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Happy Independence Day from your cousins in North America!
My point was that the negative perception of such warrior classes in history, or even soldiers in general depending upon the culture, can be understood when one sees them through the eyes of a civilian chronicler or scribe at the time - a farmer or townsman struggling to get by in peacetime could care less about strategy and tactics than the prospect of his livestock, crops, or products being forcibly collected as "war tax", his family having to "share hospitality" in quartering rough-looking armored men, or his home being downright destroyed as part of a scorched earth or chevauchee campaign.
I'm not sure about that connection. It's one thing to call them evil for burning down your crops, it's another to deride them as undisciplined. To take one example, the Mongols are usually remembered as very disciplined warriors, even if they were also known for their brutality.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.Popular culture paints the Mongols as a marauding hoard.
Popular culture paints knights as typical members of the Dung Ages, in which everyone is dumb and dirty, or just dumb if you're in Shrek or Monty Python. Then you have things like A Game of Thrones in which your decent people can be counted on one hand, and the abilities and discipline of knights are overshadowed by politicking or certain people named Clegane whose assholery far overshadows - or maybe it compliments - their training a soldiers.
Off the top of my head, knights or medieval(-ish) soldiers get portrayed as decent and skilled soldiers in Lord of the Rings.
Thanks for the wishes fellas!
As for Knights, I think Game of Thrones has a relatively fair portrayal of them. Some of them are utter psychotic assholes (Ser Gregor Clegane), some of them are awesome noble warriors (Ser Barristan Selmy) and some lie in a weird gray area (Ser Bronn of the Blackwater).
It's just that the show tends to focus more on the evil ones.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."If I remember well, in ASOIAF, there's an anecdote about a knight, who is asked for help by a King, who promises him gold; a priest, that promises eternal glory; and a commoner, that simply begs for help. The character who was asked this riddle first assumes the knight would help whomever paid him more, but the point behind it was that real people might actually choose one of the other options. I mean, I'm pretty sure what's in the actual book is different from what I said, but I think the general sense of it was supposed to be what I said.
It was a sellsword, with a king saying he is his lawful ruler, a priest saying he speaks in the name of the gods, and a rich man offering him gold. And IIRC, the point was that the sellsword was the one truly holding power.
edited 9th Sep '15 1:09:27 PM by Aetol
Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a choreI have begun to slowly rebuild my personal library. I lost all of my good reference material in a flood of a storage space and only have a handful of stuff left. While I can't recompile my personal library as it was I can build a new one. So other then "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" which is a fantastic start I have a lot of stuff to replace. Now to find the Sword and the Crucible then start in on Oakshott's books as well.
But first I ordered two Osprey Books that cover two medieval periods on medieval tactics and a book on ancient chemical warfare. I should find the book "Castle" it had lots of great detail and info in it.
My modern stuff will be a bit tricker as some of it was actual military manuals or purchased from second and even third hand sources. I had a Korean era Paratrooper manual, several weapons and tactic books, and even US Army and USMC infantry NCO Handbooks. I had a few books on chopper tactics one on Amphibious landings and a couple of the smaller detailed weapon and equipment books.
edited 10th Sep '15 6:38:01 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?I had them stored in a storage space we were told would not flood or leak and we couldn't afford nice water sealed storage at the time. So they were stored in lightly leak protected boxes and containers. Heavy spring rain proved the claims a lie and several boxes of my books were destroyed by shear volume of water that leaked through the roof and through the bottom edge of the walls.
edited 10th Sep '15 6:39:56 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?Got done with my latest section which covered mail, inclusion and transition to plate, and some bits on weapons and their efficacy vs said armor. It also included a persistent theme in medieval metal working. Aside from needing more protection the other key factor in armor development was cost and time.
Ok by the end of the section it was pretty much pointed out that even by the end of the medieval era mail shirts were uncommonly homogeneous and frequently consisted of patches of other mail shirts which included steels and metals of varying quality in places. Much like the other metallurgy until later in the medieval era
Mail was initially effective in the crusades especially when backed by a gambeson. Apparently the bows and arrows of the crusaders enemies were not quite made for mail and the armor could turn a sword stroke. There were two exceptions to mails protection. Maces and similar bludgeoning weapons could crush through because there was minimal stiffness to the whole armor set up and some penetration oriented weapons like some spears, lances, and similar weapons provided a strong blow was used against the knight. Which still made the mail shirt hard to defeat without some serious effort.
However it seems the Welsh long bow was in a class all its own. There was description of a knight that had an arrow pierce his mail shirt, mail trousers, pass through his thigh, through the wood saddle, and into his horse beneath effectively pinning him in place until the arrow was removed. Remember the knights wore the gambeson under the mail and it still managed to pin the poor bugger to his horse. Composite crossbows proved to be highly effective in penetrating the armor as well. There was also an account where four Welsh arrows penetrated four inches of oak in a door. They were supposedly left there as a reminder of the power of those bows as a witness to the original incident saw them in the door still six years later.
Now mail as a set piece of armor was problematic in both cost and time it took make a single shirt. 75 man hours just work the rings into the shapes. That does not include the coif, leggings, and gloves. It also does not include gambesons or the whole process needed to make the mails wire in the first place. In short mail shirts were rather expensive and very time consuming to manufacture. The trade off was the initial set up for mail was cheap it was the actual production process was expensive and time consuming because of high labour demands to make it. Plate pretty much swings in the other direction. It had a much higher set up cost but once that was done it was comparative cheaper to make and more effective as a protective item.
On weapons the long bow was actually very effective at penetrating the non-plate armors. It seems however when it came to plate chest pieces it was possible but not common. I believe that has to do with two different factors at this point but I can't go into detail until after I have read more. The crossbow remained effective longer and apparently had some higher degrees of success against some early examples of plate. Basically plate didn't become fully impenetrable to bows and mostly against crossbows until later in the medieval era. Again it is down to that consistency and quality of manufacturing.
One of the accounts from the Battle of Crecy was mentioned where it was basically like 300 the French knights were fighting in the shade from the numbers of English arrows. The account also noted arrows were penetrating through the armor of the knights at the legs, arms, and even the helms in multiple cases. However only a relatively small number apparently penetrated the chest plate itself and may have been due to a series of unique circumstances tied to steel manufacture of the era. There was someone who did an examination of how that could have happened and the general conclusion it was the poorer knights possibly wearing recycled armor, poorly repaired armor, or even just low carbon munition plate.
So far from what I have read this book destroys the notion that "high quality high carbon steel armor" was common and affordable to even knights of modest means. Instead high quality steel of such make was uncommon even rare until later in the medieval era and rather expensive given the total cost a knights total protective kit. Instead the quality of steel would be more in line with mid and low carbon steels rather then stronger high carbons steel armor. Apparently numerous tests revealed the quality armor was typically mid quality. The low carbon steel would be your munitions grade armor which the poorer knights would have worn because of increased affordability and easier upkeep.
The higher quality mid and high carbon steel were more expensive to make and more expensive to maintain.
Now speaking of famous armor piercing weapons the crossbow with a steel prod enjoyed a couple centuries of use however there was a hitch. If you are thinking it was a steady change of cost and efficacy of another weapon you would be right. The crossbows required a fair bit of material and the mechanisms required to span the more power examples only added total cost and upkeep. However by comparison hand guns were cheaper to make and did not any additional mechanisms beyond what was needed for the trigger mech. To top it off the cost of powder rapidly fell. So between improving performance and improving cost of guns the crossbow wound up largely abandoned by the end of the medieval era. The other benefits are already well known at this point.
By that point mail was mostly just used to help provide some flexible reinforcement of under garments underneath plate even among common foot soldiers with munition armor because of the high cost of time and money to make the mail shirts. Mail as a shirt armor piece was still around but not preferred for reasons already noted above.
Early mail was likely made by hammering small sections into narrow flat circular bands that were joined either by riveting or forge welding and not much later supposedly wire was used. Like most early armor and weapons copper was rather common and then bronze for efficacy but iron was plentiful and cheap.
The next section appears to be focused on the famous Italian armor manufacture. The section did mention the high quality German armors that showed up the late 1400's and through the 1500's but left the details for the future sections as well as more details on weapons and armor later on.
The English apparently used a sort of "Longbow Dragoon". The archers would mount up to rapidly move into position, dismount, form up, and then shower fire, then mount up again and get the hell out of dodge. They used the long range of the bow to basically kite the enemy and the maneuverability of their mounts to keep them from being easily held or pinned in place by enemy forces. However they didn't seem to be used in any larger numbers and from what I could find were more like scouts/reaction forces in structure and use.
It was also noted knights while most commonly mounted were not unknown to fight on foot and often were mixed with the archers and other foot.
edited 11th Sep '15 10:09:25 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?Question: What do we know, for sure, about Yuri Andropov (Brezhnev's successor)?
(This question came after reading his entry in the Shrouded in Myth page)
edited 13th Sep '15 7:29:42 PM by Quag15
Hitler's. He just got really lucky.
Like if he had been a few days off WW 2 would have ended in like a week and would be nothing more than a footnote.
Oh really when?One of them actually made it to Moscow. Hint: He had a working brain.
Not to mention, there is this: Napoleon attacked a country that had already participated in war against him, several times, and that he could be realistically certain to defeat in battle.
Hitler attacked a nominal ally who happened to be on their way to being one of the top powers in the world.
edited 14th Sep '15 7:41:07 PM by Mopman43
While still engaged with a bruised but not beaten enemy on the opposite side of the continent. And after having delayed his invasion to bail out Italy after their dumb Greek adventure.
It's like Hitler's entire line of reasoning was, "Hmm... How can I make this harder on myself?"
edited 14th Sep '15 8:09:47 PM by Parable
The more I read about the war the more it seems the Axis leadership was composed entirely of complete morons. The three main Axis members to me look like they became allies based on their shared love of fascism, imperialism, and providing the inspiration for Leeroy Jenkins.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas EdisonAnd a hatred of communism. But you're kinda right that the alliance didn't have a lot binding its members together. The European Axis powers and Japan barely if ever coordinated their war strategies which might have done a lot to ensure their defeat, but I'll leave people smarter than me to explain that or correct me.
Speaking of WW 2, let me just ask a quick question. It's for my writing class.
Was there any way a German civilian could send a letter to an American soldier, censored or not?
Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
