09-27-2008, 11:11 PM
Ave!
Dan Howard dixit:
Not all Bronze Age peoples considered left-handedness an "undesirable trait" in a fighter: after all, Bronze Age people wrote the Biblical Book of Judges which refers to an army unit of 700 crack left-handed slingsmen in Judges 20:16 (apparently lefties who had learned to also sling right-handed without losing their left-hand skills)
Some modern armies (considering "modern" as "within the past 400 years") have placed their left-handers as the left-hand men of the line in a formation:
which keeps the left-handers' bayonets, rifles, or other weapons /a/ away from the other soldiers in the formation and /b/ arming the left edge of the formation) -- would this have worked with Roman weapons?
At least one modern army (the USA one) does not at all consider left-handedness an "undesirable trait" for hand-to-hand combat, if we can trust the material here:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=405252
and here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 844AAayPPh
and here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4533889/ARMY- ... and-Comabt
[yes, the link requires the typo "Comabt": programmed by a dyslexic?] -- at that last link, search "left-handed soldiers".
Dan Howard dixit:
Quote: ... IMO there were no left handed fighters in any Bronze Age, Classical, or Medieval formation. Even a small amount of training will eliminate this undesirable trait.
Not all Bronze Age peoples considered left-handedness an "undesirable trait" in a fighter: after all, Bronze Age people wrote the Biblical Book of Judges which refers to an army unit of 700 crack left-handed slingsmen in Judges 20:16 (apparently lefties who had learned to also sling right-handed without losing their left-hand skills)
Some modern armies (considering "modern" as "within the past 400 years") have placed their left-handers as the left-hand men of the line in a formation:
which keeps the left-handers' bayonets, rifles, or other weapons /a/ away from the other soldiers in the formation and /b/ arming the left edge of the formation) -- would this have worked with Roman weapons?
At least one modern army (the USA one) does not at all consider left-handedness an "undesirable trait" for hand-to-hand combat, if we can trust the material here:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=405252
and here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 844AAayPPh
and here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4533889/ARMY- ... and-Comabt
[yes, the link requires the typo "Comabt": programmed by a dyslexic?] -- at that last link, search "left-handed soldiers".
