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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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Herald12345    Nichevo reply. Why I could care less about those two clowns. its Crecy that interests me as a problem now.    2/10/2008 8:53:31 AM

Nichevo    On Cavalry - Herald   2/9/2008 2:40:15 AM

Utterly fascinating:

h*tp://www.geocities.com/futuretanks/ponysoldiers.htm

horses for the modern era!


But Herald...

It would be presumptuous to call you my friend, but I wish you would believe that I have your welfare at heart when I make these remarks.  It pains me not to be quite able to take your side against paul1970, who knows I think he's a twit, and Ehran, who seems to live and exist solely to annoy me, to say nice things about Canada and their British masters, or ideally both.  In particular, paul is almost always wrong and I am amazed you let yourself give him the other side of the argument,.  I also understand that the Brits have a lot wrapped up in their national myth of the plucky longbow-wielding yeoman as the core and essence of their eternal freedom and general bodaciousness, and could be expected to be prejudiced in favor of the clothyard shaft.


I've given the other numbers of the argument: but try this..


In summary: working in meters the maximum reach of a longbow is 500 meters. Period. That is lobbed fire.


  1. Horse at 5 meters per second [11 mph] covers the ground in 100 seconds. Rider subjected to a maximum of 20 volleys. at one volley per 5 seconds. Draw a bow and see how long it takes you to set for a volley launch. Once per five seconds is FAST, Maximum number of arrows lobbed is 100,000+ possible. Using the 5 second cycle. Do you know how tired you'll be? I do. LOOK at that number.

  2. Horse at 10 mps [22 mph] slow covers the ground in 50 seconds: 10 volleys: Maximum number of arrows possible is 50,000+ arrows. LOOK at that number.

  3. Horse at 15 mps [33 mph] covers the ground in 33 seconds. 6 volleys. Maximum number of arrows possible is 30,000+. LOOK at that number.

  4. You want to do that 18 times? That is 360 arrows per archer for condition 1, 180 arrows per archer per condition 2. 108 arrows for condition 3. Crunch grand totals 1,800,000 arrows for condition 1. 900,000 arrows for condition 2, and 540,000 arrows for condition 3. that is assuming that Paul 1970's fantasies hold. THOSE are HIS numbers.

  5. You did ask for logistics? Assuming an arrow is a rough [500 grains from tip to nock [500x64= 32,000/1000= 32] 32 grams per arrow you will realize that I asked myself how many kilograms mass for condition 1 for 1,800,000 arrows. That's 57.600 kilograms or 57.6 tonnes of arrows. Condition 2 is 900,000 arrows or 28,800 kilograms or 28.8 tonnes. Condition 3 is 540,000 arrows or 17,280 kilograms or 17.28 tonnes.

    Those are based on the cretin, Paul 1970's assumptions, Nichy. You asked me about logistics. Well stupid is as stupid is. Let Paul try to explain those results.

    However:

    I take no notice of your hostility, that is usual and I have come to expect it.  But when it seems you have been led down a blind alley, it takes a different character.  What is the old saw about redoubling one's efforts when one has lost sight of one's goals? 


    My goal here is simple. To use the best science to show what I think is happening based on what is being described by the chronclers and to debunk, once and for, all the malarkey that passes for popular history.

    When you make remarks like "a horse is a horse," well, first I chuckle, and second, I have to feel that you would never accept this sort of thing from your opponent in a discussion of, say, a2a combat or the manufacture of cast vs. forged receivers.  In particular, your what I find I must call idealized notions of the capability of a cavalry charge, not to mention the ski

 
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Herald12345    As promised: Nichy.    2/10/2008 8:46:17 PM
http://www.national-army-museum.ac.uk/exhibitions/shortVisits/animals/images/3002.jpg">

This is the source link.

[quoting]

v

Call the Cavalry

Soldiers who fought mounted on horseback were known as cavalry. During the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) they made up a third to a half of most armies. Oliver Cromwell rose to fame as a cavalry commander. Major Richard Atkyns of Prince Maurice?s Regiment of Horse wears the uniform of a Royalist harquebusier or light cavalryman. A fully equipped harquebusier would possess a sword, a pair of pistols, helmet, buff coat, back and breastplate, and a steel gauntlet to cover his bridle hand. In practice, very few were so well equipped.

Although the growing dominance of gunpowder and drilled infantry during the sixteenth century reduced the effectiveness of heavy cavalry, lighter mounted units remained an important part of all armies well into the twentieth century. They were used for reconnaissance and pursuing a beaten enemy.

All cavalrymen depended on the speed, courage and athletic ability of their mounts. Much training was required to overcome the cavalry horse's natural aversion to the smell of blood and the noise of battle. Although horses have little combat use today, many armies still keep a few for certain types of patrol and reconnaissance duties in highly rugged terrain, including the current conflict in Afghanistan.

And so it goes.

Herald






 
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paul1970     Nichevo   2/11/2008 4:59:21 AM
whatever you think of me from previous threads. take this subject on its own. look at the chronicles of the day and books wrote by the experts.
 
note how the few cavalry actually get to the English lines. note how the French get off their horses after Crecy and give up all that speed and shock that cavalry is supposed to give them. note how the longbow use had changed English, Scottish and Welsh tactics in the wars before the HYW and goes on being used after Crecy when if it was useless at its job then the English would have ditched it for crossbows or pike/bills.
 
anyway....
if you are still after firearms against armour then I suggest "knight and the blast furnace" by Alan Williams. it is recent and a big book that goes through the evolution of armour as it changes to protect from bows, crossbows and firearms. it has ke calculations of what is required to defeat what and has the different types of armour and hardness compared as it evolves throughout the time period. it is good to note that why the armour starts to improve drastically in the second half of the 14thC...  :-)
 
 
"Love to discuss the wars of the Tokugawa period sometime."
H may describe this as Medieval Japan but we know this is Renaisance Japan complete with fireams and grand scale manouver and battle. give me Takeda Shingen anyday... damn those flute players...   :-)
 
Paul
 
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paul1970    H and his cavalry theory   2/11/2008 5:54:53 AM
1. So the damned Genoese bowman wore a mail shirt. Look up garbadine-and I don't mean the twill 19th century weave..
2. English army tests are conclusive as to what a longbow can do. In English units the arrows are useless against plate beyond roughly 75 feet or modern pistol shot. or reconstructed arquebus or musket in direct aimed fire.
3. A horse is a horse. The only charge rates which I've ever seen measured worth a damn in BATTLE are US Army rates taken during the Civil War when somebody actually bothered to time an actual cavalry charge by several hundred men over known measured ground [Brandy Station]. Assemble 700 French knights in 14th Century armor and have them charge uphill on wet grass through trenches and abattis and we'll see the results. Until then the 6th Pennsylvania charging Stuart's canister firing horse artillery over a 1100 yard run over badly broken and heavily defended ground and John Buford's pocket watch timing them do it, will have to do. 33 miles an hour.

Get stuffed.

Herald
 
 
1. it shows that you either... did poor research or lied about the thing in the first place... both probably since you now change to say they were armoured but still not what they worse at Crecy. if you are going to use Nicols then use him, don't lie about what he says they are armoured with because anybody can read his books and see for themselves.
 
2. how thick was plate? what 'hardness'? what type of arrows? what period were they simulating???  clue 2006 Medieval conference at the royal armouries answers a lot of longbow versus armour when Strickland did his talk.
 
 
3. a horse is a horse???? are you that pathetic... is a lee enfiled 303 a barret????... they are both rifles so by your simplification I can use the barret in calculations for WW2 rifle fire....
 
you use ACW light open order cavalry speed for your science. clearly this is going to be very different from the speed of the French heavy close order knights. not only in weight and order but in horse breed. for your science you have >30mph.
the French in the mid 1300s used heavy destridger/charger, usually 13-14 hands but 15 as well... the ACW cavalry of 500 years later use.. Sadlebreeds, Morgans, Quater Horses, T. Walkers ect... all bigger than the French horses, even the so called small Morgans....
clearly the natural speed of these horses is going to vary significantly with the "bred for speed" ones being quicker that the heavy ones.
 
now Crecy...
40 seconds of longbow fire at the charges... (books and ch4 program) pick you distance for the charge be it the 150m that the Genoese were at when routed or 200m or 250m to be just outside longbow range Alencons cavalry were at when they decided to advance once the Genoese were running off. average speed of 13.5kph, 18kph or 22.5kph.... they all look dreafully low until you actually put it into the reality of battle for this period in time (Christopher Rothero, Cambridge Medieval History vi, Christoper Gravet.... all of these are far more credible for the period than you using numbers from 500 years later.) a charge moves up through the stride patterns and speed and then put a spirt on near the end since the main goal is to keep in formation so that you arrive with some form of shock rather than in dribs and drabs that will happen if you let them all gallop on at individual pace. for a laugh double the speed....... it is still slower than your ACW numbers....
of course.... Alencons charge petered out before reaching the English. the actual number of French who made it into contact was small. this itself is documented. this itself shows what the bow did before the the H2H started.
 so I ask again... why chose ACW when you have so many historic references from the actual battle and period.... and the answer is obvious.
 
lets for one second consider a galloping horse on uncertain ground at Crecy... hard to see what is in front of you on unknown ground, distracted if being showered with arrows, also vision is impared if your helm is down to protect face, unarmoured horses being hit with arrows, looking for those anti cavalry stuff that you assume would be there......
 
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Nichevo       2/11/2008 7:36:50 AM

whatever you think of me from previous threads. take this subject on its own. look at the chronicles of the day and books wrote by the experts.



I feel I've done so, haven't I?  Actually you're not as bad as Yimmy, I dimly recall posts of yours that weren't obviously wrong. ;>
 

note how the few cavalry actually get to the English lines. note how the French get off their horses after Crecy and give up all that speed and shock that cavalry is supposed to give them. note how the longbow use had changed English, Scottish and Welsh tactics in the wars before the HYW and goes on being used after Crecy when if it was useless at its job then the English would have ditched it for crossbows or pike/bills.



"Note" implies that it is somewhere in the thread, can you cite?  Obviously post-Crecy tactics are not in this Froissart doc but has there yet been here posted a breakdown of casualties per charge, or how close each charge got to the English wire as it were?  It had occurred to me to wonder if any closure had been achieved, and how many of the charges even got to MER, or how many were driven back by what I have called 'soft kills.'

I kinda don't see so much conflict as you and Herald have ginned up, though.  Consider that if the longbow were all THAT devastating, how did the Frogs get eighteen (?) charges done?  Why weren't they all smashed after the first or second one?    It seems obvious that they couldn't have suffered more than 5% casualties per charge, and apparently far less if decisive battle were possible at the end.  No?  So in that sense you're both right - the longbow was not as murderous as, say, the machine gun at the Somme, but through gradual attrition and clever tactics and selection of ground, and French stupidity, it was used to whittle the Frenchmen down to a nub.

It also occurs to me that eighteen charges must have taken quite a bit of wind out of the horses if not out of the men.  SO things would have got worse for them as the day went along.  The heat inside those sardine cans...ouch.

Also, still conflicted on what part of the 30K were armored knights.  If this was 1/5 sardine-cans and 4/5 followers, obviously if they were within reach, the unarmored types would have suffered extra.
 



anyway....

if you are still after firearms against armour then I suggest "knight and the blast furnace" by Alan Williams. it is recent and a big book that goes through the evolution of armour as it changes to protect from bows, crossbows and firearms. it has ke calculations of what is required to defeat what and has the different types of armour and hardness compared as it evolves throughout the time period. it is good to note that why the armour starts to improve drastically in the second half of the 14thC...  :-)

 

 

"Love to discuss the wars of the Tokugawa period sometime."

H may describe this as Medieval Japan but we know this is Renaisance Japan complete with fireams and grand scale manouver and battle. give me Takeda Shingen anyday... damn those flute players...   :-)

 

Paul

The big thing for me was that they bathed.  You Euros are, according to reports, more casual about BO and hygiene in general than we in the US.  We may be wussies in that respect, but 1600s Japan sounds a whole lot more civilized to me than 1600 England.  Seppuku, beheadings, social stratification, etc., aside, of course, but then people died and were oppressed in Europe too.

 
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paul1970       2/11/2008 8:22:22 AM




whatever you think of me from previous threads. take this subject on its own. look at the chronicles of the day and books wrote by the experts.





I feel I've done so, haven't I?  Actually you're not as bad as Yimmy, I dimly recall posts of yours that weren't obviously wrong. ;>


 



note how the few cavalry actually get to the English lines. note how the French get off their horses after Crecy and give up all that speed and shock that cavalry is supposed to give them. note how the longbow use had changed English, Scottish and Welsh tactics in the wars before the HYW and goes on being used after Crecy when if it was useless at its job then the English would have ditched it for crossbows or pike/bills.







"Note" implies that it is somewhere in the thread, can you cite?  Obviously post-Crecy tactics are not in this Froissart doc but has there yet been here posted a breakdown of casualties per charge, or how close each charge got to the English wire as it were?  It had occurred to me to wonder if any closure had been achieved, and how many of the charges even got to MER, or how many were driven back by what I have called 'soft kills.'

I kinda don't see so much conflict as you and Herald have ginned up, though.  Consider that if the longbow were all THAT devastating, how did the Frogs get eighteen (?) charges done?  Why weren't they all smashed after the first or second one?    It seems obvious that they couldn't have suffered more than 5% casualties per charge, and apparently far less if decisive battle were possible at the end.  No?  So in that sense you're both right - the longbow was not as murderous as, say, the machine gun at the Somme, but through gradual attrition and clever tactics and selection of ground, and French stupidity, it was used to whittle the Frenchmen down to a nub.

It also occurs to me that eighteen charges must have taken quite a bit of wind out of the horses if not out of the men.  SO things would have got worse for them as the day went along.  The heat inside those sardine cans...ouch.

Also, still conflicted on what part of the 30K were armored knights.  If this was 1/5 sardine-cans and 4/5 followers, obviously if they were within reach, the unarmored types would have suffered extra.

 







anyway....



if you are still after firearms against armour then I suggest "knight and the blast furnace" by Alan Williams. it is recent and a big book that goes through the evolution of armour as it changes to protect from bows, crossbows and firearms. it has ke calculations of what is required to defeat what and has the different types of armour and hardness compared as it evolves throughout the time period. it is good to note that why the armour starts to improve drastically in the second half of the 14thC...  :-)



 



 



"Love to discuss the wars of the Tokugawa period sometime."



H may describe this as Medieval Japan but we know this is Renaisance Japan complete with fireams and grand scale manouver and battle. give me Takeda Shingen anyday... damn those flute players...   :-)



 



Paul



The big thing for me was that they bathed.  You Euros are, according to reports, more casual about BO and hygiene in general than we in the US.  We may be wussies in that respect, but 1600s Japan sounds a whole lot more civilized to me than 1600 England.  Seppuku, beheadings, social stratification, etc., aside, of course, but then people died and were oppressed in Europe too.
 
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Ehran       2/11/2008 12:17:54 PM
1. Coming from an idiot who can't fathom loads and burdenage afloat and yet claims to be an expert on barges that is funny.
 
herald the british already demonstrated it could be done on that river with steam powered paddleboats.  if you don't for some reason think people with GPS, sonar and diesel engines couldn't somehow replicate the feat then i think you are the one with the problems.
also herald the next time i claim to be an expert will be the first time unlike someone i could name whose claims of expertise are so wide ranging as to be godlike at least in his own mind.  what i do have is the ability to recognize pompous, superficial bs when i see it.  you persist in making these wide sweeping judgements based on faulty data to be kind.  blithely dismissing the historical record because it doesn't support your notions of how things must have been is daft.  after all we have a bunch of subject matter experts with degrees in the field vs herald's take on how it must have been based on things like the move rate of acw cavalry with subtle differences like trot vs gallop or armoured vs unarmoured being insignificant of course.
 
 
 
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Ehran       2/11/2008 1:28:01 PM
A knight in the 13th century weighed about 140 lbs [all muscle-especially between the ears]  He wore 60 to 80 lbs of armor. His lance was not that heavy or he couldn't point it [about 20 pounds at most] and his sword weighed 5-7 pounds, add an 8 pound shield and a 10-15 pound saddle and blanket and you get about 275 pounds.
 
140 lb sounds light for a knight.  remember they ate better than most people.
 
also 5-7 lb for swords is too heavy by a largish margin to be average.  the wallace museum has a lovely collection of period blades and virtually none are over 4 lb.
 
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Ehran       2/11/2008 1:33:26 PM

This thread had taken quite a few turns hasn't it?  Does anyone remember the original question?


yeah but herald keeps trying to move the goalposts to a position he can win on. 
 
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Herald12345    Ehran yopu still are an idiiot   2/11/2008 1:40:36 PM

1. Coming from an idiot who can't fathom loads and burdenage afloat and yet claims to be an expert on barges that is funny.

 

herald the british already demonstrated it could be done on that river with steam powered paddleboats.  if you don't for some reason think people with GPS, sonar and diesel engines couldn't somehow replicate the feat then i think you are the one with the problems.

also herald the next time i claim to be an expert will be the first time unlike someone i could name whose claims of expertise are so wide ranging as to be godlike at least in his own mind.  what i do have is the ability to recognize pompous, superficial bs when i see it.  you persist in making these wide sweeping judgements based on faulty data to be kind.  blithely dismissing the historical record because it doesn't support your notions of how things must have been is daft.  after all we have a bunch of subject matter experts with degrees in the field vs herald's take on how it must have been based on things like the move rate of acw cavalry with subtle differences like trot vs gallop or armoured vs unarmoured being insignificant of course.

 

 

mouthing meaningless noise.


Paul 1970, you cretin. After reading your last sets of comments where you frankly concede that my version of the battlespace dynamics is the correct one. -[Yes I read how you tried to backpedal off your previous claims.]

I accept your concession.

Nichevo take the casualties claimed; apply 30% to the first two charges where the fighting was desperate. Consider that after each attack broke it took the French 10-15 minutes to reorganize for a new one. That would give you an 8 hour battle.

Much of the arrow supply had to be gone by the eighth charge. That is 120,000+ arrows; or about 3,840 kilograms or 3.84 tonnes. 500,000+  arrows is just at the upper bound of what I would accept as Edwards ammunition supply.That is 16,000 kilograms or 16 tonnes, worth of arrows.

Herald

 
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