11-16-2016, 06:25 PM
(11-16-2016, 05:54 PM)JaM Wrote: not really, Bryan tried to force the idea soldiers had some kind of a warrior mentality that made them killing machines that didn't looked at own safety, just to kill whatever was in front of them...
yet in real life, battles were not fought until last man standing, sometimes one side routed with minimal casualties, then was wiped out as they were trying to run away.... military history is full of such examples... if it was all just about killing, nobody would use any formations, and battles would be just duels between opponents, like Hollywood likes to portray...
No, I said some of the soldiers possessed the warrior mentality, and those men would be placed in the front ranks because those are the true killers in any unit and would be used as such, not kept in the rear, or middle, where they can do no good. I'm a firm believer in the 80/20 rule in all of life, that 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
I've also stated numerous times in this thread, and in this forum over my many years of posting here, that the Roman culture was much more violent, militant, and tough than your or my current culture, so they would have been capable of things I am not, and you are not. If you can't understand that they were a different people, with different values about self preservation, life, death, war, religion, etc., than you will never understand how they fought, or for that matter how they lived, loved, conducted business and politics. Like I wrote on page 1, what you think is overly dangerous, I don't. And I live in the same exact time as you do. And what I think is overly dangerous, many Romans would call me a cowardly wimp. Because they were from a violent, militant, and aggressive 2,000 year old culture and still believed in glory, having the Gods on their side, and Stoicism.
I believe that battles aren't fought until last man standing because in real hand to hand combat its not easy to kill an enemy, which is one thing nearly every movie gets grossly wrong. And because its easier to wound than kill, and because its relatively easy to evacuate wounded men from the front (though if you rout they all die), you see victorious armies with small numbers of deaths but usually large number of wounded (mostly walking wounded, who will heal in time).
And I believe that morale factors in, as Napoleon said, moral is to the physical as three is to one, when one side sees its best and most aggressive get killed or wounded in an intense fight they are going to be less than enthusiastic to replace them, which means they will step back, not forward, which is how routs start. For instance, take two Romans. One is a bit more timid than the other. Somewhere down the line the centurion or someone else will identify this and will place them accordingly in different parts of the unit. The aggressive Roman goes in the front rank, the timid Roman behind him. When Gaius Aggressive takes a sword through the mouth, ala Crastinus, that would demonstrate to Tiberius Timid that that he has even a better reason not to advance into the front ranks. Maybe Tiberius Timid even realizes that he doesn't want to be there anymore and starts backing up. Other timid or morally defeated soldiers do the same thing, and the unit retreats under poor order, which is a rout.
Frankly, if you can't imagine yourself in the front lines of a Roman century, fighting it out, killing the enemy, hoping to strip the enemy dead, plunder their cities, have the centurions, tribunes and generals personally see you being a bad ass and rewarding you with crowns, torques, phalarae, than you will never understand how they fought because you lack sufficient imagination. And its not just ancient warfare, if someone is interested in modern warfare but can't see themselves standing up and assaulting through a murderous close ambush as modern infantry are trained and routinely execute in real combat, then they will never ultimately understand how modern warfare works. And thus maybe they shouldn't lecture others on it.
