Perfect pairs like a square dance at the honky tonk

a year ago by potoooooooo 🥔 to c/historymemes

nagaram 119 points a year ago

The Last Kingdom did such a good job showing how

  1. Mundane medieval warfare was since it really wasn't often grand scaled. Post Roman Europe was mostly small skirmishes with occasionally large scale warfare, but it was few and far between until probably Charlemagne (citation needed. I am NOT a military history guy.)

  2. Brutal. There was no even match up. It was either a one sided slaughter or the battle didn't happen.

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yakko 71 points a year ago

Point two is important. When your force is so small that a single pitched battle is pretty much it for either side, you don't really want to roll those dice unless you really like your odds

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Kyrgizion 41 points a year ago

Likewise, how "few" casualties there were in actual battle. Fiction shows both sides duking it out until they're both effectively wiped out. In real life, if 10% of an army was dead or incapacitated, the battle was over. There would be a rout, a retreat, and depending on the details, another battle a few days or weeks later.

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webghost0101 26 points a year ago

And if you were a knight of nobility you would surrender with the expectation to be ransomed.

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yakko 7 points a year ago

Remember limited warfare? That was awesome.

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Hazel 20 points a year ago

Yeah turns out seeing your buddies get stabbed isn't great for morale.

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PugJesus 11 points a year ago

Very true!

A fighting retreat is an incredibly difficult maneuver to pull off, but if managed, it means that what could have been an utter massacre is reduced to simply damaging. A commander - and a military force - that knows when to fold 'em in that context of high-casualty retreats is worth their weight in gold.

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squaresinger 14 points a year ago

Contrary to what movies generally show, there's a time after battle, and most of the time there were more than two factions at play in a given region.

If you go all-in on one battle, and both factions battle to the last man then (a) you won't have anyone to do the next harvest and (b) you won't have anyone who could defend against any random third party to swoop in and easily take both factions' land.

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njm1314 70 points a year ago

I'll never forget going to see the movie 300 in the theaters. Cuz I was a huge fan of the book The Hot Gates of Fire so anything involving the battle of Thermopylae I'm there for. But I knew nothing about Steven Frank Miller, and of course I knew nothing about Zack Snyder. And admittedly things were looking bad when they were all you know not wearing armor, but there was a second right when the battle started that gave me so much hope. Because for that one second you know they say push and they all push forward together like an actual phalanx battle for a second. I was so excited . Finally a movie showing actual Greek battle . And then of course the rest of the movie 300 happens.

Now don't get me wrong as the movie progressed I realized oh this is something else and I was silly to ever expect anything different. I was able to enjoy it for what it was. But I'll never forget that crestfallen feeling for that one moment.

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paultimate14 16 points a year ago

But I knew nothing about Stephen Miller

Do you mean Frank Miller, the writer and illustrator of the comics? Stephen Miller, the Nazi, would have been in college when the movie came out.

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bampop 11 points a year ago

Looks like Steven Pressfield and Frank Miller got blended together there

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DragonTypeWyvern 6 points a year ago

There might be more overlaps in that diagram than you would expect

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SkyezOpen 8 points a year ago path: 0 20591607 20595407, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
lb_o 4 points a year ago

Oh no! I can imagine your state and even share some of it with you.

However the situation itself is quite comedic, especially if one checks all other Snyder's movies. You made my day :3

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lauha 4 points a year ago

The Hot Gates by William Golding?

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njm1314 7 points a year ago

Oh you know what? I'm thinking of Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield actually.

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lauha 3 points a year ago

Thanks!

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io 2 points a year ago

i thought them being naked was the whole point? /s

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Rothe 53 points a year ago

HBO's Rome has the second one. But on account of their smaller budget, you only really see a very zoomed in section of it all. Still a great attention to detail, as most things in that show.

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Agent641 17 points a year ago

Great show. Name a more iconic bromance, I'll wait.

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King_Bob_IV 10 points a year ago

JD & Turk. Those guys can't be beat for bromance. "It's guy love between two guys"

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CitizenKong 7 points a year ago

Such a pity that they had to compress two seasons worth of story into one and when they wanted to do more, their giant Rome set burned down (ironic though it is).

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dejected_warp_core 4 points a year ago

Achilles and Patroclus?

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krooklochurm 27 points a year ago

I love hate how in movies and tv shows about old times warfare there are all of these maps everywhere and in depth discussions of how they're going to beat the enemy, discussion of battle tactics, etc. and the only real tactics we see in execution are when which side decides to charge in an undisciplined mass

Also the spinning. It was truly a sad day in history when weaponry and martial arts split from dancing. While ballerinas did master the art of spinning, its loss in warfare can still be seen to this day.

Edit: I should mention that spinning is a good trick.

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WALLACE 2 points a year ago

Anakin brought that technique back

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Buddahriffic 17 points a year ago

And in the middle of the pitched set of duels, most times an important character struggles, another one will show up just in time to save them, maybe exchange some words, and then split back up to wade back into the series of duels (to cover more ground).

Also everyone knows what's going on, who is the enemy and who is an ally, and orders are clearly yelled out and quickly followed with minimal confusion. There's a good chance that some characters are carrying out a conversation.

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ivanafterall 9 points a year ago

Bonus cool points if the two conversing warriors intuitively do a tag-team switch attack at some point (I attack your guy, you attack my guy finishing move)!

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WALLACE 4 points a year ago

Don't forget that moment where the main character stands there looking at all the fighting happening around them in slow motion for a solid 30 seconds without getting slaughtered.

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oeuf 15 points a year ago

It's to do with visual style but also with logistics when filming. It's more manageable if you have stuntmen working in pairs.

Me and a friend were hired as extras for a big Hollywood film and saw some of this stuff.

I remember they had to cut at one point though because another extra thought it was just a big free-for-all and decked one of the stunt guys with a giant rubber crucifix.

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merc 11 points a year ago

Not only is it not accurate, it's also not very interesting. It means that the warriors only use duelling weapons, rarely halberds, spears, etc. because those aren't as good as swords in duels.

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ulterno 4 points a year ago

Would be funny to see one side only readying themselves for the second type of battle, while the other is in Phallanx.

Normally the second case would only happen when most people are dead and all formations are broken and the only few remaining are fighting until the last one standing, which, why would someone do?
But this way, the second case would never occur as the duel-searchers won't have the tools to break the Phallanx

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ulterno 11 points a year ago

The second method provides a greater reactive surface areas, so if you want the particles to react and annihilate each other more quickly, that is a more suitable approach.


Oh they were people?
Well, my monitor only goes up to 1080p

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tgirlschierke 7 points a year ago

Berserk actually features multiple battle scenes with (seemingly, as I don't have much knowledge on the subject) good formation and tactics.

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Avicenna 5 points a year ago path: 0 20612329, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
ivanafterall 1 point a year ago

Pulse-pounding!

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Uruanna 4 points a year ago

Chinese movies, historical and fantastic, have a raging hard on for rows and rows of faceless mooks pushing against each other. Only the leader is allowed to have individual fights. You want the historical approach, you look at China. It's the whole Confucianism root.

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ook -2 points a year ago
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Danquebec 24 points a year ago

Hard disagree. It's a matter of treating it differently.

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Seleni 22 points a year ago

How would you know? We’ve never had a chance to watch it.

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dragonfucker 4 points a year ago

Sir, I've had the troops assemble into a shield wall. We're ready for the enemy's advance.

Perfect, captain. Now tell the elves to jump over the shield wall and go stab some dudes.

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PugJesus 7 points a year ago path: 0 20591399 20593893, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 2
Danquebec 4 points a year ago

The defence rests, Your Honor.

Sometimes, a video is all you need.

This is indeed excellent, dramatic, intense. Not boring at all.

That makes me think: Game of Thrones also has excellent scenes of pitched battles.

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PugJesus 3 points a year ago

Imagine a piece of the scale and scope (including of historical accuracy) of Waterloo (1970) done with modern techniques.

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