Of elves and their skills for battle - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

bombur · 10-12-2002, 07:44 PM

I cannot remember myself having written that "being full of rage" is the only or even primary requirement for victory. I was refering to the eleves returning to the middle earth "Being full of rage". In this case I meant extreme motivation = courage. I did not consider the "berserk factor" much.

The idea of pitting 500 vikings versus 50 crusaders with the result of the vikings getting decimated, is a claim not supported by history. Vikings were able to vanguish larger number of knights even when the knights were defending behind city walls.

The main Viking adwantage was rather strategic surprise then rage. Their longships were so low... shallow, whichever is the correct term, that they were able to approach consealed by the coastline to acchieve surpirise. Actually the only land not ravaged by Vikings in Europe was their eastern neighbour Finland, and that is most likely due to a functioning "watchfire" system that ofset this adwantage of strategic surprise. It is interresting perhaps for this discussion to note that losing the surprise element stopped the vikings even though finns were not a warrior people nor equally well equipped. (Archaeologic evidence suggesting absense of metal armor and domestically produced pattern welded swords in Finland till latest period of viking era 1000AD or so.)

(I might add (editing the post) that the viking disadwantages included total lack of cavalry, which required them to take cavalry attacks defensively covering behind shieldwalls or terrain. The finns did not seem to have cavalry either, but on the other hand, we are indeed the only people who have laid a claim on the dubious honor of inventing the devilish tool called crossbow [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] . The building of it is described in kalevala.)

Over emphasis of the berserk myth is misleading. Vikings were often very proficient warriors. Not in the sense that they had been practiceing swordplay terribly lot, but otherwise. By the crusade period, the vikings were wearing hauerback chainmail to a man exactly as the crusaders were, and usually were not charging to combat naked and chewing their shields. They were diciplined and cunning.

It may be worth note that most of successfull armies of the European history did not devote exessive amount of time to mastery of weaponskills. For example the Roman army spent 90% of its trainingtime on maintaining and making formations and shieldwalls, practiseing combat engineering, creating dicipline and group solidarity etc. And of this 10% most was training the use of Pilum-javelin. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to remember that a rebel slave Spartacus took an army of gladiators and slaves trained by gladiators to fight the roman army. They were likely superior individual combatants, but in the end they died. Even their initial success I would attribute to their superior motivation, not their weaponskills.

Here in Finland we have compulsory military service. (1000km of border with Russia for 5 million people nation may just require it. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] ) I as pasifist chose to pass this and went to civilian service. However I did spend some time in the army.

I can tell you that there was drilling, marching, training for entrenchment, Training for "incamp dicipline", training for moving in the forest, training for the use of specialised weaponry (AA-gun, handgrenade and LAW-rocket), training for maintanance of personal weapon, training for combat cover, training for...

Well anyways, during my month there we were in the range with the personal weapon all of once and had two more times scheduled for the rest of the basic training. Only military police had any close combat scheduled for training.

The army of the British empire in its height in the late 1800's considered maintaining "fire dicipline" to be a thousand times more important then individual accuracy of the soldiers. Though a German diplomat said that the British army was good for fighting savage tribes as German was good for fighting the French, he mant their lack of organisation above the regimental level. Their small unit performance of the time was the envy of all the Europe. And it was not based on individual "combat skill."

The point is and was this, "weapon skill" good soldier makes not.

You get better soldier during any time period by emphasisin different aspects in training. The aspects that the Noldor might have had practically built in to them.

Janne Harju

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: bombur ]

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10-12-2002, 07:44 PM	#7
bombur Wight Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: finland Posts: 126	I cannot remember myself having written that "being full of rage" is the only or even primary requirement for victory. I was refering to the eleves returning to the middle earth "Being full of rage". In this case I meant extreme motivation = courage. I did not consider the "berserk factor" much. The idea of pitting 500 vikings versus 50 crusaders with the result of the vikings getting decimated, is a claim not supported by history. Vikings were able to vanguish larger number of knights even when the knights were defending behind city walls. The main Viking adwantage was rather strategic surprise then rage. Their longships were so low... shallow, whichever is the correct term, that they were able to approach consealed by the coastline to acchieve surpirise. Actually the only land not ravaged by Vikings in Europe was their eastern neighbour Finland, and that is most likely due to a functioning "watchfire" system that ofset this adwantage of strategic surprise. It is interresting perhaps for this discussion to note that losing the surprise element stopped the vikings even though finns were not a warrior people nor equally well equipped. (Archaeologic evidence suggesting absense of metal armor and domestically produced pattern welded swords in Finland till latest period of viking era 1000AD or so.) (I might add (editing the post) that the viking disadwantages included total lack of cavalry, which required them to take cavalry attacks defensively covering behind shieldwalls or terrain. The finns did not seem to have cavalry either, but on the other hand, we are indeed the only people who have laid a claim on the dubious honor of inventing the devilish tool called crossbow [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] . The building of it is described in kalevala.) Over emphasis of the berserk myth is misleading. Vikings were often very proficient warriors. Not in the sense that they had been practiceing swordplay terribly lot, but otherwise. By the crusade period, the vikings were wearing hauerback chainmail to a man exactly as the crusaders were, and usually were not charging to combat naked and chewing their shields. They were diciplined and cunning. It may be worth note that most of successfull armies of the European history did not devote exessive amount of time to mastery of weaponskills. For example the Roman army spent 90% of its trainingtime on maintaining and making formations and shieldwalls, practiseing combat engineering, creating dicipline and group solidarity etc. And of this 10% most was training the use of Pilum-javelin. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to remember that a rebel slave Spartacus took an army of gladiators and slaves trained by gladiators to fight the roman army. They were likely superior individual combatants, but in the end they died. Even their initial success I would attribute to their superior motivation, not their weaponskills. Here in Finland we have compulsory military service. (1000km of border with Russia for 5 million people nation may just require it. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] ) I as pasifist chose to pass this and went to civilian service. However I did spend some time in the army. I can tell you that there was drilling, marching, training for entrenchment, Training for "incamp dicipline", training for moving in the forest, training for the use of specialised weaponry (AA-gun, handgrenade and LAW-rocket), training for maintanance of personal weapon, training for combat cover, training for... Well anyways, during my month there we were in the range with the personal weapon all of once and had two more times scheduled for the rest of the basic training. Only military police had any close combat scheduled for training. The army of the British empire in its height in the late 1800's considered maintaining "fire dicipline" to be a thousand times more important then individual accuracy of the soldiers. Though a German diplomat said that the British army was good for fighting savage tribes as German was good for fighting the French, he mant their lack of organisation above the regimental level. Their small unit performance of the time was the envy of all the Europe. And it was not based on individual "combat skill." The point is and was this, "weapon skill" good soldier makes not. You get better soldier during any time period by emphasisin different aspects in training. The aspects that the Noldor might have had practically built in to them. Janne Harju [ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: bombur ]