Has technology removed all honour and skill from warfare?

[SckizoBoy]

I'd personally rather fight a war with swords and spears and shit instead of guns, because it's true, nowadays you can have the most experienced, hardened soldier that there is, and all it takes is for him to step on an IED and it's game over. Look at the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors held off an army of Persians estimated to be around the million mark. If that was, say, 300 SAS men against even 2000 Taliban insurgents, I reckon the Taliban would end up winning.

Context, my friend, context. And Thermopylae is always misrepresented... 4000 hoplites lead by 300 Spartans vs 125000 (logistical maximum considered by modern historians).

As for that SAS vs Taliban, it depends on the setting. If it's urban, hard to say, though I'd tip it to the SAS because they'll move far better as a team and pick off stray insurgents as they run circles around them. If it's British woodland, the insurgents won't have a hope in hell IMO, even if there are 2000 of them. Come to think about it, the only context in which I see the Taliban winning is open ground... -_-

 

[rayen020]

oh don't even start. I used to frequent gaia online forums and there was a thread there like this that had like 800 pages. The flaming got so bad they eventually locked it out. Then a new one was made and last time i logged in it had like 200 pages.

Honor is bullshit. Always has been. There are young people around the world being murdered to save their family's honor. That moroccan girl had to marry her rapist by court order to save some fucking honor. It's bullshit. I think i can live through some dishonor, who cares.

I'd say wars and battles are bit more impersonal now, which is something i'm not okay with, but going back to swords and spears is just not happening. And how is shooting someone with a rifle or destroying a building with a cruise missle any less honorable than using a bow and arrow or trebuchets launching boulders?

Skill is still required. maybe not a lifetime of training skill, but skill is required. And maybe not to make kills but not getting killed takes a fair bit of skill.

 

[Gigano]

Was there ever any honour and skill to warfare to begin with?

Even when fought with bows and swords, warfare still often came down to numbers, tactics, terrain, timing, maintaining proper supply lines, proper intelligence on the situation, surroundings, and enemy forces, better armour and armament, having horses etc. etc.

It probably seems far easier to kill an enemy you're only seeing as a white thermal dot on a computer screen though. But such vast superiority have always existed in warfare, as have dehumanization of the enemy; before the enemy was a white thermal dot he was a heretic, a savage, or something else unworthy of human treatment.

War never really change, the stakes just get upped now and then, as ever more efficient and deadly armament comes along.

 

[RJ 17]

The "honor" and "skill" as seen with face-to-face combat involving swords and shields has been replaced by the "honor" of not killing any civilians when you use your "skill" to guide a missile at an enemy compound in the middle of a town.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

I'd personally rather fight a war with swords and spears and shit instead of guns, because it's true, nowadays you can have the most experienced, hardened soldier that there is, and all it takes is for him to step on an IED and it's game over. Look at the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors held off an army of Persians estimated to be around the million mark. If that was, say, 300 SAS men against even 2000 Taliban insurgents, I reckon the Taliban would end up winning.

It's actually a huge amount more about luck than it is skill nowadays.

Actually it was 300 Spartan warriors and around 2000 Greek soldiers. Also have you seen the casualty reports from Iraq?

US: 4,487 casualties
UK: 179 casualties
Insurgents: Last known count as of 2007: 19,000

Shows that properly trained soldiers and operatives have an advantage in combat. People act as if guns are as simple as point and click when the truth is that it takes years of practice to be a accurate marksman.

 

[senordesol]

Terrain, maneuvering, and psychology. These are what carry battles; not so much individual skill. Put your knights in a valley, and they'll have to deal with a rain of arrows. Have your spear line facing the wrong way, and the we'll see just how far cavalry can fit up your ass.

The battle of Thermopylae was not about the individual skill of the Spartans (or the Athenians, or the other roughly 3,000 Greeks who were also there - Frank Miller's lies be damned), but the fact that natural barriers made the Persians numbers count for naught. Once they were outmaneuvered, however, they were killed dead.

Training and equipment is important, but has always set a baseline of competency than as an indicator of survivability.

Of course, I always smile at anyone who overly-glamorizes armed conflict as some 'contest of honour' when war has ever and always been about brutal slaughter and impossible Hail Mary moments.

 

[DoPo]

Almost everything that kills you in ancient warfare was preventable, for example, you would not have been disembowelled if you had parried, or you would not have an arrow in the knee if you had had your shield up.

And you wouldn't be trampled on by an elephant if you weren't on the battlefield. And you wouldn't be scalded to painful death, if you weren't trying to lay siege. Oh wait, that's rather like modern war - it's not exactly under your control.

 

[Esotera]

That sort of implies that there was ever consistently honour in warfare.

As for skill, look at how the Libyan rebels fire their guns, then look at how the SAS fire their guns. Skill is very much still there, it's just that most modern wars have involved one side with a disproportionate amount of firepower (such as air strikes) that mean skill doesn't need to be used as often.

 

[Thaluikhain]

"By Heracles! A man's valor is dead." - Archidamus of Sparta seeing a catapult fire.

US: 4,487 casualties
UK: 179 casualties
Insurgents: Last known count as of 2007: 19,000

Shows that properly trained soldiers and operatives have an advantage in combat. People act as if guns are as simple as point and click when the truth is that it takes years of practice to be a accurate marksman.

How many of those were from infantry weapons fire, though?

 

[Kahunaburger]

Look at the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors held off an army of Persians estimated to be around the million mark. If that was, say, 300 SAS men against even 2000 Taliban insurgents, I reckon the Taliban would end up winning.

Uhm...I know roughly everything people know about the battle of Thermopylae nowadays comes from the movie and comics "300", but how can people manage to notice that, even in that historical abomination, the greeks lost?

What? Zack Snyder and Frank Miller lied to me! Next thing, you'll tell me the Spartans were a brutal quasi-fascist society based on slave labor that didn't give a rat's ass about anything remotely close to "freedom" as we concieve of it.

 

[senordesol]

Look at the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors held off an army of Persians estimated to be around the million mark. If that was, say, 300 SAS men against even 2000 Taliban insurgents, I reckon the Taliban would end up winning.

Uhm...I know roughly everything people know about the battle of Thermopylae nowadays comes from the movie and comics "300", but how can people manage to notice that, even in that historical abomination, the greeks lost?

What? Zack Snyder and Frank Miller lied to me! Next thing, you'll tell me the Spartans were a brutal quasi-fascist society based on slave labor that didn't give a rat's ass about anything remotely close to "freedom" as we concieve of it.

And were certainly not diddling little boys! No sir! Not manly men such as them ._.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As for that SAS vs Taliban, it depends on the setting. If it's urban, hard to say, though I'd tip it to the SAS because they'll move far better as a team and pick off stray insurgents as they run circles around them. If it's British woodland, the insurgents won't have a hope in hell IMO, even if there are 2000 of them. Come to think about it, the only context in which I see the Taliban winning is open ground... -_-

The question is mostly irrelevant, though, the SAS don't fight 2,000 opponents in groups of 300, that isn't what they are there for.

Now, defeating that many in various forms, sure.

As for skill, look at how the Libyan rebels fire their guns, then look at how the SAS fire their guns. Skill is very much still there, it's just that most modern wars have involved one side with a disproportionate amount of firepower (such as air strikes) that mean skill doesn't need to be used as often.

I'd disagree. Yes, combined arms is a big thing, but that doesn't mean skill isn't involved. How much training does it take you to become a lieutenant? It's not exactly easy.

 

[Reiper]

I'd disagree. Yes, combined arms is a big thing, but that doesn't mean skill isn't involved. How much training does it take you to become a lieutenant? It's not exactly easy.

Well I am not sure rank is exactly reflective of your martial skill. Its really more a leadership / hierarchy thing. I mean, here in Canada, if you join the army with a university degree you are pretty much automatically a 2nd lieutenant

 

[the Dept of Science]

I think that this probably overestimates the honour and skill that was involved in ancient warfare.
Movies and videogames have probably given us this false idea of the honour and glory of battle in, say, the middle ages. However, when you came down to it and you have a crowd of 1000 poorly educated angry swordsmen squaring off against another crowd of 1000 poorly educated angry swordsmen, add some horses and arrows flying around the place and I suspect your chances of survival was dictated mainly by how far back you were standing.

Nowadays, I reckon its far harder to fly a plane than pretty much anything that was required of a Medieval or Roman soldier.

 

[Terminal Blue]

snip

I think you have a somewhat romanticized view of historical warfare.

Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world by getting a bunch of dudes to stand in formation with really long sticks and walk towards the enemy, who didn't have such long sticks.

The Romans conquered most of the known world by using very short stabbing swords which meant they could stand in very close formation and just march forward stabbing from behind huge shields.

Oda Nobunaga conquered most of Japan by giving peasants really long sticks and crude firearms and having them stand in formation, so when a samurai ran at them looking for a worthy enemy to engage he'd have to run through a load of bullets and pointy sticks.

The Scots beat the English several times by giving a load of peasants pointy sticks and having them stand in a big circle so these elite knights who had trained their entire lives couldn't find anywhere to charge.

The English beat the French by having large numbers of peasants fire their bows in generally the right direction and kill the horses out from under the French military elite.

Even the medieval knight itself was an indiscriminate combatant. Knights didn't generally rove around seeking honourable single combat with worthy enemies, they formed extremely tight formations and charged at the enemy with pointy sticks.

You could argue that modern warfare is far more personal and far more focused on individual ability than at any point in history. A modern soldier has to have an incredibly flexible pool of skills, whereas most medieval soldiers would simply learn how to stand in formation and hold a pointy stick.

Here's a historical image to illustrate.

 

[thylasos]

Honour and skill were always a pretense of the nobility, the aristocratic command, a way of distancing themselves from the fray of metal, blood, screaming, sinew, and rape.

 

[DJjaffacake]

If that was, say, 300 SAS men against even 2000 Taliban insurgents, I reckon the Taliban would end up winning.

This [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1530650/Gurkha-spirit-triumphs-in-siege-of-Nawzad.html] isn't quite that, but it comes close.

 

[HarryScull]

As per the title, do you think that as we have advanced technologically, the honour and martial skill aspects of warfare have been greatly diminished?

By honour, I mean that old fashioned warfare was simple, up close and personal. You were often fighting to protect your lands and families from massacre, and a single skilled warrior could make a difference even against difficult odds. The battle made you stand face to face with your enemy. I do not want to label modern war as "cowardly" but I do think it required a different kind of guts to wade into a melee of death, or to charge across a battlefield, sword held high. I think the transition to warfare from close range to long range has affected this. Today, the conflicts our soldiers are involved in are much more complex, and often times an individual soldier has no stake in what the conflict is over.

By skill, I mean that a medieval or Roman warrior for example, could train all their lives in the art of warfare, and could become exceptional in single combat. Almost everything that kills you in ancient warfare was preventable, for example, you would not have been disembowelled if you had parried, or you would not have an arrow in the knee if you had had your shield up. Modern warfare on the other hand, can get you killed in a million and one ways that you have no way of stopping or preventing. You can step on a land mine, a plane can drop a bomb, artillery can blow you to kingdom come. There are far more things that can kill you just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, so dumb luck has a far greater effect than skill.

It seems like individual far less relevant, since any emaciated 14 year old can pick up an ak-47, and be a threat to even a modern warrior who has trained their whole life.

honour: don't kid yourself that honour ever has or will exist in war, to even call war or killing some one honour is fucking wrong and its even worse to try and take the high ground on this issue

and even assuming that we can apply honour to war how is for example riding up to someone, stabbing them through the belly with a spear, having you'r warhorse run over them and then leaving to bleed out for a few painful hours while he cry pathetically for help and an escape for pain, even death while clutching what is left of his intestines honourable in any way?

now take into account that the guy on horse back is a highly trained, warrior from a noble family with years of experience and the guy he just killed was conscripted, dragged from his family, given about a months worth of training, leather armour and a shitty spear then sent to fight in a war he doesn't care about and won't benefit from...

you also talked about courage which again is a fucking insult, imagine how much courage it takes for a solder in Afghanistan to walk outside his base and patrol for hours knowing that at any point he could be hit by an ambush or a suicide bomber or an ambush and do that almost every day for 6 months and even compare it to then amount of courage it takes to fight in a melee is fucking insulting.

as for prtoecting your family, what do you think we are in Afghanistan for? shits and giggles? we went in as a result of al queda launching the 9/11 attacks and saying fuck you we are going to do it again, and they have launched repeated terrorist attacks, of which only afew successful and highly publicised (like 7/11) most are unsuccessful and not publicised but there are still far to many that happen and get next to 0 publicity (as in even searching for them was hard when I knew about the specific event and was using google)

admirably a samurai who would fight an honourable duel with a single opponent probably has more "honour" (again assuming death is in any way honourable) than your typical solder of today but that isn't war and a samurai wasn't your typical solder (even in japan the huge majority of troops used were from he peasant class with little to no training) as far as the british army goes their mission statement is to "protect the country and its interest overseas", which is as clear message as you can get about what our army's intentions are, backed up by a huge amounts of actions that have saved a lot of innocent lives and helped a huge number of people, but those don't get in the press because "British army does a good job" sells less papers than "we are fighting a tragic unwinnable war which benefits no one" and the part that really sickens me is that the 2nd headline isn't even true

skill: the fact that you even feel the need to discuss this shows how little knowledgeable you have of the subject matter, 100% of historians agree that in the last 100-200 years armies have become more professionally and skill filled and basically turned from 1/2 trained peasants backed up by a few (as in a 1:100 ratio) processionals to the highly sophisticated and skilled individual that is the modern solder, which takes years to train and works with a huge amount of equipment.

and that's not even mentioning people like attack helicopter pilots, which only 0.1% of humans are physically capable of doing and even that 0.1% take millions of dollars and 3-5 years to train...

(if you get bbc Iplayer they have a really good documentary on this subject, which I will try and link in a edit, but no promises so its worth looking for it yourself)

also the last fucking insult you made on a whole post of fucking insults was saying that luck is involved, which it is not. In war everything is skill, you used the example of mines and air support but and an infantrymen you take precautions against that and try and out skill the mine planters/pilots its not as though they just walk around randomly hoping they dont get "unlucky" and step on a mine/air support, fuck no! you take precautions against that shit and use skill to detect and deal with mines/air support and the same goes for anything else

also just in case my above comments haven't made it perfectly clear if you give a 14 year old kid with 0 training against a professional solder, the kid is literally 0 threat to the professional solder, he will win that battle 100:100 times easily


if the wall of text is to big to read just so you know I think you are 100% wrong and displays a level of ignorance and insult (intentional or not) rarely seen outside of fox news