hmm..sounds intresting but i dont think id watch it. as for greast warrior it would have to be a toss up between samurai, and gladiators.
Deadliest Warrior: thoughts?
- Thread starter Mr0llivand3r
- Start date
It's a joke.
History has pretty much already shown us who the best warriors are: White Guys. The final evolution of the low tech warrior culture being arguably Knights of Muskateers.
You might go "but Therumancer, are you nuts?" honestly I'm not.
It's like this, "we" took the idea of warriors and turned them into something called "Soldiers". The idea being that the power of people working together can surpass
even the best performances by individuals. This is how guys like the Spartans held out against the masses of the Persians even for a little while. It's all about tactics.
What's more unlike most cultures, the various white/european peoples were willing to adapt what other groups were using and then improve upon them. In a very *general* sense you will notice in an armory museum more innovations from Europe during any given time period than anywhere else. You might like see *A* Persian sword, but then you'll probably see like 10 differant variations on a sword coming from the Greeks and Romans during the same general period that was in service as they adapted new ideas and techniques. There are exceptions but that is a big part of it.
At any rate you eventually wound up with Greece ruling, followed by Rome. Rome fell and then the techniques and technologies of the Romans were eventually assimilated by the Europeans and improved upon, leading to the eventual evolution of Knights, and then into Musketeers and Muzzle-loader soldiers who would fire in ranks, and then into the gradual evolution of the modern soldier.
As much as people might dislike it, think of it this way. During the Crusades the Muslims started slaughtering pilgrims to take "The Holy Land" for islam. Europe responded and decided that they were going to re-open it and gain vengeance (the original purpose of groups like the Knights TEmplar was specifically to protect pilgrims in The Holy Land). Europeans pretty much walked in and whooped up on everyone. The problem of course being that with the technology of the time it was unsure if you could get boats with more troops or supplies there. So no matter how many battles the Crusaders won, there were always more Muslims (it's their back yard) and no guaranteed reinforcements or supplies. Even at a rate of 50-100 to 1 when a knight went down there was no real replacement. This is why the Crusades (all of them) ultimatly failed. One of the prime examples of logistics and why you can have the most awesome army in the world but if you can't supply and reinforce them reliably, they are going to lose.
Later people talk about say the Zulu "Massacres" in Africa where the Zulus overran some British Reigments. Even so when your considering that the tactics of the great Zulu "Warriors" was to throw bodies at them until they ran out of bullets and you were talking losing 20 or more guys for every person taken out the term "Phyrric" comes to mind.
At any rate, the biggest element of all of this though is tactics. The problem with say pitting a Samurai against a Viking or a Legionaire, or whatever else is that any meaningful battle won't be fought one on one. Samurai are a group of noble warriors, so are say European Knights, but in the end Knights are trained to fight as a team in calvery formations and such. Samurai on the other hand are trained to LEAD troops and typically
to fight individually. Against knights they would go down against a coordinated charge, heck against Roman Legionaires 50 guys fighting shoulder to shoulder in formation would decimate them. Doesn't matter if a Samurai could take one of them out in an individual fight, in an actual battlefield Warriors changed into Soldiers for a reason.
Now yes, Japan/China/etc... all did have their own tactics. People go on about Sun Tzu and all of that stuff. But in the end when it comes to the production of sheer military power the champions have always been Europeans/Mediterreneans once civilization moved beyond the Fertile Crescent (where Egypt reigned for the longest time period).
The British Empire *DID* get forced out of a lot of places (India, Africa, China) but largely because it was overextended, and even in being forced out the damage they inflicted was simply put catastrophic.
Political Correctness has diplomatically tried to pump up the performances of a lot of places in the rest of the world. You'll hear for example like how the movie "Zulu Dawn" was based on actual events. But then think carefully that some people actually present that as having been a huge massacre, when in reality it was a phyrric victory and the brits were simply overrun because the enemy decided it didn't care how many people they had to lose to do it. Sure, if your fanatics willing to take 100 to 1 losses you can beat anyone by simply swamping them, but that doesn't make someone a great warrior. 3000 Arabs jump 50 Foreign Legionaires in a fort, 2000 Arabs leave, the Legionaires are dead. Sure that's a victory but honestly losing a thousand dudes to take out 50 isn't going to impress me with your prowess.
History has pretty much already shown us who the best warriors are: White Guys. The final evolution of the low tech warrior culture being arguably Knights of Muskateers.
You might go "but Therumancer, are you nuts?" honestly I'm not.
It's like this, "we" took the idea of warriors and turned them into something called "Soldiers". The idea being that the power of people working together can surpass
even the best performances by individuals. This is how guys like the Spartans held out against the masses of the Persians even for a little while. It's all about tactics.
What's more unlike most cultures, the various white/european peoples were willing to adapt what other groups were using and then improve upon them. In a very *general* sense you will notice in an armory museum more innovations from Europe during any given time period than anywhere else. You might like see *A* Persian sword, but then you'll probably see like 10 differant variations on a sword coming from the Greeks and Romans during the same general period that was in service as they adapted new ideas and techniques. There are exceptions but that is a big part of it.
At any rate you eventually wound up with Greece ruling, followed by Rome. Rome fell and then the techniques and technologies of the Romans were eventually assimilated by the Europeans and improved upon, leading to the eventual evolution of Knights, and then into Musketeers and Muzzle-loader soldiers who would fire in ranks, and then into the gradual evolution of the modern soldier.
As much as people might dislike it, think of it this way. During the Crusades the Muslims started slaughtering pilgrims to take "The Holy Land" for islam. Europe responded and decided that they were going to re-open it and gain vengeance (the original purpose of groups like the Knights TEmplar was specifically to protect pilgrims in The Holy Land). Europeans pretty much walked in and whooped up on everyone. The problem of course being that with the technology of the time it was unsure if you could get boats with more troops or supplies there. So no matter how many battles the Crusaders won, there were always more Muslims (it's their back yard) and no guaranteed reinforcements or supplies. Even at a rate of 50-100 to 1 when a knight went down there was no real replacement. This is why the Crusades (all of them) ultimatly failed. One of the prime examples of logistics and why you can have the most awesome army in the world but if you can't supply and reinforce them reliably, they are going to lose.
Later people talk about say the Zulu "Massacres" in Africa where the Zulus overran some British Reigments. Even so when your considering that the tactics of the great Zulu "Warriors" was to throw bodies at them until they ran out of bullets and you were talking losing 20 or more guys for every person taken out the term "Phyrric" comes to mind.
At any rate, the biggest element of all of this though is tactics. The problem with say pitting a Samurai against a Viking or a Legionaire, or whatever else is that any meaningful battle won't be fought one on one. Samurai are a group of noble warriors, so are say European Knights, but in the end Knights are trained to fight as a team in calvery formations and such. Samurai on the other hand are trained to LEAD troops and typically
to fight individually. Against knights they would go down against a coordinated charge, heck against Roman Legionaires 50 guys fighting shoulder to shoulder in formation would decimate them. Doesn't matter if a Samurai could take one of them out in an individual fight, in an actual battlefield Warriors changed into Soldiers for a reason.
Now yes, Japan/China/etc... all did have their own tactics. People go on about Sun Tzu and all of that stuff. But in the end when it comes to the production of sheer military power the champions have always been Europeans/Mediterreneans once civilization moved beyond the Fertile Crescent (where Egypt reigned for the longest time period).
The British Empire *DID* get forced out of a lot of places (India, Africa, China) but largely because it was overextended, and even in being forced out the damage they inflicted was simply put catastrophic.
Political Correctness has diplomatically tried to pump up the performances of a lot of places in the rest of the world. You'll hear for example like how the movie "Zulu Dawn" was based on actual events. But then think carefully that some people actually present that as having been a huge massacre, when in reality it was a phyrric victory and the brits were simply overrun because the enemy decided it didn't care how many people they had to lose to do it. Sure, if your fanatics willing to take 100 to 1 losses you can beat anyone by simply swamping them, but that doesn't make someone a great warrior. 3000 Arabs jump 50 Foreign Legionaires in a fort, 2000 Arabs leave, the Legionaires are dead. Sure that's a victory but honestly losing a thousand dudes to take out 50 isn't going to impress me with your prowess.
the thing about that is that those white guys often followed Sun Tzu's philosophies. it's still required reading if you go to military schoolTherumancer said:
right because the white ppl have never done anything like that either, there's tons of examples during ww1 and ww2 where the brits and americans tossed as many ppl as they could at germanyTherumancer said:
i could easily name several battles and wars where the brits and americans just tossed everything they had at a target and yet they were such "hard fought" battles.
Therumancer, seriously, read up on things before you go on rants like that. If I could be bothered, I could go through your text and point out things you've got wrong in almost every other sentence.
I'll just go with the broad things instead.
First off, the question is who is the deadliest warrior, not who is the most succesful conqueror.
Secondly, you focus only on Europe. Take a look at the mongol empire. The ancient chinese empire. Many native american tribes. The saracens you so easily dismiss.
Sure, they don't necessarily comply to your idea of a perfect warrior society. They use other tactics, and their development stopped, for a variety of reasons (go ask your history teacher, it's far too long and complex to go into here, in detail), mostly due to lack of communications, or materials.
The people you so fondly refer to as white guys may have adapted based on what they encountered. So did the asian societies, and they did it even better. So did the native americans, but there weren't too many cultures to actually interact with over there. So did the people of the middle east, and they did it well.
You claim the european knights were the better warriors, and perhaps individually they were better than most of what they encountered. They had better gear, that's for sure, but what you fail to take into account is that what they faced were slave armies. Huge armies of people with just the cheapest equipment avaviable, against the elite from europe. That's like putting the famous samurai against a group of european farmers with bows.
And yes, the Europeans did conquer a lot of places, with far superiour technology. You could probably do the same if equipped with an m-16 and faced with a group of gladiators. That doesn't mean you're the better warrior though, or that you have the better tactics. It just means you had a huge headstart.
Sure, the program has a lot of flaws, and the results shouldn't be trusted. But almost none of your arguments actually apply directly to it. It is about single combat, but they do factor in unit tactics. At least a little bit. Sure, it's not always fair, and it doesn't always reflect how it would really work. The very small selection of weapons, and rather weird armament of the warriors especially show this. But it is made for fun. And it is made to gauge single combat, something you seem to have missed compeltely.
I'll just go with the broad things instead.
First off, the question is who is the deadliest warrior, not who is the most succesful conqueror.
Secondly, you focus only on Europe. Take a look at the mongol empire. The ancient chinese empire. Many native american tribes. The saracens you so easily dismiss.
Sure, they don't necessarily comply to your idea of a perfect warrior society. They use other tactics, and their development stopped, for a variety of reasons (go ask your history teacher, it's far too long and complex to go into here, in detail), mostly due to lack of communications, or materials.
The people you so fondly refer to as white guys may have adapted based on what they encountered. So did the asian societies, and they did it even better. So did the native americans, but there weren't too many cultures to actually interact with over there. So did the people of the middle east, and they did it well.
You claim the european knights were the better warriors, and perhaps individually they were better than most of what they encountered. They had better gear, that's for sure, but what you fail to take into account is that what they faced were slave armies. Huge armies of people with just the cheapest equipment avaviable, against the elite from europe. That's like putting the famous samurai against a group of european farmers with bows.
And yes, the Europeans did conquer a lot of places, with far superiour technology. You could probably do the same if equipped with an m-16 and faced with a group of gladiators. That doesn't mean you're the better warrior though, or that you have the better tactics. It just means you had a huge headstart.
Sure, the program has a lot of flaws, and the results shouldn't be trusted. But almost none of your arguments actually apply directly to it. It is about single combat, but they do factor in unit tactics. At least a little bit. Sure, it's not always fair, and it doesn't always reflect how it would really work. The very small selection of weapons, and rather weird armament of the warriors especially show this. But it is made for fun. And it is made to gauge single combat, something you seem to have missed compeltely.