I'm going to get a lot of flame for this here, but...
I hate the fact guns were invented, and how it took so much skill away from warfare.
I unironically wish battles would cease being fought with guns/ranged weapons. I'm not naive enough to believe this could happen or that warring could cease entirely though.
I guess this doesn't apply only to guns, but most modern war machines.
I understand that technological progress is inevitable, but I don't dislike it any less.
A battle with swords makes a lot more sense in determining which side is superior.
Now it doesn't matter how good you are with a gun, if you just get a bomb dropped on you from above, shot from 200m away or anything else you are powerless in stopping.
War has become a battle of resources even more, rather than battle of superiority/skill. But I guess you could call them battles of resource superiority...
I know it is absolutely impossible and nothing more than a pipe dream (unless we all get wiped out in a nuclear war [heh, case in point]), but what are your opinions on returning to old warring methods?
>inb4 war/soldiers still require skill
I understand that. But I still think knowing how to handle and use a sword is much more impressive, even more so on the grand scale of war tactics.
Any idiot can pick up a gun and get lucky against a veteran. No untrained (both skill and body) man can stand a chance against a skilled one in a swordfight.
>muh skilled warfare
You could be crushed by a boulder flung by a trebuchet, pierced by arrows shot in volleys (statistical hits rather than aimed), or got dunked in scalding oil while trying to scale castle walls.
Much like artillery and drones are more likely to take your life than an epic gunfight in Ukraine, it wasn't the epic sword duel that killed you back then - it was the thousand and one ways of getting killed and maimed that got you. Such as getting trampled by horses or war elephants.
You think the opponent wouldn't come up with the cheapest tactics to frick you up?
>Such as getting trampled by horses or war elephants.
or just dying of disease
I mostly agree, but I will say that war elephants are kinda overrated. Elephants weren't like horses, they can't just be trained or even bred not to fear the stresses of war. Partly because their lifespans are too long for breeding it out, and they're also too smart so they realize "oh shit I don't wanna die for this" and run if sufficiently spooked or opposed. They were best used as shock weapons against people who'd never seen an elephant before, or when actually drugged up but that means you ran the risk of it actively attacking your own troops in a mustlike-rage rather than fearfully stampeding through them.
frick ya mudda
battles before guns weren't "skillfull", they were big lines and blobs of men running into each other until one side ran away and was massacred.
>battles before guns weren't "skillfull", they were big lines and blobs of men running into each other until one side ran away and was massacred.
The fact you think that guns do any appreciable amount of killing is the funniest part to your fricking moronic position. The US mil could issue throwing spears and it wouldn't change the significant majority of battles since the major lifting component of a military is not the poor fricking infantry, and the parts that do the important things require dramatically more skill to operate, design, and utilize properly. Russia's misadventures in Ukraine should show you how it's not a battle of resources, which they have thrown away far more then Ukraine has in total, but of getting your resources to work in an complex and dynamic setting.
Any idiot can pick up a sword and get lucky trying stab someone, but the an untrained crew of whatever vehicle of your choice will get smacked even going against someone who knows their profession inside out.
I agree. I am a Georgian/Napoleonic era fan myself though
The Napoleonic era was the last time where cannons and muskets weren't deadly accurate, and where individual bravery still mattered and could turn the tide.
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>tfw you will never see the likes of Jean Roche Coignet single-handedly charge and capture batteries of enemy artillery, unhorse enemy generals, or fight off 100 Russian lancers to save a bit of cloth.
Grim.
If you want to prove some autistic degree of skill, get into hand loading, gunsmithing, and practice with your guns. I don't feel that the invention of an alchemical crossbow has ended the... "artistic" side of warfare, frankly I think it improved it.
How on earth did a medieval knight survive all the way to 21st century and discover internet, PrepHole and even learn how to make a post here with an image?
Witchcraft, but don't tell the clergy.
post body
>I understand that. But I still think knowing how to handle and use a sword is much more impressive,
99% of soldiers on pre-gunpowder battlefields wielded some kind of farming implement attached to a long wooden shaft, and they were basically just winging it in terms of technique. The only training they would get would address marching and standing in formation
Honor is moronic, fair fights don't exist.
OP, you have a soul and are a romantic. The world is not made for the likes of you.
There's no going back, unfortunately.
Test
Anon not everything is Call of Duty team death match. In fact I’ve heard a lot of building clearing and door to door stuff in Iraq would end up in close quarter knife fights. A had a friend come home from his tour and tell me the story of the poor insurgent who decides to let go of his rifle and come at the knife instructor of the battalion of all people. Long story short he won the fight with the other guys knife
Please tell me it involved the Power Slap™ and Elbow Destruction™
I used to feel that way, but warfare just hasn't been fair since the stone age. Maybe even never, there's always something that's just entirely out of your control being done by people you'll never see that will wreck your shit and leave you either instantly dead or crushed and broken and soon to die. You could be the strongest warrior in your tribe and still get killed by an archer or slinger. The best swordsman of your kingdom and still get killed by a charioteer or cavalry or a catapult or yet more archer volleys. Or you could just be plain outnumbered, even the best swordsman gets tired and can't defend against multiple people on all sides of him.
War did used to have a minimum skill barrier, but it's always been clumsy, random, and largely dependent upon resources. People are also a resource, how many peasants can you conscript to hold pointy sticks and jab at lines of other spear-jabbing peasant conscripts and such. To a ruler, how different is a mass of people from raw resources used to make machines of war? The latter just doesn't pay taxes and kills more.
This isn't even factoring in shit like disease, which tended to account for most wartime casualties. The real experience of ancient warfare was dying shitting your guts out and covered in painful sores and pustules, having never even seen your enemy. Which, in itself, upsets the skill balance. Your best warriors could just die randomly because no one knows what disease really is.
Fricking loser spotted