Non-modern warfare

[color="#cc8899"]I'm fascinated with it, be it Grecco-Roman, Medieval, etc. So I found
http://www.drizzle.com/~celyn/jherek/16thMilSci.pdf
to be an amazing, if long, read. If anyone finds similar documents, please post them here. Especially of interest to me are "unique" or "creative" weapons/applications of weapons, such as the use of long chains fired from a cannon to cause widespread and unpredictable damage mentioned in the link above.[/COLOR]

I suppose WW2 doesn't count?

I suppose WW2 doesn't count?

[color="#cc8899"]It can, given that tactics used during combat are by now starting to become dated as technology changes. I'm mostly interested in older time periods, but I suppose it works, if only for things like how the war was fought against Japan, where the US had to employ far different tactics than in previous conflicts. Same goes for Korea and Vietnam.

Interesting tidbit about cannons when fired against infantry formations (though fairly obvious if one thinks about it) - firing at diagonals in order to maximize the number of people hit with the ball yielded devastating results (when the ball was fired with minimal arc)

"To give an idea of the power of a single shot, it is recorded that one ball killed 33 fully armored Spanish heavy cavalry during the enfilading artillery fire at Ravenna."

That's 1 ball. Against 33 heavily armored men on heavily armored horses. And it KILLED THEM ALL.[/COLOR]

I suppose WW2 doesn't count?

Battle of Stalingrad was brutal hand-to-hand combat. Dogs went mad and jumped into the river.

Other than that, I agree with MasPan. Go medieval.

Battle of Stalingrad was brutal hand-to-hand combat. Dogs went mad and jumped into the river.

Other than that, I agree with MasPan. Go medieval.

[color="#cc8899"]Having 1 gun per every 6 soldiers kindof doesn't help...
Basic Soviet tactics often resorted to a full on zergling rush, with soldiers fortunate enough to have a comrade wielding a gun die near them simply picking it up and moving on. Tanks were stopped, not by rockets or sticky bombs, but by the masses of dead bodies in front of them at times.[/COLOR]

[color="#cc8899"]Having 1 gun per every 6 soldiers kindof doesn't help...
Basic Soviet tactics often resorted to a full on zergling rush, with soldiers fortunate enough to have a comrade wielding a gun die near them simply picking it up and moving on. Tanks were stopped, not by rockets or sticky bombs, but by the masses of dead bodies in front of them at times.[/COLOR]

It's not a zerg rush, the soviets basically cared 0 about the lives of their own citizens. Sending unarmed soldiers against armed opponents is not even tactically advantageous. Even once the tide of WWII was turned, the standard tactic of Soviet commanders was to make decisions that got a lot of the troops killed. The NKVD, (predecessor organization to the KGB,) was parked at the end of each battlefield, so if a Russian soldier ran for any reason, they'd shoot him.

The Russians are a good people, it's their leaders that need to be dragged to the streetcorner and shot in the head in front of everyone. And I mean that as much for Putin as for Stalin or Kruschev.

I was pretty sure it was because they had hardly any money to buy guns =/.

It's not a zerg rush, the soviets basically cared 0 about the lives of their own citizens. Sending unarmed soldiers against armed opponents is not even tactically advantageous. Even once the tide of WWII was turned, the standard tactic of Soviet commanders was to make decisions that got a lot of the troops killed. The NKVD, (predecessor organization to the KGB,) was parked at the end of each battlefield, so if a Russian soldier ran for any reason, they'd shoot him.

The Russians are a good people, it's their leaders that need to be dragged to the streetcorner and shot in the head in front of everyone. And I mean that as much for Putin as for Stalin or Kruschev.

[color="#cc8899"]A zergling rush also consists of masses of units that the commander generally cares little about and are only useful for their sheer numbers. I never said they were bad people.

Being shot for running from battle is, in one form or another, prevelant in almost any military. It may not be immediate, but even being court-martialed or branded a traitor for running from battle is a form of this. It prevents chaos as half of your forces flee (not only cutting your numbers, but reducing effectiveness of the remaining as they struggle to make headway through the fleeing forces. It also causes confusion, blocks line of sight, and demoralizes. So there was a very good reason to prevent flee at any cost, regardless of the personal nature of each leader or the evils that the force preventing the fleeing.

Note that I am NOT talking about an organized retreat. I sloppily used that word, causing a misunderstanding below.[/COLOR]

[color="#cc8899"]A zergling rush also consists of masses of units that the commander generally cares little about and are only useful for their sheer numbers. I never said they were bad people :f6:

Being shot for running from battle is, in one form or another, prevelant in almost any military. It may not be immediate, but even being court-martialed or branded a traitor for running from battle is a form of this. It prevents chaos as half of your forces flee (not only cutting your numbers, but reducing effectiveness of the remaining as they struggle to make headway through the retreating forces. It also causes confusion, blocks line of sight, and demoralizes. So there was a very good reason to prevent retreat at any cost, regardless of the personal nature of each leader or the evils that the force preventing the retreat committed.[/COLOR]

In a civilized military, if the odds are running against you, you retreat or fall back in a rout, (depending on how bad things get.) Not every battle is a case of the 101st Airborne being completely surrounded, responding with the word "nuts" when the Germans demanded surrender and fighting till help got there. Usually you retreat in such odds. A perfect example was in the Korean war, when Americans attacked and instead of North Koreans soldiers they were attacked by a ginormous Chinese force, (speaking of Zerg rush.) The Americans retreated very hastily, nobody was courtmartialed or reprimanded becuase the odds were not feasible. The Russian army would have dealt with this by shooting the troops if they tried to run, forcing them to fight a suicidal battle.

In a civilized military, if the odds are running against you, you retreat or fall back in a rout, (depending on how bad things get.) Not every battle is a case of the 101st Airborne being completely surrounded, responding with the word "nuts" when the Germans demanded surrender and fighting till help got there. Usually you retreat in such odds. A perfect example was in the Korean war, when Americans attacked and instead of North Koreans soldiers they were attacked by a ginormous Chinese force, (speaking of Zerg rush.) The Americans retreated very hastily, nobody was courtmartialed or reprimanded becuase the odds were not feasible. The Russian army would have dealt with this by shooting the troops if they tried to run, forcing them to fight a suicidal battle.

[color="#cc8899"]Here I should've used a different word than retreat then. By retreat in the above I meant the disorganized individual acts of abandoning the conflict, not the organized retreats (hasty or otherwise) ordered by someone in charge. Perhaps fleeing would've been more appropriate. Given that, re-read what I posted thinking "flee" instead of "retreat."

-Edited my post to include a more accuracte term.[/COLOR]