Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Invicta" channel.

Usually the commander's scouts work for the commander and not the enemy. Without that - and without knowing about it - Varus was pretty helpless, as soon as he committed his forces to that march. Not knowing your scouts have thrown in with the enemy is a huge failure, though. Arminius is one of the greatest moles. ever, and that might be the main lesson to be taken from this story. Intel and counter-intel can trump everything.
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@SpicyTake I don't think Ukraine has enough tanks to re-create that battle. The Russians do, or soon will have.
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@Guff1e Ground means much more to Ukraine than to Russia. Russia did just enough to ensure all the fighting was on Ukrainian territory. Recent strikes deep into Russian territory are a major escalation from the Russian perspective, pushing them closer to an all-out offensive, assuming that wasn't their plan all along.
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Yes. Block all who disagree with you. That is the shortest path to Great Wisdom.
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@nicnsugar Russia has a different opinion as to who's the aggressor and when this war actually started. Hence, war.
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@musing1977 Speaking of the wiring, there was brief mention of how they sent their own priests out into the conquered cities. The religious aspect is never to be under-estimated. Very strong organizing/rallying principle.
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@potatoman8194 Yes. They don't have to be good to affect enemy plans. All they need to do is slow them down or make them look for easier-looking places to attack.
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@MajorZero508 NATO lacks stockpiles and industrial production to provide Ukraine what it needs. Relying on anti-personnel munitions to detonate anti-tank mines will get a lot of tanks and other armor destroyed. They need line explosives (Basically heavy, high-explosive detonation cord fired by a cannon), followed by tanks with rolling-pin flails to open up a path. This can go fairly quickly, if you can protect the engineers and equipment protected by strong air defense. Without the engineers, equipment or air cover, such operations are futile.
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The rate and efficiency of the trench-digging and dragon's-teeth sowing are off the scale. Your critique is based on a misapprehension of their purpose and how jealously the Russians will guard them or even care about them. Miles are built, literally overnight. How good or bad they are is less important than the fact the enemy must stop to contend with them. They must plan attacks as though they are properly constructed. And at the current rate of peak counter-offensive, they may have already served their purpose of buying time for complete mobilization and training of fresh troops and equipment. The Russian Army is easy to defeat, today. Then you have to beat a bigger Russian Army, tomorrow. And the next day. I didn't know there was a 'side' to where the dirt is thrown or even consider it made a difference to which side it was thrown. As a couch-potato analyst, I presume you want that dirt thrown to the side facing the enemy. Now I wonder if part of their strategy is to mine them and invite their occupation by Ukraine, and/or have artillery strikes already vectored-in. In any case, Ukraine would still need massive artillery and air support to suppress the counter barrages, even without the sneaky trick of mining them.
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I remember reading the legends of Robin Hood and idolizing Richard the Lionhearted. But every time I bump into him in my lazy history travels, he's a big disappointment. The "aristocratic retinue" thing persisted in Britain long past its usefulness, with a lot of aristocrats finding their way into command positions for which they were ill-suited.
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Yes, and they lose those gunships at a fairly alarming rate, because they expose themselves to Russian air defenses when they are used as missile-launching platforms. This is a drawback of StormShadow.
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@neskada Tell that to a landlord in California or New York or Illinois, USA.
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@nobodyherepal3292 Even with training, green troops are less effective and suffer higher losses. But I don't think these losses are putting a dent in their replacement rates, and they're gaining experience with every engagement. I do agree that the missile attacks on Russian logistics, supply and even convoys behind Russian lines are very troubling to the Russians, but for that reason may have the opposite of their intended result. Russia was content playing patty-cake along essentially static lines outside of Russia, especially with favorable casualty rates, thanks to retreat-and-counterattack-with artillery tactic. Yes, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is putting stress on the forces currently on the front lines, but it's costing Ukraine and NATO more than they can afford to sustain, and as long as Ukrainian zone of control hasn't even reached the first line of Russian fortifications, Russia has the luxury of a steady build-up, even if the tactical situation isn't ideal, the losses are not much more than skirmish-level, begging the question of the larger strategic and geopolitical considerations, virtually all of which weigh heavily on the Russian side, and trending to increasing Russian advantage. You can make a movie about the brave Tiger crew that destroyed 10 T34s at the Battle of Kursk, and still miss the fact that it was a resounding victory for the Soviets.
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@sassenspeyghel4155 Actually, the Germans followed the same Schlieffen Plan in both wars, and attacked through Belgium and the Netherlands in both wars. Belgian neutrality was much more important, strategically, in WW I, I think. I don't think anybody was kidding themselves about that before WW II, except a few diplomats who won their appointments by bribery. The French plan was pretty solid in concept, but they underestimated the Germans' speed through the Ardennes. Their plan was to counter-attack with specially-trained mobile forces, and those forces were actually quite good and acquitted themselves quite well.
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The spoken word was a lot more reliable, back when the written word was just getting started. Even if he only had the descendants of major and minor players, he could probably piece together quite a lot just by talking to the locals and especially the local bards and storytellers, who set a higher standard for repeating the same tale in the absence of the written word.
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@dragasinbrankovic Even the Russians aren't flying sorties over enemy territory.
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I think a large fraction of the cannon along Torres Vedras were just painted logs. The enemy has no way of knowing. It just looks like a fortified artillery emplacement.
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@Pangur Ban : More recently, the Eagles defeated the Patriots in the SuperBowl, with a great defensive-line rotation. Fresh legs on the field to the final whistle.
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@nicnsugar Both sides have to believe they can win.
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@johnwalsh4857 The scale of that destruction shrinks to the size of a gnat, and the cost to Ukraine of expending very small stockpiles of these "super-weapons" is greater than the sum effect on Russian men, equipment, and logistics.
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@Real_SkyRipper Yes. I think that sort of thing is coming. Audiences are actually smarter than the big film-makers give them credit for.
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I need to watch these videos like I'm in class, and take notes, so more of it sticks.
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I never heard the bit about how Varus was trying to govern through the law rather than by force. Clearly he was out of touch with the loyalties of those on whom he was depending for his scouting. That would seem to be a cardinal sin of command. Those need to be some of your best, most trusted people out there as your "antennae." It stands to reason he'd trust Arminius, and think that gave him an edge. But to have no awareness that things were sour is an abject failure. It's sad that the perfect Manchurian Candidate, Arminius, lacked the subtlety in dealing with his own people that he used with such great success against the Romans. Would that he had given more thought to winning the hearts and minds of his own people, rather than seeing the mere defeat of the Romans as his "happily ever after." He could've been real good for the German people if he'd remained at or near the top, in a leadership role. They kind of fragmented back to normal not long after Teutoburg.
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@derwolf3006 They got that pipeline up and running again. It shook up a lot of the East Coast when they ransom-wared 'em, though. But ransom-ware isn't the fundamental reason prices at the pump are so high.
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@histguy101 Big Tech got everybody hooked on free content. Society/culture has to take that next step, and content creators have to find the right price point. If it's low enough, and you monetize millions of views, you're making out good. I think we're still reaching for that. I know I'm withholding most of my entertainment $$$ and paying for a select few news services, whose work I like. We'll see where the market eventually settles, but I think we're in the midst of a peaceful revolution taking place under the radar as a result of the Internet, no matter how much "curating" is taking place. Ideas spread across the planet like wildfire, and we all get a little bit smarter. Easy to miss the signal, because of all the noise, but people are gettin' scary-smart, and traditional institutions are looking more and more obsolete.
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That's how all my science teachers were, but then I avoided anthropology and archaeology, where researchers have a personal stake in being THE authority, which makes them no authority at all. History professors were hit-or-miss, with some inviting different opinions and some insisting that they were always right.
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The little things that nobody notices are usually more historically significant than the battles on which history typically fixates. We notice Genghis Khan's wars, but don't really notice how opening up trade routes from Kamchatka on the Bering Sea, to the gates of Europe. Same with the Romans. These terrible people came in and the people quietly got good roads and trade and technology exploded. The invention of the printing press... The invention of internal-combustion engines... The invention of the smart phone... The invention of the Internet... The interchangeable part... All of these things did more to effect social change and civilization's advance than all the generals and warlords, combined.
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So the shield wall came after Thermopylae? If they were in a shield wall, they wouldn't run full tilt at the enemy, and lose all cohesion. But as the charging enemy reached the last couple steps, the shield wall could definitely surge the last 2 paces to meet them, rather than just standing still.
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Fuckin' YouTube KNEW i was binging Cornwell! Bastards! I think what you called 'seekses' were "sea axes," which were broad, short-bladed stabbing weapons, used in the shield-wall versus shield-wall confrontations. According to Cornwell's historical fiction, anyway. You could certainly chop with one, too. It's the Britannic version of the Roman gladius, also used in shield-wall battles. Anyway, thx for the content. Nice job.
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@genericscout5408 Nuclear powers have warred on each other, before, but never with nukes. But no nuclear power has ever been threatened with annihilation by conventional forces, before. I have mixed feelings about proliferation. Seems like a bad idea. But if every nation had them, then it would be very hard for big countries to bully small countries. Unlike gun control, which I oppose, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is hard to argue against.
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Pretty sure that "letter of marque" is pronounced "letter of mark." The 'e' is silent, I think. "Mar-kee" is for words like "marquis," with that "quis" at the end. The privations to which sailors were subjected in the 18th and 19th Centuries were horrific, by today's standards. Of course, everybody lived under similar or worse conditions ashore. Tough people. I toured the USS Constitution once when I was back East. Seeing the claustrophobic conditions belowdecks (and imagining the stench of all those unwashed bodies) was very humbling. Then I stood under the mainmast and tried to imagine scrambling to the top and working the sails. I decided that those guys were about 10 times as tough and 100 times as brave as I am.
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At this rate, we'll never know if those fortifications are effective, because Ukraine hasn't yet managed to reach them. These are fall-back positions, hastily constructed, and never yet used. Their purpose is to slow down any attackers long enough to vector in troops, air and artillery. My sense is that they will never even be used. It won't come to that.
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@TropicalAsian-1000 Just when they got cgi capabilities, all movie-makers in Hollywood simultaneously lost the plot!
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@ofallmyintention9496 We the people need to support the good stuff, directly, with paid subscriptions to the people we like, and cut all the advertising out of it. Just reward the good stuff so you get more good stuff, rather than complain about the free stuff with all the baggage their monetization schemes require.
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I'll have to learn more to understand why they ever sought to confront the Romans, directly, when they could've harried them, relentlessly, and melted away in front of them.
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IIRC (and I probably don't), there were Persian mosaics showing brave, bearded soldiers marching off to war, then images of those beards being used as handles by throat-cutting enemies, then images of clean-shaven soldiers. Long hair and beard were a DARE by Norse and Danes. The modern-day equivalent is wearing a tie. It announces to the world that you intend to behave like a gentleman, because otherwise you're asking for somebody to grab that tie and kick your ass.
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Sadly, it takes a will to nationhood to prevail, else the Latin League, which had more of the right idea, would've won. But once of a size, the appetite to use that size to gobble one's neighbors is insatiable.
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Good stuff.
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Romans in Europe and Britain. British against Scots, Irish and Indians in the Far East. Americans versus Indians in America. Exploiting tribal rivalries has a long history. Today, in America, it's a false right versus a false left. Both want much the same thing and could hammer out compromise if people didn't insist on the most regressive interpretation of each side.
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