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> Moreover, many traditional wars were not simply about defeating the enemy. They have been an opportunity to demonstrate courage and heroism. A brave warrior was not one who cowardly shot from a distance but one who bested the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.
IIRC in a video about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana the video claimed that rifle gave a x10 advantage (that was not enough for the British in that battle). Honor is nice, but I'd take x10 every time.
Yeah, the incentives are different.
My understanding is that the "honor" thing is a useful proxy for a time when ranged combat could not generally be decisive - as you would not expect ranged fighting to be able to force an enemy to surrender/withdraw/just all die. In these scenarios (and if you're not a society of mounted horse archers...), you -cannot- rely on ranged combat to enable your tribe/clan/fief/kingdom to actually decide outcomes.
Therefore you have to incentize your soldiers and especially your leaders to actually be compelled to undertake, and be good at close combat, because if you're not good at that, you're not going to get get what you want (once again, unless you happen to be mounted horse archers).
It's only really with the development of breach loaded firearms could you reasonably expect to be able to keep an attacking enemy at bay through firepower alone (and even then it's not guaranteed as Isandlwana shows).
Ranged weapons were slow to reload/fire and needed a lot of training to use. Slow to reload means that you have a reasonable change run up to someone with a bow and hit them with your club before they can shoot you. Needing a lot of training meant the enemy didn't have many, and if you were trying to wage war you can train a club force a lot faster than a bow force.
In the early years of the gun it was expected you fire once and then rush into battle with a sword. A gun was still better than a bow though as it is a lot easier to aim a gun, even though the gun was not very accurate. As guns got faster to reload and more accurate they slowly took over war, but it wasn't until the mid 1800s that a gun was conclusively better than someone training in a bow or sword, and it wasn't until the 1900s that battle tactics adjusted to that reality.
Crossbows maybe, but bows can be fired really, really quickly. In the region of once every few seconds. The point about it requiring training however is very correct
That is still a lot of time for someone charging with a club to get too close. Bows run out of arrows very fast as well, something i forgot to mention.
I imagine the other issue with ranged weapons is that they require a consistent source ammunition. A single club can be used against many, a single arrow might kill one target. The 10x advantage drops disappears once you run out of things to fire, and considering how current world events are playing out this would be a even bigger factor in pre-industrial societies.
The Zulu army from King Shaka's time onwards were disciplined and brutal conquerors (1). It wasn't purely about honour for them.
Also, Isandlwana in 1879 is AFAIK the last significant battle where a force whose main weapon was guns, was defeated by a force largely without them. (2)
See also, a few years later in 1884, the Maxim gun (3) which tilted the odds even further.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impi#Ascent_and_innovations_of...
2) "The Battle of Isandlwana remains the British Army’s worst-ever defeat against a native enemy whose military weaponry was not nearly as technologically advanced as their own." https://explorethearchive.com/battle-of-isandlwana
3) "the first fully automatic machine gun"" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun
> See also, a few years later in 1884, the Maxim gun (3) which tilted the odds even further.
"Thank the Lord that we have got
The Gatling gun
And they have not!"
There's another version:
"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not"
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/355429-whatever-happens-we-...
> Honor is nice, but I'd take x10 every time.
The importance of public displays of honor is a cultural distinction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_Uni...
Reminds me of the classic Indiana Jones vs Arab swordsman scene :)
The new classic scene: https://youtu.be/90P4xDwLpGo?t=110
I wonder if more people have seen the above scene as have seen the original. If not, I wonder if and when the numbers will cross. My kids have seen both, but they probably don't remember seeing the original as they were quite young. I try to force nostalgia film and television on them, but it's hit or miss, and now that they can fight back they won't let me play Indiana Jones films, but are okay with IASIP. (I'd prefer Indiana Jones as it requires less censoring.)
My answer would be no and never, respectively. I mean, Ok, that video has been played 2.5 million times, but according to Wikipedia, 77 million people watched the first Indiana Jones movie in the cinema alone, never mind TV, DVD, Blu Ray, streaming etc.
The good thing about Indiana Jones is that, because it's set in the past, it doesn't look as dated as an 1981 movie that actually played in 1981 looks. Ok, you can probably guess that it's old if you compare the way Harrison Ford looked then to the way he looks now, but other than that...
How many of those 77 million are dead? 42 years is a long time. If you asked me to put money down, I'd definitely place my bet with Raiders of the Lost Ark. But I'd still like to know the numbers. And if we put a cap on age, say, 35, things would get even more interesting--for example, by exaggerating the effect of population growth.
those 77 watched it on release. Many many millions more have watched it since and will in the future. Indiana Jones still has cult status and will probably maintain it for a while more.
> How many of those 77 million are dead?
And of those, how many are dead because they forgot to bring their gun to the swordfight?
> The good thing about Indiana Jones is that, because it's set in the past, it doesn't look as dated as a 1981 movie that actually played in 1981 looks.
I think I agree, but when I have to rationalize it, I can't really say why!
I only come up with vague things like:
- being made to look like in the past, the visual language is a caricature of the past. This caricature of the 30s has not changed much for us between 1980s and present time.
- which leads to... our present is not as clear as in hindsight (or we haven't formed a caricature of it yet) while it happens
- being set in the past, some of the artefacts of being shot on film, don't stick out as much (in fact, these artefacts are often emulated in modern productions to signal "the past")
- ... as opposed to films set in the future, there are fewer pitfalls
Eh sorry now? Can't some downvoter please tell me what I'm missing instead of just downvoting.
There's plenty of youtube clips of the Indians Jones scene with millions of views, I think more people have seen the Indians Jones scene this year than the Always Sunny scene.
autocorrect :( too late to edit apparently
I think the Raiders scene owes something to "Self-defence" from Monty Python season one.
I’m not sure if you’re trying to say that more people have watched a particular episode of IASIP, or a classic action adventure movie from a very popular film franchise?
Yes, that's the question. It may seem obvious that it would be the latter, but Raiders of the Lost Ark is nearly 42 years old at this point. Today do you think more people have seen Citizen Kane (1941) or Bambi (1942) as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)?
Granted, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia isn't as popular, and not everyone who has seen one IASIP episode will have seen them all, but the target audience is similar.
People don’t have to watch the entire Indiana Jones movie to see that particular sword scene.
The IASIP scene is no where nearly as viral as the Indiana Jones scene anyway. The Indiana Jones clip has higher production value, there’s no talking, it’s shorter, there’s excitement, and a good payoff at the end of it, it has all the ingredients for it to spread across the world no matter what language you speak. It’s timeless, and always relevant.
IASIP drags on, and focuses on school shooters which only resonates with American audiences. They also basically “explain” the entire joke, vs Indiana Jones which simply illustrates it very well.
The arab sword scene will basically be immortal.
Out of context the scene doesn't have the same effect.
In movie, just before encountering the Arab swordsman Indy fights with his fists quite a few Arabs - and in a few instances it looks like he is going to loose. So discovering at this point that Indy had a firearm all along - and didn't use it even when it appeared to us, the viewers, that he was going to lose - shows us how confident in his abilities he is. And additionally, how aware he is of his own limitations.
In the long run, a culture that wins wars “dishonorably” will displace a culture that sticks to less effective tactics out of “honor”. Cultural values around heroism will adapt to fit the dominant tactics anyway.
The parent comment mentions the battle of Isandlwana. This kind of "winning beats honour" thinking is what King Shaka used to bring the Zulu army to regional dominance circa 1820s onwards, displacing other tribes. This brought the Zulu army to Isandlwana in 1879 to defeat the British.
The British of course did not admit defeat, they just came back with more men and bigger guns, to displace the Zulus.
Casualties wise, it only gave a x3 advantage though, and the British still lost over ~2000 troops
I read that our (humanity's) wrist flexibility co-evolved with the presence of clubs and thrown stones, or rather was selected for due to the ability to easily swing clubs and and throw objects versus other hominids without that flexibility: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1571064/
An interesting theory...
I haven't done much melée combat, but i would have thought that a stabbing spear was preferable to a club in any situation. You can have more range, you don't have to give up your guard to wind up a blow, and opponents are more likely to be discouraged by bleeding than bruises.
Given that we developed flint-tipped spears half a million years ago, would cavemen have used clubs in any but the most desperate situations?
Spears can be more unwieldy in close/cluttered terrain (ie forests).
Assuming weapon and shield combat, clubs might be able to deliver more power through a shield (staggering or fatiguing the defender) than a spear thrust. The reach advantage of spears are also partially eroded once you consider a shield as well.
I think it's very telling that nearly all of the examples given of "modern" hunter gathers have them using both spear and clubs. I think the reality is that spears would have likely been preferred, but club/maces retaining some utility. In addition, the very fact that clubs had so many disadvantages would make it's use a bit of a status symbol too.
This combination of a spear and a club was apparently very useful even against iron-clad French knights.
Which is better really depends on a bunch of factors, but people really did hunt with thrown clubs/boomerangs and similar weapons. The Māori used a lot of club like weapons up until fairly recently: https://www.new-guinea-tribal-arts.com/maori-weapons/
Clubs wouldn’t have damaged pelts, and take less effort to create and maintain. Rather hard to clear underbrush with a stabbing spear.
I wonder if the story of Heracles is our origin for the ancient-club-warrior concept.
https://www.joshobrouwers.com/articles/club-heracles-recogni...
Though naturally, the ancients didn't see Heracles as some primitive brute.
Look at this tomahawk made from a bison jaw. Simple but brutal.
https://twitter.com/Arting_2D/status/1499311367060594689/pho...
Judges 15:15-16 (NABRE):
15 Coming upon the fresh jawbone of an ass, he reached out, grasped it, and with it killed a thousand men.
16 Then Samson said,
“With the jawbone of an ass
I have piled them in a heap;
With the jawbone of an ass
I have slain a thousand men.”
I had a couple of club-wielding grandparents
Given the title, I have to assume it’s a myth.
Wrong guess:
> Combining those lines of evidence, I’m convinced the earliest modern humans likely wielded clubs—probably more often for conflicts than hunting.
> Returning to the game Prehistorik, we can be sure that no human ever clubbed a dinosaur, but past people probably whacked creatures that existed over the past 300,000 years. The wooden club in their hands is not a myth. However, it may have been a much more sophisticated weapon than most people imagine.
Considering that Michael Moore reports that the scene from "Roger & Me" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_%26_Me) that got the most hate mail was when the unemployed auto worker in Flint, MI clubbed a rabbit to death before skinning and cooking it, I would be surprised if it were otherwise.