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Subject: America's Worst Enemy in History
mongyu    1/2/2008 8:16:10 AM
The title says it all: Who do you think has been the greatest enemy ever to threaten America? My vote goes to the British hands down. No other country ever came as close as the British to physically ending the United States in our history. The Germans and the Japanese were formidable in their own right, but neither [or even both] could reasonably invade the United States. The Soviet Union had the theoretical potential to destroy the United States, but I think everyone agrees that this was not a practical capability in the way the British Empire's ability to take Washington DC was. The Soviets were a dangerous enemy ideologically in the way it could convert adherents in America, but they never out-did the British who successfully supported a rebellion in the United States by funding, arming, and giving moral support to the Confederacy. So what country would you choose?
 
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Ehran       1/14/2008 4:18:41 PM







And move on.

Ground covered.

Herald




does not address the difference in penetration between bullets and arrows though.  i doubt a 60 lb bow would have had even half a 223's KE yet penetrated much better through the sandbags. 
 




Corrected calculations based on 130 pound pull.

Your complaint is therefore MEANINGLESS.

Herald


i'm not interested in the KE calc you did and corrected.  i refer to the fact that my friend's bow managed to over penetrate the sandbags that the 5.56 rounds abjectly failed to penetrate. 
an army equipped with arquebus had better be covered in plate armour if you want to pit them against a longbow equipped army.  if not they might as well be marching into a slaughter house.
 
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Ehran       1/14/2008 4:23:16 PM

The English imported yew staves from Portugal as the wood was of a better quality. I believe that the yew bows found on the Mary Rose were Portuguese yew.

The range of the medieval weapon is unknown, with estimates from 165 to 228 m (180 to 249 yds). Modern longbows have a useful range up to 180 m (200 yd). A 667N(150 lbf) Mary Rose
replica longbow was able to shoot a 53.6 g (1.9 oz) arrow 328.0 m (360
yd) and a 95.9 g (3.3 oz) a distance of 249.9 m (272 yd).




fwiw that poor laddy that melted out of the glacier in europe had a yew bow on him.  not a long bow but a respectable one.  was reading about yew here in bc few years ago and how useful some extract from it was for breast cancer and they were talking about how slow growing and small yew trees were which led me to wonder if a shortage of yew was significant.  seems the bows didn't last long in use with archers going through a bow a year or more.
 
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Herald12345    You cretin.   1/14/2008 5:47:10 PM











And move on.

Ground covered.

Herald





does not address the difference in penetration between bullets and arrows though.  i doubt a 60 lb bow would have had even half a 223's KE yet penetrated much better through the sandbags. 
 





Corrected calculations based on 130 pound pull.

Your complaint is therefore MEANINGLESS.

Herald



i'm not interested in the KE calc you did and corrected.  i refer to the fact that my friend's bow managed to over penetrate the sandbags that the 5.56 rounds abjectly failed to penetrate. 

an army equipped with arquebus had better be covered in plate armour if you want to pit them against a longbow equipped army.  if not they might as well be marching into a slaughter house.


I suggest you take a very HARD look at what a 5.56/45 will do to medieval plate. It PUNCHES through automobiles side to side and that is MODERN steel.

Herald

Herald
 
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Wicked Chinchilla    5.56 vs. Bow   1/14/2008 7:17:38 PM
The differences in penetration of the sandbags concerning the rifle vs. the bow is due to the mechanics of how an arrow penetrates vs. how a bullet penetrates as well as simple mass.  Penetrating steel, as Herald...succinctly...stated is rather different. 

Also, keep in mind the metallurgy of modern tips vs. old tips.  Of course, one can assume that modern plate vs. modern arrow head is roughly equivalent to medieval plate vs. medieval arrowhead but that easily might not be true.

Having watched a documentary on Longbows a soldier did not need full plate to be protected.  Yes, full plate provided nearly complete protection until excessively close range.  I have seen studys however where good chainlink armor with leather armor/padding underneath did provide protection.  Much of the arrows penetrative power depended upon where it struck in the links. 

This is not to say I personally would rather be in plate than chainmail, but just pointing out that plate was not a requirement.

Not knowing much about the battles concerning Longbows aside from the big ones like Crecy and what not, I would like to know something.  Just how often in battle did Longbowman aim directly, horizontally, and within short range at a closing enemy?  Theory is one thing, but if I were a fairly lightly armored longbowman being charged with now friendly infantry I would be backing up or looking for help long before the enemy was within a few dozen paces of me.  Archers were peasants, not hardcore professional soldiers.


 
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Wicked Chinchilla    5.56 vs. Bow   1/14/2008 7:20:07 PM
bah, this forum needs an edit function.  That last paragraph is supposed to have read "If I were a longbowman with no friendly infantry in front of me being charged...etc."
 
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Ehran       1/15/2008 1:36:50 PM

I suggest you take a very HARD look at what a 5.56/45 will do to medieval plate. It PUNCHES through automobiles side to side and that is MODERN steel.

Herald

Herald

do you actually read what's being put in front of you herald or would that interfere with your rush to judgement too much?
the sandbag penetration is simply a demonstration that your simple comparison of the KE is inadequate/inaccurate for assessing the relative threat posed by those projectiles.  you also seem intent upon ignoring the rof and range considerations of the hypothetical fight tween a longbow equipped army and the ecw army. 
 
it would be helpful if you would stop calling people cretin when it seems to be you having the problems following the conversation btw.
 
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Ehran       1/15/2008 1:53:38 PM

The differences in penetration of the sandbags concerning the rifle vs. the bow is due to the mechanics of how an arrow penetrates vs. how a bullet penetrates as well as simple mass.  Penetrating steel, as Herald...succinctly...stated is rather different. 

Not knowing much about the battles concerning Longbows aside from the big ones like Crecy and what not, I would like to know something.  Just how often in battle did Longbowman aim directly, horizontally, and within short range at a closing enemy?  Theory is one thing, but if I were a fairly lightly armored longbowman being charged with now friendly infantry I would be backing up or looking for help long before the enemy was within a few dozen paces of me.  Archers were peasants, not hardcore professional soldiers.


i was trying to point out to herald that simply comparing the KE values of the projectiles was over simplifying things a lot.
longbowmen were part of an army and would have had melee troops available to protect them from the foe's melee troops most of the time.  they would also have fought from behind a staked belt to discourage mounted attacks.
 
from what i've read most of the longbowmen on those battlefields were professional soldiers.  there was great demand for longbowmen once the english demonstrated their power on the field.  to get a large body of peasant longbowmen you would have had to invade england pretty much. 

 
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Herald12345       1/15/2008 2:27:30 PM



I suggest you take a very HARD look at what a 5.56/45 will do to medieval plate. It PUNCHES through automobiles side to side and that is MODERN steel.

Herald

Herald



do you actually read what's being put in front of you herald or would that interfere with your rush to judgement too much?

the sandbag penetration is simply a demonstration that your simple comparison of the KE is inadequate/inaccurate for assessing the relative threat posed by those projectiles.  you also seem intent upon ignoring the rof and range considerations of the hypothetical fight tween a longbow equipped army and the ecw army. 

 

it would be helpful if you would stop calling people cretin when it seems to be you having the problems following the conversation btw.

1. Stop trying to be clever. You aren't.
2. Stop trying to set up strawman problems hoping that I reason by false analogy. I've been here long enough to demonstrate that that crap doesn't work.
3. Stop trying to take me for a fool. I'm patently not.
4. And take your lumps. I do .

Herald

 
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Ehran       1/16/2008 11:49:09 AM
 

1. Stop trying to be clever. You aren't.
2. Stop trying to set up strawman problems hoping that I reason by false analogy. I've been here long enough to demonstrate that that crap doesn't work.
3. Stop trying to take me for a fool. I'm patently not.
4. And take your lumps. I do .

Herald

 

what lumps herald?  you were the lad with the overly simplistic KE comparison after all.
as for being foolish ignoring the rof and effective range advantages of the longbow in favour of concentrating on the ability of longbows to penetrate armour that mostly wasn't in use by the ecw army would seem to speak to that at least in this case.
 
btw what strawman argument do you think i've made?

 
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Herald12345    The rathernm stupid one in which you cited anarrow pentration into target bails cretin.   1/16/2008 12:15:01 PM
since the 5.56/46 by accident or design is a tumbler that unloads work into the plastic resistant [straw bale] target I don't see where your "example" was on point.

Now then if you want to know why KE calculations are important I direct you here. Read it, LEARN, and stop being a moron.

M-4 comes in last.

Herald



 
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