Why did soldiers in the 18th-19th centuries wear flamboyant, impractical uniforms in the field? Yeah sure, have such a dress uniform in peacetime which made you look tall, broad-shouldered etc. The main draw of a uniform is to make a man think he's now a pussy-magnet. But when you're in the field it seems ridiculous, especially on long campaigns in extreme heat or cold where you're freezing or sweltering and covered in mud, dust and shit for years at a time. Surely a set of clothes more like an industrial worker would have been more efficient? In fact that's what happened in WWI. Soldiers started in 1914 with smart uniforms and soft regimental caps but fast forward two years in the trenches and they're wearing rubber boots, canvas overalls, gas masks and steel helmets, they looked like what they were - industrial workers with guns.
Is this some kind of bait thread? Why does OP type like a retard.
>>65524011Someone who wants to write blogs and get attention from strangers, but has no blog site. They're also probably ESL and brown
>>65524006Most of europe was cleared farmland, there was negligible cover that camouflage would benefit. Another big issue is unit cohesion and command control. It's more important for the sergeants and commanders to be able to identify where their unit is than to hide from the enemy. Campaigns were not years long either, the norm was to quarter for the winter at the least. Industrial warfare as you describe arrived in 1914, because it had no reason to do so beforehand.
>>65524006Black powder. Every shot you fire makes a big cloud of smoke; depending on the weather, visibility in any noteworthy engagement can range from not being able to clearly see things at a distance, to barely being able to see beyond the muzzle of your musket. In these conditions, you need to be able to identify whether those guys through the fog are on your side or not.It was little coincidence that the brightly colored field uniforms went out of fashion in favor of neutral colors at about the same time smokeless powder entered mass production.>covered in mud, dust and shit for years at a timethey did wash, you knowoff the top of my head, the britbongs for instance employed washerwomen amongst the camp followers (typically wives of the soldiers), and maintained grooming standards because even without germ theory there's an obvious link between poor hygiene and risk of diseases like typhus, and in a pre-/early industrial military campaign attrition was bad enough as is
>>65524006If serious, here is why:> bright colors and silly hats stand out on smoky 16-19th century battlefields> soldiers wear 1 uniform for both combat and dress> culture of "gentlemanly" warfare> uniform is a reflection of the country's ruling monarchs opulence and wealth> colors like red and blue make it difficult to count the frontage of men from a distance - important for linear warfare in the age of musketry.
>>65524154>>65524772Also, this was an age where the general would be commanding the battle from the a hill overlooking the battlefield. He needs to actually see his troops to know how he's going to be ordering them around, so he needs them to wear bright colours rather than them vanishing into the landscape.
>>65524772>culture of "gentlemanly" warfareDidn't bother reading the rest of this post
>>65524006Because that's from before they became mindless propagandized ZOG bots.
>>65524006When firelock-wielding line infantry became the cornerstone of armies across western europe suddenly all that money they'd had to spend in prior ages on breastplates, helmets, and padded shirts only had to go towards a basic set of clothes. And given it was the regimental colonel's responsibility to see them clothed - and how well they were clothed reflected on him personally - sometimes they got a little too invested and threw in some of their own funds on top of what the state provided as a baseline.
>>65524011>>65524061What OP is talking about is a variation of an idea popularized by The Patriot and from what I understand, rooted in earlier libertarian interpretations of the Vietnam War. the idea that professional armies are these big, bloated machines that can be defeated by the right militia with enough determination and ingenuity. This view requires looking back to American history, particularly the image of ragtag farmers defeating the world’s most powerful empire with pitchforks, determination and irregular tactics. Of course, that narrative also requires portraying the European armies of the era as relatively ridiculous, bloated and ineffective forces.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFpFHj4XfFg
>>65525589Never understood this meme. The colonials weren't illiterate and weren't all farmers. Same goes for the Vietnamese. The NVA were a professional veteran military that has been fighting pretty much even before WWII. They were a lot more than just farmers getting mad forigners were invading.
>>65525596Again, it was a myth propagated by both libertarians on the right and communists on the left in the 1970s. Look at any early American history book or popular novel about the American Revolution published before that period, and you’ll see that much greater emphasis was placed on the Continental Army.
>>65525589it also requires not knowing about the French, Spanish and Dutch involvement in the waror European officers played a crucial role in forming the continental army allowing it to start going toe to toe with the Britsso thinking that the continental army was made up of militias fighting indian style because it's "better" goes hand in hand with the myth that the US gained it's independence on it's own or with minimal foreign support
>>65525589Patton produced in the late 60s with actual WWII generals(including Omar Bradley) serving as consultants, makes for an interesting contrast to this mindset. The movie opens with Patton giving a real speech he made, where he basically says that he almost pities the Germans because they’re about to get their teeth kicked in. He takes genuine pride in the fact that the Americans have more resources, better equipment and superior logistical capacity than their enemies. There’s no attempt to pretend that this is somehow morally suspect or embarrassing.Now imagine that speech in a modern war movie(the director could be left or right) but If a general stood up and said something like this today, he’d be written as the villain, some arrogant general bragging, only to be humbled by the plucky guerrillas.
>>65525589My autism always gets triggered by this prevailing meme since A) American farmers were hardly illiterate, New England Yankees were arguably some of of the most well-educated people on the planet back then and Protestant culture in general encouraged very high literacy ratesB) George Washington hated the American militia and thought they were deadweight on his army and that a professional fighting force had to carry the day for his battles
>>6552559699% of Vietnam War discourse is mostly just people using it as a club to beat the Americans with, it's the biggest "stay humble" tool available in the arsenal for baiting overly-gungho Americans so it gets repeatedly brought up despite being obviously stupid and misleading to anyone who actually has studied the Vietnam War in any in-depth capacity. And of course the vice-versa applies to the American Revolution and Americans using it to bait overly gungho Brits with, even though pretty much any 18th century military history enthusiast knows how laughable it would be to claim the British land army of the 1700s was in any way the "strongest"
>>65525646It seems to be a societal wide shift, the plucky underdog is always inherently morally superior somehow, and the overwhelming technological juggernaut is presented as being morally lacking by virtue of being a juggernaut. I know it sounds like bull but I lowkey noticed this phenomenon even as a little kid growing up and watching all these kids movies where the heroes are supposed to be plucky underdogs. Yeah yeah, I was the kid who cheered for the Empire while watching Star Wars.
>>65525596Probably had better literacy rates than present day Americans.
>>65525744It’s funny you mentioned Star Wars, because It basically cemented this worldview in popular Western culture. It is the foundation of all the plucky, ragtag rebels you’ll ever see. George Lucas was influenced by ideas that were popular on the Western left at the time and still are to some extent today. Libertarians also bought into it wholesale and pretty much every “RW” person you’ll ever find in Hollywood is going to be some kind of libertarian and so this became the standard view of how warfare works for most people.
>>65525744It's hard to write a compelling story about a protagonist who always wins easily because they started off in a position of overwhelming superiority.
>>65525589>13 Colonies>illiterateAmericans literally had one of the highest literacy rates on the planet at the time (and we kept that status well into 20th Century when the rest of the world started to catch up). It was a major contributing factor to the Revolution because Enlightenment authors like Locke and Rousseau made for extremely popular reading and their calls for liberty, separation of Church and State, constitutionalism, and inalienable rights served to radicalize every social class against the British monarchy.>>65525744Childhood is supporting the Rebel Alliance because they're the good guys.Adolescence is supporting The Empire because the Republic was gay, their uniforms look cool, and genociding aliens sounds even cooler.Adulthood is realizing the Empire was a shithole that engendered a culture of systematic dishonesty, rampant corruption, and perpetual escalation, was doomed to moral opprobrium and then societal annihilation from the very start, and that the Rebel Alliance was right all along.>>65525766To be fair, the underdogs in the Prequels (the Confederacy of Independent Systems) are portrayed as massive retards who started the war just to keep their corruption gravy train running.
>>65525646>>65525744>>65525766>People think that David and Goliath stories are a modern inventionJesus fucking christ
>>65525930I think having a lifelong access to the internet has created the most arrogant 1.5 generations in history. Like the tech bros who reinvent sailing vessels and shit like that
>>65525925>adulthood is realizing that one side always leads to the other existing and to defy duality is to defy nature. Pick the side you like, die a hero or live long enough to be the next villain. Ftfy
