Best weapon of ancient war

[Beowulf]

Many societies had funeral rites that had to be observed to avoid having the dead coming around and haunting the world. Not allowing these rites to be observed (by eating the body) will get the societies you conquer fairly pissed at you.

Did ancient armies really let their opponents drag their dead off the battlefield? I thought that was romantic bullshti from Hollywood. I figured a prudent commander would run the enemy back to whatever hellhole they came from. Fighting battles without gaining land would be pointless. If you let the enemy drag their dead, they're obviously not going to be able to drag them far, and so will not be retrating. Ideally, my army would route and destroy every possible enemy soldier. Complete obliteration of the army, while exhausting, might prove a point, if it didn't backfire in PR.

Your society is one that'll be conquering, right? The hellhole they came from is the one your army's in right now. It's not just the opposing army that'll be dragging off the dead for funeral rites, but also the dead's families. Also, such tactics would result in a possible alliance against you, because you're not just one ruler over another, but you're eating someone's brother.

[dworkin]

Dude, word of advice. Write your fan alt-history and masturbate to the great warrior skills of your super soldiers all you like. Don't try and justify how the society works in any great detail or you'll come off as a twerp.

Just stick to battles and 'warrior bonds between men'. And take out the cannibalism. It doesn't happen in large societies for good reasons.

It also doesn't take a genius to realise why you can't breed an elite warrior caste. People cheat. All you do with harsh rules is up the competition, it cannot be eliminated. And cheats adapt just as quickly as supa-soldiers if not quicker.

Rome's armed might was founded on brutal displine and economic might not idiot eugenic wank fantasies.
So was Athens, Sparta, Persia, Egypt, Babylon, etc.

[wolveraptor]

Your society is one that'll be conquering, right? The hellhole they came from is the one your army's in right now. It's not just the opposing army that'll be dragging off the dead for funeral rites, but also the dead's families. Also, such tactics would result in a possible alliance against you, because you're not just one ruler over another, but you're eating someone's brother.

Well at the very least, they could eat their own dead. Surely no one would care then?

And take out the cannibalism. It doesn't happen in large societies for good reasons.

Such as?

It also doesn't take a genius to realise why you can't breed an elite warrior caste. People cheat. All you do with harsh rules is up the competition, it cannot be eliminated. And cheats adapt just as quickly as supa-soldiers if not quicker.

What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't matter if my warriors bear children through outside women. All that matters is that such children be abandoned or killed. Males can do outside females, but outside males can't do the warriors' women.

[Elfdart]

Large, two-handed swords were good at cutting the heads off of pikes (18 foot spears that you can't really wield very well in close combat, but was the most powerful deterrent to cavalry until the development of the rifle).

That's a silly myth, as anyone who has tried to cut or chop through a 2" hardwood pole (with any sword or axe) knows. The pikemen are going to grow somewhat impatient waiting for his opponent to hack away on his weapon.

2" is dead easy to chop through with an axe as long as you're not cutting perpendicular to the length of the shaft. Angle the cut at 30°-60° and it'll go clean through. I've done this to lots of branches up at my friends cottage every spring when we're clearing fallen branches & trees off the trails. All you need is a good sharp axe that actually cuts instead of just mashing the wood.

Was the tree angling its branches to avoid getting them cut off? Did the other branches try to hit you before you could chop one off? Pikemen didn't just stand there and let the enemy chop up their weapons. There's another problem: Cutting off the head at an angle leaves a somewhat shorter pike with a sharp point at the business end.

[Elfdart]

Did ancient armies really let their opponents drag their dead off the battlefield? I thought that was romantic bullshti from Hollywood. I figured a prudent commander would run the enemy back to whatever hellhole they came from. Fighting battles without gaining land would be pointless. If you let the enemy drag their dead, they're obviously not going to be able to drag them far, and so will not be retrating. Ideally, my army would route and destroy every possible enemy soldier. Complete obliteration of the army, while exhausting, might prove a point, if it didn't backfire in PR.

So are there any other naval weapons I should know of besides boarding, ramming or setting fire to?

Usually the winning side looted the battlefield as much as possible, leaving most of the bodies to rot. At this point, relatives of the dead would come in and carry off their corpses if possible. Ancient armies sometimes ransomed the remains of dead enemies, since their relatives felt so strongly about giving a proper sendoff.

Navies sometimes used ballistas and catapults to attack other ships. The Greeks sent swimmers armed with drills to sabotage the Persian navy, with some success.

[CoyoteNature]

"Ypoknons
Padawan Learner



Joined: 13 May 2003
Posts: 195
Location: Third n' Eleventh
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:00 am Post subject:

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CoyoteNature wrote:
Actually if you go back far enough Romans sucked at infantry too, but they were practical and learned from their mistakes soooo. Actually I think they sucked also when fighting against Hannibal. ehh ancient history.

To clarify: Roman Hoplites were quite poor infantry, (not just less flexiable than legions - Hoplites defeated Gauls too, so Roman Hoplites must have been poorer in quality than those hoplites). But the Roman legionary infantry that followed it did beat Phyrrus (with a class-Macadeonian style army) at their last battle (Beneventum). Part of their victory over Phyrrus was due to the excellence of their political system that kept most of Italy on Rome's side, but certainly the fact that they did eventually beat him attests to the quality of infantry before the Punic Wars.

In the Punic Wars Roman ground forces (ie, infantry) usually bested the Carthagians until Hannibal's father came along, and he turned things to a stalement. Both the Spartan mercanary general and Hannibal himself regarded Numidian mercanary cavalary to be amongst Carthage's finest and used them when they demolished Roman armies. Even early (Polybian) Romans did not perform poorly against the Carthagians in infantry-infantry combat (and suck is a relative word) - rather Hannibal out them in impossible situations. "



Interesting and yes it is a relative word, but I like playing immaturity.

Was wondering what you know about Roman cavalry?



Wolverraptor

Ritual cannibalism might be more your forte, as opposed to gourmet cannibalism, some of the Native American Tribes practiced this type, mainly as a form of gaining their enemy's power or alternatively displaying their worth to their gods.

It still keeps cannibalism intact, and consequent terror benefits while restructuring it more in accordance with whatever belief structure your civilization has (which is bound to be more like spirit in body eat body eat spirit type religion).

Plus pure cannibalism only really occurred in island cultures with limited population like New Guinea and/or desparate situations. Also occurred in certain cultures in some truly decadent branches of civilization.

If you are set to cannibalism, better of sticking to ritual as opposed to gourmet.

And as regards to disease, you only really need to worry about the special diseases such as the New Guinea brain disease if you are there, which you won't be, I assume it is Europe correct?

Good cooking should kill almost any disease that would affect them.

[dworkin]

And take out the cannibalism. It doesn't happen in large societies for good reasons.

Such as?

Canabillism is highly ritualistic and is based on absorbing the spirit/magic/whatever of the disceased. It is based on animism belief structures. This is fine if your society is tribal.
Large socieites only work if you have agriculture and agriculture requires a different world-veiw. Farmers after all do some hienous things to domesticated species. This requires that they take a veiw that they are separate from and higher than the animals and plants they breed/raise/slaughter. And higher beings deserve special treatment. Therefore you don't eat them like the stuff that is counted as food.
This is not to say that the truly desparate won't practice canibalism in an utter emergancy.

Of course it's your story. Handwave all you like.

It also doesn't take a genius to realise why you can't breed an elite warrior caste. People cheat. All you do with harsh rules is up the competition, it cannot be eliminated. And cheats adapt just as quickly as supa-soldiers if not quicker.

What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't matter if my warriors bear children through outside women. All that matters is that such children be abandoned or killed. Males can do outside females, but outside males can't do the warriors' women.

Don't be a moron. Every now and then some enterprising individual will try to breed with the warrior's women (probably while 90% are off on campaign). And the successful ones will succeed. No matter how hard or draconian the punishments some will succeed. All upping the bar does is up the quality of those who are successful. Warrior women (who you said stay at home) will get urges to cheat too (duh). Selection will start favouring who they like when the he-men are away and those heroic successful cheats as well as those he-men who make it back.
Additionally there will be totally fresh gene flow in as he-men bring back captive women (illicitly or not).

But I guess it's your story. Handwave away.

Rememebr this is somewhen BCE. Understanding of pregnancy, genetics and the actual length of childbirth was shaky at best. The prevailing idea was that women were incubators and that the man passed on all the attributes (vital essence and all that). Of course you could grant your society an otherwise anachronistic understanding of sex but why not let them use Maxims and Sharpe Rifles while you're at it?*

*Humans started developing real clues about sex and inheritance in the 19th century. Practical implementation of a scientific idea is technology, whether it goes 'bang' or not.

[Sea Skimmer]

And as regards to disease, you only really need to worry about the special diseases such as the New Guinea brain disease if you are there, which you won't be, I assume it is Europe correct?

Good cooking should kill almost any disease that would affect them.

Normal cooking doesn’t kill prions, which are what cause that New Guinea degenerative brain disease, and mad cow. The only real defense against those sorts of diseases is simply not to eat brain or spinal tissue, but those parts where quite commonly eaten by cannibals.

[Darth Wong]

What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't matter if my warriors bear children through outside women. All that matters is that such children be abandoned or killed. Males can do outside females, but outside males can't do the warriors' women.

The eugenics angle is the most retarded wanktastic aspect of your alt-history universe. In real history, the only major empire that tried to use eugenics methods to improve the breed was Sparta, and guess what: they lost. That method keeps your army small and prevents it from ever becoming the kind of world-beating empire that someone like Alexander could make. It was tactics and co-ordination and discipline which won the day, not breeding.

[wolveraptor]

Canabillism is highly ritualistic and is based on absorbing the spirit/magic/whatever of the disceased. It is based on animism belief structures. This is fine if your society is tribal.

Since when was it decreed that all cannibalism has to revolve around spiritual beliefs. What about practicality? What about easy food sources? Besides, my warriors did consider themselves apart from the other "races", much as the farmer considers himself apart from cows.

Concerning brain disease: wouldn't muscle and fat tissue be the most consumed part of a human? Few people it cow brain or spinal fluid. Why should it be any different for people?

It should be noted that the warrior caste didn't make up a majority of the army: they were more the elite troops, who fought along side peasant volunteers (whenever possible; realisitically, drafting would be rather necessary).

What if I had the warrior women act as the supply train for the men? That way they might avoid people trying hit on them. Though I figured that kind of occurence would be very rare, as the warriors lived apart from the rest of society, with their own, isolated villages.

Even if the women cheat while the men are away, wouldn't it be relatively simple to figure out that Patsy has been fucking around with non-warrior Joe? If she suddenly has a kid when one gets back, and she wasn't pregnant, one knows. And then one abandons, kills, or enslaves the kid. Since they'd believe the man passed down the traits, they wouldn't want this kid's traits being propagated, since he's clearly a wuss-tastic non-warrior. And if by any chance, some kids still sneak across the genetic border, they'll still have to prove their worth in battle before breeding, and if they can do that, what difference does it make? They're still good enough.

[Darth Wong]

The mere fact that you keep referring to them as "warriors" rather than "soldiers" reveals problems in your mindset. You do not create world-beating ancient-era armies out of a handful of uber-warriors and a shitload of peasants.

[wolveraptor]

I merely use "warrior" as a shorter form of "members of the warrior caste in my hypothetical society".

Surely proffessional soldiers are an asset, in any case? Roman soldiers were proffessionals, except they had a limited length of service, and were paid in gold, iirc. My uber-soldiers had unlimited terms, and were paid in essentials.

[Spoonist]

Rememebr this is somewhen BCE. Understanding of pregnancy, genetics and the actual length of childbirth was shaky at best. The prevailing idea was that women were incubators and that the man passed on all the attributes (vital essence and all that).

Hmm, I'd have to disagree here. It depends on what ancient cultures you are talking about. For backwater european cultures you are right.
Most of the successful cultures had successful breeding programs for their domesticated animals. And it didn't take a genious to apply that knowledge to human sexuality. The chinese for instance had dog breeding programs that in scale and goals haven't been surpassed even in the modern era.

The problem of us attributing them falsely comes from the fact that the people dealing with actual farming/breeding wouldn't be the same as the ones who wrote the books with the theories about it.
Since there was no scientific method in those days it would be unthinkable to actually go ask the peasants about what really happened, instead the scholars discussed the topics among themselves with really ignorant result which was kept to posterity because those where the written account.
There are several examples of this reverse type of thinking from history with scholars who actually discussed things with the commoners was considered weird and crazy.
Several times in the roman era scholars tried to apply their philosophy with farming with disastrous result before returning it to the commoners who where successful.

[Spoonist]

What about practicality? What about easy food sources? Besides, my warriors did consider themselves apart from the other "races", much as the farmer considers himself apart from cows.

Concerning brain disease: wouldn't muscle and fat tissue be the most consumed part of a human? Few people it cow brain or spinal fluid. Why should it be any different for people?

All you have to ask yourself is this:
Which successful ancient culture practiced domesticated cannibalism?
The answer would be none. Why? Because those who would do would die out.
Eating your own kind is simply not in our genes, we don't have the bacteria/enzymes to handle it without it leading to an increase in mental disorders or diseases.

[Spoonist]

Even if the women cheat while the men are away, wouldn't it be relatively simple to figure out that Patsy has been fucking around with non-warrior Joe? If she suddenly has a kid when one gets back, and she wasn't pregnant, one knows. And then one abandons, kills, or enslaves the kid. Since they'd believe the man passed down the traits, they wouldn't want this kid's traits being propagated, since he's clearly a wuss-tastic non-warrior. And if by any chance, some kids still sneak across the genetic border, they'll still have to prove their worth in battle before breeding, and if they can do that, what difference does it make? They're still good enough.

Since genetics in real life is inhereted from and to male/female you would fail.
The fatality rate of women during childbirth was high. This is why almost all cultures had the bibilical rape and pillage routine when it came to other cultures women. This means that your genepool would be diluted from the stolen women.
Also your warrior class would have huge losses because of constant warfare elite or not. That means that you need to refill the losses.

You would face the same dilemma as the nazis with their honorary arians.
You don't want none arians to fight with you but then you start running out of arians because they are killed of in all the wars. Thats when you broaden the definitions of arian...

[Spoonist]

->wolveraptor
My 2 cents:

1st cent... Write your story anyway, do like hollywood and ignore all historical inconsistencies. how else are you going to create a great what if story? Without the what if you are just describing history...
2nd cent... If you are really asking for peoples historical opinions regarding this you should also listen to them. Right now you are just ignoring argument after argument about why your so called super culture wouldn't survive in the ancient era.
Did you ever read up on the spartans as I said? Youre culture is really close to theirs, so you should learn from their mistakes.

[Darth Wong]

I merely use "warrior" as a shorter form of "members of the warrior caste in my hypothetical society".

Surely proffessional soldiers are an asset, in any case? Roman soldiers were proffessionals, except they had a limited length of service, and were paid in gold, iirc. My uber-soldiers had unlimited terms, and were paid in essentials.

Oh for fuck's sake, you're still not getting it, are you? The tactics of ancient warfare involved attrition. You did not make a "warrior caste" at all if you had any brains, because you needed the ability to raise large armies from your population. This ridiculous "warrior caste" would be quickly reduced to nothing by the attrition of warfare and your absurd exclusionary policies. In the successful ancient imperial cultures, the entire society was their "warrior caste".

[Gunhead]

Ancient warfare was all about attrition. Hence the second rule of getting there with more. If I can get say six times the enemy's number of troops on the field, I'm already winning. By a huge margin no less.
Superior numbers have been a war winning factor since stone age. Not until quite recently could a numerically inferior force consistently beat an opposing force with greater numbers.
Superior quality becomes a deciding factor when numbers and technology levels between forces are about the same.

-Gunhead

[Spoonist]

Ancient warfare was all about attrition. Hence the second rule of getting there with more. If I can get say six times the enemy's number of troops on the field, I'm already winning. By a huge margin no less.
Superior numbers have been a war winning factor since stone age. Not until quite recently could a numerically inferior force consistently beat an opposing force with greater numbers.
Superior quality becomes a deciding factor when numbers and technology levels between forces are about the same.

-Gunhead

Don't forget fortification though. It's the exception to the rule of numbers.

[CoyoteNature]

Sea Skimmer Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:17 pm Post subject:

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"CoyoteNature wrote:

And as regards to disease, you only really need to worry about the special diseases such as the New Guinea brain disease if you are there, which you won't be, I assume it is Europe correct?

Good cooking should kill almost any disease that would affect them.


Normal cooking doesn’t kill prions, which are what cause that New Guinea degenerative brain disease, and mad cow. The only real defense against those sorts of diseases is simply not to eat brain or spinal tissue, but those parts where quite commonly eaten by cannibals.
"





I know that, but that wouldn't matter if his supposed civilization is in Europe where this is no prion borne disease such as the one in New Guinea, which is why I asked the question it is in Europe correct?

Or was that part read?


As to cannibalism, while gourmet cannibalism was not practiced as often except in some island civilizations or limited resource areas, ritual cannibalism was practiced fairly commonly in some of the more primitive civilizations, so its a misnomer to say it was never practiced and that all cultures just completely ignored it because it was bad.

It's more accurate to say most cultures ignored gourmet cannibalism.

Sparta did succeed for a while forming a league of their own, only problem was they were piss poor administrators, even if they were the best warriors in the ancient world.

Being able to fight all out of proportion to their actual numbers. Your warriors might be able to fight battles, but its doubtful they would be able to administrate their spoils all that well unless you give your slaves and/or civilians more power then you are willing to give.

Seem to recall Alexandria's forces were outnumbered by the Persian armies, yet still they were able to beat them through superior tactics, or is my memory failing.

[Darth Wong]

Sparta did succeed for a while forming a league of their own, only problem was they were piss poor administrators, even if they were the best warriors in the ancient world.

Being able to fight all out of proportion to their actual numbers. Your warriors might be able to fight battles, but its doubtful they would be able to administrate their spoils all that well unless you give your slaves and/or civilians more power then you are willing to give.

(sigh) gotta love Spartan-wanking. Spartan victories were generally due to the enemy not being well-prepared to deal with their tactics, not some kind of invincible warrior breed. When they met the Persians at Thermopylae, they had better equipment and a superior position. Enemies that did learn to adapt to Spartan tactics had good success against them, and eventually Sparta lost its military dominance. Moreover, the mechanism I mentioned earlier was a key factor: they could not survive the attrition of warfare.

Seem to recall Alexandria's forces were outnumbered by the Persian armies, yet still they were able to beat them through superior tactics, or is my memory failing.

Ironic since Persia's forces followed precisely the model that Wolveraptor wants for his army: shitloads of poorly trained and poorly equipped peasants surrounding a small core of elite warriors. Thus proving the point that it's a bad model. And Alexander himself had no such "elite warrior breed" notions in his head; he would recruit armies and generals from just about any race and civilization he encountered.

[Il Saggiatore]

Roman soldiers were proffessionals, except they had a limited length of service, ...

Over twenty years of service... quite a long time.

...and were paid in gold, iirc.

Or land, when they retired.
Who do you think got part of the land in the territories they conquered?

[Eleas]

...and were paid in gold, iirc.

Or land, when they retired.
Who do you think got part of the land in the territories they conquered?

And realistically, there would probably not be a money-based economy on a scale meaningful to the common man in place anyway. Rome was atypical in that regard.

[CoyoteNature]

Interesting, wasn't wanking just taking a contrary position for the sake of gaining information.

Got it, go learn some more now.

[wolveraptor]

I didn't want my entire Empire to have a warrior-like culture as I feared it would inhibit the free-flow of ideas and cause the society to eventually stagnate and die.

What if I changed the caste such that it would steal babies or youth from the people it conquered and indoctrinate them from birth to learn only arts of war. I figure their training and mentality would be a much, much bigger factor than what any breeding could offer. You're all right: breeding would take literally millions of years to be really worth the loss of potential soldiers.

I could even institute a wierd sort of tax where a certain number of young ones were taken from their families every year, or something, and trained to be warriors.

This would make it irrelavent if people had inter-caste sex, as long as the child was raised in the right culture.

Or would this still be too selective to deal with the continual loss of soldiers?