Why didn't colonial armies wear armour when they fought people without guns?

Literally any medieval European army stomps Isandlwana.

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Cuz armor is expensive and heavy and not useful in a war where you actually have anything to lose

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      1879 Britain produced as much crude iron as the rest of the world combined. They were building steamships made of more than a thousand tons of iron. You're telling me the Brits were such massive israelites they wouldn't use a few kilos on their own men?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Because moving faster is more important than having armour. Isandlwana is literally, as I said here

        Isandlwana was 3000 vs 20,000. And moronic decisions (no defensive encampment, army was still in marching formation, quartermaster and nailed shut the ammo boxes because the darkies kept stealing ammo, no range markers were placed, artillery wasn't unhitched and set up). As for the effect of the battle, while the Zulu's won the tactical battle, they lost the war. They lost thousands of men dead and many more wounded and that basically crippled their entire country because those men were basically farmers needed for the harvest and, as such, they starved and got rekt.

        a major anomaly born by poor tactical decisions by the general and overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy. Therefore, in 99% of cases, the British rekt their opponents without armour. There was never going to be a decision to equip their forces with armour because of Isandlwana.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >british empire
        ftfy

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          empire
          >ftfy
          Wrong, Britain.

          "By 1850, at the apogee of its power, Britain had 1.8% of world population. The area of the
          British Isles is only about 0.16% of the world land mass. Yet Britain then produced two-thirds
          of world output of coal and one half of world production of cotton textiles and iron"

          https://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/ecn110b/readings/ecn110b-chapter2-2005.pdf

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Thus by 1850 the Manchester area was producing about 40% of the world
            cotton textile production
            based as frick

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              It's crazy how much such little cities were responsible for. Like Swansea (a tiny city rarely remembered even in the UK) was responsible for like 70% of the worlds copper production.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yes.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      And it’s also hot.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because unlike what is portrayed in paintings they completely dominated even without armor.
    Sure, they lost a guy for every 250 enemies they killed but that's basically nothing compared to what they'd lose fighting an armed enemy.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Literally any medieval European army stomps Isandlwana.
    Lol, no they don’t.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Do nogs have heavy cavalry?
      Do they have Longbowman/crossbowmen?
      If the answer is no to either of these questions then they get stomped by any Medieval European Army

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Not if the medieval army is heavily outnumbered and poorly positioned. They’d be taken apart faster than the brits were.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >hehe guys they'd lose if all of the following happened
          Cope

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >any medieval European army stomps Isandlwana.
            >but only if they weren't facing the conditions experienced at Isandlwana
            Not even him, but wut?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        sub-saharan africans never invented the wheel

        Yeah but they were literally outnumbered 10:1 and basically did the most to not use their force multipliers. Any medieval army that did the same thing would get destroyed by sheer weight of numbers.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Try to put yourself in their position.
          Just imagine the technological and ideological mismatch between the two parties is unreal.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Heavy cavalry and longbows weren't omnipresent throughout the middle ages.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Do nogs have heavy cavalry?
        Do they have Longbowman/crossbowmen?
        yes

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          they did not.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            yes

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              lol, those weren't used by the zulus. the zulus were literal spear chuckers.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              he literally says in the video that the crossbow wasnt used as a weapon of war, it's a device that just yeets a small poisoned stick a short distane away. It didnt have the range or penetrative power of a european medieval crossbow.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                That's one type of many.All muslim africans had berber or arab style crossbow through trading with them

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >All muslim africans
                so not the ones we are talking about then.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Don’t discount poison. In a book I read on African warfare, a slave raid expedition carried out by English pirates was thoroughly beaten by poison arrows and some African throwing hammers. I don’t recall exactly if crossbows were used but I know they were mentioned. Specifically, that the Yoruba had an indigenous crossbow but no more effective than the copies made when Arabs and Euros came.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      sub-saharan africans never invented the wheel

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        That's not actually true. At one point they had several large kingdoms that were part of the Islamic world.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          The Islamic golden age was built on the back of them invading christian lands and plundering the poor innocent Christians and enslaving Christians the first crusade ended it, the only reason they had wheels is because they stole the technology.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Implying
            Iran was a major backer of it, known by its contemporaries under the moniker of Persia.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Black person what ended the Islamic golden ages was infighting between various nobles, same shit that collapsed Rome and China and Alexander’s empire. The Crusades happened at a very fortunate time for them as the Seljuk Turks were warring with what was left of the Fatimids and the holy land was essentially a free for all at the time. Egypt wasn’t willing to get involved too much at the time, this would later change. I swear you Black folk don’t have even a baseline knowledge of this shit beyond memes and maybe a YouTube video by CrusaderBro1488. Read some actual fricking scholarly material for fricking once. You fricking brain dead Black folk make PrepHole unusable and you should be euthanized.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Isandlwana was 3000 vs 20,000. And moronic decisions (no defensive encampment, army was still in marching formation, quartermaster and nailed shut the ammo boxes because the darkies kept stealing ammo, no range markers were placed, artillery wasn't unhitched and set up). As for the effect of the battle, while the Zulu's won the tactical battle, they lost the war. They lost thousands of men dead and many more wounded and that basically crippled their entire country because those men were basically farmers needed for the harvest and, as such, they starved and got rekt.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >nailed shut the ammo boxes because the darkies kept stealing ammo
      The more things change

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >quartermaster: oi ave you got an ammo loicense yer cheeky wanka

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Isandalwana was a failure of leadership command and control. Superiority of equipment can only compensate so much for incompetence.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Armour is for maidens

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Probably because armor development and production atrophied beyond repair at that point.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The Spanish and Italians did.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    because armor is heavy and practically not needed since most times native forces wouldn't be able to really get within range of any colonial force to do that much damage

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Zulu had guns you clown.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      OP's question is dumb for many reasons, but I thought they got almost all of their guns from looting after Isandlwana. What did they have prior?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        They had a tradition of flintlock hunting for a while when compared to their neighbors. I wonder how many British deaths were actually from firearms.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        lots of surplus smoothbore flintlock muskets, often poor quality or worn out.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >The fault was not mine sir, Colonel Durnford must answer!

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >french/italian/belgian/german troops lose in africa against jezzail wielding guerrilla cavalry
    >lmao they lost against spearchuckers
    >bongs lose against literal ooga booga cavemen
    >YOU DON'T COMPREHEND THE FULL PICTURE!
    this is why everyone hates you, cause you're all arrogant pricks

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >everyone hates you
      Some shit eating euros on PrepHole isn't everyone

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Bongs also controlled 25% of the planet
        That's why everyone hates us. Euro homosexuals just sucked at empire shit. Sorry your ancestors are homosexuals

        Note how they don't even address their embarassing performance against fricking zulus of all

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Bongs also controlled 25% of the planet
      That's why everyone hates us. Euro homosexuals just sucked at empire shit. Sorry your ancestors are homosexuals

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Literally any medieval European army stomps Isandlwana.
    Okay now tell me the last time a European army didnt get it's ass kicked

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    were the brits really making people wait in a long ass line with certificates in triplicate to get ammo? lel

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The Spanish did

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The Spanish and Italians did.

      I'm coming at this from a very Conquistador, Conquest of the Americas lense since Mesoamerican history and archeology is what i'm into, but most conquistadors didn't have full suits of plate armor even necessarily steel breastplates and helmets either, a lot of them had to make do with Gambeson or just heavy cloth garments since Conquistadors paid for their own gear.

      So, say, the very best outfitted Conquistadors were signficantly more armored then say the best Aztec soldier, and the worst outfitted Conquistador would have worn more then Aztec porters or junior soldier, but in the middle or when not comparing people of equal status on both sides, many would have been comparably armored, since the Aztec also used gambeson, thick cloth warsuits, etc, albiet for their higher status soldiers. Some even had metal mail, though this was likely as much ceremonial then it was functional.

      Of course, Gambeson was still armor, and thick cloth without necessarily being gambeson could offer some protection too, but I guess my point is where does one draw the line exactly? Would the coats in

      https://i.imgur.com/694zVgP.jpg

      Literally any medieval European army stomps Isandlwana.

      not have arguably offered some protection as well?

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Literally any medieval European army stomps Isandlwana.
    Most European countries haven't won a war since the 18th century... It's not that they couldn't per say defeat Africans in a war
    It's that they wouldn't get the opportunity because they had already been outdone by better men

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >per say

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    But they didn't

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because equipping red coats with medieval style armor is hard to justify from a procurement perspective. It doesn't help against Britain's modern enemies who were armed with advanced rapid fire rifles. And it only helpful against primitive spear chucking adversaries if your troops are actually getting stabbed a lot...which outside of Isandlewana, they weren't.

    Armoring your guys up only makes sense if you're expecting an Isandlewana. But if you're expecting an Isandlewana, maybe it'd be more productive to summarily execute any of your invred officers who can't figure out how to circle the wagons.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It probably just came up too rarely for them to bother with producing, distributing, carrying, and maintaining thousands of pieces of body armour to lessen casualties in battles they were winning 99% of anyway.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Damn. The chick at 5th from left. She bout to get her uterus absolutely whooped to the dirt by choclate dongs

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you look at the accounts of the Aztec vs the Spaniards, a simple torso armor would greatly improve survivability despite the overwhelming numerical superiority.

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