo Häyä...Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
SISU FTW!!!
But that is OT.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
you guys gave birth to the greatest sniper of all time. And only because he was a legendary hunter. Skills of a battlefield sniper are one with a hunter, this much is true. 800 kills in 100 days. Amazing.
The winter war was a huge display of how a motivated individual can stand up to the many, in the face of all odds stacked against you. It also proves that moral is everything. Had your people been defeated in spirit you'd have been rolled over by the soviets.
How do you know that? We don't have statistics on that war, and the Romans may not have had a single term for PTSD. It could be a wide-spread problem that simply wasn't noticed by those in who left us records. After all, the writing of commentaries and histories is an upper-class activity; we have no records about how the Roman proletariat felt. Furthermore, our society as a whole is quite obsessed with health and performance, and our media far more able to report on it: just because we didn't hear about it previously doesn't mean it wasn't there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Exosus
On the other hand, there are psychological and physiological differences between acute stress and chronic stress. An ancient battle must have been a terrifying experience, but outside of the battlefield you were mostly safe. Modern warriors on the other hand have to be constantly on their guard, because even when in camp they can still be attacked by snipers or mortar fire. There is no sanctuary for them anymore. I think that must contribute too to problem.
Speaking of snipers, a distant relative by marriage was one during the war. Unlike grandpa, who "wrote out" his war traumas like many vets did, he AFAIK *never* refers to those times...Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
Go fig.
More like rank idiocy and institutionalised incompetence do wonders to negate advantages in resources and technology.Quote:
The winter war was a huge display of how a motivated individual can stand up to the many, in the face of all odds stacked against you. It also proves that moral is everything. Had your people been defeated in spirit you'd have been rolled over by the soviets.
The finnish defence is attributed to hardy soldiers fighting tired and demoralized massed infantry columns.
plus stalin killed like 90% of his officers because they weren't commies.
F#%in' retard, experienced officers especially at a platoon and company level are indispensable! The difference 1 company can make on a line can be the difference between breakthrough or counter attack. The movies got it right guys! the asshat straight outta westpoint who can't read a compass or doesn't trust his non-coms gets his men killed. Calls in arty short, or freezes up in the middle of an attack. Or just plain makes stupid calls in combat that end up with dead troopers.
By the way you know Simo used a Russian Mosin? the shorter version because he was a short arse himself! :beam: I still can't get over his kill count. His kills per day mean at 8 kills a day, taking into account he might not kill the same number of men each day, or he might not kill any? this means he must have averaged around 5-8 kills a day. Sometimes getting as many as 15 kills or so in a day. This means he probably took out a freakin platoon single handedly! He was a definite trooper. A true soldier, and a well motivated individual. He gets my handshake, thats for sure.
I could write you a short article on the topic, thanks. Let's just say that gross Soviet stupidity, and the blunt fact the Red Army wasn't configured to fight in the terrain while the Finnish one was, played a rather major part.
You are talking about PTSD as if it were a recognized illness in antiquity.... It was not... I am sure a lot of people got severely twisted by the wars they fought, but without anyone even knowing what PTSD even was it would not be recognized as much.... I'm sure there were psychotic and traumatized soldiers though.... When Carthage was sacked the roman Commander rotated the kill squads that went into Carthage to make sure they wouldn't go mad with slaughter they were wreaking. So most probably they did know that battle did something to a man.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Exosus
Modern warfare has a different fear factor... especially in city warfare the enemy is virtually invisible, which I can imagine to be very very unnerving indeed... it also might bring a sense of being powerless to do anything about enemy snipers and whatnot.... Different times different wars different kind of fears....
I would remind you that "shell shock", as what today's psychology calls PTSD was known back then, first turned up in large scale in the trenches of WW1. It should tell something that the problem was quite novel in spite of Europeans by that point having spent a round half millenia shooting each other to bits - and you get three guesses at what was the main functional difference between that and earlier wars...
Nothing a few bursts of .50cal through a building can't deal with!
In all seriousness though. Look at the havoc the Fallujah sniper wrought. I can tell at least a few Marines were worried to strap their body armour on for patrol during those days.
Also I am sure that it was understood back in antiquity that battle changed a man, and not all men could deal with the change. They didn't understand it as we do today, but we don't even understand it today either. Shellshock was widely unheard of until The Great War. Soldiers unharmed by shrapnel were still coming off the line as casualties of war. This however is a totally different form of PTSD than what we're talking about.
I'm very sure Romans returning from Caesars conquest of Gaul were haunted by the massacre of the women and children and had many many many sleepless nights. I know I would.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
indeed...
Well I would imagine it didn't help make them very nice and well-socialised people anyway. Though from what I gather the Romans didn't appear to have particularly major problems with shell-shocked veterans no longer "fitting in" back in the civvie world, quite in spite of their longstanding Assyrian policies.
For that matter, the same seems to roughly be the case with the various more-or-less tribal warrior societies where perfectly regular Joes were commonly enough expected and called up to fight and kill and were rarely any nicer than anyone else in victory. And in some cases, at least if the Roman sources are to be believed, didn't even qualify as full adults before slaying a foeman...
No, assorted "war psychoses" don't appear to have been very common back in the day, inasmuch as can be gleaned from the sources. *Some* individuals do seem to display at least some of the symptoms of PTSD, but even among grizzled veterans it appears uncommon. Neither does it seem to have been much of a problem in the much better documented European armies of Middle Ages and later - before WW1, that is.
No, assorted "war psychoses" don't appear to have been very common back in the day, inasmuch as can be gleaned from the sources. *Some* individuals do seem to display at least some of the symptoms of PTSD, but even among grizzled veterans it appears uncommon. Neither does it seem to have been much of a problem in the much better documented European armies of Middle Ages and later - before WW1, that is.[/QUOTE]
Very important bit that... Not much can be gleaned from the sources... I have a feeling that psychoses were not something generally known, and if known would probably be attributed to their being soldiers (as these would be the people most affected) even in this day PTSD is a very slippery thing, and we do not know a whole lot about it. we do know that many war veterans were not recognized as having PTSD. People in their environment will notice changes, but often enough they do not recognise the signals either. Also I think that modern armies take better care of their soldiers, with cooling down periods after tours of duty psychic evals etc. A soldier in the classic antiquity would probably have to bring his own weapons and armour, and after the war was done he was dismissed with maybe a nice sum if the war had gone well. Only the elitest of the elite would resemble something that can vaguely be decribed as a professional soldier... Rome after the marian reforms was of course the glaring exception to this rule.... There was not so much care for the soldiers nor such a close scrutiny as it is today... many people suffering from what we now call PTSD would simply not be recognised....
We do however have any number of biographies written of men who often made their careers, and spent *decades*, as mercenaries and soldiers, often enough right in the front lines too. And I understand what can be tentatively identified as PTSD symptoms are uncommon even among such men; for example IIRC I've seen it theorised *one* of the senior officers of the Ten Thousand mercenaries who signed up for Cyrus the Younger's coup can be interpreted as showing signs, going by the description of Xenophon and maybe others, and THIS was after a few decades of intensive warfare in the Greek world...
Quite simply, also judging by the relatively well documented "gunpowder era" armies of later times, battles themselves, while usually bloody and frightening enough, don't cause much in the way of such problems. After all, few ever lasted longer than a day; the experience of battle might be terrifying, but it was also brief and thereafter the survivors returned to relatively peaceful and secure campaign routines (death by disease and hunger being something civilians already were familiar at most times and places, such would not have been particularly scarring). It is the endless gnawing fear and stress modern wars impose on soldiers at the front lines, day after day after day, that seems to slowly wear out most peoples' mental fortitude. This was in part noted also in practice in the form of grizzled veterans' relative reluctance to take the kinds of risks greenhorns and not-yet-burnt-out bloodied formations often seemed to greet with relish. The hardened veterans were quite *good* at fighting and staying alive, obviously; but they had also been through enough already to be through with heroics as well as the whole shit in general and just wanted to get home in one piece. "Someone else's turn to go first," I've seen it summed up.
I think men who broke down after battle were seen to have a problem within themselves, not the fact that they'd witnessed a traumatic event.
The continued war as Watchman has mentioned toils away at a man's very soul. The worst war for this was Vietnam. Because of the terrain it forces a man to change into something very less than human in order to survive. You can take the man out of the jungle... you cannot take the jungle out of the man. Any Americans here who's dad fought in 'Nam will tell you this. I've got an American friend who's dad fought in 'Nam. Guy's quiet as a mouse now, but stories of his dad before 'Nam, he was happy go lucky, eccentric even. I think Vietnam's especial brutality and the addition of jungle to the mix really pushed men's mental stability to the end. Something happens in the jungle. It happened in ww2 with the indian regiments fighting the Japanese, it happened in Vietnam, and it'll happen sometime again down the road. Vietnam's situation was compounded with the draft and the length of the war though. Plus not to mention the amount of innocence that was lost in that country... the average age of an allied soldier in ww2 was 35... in 'nam it was around 18.
That is a myth perpetuated by the old single "19", but you should believe what you hear in music even less than what you see on TV!!!
Average age of the US GI KIA in Vietnam was 23.1 years.
Source, http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,84591,00.html
BTW, the war the US fought in Vietnam pales in comparison with the French one. What made the US one so bad on US psyche was the resistance of hippies back home, the lack of understanding in general of civilians and the fact that they lost.
It would be interesting to know, for the sake of comparision, how the *natives* dealt with jungle warfare. One would assume they had rather little trouble with the environment itself, after all...
Kind of reminds me of how in the Winter War most of the soldiers of the initial Soviet columns, hailing from the plains of Ukraine and thereabouts, swiftly developed an almost superstitious fear for the deep Northern European forests they found themselves in.
Well... those woods were full of Finns with knives and SMGs...
At least so it felt cause of the great Finnish mobility and stealth. Notice that in the Continuation War the Reds did slightly better.
Many of the soldiers in the Vietnamese army that fought the French were from cities as cities proved ripe recruiting ground for the Commies and these had to be acclimatisised first.
Missing the point, though that of course contributed. The thing is that they came to fear the forest itself as an alien and threatening environment, and in several instances apparently went out of their way to clear out the trees around their positions above and beyond what was needed to establish unobstructed fields of vision and fire - basically, to get some open space around themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
They also did rather better in the later stages of the Winter War when they sent in units raised from "Forest Russia" - that is, familiar with woodlands and moving in them, and MUCH less wont to develop a morbid fear of the environment itself. Still didn't help the acute unsuitability of their tactical doctrine for the environment, though, and indeed the Germans in northern Finland suffered from the exact same problem and on several occasions got severely wrong-footed by more "woodwise" Soviet units.Quote:
Notice that in the Continuation War the Reds did slightly better.
In what way do you maen it paled in comparison, in the losses of the frenche, the brutality on both sides or something else? (I genuinely do not understand what you mean)Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
@ celtic punk I tend to agree with your view on this....
As for jungle warfare... I have no idea tbh.... i can imagine the jungle to be a rather brutal enveronment for them too... after all peple rarely live in the jungle in large numbers... Cambodia and Thailand and parts of Vietnam have long been intensely cultivated.... so lot's of open spaces... The jungle would probable not be the battlefield of choice for civilizations that lived around them, since those parts that were jungle had little actual value to said cultures. Also the fact that the cambodians and Thais were known to make exessive use of war elephants I tend to think they would not choose jungle as their preferred terrain of battle..... Also there would have been jungle tribes.... I do not know whether they would be subjugated or not, but if not, that is another indication, if yes I am mistaken and those cultures did extensively campaign in the jungle....
i thought a great part of today's problems from soldiers returning from war is that they don't cope well with the return to citizen life ... the war is a rough violent school and some people can't simply switch back to the rules of civility... the closer i have come to understanding this principle is by reading Conrad's heart of darkness and also Hitler's writings...
The French were basically fighting a colonial war, and the various atrocities (My Lai) that occurred in select American groups was practically the norm before they arrived. For the French, the Vietnamese were simply unruly subjects that needed to be disciplined, and there was no sense in giving them any leeway for anything.
In converse, because the Jungle wasn't as valuable, it makes it a more desireably fighting location. Think about the North African campaign, where the valueless desert was simply given away until an important city was reached. In any case, many Southeast Asians knew the jungle and saw it enough in their daily lives to simply disregard it. Americans had no experience with it whatsoever.
The natives, even if city-dwellers, would also have been accustomed to the tropical climate.
Pretty easy to be the superpower who fight the poorly armed and trained insurgents, isn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
Pretty easy to be able to call the air cavalry and the heavy artillery every time you want.
Pretty easy to call in an air strike and to level entire villages to the ground before even attacking.
Pretty easy talking about clowns, tallywally and flippin' hillboys when you are a fully trained (one of the best of the world, no problem to recognize it) and equipped (same thing) modern soldier, and you have all kind of support available today.
Next time invade a comparable modern military nation like China, Germany or Russia, you will see the combat from another point of view. 81mm mortars, what a HUGE artillery barrage! Try to be on the receiving end of a 220mm thermobaric artillery like Russian TOS. You will find it pretty scary, i think.
Quote: Ludens
That's what i'm talking about: continuous stress led to mental collapse. In antiquity, after the decisive battle (that was relatively shorter than a modern battle) a soldier had time to recover and rest. For soldiers, being effectively away from the front is a very very good think for their mental health.Quote:
On the other hand, there are psychological and physiological differences between acute stress and chronic stress. An ancient battle must have been a terrifying experience, but outside of the battlefield you were mostly safe. Modern warriors on the other hand have to be constantly on their guard, because even when in camp they can still be attacked by snipers or mortar fire. There is no sanctuary for them anymore. I think that must contribute too to problem.
Quote: Celtic Punk
Totally wrong, both percentage and reasons.Quote:
plus stalin killed like 90% of his officers because they weren't commies.
this is slowly turning into a thread abt politics me thinks... if you want to talk politics that's fine just do it on msn... :yes:
In Vietnam the Americans lost not to the Commies nor to the hippies back home... Vietnamese people were a traditionalist agricultural society who viewed western influences as corruptive and demoralizing... aren't you guys intrigued by the fact that the technocratic bourgeois goverment that the Americans tried to institute in South Vietnam was overwhelmed by corruption and inefficacy??? the Vietnamese people never believed in the west which was cosidered as ALIEN the US/French urban "modern" paradigm was foreign to their culture...
Similarly the Soviets lost the Afghanistan war against a tribal society and from all looks the US are going to lose there too (for the same reasons) ... this is not a question of ideologies or weapons or tactics or training but of modes of living: tribal vs technocratic, agricultural vs technocratic and so on...
Alexander (who was a genious) immediately understood this and respected and implemented eastern tribalism in his political vision... he used the persian nobility and fused it along with the Greek , respected eastern Gods and customs ...for these reasons the Seleucids and the Bactrians ruled there for however long ...
The Romans tried to project urbanism in the west "barbarian" tribal regions... this endeavour proved successful but was a lengthy expensive process which took centuries of colonising,infrastructure,assimilation and huge amounts of manpower (raw military)...
Now you're just talking in gross stereotypes, generalisations and plain bad data.
Well the open desert is... well open.... I mean considering their use of elephants you would think that open terrain would be more tactically sound:inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by A Very Super Market
Well yes of course they knew the jungle around them pretty well but even in jungle areas there always seem to be territorries that are somehow "deep Jungle" a place to be wary of.... Anyway I am purely speculating on this, with as basis my not so thorough knowledge of south east asia.... The question of terrain influencing the soldiers that are fighting there intriguiges me.
That would usually be the more inaccessible highlands, methinks. Whose inhabitants were often also rather pugnacious and not on good terms with the lowlanders...Quote:
Originally Posted by Reality=Chaos
We're talking about jungle-native elephants here though. You know, kinda similar as those from atop which British colonials used to hunt tigers...Quote:
I mean considering their use of elephants you would think that open terrain would be more tactically sound
:shame: I feel a bit foolish now.....:wall:Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
well the embarrassing act of the day is out of the way:laugh4: