Pertinax

That's because they would be blasting the Martians, who are bad, relatively speaking. I demure to your ruthless logic. Mastodons-what are they good for? absolutely nothing! Say it again. Wait a minute , no-one is taking this seriously -you are all using post-modernist irony!

Im glad you got that guilt out into the open.Im not sure anyone actually noticed St Patrick had been stolen for a long time . And another thing "good cyborgs " are pointless- I mean what is the point of having enhanced laser-vision and being able to carry an aircraft standard gattling cannon if not to run around in designer shades blasting stuff?

Ah but what if your descendants were some mutated semi-cyborg beings? Surely you must draw the line at apologising for the activities of an AI mutant ? I think this thread has imploded

Anyone see a number of Christians trotting over to the Middle East about 5 or 6 years ago to apologise in person for the crusades? I saw a brief item televised, the locals (in and around Egypt and Syria if I remember) regarded them with total bafflement and polite indifference. Their main query of the activity was "what do these people actually want?" .Good question. In the Great Spirit of saying sorry organised by Pantagathus let me be the first to apologise for my ancestors leaving Scandinavia, causing a fight in Ireland and founding an irittatingly aggresive state in Normandy.Also I do apologise for the unpleasant blood-eagle stuff :fish:

The other "non-european" formation that interests me is the Zulu impi, based totally on close quarter combat /using an "oval" rather than a square (no corners to de-stabilise) /very fast moving and as far as I am aware homogenous in armament. The obvious nemesis is rapid ballistic fire before a charge can be pressed home, but what we dont know too much of is intertribal casualty rates during the "Crushing" (as Shaka's drive to domination over all comers was called). The impi had a superior re-invented spear with a greater killing potential than competing designs (Shaka's own invention ) and discipline was fearsome,eg: those refusing or hesitating to harden their bare feet by treading on an arena of thorns being killed instantly. Some units were married some not-I am uncertain if this was a strict prohibition, when applied.Isandalwhana ( from a later period, but effected by impiis) remains, I think, the worst defeat ever inflicted on a machine age army by "native" troops, Rorke's Drift whilst ludicrously heroic was touted so widely as an establishment cover-up for poor leadership.Perhaps the willingness to sustain casualties was the inspired/brutal/later insane visionary genius of Shaka? FV I had read a very short piece on the "mixed unit" problems,I understood male combatants lost all fire discipline in an attempt to gain "revenge" for female casualties.

These thoughtful posts lead me to another question-given what we know of Samurai ethics , can anyone give any statistical information or links to information regarding the battlefield conditions in medieval Japan? My line of thought is -can a culture posited on incontravertible personal honour transcend the norms of " European " behaviour and killing ratios.I have no direct information on proportionate combat fatalities in medieval Japan, I am interested to explore the crossover of "personal " ethics versus peasants armed with guns Do all cultures have a minority of actual combative combatants? What of gender in combat? (I realise that is probably another thread) or rather what of mixed gender combat unit cohesiveness ( my queastion here is realated to the "how do the genders react to casualties in mixed units?"). I apologise if I am becoming too introverted in my thoughts but my thoughts keep wandering off...

What exercises my mind here is-how much harder is it to "abstain from killing" ( and I particualrly annotate this by saying ,"not kill but risk ones own life") in a close combat gladius/pilum unit . With projectile weapons , reverting to my American Civil War post, one can stand on the field exposed to fire and not deserting your comrades but not killing-what happens when you really must kill to sustain an action? ps: Spurius I hold my hand up to your Father, what guts.

MPC can you give a link at all. please?

I have just returned from another photo recce on Hadrian's Wall . This time I moved from the Western extremity of Luguvallum (Carlisle) to meet up with the images already posted for Vindolanda and Vircovicium. http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...&cmd=si&img=436 Bana is the first major survival to the east of Brampton (eight miles east of Carlisle). It is the present day museum of Birdoswald , housed in an old water mill attached to an austere victorian house. This is the only fort in britain to have a positivley identified training gymnasium (basilica exorcitatoria) for mock combat indoors, given the driving sleet in early April the use of such a facility is hardly surprising. As usual attempts have been made to identify site buildings and mark out the overall fort area. The museum is much smaller than Vindolanda with few exibits of note. I posted a shot of the site of Bana, http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...&cmd=si&img=652 hardly surprising that it was utilised given its elevation. I moved along to milecastle 41, the best preserved of all the milecastles.I will be adding shots of this soon. Camboglanna has no real excavated remains but is the site of the "Roman Army Museum" , again a reasonable museum but not on the scale of Vindolanda .Camboglanna links us to the Steel Rigg photos previously posted.The fort is unusual as having been the home of a Cohort of Syrian archers A Dacian and Tungrian Cohort are also attested. http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...&cmd=si&img=438 Procolita lies a few miles East of Vircovicium but behind the Wall as opposed to on it. Only the Mithraic cult ruins survive. By the time I had photographed the cult ruins the hail was so bad I was forced to retreat to the car.The finding of the Mithraium is another accident of survival , in 1949 Britain had a very dry summer-the upper parts of the surviving walls showed above ground in the dessicated earth -nearly two millenia after this solemn building fell into ruin. Viggen is ,despite much other important work , fashioning a report format for the previous Vindolanda journey, once this is built I will endeavour to guide members through the various photographs in sequence. I acquired the Vindolanda "Band of brothers" book , and another on roman remains in NW Britain. Bulk upload of Madame Pertinax's Roman Forum pics-click my profile and head for my blog on msn (look for Gallery "Forum Romanii"). A bulk file exists for Vindolanda as well showing many additional small scale exhibits Bana is in but unedited as yet, the Mithraic temple ruins are shown. Also my posting on the Brigantes brings some tribal context to this area. http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showto...t=0entry30946

Dave Grossman ("On Killing") make the particularly apt point that spec ops (Lurps? is that correct for N America?) although in ,apparently, particularly tense combat situations ,do not suffer the same degree of combat fatigue as normal combat units ( by which he means Vietnam era Army/Marine units) .His suggestion is that as they are recce units ,despite the dangerous nature of the job, they withdraw from contact as a matter of course and therefore do not have the horror of further anticipated fear. This doesnt mean their job isnt dangerous or non-fatal but it does suggest something about human stress. I was wondering about peltastii units-the film Alexander concentrated my mind-they nipped out in front of heavy infantry in loin cloths , used a sling or small spear and dived back out of the way-how stressful was that? You need bravado to step into the open , but if you are not expected to hang about ,perhaps its not as mentally tough as being in the phalanx.

All the things we discuss here , and turn over in our minds seem to point to no perceivable change in human psychology in relation to all the normal emotions and desires of mankind. Battlefield "concentration" must have been a severe test of will and "strength" (by which term I mean a multitude of things- fire discipline, morale ..all the usual suspects).Is the dispersed modern battlefield any less stressful-we have ballistic weapons , do they make combat easier? I suggest not-the "comfort" of direct (if potentially fatal ) contact is a resolved fear, as Caesar said "men generally fear what they cannot see more than that which they prerceive directly". This doesnt make the actual fear any less, but it is a direct, certain , factual thing. side note to this post: my late Father was in the Malaysian Emergency ( communist counter insurgency if anyone is unfamiliar), his worst experience was guarding a rubber plantation in the pitch black(couldnt see his hand in front of his face at all) -he said he would have prefered a straight fight to the horror of sweating nights away waiting for an enemy that never appeared. He just met a lot of large snakes and lizards on that job.

Virgil is most pertinent on the "re-invention " of the phalanx at various times and within various economic/social capabilities, Wallace's "schiltorn" was a pike phalanx re-imagined to give irregulars some adhesive coherence in fighting the English. Virgil's point about the non-sophistication of the phalanx is illustrated by its employment in the rapid retraining of a group of men still given to fighting in a macho Celtic/Pictish "display" culture.

I was going to suggest Arthur as a likely separate thread ,given that the "Matter of Britain" (as the "return of the once and future king" is called) is both a sub-roman Brythonic historical "epoch" and quite distinctly a national legend.Might be best to keep Arthur in a "controlled zone" so posting doesnt become too romantic. It would be good to see : some "scene setting" from those clued up on the Venetii and the Roman "takeover " of their business interests and the importance of the security of the channel the prequel of Celtiberian coastal contact perhaps the Romanisation of the British tribal elites despite their actual resistance to Roman rule The extent of actual roman influence in the remote extremities of the Isles (Pictii, Attacottii, Maeaetae (Kyle-Inverness -Aberdeen)). The physical benefits of Roman urbanisation and import/export trades. This would help me bring my long term photo cataloging project along the Wall (and associated museums) into a working focus.

Neos D who would you seek out as a source for textiles/colour/ general appearence?

My personal interest coincides exactly with your suggestion Ursus-its actually the interaction of the CeltIberians with the Romanised world , and the cross cultural influences that occured.The role of the Legions in acculturation is exactly what I had hoped to discuss, in the context of our found evidence and analysis of same here in Britain. De La Bedoyere is the Hadrian's Wall "guru", I have high hopes of this new publication, but I have no sight of it yet on Amazon UK. Belay that comment! Its ordered!