Naked units?

[Celtic_Punk]

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!

[Rilder]

Wall of Text,

You know if you press this key every few sentences, it makes your post a whole lot easier to read.

[ARCHIPPOS]

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...

[Apázlinemjó]

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.

[Reality=Chaos]

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.

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

[Watchman]

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...

[Celtic_Punk]

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'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.

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.
You cannot make the assumption it's not. There is no way in Hell you could prove otherwise.

[Owen Glyndwr]

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.

[Cute Wolf]

Don't forget the inferior fellings from the Romans and Hellenes...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Psst.... the Romans value large... thing.... and they are affraid to see a Celtic warrior with 33 cm or much more... on the other hand, all Hellenes naked statues seems to have a small... thing

[Mikhail Mengsk]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I agree with that.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I think today a soldier is MUCH more subject to fear, because he knows that he could have nothing to do to avoid death.

Actually, it is quite the opposite. Both common psychological sense and a couple of books on military theory I have read stated it.

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.

[K-Dogs]

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.

[georgeman51]

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?

[Ibrahim]

What are Gayesatae?

its a pun of Gaesatae-note the Gay-esatae.