Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Metatron" channel.

  1. To bend a iron rod as thick as a finger is not that easy. It requires a heavy impact vs a hard object. The primary goal of the pilum was not to bend, but to pierce the shield, the armor of its wielder, and kill him.
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  2. The real reason was that, armed with a crossbow, the seldom trained son of a shopkeeper could easily kill a noble knight, defender of the faith. There were not such problems when knights slaughetered large masses of poorly armed commoners.
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  3. Infact crossbows didn't cease to be used, cause they were effective. But, from the perspective of the ruling class, the fact that the members of the lower classes could exterminate them with ease was clearly an unwelcomed side effect.
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  4. Yes. Infantry formations that were fairly worse and less disciplined than the Romans had been effective in the middle ages, and the Roman field use of heavy ranged weapon (ballistas of various size) was tipically superior to that of the middle ages armies. Furthermore, the Roman armies had a chain of command that allowed to cohordinate several tens of thousands of men, while the medieval ones were much simpler, and were typically in crisis when the number of combatants exceeded 10.000
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  5. When they didn't fight, or train, or mantain the camp and equipment, the legionaries were often used as a workforce to build roads and fortifications. When they were not doing anything of that, they were often doing some gamble. Dices and astragalii were common.
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  6. War-grade weapons and training are expensive items. Societies can't give them to "all", since it needs the work of many to give them to a part of the population. The best armies are those that give them to the ones that are going to use them to the most effect. That's why, IE, there was a minimum height to join the legion.
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  7. +Joseph Bissett Roman law, presumption of innocence ("affirmanti incumbit probatio"), courts with prosecution and defence, the same idea of citizenship as something that can be acquired, firefighters, taps, concrete. Not really much.
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  8. Celts wore armors whenever possible. Actually the Romans took the lorica hamata and the helmet with cheekplates from them.
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  9. There is a time gap, but, interestingly enough, not a technological gap. There is nothing in the 16th century samurai armor that the Romans couldn't have done. But even having a samurai armor to copy, they wouldn't have adopted it. Samurai armors could be better for samurais, but were certainly worse for mediterranean warfare. From a Roman point of view, those gaps in the front of the shoulders were unacceptable. It's not even a question of hand to hand combat. A simple slingshot can break your shoulder even before the beginning of the real fight.
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  10. The Gotic kingdom was hardly distinguishable from the Empire. Practically nothing changed. The real change came with the Gotic wars, between the Goths and the Byzantines that depopulated Italy and completely changed the human and natural landscape.
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  11. There are many examples of Greek coins with that head, surely predating the second punic war since 5th century BC.
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  12. Almost every time a kendo guy encounters a rapier or longsword guy is stabbed right in the chest in the first few seconds of fight. Then, as more and more assaults are done, the kendo guy begins to understand how western martial arts work, and the results become more even, but the initial result is the one described.
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  13. At Jaffa, in 1192, Richard used them (by far his most numerous unit) like Edoard III used the archers at Crecy. The result had been the destruction of Saladin's cavalry, that outnumbered the Christians 4 to 1.
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  14. Is difficult to find datas for Gauls and Germanic people of Roman times, but Viking males, form skeletons found (usually we find burial of high-class people, so the average height is probably overestimated, since in ancient times they tended to eat better and so be taller than the average peasant) had an average height of 172cm. We already talked about legionaries but, from skeletons, the average male population of Pompeii and Herculaneum (and there are no class differencies there, since they all perished in a natural disaster) was of 168cm, so the Germanic people were probably on average taller than the Romans, but nothing so dramatic. Several Roman sources said of one or another Gaul or Germanic population, that they were very tall, but often the Romans first seen members of the warrior elite. People that eat very well since childhood, and so were taller than the average.
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  15. Because the night is dark and full of terrors.
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  16. That means to denegate the biggest advantage the Mongols had, their command chain, able to cohordinate tens of thousands men during a battle. It had already been noted in the first invasion that Europeans tended to win small scale engagements, when cohordination was much simpler. And infact, in the subsequent attempts of invasion Hungarians and Poles exploited that, dividing the campaing in multiple small scale engagements instead of seeking big pitched battles.
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  17.  @allan7380  It's not a question of "may". It's a question of days. US is at less than a week from the numbers Italy is now. Even a total shutdown today will not prevent US cases to double in less than a week (I'll say it will take less than four days actually). US recovery rate is at mere 29.81%. That means that, 70.18% closed cases ended with the death of the patient. We have seen those numbers in other nations. The number of deaths is so high in respect to the recoveries because the epidemic is only at the start in the US, and people need more time to recover than to die.
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  18. The "carmina triumphalia" (the legionaries making fun of their general during the triumph) also have another explanation. Pre-Marian Roman army was a militia of free citizens. Yet when the army assembled out of the city walls, in front of the temple of Mars, to go to war, one citizen was given an absolute power over the others. That was a necessity, but was in contrast with the Roman "usual" mindset. During the subsequent triumph, into the pomerium, at the end of the campaign, the general was celebrated but, at the same time, he was stripped of that power. He returned a citizen among the other citizens, and the carmina triumphalia underlined that. They reminded to the former commander he had no more the power to punish his former men.
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  19. They already had big problems in indochina and Korea, because there were no more prairies, and prairies in Europe ends in Hungary.
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  20. But they were reinassance formations. It took centuries to train large groups of disciplined infantrymen to fight that way. Medieval battles usually lacked the numbers for those formations to work. We recall medieval battles like that of Legnano, or the Golden Spurs, because what was not foreseeable happened, the infantry held out, and the cavalry charge was defeated. But that was not the norm. That was the exception.
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  21.  @garrenbrooks4778  While still in the battle of Arbedo, 1422, they had been defeated because they used halberds, and the lances of the Milanese knights outreached them. Someone using a certain weapon doesn't mean he does to some avail. Until the defeats of Charles the Bold, the Swiss were not considered anything special.
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  22. How much modern science is common knowledge? So we don't know about quantum mechanics, because most of people has no idea on how it works?
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  23.  @liamzanna  The Order of Vittorio Veneto had been estabilished in 1968, and was awarded to all WWI veterans still alive that requested for it, regardless the participation to the actual Vittorio Veneto Offensive. Differently to the "Croce al merito di guerra" (War Cross), that had the same requisites, but was just a medal, the knighthood gave right to a small pension too.
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  24.  @combatraptor4592  Yeah. In Italian the title is "Cavaliere di Vittorio Veneto", "Knight of Vittorio Veneto".
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  25.  @jt-ru5iy  Yeah. A pair of inches at max.
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  26. Not really. Hunter-gatherers tend to be taller than farmers, because agriculture allows to feed much more people with the same land surface, but with a greatly reduced intake of proteins (because to use cultivated vegetables, or land that can be used to grow plants, to feed animals, is a waste). Still in 19th century, native Americans tented to be taller than pioneers.
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  27. He's 70, and Hannibal was not even 30 when the war begun.
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  28. You mean you related to Batman without being an orphaned billionaire? How that's even possible?
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  29. Viking era is only about 1000 years ago. There are churches with wooden roof structures older than that. There are actual living trees older than that.
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  30. Yes. It's more dense, so heavier.
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  31. They are right AND wrong. Yes, cataphracts (the ancient version of the heavy medieval cavalry) had never been such a threat for the legion. Mounted archers were much more dangerous. But even in medieval times we can see cavalry being beaten several times (IE at Legnano) by medieval infantry, that was nowere near to the efficiency levels of classic heavy infantries. But we are talking of individual fight on foot here, not formation fight.
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  32. That coin was not a depiction of Hannibal. That coinage was minted in Etruria at the time of the first Punic war. Chartaginian coinage don't depict black men. There's coinage minted in Hispania depicting Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, and his father, Hamilcar, both with clearly European/north African features. Also Numidian coinage depict people with straight nose and high cheekbones.
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  33. The Barbuta was not necessarily unrealistic. There were tons of them, with hundreds of different shapes, but it was more an helmet for a city militia than for a knight. However a knight that knew he would have fought on foot could have chosen it voluntarily, because a visored helmet would have impaired his vision and breath too much.
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  34. Arminius' own brother, Flavus, was a decorated auxiliar (he was fighting in Pannonia during the ambush), fought for Germanicus against Arminius, and his son became king of the Cherusci. Ironically the Cherushi became allied of the Romans until their last recorded appearance, at the time of Domitianus.
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  35. "black people have less choices so let them have their characters" Like if a redhead decides to cosplay as Nessa, she prevents a black girl to do the same.
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  36. The problem with early guns, up to the 19th century, was that iron-steel is not castable, and you can't really forge a gun of good dimensions. The problem with brass is that there wasn't pure zinc available until the second half of 18th century so, before, the percentage of zinc in the alloy could vary wildly.
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  37. He was a Phoenician actually. Even his name comes from a Phoenician god.
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  38. The comparison is "average Bjørn vs average Caius". In this case Average Caius would be a professional, while Average Bjørn would be a merchant or farmer that occasionally became a rider.
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  39. Catholic Jesus is white, black, native American, east Asian, Polynesian, etc... depending on where the Church is located. That's a precise choice of the Catholic church. Being Jesus God, and being the humans made at God's image, God is the image of any of them.
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  40. To swim in armor was a stunt some historical knight was famous for.
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  41.  @undertakernumberone1  Reports of what? Of someone killed in a battle? Obviously there are plenty whatever kind of armour you could wear. So you are a modern scholar? otherwise your statements are "I say so". I never said fluting sucks or that I like or don't like something. You are building straw men. A sign you have not much to say about the actual topic. What I see is someone stopping discussing about technic and starting talking about the person he's discussing with. A sign you have not much to say about the actual topic. So no fluting in modern armors. Fluting is found in a pretty short timespan and limited location. I never said fluting sucks. Thats a straw man you built. Thanks to have confirmed my pooint. Fluting became popular because it was fashionable and fell out of use when fashion changed. It had no advantages. Because you can. Fluted armors were used by VERY wealty people. Where they became fashionable, they were a status symbol. I never said fluting was "massively detrimental". Thats a straw man you built. Those "armors" are thin and hollow. they are not real "armors". Shot trap refers, in terms of tanks, to a shell being guided by the same shape of the surface to discharge al of its energy on the same tank instead of bouncing off. Oh, btw it had been amply demonstrated it serves nothing. But keep on with your textwalls of idiocies.
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  42.  @ΣΑΒΒΑΣΚΟΚΤΣΙΔΗΣ  You can buy any level of protection from any manufacturer. Even a bomb suit if you want. But it can't be a specific model issued to the armed forces.
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  43. The average height of male Danes of 9th to 11th century was 1.71m. The average height of adult males bodies found in Pompeii was 166cm, and in Herculaneum was 169cm (so just a couple of cm shorter than the average Norseman). However legionaries were not "average" The minimum height to join the legion was 165cm, and 172cm to be an equites. "For the army as a whole a reasonable estimate of a soldier's average height is around 170 cm" (Roth, Jonathan, and Jonathan P. Roth. The Logistics of the Roman Army at War: 264 BC-AD 235. Columbia studies in the classical tradition, Vol. 23. Brill, 1999). So there would not have been any real difference.
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  44. And wars tended to be fought in summer.
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  45. I see your science and rise my grandma.
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  46.  @Robodog69  Or, simply, that priest, that's present only in the saga of the Greenlanders, didn't report anything to the Vatican. At the time of Leif, Norses were devoted Christians (and build churches in Greenland) but it was not like anything a Christian did was reported to the Vatican. Also, for anyone reading the saga without knowing the existence of America, Helluland, Markland and Vinland were only three islands west of Greenland.
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  47. That's pretty interesting. It has to be noted that Pirrhus, a refined and valued Hellenistic commander, faced a very "fresh" legionary model. The Romans had just adopted it, in the Samnitic wars, that had just ended when the Pyrrhic war begun. At that time, the Romans used the manipulary system as a way to fight frontal battles on rough terrain. there was not really a tactical use of the maniples. On the other side, having noticed that, in Italy, battles were not fought only on plains, Pyrrhus adapted the phalanx, intermixing the squares of phalangites with the more mobile formations of his Italic allies. As a result, Pyrrhus generally managed to inflict to the Romans more severe losses that he suffered, but not to gain a decisive victory, and his losses were less replaceable. Hannibal, that was an admirer of Pyrrhus, noted this weakness, and he made sure to fight vs. the Romans only "annihilation battles", where the entire enemy formation was destroyed for little cost of his own. If there was not that possibility, he preferred to concede a limited defeat that to gain a costly victory. Unfortunately (for the Hellenistic rulers) Hannibal "trained" the Romans to use their maniples tactically. To move them sideways, to encircle, to make faints and ambushes. As a result, when the Romans, right after the second Punic war, clashed with the Hellenistic rulers in Greece and middle east, it seemed a clash between professionals and amateurs. The phalanx could still held its own in a pure frontal battle, but too many things had to go its way for it to work and, as soon as something got wrong, it ended in a massacre. And those were still Republican Roman armies. A militia of citizens. In the last clashes, when the post-Marian reform professional Roman army clashed with the last phalanxes in the east, the legionaries won with ridiculous ease.
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  48. Achilles can be a mytical figure, but it's a mithical figure that belongs to a specific etnic group (he was a Mycenean Greek). Homer provides a description of Achilles, saying he was blonde, and blonde was his son Pirrhus (that's the meaning of his name).
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  49. There's plenty of American archaeologists and historians specialised in Roman period, like of Italian Egyptologists, and they, obviously, lecture. A US citizen can be lectured about US history by a Moroccan if he get it wrong. Being born somewere doesn't give anyone any special right to be right. Also, when Americans or British make a fiction set in Egypt or Greece, it's not THEIR country, it's not THEIR history.
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  50. Everyone is responsible of his own facts.
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