How did the Persians not manage to defeat this with missile spam i.e. archers? I'm pretty sure Henry V's army of 5,000 archers with 12 arrows each would have won even, yet I'm expected to believe the Persians with tens of thousands of skilled Median archers couldn't? It makes me believe what we read in the history books is bogus.>Alexander was outnumbered 5 to 1 at Gaugamela and don't you dare question it, goy!
>>62845462Bows didn’t exist yet so the Persians had to get to practically melee range with thrown spears and slings to do ranged attacks which meant that Alexander could easily close the distance and win through melee combat
>>62845462>>62845474Phalanxes were shockingly good against bow fire, as everyone was decently armored and the spears acted as a sort of screen that helped with deflecting shots. As for javelins, they were effective against phalanxes but phalanxes had their own screening formations of light infantry and skirmishers to drive away enemy skirmishers. Also, Alexander’s greatest asset was his cavalry against the Persians. Alexander’s cavalry absolutely massacred archers.
>>62845462Half of the advantage of that formation is that it's resistant to missiles. The pikes are pretty dense and unless you're shooting straight on (almost never) your archers or slingers will have most of their missiles hit the poles.And then on the off chance something got through, Alexander's pikemen were generally exceptionally well armored.
>>62845462The Macedonian phalanx provided good protection against missile fire, the pikes catching and deflecting arrows, while the pikemen usually had linen or metal cuirasses that provided excellent protection. Not sure how much protection the shields provided but that's also additional protection. At Ipsus the Antigonid phalanx was surrounded and fired upon from all sides with arrows, slings and javelins but still kept cohesion and only later surrendered.
>>62845462Read a book please, you can start off with Combined Arms Warfare in Ancient Greece (2019) by Wrightston. Its up on libgen so you have no excuse
The advantage of such formations was not some crazy combat efficiency but the plain fact that you can actually (somewhat) control them.
>>62845462Wasn't it also the case that ancient bows simply weren't as powerful in their draw weight?
>>62845462See those big round shields next to the spears? That's why; even if the phalanx was just tanking it, after a while the archers would get tired faster than the spearmen did, who would then charge and catch a good amount of them in the rout because they're tired from whaling on a wall of bronze for an hour.
>>62845462Arrows are basically useless against armor and shields. "Muh longbows" is literally just English propaganda/cope about a war they fucking lost. There's a reason outside of English autism, archers and other skirmishers always played a very minor role compared to cavalry and proper infantry.The Achaemenids did have proper cavalry and likely horse archers, but Alexander had his own cavalry to counter them.>>62845987I don't believe that's true. They had composite recurve bows, basically the peak of bow technology up until the modern era.
>tfw no Persian gf given to you by Alexander himselfWhy even live bros
The Macedonians had skirmishers of their own and the Macedonian phalanx was pretty good at defending against arrows since the pikes could block them. Greeks also wore more and better armor than most other people of the era. See Marathon for why that helps against bows.On top of all that, you can't just sit back and shoot infantry all day. You need a striking force to actually land a killing blow. >but muh CarrhaeThe Parthians finally broke the Romans there by charging in with cataphracts. Most of the losses came after their charges. The arrows were mostly a morale breaker. Crassus's son getting killed along with most of the cavalry didn't help matters either.
>>62845462because Alexanders army wasn't just pikes but included huge formations of various aux troops especially skirmishers and calvary who protected the flanks
Nignog, the standard Achaemenid battle-line consisted of 8-10 rows deep of archers all equipped with composite recurve bows, which were the best in the Ancient world.Problem is everyone in the Macedonian Phalanx was fucking armored (fun fact: they're not hoplites with mismatched and random equipped, the main force of the Macedonian Phalanx was the Pezhetairoi- relatively wealthy soldiers given lands and farms so they can equip themselves with nothing but the best.) and those longass pikes of theirs acted as a secondary defense against missile fire.
>>62845462>>62845525>>62845526>>62845623>>62845987>>62846632>>62848942The power gap between longbows with draw weights over #140 with specialized arrowheads for defeating armor and the unbelievably shitty bows of antiquity is astronomical, and even longbows struggled to score consistent casualties against armored troops of even average quality. The immediately lethal wounding range of a Longbow against something as simple as chain over a good layered gambeson is incredibly close. Think about that for a second: the most powerful bows in history would often expend their entire store of ammunition into an enemy formation of medium infantry and not even score one kill per archer. Even the best bows were weapons to kill a few men here and there while primarily wearing down the enemy, giving them minor wounds, or disrupting their marching formation. Bows and other missile weapons had a role, they helped to win battles, but the kills-per-shot were quite low.Bows fucking sucked in antiquity. Career professional slingers fucked light bowmen to death every single time they met with equal numbers for all of history.The Shields of the men in a Macedonian Phalanx WERE generally inferior to the shields used in shorter-spear armed Phalanxes, and the men of the Macedonian Phalanx WERE more vulnerable to missile fire, but more vulnerable doesn't mean "instantly killed by" and that entire track is missing the point that you would never have the opportunity to just pelt your enemy to exhaustion while backpedaling forever if the Phalanx is supported by it's own ranged troops, light infantry, or cavalry. When idiots left their long pike formations completely unsupported that's basically exactly what happened to them for all of history, the enemy just refused to meet them and threw shit at them all day long. But if you're dealing with anyone halfway competent they're going to punish you for trying that by circling around you and turning your guts into confetti.
>>62849031>The power gap between longbows with draw weights over #140 with specialized arrowheads for defeating armor and the unbelievably shitty bows of antiquity is astronomicalSource?
>>62849031>>The power gap between longbows with draw weights over #140 with specialized arrowheads for defeating armor and the unbelievably shitty bows of antiquity is astronomicalPeer review double blind placebo controlled trial?
>>62849037>>62849444source: he's coping bong
>>62849037What do you think the average draw weight of bows was in antiquity?>>62849502>coping bong>"The strongest longbows were weapons of harassment even against substandard armor"Brilliant.
>>62849566>What do you think the average draw weight of bows was in antiquity?Likely no different than the medieval era, since nothing at all changed about their construction nor usage. The longbow is literally the most primitive bow of all.
>>62849570>I imagine it must be so so it was solol
>>62849674What change occurred?
>>62845462people remember the phalanxes, the forget the part where alexander had a well rounded combined arm forces with skirmishers and cavalry as well. The skirmishers returns fire at your archers and the cavalry chases them away, and then the phalanx are already there.You know the actual proper way to thoroughly defeats phalanx, or any heavy infantry for all that matters? either dont fight them head on in a pitched battle and march around them with your lighter infantry and cavalry, destroy their supply train, and win without fighting.or you bait them into overextending into unfavourable terrain or too far away from supporting elements, and then outflank them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzocope and seethe all you want, but longbows will defeat chain like a knife through hot butter.
>>62850085>lies on the internet>runs away when called out but leaves a strawman he misconstructedLeast obnoxious kike
>>62850094did you not watch the video?
>>62850100why are you deflecting from your pathetic lies, faggot?
>>62850111the video is literal proof that longbow arrows defeat chain. I don't know what to tell you man.
>>62845526They almost never shot different way than straight. It's Hollywood bullshit to shot in the sky. Arrow shot like that won't do shit to guy with basic armor or shield. Multiple rows was to change men on front because using war bow was exhausting. Inb4 I was there 3000 years ago Gandalf, trust me
>>62850118>It's Hollywood bullshit to shot in the skyWhat about>Our arrows shall blot out the sun>Then we shall fight in the shadeIt's obviously not what happened but it's a lot older than Hollywood.
>>62850116this thread is literal proof that you're a coping bong that cannot let go of his childish cuck stick
>>62850136can somebody please explain why this man refuses to see the proof before his very eyes?
>>62850085>can't even reply to posts that BTFO'd you>says anything about cope and seetheA sniveling bong rat like you makes about as much impact as bows did on armored formations.
>>62850144oh I see. you're fr*nch. I get it now. V
>>62850149I can be anyone else and you will still be a pathetic bong jerking himself off to the wars you lost miserably all the same.
>>62850130Source: trust me bro.Even if they did it it would be waste of arrows.
>>62845462No armor pen, slings are expensive to train and low rangeThe roman protocrossbow chads win again though, they had these things set up in every hill they could at every opportunity and rain down death bolts upon the enemyFucking Varus had this shit in roman vietnam; Imagine you have been fighting for 2 days, no reinforcements on sight and in an primordial death forest with tall trees and human sacrifices. Your fellow legionaries picked off at sudden attacks yet you and your guys carry this, pop one on a hill every time and the krauts can do nothing but piss themselves and seethe in retreat for the attack repeat until you either get out or get deadKinda makes you wonder what sort of shit roman vets would end up doing after stuff like that and 20 years on top
>>62845462Arrows are not magic like in movies. And bowstrings are very fragile in reality, just damp weather can fuck them up and you never keep them strung up outside of a fight.
>>62850163Source is Herodotus.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DienekesPersia could afford it.
>>62850130Clearly they were firing their arrows down hill
>>62845474The fuck are you even talking about?Bows did exist and were very common.The phalangites had armor,shields and the pikes also blocked some of the arrows. The phalanx was not stationary either and would move towards the enemy. They had lighter units like slingers and peltast to support it as well.
>>62849677Do you have any actual information on the historical draw weights of bows from various factions in antiquity? Have you ever even tried to find that information once, in your entire life?
>>62850452Do you? Or will you keep perpetuating the lie you made up on the spot because you couldn't imagine people inventing a bigger stringed stick before the English?
>>62850460Is that a no? To be clear you've never once even tried to look up the draw weights of historical bows, you just assumed they must all be similar?
>>62850130They shot all their arrows at the sun, they were very brave
>>62850556So you don't, you just keep pretending your british dickwad stick is very very special with absolutely nothing to show for it by hiding behind useless deflections.
>>62845462Pic related is pretty much the bow-tech we are talking about at that point in time
>>62852905They had the exact same bow tech they'd have a thousand years later.
>>62850452>o you have any actual information on the historical draw weights of bows from various factions in antiquity?Of course. Since they were made identically they had similar draw weights.>nooo that counters my baseless assertion!Yes it does. Get fucked retard.>>62850556Get fucked retard. Holy shit you're stupid.>it's old so it's weaker!LMAO HOLY SHIT what a stupid cocksmoker. The longbow is literally the oldest, shittiest bow ever found. 140lbs bows aren't anything special at all. It's just a stick.
>>62853591noyou are so incredibly ignorant that its equivalent to some illiterate faggot sitting on a space imageboard 2000 years from now going "uhm actually a 10th century handcannon had the same effectiveness as an AR"there was massive progress in bow technology, just like every singular other technology improved as wellnothing remains stagnant over centuries
>>62853698Handcannons were made in ways completely different from a modern firearm.Ancient bows were not different AT ALL from bows made in the middle ages.>bow technologyLiterally zero advancement. The longbow is the oldest bow ever made. The string is the same material it always was. The big advancement, recurve composite bows, was invented already. Persians used them. Their ancestors invented them.
>>62850452>factionsthis isn't total war nigger
>>62852875>>62853601>>62853823So to be clear, a lot of crying and sobbing and pissing, and no actual information on historical draw weights.
>>62849686Or just punch through with your own heavier infantry,equipped with short swords for close-in fighting.Even if they win it will be a phyrric victory.
>>62854919see>>62854919
I think general academic thought these days is that part of the Phalanx's obsolescence came about from advances in arrowheads and bows rendering the linothorax no longer viable.
Because the vast majority of the Persian military were quasi-slave forces. Militia at best, with a few professional troops thrown in. When 90%-95% of your force does not want to fight for you, does not want to fight a guy coming to replace you and has no incentive other than 'if you don't, you'll die' then all you gotta do is make sure the guy in charge is killed and his fellows captured or killed as well. So Alexander 'The bestest guy ever who did everything himself and had no help and omg so amazing I'm totally not a zoomer who learned about him from some fucking infographic' The ''''Great'''' doing decapitation strikes makes the entire thing that much easier. If the guy who is going to kill you is dead, then you're not really at risk any more, so you fucking leave of swear ro the guy who won.
>>62850118You're a retard who has no idea what he's talking about. Arcing your shot gives you a farther range with the arrow, and it also allows you to fire over the main body of your own infantry. Go read a book, dipshit.
>>62850372That's assuming the position of the sun was at early morning or late evening. What about mid-day and afternoon?
>>62855178Got any academic source on that? Seems unlikely considering>Athere's no scholarly consensus on the material qualities of the linothorax in the first place>BThey had shields>CLiteral flint arrowheads have been shown to penetrate better than hardened steel in many cases>DThe thing that finally killed off the phalanx was the Romans marching in and taking over, not anything to do with bows>>62855201literally "I watched 300 so I know about Persia" tier. Are you aware the first thing Cyrus did upon conquering Babylon was free all of the people enslaved there?>Alexander the Great slanderAbsolute midwit zoomer revision bullshit. Less than subhuman.
>>62855232It's Linen armor and you can work that out from how linen armor works in a more contemporary setting how it probably worked back then. The reconstructions make in the 10's provide a good floor of what they were capable of. The glue / lamination autism is something else. >muh manipular legion obsoleted the hoplite phalanx No.
>>62855323>it's linen armorWe only have conjecture based upon etymology, but zero description of its material qualities. Just because you say "It's armor that incorporates linen, probably" doesn't mean we know anything about it.>No.Yes, and it's not up for debate you fucking retard. That is what ended the phalanx. It existed pre-Rome, and Rome conquered literally everyone who used it. End of the phalanx. Full stop, no ifs ands or buts. >but I don't like that answer it's not contrarian enough for me!Too bad fucktard, quit being so goddamn stupid.
>linothoraxNot a thing, the contemporaries would just call it "armor". Just like "lorica segmentata" and "squamata"/>linenWhy use linen when leather is just as strong, cheaper and more readily available?
>>62855350>look I've done all this material science on what would have been available in classical antiquity, I think this is an acceptable baseline for what this armor wasI sleep>Polybius says about shit he never even saw by proxyReal shit
>>62855778Yes, contemporary historical accounts cary more weight than unfounded nomenclature based on broad-reaching assumptions and half-assed experimentation. We've figured this out since the 19th century, you know.
>>62845462>It makes me believe what we read in the history books is bogus.Nothing legit Christian OR Islamic exists prior to about exactly 1000AD.Nothing exists to indicate any of any "Islamic conquest" was Islamic.Fact that BOTH of these things have same issue is pretty amazing confirmation, IMO.Some claim about 600yrs were added to (((Western))) time line at end of Roman Empire, and not been disproved or even seriously challenged.There are two "silos" at Research Universities. History (and politics, and "social science") of books written from other books (of which originals are no more than 700yrs old) and "Hard Science" that looks at actual artifacts and sediment layers, etc.These two silos don't cross paths, and member of each understand why, and both groups also understand "books from other books" controls both money and legal, and is in charge.Western Uni is really no diff from Soviet Union in the 1930s.If the Holohoax exists in the age when photos and motion pictures were common, WTF would you trust any much older claims, about anything, without actual artifacts?BTW, nothing Jewish existed until about a decade AFTER the Romans arrived, as a reaction to new Rule of Law to game that system.>Alexander was outnumbered 5 to 1 at Gaugamela and don't you dare question it, goy!that not too hard to believe, given we got no hard data on quality of troops and/or their level of commitment.Look at Spanish VS Aztecs who were on paper a "Nation of Warriors". When everyone is a warrior is like in fact no one is a warrior.IMO these fake history cases are excellent example of how one should examine any "military intell". Start off with "says who?" and "oh really, how about maybe not" and see if it stands up to questioning.
>>62850411yeah, pretty sure Egyptians had bows from way, way back.as did Greeks.Roman Republic and been sacked by Gauls and recovered by the time of Alex The Great.
>>62855897>Nothing legit Christian OR Islamic>Ancient Greece
>>62855113Hey it's cool man if you've literally never looked up even casually a single source for how strong bows were in ancient Greece, Persia, basically anywhere in the ancient past, no one's judging you.
>>62856339Yep, it's cool how you constantly bring up sources that you never ever actually specify and instead retort with duckless seethe every time before coming back to peddle the same exact bullshit again.
>>62845474I use balearic slings that I make myself irl. I can shoot it around the same distance I can shoot an arrow and just as accurate if I have well shaped and dense clay or lead shot.
>>62855897>he believes that the Carolingian empire is made up >that historical sources don't get backed up with archaeology>we have to share existence with such utter retards
They didn't have unlimited arrows
>>62845474good bait
>>62856656just craft more then
>>62855792I like the strategic use of the word "contemporary" over "primary" anon and I wanted to let you know I noticed it.
>>62855764Why is this thread full of people making shit up.>Not a thing, It was absolutely a thing. There is zero uncertainty.>the contemporaries would just call it "armor"....That's what linothorax means. Linen+throax. Linen armor or linen breastplate. That's the term that was used by both Roman and Greek authors. Pic related are two examples where Herodotus uses the term in the original Greek. There are numerous more.We don't know how it was produced, how thick it was, whether it was entirely linen, all we know is what it looked like and what it was called.>Why use linen when leather is just as strong, cheaper and more readily available?No idea, you travel back in time 2500 years and ask them. Figure out wtf the Roman dodecahedrons are for on your return trip please.
>>62845681Also gain a broader perspective of war and conflict. War is not an isolated tactical competition, it's an extension of geopolitics.War is not some sort of team sport, the historic and political conditions shape the conflict and its outcome. In this case, the historic empire of the Greeks and their many conquests.
>>62845525>long range melee>armored and massed>kills spearmen, cavalry>resistant to arrows, projectilesSo a well trained and equipped unit that is prepared for all threat types and cohesive, able to fight independently if need be.Valuing quality men over quantity. To value the potential of the individual and put in the training and equipment. One soldier that is worth thirty of the enemy in battle, who can handle an enemy of greater number and must do so.
>>62848775i am the descendant of some macedonian who fugged some persian in the mountainslife is pretty gud
>>62856369Hey what were the draw weights of bows in asia minor 3000 years ago and how do you know?
>>62860246Almost certainly identical to the draw weight of bows 500 years ago, since nothing at all about their construction nor usage changed in that time. The recurve composite bow was invented by at least 2000 BC, and essentially nothing has changed about it since.The longbow of course dates to the neolithic and is vastly more ancient and primitive.
>>62860258i know nothing about bows but they way you present information about them makes it seem like you also don't know anything about them
>>62860377>i know nothing about bowsI'm aware. You wouldn't be posting if you did.
>>62856445>Carolingiangive me your best 101 pre-1000AD Christian artifacts.Note that suddenly post 1000AD there is a shit ton of clearly Christian stuff like detailed "Jesus on Cross" with all the trimmings.sorta Christian looking cross with longer lower leg is default building topper for lots of cultures including Hindu, for logical reasons to hang banners etc.
>>62860402Ok, here you go. Here's a coin minted during the reign of Hilderic. Christianity was of course so widespread at this point that the "barbarians" Rome was contending with were Christians.
>>62860411>>62860402Here is the oldest surviving transcript of the council of Nicea, dated to the 500s
>>62860411>>62860421>>62860402A manuscript with bible verses written in Gothic, the Latin background text was erased and written over. This dates from the 500s and is a copy of earlier Gothic translations of the Bible from the 300s.
>>62860439>>62860421>>62860411>>62860402Roman sarcophagus from the 300s depicting Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.
>>62845462How does a hoplite hold such a long spear with one hand steadily enough to pierce through armour and flesh?
>>62860446pretty sure its 2 handed. Shield is is strapped to forearm.You also dont slash or stab through armor, you attack weakpoints, push and knock down opposing infantry before trampling them or stabbing them.if enemy infantry gets too offbalanced and compressed from your pushing they cant fight properly and will have to retreat ground (or in the case of cannae get absolutely massacred) Retreating ground opens up gaps in formation which you can use as flanks to fuck another part of the formation.too many men retreat fround and the formation is completely fucked and your men routs, you jist lost the pitched infantry battle.
A lot of autistic cum flinging going on but nothing approaching solid claims.Here's 2 blog posts that do a good job of collecting different claims and sources for historical bow draw weights.https://www.bookandsword.com/2022/07/02/how-heavy-were-iron-age-bows-part-1/https://www.bookandsword.com/2022/09/17/how-heavy-were-iron-age-bows-part-2/The gist of it is that there's evidence, however disputable, that 16th, 17th, 18th century bows from England to Turkey to China had draw weights higher than 100 pounds, maybe 150+ pounds.Then there's evidence of bows ranging from 16th century BC Egypt to Parthia (maybe 3rd century AD) that had draw weights of 40 to 60 pounds.In the examples given claimed draw weights for later era bows are always heavier than earlier bows.This makes intuitive sense, firstly in that as cultures practiced an activity they became more specialised in it, in both training to draw heavy bows but also learning to make heavier bows. Secondly the military significance of archery increases in history until the development of plate amour and firearms.
>>62860441>>62860439>>62860421>>62860411>>62860402something a little different, a Chinese Nestorian wall painting of the three magi, dated before the year 800
>>62860462forgot pic
>>62860457Utterly wrong.>uh we estimated it by eye>also this guy who has never seen a bow guessed>uh we made a vague reproduction and it has this draw weightJunk. >This makes intuitive sense,It does not, as nothing about bow technology changed.>firstly in that as cultures practiced an activity they became more specialised in it, in both training to draw heavy bows but also learning to make heavier bows. Bows had been invented tens of thousands of years prior. Iranians were literally the descendants of steppe nomad bow wielding horse archers. They did not lack specialization in the use of bows.>Secondly the military significance of archery increases in historyThis is utterly false. The Achaemenids placed a greater emphasis on archery than the later Roman Empire. Your concept is literally just "well the English used bows a lot as time progressed, that means bows became more significant with time"You are making incorrect assertions because you have no idea what you are talking about, and are grasping at straws to justify centuries old British cope about a war they lost. Longbows are not anything special. Longbowmen were not anything special. The Iranians had been using composite recurve bows for more than 1500 years by the time of Alexander. They were adequately familiar with them.
>>62860482>You are making incorrect assertions because you have no idea what you are talking abouttrue for vast majority of /his/ posters
>>62860513we're on /k/, it's much worse here.
>>62860411Crosses, without any clear Jesus connection, were one of the most common symbols, for a few reasons. One of the most common was "East, West, North, South" related to a Govt's authority of land ownership.>>62860439 Two main questions:1)what is the providence and Carbon-14 etc hard science dating of this artifact. Hint: someone has done it, so its not public they didn't like the result.Same as Jews preventing Holocaust investigations.2)my Gothic, and ancient Greek is a bit rusty. Do you have a scholarly translation to go with this? :)Because all the supposed "pre-1000AD Bible verses" I've seen actually translated simply ain't Bible. More like kinda generic some official pontificating on "nature of authority" etc or "relation of Man and God(s)" etc.Show me something in clear direct language about Jesus and his buddies doing the very specific shit mentioned in Bible at specific named locations, etc.Here is what real shit looks like. They are finding new seal temples everyday in the jungle. So much they are totally backlogged. These will be sealed since built and will contain not just mummies but all sorts of clearly religious/cultural stuff indicating ranks, family relations, etc, etc. We still struggle with translation of exactly WTF they were on about, but its clearly a distinct system, and its repeated in literally thousands of well preserved complex detailed artifacts.These were people without real metallurgy except for gold and silver trinkets, and didn't have moving parts or widespread written daily language.Christianity supposedly existed in late stage ROMAN EMPIRE, where everyone even foreign slaves where being taught to write in Latin, and major Emperors were converting (yet not a hint of anything Jesus in their still existing monuments of campaigns that do include detailed marble statues of random slave girls, etc).Likewise "Israel Dept of Archeology". They find old unmarked broken pottery and label it "Israel".
>>6286044112 guys around a leader (Zodiac) was common, based on 13 lunar cycles per year (more or less).Only AFTER 1000AD do these similar paintings suddenly have all sorts of indicators that the 12 guys are those mentioned in Bible and the leader is clearly Jesus.Muslims have a big thing about no pics of The Prophet, but I missed the big ruling from The Pope at 1000AD that is now suddenly perfectly OK, even REQUIRED, >>62860463to include CLEARLY and DETAILED stuff showing its JESUS and not some random other guys.>>62860463"three sons" is a big theme in at least Japanese culture.If BABY Jesus was visited by "3 wise men" why are these guys so much smaller and why is Jesus full grown? How do I know this ain't just broken off on the right and there were 5 other guys in the line of 3?
>>62860577>Here is what real shit looks like.https://www.govisitcancun.com/mayanruins/IIRC much of the UN-explorered stuff is in Guatemala. They same some Indians still speak original language and while poor are amazingly uninterested in helping ANY outside scholars translate ANYTHING, at any price. Some real HP Lovecraft shit. :)
>>62845474>Bows didn’t exist yet>Bows >didn’t >exist >yetWell call me a Trout and cook me in a smokehouse because I’ve been baited on a level I did not think possible
>>62848942Pezhetairoi almost certainly predate Alexander III, likely instituted by Alexander I alongside the hetairoi or later by Alexander II (perhaps with the adoption of the hoplite panoply). They were likely just the macedonian citizen levy kept under arms a seen fit by the king. Later on Philip II would rearm and rebuild the corps after the catastrophic defeat suffered by Perdiccas III. It was during his constant campaigns that we know for sure that the pezhetairoi were paid a wage and supplied their gear by the state, so they became more like professional soldiers drafted from the macedonia citizenry. While the king did give out gifts relating to lands and incomes derived from them, say, he could allot a portion of a towns harbour dues to an individual, it would be nigh inconcievable that he would have been able to allot tens of thousands of farms to individual infantrymen and have an effective bureaucracy in place to manage all of that. The kings did sometimes however depopulate towns to resettle them with the veterans who'd live on the income of the labour of the newly displaced perioikoi who'd form new villages nearby.So, the pezhetairoi were an old institution and likely had their kit change with time. They, likely, were relatively late to adopt the hoplite panoply since greeks often remarked on the high quality of macedonian cavalry and low quality of their infantry. Even upon the adoption Philip's innovations they were initially very likely rather lightly armed and only managed to adopt the heavy panoply after the king's financies had improved, since it was all sipplied by the state.
you faggging faggot the phalanx is good vs archers cause of the armored troops, shields and long pikes making the missiles bounce a bit off ie transfer loads of their kinetic energy to the sarissa making them a less of a danger to the armored phalangite. Plus, movement. The macedonian way of warfare was based on maneuvre warfare. Exceptional examples right there. I dunno why in the last 100 yards the americanino author didn't draw examples from the hellenic and roman history since it's bredy documented and draw so much from chinese shit, which mostly was quotes from men that did fuck all in maneuvre warfare. Maybe 'cause it was released during the chinese hollywood shiet and the grand opening of muh western megafactories in chinah.>>62860411Cross was a symbol of Zeus/Jupiter just to let you know. Plus since we're talking about the Macedonian dynasty, their emblem was the Argead star. There, you can see the meaning of the cross. Cross symbolizes the 4 elements that Man can immediately use/feel. The rest of the rays symbolize the 12 major Gods. The cross was widely used thousands of years before a dude named Jesus came along and it was widely associated with Zeus as well.
>>62860634Why is the UN so focused on Guatemala?Are they trying to make Chichen Itza the capital of the World Federation?
>>62845462bump
>>62855897WTF is this person even saying? They probably believe the Russian Su-57 bots as well.
>>62860770Shut up schizo retard, your conspiracy theory isn’t even cool.
>>62863943lmao, what conspiracy did I even post, turbofaggot?
>>62845462Because they had shields. >>62845474Bows 100% existed you faggot.
>>62845462bumpo
>>62866503A really gay retarded one.
>>62845462There was a documentary about this kind of thing a while back. It's called 300 I think.
>>62845462I feel like Cavalry would be a problem. Didn't Henry V also benefit from loose terrain?
>>62855764I forget how many references it is in the wisconsin linothorax book but they have something in the +20 double digit territory, maybe a lot higher, for linen references by primary sources. There's a few references for leather/spolas too, but the whole counter-swing reaction (often from people I saw saying leather was never used, now they say only leather was used) is excessive and misguided. Above all there's no standardization back then. It's like imagine some Greek colonist in the Crimea with all the leather he could hope for having someone go "Sorry man you can't make it out of rawhide", or someone whose got cheap linen in abundance being told "You can't use linen". Frankly even though people shit on the idea of glue the wisconsin linothorax project guys showed it works perfectly with rabbit glues and other period glues that we know they used for theatre masks and I believe they used for wooden shields. Did they all glue it? Probably not, but they could.>But we've never found any glued linen armorAnd we never found any linothorax armor for the period we know it was being used. I've just come around to (x) doubt the grognards who repeat catechisms you'd hear from youtube historian types.
>>62874093>(often from people I saw saying leather was never usedThat was one of the weirdest pop history contrarian trends I've ever seen. There is so much indisputable evidence of leather armor including historical leather armor finds. And yet the tards just went "nah I did zero research and concluded it never happened"
>>62874110They just heard it from the youtube guys refuting biker-leather and it became telephone game gospel. Except we do have evidence of leather that wasn't just rawhide scale or lamellar, too. Something that really showed me how little the average person knows was doing a mod for a game around 2010, someone asking why our celts looked so conan-y and then them showing me the tube and yoke cuirasses the celts had. I'd never seen that before, then I learned about the Halstatt scabbard. That we've known of for +100 years but which fucking nobody except one-off pics of Angus McBride ever depicted until Rome 2 and some French re-enactors around that time. Even though it and some other statues to back it up show the Celts had it. Hell, EB1 didn't have it for their celts and they were probably the first internet more popular cultural (Than wargaming grognards) expression of valuing accuracy (given this was contemporary to Troy and gladiator).Obviously interpretation can be taken too far, but I give a lot more leniency to it. There's stuff that hasn't percolated to the pop mainstream yet, like mail coifs on late romans, great helmets for one case of roman gladiators (Even I doubted that until I saw no it's legit), or Romans depicting themselves on grave reliefs with quilted aketon-y style armor.
>On the Macedonian phalanxhttps://acoup.blog/2024/01/19/collections-phalanxs-twilight-legions-triumph-part-ia-heirs-of-alexander/>On the combined arms Macedonian armieshttps://acoup.blog/2024/01/26/collections-phalanxs-twilight-legions-triumph-part-ib-subjects-of-the-successors/The phalangites were well armoured along with shields and whatever protection those pikes overhead would give but I think most importantly is that they just were one piece of the army. They had shittons of cavalry, light and medium infantry and even other heavy infantry formations around them.
>>62855897retard
>>62876661I've heard those shields were smaller than the other styles of shields at the time.
>>62845462You could have given Harry a nuke and he still wouldn't be able to defeat Alex.
>>62850085>barges into thread about hellenistic warfare>start ranting about how the super epic english longbows can defeat a type of armour not used by the ancient greeksProfoundly retarded.
>>62845462So did anyone ever post draw weights from greek bows?
>>62850215>Fucking Varus had this shit in roman vietnam; Imagine you have been fighting for 2 days, no reinforcements on sight and in an primordial death forest with tall trees and human sacrifices. Your fellow legionaries picked off at sudden attacks yet you and your guys carry this, pop one on a hill every time and the krauts can do nothing but piss themselves and seethe in retreat for the attack repeat until you either get out or get deadAnon, that's the opposite of what actually happened.>Kinda makes you wonder what sort of shit roman vets would end up doing after stuff like that and 20 years on topThe whole reason why the Romans permanently gave up on expanding northward was because there were no veterans left. "Germanicus" tried one more expedition later but he failed so hard that they had to make up a cope about finding their lost eagles there to give him a triumph since he was the nephew and prospective heir of the emperor. He even got a fancy new name for that, but in reality he just burned down a couple of largely abandoned villages while losing a shitton of really valuable troops. There used to be a museum exhibition on it called "Triumph Without Victory" or something like that. I think there's a book about it too but it's hard to find because the phrase it way too popular for the Iraq War.
>>62855021It's very rare for heavy infantry to just punch through a pike phalanx and defeat it unless they themselves are a pike phalanx. Off the top of my head I can't think of any battles where the Romans were able to defeat a pike phalanx head on while it maintained cohesion. The weakness of the phalanx was how quickly the cohesion could break down if terrain was unfavourable or if the flanks weren't protected, (or weirdly common but elephants/chariots being spooked and crashed into the lines). That and it was expensive to train and maintain these kinds of infantry and hard to replace losses. But they were pretty much invincible from the front while they had cohesion, that's their strength.
>>62849677>>62849570>>62849444>>62849037>>62849031IDK, but this article has a lot of sources that seems to put ancient bows well below the draw weight of medieval long bows. https://www.bookandsword.com/2022/09/17/how-heavy-were-iron-age-bows-part-2/But I also know that draw weight isn't anything and other improvements might be relevant.
>>62882893It would be extremely weird if everyone was using bows with draw weights over 100 pounds in ancient times when they weren't even that common when their use was at it's peak in the medieval times.
>>62855201Damn nigger read a book.
>>62856405Post em bro. I need one for squirrels
>>62859495What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
>>62871678Fuck you you stupid sheep wake up man. I bet you never will understand the truth retardo nafofaggot
>>62845474Exquisite bait
>>62845462Bongs with longbows did face a similar formation at the battle of Falkirk in 1298, when the Scots adopted square or circular pike formations to ward off English cavalry after their own was driven off the field. The longbowmen just shot at them for hours while they were immobile, until they started to disintegrate. The point being that archers can be effective against pikemen, but only if they have time to work. Alexander's whole deal was aggression and tactical mobility with mutually supportive troops so he was able to avoid putting his pikes in a situation where bowmen could pluck away at them for long enough to do real harm.In another English battle against Scotch pikemen, Flodden in 1513, the English archers were described as not very effective against the advancing Scots, and that side of the field was won by the Scots. Archers generally couldn't hold equal ground against pikes, to say nothing of more mobile melee troops like cavalry, which Alexander also had.
>>62845987>>62849031Is there any particular basis for thinking bows in antiquity were so much less powerful? The Mary Rose bows, the basis for modern estimates of medieval bow weight, are self bows with technology that could have been used in the stone age. That one bog bow that it literally from the neolithic is pretty powerful.
>>62855222We know that tactic was used but undeniably robs the arrows of almost all of their effectiveness on the target. Shooting like that would be harassment at most.
>>62855764Leather isn't necessarily cheaper or more available
>>62856013Ötzi the literal fucking iceman WHG cavenigga had a bow
>>62888475based
https://youtu.be/iZCusd7oBYc?si=07msBeKaGsYt5GjT&t=750Doesn't look like the linothorax offer much protection t b h f a m
>>62845462archers of any kind, even with really good bows, are actually very ineffective compared to what people think about them based on the movies for example
>>62888760>the eastern roman empire>the Greek orthodox church>the Syriac orthodox church >the coptic church>physical churches dating to before 1000ADALL elaborate lies concocted by the Pope
>>62871678kek you retardus maximus, tell me which conspiracy I posted, faggot.
>>62888760>immediate nafo seetheOk schizo, the gay dog in your walls goes away if you take your meds
>>62845462That formation was easily defeated with flanks.
>>62855897>Some claim about 600yrs were added to (((Western))) time line at end of Roman Empire, and not been disproved or even seriously challenged.That's because no-one with triple digit IQ takes those kinds of claims seriously. It's literally timecube-tier garbage.
>>62888934So, bows with draw weights well over 100 pounds were niche even in the period we know they existed in. Throughout the world, examples of armies that favor such bows are often surrounded by cultures who do NOT use them. It takes years of rigorous physical training to be able to pull a #140 bow consistently dozens of times, and add to that you'd still be required to be in physical fighting condition afterwards. This enormous cost for what is ultimately in the grand scheme of things, a less than enormous advantage, wasn't seen as worth it by many cultures we know for a fact were *contemporary* with such weapons. The "investment" cost is extreme and the payoff is not, so scattered around the world you get cultures who either think it's a waste of time or absolutely vital to their identity. Several times in history the class of a society that practiced extreme weight archery suffered some kind of loss (political or too many of them died in too short a time) and you'll see the culture simply give up on the concept and go back to weaker bows. The mongols at their peak of archery were using bows over 100 pounds in draw, and by their decline were using bows half as strong. Same with the Samurai archers, the Ottomans, the Manchu, etc.Saying "they had the technology to make them" ignorant of the costs is like if you found a tribe using ten pound sledgehammers as weapons, which they trained with from birth and were 10% more effective with than other similar troops, and assumed that every mace or hammer in history must be ten pounds or more becasue "they could have made them that heavy". It's taking a weapon to it's maximum extreme, to the point it requires a huge buy in. There is good reason to believe that the greeks were *aware* you could linearly scale up a bow to make it more powerful, because the most widely read Greek story in the world features a description of such a bow, and how men cant use it unless they've trained for years to do so.
>>62890705All good points but I don't see why archer forces in Alexander's day wouldn't have been able to field elite archers with bows that were comparable in power to the strongest medieval bows. If the Mongols and Bongols both established a tradition of heavy archery, why wouldn't the Persians? We know that they had a famed archer force from the battle of Carrhae.
>>62889634*rotates the phalanx sideways in your direction*
>>62891082>i don't know how the formation worked
>>62845462Romans figured out if you have a high mobility you can easily out maneuver them
>>62850149Dude the English lost the Hundred Years War. Just because you owned them in 1 battle doesn’t make it the exception to reality
>>62891149what, they can't lift the spear and rotate? they have to stick to one direction only?
>Henry V Well past the point they had to negotiate. Scott's butt fucked his entire family at the end of a pike. That's well into broadsword vs musket territory.
>>62891264Considering that's the linchpin of the formation yes. When you start protecting your flank it's effectiveness is greatly diminished.
>>62891021Why didn't the french, or the Italians, or the Scottish, or the germans, or the various norse peoples all of whom shared a continent, and often a battlefield, with the highest drawing longbows, widely adopt their use? They used bows, they used ranged combat, they had the resources, why didn't they just transform into medieval england for a minor advantage?Why did the Han not use the bows of the Manchu and the Mongol and the Korean? Why did the Manchu archers who had been wildly successful dwindle to almost nothing while the manchu were still a military power? Why did the Chinese heavy crossbow that had won them innumerable battles fall out of use? Why didnt they proliferate to the neighboring advanced societies? Why did guns wax and wane in their use in china to such an extreme degree despite being effective? Why did the mongol bow strength drop to half what it was at peak? Here's another example.If you train someone from childhood in the use of the Sling, they'll make a hysterically effective slinger by adulthood, capable of hurling a fist sized stone or equally heavy lead bullet over a hundred miles an hour, able to smash like a hammer and even bite so deeply into an unarmored body that the projectile cannot be removed easily with fingers, and requires specialized tools.Armies throughout europe and asia minor prized these career slingers for thousands of years, they were used from the bronze age till after the advent of firearms. So why were they always in short supply and such high demand? Why didn't every country train them? Why wouldn't every single culture in Europe and the middle east evolve to teach five year olds to sling for their dinner, to sling every hour in the day for fifteen years? Such slingers dominated archers in antiquity in range and lethality.
>>62891021In short what you CAN do and what you choose to spend huge amounts of time and energy on could not be further apart.
>>62891510>>62891527I see what you're getting at but the Parthians did have elite troops who used bows. There's no reason to think their bows were any less powerful than those of other historical elite archers.
>>62891711>There's no reason to think their bows were any less powerful than those of other historical elite archers.Considering significantly +100 pound draw weights are uncommon throughout history and were uncommon even at their height of usage, it's unreasonable to assume any group we don't know to be using them was using them.The Mongols lived and died by their bows, they employed archers to some of the greatest effect in history, and rode out with armies with some of the highest proportions of archers in history, and yet their draw weights fluctuated wildly. The Han archers considered themselves elites yet their bows had a third the draw weight of their Manchu neighbors, who they spent their entire history in contact with. The Ottomans employed elite archer units for their entire history, and yet those "elite" archers in one century were using the heaviest bows ever recorded, and in another were struggling to penetrate chainmail alone with multiple direct hits.
>>62845525Spbp. People somehow dont understand how well the phalanx is protected agains arrows.
>>62860811Ley lines
>>62889009The nestorians were a judeo-mongol plot to seize the levant following the sack of baghdad
>>62889629I could beat you in arm wrestling noodle boy. You probably dont even know about maximus thrax's innovations to cabbage tax farming following the end of the crisis of the 3rd century bce or the adoption of the langobardic scrotiium.
>>62894438>noodle boyHow did you know my nickname, based on my dick looking like manicotti pasta (long and thick)?
>>62891510Manchus made Mongols replace Mongol bows with Manchu bows after conquering the Mongols when they defeated Ligdan Khan and later his grandson Borni.Manchu bows are shorter range and designed for hitting power. Mongol bows are far longer range.Han used their own composite bows since the beginning, the Han crossbow uses a composite bow in it.
