People pairing off into single combat fighting basically never happened post bronze age. It was lines of soldiers with spears and shields. Sometimes the ones in front would ditch their spears and switch to swords. Typically if a line broke it meant a route for at least that line. Any combat happening after that would be a gankfest slaughter, not people pairing off for epic 1 on 1 battles. If at any point your front line footsoldiers are not standing next to other soldiers and weilding shields something has gone horribly wrong.
*Medieval Era platemail combat not included.
wrong, lines were preferred when in open spaces but remember the Romans built their kits to work in uneven terrain, forests, city rubble. there was lots of heroic last stands in doorways and the like.
>generic movie >massive battle scene >men are cut down in one strike >they die with a mere grunt or groan >no shots of men screaming in terror and agony as their lives are extinguished
bros why are the movies like this? do they think an audience needs kid gloves?
They also rarely show armies being slowly destroyed by diseases, desertion and attrition all of which have ended many armies.
Stannis Baratheons army in GoT being one example freezing and starving in the north, Kingdom of heaven also shows the templars suffering from thirst and attrition.
I feel like a real battle would smell of rot and shit.
One of the cool things about early GOT was the scene after a battle (In season 2 i think). Where you see still living people lying on the ground dying from infections or having lost limbs/bleeding out
I remember reading a book as a kid that used the word “keening” and asking my Dad what it meant. He did 5 tours in Vietnam so he described in detail that keening is the sound of the dying after a battle is over. I think about that whenever I watch a war movie lol
first of all nearly all medieval engagements eventually devolved into these weird close contact struggles where you didn't have enough space to swing your weapon properly, if at all, meaning you were essentially group wrestling after the initial phases of combat
this was 80% of the duration of any battle (not including battle preparations and the pre-battle stand-off phase where you try to outmaneuver the enemy before anything ever happens)
your image seems to be focused on the initial phases which depend a lot on who we are talking about and when
for example the greeks had massed pikes super early but then dropped them later
then you had nearly everyone in western/central europe use massed pikes during the late medieval, but before that they were not super common
some peoples never used massed pike formations at all
people don't go to war to kill people, they go to war to win. casualties are extremely low in ancient/medieval combat, people fought to self preserve, not to kill people at the cost of putting themselves at risk.
In the modern day, sure. In the medieval age? It could very easily be due to lack of communication. A modern solider tends to have at least some concept of where his accompanying units are and what their condition is - you know that if the unit next to you is moving back, they may be doing so not because they are breaking, but because they are moving to a more advantageous position, as your flank is not in immediate need of guarding.
On the other hand, on the medieval battlefield, your only measure of knowing how the battle fares is to look at the man to your left or right. Let's say for example that the Sargent decides to pull his pikemen from your flank, and position them near the archers instead. However, he does not tell your Sargent, and thus, the purpose of the pikemen leaving your flank and falling back is unknown to you. As a dumb, single-digit IQ German peasant, the first thing that comes to mind is that the pikemen have been broken, and are retreating. You, not wanting to die, also break and retreat. As does the man to your right when he sees you retreating. And this continues down the line. And so, what was a well-planned attempt to lure and trap the enemy's cavalry, has now turned into a disorganized rout, without anyone having actually died, or even been hurt at all.
>Why do you think 1 army would retreat from the other?
Historically, mostly flanking. And too quite often switching side or desertion of an ally for political reasons.
For the middle age before the 100 years war and the pofessionalisation of royal armies, it was quite often just a small group of nobles going at it for ransoms, with a few thousand useless and scared levies, and some mercenary companies not too kin on actually dying.
For a good portion of the hundred years war, when there was big battles with high casualties, it was because of nobles’ honor, continuing fighting to the death after a battle was lost hours ago, as they were expected to die or be captured and ransomned, as the price for their privilegies.
He didn't just say medieval. He said medieval and ancient. The ancient battles ares the ones I take umbrage with. Ancient world battles fought hundreds of miles from home and or against invading enemies typically didn't just have soldiers fuck off for political reasons. If you get flanked and your line collapses you can try to run but historically speaking you have a very high chance of either being run down by horsemen (usually only if the entire front has collapses and they have nothing better to be doing) or dying within a few days because you're either in hostile territory and now no longer have protection/a functional supply chain or you're actively being invaded and have a high chance of dying soon anyways after your crops are stolen and livestock killed.
>Ancient world battles fought hundreds of miles from home and or against invading enemies typically didn't just have soldiers fuck off for political reasons.
Maybe read about ancient and antiquity battles then, because it happened quite often to the Greeks, the Persians, and the Romans, those conquering empires that actually did war far away from their home and used extensively allies and auxilliaries troops.
>you can try to run but historically speaking you have a very high chance
And if the rout is real and you decide to make a stand, you're 100% guaranteed fucked.
> As a dumb, single-digit IQ German peasant, the first thing that comes to mind is that the pikemen have been broken, and are retreating. You, not wanting to die, also break and retreat.
And that’s why for 1000s of years execution was the standard price for abandoning your post. Leaders of men have been dealing with trying over come individual’s impulses for millennia and have found for the most part that two very effective ways of doing that is threat of death and propaganda. That single digit IQ peasant through-out history is told one thing under threat of death or dishonor: “die where you stand unless told to move.”
If you’re talking about pike formations, from the greeks to the swiss, it was mostly social pressure. Greek phalanxes had citizens that knew each others since childhood, with a phalanx cultural framework drilled for decades.
Swiss mercenary troops were recruited from the villages from the same valley, and trained together for years.
That’s why you hear so much about ”esprit de corps” in military training. Soldiers join because of propaganda, familly tradition, money... but they stay and fight for their friends. And just put a bunch of men through external pressure and hardship, and they will bound together.
>Why do you think 1 army would retreat from the other?
Historically, mostly flanking. And too quite often switching side or desertion of an ally for political reasons.
For the middle age before the 100 years war and the pofessionalisation of royal armies, it was quite often just a small group of nobles going at it for ransoms, with a few thousand useless and scared levies, and some mercenary companies not too kin on actually dying.
For a good portion of the hundred years war, when there was big battles with high casualties, it was because of nobles’ honor, continuing fighting to the death after a battle was lost hours ago, as they were expected to die or be captured and ransomned, as the price for their privilegies.
no they flee because of panicking to simple sensory overload like enemy charge and friend screeching. Decimate means kill 1 in 10 and that is way beyond the threshold for formation to collapse and getting picked off. Most casualty of war is traveling very far from home and got sick from anything imaginable in nature and poisoned well.
You are fucking retarded. It is a fact that casualties were high as shit in ancient battles, sometimes reaching close to 100% if a side was routed.
no they flee because of panicking to simple sensory overload like enemy charge and friend screeching. Decimate means kill 1 in 10 and that is way beyond the threshold for formation to collapse and getting picked off. Most casualty of war is traveling very far from home and got sick from anything imaginable in nature and poisoned well.
Idiot. Decimation isn’t even close to what needs to occur to collapse an entire army’s formation in battle. If a forward unit/line lost cohesion due to casualties they would fall back and regroup while the unit/line behind them would take the front. You could literally continue this until you ran out of enough men to prevent the enemy from breaking through, and theoretically if each side started with the same amount of men and had the same casualty rate they could continue to reform the units until it was 1 vs 1. The more pressing issue is if the leader(s) die, which would cause the army to lose all organization.
One of the least known facts about ancient warfare that you can get a kind of first hand account by reading the homeric poetry is that people used to kill each other by throwing rocks just as much as by stabbing each other with proper weapons.
Pseudo intellectuals will claim that medieval battles were just both sides using spears and swords never saw any use because it is cool and hip to be contrarian.
Medieval battles looked very much like riot police fighting in the streets against armed protesters.
Formations were flexible and you had constant skirmishes and brief engagements. Soldiers would toss javelins, darts or even rocks into the opposing crowd and hesitate with going in because closing in on the enemy means you could die easily.
Battles were also very mobile with opposing formations fighting for hours and over several kilometers of distance. For anyone here who has ever done any serious martial art it is known information that you can't fight for hours on end. Because of this formations had to be flexible to allow soldiers to cycle through.
Tight formations with spears pointed at the enemy were definetly a thing but not some universal game changer. Sit in your formation and the enemy just lobs missiles at you while their friends go for a flanking maneuver.
>Fans of Thing A become obnoxious >Fans of Thing B use FACTS and LOGIC to knock fans of Thing A down a few pegs >Fans of Thing B become even more obnoxious
Will this vicious cycle ever be broken...
Initially. Eventually the spears would be broken and fighting would get much closer.
So...spears would be broken and shields would be shaken? JRRT was a hack!
lel
People pairing off into single combat fighting basically never happened post bronze age. It was lines of soldiers with spears and shields. Sometimes the ones in front would ditch their spears and switch to swords. Typically if a line broke it meant a route for at least that line. Any combat happening after that would be a gankfest slaughter, not people pairing off for epic 1 on 1 battles. If at any point your front line footsoldiers are not standing next to other soldiers and weilding shields something has gone horribly wrong.
*Medieval Era platemail combat not included.
Just play something like Chivalry 2 or Mordhau to understand that no one will ever get in a fair fight when an unfair one will do
Why do you post a formation that got solved in like 200 B.C.
wrong, lines were preferred when in open spaces but remember the Romans built their kits to work in uneven terrain, forests, city rubble. there was lots of heroic last stands in doorways and the like.
>generic movie
>massive battle scene
>men are cut down in one strike
>they die with a mere grunt or groan
>no shots of men screaming in terror and agony as their lives are extinguished
bros why are the movies like this? do they think an audience needs kid gloves?
I haven't seen any movies called generic movie yet
What about The Regular Show?
They also rarely show armies being slowly destroyed by diseases, desertion and attrition all of which have ended many armies.
Stannis Baratheons army in GoT being one example freezing and starving in the north, Kingdom of heaven also shows the templars suffering from thirst and attrition.
I feel like a real battle would smell of rot and shit.
One of the cool things about early GOT was the scene after a battle (In season 2 i think). Where you see still living people lying on the ground dying from infections or having lost limbs/bleeding out
I remember reading a book as a kid that used the word “keening” and asking my Dad what it meant. He did 5 tours in Vietnam so he described in detail that keening is the sound of the dying after a battle is over. I think about that whenever I watch a war movie lol
no, poki bois still need flank protection
first of all nearly all medieval engagements eventually devolved into these weird close contact struggles where you didn't have enough space to swing your weapon properly, if at all, meaning you were essentially group wrestling after the initial phases of combat
this was 80% of the duration of any battle (not including battle preparations and the pre-battle stand-off phase where you try to outmaneuver the enemy before anything ever happens)
your image seems to be focused on the initial phases which depend a lot on who we are talking about and when
for example the greeks had massed pikes super early but then dropped them later
then you had nearly everyone in western/central europe use massed pikes during the late medieval, but before that they were not super common
some peoples never used massed pike formations at all
people don't go to war to kill people, they go to war to win. casualties are extremely low in ancient/medieval combat, people fought to self preserve, not to kill people at the cost of putting themselves at risk.
That's objectively not true. Why do you think 1 army would retreat from the other? Typically it's due to fucking casualties you absolute mongoloid.
In the modern day, sure. In the medieval age? It could very easily be due to lack of communication. A modern solider tends to have at least some concept of where his accompanying units are and what their condition is - you know that if the unit next to you is moving back, they may be doing so not because they are breaking, but because they are moving to a more advantageous position, as your flank is not in immediate need of guarding.
On the other hand, on the medieval battlefield, your only measure of knowing how the battle fares is to look at the man to your left or right. Let's say for example that the Sargent decides to pull his pikemen from your flank, and position them near the archers instead. However, he does not tell your Sargent, and thus, the purpose of the pikemen leaving your flank and falling back is unknown to you. As a dumb, single-digit IQ German peasant, the first thing that comes to mind is that the pikemen have been broken, and are retreating. You, not wanting to die, also break and retreat. As does the man to your right when he sees you retreating. And this continues down the line. And so, what was a well-planned attempt to lure and trap the enemy's cavalry, has now turned into a disorganized rout, without anyone having actually died, or even been hurt at all.
He didn't just say medieval. He said medieval and ancient. The ancient battles ares the ones I take umbrage with. Ancient world battles fought hundreds of miles from home and or against invading enemies typically didn't just have soldiers fuck off for political reasons. If you get flanked and your line collapses you can try to run but historically speaking you have a very high chance of either being run down by horsemen (usually only if the entire front has collapses and they have nothing better to be doing) or dying within a few days because you're either in hostile territory and now no longer have protection/a functional supply chain or you're actively being invaded and have a high chance of dying soon anyways after your crops are stolen and livestock killed.
>Ancient world battles fought hundreds of miles from home and or against invading enemies typically didn't just have soldiers fuck off for political reasons.
Maybe read about ancient and antiquity battles then, because it happened quite often to the Greeks, the Persians, and the Romans, those conquering empires that actually did war far away from their home and used extensively allies and auxilliaries troops.
>you can try to run but historically speaking you have a very high chance
And if the rout is real and you decide to make a stand, you're 100% guaranteed fucked.
Your fucked either way if you’re in foreign land retard. Your either dead or a slave.
> As a dumb, single-digit IQ German peasant, the first thing that comes to mind is that the pikemen have been broken, and are retreating. You, not wanting to die, also break and retreat.
And that’s why for 1000s of years execution was the standard price for abandoning your post. Leaders of men have been dealing with trying over come individual’s impulses for millennia and have found for the most part that two very effective ways of doing that is threat of death and propaganda. That single digit IQ peasant through-out history is told one thing under threat of death or dishonor: “die where you stand unless told to move.”
If you’re talking about pike formations, from the greeks to the swiss, it was mostly social pressure. Greek phalanxes had citizens that knew each others since childhood, with a phalanx cultural framework drilled for decades.
Swiss mercenary troops were recruited from the villages from the same valley, and trained together for years.
That’s why you hear so much about ”esprit de corps” in military training. Soldiers join because of propaganda, familly tradition, money... but they stay and fight for their friends. And just put a bunch of men through external pressure and hardship, and they will bound together.
>Why do you think 1 army would retreat from the other?
Historically, mostly flanking. And too quite often switching side or desertion of an ally for political reasons.
For the middle age before the 100 years war and the pofessionalisation of royal armies, it was quite often just a small group of nobles going at it for ransoms, with a few thousand useless and scared levies, and some mercenary companies not too kin on actually dying.
For a good portion of the hundred years war, when there was big battles with high casualties, it was because of nobles’ honor, continuing fighting to the death after a battle was lost hours ago, as they were expected to die or be captured and ransomned, as the price for their privilegies.
no they flee because of panicking to simple sensory overload like enemy charge and friend screeching. Decimate means kill 1 in 10 and that is way beyond the threshold for formation to collapse and getting picked off. Most casualty of war is traveling very far from home and got sick from anything imaginable in nature and poisoned well.
You are fucking retarded. It is a fact that casualties were high as shit in ancient battles, sometimes reaching close to 100% if a side was routed.
Idiot. Decimation isn’t even close to what needs to occur to collapse an entire army’s formation in battle. If a forward unit/line lost cohesion due to casualties they would fall back and regroup while the unit/line behind them would take the front. You could literally continue this until you ran out of enough men to prevent the enemy from breaking through, and theoretically if each side started with the same amount of men and had the same casualty rate they could continue to reform the units until it was 1 vs 1. The more pressing issue is if the leader(s) die, which would cause the army to lose all organization.
>reddit dog "meme"
NGMI
One of the least known facts about ancient warfare that you can get a kind of first hand account by reading the homeric poetry is that people used to kill each other by throwing rocks just as much as by stabbing each other with proper weapons.
I can't believe Cheems is dead
Don't worry. We have Chooms now
it's so hard
to say goodbye
to yesterday
drive around, and find out
Pseudo intellectuals will claim that medieval battles were just both sides using spears and swords never saw any use because it is cool and hip to be contrarian.
Medieval battles looked very much like riot police fighting in the streets against armed protesters.
Formations were flexible and you had constant skirmishes and brief engagements. Soldiers would toss javelins, darts or even rocks into the opposing crowd and hesitate with going in because closing in on the enemy means you could die easily.
Battles were also very mobile with opposing formations fighting for hours and over several kilometers of distance. For anyone here who has ever done any serious martial art it is known information that you can't fight for hours on end. Because of this formations had to be flexible to allow soldiers to cycle through.
Tight formations with spears pointed at the enemy were definetly a thing but not some universal game changer. Sit in your formation and the enemy just lobs missiles at you while their friends go for a flanking maneuver.
>le funny reddit dog
You have to go back.
pretty much, at least until you got stabbed in the dick
?t=141
>Spearfags simply must fag. They simply must fag
>uhm akchually you can't like spear phalanxes because they would lose out to an A-10 strafing run
Im just returning the favour to you Spreafags
By coming into your melee thread and shitting it up with nothing relevant to say. Cunts.
>Fans of Thing A become obnoxious
>Fans of Thing B use FACTS and LOGIC to knock fans of Thing A down a few pegs
>Fans of Thing B become even more obnoxious
Will this vicious cycle ever be broken...