Naked units?

[Celtic_Punk]

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.

[Reality=Chaos]

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.

indeed...

[Watchman]

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.

[Reality=Chaos]

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....

[Watchman]

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.

[Celtic_Punk]

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.

[Macilrille]

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.

[Watchman]

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.

[Macilrille]

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.

[Watchman]

Well... those woods were full of Finns with knives and SMGs...

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.

Notice that in the Continuation War the Reds did slightly better.

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.

[Reality=Chaos]

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.

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)

@ 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....

[ARCHIPPOS]

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...

[A Very Super Market]

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.

[Watchman]

The natives, even if city-dwellers, would also have been accustomed to the tropical climate.

[Mikhail Mengsk]

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.

Pretty easy to be the superpower who fight the poorly armed and trained insurgents, isn't it?

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

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.

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: Celtic Punk

plus stalin killed like 90% of his officers because they weren't commies.

Totally wrong, both percentage and reasons.

[ARCHIPPOS]

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...

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)...

[Watchman]

Now you're just talking in gross stereotypes, generalisations and plain bad data.

[Reality=Chaos]

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.

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

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.

[Watchman]

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...

That would usually be the more inaccessible highlands, methinks. Whose inhabitants were often also rather pugnacious and not on good terms with the lowlanders...

I mean considering their use of elephants you would think that open terrain would be more tactically sound

We're talking about jungle-native elephants here though. You know, kinda similar as those from atop which British colonials used to hunt tigers...

[Reality=Chaos]

That would usually be the more inaccessible highlands, methinks. Whose inhabitants were often also rather pugnacious and not on good terms with the lowlanders...
We're talking about jungle-native elephants here though. You know, kinda similar as those from atop which British colonials used to hunt tigers...

I feel a bit foolish now.....

well the embarrassing act of the day is out of the way