Axemen or Masemen in real world: where they are used FOR REAL?

[Sarin]

First, we are discussing the professionalism of the armies, not their constancy.

You do realize that employing soldiers full-time for extended period is what makes professional army, by definition? A citizen militia, even well trained like Roman one, is not professional army as its members have their fields, farms and shops to which they go when the campaign is over.

Seriously? The list of Roman victories of the 3rd century BC is above. These are almost all wars in a row, except "barbaric.

You're not even making sense here, and the sentence obviously isn't finished.

Does nothing bother you about the fact that about 300 years have passed between Heraclea and the Germans?
At the same time, you claimed that

"but even Roman Republic relied on mercenaries to provide significant part of their cavalry forces throughout most of its history".

And the most mysterious - what does the Cretans have to do with it?
At the same time, a cursory check shows that, for example, the Cretan mercenaries of the Romans under the Cynoscephalians are mentioned in the Wiki, but more academic descriptions speak of allied contingents.
At the same time, the battle itself is indicative. The Macedonians have 1/5 of the army of mercenaries and this is not counting the permanent contingents. The Romans either had a handful of Cretan mercenaries, or not.

It was little over 220 years, and this list is by no means exhaustive. I've just given you few of the clear-cut examples. Romans often called them auxiliaries, but when they were foreign soldiers who voluntarily entered employment with Roman army without being provided by their own government, they were by definition mercenaries.

And where does Livy say that Spurius did not pass the censorship?

Book 35 of Ab Urbe Condita. Livy mentions his insufficient property.

 

[pecheneg]

You do realize that employing soldiers full-time for extended period is what makes professional army, by definition?

That is, a soldier carrying garrison duty (for example, lifting a barrier) for twenty years is as professional as a mercurial mercenary with real combat experience (no one pays him for a barrier)?
How did "constancy" give bonuses of professionalism in comparison with the hired contingents of the Hellenists?
By the way, the absence of those large permanent (not hired) contingents is a rare exotic.

You're not even making sense here, and the sentence obviously isn't finished.

It's finished. And I am interested in the list of wars unknown to science, but lost by Rome in within the framework described by me

It was little over 220 years, and this list is by no means exhaustive.

Only 220 years old? It definitely changes EVERYTHING, yes.

I've just given you few of the clear-cut examples.

I remind you that you stated that

"but even Roman Republic relied on mercenaries to provide significant part of their cavalry forces throughout most of its history".

In justification, you cite the presence of limited contingents with a huge gap. Are you sure you want to confirm it, and not the other way around?

. Romans often called them auxiliaries, but when they were foreign soldiers who voluntarily entered employment with Roman army without being provided by their own government, they were by definition mercenaries.

That is, in a tribal Gallic society, for example, everyone is on his own, a free bird?
But even Caesar's Gauls are either sent directly by the X tribe, or "for some reason" they lose the head of their community, leader U. This is not to mention the fact that previously 75% of the cavalry were allied.
At the same time, even when recruiting individually, are you sure that recruiting soldiers from dependent peoples for a lower salary is mercenary work in pure undiluted form? For some reason, the UN and international law do not agree with you.

Book 35 of Ab Urbe Condita. Livy mentions his insufficient property.

Actually in the 42nd. And there is not a word about the censorship.

 

[Angst]

Kind a like what Ajid said also, isn't it? their advantage is more about manpower and recruitment pool, play in quantity than the quality, is the conclusion correct?

Actually yes, Ajidica was also on point. Sorry for not giving credit ^^

That is, the inability to mobilize a significant part of their reserves at once - and on their own territory - is a consequence of good logistics?
And if on the contrary and transfer from Athens to Sicily - very bad?
Do you think Chiang Kai-shek had the best logistics in World War II?

I'm unsure what you're saying here. Is inability a typo of ability? Armies are always tough to move around, noting that Rome had difficulties there is like saying an apple is a fruit. ^^

EDIT: Not sure what you're referring to in regards to Chiang Kai-shek. I don't know the specifics of the Chinese civil war, which he lost, and if it's in regards to Japan, the latter is actually an example of how awful supplying are a surefire path to downfall, even in spite of absurdly high morale of troops.

What exactly happened to Hannibal? He personally lost two armies - in Italy and at Zama. Two more Carthaginians disappeared in Spain and a fairly large contingent in Sicily.
At the same time, whether Carthage has run out of reserves or not is a question. The Romans simply won at Zama - in the immediate vicinity of Carthage.



Like this?
"Sent by the procurator Cat Decinius (later replaced by Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus) at the request of the besieged troops in the number of two hundred militia were easily defeated."
Rome has shown amazing resilience in this difficult situation, yes.

It's been a while, the source I read noted that people like Hannibal and Boudica won a slew of victories, but eventually lost out due to Rome mustering enough stuff. I don't remember the specifics, and am just regurgitating a historian I've read a while ago. Pyrrhus is also an example of this situation.

Whether Carthage had run out of resources per se may be an open question, but they were severely outgunned in regards to population. I don't remember the numbers, but it's not even close. Rome was just bigger, able to manage the size, and outlasted Hannibal.

I want to be clear here. Noone is doubting Rome's military prowess when it came down to it. The source I read was a general public service statement of sorts that noted that people severely understate how tough their opponents were. It's still a resilient myth that the Celts all fought naked, for example, when they were rather well-armed. So it's not a useful source for this thread as noone here are on that level of dumb, and noone is arguing their opponents fought badly. (I don't remember the source's name anyways.) At the same time, treating Rome as supersoldiers is also ahistorical. There's a nuance between that and acknowledging their real competence.

Rome's resources were vast and they were great at properly allocating them, on top of being well equipped and well trained. Which is simply necessary for an empire that size, from Punic wars and beyond.

 

[Snowygerry]

(...)
That is, in a tribal Gallic society, for example, everyone is on his own, a free bird?
But even Caesar's Gauls are either sent directly by the X tribe, or "for some reason" they lose the head of their community, leader U.

Basically yes - that's not unique to the Gauls - but persists throughout the ME and even into modern times...

"Roman armies march where their commander *orders* them, not where the enemy *summons* them"

- and for the longest time that was unheard of in Northern Europe.

"Central command" - if I was to nominate one aspect of the Roman military superiority that would be it

 

[pecheneg]

Basically yes - that's not unique to the Gauls - but persists throughout the ME and even into modern times...

That is, somewhere in New Guinea and Co, atomization and bright individualism a la megapolis are blooming? But ethnographers have not noticed this for centuries, describing the exact opposite?

"Roman armies march where their commander *orders* them, not where the enemy *summons* them"

- and for the longest time that was unheard of in Northern Europe.

So you want to say that the Gauls stubbornly fought in the way that the age-old custom and the most bearded members of the tribal union suggested to them?

Central command" - if I was to nominate one aspect of the Roman military superiority that would be it

The Romans had an advantage in relation to disparate TRIBES, which in no way indicates the fierce nonconformism of specific members of the tribe.

 

[Snowygerry]

So you want to say that the Gauls stubbornly fought in the way that the age-old custom and the most bearded members of the tribal union suggested to them?

Yes - the next time they all marched in the same direction was the first crusade iirc.

 

[Ajidica]

Yes - the next time they all marched in the same direction was the first crusade iirc.

What even is this I don't even.....

Meanwhile 1. During the crisis of the 3rd century, the Roman economy suffered greatly and the same pilums became the weapons of the elite

Where did you see that? Roman infantry in the late empire fought extensively with throwing spear. Indeed, I believe the Roman army was notably for using more thrown weapons than their counterparts. At the Battle of Strassbourg it was noted that the Alemmani were forced to attack before they were ready due to Roman missile fire. Archaeological evidence in the late and immediate post imperial period shows thrown weapons were very common.

2. Rome had to face heavy cavalry and advanced mounted riflemen on a huge part of its "front" (and it was no longer an extremely decentralized Parthia in a single copy); and the Germans evolved from outright savages into users of normal equipment.

Assuming by 'mounted riflemen' you are referring to horse archers, not really.
They certainly weren't seeing horse archers in Britain or northern Europe, and the ability of 'heavy cavalry' to just ride over infantry simply wasn't a thing in this period. The ability of the Hunnic confederation to sustain a large number of mounted troops in western europe when the native population were unable to sustain that much food surplus a few years early is highly doubtful. Any Hunnic force operating in western Europe would almost certainly have been comprised in large part of various Germanic and Gothic tribes in the Hunnic Confederation.
Further, whether or not the Huns actually fought as horse archers is not clearly supported by sources:

Even Hunnish armament and tactics are obscure. The ‘famous’ horse-archery of the Hunnic cavalry is actually based largely on surmise and analogy. The word that Ammianus uses to describe the weapon used in their fighting from a distance – iaculum – actually usually means a javelin, not an arrow, but then the fact that he describes them as tipped with bone (a set-piece in descriptions of ultra-barbarians) means we must take this account with a pinch of salt anyway. The only clear association of Attila’s Huns with archery comes in Jordanes’ account (100 years after the event) of how the emperor Marcian had a prophetic vision on the night of Attila’s death, in which he saw the Hun’s bow broken. Most of the ‘evidence’ for Hunnic horse-archery is indirect supposition, circumstantial and even circular. For instance one argument runs that certain fifth-century Romans (Aëtius, Avitus, Valentinian III) are described as being good archers; this is then explained (quite unnecessarily) as resulting from the influence of the Hunnish horse-archers. This is an entirely circular argument. The evidence that the Huns were horse-archers in the first place is only provided by the supposition that these Romans were copying them. The same goes for the fact that the Roman cavalry was coming to place a heavier emphasis on horse-archery in the fifth century: the Huns were horse-archers because the Romans were copying them; the Romans must have been copying the Huns because the Huns were horse-archers. I cannot find a single explicit statement that the fifth-century Huns were mounted archers.[5]

https://darkagewargaming.wordpress....e-part-4a-fifth-century-armies-basic-aspects/
(Indeed, the entire website is an excellent source on the late Roman army. Halsall himself is a highly regarded historian on the late Roman Empire and early middle ages, publishing Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West and Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West.)

Gothic cavalry famously forced the rout of the Roman army at Adrianople, but an unopposed flank and rear charge against already hard pressed and exhausted troops is not proof of the superiority of heavy cavalry over infantry in this period; no more than the Roman defeat at Carrhae is a sign of the superiority of cataphracts over classical legions. (The Romans never had a serious Parthian problem, but the Parthians had serious Roman problems.)

 

[Snowygerry]

What even is this I don't even.....

Never mind - I seem to have deleted most of my post there

From your excellent link above :

There is no evidence before the eighth century that members of any of these so-called ‘Germanic’ peoples saw themselves as having anything in common with any of the others. Their archaeological remains show considerable regional cultural differences and we can only completely obscure history if we assume that one ‘Germanic warrior’ was interchangeable with another, or assume (without other data) that evidence about, say, the Alamanni can be applied glibly to the Saxons or the Franks.

The Romans did have such a "common identity" and that allowed them to work towards a single purpose set them apart from their opponents imho.

 

[Ajidica]

The Romans did have such a "common identity" and that allowed them to work towards a single purpose set them apart from their opponents imho.

I would be very leery of the idea that Romanitas, a body of cultural values and expectations, could result in a 'single purpose' in the military sphere. The proliferation of Roman civil wars should be some indication that Romanitas did not provide political unity.

 

[pecheneg]

Where did you see that?

Even Wiki knows about it.
Vegetius.
"On the throwing spears used by the foot troops (this spear was called a “pilum"), a thin triangular tip was attached 9/12 feet or a whole foot long. If the spear pierced the shield, then it was impossible to pull it back; strongly and deftly launched, it easily pierced the shell. Such spears have become rare among us".
At the same time, as a rare pilum, Vegetius describes a poor design with a tip about half as short as the classic one. What the real pilum looked like, he does not know at all.

Roman infantry in the late empire fought extensively with throwing spear. Indeed, I believe the Roman army was notably for using more thrown weapons than their counterparts.

And? Ordinary darts with a tip length of "as much as" 12 cm are at least somehow equivalent to a pilum?

Assuming by 'mounted riflemen' you are referring to horse archers, not really.
They certainly weren't seeing horse archers in Britain

The length of the border in Britain is 117 km .

or northern Europe,

Even that's not true. If you mean by Northern Europe not the same as geographers, but the Rhine border.
Can you remind me where the Catalaunian fields are located? At the same time, the matter was not limited to the Huns – the Alans reached North Africa through Gaul and Spain.

nd the ability of 'heavy cavalry' to just ride over infantry simply wasn't a thing in this period.

The fact that the heavy cavalry has not yet buried the infantry in the ground alone, somehow cancels the sharp increase in its role? The Romans themselves clearly had fundamentally different views on the issue.

The ability of the Hunnic confederation.

Do you even know that the Huns first encountered the Romans after the total collapse of the empire began? The Romans' problems began much earlier.

The ability of the Hunnic confederation to sustain a large number of mounted troops in western europe when the native population were unable to sustain that much food surplus a few years early is highly doubtful.

1. What few years are you talking about? From Pannonia to the Roman border on the Rhine is only about a thousand kilometers. This is the distance from central Mongolia to Beijing or from Bakhchisarai (the capital of the Crimean Tatars) to Moscow. That is, this is the usual distance of a not very far and fast hike.
2. The population did not need to support horse contingents – the task of the peasant from the point of view of the Hun was to give everything he had accumulated before the new harvest and die.

Any Hunnic force operating in western Europe would almost certainly have been comprised in large part of various Germanic and Gothic tribes in the Hunnic Confederation.

Does this somehow cancel the presence of the Huns themselves there?

Further, whether or not the Huns actually fought as horse archers is not clearly supported by sources:

Do you seriously think that the Huns were the only nomadic tribe or that everyone else has not perfected the bow in 700+ years?
"III c. BC- II c. AD the Middle Sarmatian period
The new Sarmatian bow, which appeared at the beginning of the new era to replace the Scythian one, is reinforced with bone overlays in the central part (near the handle) and along the edges of the shoulders. The bone pads rigidly fixed the wooden parts covered with them, as a result of which the entire load when shooting fell on the middle part of the shoulders. Bows of this type were originally larger than the Scythian ones in length, reaching 1 m.

Halsall himself is a highly regarded historian on the late Roman Empire and early middle ages, publishing Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West and Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West.)

The problem is that from the point of view of anyone other than "respected English historians", nomads who cannot shoot from a horse after the Cimmerians are wild drug-addicted nonsense.

Not the main thing.

1. Jordan, before describing the Huns, gives the usual "ethnographic" tale about their origin. If on SUCH a basis to refute the ancient sources, they simply will not remain.
2 Unexpectedly, but Jordan and Marcellinus are not the only Western authors, .
For example, Sidonius Apollinaris in the 460s, "Hardly a child leaves the womb of his mother, as he is already on the back of a horse. One might think that these are members of one body, for the rider is chained to a horse, as it were; other nations ride on a horse's spine, and this one lives on it. Oval bows, sharp darts, a terrible and faithful hand bearing inevitable death, and rage, pouring blows without a miss. That's what kind of steamboat invaded suddenly, crossing the frozen Istria on its carts and ripping its wet ice into its wheels."

And now the main thing.

1. At the same time, it is well known outside of England that in addition to European written sources, there are also archaeology and non-European written sources.
2. There are a huge number of finds (including the bows themselves) and many Chinese images of Asian Huns. Plus, of course, the Chinese write a lot. And yes, everything points to the total predominance of horse archers in the Hun army.
3. In the 4th century, all this material culture turns out to be in the northern Black Sea region, from boilers to arrowheads.
In English reality, the Huns used it against the Chinese, but with touching pacifism did not use it against the Romans?

In general, it is not necessary to retell the ignorant myths of island savages. It is better to turn on the auto-translator and read at least Russian popular science literature.

https://coollib.com/b/326255/read

 

[pecheneg]

Gothic cavalry famously forced the rout of the Roman army at Adrianople, but an unopposed flank and rear charge against already hard pressed and exhausted troops is not proof of the superiority of heavy cavalry over infantry in this period

1. That is, a cavalry flanking attack is such an exotic rarity that its effectiveness can be ignored?
2. Why didn't the barbarians beat the Romans on such an apocalyptic scale before the Sarmatians staged a military revolution in the 3rd century AD?

o more than the Roman defeat at Carrhae is a sign of the superiority of cataphracts over classical legions. (The Romans never had a serious Parthian problem, but the Parthians had serious Roman problems.)

Аt the beginning of the 3rd century the Parthians suddenly "ran" out and were replaced by the Sassanids, who no longer had a symbolic number of cataphracts/savarans. And as it grew, the Romans went from an "unprofitable" peace to a "humiliating" one

 

[GinandTonic]

The length of the border in Britain is 117 km .
…
The problem is that from the point of view of anyone other than "respected English historians", nomads who cannot shoot from a horse after the Cimmerians are wild drug-addicted nonsense.
…
1. At the same time, it is well known outside of England that in addition to European written sources, there are also archaeology and non-European written sources.
…
In English reality, the Huns used it against the Chinese, but with touching pacifism did not use it against the Romans?

What is this incoherent obsession with England?

As you are doubtless aware every contemporary source is in a dead language. 99.9% of people are reading the primary materials in translation.

 

[pecheneg]

What is this incoherent obsession with England?

This is an obsession with English historical science, which often slips into an anecdote
OK, point your finger at another country where a "scientist" can talk nonsense about the Huns not shooting from a horse, without even asking about archaeological data and eastern sources.
And at the same time he does not know that writers and travelers mixed reliable information with the retelling of fantastic tales until the very end of the 17th century.
And, looks like these traditions are carefully preserved between the monarchy and millennial problems with winter heating.

As you are doubtless aware every contemporary source is in a dead language. 99.9% of people are reading the primary materials in translation.

Do the translators still not know how the bow will be in Latin?

 

[Ajidica]

I'll respond more in detail later (at work), but my point in quoting Halsall wasn't to say that Huns didn't fight as mounted archers. It is extremely probable they fought in a manner similar to other nomadic steppe peoples, which included a significant use of mounted archery. My point in quoting it was that outside of Roman ethnic stereotyping (such as Ammianus making the Huns a sort of 'uber-barbarian' that didn't even wear clothes, but stitched together mouse fur and replaced it as pieces fell off), Roman sources did not note the Hun fighting style as being worthy of comment.
A number of historians have often presented the Huns use of mounted archery as something special to explain why the Roman Empire fell or why the barbarians came. Peter Heather, for instance, endorses a sort of 'domino theory' about the Huns; where the Hunnic development of a superior compound bow allowed them to dominate their neighbors, either forcing their neighbors to flee whereupon they set up a chain reaction leading to the defeat of the Ermaneric or allowing the Huns to become a 'supergroup'. When Roman sources don't make any particular note of the Hunnic fighting style, the idea that there was something special about the Huns fighting style that made them particularly effective is difficult to support.

Vegetius' writings on military matters was never intended -and should never be read- as a "Doctrines and Practice of the Late Roman Army". It was an intentionally classicizing text filled with various military practices and maxims (make a fortified camp, have soldiers look to the standard, maintain proper ranks, etc), complaining about how things were better in the 'good old days', and dreaming up nonsense weapons - like scythed chariots and chariot mounted ballista - that would definitely send the barbarians packing! (For example, Vegetius complained that Roman soldiers were too weak and lazy to wear armor. While there is some indication certain units involved in patrol work reduced their use of armor, sources are otherwise silent on the matter and archaeology shows no particular decline in the use of armor by Roman soldiers. Indeed, it would be very strange if the Roman army were to simply stop using armor for a century or so, and then re-adopt its widespread use with the well-documented early Byzantine armies.)

The Huns were not the Hsiung-Nu or any other sort of Asiatic barbarians. Full stop. Thompson noted we know so little about European steppe cultures in this period we can't make any guess, however vague, about the origin of the Huns besides 'they came from the central Ukraine/Don region'.

Talking about material culture in pre-modern outer Europe during this period is very tenuous, especially when you add in the Huns that have no clearly identifiable material culture preserved in the archaeological record. (More deformed skulls have been found outside of areas of Hunnic influence than in it, such as in southern Germany. The linking of a certain style of iron cauldrons to the Huns is very much circular. The cauldrons are associated with the Huns because they appear in an area the Huns were known to live, and the Huns are known to live there because there are cauldrons there....) There is also a lot of uncertainty in linking the development of the Chernjakov culture from the Weilbark culture. Halsall and Heather agree the Chernjakov culture is an outgrowth of the Wielbark reflecting outer Europe migration, Kulikowski thinks Chernjakov is a local product with no more links to Wielbark than any other material culture the Chernjakov could have been influenced by.

It is funny you criticize Halsall for not looking at archaeological data, when Halsall is well known for his focus on archaeological date - especially with grave goods. (Indeed, I personally think he places too much emphasis on grave goods in terms of demonstrating cultural identity, but that's neither here nor there.)

 

[GinandTonic]

This is an obsession with English historical science, which often slips into an anecdote
OK, point your finger at another country where a "scientist" can talk nonsense about the Huns not shooting from a horse, without even asking about archaeological data and eastern sources.
And at the same time he does not know that writers and travelers mixed reliable information with the retelling of fantastic tales until the very end of the 17th century.
And, looks like these traditions are carefully preserved between the monarchy and millennial problems with winter heating.

I dont really follow your point, or understand where the English thing is coming in, but to answer your question - yes.

When I was 16ish we hosted a pair of Hungarian historians. She was the Professor who was the Hungarian counterpart to my uncle in Nottingham Uni, he was an entertainingly deranged military historian. She was leading the field trip to London, my uncle asked us to put them up, etc. They were fun, had one or two polite meals with their hosts but otherwise got on with visiting London and leading a field trip

He bought a historical Hungarian sword and was rather excited*. As a teenaged boy, he demonstrated his understanding of the use of the sword to me - the women not really GingAF.

He certainly talked nonsense. Excellent military history, overwhelmed by nationalism. His wife rolled her eyes, and she was the professor.

Do the translators still not know how the bow will be in Latin?

That was my point.

* From the shop that is the basis of Ollivander's in Harry Potter IIRC, on New Oxford St. Or the shop next door, he was very excited, so who knows.

 

[Hygro]

THIS IS CIVFANATICS

 

[pecheneg]

Roman sources did not note the Hun fighting style as being worthy of comment.

Try to find references to the specifics of the Mongolian onion in synchronous messages. Meanwhile, it was. Similarly, the Hunnic progress in the field of bows is an indisputable fact. If it is not reflected in the sources, these are the problems of the sources, not the Huns and their bows.

Everything is quite simple.

1. Horse archers by the end of the 4th century are banal, like a runny nose - sagitarii were in the Roman army itself.

2. In order to assess the nuances, appropriate prerequisites were needed, which were completely absent from many writing "sofa troops" (c) Who had very little time left to write quietly.

3. The Roman military faced the Huns on a large scale 17 years after Adrianople. At the same time, in the same 395 year legions begin to bare the Rhine border. In a few years it will be necessary to fight the barbarians in Italy, and in 15 years Rome will be plundered. In general, the Romans had no time for mass written reflections.

Peter Heather, for instance, endorses a sort of 'domino theory' about the Huns; where the Hunnic development of a superior compound bow allowed them to dominate their neighbors, either forcing their neighbors to flee whereupon they set up a chain reaction leading to the defeat of the Ermaneric or allowing the Huns to become a 'supergroup'. When Roman sources don't make any particular note of the Hunnic fighting style, the idea that there was something special about the Huns fighting style that made them particularly effective is difficult to support.

The Huns began their expansion to the west from the refuge of losers between the Volga and Emba. There were corny few of them. And this did not prevent them from conquering the Sarmatians, who were armed to the teeth and did not suffer (to put it mildly) from pacifism/Alan and Ostrogotov. At the same time, the Visigoths and part of the Sarmatians who fled from them caused Rome problems up to lethal ones. To invent another basic explanation other than the technical superiority fully supported by archaeology... is VERY strange.
Yes, there were climatic changes, etc., but without the appropriate prerequisites, the Huns had no more chance of becoming a scourge of God than the Pechenegs, Nogais and the northern branch of the Oguz. Nogais were trivially crushed during a similar cold snap (the Little Ice Age). Now they are a small people already in Dagestan.

Vegetius' writings on military matters was never intended -and should never be read- as a "Doctrines and Practice of the Late Roman Army". It was an intentionally classicizing text

It was a text addressed to the Emperor. At the same time, if Vegetius wrote the first book on his own initiative, then the next three by order of the emperor.

and dreaming up nonsense weapons - like scythed chariots and chariot mounted ballista - that would definitely send the barbarians packing!

1. And now we look at the original. Where , just in case , the struggle with chariots is described.

«24. Kings Antiochus and Mithridates used chariots with scythes drawn by four horses in their military campaigns. At first they caused great fear, but then they became the subject of ridicule. It is difficult for such a chariot with scythes to find a completely flat field, it is delayed by the slightest obstacle, and if at least one horse is hit or wounded, the chariot is already out of order. But these chariots lost all significance mainly due to the following Roman technique: when a battle began, the Romans quickly scattered traps (tribules) across the field; when rolling chariots hit them, they died. A trap is a defensive weapon made of four sharpened stakes; no matter how it is thrown, it becomes firmly on three stakes, and the fourth, raised up, causes harm».

Nonsense in this case is not invented by Vegetius.

2. "Sometimes it is necessary to place carroballists (ballistae on carts) of a larger than usual size behind the formation – they throw spears further and with greater force; they are put on carts pulled by a pair of horses or mules",

Vegetius describes a banality. Nonsense in the form of ballistae on wheeled machines we see on Trajan's column.

(For example, Vegetius complained that Roman soldiers were too weak and lazy to wear armor.

"But when, with the advent of negligence and the desire for idleness, the exercise in the field began to stop, it was considered that the weapon was very heavy, since the soldiers rarely began to wear it. Therefore, the warriors began to demand from the emperor first regarding the shells, and then the helmets... to refuse"
Terribly improbable. The problem is that
1. In Russia there were problems with the discipline of the army just twenty years ago, and the first victim of them were bulletproof vests.
2. The crisis of the 3rd century with the leapfrog of soldier emperors definitely led to a sharp reduction in the use of armor.
The drop in discipline was not the only reason, but was present with a probability of 99.99999%.
3. Are you sure that at the end of the 4th century the Roman army was as prosperous as ever?

sources are otherwise silent

"You know how easy it is to arm the Romans..." (Getica, 204)28.

and archaeology shows no particular decline in the use of armor by Roman soldiers

1. How can archaeology generally show a decrease in the use of available armor by soldiers
2. At the same time, in reality, it shows this.
Most of the late Roman images of soldiers are without armor.
There are practically no finds of helmets of the 3rd century.
Helmets of the 4th century are peculiar. "The next infantry helmets appear more than a hundred years later. They can be called helmets of the Intersyza type, from the Intersyza in Hungary, where at least four such helmets have been found. These helmets are nothing like the early Legionary helmets. They are made of iron, of very rough construction, and consist of two halves connected along the ridge."
That is, even helmets were made poorly. The advanced lorica segmentata disappears. Are you sure that such an "industry" has flooded the army with armor?

Indeed, it would be very strange if the Roman army were to simply stop using armor for a century or so, and then re-adopt its widespread use with the well-documented early Byzantine armies.)

1. Try to read Vegetius. There is no question of a complete rejection of armor. Cavalry and "non-commissioned officers" used them
2. See above. The Romans have a very characteristic design gap.
In short, the chaos of the 3rd century has definitely led to a sharp decline in the use of armor. Obviously, both because of problems with production, and because of a drop in discipline. At the same time, at the end of the 4th century, we again see a progressive mess.

 

[pecheneg]

The Huns were not the Hsiung-Nu or any other sort of Asiatic barbarians. Full stop. Thompson noted we know so little about European steppe cultures in this period we can't make any guess, however vague, about the origin of the Huns besides 'they came from the central Ukraine/Don region'.

This was written in 1948. 73 years have passed since then. There are a huge pile of Hun artifacts, both Asian and European. Genetic studies show a mixture of Saka Scythians with East Asians.
At the same time, even in 1948, the ingenious ideas of the islanders were distinguished by a fair amount of freakishness. Yes, someone has not read the ancient authors again. The Huns were connected with the Khunnoi by Marcellinus

The linking of a certain style of iron cauldrons to the Huns is very much circular. The cauldrons are associated with the Huns because they appear in an area the Huns were known to live, and the Huns are known to live there because there are cauldrons there....)

That is, boilers, tips, etc. from Hunnic Mongolia migrated to the Hunnic Northern Black Sea region separately from the owners, but ended up there at the same time as the Huns?

There is also a lot of uncertainty in linking the development of the Chernjakov culture from the Weilbark culture.

What relation do the Chernyakhovs have to the Hun question?

Kulikowski thinks Chernjakov is a local product with no more links to Wielbark than any other material culture the Chernjakov could have been influenced by.

Really?
"According to Kulikowski, the Goths were mostly of non-Gothic descent, being a population formed from a "large number of [non-Gothic] indigenes and a small number of [Gothic] migrants under the pressure of Roman imperialism, and in the shadow of the Empire"

In this reality
1. The fact that Chernyakhovskaya culture was polyethnic is a common place
2. The fact that the Velbar component in it was also locally (exactly where Goths should be), too.

It is funny you criticize Halsall for not looking at archaeological data, when Halsall is well known for his focus on archaeological date - especially with grave goods. (Indeed, I personally think he places too much emphasis on grave goods in terms of demonstrating cultural identity, but that's neither here nor there.)

The problem is that in 5 minutes there is an article from 1983 with a routine classification of Hun arrowheads from the Northern Black Sea region in comparison with arrowheads from Mongolia as well. 20+ years before the "discoveries" of the great expert in archaeology.
Judging by this and the biographical article on Wikipedia, he divides his leisure time between struggle against archaeogenetics, reading "Cosmo" and paranientific politically motivated nonsense.
"Halsall argues that the fall of the Western Roman Empire should be traced to internal developments within the empire itself, and that the barbarians were peacefully absorbed into Roman civilization, on which they had minimal influence.[11] Halsall accuses Heather and his associates of leading a "counter-revisionist offensive against more subtle ways of thinking" in the field. He accuses them of "bizarre reasoning" and of purveying a "deeply irresponsible history".[9] The result, says Halsall, has been "something of an academic counter-revolution", which has also spread to the field of archaeology.[12] According to Halsall, "there can be no doubt that these works have — in the most generous interpretation — been written sufficiently carelessly as to provide succour to far-right extremists."[12] Halsall identifies Anders Behring Breivik as one such extremist inspired by the works of the Oxford historians.[12] Halsall traces these theories to Nazi influence, and fears that such theories may be used to strengthen racism and opposition to immigration".

 

[pecheneg]

When I was 16ish we hosted a pair of Hungarian historians

It was necessary to clarify the minimum parameters of the country.

As a teenaged boy, he demonstrated his understanding of the use of the sword to me - the women not really GingAF.

The "Hussar" was joking. Obviously, after the seizure of sabers, horses and Transylvania, there were no other options left to show dashing in Hungary.

 

[Ajidica]

Meanwhile, it was. Similarly, the Hunnic progress in the field of bows is an indisputable fact. If it is not reflected in the sources, these are the problems of the sources, not the Huns and their bows.

How and source? If you point to archaeology and grave goods, how do we know it was part of the group that became the Huns and not one of the many other groups in the region such as the Akatziri? Did they helpfully write "this is a Hunnic bow" before interring it?

Everything is quite simple.

1. Horse archers by the end of the 4th century are banal, like a runny nose - sagitarii were in the Roman army itself.

What does the presence of horse archers in the Roman army mean? Late antiquity and the early middle ages appear to be a unique time when even settled peoples were able to field a large number of horse archers drawn from the native population. Referring to Justinian's Gothic Wars, Zosimus notes that the term foederati simply happened to mean 'those who serve in a foederati unit', the term having lost any reference to 'barbarian' soldiers. Yet foederati units are still recorded as being equipped with a bow and proficient with it in mounted combat. Arguably they were fighting in a heavier and formed style than compared to light 'steppe' troops, but that isn't particularly relevant.
Further, if the Romans were as familiar with horse archers as you are saying, surely the Huns doing something totally new and innovative would be noted by Roman chroniclers, especially as the Huns spent a good chunk of the 5th century fighting alongside Roman notables (such as Flavius Aetius) against Goths and other Romans.

3. The Roman military faced the Huns on a large scale 17 years after Adrianople. At the same time, in the same 395 year legions begin to bare the Rhine border. In a few years it will be necessary to fight the barbarians in Italy, and in 15 years Rome will be plundered. In general, the Romans had no time for mass written reflections.

By 17 years after Adrianople, I assume you are referring to the Huns of Uldin? Either way, not sure what that has to do with the withdrawal of legions from the Rhine in the Western Empire; especially as the legions were pulled away from there in response to the revolt of Constantine III, Eugenius and Arbogast withdrawing troops to fight the Romano-Gothic army of Theodosius, and the ensuing standoff between Stilicho and the courtiers of Arcadius in the Balkans.
Rome was sacked by Alaric, yes, but the sack was the culmination of several years of political maneuvering between Honorius, Stilicho, Alaric, and the Italian aristocracy. Alaric was acting like a late Roman general in securing high office for himself and his followers inside the Roman state, because kingdoms are for losers.

The Huns began their expansion to the west from the refuge of losers between the Volga and Emba. There were corny few of them. And this did not prevent them from conquering the Sarmatians, who were armed to the teeth and did not suffer (to put it mildly) from pacifism/Alan and Ostrogotov. At the same time, the Visigoths and part of the Sarmatians who fled from them caused Rome problems up to lethal ones. To invent another basic explanation other than the technical superiority fully supported by archaeology... is VERY strange.

If you are proposing a technical reason for the Huns becoming a major power in the Danube basin, you need to provide support for that. Halsall specifically rejects Heather's theory that the Huns had a particular technological advantage in their mounted archery compared to other steppe cultures. In The Huns by EA Thompson he quotes your favorite author, Vegetius, who wrote that the Romans of his day "have improved the weaponry of their cavalry after the example of the Goths, Alans, and Huns". Evidently Vegetius there did not think the Hunnic advantage in mounted archery you allege they had was notable enough to separate them from Goths and Alans.

It was a text addressed to the Emperor. At the same time, if Vegetius wrote the first book on his own initiative, then the next three by order of the emperor.

Again, De Re Militari was not some sort of Roman army bible.

We also have Vegetius’ Epitome of Military Science. This is sometimes thought to be fifth-century but was more plausibly written c.390 and is not, in any case, as wargames writers often seem to think, a military manual. It is a treatise written by an armchair military theorist, which we do not know for sure was ever used in practice by anyone. Using Vegetius as a window on the late Roman army is vitiated as an approach by the fact that Vegetius himself is quite clear that he is describing how the army should be, not how it is. Sometimes I think that using Vegetius’ writings to find out how the army was is a bit like to get a view of the British army in 2007 from letters to the Daily Mail by Major Buffington-Smythe (Army Pay Corps, ret’d) of Tonbridge Wells: ‘Things have gone to the dogs since we had a jolly old empire, don’t you know, when legionaries were big stout hearted fellows, not the namby-pamby shorties we have today who can’t carry a full load of armour, and when we didn’t have to fill out the ranks with filthy Johnny Barbar, hey what? Why yes, perhaps I will have another gin.’ Vegetius is a useful source, with much to tell us and numerous invaluable snippets of information, but he is certainly not, as wargames writers often treat him as being, the Official Roman Army Manual or the Military Intelligence Handbook of the Late Roman Army.

https://darkagewargaming.wordpress....e-part-4a-fifth-century-armies-basic-aspects/

"But when, with the advent of negligence and the desire for idleness, the exercise in the field began to stop, it was considered that the weapon was very heavy, since the soldiers rarely began to wear it. Therefore, the warriors began to demand from the emperor first regarding the shells, and then the helmets... to refuse"
Terribly improbable. The problem is that
1. In Russia there were problems with the discipline of the army just twenty years ago, and the first victim of them were bulletproof vests.

I'm afraid I don't get what you are trying to demonstrate here.

2. The crisis of the 3rd century with the leapfrog of soldier emperors definitely led to a sharp reduction in the use of armor.

How? What is the mechanism for that?

3. Are you sure that at the end of the 4th century the Roman army was as prosperous as ever?

It certainly wasn't poor, certainly not as devastated as it was during the Crisis of the Third Century,

1. How can archaeology generally show a decrease in the use of available armor by soldiers
2. At the same time, in reality, it shows this.
Most of the late Roman images of soldiers are without armor.
There are practically no finds of helmets of the 3rd century.
Helmets of the 4th century are peculiar. "The next infantry helmets appear more than a hundred years later. They can be called helmets of the Intersyza type, from the Intersyza in Hungary, where at least four such helmets have been found. These helmets are nothing like the early Legionary helmets. They are made of iron, of very rough construction, and consist of two halves connected along the ridge."
That is, even helmets were made poorly. The advanced lorica segmentata disappears. Are you sure that such an "industry" has flooded the army with armor?

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you are quoting or what you are trying to show here. Because a some art elected not to depict Roman soldiers with armor, it wasn't used? That because helmet design changed over time, armor wasn't used?

This was written in 1948. 73 years have passed since then.

Version I have is a revised edition from the early 90s, revised by Peter Heather.

There are a huge pile of Hun artifacts, both Asian and European. Genetic studies show a mixture of Saka Scythians with East Asians.

I'm curious how a burial (or artifacts) can be identified as Hunnic with such a level of precision, did they leave a sign 'this is a hun' in the pit?

At the same time, even in 1948, the ingenious ideas of the islanders were distinguished by a fair amount of freakishness. Yes, someone has not read the ancient authors again. The Huns were connected with the Khunnoi by Marcellinus

Whats this with the hating on British historians?
As far as the connection with the Khunnoi, I think you got some things turned around:

Denis Sinor argued that the origins of the Huns cannot be established beyond what it is said in the work of Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus: Ammianus said that the Huns dwelled beyond the Sea of Azov next to "the frozen ocean" before they entered Europe, though Sinor does not take "frozen ocean" literally.[35] Both he and Maenchen-Helfen, meanwhile, note that Ammianus refers to the Huns having been "little known", not unknown, before they appeared in 370: they [ie Sinor and Maenchen-Helfen] connect this with a mention of a people called the Khounoi by the geographer Ptolemy in the mid-second century.[50][51]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Huns
Ammianus simply noted they are unknown to history, living beyond the Maeotic Marshes beside the frozen ocean.

That is, boilers, tips, etc. from Hunnic Mongolia migrated to the Hunnic Northern Black Sea region separately from the owners, but ended up there at the same time as the Huns?

There is literally no evidence to support the idea the Huns were the Hsiung-Nu or came from what is now Mongolia. It was an idea dreamt up by an 18th century Frenchmen because he thought the names sounded similar.
After looking over the conclusion and some of the detailed sections, here is a paper that makes it clear on no meaningful grounds can the Hsiung-Nu be associated with the Huns.
https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/112546/ucalgary_2020_sun_xumeng.pdf?sequence=3

What relation do the Chernyakhovs have to the Hun question?

It was more a general reference to the difficulties in dealing with even well established material cultures in outer Europe.

Really?
"According to Kulikowski, the Goths were mostly of non-Gothic descent, being a population formed from a "large number of [non-Gothic] indigenes and a small number of [Gothic] migrants under the pressure of Roman imperialism, and in the shadow of the Empire"

In this reality
1. The fact that Chernyakhovskaya culture was polyethnic is a common place
2. The fact that the Velbar component in it was also locally (exactly where Goths should be), too.

Kulikowski in Rome's Gothic Wars throws quite a bit of doubt on the linking of the Wielbark culture with the Gothic migration alleged by Jordanes, beyond that I'm not entirely sure what you are aiming for. The ethnogenesis of the Goths is a well explored topic in historiography, as is the idea that a material culture does not imply a social culture.

EDIT: I left out some bits because I don't feel like getting into a quote-war with you and wanted to stay focused on the core discussion. If you felt I failed to address a key point, let me know.

 

[pecheneg]

How and source? If you point to archaeology and grave goods, how do we know it was part of the group that became the Huns and not one of the many other groups in the region such as the Akatziri?

Akatziri according to the dominant version is a variant of the Huns

Did they helpfully write "this is a Hunnic bow" before interring it?

Do you seriously think that historians consider weapons to be Hunnish because they want to? For example.
"Completely unknown among the Sarmatians, such arrowheads are characteristic of Hunno-Hunnic weapons. They appear in the monuments of Mongolia (Noin-Ula) and Transbaikalia (Ilmovaya Pad) at the end of the II - I centuries BC... Tiered (armor-piercing) tips are not found among any people of that time, except the Xiongnu."

Further, if the Romans were as familiar with horse archers as you are saying, surely the Huns doing something totally new and innovative would be noted by Roman chroniclers, especially as the Huns spent a good chunk of the 5th century fighting alongside Roman notables (such as Flavius Aetius) against Goths and other Romans.

And how many "Roman chroniclers" understood the technical details of the bow? Surnames, addresses, appearances.

By 17 years after Adrianople, I assume you are referring to the Huns of Uldin?

Of course not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Huns#:~:text=The history of the Huns,borders of the Roman Empire

Either way, not sure what that has to do with the withdrawal of legions from the Rhine in the Western Empire;

Both have the most direct relation to the growing chaos in the empire, which somewhat hindered the thoughtful and mass writing of tactics about the Hunnic bows and not only

Rome was sacked by Alaric, yes, but the sack was the culmination of several years of political maneuvering between Honorius, Stilicho, Alaric, and the Italian aristocracy. Alaric was acting like a late Roman general in securing high office for himself and his followers inside the Roman state, because kingdoms are for losers.

And? Did this somehow prevent him from fighting the Romans, plundering the empire, besieging Rome twice and plundering it on the third attempt? One list of the deeds of this "legitimist" is impressive.

If you are proposing a technical reason for the Huns becoming a major power in the Danube basin, you need to provide support for that

Halsall specifically rejects Heather's theory that the Huns had a particular technological advantage in their mounted archery compared to other steppe cultures.

Are you seriously referring to a character who isn't sure if the Huns used a bow at all? And just out of ignorance,

In The Huns by EA Thompson he quotes your favorite author, Vegetius,.

What do you mean, my beloved? The official historical science trusts him.

who wrote that the Romans of his day "have improved the weaponry of their cavalry after the example of the Goths, Alans, and Huns". Evidently Vegetius there did not think the Hunnic advantage in mounted archery you allege they had was notable enough to separate them from Goths and Alans.

1. The funny thing is, the Goths had no horse archers at all
2. So you think that the Goths and Sarmatians/Alan had nothing to borrow but a bow? For some reason, the Romans thought otherwise

Again, De Re Militari was not some sort of Roman army bible.

What does the "Bible" have to do with it? Do you think that Vegetius described the armament of the Roman army with gross errors in the first book, and therefore the emperor ordered him three more?

https://darkagewargaming.wordpress....e-part-4a-fifth-century-armies-basic-aspects/

Aren't you tired of referring to a character who makes the grossest mistakes in military matters?

I'm afraid I don't get what you are trying to demonstrate here.

Exactly what I wrote. Drop in discipline = refusal to use armor up to and including helmets. Vegetius didn't describe anything that isn't happening somewhere right now.

How? What is the mechanism for that?

See above + production crisis. At the same time, I repeat - a sharp decrease in the use of armor is an archaeological fact.

It certainly wasn't poor, certainly not as devastated as it was during the Crisis of the Third Century,

True, the reign of Gordianus, to which Vegetius refers another unsuccessful crisis, was preceded by the uprising of Procopius, caused by mass discontent (obviously from a good life) and accompanied by a mass transfer of troops to the side of this very Procopius. Then there was Mauritania in a similar scenario. Order and discipline just blossomed, yes.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you are quoting or what you are trying to show here. Because a some art

Coincidentally coinciding with the archaeological disappearance of helmets, yes?

IThat because helmet design changed over time, armor wasn't used?

That is, you preferred not to notice a sharp decrease in the quality of helmets?