longbow

True,but you still need your thumb to hold the Bow steady. I had a go at loosing an arrow whilst ignoring my thumbs and the arrow nearly landed in my foot,i wont be trying it again in a hurry But maybe with practice someone could learn to use one of the smaller Bows (im using a Longbow) to get a couple of accurate shots off with the use of wrist straps which you mentioned.But soldier/archers could be drawing the Bow hundreds of times in some battles,i dont think that would be possible for a thumbless archer. Longbow

The Crusader MOD is for Barbarian Invasion and the next MOD from the realism team (7.0) is for BI,but the current 6.0 gold MOD is for Rome Total War.

I think your in the wrong thread mate

No probs matey ,Im really looking forward to Caius Brittanicus's Crusader MOD to be released,it looks really good.I cant wait to get my hands on the Knights Templar. Thats the great thing about PC games,the modders can change them around and make many more options available to us the general public,free of charge! i remember the German Front MOD for Call of Duty,i could spend all night playing that online,what a great game.

If your talking about the vanilla RTW (the normal game fresh out the box)its a load of crap! unrealsitic unit skins,unrealistc units!and whats all that Red,Green,Blue nonsense? The saving grace of this game is the RTR MOD,after playing the 5.o MOD i've never looked back and i cant wait for the release of the 7.0 edition(rubs hands and pulls a funny face).The modders at the RTR site really should be commended for there fine efforts at turning this game from a mediocre one to a truly great one!these fine people work there arses off for no money to make this game more realistic and a lot more fun to play. Why dont you download it? it doesnt cost anything,give it a try and see which version you prefer. RomeTotalRealsim. I allso find its better if you turn off the stupid green arrows and the flags in the battle games,they really get on my nerves. No it isnt,Decisive Battles was made for the BBC a couple of years ago and that programme used the engine what RTW then used,similarity endus.

There was a programme on BBC2 at the weekend about this fort(Timewatch).They found a couple of hundred body's piled up in a kinda cellar,the roof had caved in so they were quite well preserved.The wounds on some of them were pretty gastly,axe cuts in skulls etc.It must of been a hell of a fight!It was allways a mystery how Saladin got into the fort so quick (5 days,the fort was supposed to be able to withstand seige for 5 years!) but the recent excavations have discovered the fort was no were near complete,it should of had the two outer walls and ditches like at Kerak but it only had one wall and no ditches.

Hey Princeps,nice photo's!i love the Angel of the North (it was built in my home town) and the Blinking eye is pretty cool too. Here's some pics of my home town. the Village i live in now. A copy of the harbour. the North gate was built to keep the scots out (8ft thick those walls). A pic of the bronze boer war memorial,unfortunatly some scoundrels hacksawed him through the ankles and had him away so i've never seen this,but i like it anyway. The Norman church,St Hilda's. A pic taking in 1963,how grim does that look?

Its actually not so easy to set alight a siege tower,they are made out of green wood which they soak with water untill its sodden,the frames are covered in sun dried hides which are soaked thoroughly too.You can loose arrows into them all day with out it catching a fire enougth to stop the thing. Flaming arrows are over rated,i know Hollywood loves them but where they actually used that much?its not as if you dip your arrow head into some burning oil and loose it.You have to soak rags in the pitch and wrap and tie them to the arrow shaft,needless to say that dramatically affects the range and stability. A good shot with a catarpult or Ballista would be better at stopping the towers or a wide spikey ditch in front of the walls. The Celts had the answer to Towers and Battering rams,Hill forts.

Flavius josephus was a Jewish soldier who became a Roman citizen.When writing about the Roman way of fighting he said I like that qoute .

Try this Group,Legio IX Hispana they may be able to help you.

Its just the Spanish trying it on,the Sussex is a British war ship full of British Artifacts and Gold coins of course .The Spanish are just p****d because they requested the return of sovereignty over the Island, but this was rejected by the people of Gibraltar.

The Roman Army by Nigel Rodgers This is an excellent military history of all of Rome's major conflicts from the rise of the Republic to the fall of the Western Empire.It allso gives a good account of the Army structure and all the jobs the Legionaries were expected to do as well as fight ,building roads and bridges etc are covered in the book. Theres over 200 pictures in this book, whilst the photographs are excellent the illustrations are a bit poor but there's not many illustrations so there easy to ignore,i guess Angus Mcbride was to busy or expensive. I like the way the books worded and the chapters are really easy to understand with good use of explanitory photo's or battle maps.Allthough the book is quite short its still packed with information, i think this book would be excellent for someone looking for brief accounts of the wars or just an insight into Army life,i enjoyed it very much. L

In the 3rd Century the Coastal forts were built and the fleet was increased because of Saxon raids.Admiral Carausius then used these ships and forts for his Rebellion .

I really enjoyed it,i like Boris he's a daft bugger but he's allright .I thought there was a good variety of scholars from the different European university's and there was even some revelations revealed (to me anyway).What about that archiologist who was doing a dig in the Roman Forum,did he really find Romulus's palace?and that rubbish dump with all the amphora?its huge! Boris's website

I'll play as England first,gotta teach those French the power of the Longbows ,when i've finished with the French i plan on taking the Crusader cross .

The people at Activision are releasing a new Total War game,Medieval II is due for release later this year.I didnt really like the first Medieval game because i had allready played RTW which looks so much better,but this new game has all the up to date graphics and some new features which i like the sound of,especially the crusade aspect.We'll have to wait and see but it looks promising. Hmmm,im having problems inserting a link i paste the url for the hyperlink and change the name like normal,when i try the link in preview post it comes up as a microsoft page?Ahh well heres the link if you want to check the site. http://www.totalwar.com/community/medieval2.htm

The Gel was a plant oil mixed with a pine resin,the poor guys hair was allso infested with nits! The weathers a bit cold at the minute Pertinax but its supposed to warm a little in the next few days,you may be lucky.

Did you watch the documentary pertinax? the guy with the hair gel was only 5'2" ,he had his hair bunched up on the top of his head to make him look taller.His wounds were all Axe blows to the head so he would of died pretty quickly.The other body was 6'6" and a noble man (his hands are beautifully preserved and he hasnt done a days manual labour in his life)the historians think he was executed for a honour crime as he was ritually tortured to death before he was staked down in the bog. The historians viewpoint on bog body's was intersesting,he said the Celts would put people in the bog so that there body's wouldnt rot.They believed the soul is kept in side the body after death and this is a way of preserving the body so the soul cant escape,they didnt want the victims soul's to have the reward of the otherworld.I thought the bog bodys were offerings for the Gods not punishments for crimes.

Indeed,the upright post was fixed Permanently in the ground and the condemned man carried the patibulum (crossbeam) only.At the time of Jesus's execution the Romans were using the 'Tau cross' which is the shape of a 'T',the medieval and Renaissance artists depicted him carrying the entire 'Latin cross' (which has the crossbeam 3feet below the top of the upright post).

I think theres a bit more to it than that,London was one of the great trading centre's,it was one of the richest cities north of the Alps and had a population of 50,000 (2nd Century).I think Britania wasnt only about Military prestige it was allso a valuable province to the Romans. When Saxons started to raid the Romans expanded the Classis Britannica and built a series of Forts all along the south east coast,they wouldnt have done that if the Island wasnt valuable to them.

Is there any information available for the age requirement to join a Legion?was there even a minimum age?when thinking about lengths of service i allways prosume the soldier would of joined up around 20 years old,but it may be much younger than that.

In Britain we have the curios habit of saying the weather temp in both systems,if its hot we use Fahrenheit and when its cold we use Celsius,weird huh. Regarding the Metric system,i was brought up to do everything in Metric but the older people will only deal in Imperial.There's a fruit n veg shop in Sunderland which has been taken to the European court for selling his goods in pounds and ounces instead of Kilo's. Article.

Flavius Silva with his tenth Legion built a 4,000yd stone wall and eight forts during his three year siege of Masada,why did Rome go to all that trouble?as i understand it there was only a couple of hundred Sicarii in the palace and its a pretty formidable place.Where the Sicarii zealots such a threat to Rome that the siege was a worth while undertaking or was it because the place is so inhospitable and easily defendable that Rome wanted to make the point that there Legions can operate anywhere? Thanks L

Agricola pretty much had the North sown up for the Romans after Mons Graupius (Inverness area) but he was recalled by Domitian.Agricola's Legions were needed to reinforce the Danube so they dismantled the fort (Inchtuthil) they had made north of the river Forth and marched back south. Do you think Domitian really needed Agricola's Legions or did he have another motive for stopping Agricolas campaign? L

Allso there's this database with over 500 images available.