Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXII

[Carl]

To be fair though he's also better about some things than a lot of authors. generally armour does it's job, the only occasions i can think of where it dosen;t involve explicitly magic weaponry, (the Witch king breaking Eowyn's shield arm through her shield, and Anduril cleaving that Orc Captains skull in two through a helm in moria, the movie replaces that with the cave troll btw).

Alsoto be fair some of the stasis makes sense, the Elves have been using magic of one form or another for a long time and once the lines of men possess lesser but potent powers of their own and magic weapons and armour plus mithril where much more common. When you've got functional magic a lot of advances make less sense.

[Clistenes]

That is one of the things I was also very disappointed about in the movie version of LotR. From the book it is quite clear that the main armour is mail, and the weapon technology is more like 11th-12thcentury (and for Rohan more like 8th-11th century: Vikings/Anglo-Saxon on horses). If you go through the books descriptions of weapons and armour, there is as far as I remember, only once where armour described in a way that could be interpreted as plate (I think it said that Gimli wore a cuirass or something like that - so perhaps dwarves is experimenting with plate).

So Peter Jackson and team really 'invented' the plate/lack of late medieval technology problem (no advanced poleweapons, no heavy windlass crosbows, no gunpowder guns (only the bombs Sarumans troops use at Helms deep).

Well, the world of LOTR works quite diferently than our own, and with regards to technology, it is almost a mirror opposite.

The way I see it, elves started having XVIII technology (before Industrial Revolution) plus magic, and since then, everything has been degenerating and becoming worse. Armour and weapons and buildings and walls and bridges become worse over time, not better. The Edain of Belariand, who lived in close proximity to Eldar and Dwarves 6500 years before the LOTR probably had better tech than the Rohirrim as we see them in the book. If we find superior tech, it's a renmant of a lost past, not a proof of advancement.

The exception are industrial type technology, as introduced by Saruman and Sauron, which Tolkien saw as evil. So it makes sense that Saruman's army used windlass crossbows and advanced poleweapons; his troops even used gunpowder in Helm's Deep (it's in the books).

[Carl]

The exception are industrial type technology, as introduced by Saruman and Sauron, which Tolkien saw as evil. So it makes sense that Saruman's army used windlass crossbows and advanced poleweapons; his troops even used gunpowder in Helm's Deep (it's in the books).

SO Doe Sauron at the peligior, (spelling is off), walls. For that matter Gandalf's fireworks.

[Kiero]

By some arguments, there was no such thing as "Celts" at all. There was a Celtic language group, which included the Britons, but not a common ethnicity or history.

To be fair when most people say Celt they are typically either referring to a) the Gaelics or b) the Gauls. On top of this Wikipedia does list Britain as Cetlic, but im pretty sure they're using it as a very broad term.

I have a number of ancient historians I can ask about these sort of things, one is a specialist on Iron Age Britain, though also has a good general knowledge of the continental Celts too (especially the Gauls). He's pretty adamant that the Britons are different, I can go and ask him why, if you like?

[Thinker]

I have a number of ancient historians I can ask about these sort of things, one is a specialist on Iron Age Britain, though also has a good general knowledge of the continental Celts too (especially the Gauls). He's pretty adamant that the Britons are different, I can go and ask him why, if you like?

Sure. I'd wager that the term "Celt" is useless as a term to describe culture and marginally less so to describe language groups. The groups lumped in with the "Celts" are as different as Moroccans and Iranians today - some threads might connect them, but it's tenuous at best. It's better to think of the Celts as all those conquered by the Romans in Western Europe.

[Vinyadan]

I hope not, there's all the Etruscans, Greeks, Basques, Germani and so on. But it's true that Celts were almost universally conquered by the Romans.

In general, names used for ancient history populations can have various reasons.

The easiest is "that's what they were called back then according to sources".

Another one is the linguistic argument. So the Romans called Germani a number of peoples, some of which did not speak a Germanic language. Nowadays we call some of these Balts.

A third one is general cultural homogenity, and that's something you can deduce by a mix of elements, like Druidism, art and form of government.

In general, I have always seen Britons being considered Celts, and the same for Gauls, Galatas, Welsh, Gaels, Celtiberians and so on. Of course, that depends on the criterion you choose.

[Blackhawk748]

I have a number of ancient historians I can ask about these sort of things, one is a specialist on Iron Age Britain, though also has a good general knowledge of the continental Celts too (especially the Gauls). He's pretty adamant that the Britons are different, I can go and ask him why, if you like?

Its probably just because they are so different, cuz i know that Gaelics are a branch of the Celts

[Kiero]

Sure. I'd wager that the term "Celt" is useless as a term to describe culture and marginally less so to describe language groups. The groups lumped in with the "Celts" are as different as Moroccans and Iranians today - some threads might connect them, but it's tenuous at best. It's better to think of the Celts as all those conquered by the Romans in Western Europe.

What's consistent about the way he and the other Celtic specialists have represented it, is that there are essentially western Celts (Gauls primarily) and eastern Celts (those in southern Poland, the Balkans etc), with the Alpine region a sort of crossover. With the added complication of migrations of western Celts eastwards (and allegedly back again). Furthermore, lots of non-Celtic peoples were conquered by the Celts, and others simply adopted their material culture. Because the Celts were really good at making stuff, both metalwork and other crafts (they invented the barrel, for example). Even where their stuff wasn't adopted wholesale, the elites of a society would have them as status symbols.

It certainly isn't accurate to describe Britons, Iberians, people north of the Rhine, natives of Illyria, Liguria or Venetia, and lots of others in western Europe as "Celts".

I hope not, there's all the Etruscans, Greeks, Basques, Germani and so on. But it's true that Celts were almost universally conquered by the Romans.

In general, names used for ancient history populations can have various reasons.

The easiest is "that's what they were called back then according to sources".

Another one is the linguistic argument. So the Romans called Germani a number of peoples, some of which did not speak a Germanic language. Nowadays we call some of these Balts.

A third one is general cultural homogenity, and that's something you can deduce by a mix of elements, like Druidism, art and form of government.

In general, I have always seen Britons being considered Celts, and the same for Gauls, Galatas, Welsh, Gaels, Celtiberians and so on. Of course, that depends on the criterion you choose.

Caesar was mostly full of crap, frankly. He imagined a distinction that wasn't anywhere near that clear-cut.

That Wikipedia article is wrong; Britain and Iberia weren't Celtic, even if they had people who adopted some elements of Celtic material culture. I've gathered that much from listening to the historians talk (I know an Iberian/Carthaginian specialist who'd say as much of Iberia). Thracians, Illyrians, Ligurians, ancient peoples of Germany, Anatolian tribes - lots of people who came into contact with the Celts adopted their gear and changed the way they fought.

It's worth noting that losing to Celts (and Samnites) in the 4th century BC was what caused the Romans to drop the (hoplite) phalanx and adopt the more flexible manipular system. Losing to the migrating Gauls (some of whom later settled in Turkey) drove a new evolution of equipment and tactics in the Hellenistic powers in the 3rd century BC.

[Vinyadan]

As for the British Isles being Celtic, it depends on what you mean. There sure were Celtic languages being spoken, and they also are the only modern survivors to the coming of Germanic peoples.

What distinction made by Caesar are you referring to?

[Kiero]

As for the British Isles being Celtic, it depends on what you mean. There sure were Celtic languages being spoken, and they also are the only modern survivors to the coming of Germanic peoples.

What distinction made by Caesar are you referring to?

I'm saying it wasn't Celtic in the Iron Age, largely being defined by closeness to La Tene (or Halstatt) cultures.

I'm talking about Caesar's distinction between Gauls and Germanians.

[Max_Killjoy]

What about the Celtiberians?

[Kiero]

What about the Celtiberians?

Again, not Celts. They adopted some Celtic material culture, but they spoke a different language and were a different people.

[Max_Killjoy]

Again, not Celts. They adopted some Celtic material culture, but they spoke a different language and were a different people.

What I'm finding seems to indicate that they spoke a Celtic language and had some descent from Celtic migrants.

[Vinyadan]

Kiero, a lot of the stuff you are saying goes against any publication I can find. Celtiberian in particular was a Celtic language. Maybe you could name some of the experts whose views you follow, or some publications?

[Kiero]

Kiero, a lot of the stuff you are saying goes against any publication I can find. Celtiberian in particular was a Celtic language. Maybe you could name some of the experts whose views you follow, or some publications?

I've put the question out to four of them, I'll see what they come back with.

[rrgg]

You may be on to something. I think there is for sure an issue with different troop types working together, the French nobles for example on numerous occasions completely mismanaged their infantry and even in several cases ran down their own infantry simply because they were in the way. They even did this to Genoese mercenaries in their employ, though I don't think they ever tried it with the Swiss.

Hastily thrown together international armies often performed very poorly in the medieval world.

You do I think however see some cases of small-ish units of gunners performing well, for example I think Fusilier or Incannur mentioned several thread iterations back an incident where musketeers were able to wreak havoc on some targets across a river something like 300 yards away if I remember properly.

I suspect though you have a point, unit cohesion is an issue. For that matter, it's one of the curiosities about medieval martial training, there is little evidence for unit drilling in the medieval period, even though medieval armies seemed to have had good unit cohesion in the field sometimes. Fencing training seems to emphasize the one -on - one duel and marksmanship training seemed to center around individualized shooting contests. Jousts, similarly, emphasized the one-on-one competition.

I think from reading about the urban militias that they acquired unit cohesion by fighting together in constant low intensity warfare that was almost always going on. But it's just a hunch, we really don't know.

G

Good points.

As i understand it, the main innovation from the Swiss were new tactics that limited the amount of cohesion needed to pull off. Deep squares or columns of pikemen could advance while maintaining cohesion far more easily than a long, thin phalanx. And once the pike square started pushing part of the line back, the rest would usually begin routing as well.

[Brother Oni]

Mongol horsearchers: comp shortbows or comp longbows?

They used composite recurve bows, which are more efficient than a longbow of the equivalent draw. Unfortunately, I don't think that D&D has that level of detail, so a composite longbow is probably the best match performance wise.

As Lilapop said, their bows would be the size of a D&D shortbow, if you wanted to match appearance.

Egyptian chariots had just a driver and a warrior, who was primarily an archer or javelin-man in most cases IIRC.

Hittite chariots had a driver and two warriors.

Celtic chariots (at least in their heroic tales) were a driver/"spear-carrier", and an "elite warrior/hero".

Chinese Qin era chariots had a driver and seats for two passengers, judging from the examples recovered from the Terracotta Army.

Historically, you'll end up with the same verdict: pretty much every bow that was ever used on a horse would be categorized as shortbow in D&D - the only exception is that asymmetrical japanese thing that afaik has its shape for this specific purpose.

This is what I thought as well, but it turns out that the yumi's shape was originally for shooting while kneeling and the shape carried over well when the samurai made the transition to mounted warriors.

[Kiero]

Kiero, a lot of the stuff you are saying goes against any publication I can find. Celtiberian in particular was a Celtic language. Maybe you could name some of the experts whose views you follow, or some publications?

First response, from our Iberian/Carthaginian specialist:

On one hand, Celtiberians had Celtic traits like the language or the worship of several deities but on the other hand they don't belong to La Tene culture, their material culture is typical of the Meseta, there aren't druids attested, etc.

The origin of the Celtiberians differed from the origin of the Gauls. In the case of the Celtiberians, they were the result of the interactions between the elements of the local Late Bronze age (proto-Celtic) and foreign elements (Urnfield culture) imported by the elites. The Celtiberian culture appeared in the sixth century BC and evolved without the arrival of new people.

Finally, it should be noted that the Mediterranean culture impacted in the Celtic-Iberian world to a greater extent than in Gaul. Celtiberians developed a society organized in clans and small city-states organized by senates, assemblies and political charges. This is equivalent to the institutions of demos, ecclesia and boulé (there are even Celtiberian stasis episodes attested).

In summary, Celtiberians belonged to a different culture that share some elements with the "Celtic world", but their origin and evolution were different to the ones attested in Gaul.

Also:

Historians who support a culture based on local proto-Celtic elements and external traits we can name Almagro Gorbea, Francisco Marco or Gabriel Sopeña among others

The way "Celtic" is used by my team is to reflect belonging to La Tene culture. That narrows it down somewhat from simply using Celtic-derived languages or distant origins.

[Galloglaich]

In fairness the Lord of the Rings has this weird mishmash of tech levels going on, and by weird its often off by at least a few centuries between groups. So the Rohirrim are horse Vikings, while Gondor has this post-Rome Arthurian vibe that's been going on for three millennia, and Galadriel hasn't updated her outfit in at least 15000 years (she's the oldest character as of Lord of the Rings, last calculation I did was something in the range of 23000 years on the low end), so the elves decided they won at awesome and haven't done anything new for a least a dozen millennia. Dwarves are wearing heavy mail coats and at least some variety of plate armour. Oh, and the Shire is basically a pre-Industrial English countryside, complete with the local pubs. Which is at least a millennia ahead of any place else in the setting.

It is best to remember that Professor Tolkien was a professor and lover of languages, not metallurgy.

I'm not sure I buy most of that. I'm not a Tolkein expert but this is now what I remember reading about him. Tolkein was a linguist but he was very into a specific genre of literature, Norse sagas and Edda's, early Saxon sagas like Beowulf, the Finnish, Irish and North German and related literature from that same era. The tech level is roughly late Roman to Viking. So that boils down to mail and maybe scale or lamellar armor.

Gandalf, Frodo, etc. were the names of real people, actual Viking chieftains. The cursed ring, the dragon, the hidden horde of gold, the dwarves and elves and other non-human people, the mysterious, dangerous, widely roaming forest-dwelling traveler with a royal pedigree, these are all characters from specific sagas that Tolkein was translating.

There were actually several Viking chieftains named Gandalf. These guys were associated with people the Swedes thought of as elves, but they were real people in a place called Alfheim, which includes parts of Sweden and Norway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandalf_Alfgeirsson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vingulmark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lfheimr_(region)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81...ers_of_history

(From the wiki:)

Gandálf: He was son of Álfgeir. Since this Gandálf was an older contemporary of Harald Fairhair and since the historical Viking leaders identified as sons of Ragnar Lodbrok in some traditions were also contemporaries of Harald Fairhair, it is not impossible that Álfhild, the supposed mother of Ragnar Lodbrok, was the daughter of this Gandálf as the Hversu Noregr byggdist states. What is told in the Heimskringla is that after many indecisive battles between Gandálf and Halfdan the Black, Vingulmork was divided between them, Halfdan regaining the portion which had been the dowry of his grandfather's first wife Álfhild. Two sons of Gandálf named Hýsing (Hýsingr) and Helsing (Helsingr) later led a force against Halfdan but fell in battle and a third son named Haki fled into Álfheim. When Halfdan's son Harald Fairhair succeeded his father, Gandálf and his son Haki were both part of an alliance of kings who attacked Harald. Haki was slain but Gandálf escaped. There was further war between Gandálf and Harald. At last Gandálf fell in battle and Harald seized all of Gandálf's land up to the Raum Elf river, at that time not taking Álfheim itself.

The place Alfheim is supposed to be in this zone of Sweden near the Norwegian border (and also in another contiguous region in Norway). One of my HEMA buddies has a summer-house there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohusl%C3%A4n

Bohuslan is a place where there is deep and eerie historical roots in Sweden, there are bronze age petroglyphs all over the place, stone-henge style menhirs, cairns, and these things called 'elven mills' where people to this day surreptitiously leave beer and butter for the ancestors spirits, or the faeries or whatever you want to call them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Carvings_in_Tanum




Toklein's initial foray into story telling came about from his interest, as a sort of game, in making up a language for the Elves he read about in the Norse and Finnish and Irish (etc.) sagas and legends.







As for pubs, they are older than you seem to think. There is one in Poland, the Piwnica Świdnicka in the basement of the Wroclaw Town Hall, which has been in continuous operation for over 700 years. Pubs in Central Europe go back twice as long as that. "Ale houses" in England apparently go back to the 9th Century. In Central Europe pubs, inns and taverns were part of urban life going back to the migration era and by the Carolingian period were maintained as part of the European road network, to facilitate travel.

There are clear anachronisms in Tolkein, such as smoking pipes, but I think you can attribute that to an inside joke.

This book I think did a really good job of portraying the material culture of Tolkein's world closer to what I personally would have expected it to look like. You see mail and scale armor for the most part, roughly Viking era tech level, well illustrated

https://www.amazon.com/Tolkien-Besti.../dp/0517120771


David Day -

Spoiler: David Day - Noldor

Show

The kit actually looks like some of the kinds of stuff you see from archeology from the Celts through the migration era.

G

[Galloglaich]

Good points.

As i understand it, the main innovation from the Swiss were new tactics that limited the amount of cohesion needed to pull off. Deep squares or columns of pikemen could advance while maintaining cohesion far more easily than a long, thin phalanx. And once the pike square started pushing part of the line back, the rest would usually begin routing as well.

This is a sort of shorthand trope which I think goes back to a misunderstood statement Hans Delbruck, but it does not reflect the reality.

I recommend reading up on that era a bit. Swiss tactics were very different when fighting at home vs. when fighting as mercenaries. As mercenaries, especially in Italy in the 16th Century, the Swiss greatly simplified their tactics and their main strategy was just to overwhelm the enemy and get the fight over with as quickly as possible, because they knew that attrition through disease and exposure to the elements was often more lethal than even a brutal fight, and they also knew that they could usually overwhelm any enemy they could manage to come to grips with. The emphasis was on a quick, brutal fight, and then go home with your pay and loot. The only times this didn't work was usually because the enemy had set up ditches and entrenched artillery etc.

But back home in Switzerland defending their country against the Burgundians, the Hapsburgs etc., and in nearby regions of the Rhineland, Germany, Austria etc., they used much more sophisticated tactics. They usually used at least three main columns for their infantry, as well as numerous smaller formations. I wish I had time to get into it but I don't. In a nut-shell though they were able to march for days, attack suddenly and unexpectedly, maneuver their columns, and attack in the flanks and so on. They won several of their most important battles by coordinating attack from reinforcing columns at the last moment, often from groups from cantons foreign to the one that started the battle.

However you can get a pretty good summary of their tactics from the Osprey military book on the Swiss, as well as the two on the Landsknechts. For a deeper dive if you peruse the images online from the Bern, Lucerne and other chronicles illustrated by Diebold Schilling, you can see they also made extensive use of hand-gunners, war-wagons, volley-guns, cannon of all sizes, war-rafts, armed boats, and sophisticated tactics of all types.

G

[Tobtor]

The way "Celtic" is used by my team is to reflect belonging to La Tene culture. That narrows it down somewhat from simply using Celtic-derived languages or distant origins.

That definitely narrows it down, but that is by no mean a standard definition. Many Celt didnt belong to the La Tène culture. And what happened after the end of La Tène? Did the people stop being Celtic? What about Celts going into Anatolia etc, they quite quickly stopped being La Téne, but we would still say they remain Celtic.

It might be a good definition if you want to work with Celtic artefacts or society: then you need some sort of boundary and the La Tène culture might work as suitable as that. However, material culture is in no way a better way of defining etnicity than language or religion, rather to the opposite (it is often easier to adopt material culture, than to adopt language, see how 'english-america' clothing have become the norm, but people remain Germans, Russians etc beneath that).

It is also recognised that many people using La Téne artefacts wasn't indeed Celts. WHen people start becomming a people is very difficult to answer (even today).

[Max_Killjoy]

This is a sort of shorthand trope which I think goes back to a misunderstood statement Hans Delbruck, but it does not reflect the reality.

I recommend reading up on that era a bit. Swiss tactics were very different when fighting at home vs. when fighting as mercenaries. As mercenaries, especially in Italy in the 16th Century, the Swiss greatly simplified their tactics and their main strategy was just to overwhelm the enemy and get the fight over with as quickly as possible, because they knew that attrition through disease and exposure to the elements was often more lethal than even a brutal fight, and they also knew that they could usually overwhelm any enemy they could manage to come to grips with. The emphasis was on a quick, brutal fight, and then go home with your pay and loot. The only times this didn't work was usually because the enemy had set up ditches and entrenched artillery etc.

But back home in Switzerland defending their country against the Burgundians, the Hapsburgs etc., and in nearby regions of the Rhineland, Germany, Austria etc., they used much more sophisticated tactics. They usually used at least three main columns for their infantry, as well as numerous smaller formations. I wish I had time to get into it but I don't. In a nut-shell though they were able to march for days, attack suddenly and unexpectedly, maneuver their columns, and attack in the flanks and so on. They won several of their most important battles by coordinating attack from reinforcing columns at the last moment, often from groups from cantons foreign to the one that started the battle.

However you can get a pretty good summary of their tactics from the Osprey military book on the Swiss, as well as the two on the Landsknechts. For a deeper dive if you peruse the images online from the Bern, Lucerne and other chronicles illustrated by Diebold Schilling, you can see they also made extensive use of hand-gunners, war-wagons, volley-guns, cannon of all sizes, war-rafts, armed boats, and sophisticated tactics of all types.

In general I think that there's a tendency (perhaps going back to the Victorians?) to view the tactics and techniques of previous eras as crude and brutal and even stupid.

[Max_Killjoy]

That definitely narrows it down, but that is by no mean a standard definition. Many Celt didnt belong to the La Tène culture. And what happened after the end of La Tène? Did the people stop being Celtic? What about Celts going into Anatolia etc, they quite quickly stopped being La Téne, but we would still say they remain Celtic.

It might be a good definition if you want to work with Celtic artefacts or society: then you need some sort of boundary and the La Tène culture might work as suitable as that. However, material culture is in no way a better way of defining etnicity than language or religion, rather to the opposite (it is often easier to adopt material culture, than to adopt language, see how 'english-america' clothing have become the norm, but people remain Germans, Russians etc beneath that).

It is also recognised that many people using La Téne artefacts wasn't indeed Celts. WHen people start becomming a people is very difficult to answer (even today).

Yeah... I see the "end date" for the La Tène culture often listed as ~1 BCE or something similar. Would that mean there are no more "Celts" after that date?

It seems to me that each "discipline" wants to define ethnicity by their specific standard, and draw the boundaries there. Many archaeologists insist on material culture. Many linguists insist on language. Many geneticists insist on genetic analysis. Etc. I would instead suggest that material culture, language, religion, genetics, physical attributes, etc, are all part of one whole that needs to be understood about the people of a specific place and time.

[Kiero]

That definitely narrows it down, but that is by no mean a standard definition. Many Celt didnt belong to the La Tène culture. And what happened after the end of La Tène? Did the people stop being Celtic? What about Celts going into Anatolia etc, they quite quickly stopped being La Téne, but we would still say they remain Celtic.

It might be a good definition if you want to work with Celtic artefacts or society: then you need some sort of boundary and the La Tène culture might work as suitable as that. However, material culture is in no way a better way of defining etnicity than language or religion, rather to the opposite (it is often easier to adopt material culture, than to adopt language, see how 'english-america' clothing have become the norm, but people remain Germans, Russians etc beneath that).

It is also recognised that many people using La Téne artefacts wasn't indeed Celts. WHen people start becomming a people is very difficult to answer (even today).

Yeah... I see the "end date" for the La Tène culture often listed as ~1 BCE or something similar. Would that mean there are no more "Celts" after that date?

It seems to me that each "discipline" wants to define ethnicity by their specific standard, and draw the boundaries there. Many archaeologists insist on material culture. Many linguists insist on language. Many geneticists insist on genetic analysis. Etc. I would instead suggest that material culture, language, religion, genetics, physical attributes, etc, are all part of one whole that needs to be understand about the people of a specific place and time.

The team I work with are focused on the period from 272BC to 14AD - so "what happens after" isn't hugely relevant for what we're doing. Within that period, Latenisation is the simplest shorthand for Celts.

I've already noted lots of non-Celts took on La Tene artifacts (Thracians, Illyrians, Ligurians, Dacians, Germanic peoples, etc). They had good stuff.

[Galloglaich]

In general I think that there's a tendency (perhaps going back to the Victorians?) to view the tactics and techniques of previous eras as crude and brutal and even stupid.

yes, indeed. This is a major issue with all things medieval especially though. For some reason we can see the Greeks and the Romans as fairly sophisticated, but in spite of walking past the incredible architectural achievements of the Renaissance, we still think of the medieval world as essentially cavemen with churches.


This is an example of the type of Swiss battle I was referring to, though these guys were kind of "auxillary" Swiss so to speak (in the process of becoming part of the Swiss confederation).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Calven

In the battle, the Hapsburgs had created this massive field fortification called a Letzi, full of spikes and barriers and festooned with cannon. The Three Leagues (Swiss, more or less) attacked frontally but couldn't get through. So they managed to split their forces and coordinate two flanking maneuvers to get around the barrier. The first, after marching over a mountain through the night and defeating Hapsburg defenders, was stopped at the choke-point of a bridge. The second, a group of about half of their army managed to march across another mountain and take the Hapsburgs in the flank, while the first group kept up pressure on the barricade (taking heavy casualties in the process, including losing two of their commanders). The Hapsburg army collapsed and many were wiped out trying to flee across rivers etc.

In later eras, even splitting spontaneously and marching around under duress (and potential attacks by cavalry) in the field would have been too much for most pike squares of the 30 years War. Being rebuffed in one flanking attempt would have led to the breakup of a lot of armies, as would taking apparently 30% casualties attacking the barricades and losing key commanders. But it is typical of the Swiss that they usually perserveered and maintained both unit cohesion and tactical flexibility to the end.

Two interesting things to note here.

1) In this particular battle the Swiss (the Three Leagues, soon to be Swiss) numbered around 6,000 while the Hapsburgs had closer to 12,000, according to the wiki, and nevertheless the Hapsburg forces, consisting of Swabian Landsknechts, German knights, Italian mercenaries and Tyrolian peasants, was hard pressed to hold their own even in a well prepared defensive position - even with 2-1 odds in their favor.

2) This was one of ten (!) Battles that the Swiss fought in that year, 1499 against the forces of Emperor Maximillian I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle...2.80.931500.29

There was another battle in 1499 in which similar but better executed tactics by the Swiss carried the day. Once again they were up against a Letzi. They actually split their forces in three, with the local guys (Three Leagues) kept the fortification busy, two Swiss columns flanked the enemy, and hit it from high ground and from two sides at once. According to the Wiki this led to a very lopsided victory for the Swiss, 10 dead (including one of their commanders who was shot by a handgun - probably piercing his armor) and 60 wounded, whereas the Hapsburgs lost 2-3000 dead.

G

[Galloglaich]

There was another battle in 1499 in which similar but better executed tactics by the Swiss carried the day. Once again they were up against a Letzi. They actually split their forces in three, with the local guys (Three Leagues) kept the fortification busy, two Swiss columns flanked the enemy, and hit it from high ground and from two sides at once. According to the Wiki this led to a very lopsided victory for the Swiss, 10 dead (including one of their commanders who was shot by a handgun - probably piercing his armor) and 60 wounded, whereas the Hapsburgs lost 2-3000 dead.

G

I forgot to post the link to this other battle - here it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Frastanz

G

[Vinyadan]

For what concerns the Celtiberians, I am pretty much satisfied with Trarco's answer. He makes a good and synthetic job at separating the different elements that build a culture.

As for ethnogenesis, that's a very complex deal. There are a lot of different elements, and, sometimes, it was a very artificial reality, compared to a romantic ancestral idea. So you have the Romans; during late Antiquity, Rome, Romania and Romans are used everywhere in the Empire. What we call Byzantines were called Romans by themselves and many of their neighbours, even though many of them didn't have a drop of Latin blood, and also didn't speak Latin. The French also are a people that was built by their nation, instead of being a people building a nation. The Goths in Spain called themselves Goths even though they actually were Latin-speaking Romans ruled by Goths, and called Romans the people occupying southern Spain. Even today, people of the Canary Islands call the Iberian Spanish "Goths" (with disdain). The Goths themselves have a long history of mixing themselves up with other peoples while they served the Romans.

There are a few works on the subject, maybe I'll link a few later. There's a book named Ethnogenese, but it's written in German.

[Kiero]

For what concerns the Celtiberians, I am pretty much satisfied with Trarco's answer. He makes a good and synthetic job at separating the different elements that build a culture.

As for ethnogenesis, that's a very complex deal. There are a lot of different elements, and, sometimes, it was a very artificial reality, compared to a romantic ancestral idea. So you have the Romans; during late Antiquity, Rome, Romania and Romans are used everywhere in the Empire. What we call Byzantines were called Romans by themselves and many of their neighbours, even though many of them didn't have a drop of Latin blood, and also didn't speak Latin. The French also are a people that was built by their nation, instead of being a people building a nation. The Goths in Spain called themselves Goths even though they actually were Latin-speaking Romans ruled by Goths, and called Romans the people occupying southern Spain. Even today, people of the Canary Islands call the Iberian Spanish "Goths" (with disdain). The Goths themselves have a long history of mixing themselves up with other peoples while they served the Romans.

There are a few works on the subject, maybe I'll link a few later. There's a book named Ethnogenese, but it's written in German.

Rome itself ceased to be meaningfully "Latin" after the conquest of Greece; they may have overcome Hellas by arms, but Hellas in turn consumed Rome turning them into Philhellenes who spoke Greek as a second or even sometimes first language.

[Lemmy]

So... We always see poison-coated blades in fiction, but in reality, how feasible would that be, if at all? It feels like the poison would fly away from the blade before the strike even hit its target.

[Max_Killjoy]

So... We always see poison-coated blades in fiction, but in reality, how feasible would that be, if at all? It feels like the poison would fly away from the blade before the strike even hit its target.

I suspect it's more common on arrows and bolts, and on daggers intended for "non battlefield" uses. Objects expected to penetrate on their first hit, and if they don't, it doesn't matter.

A sword would probably lose a lot of its poison being smacked against the target's armor, sword, shield, etc.