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Two incredibly different questions for you guys: First, can someone tell me more about ancient (pre-Goryeo dynasty ~900AD) Korean armies and their tactics? Where should I go to learn more? Second, something that has been bugging me for a long time. What the gently caress is up with the Battle of Cannae? At the Trebia two years earlier 10,000 of the Romans were able to form a shield block and break out of the trap in good order. At Cannae I read stories about how it took hours for the people in the middle to of the ranks to actually get involved in the fighting. How come none of the Romans were able to organize into a shield block and break through the thin line that was encircling them. Granted many of the troops were hardened Carthaginian mercenaries but many of Hannibals troops were celtic peoples who pretty much were not equipped to deal with legionaries. Yes it was dusty and visibility might play a part in their lack of cohesion but this problem affected the Carthaginians equally.
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Dec 10, 2010 02:16
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So guys, History of Rome v. Hardcore History. http://podcastawards.com/ Who deserves the vote? I find hardcore history infinitely more entertaining but Dan Carlin is sort of annoying whereas Mike Duncan is solidly plodding along through the history of rome while managing to stay entertaining. Its almost apples and oranges comparing a 1hr+ show to a 20 minute show.
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Dec 10, 2010 20:05
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just repeating my earlier question in the hopes someone can point me in the right direction. whats a good source for learning about "ancient" korean armies from the Bronze age through to about 1000CE?
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Dec 16, 2010 01:14
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thanks a lot for the recommendations admiral snackbar! I really appreciate it. I'm not sure if this is allowed in the thread but I am currently researching/writing/producing/narrating a korean history podcast. I'm hoping to debut in January with 5 episodes covering the neolithic to the end of the three kingdoms period. I've got 15,000 words on paper so if anyone has any advice they'd like to give me before I start yapping on the mic over christmas break please don't hold back! I'm not a korean or a korean nationalist or anything annoying like that in case anyone was curious. I just wanted to do something that hasn't already been done. I keep hearing so many history podcasts doing the same freaking topics over and over again and I know I can do something fresh and interesting, even if it doesn't have the same sex appeal as ancient rome or WWII. I've really been enjoying the history networks "Ancient Warfare Magazine" podcast but they've done 18 episodes without even mentioning Asia, the Americans or sub-saharan Africa. To be fair, I've never read the magazine so I don't know what topics are covered in the print version. Sometimes I feel like most history podcasts are geared towards my old british relatives who just want to hear the same stories about the good old days when whitey was on top instead of anything that is actually new or challenging. edit: As far as I can tell there is no English translation of the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, correct?
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Dec 17, 2010 05:47
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Thanks for the long reply Will2Powa! Do you have any specific sources for me?
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Dec 17, 2010 05:51
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w/r/t roman legions becoming obsolete -> cavalry. Legions just didn't have the same mobility. They'd march out into the desert, the Parthians would harass them with horse archers and disease, lack of food and sun did the rest. Legions are pretty useless if the enemy won't come to a set piece battle.
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Dec 24, 2010 19:14
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Hey guys so being as this is the "unofficial" SA history thread I thought this was good place to post this, I really hope it doesn't count as spam. This isn't a commercial venture or anything, just a pet project/hobby of mine. For the last few months I've been researching, writing and recording the  RSS Feed Please feel free to criticize. Ive never even picked up a microphone or done anything creative like this before. Basically this podcast is a ripoff of/homage to Mike Duncans "The History of Rome", Dan Carlins "Hardcore History" and Lars Brownworth's "Norman Centuries". The main difference is that I lack experience/skill/technical knowledge. I am tackling an obscure topic in Asian history that most people in the Anglosphere know nothing about. So far I have released three ~20 minute episodes covering prehistoric Korea to the first century CE.
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Jan 26, 2011 03:38
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I think they played an important role during the battle of the trebia. They died shortly afterwards in the cold weather. I think the only reason people focus on them so much is because they're one of the few instances of elephants being used in european land battles.
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Jan 26, 2011 04:55
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uinfuirudo posted:I wanted to ask what people more educated than me think about the Gaya/Kaya Confederacy. I know that the Korean texts tend to be very dismissive of them, while the Japanese historians have claimed them to be a "military outpost." Well the Japanese recieved Buddhism from the Korean kingdom of Paekche in the 6th century and yes they definitely were a lot more alike than either side would like to admit. We know from King Gwanggaeto's memorial stele that he dispatched a force of tens of thousands from the Kingdom of Goguryeo to aid the peoples of the south against the Wa peoples (the Japanese) but this doesn't specifically differentiate between the Gaya confederacy and random groups of Japanese pirates. Gaya might have been a military/trading outpost but the idea of it exercising real political control over the area is highly unlikely. The whole idea is only plausible if the Japanese had an extreme technological edge over the peoples of the Korean penisula, but they didn't. Japan was farther away from China than Korea and as such they were probably technologically underdeveloped compared to the Korean kingdoms. The history texts I have read made it seem like as soon as Paekche and Silla got their poo poo together it was pretty much over for Gaya. Gaya was on prime land - the Nakdong River basin was the most important source of iron ore on the Korean peninsula. It was not a question of if, but when. Gaya probably only existed because the proto-states of southern korea were so decentralized and so focused on other problems. On a side note the Japanese colonization of Korea is mind bogglingly complex. I mean, when Paekche was under attack by the Silla-Tang alliance, Paekche asked for and recieved aid from the Japanese. The sources make it clear that the Japanese entered the war because of a sort of confucian brotherly obligation. and then theres this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimizuka THE LUMMOX fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Jan 27, 2011 |
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Jan 27, 2011 09:04
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Hey i hope I don't get banned for posting this in TFR but I am interested in reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Whats the best translation? What should I expect...I've been told its the Chinese Illiad. Is it possible to follow without a pre-existing knowledge of Chinese history?
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Jan 31, 2011 01:32
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Grand Prize Winner posted:edit: okay, Asian history guy says that you'll probably want to wiki-search Chinese history for that period before you read it but that should be enough. I forgot to ask him about a translation and he just went back to sleep, sorry. Ok sweet. Ya i basically have a wiki level knowledge of Ancient China + about 200 hours of the Dynasty Warriors franchise so hopefully I'm set. Thanks
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Jan 31, 2011 03:04
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Revolvyerom posted:And that Iwo Jima dialogue is something else, goddamn. Yah primary sources own hard, its too bad things like that don't exist for older periods.
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Feb 1, 2011 05:59
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Deception posted:I am a historian on the Roman/Byzantine era and while I agree with you that Alexander excelled in almost everything he did, I swear to god no one gives any credit to in my opinion the greatest general in antiquity, Flavius Belisarius, Justinian's general in his re-conquest of Rome. This man has almost no literature written about him, yet based on the sources of his conquest, he was a genius. One of the few episodes of the Ancient Warfare magazine podcast that I actually enjoyed was about Belasarius. They had Ian Huges, author of Belasarius: The Last Roman General as a guest and he basically destoryed the narrative that the machinations of Justinian and Theodora prevented a Byzantine reconquest of the west. The plague, the massive border that had to be defended and the fact that most Byzantine soldiers were not fit for anything more than garrison duty made it 100% impossible for Belasarius to hold any of his gains in Italy. Besides, Rome fell for many reasons other than just military ones, and so a strictly military victory would never be able to put it back together again. Whats the opinion of Lars Brownworth's "Lost to the West"? I think its a great introduction to the topic but its heavy on "Great men" and light on social history. Also at times it trends a little bit towards  MUSLIMS
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May 22, 2011 11:27
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GyverMac posted:Speaking of podcasts, my favorites so far are Lars Brownworths 12 Byzantine rulers and Norman centuries podcast series, and Dan Carlins Hardcore history series. (strongly recommend Dan Carlins Ostfront series, its really well done. However be warned, its in five part with each episode lasting approx 90 minutes each.) Well obviously theres The History of Rome which is (objectively! :P ) the best history podcast that has ever been done. Although, once its over I don't think I'll be interested in anything Rome related for at least a decade. Theres also.........mine if you're interested in learning about a topic that most people don't know a lot about. If you are breathing oxygen and can point to Korea on a map, start on episode II.
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May 23, 2011 00:24
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Konstantin posted:iTunesU has a couple of podcasts of history courses. One I particularly recommend the Columbia University course "History of the Modern Middle East" taught by Richard Bulliet. Whats the tone of these iTunesU podcasts like? Are they straight recordings of university lectures? Will I hear random people coughing and cell phones going off?
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May 23, 2011 01:30
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Hey military history goons can I please get some help with chinese dynasty pronunciations: Tang dynasty Sui dynasty Emperor Taizong Liao river Much appreciation 
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Aug 5, 2011 09:35
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Thanks a lot for your help. Can you please clarify Tang? So its pronounces like Tahng? Or Tong? Or Tohng? Sorry, i have no linguistic background and I don't understand the formal notation and terms used to describe sounds. Thanks again for your help.
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Aug 5, 2011 14:07
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This is really awesome article about the wars between the Chinese Sui dynasty and the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo between 598-614. The second invasion of 611/612 involved the largest army fielded since the second Persian invasion of Greece. A size which would not be matched again until at least the 15th century. Here's a cool excerpt to show to organization of the Sui army and just how epic this war was. Read the whole article here. Armchair General Magazine posted:The military forces that had gathered at Zhuo deserves some special attention, so we will examine it. The heart of the Sui Army was a force named the 24 Armies. Each of these was theoretically identical to the other, making them an uniform force. At the heart of each army was 40 dui (companies) of heavy cavalry, each comprised of a 100 men. Ten dui of cavalry formed a tuan (battalion) of 1,000 men. So there was 4 tuan of heavy cavalry at the heart of each army, comprised of 4,000 men. The infantry was organized into eighty dui, which was also 100 men strong each. Infantry tuan were formed of twenty dui to a tuan of 2,000. So each army had 4 tuan of infantry, comprised of 8,000. An additional 4 tuan of unknown soldiers and unknown numbers guarded the baggage train. Finally there was a special dui of 200 horse archers attached to the Headquarters of each army. Command was shared by the Senior General and Deputy General. The war was eventually won by the Kingdom of Goguryeo because the Sui Dynasty could not produce enough Panzer Mark V's to replace their losses on the eastern front.
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Aug 17, 2011 03:13
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The Dan Carlin - Hardcore History podcast episode "Scars of the Great War" does a great job of talking about the nationalist mentality of 1914 and how those people put up with that poo poo for years before revolting, whereas now people wouldn't sit through a week of trench warfare. His hypothesis (which I think is a bit of a stretch) is that the people who went into WWI were an entirely different breed of people.
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Sep 14, 2011 09:37
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15452071Beeb posted:"The wreck of a ship thought to have taken part in a failed Mongol invasion of Japan has been found off the Japanese coast.
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Oct 26, 2011 07:19
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Rabhadh posted:The Ancient Warfare Magazine Podcast has done some good stuff on Hellenistic and Roman warfare, well worth a listen. I just wish they'd make them more frequently. I like the round table discussion format but theres not a single episode on anything east of the Persians. Its a Eurocentric circle jerk of the worst kind.
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Nov 2, 2011 02:12
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Cataphract Paladin posted:Though I'd agree - they could use quite a bit of studies on the Chinese Warring State era. That period was pure, undiluted epic. Well I think its just they have a limited pool of "experts/friends" to come on the show and it seems like theyre all interested in ancient european history. The episode when they brought on the Belisarius guy was great, because he had a unique perspective. Maybe its difficult to convince random asian/american military history experts to do an hour long skype show for what I assume is little or no money. I don't blame them but the name "Ancient Warfare Magazine" is positively misleading if they never plan to branch out of Europe. The amount of source material for ancient chinese history alone is just staggering.
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Nov 2, 2011 02:23
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feedmegin posted:Again though, slaves, not peasants. Slaves belong to people, peasants belong to the land. I'd say it's fair to compare the lower classes in one society with the lower classes in another. Whether or not it's called a "peasant rebellion" the Haitian Revolution owned hard and it is a shame that it's not more widely known. The Black Jacobins is one of the most eye opening books I have ever read. The San Domingo colony was the most valuable piece of land in the world and something like 1/5 of all the Ancien Regime's revenue came from Haiti's sugar.
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Feb 7, 2012 18:35
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Well as far as the evidence goes, Sargon of Akkad led the first force that we would recognize as an 'army' and he managed to keep tens of thousands supplied in the field. This is a super interesting topic though so I hope someone else can chime in.
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Feb 20, 2012 09:10
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Farecoal posted:Was the Republic of China officially a part of the Allies during World War 2? Also, why did Germany decide to ally with Japan instead of China? Up until some point in the 1930s Japan really had the west convinced that they were "the good ones." An oasis of modernity and progress in the stagnant orient. They wore suits, used western style buildings, sent students to western schools, and had massive lobby groups throughout America and Europe promoting their image. They probably would have been allowed to continue indefinitely had they not started stepping on western toes.  That's the capital of the Japanese colonial government in Seoul in the distance. It would be right at home in any western city.  Seoul Station.  The customs office in Busan.  They had snappy fashion. These are two Japanese men photographed in Canada in 1910.  The man being led away by the guys in suits is Lee Bong-chang. He tossed a 'nade at Emperor Hirohito. Note the guy with the Chaplin (this was 1932 so do I have to call it the Hitler yet?) stache in the back. THE LUMMOX fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Feb 28, 2012 |
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Feb 28, 2012 17:18
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During the Siege of Kusong fortress in 1231 the Mongols boiled down prisoners into fat and used the fat to build terrifying fire bombs which they launched over the walls with catapults. Did the Mongols use this tactic anywhere else?
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Mar 22, 2012 14:33
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Yah the evidence is fairly thin, that's why I asked. From a brief search I couldn't find another instance of it happening anywhere else but it doesn't seem too far fetched considering their well documented use of human shields and building piles of skulls. I'm just wondering if this happened anywhere else. I get the feeling that maybe a bunch of bored Mongols decided to make a single bomb containing some human fat and then it got turned into a legendary story. I've read it in a bunch of secondary sources, but they are all based on the Annals of the Goryeo Dynasty.
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Mar 22, 2012 16:21
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Anyone else get a little  listening to Mike Duncan announce the end of the History of Rome podcast?
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Mar 31, 2012 13:45
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So how about this dude: William F. Dean (right) quote:For two days, the 34th Infantry fought the advancing North Koreans in bitter house-to-house fighting. North Korean soldiers continued to infiltrate the city, often disguised as farmers. The remaining elements of the 24th Infantry Division were pushed back block by block. Without radios, and unable to communicate with the remaining elements of the division, Dean joined the men on the front lines, hunting the T-34 tanks with the help of the new shaped-charge, armor-piercing 3.5 inch "Super Bazookas", which had only been put into production two weeks before the war. At one point, Dean personally attacked a tank with a hand grenade, destroying it. Also, you might be surprised to know that the Republic of Korea recently formed its very own Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate, among other things, the 200,000-1,200,000 political prisoners killed during the war. 
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Apr 11, 2012 13:53
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Rabhadh posted:Why did anyone think that bombing civilians would work? Did anyones experiences in Spain show it to be an effective stragety? Or did everyone just invest so much in bombers during the 30s that they had to use them, and mass bombing raids was their only effective use? How about a 2.5 hour discussion on the topic?
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Apr 22, 2012 03:46
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LimburgLimbo posted:Those are Zouaves I've seen glory several times and not once did I notice those guys. Really cool.
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May 2, 2012 14:30
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So what was naval combat like in the post-classical/pre-gunpowder age? Say 500-1200? Did they still just ram each other with pointy things and then try and board?
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May 3, 2012 05:58
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Hey if anyone is interested I just posted the latest episode of my Korean history podcast. It's about the Mongol invasions of Japan in the 13th century.
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May 4, 2012 06:21
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I don't understand how mass human wave attacks beat overwhelming air power. Their wouldn't be a single DPRK plane in the sky after the first hour and the area north of Seoul is so mountainous. There is a tremendous defensive advantage. If anyone is interested here are some pics I took of ROK fortifications on Bonghwa mountain in Seoul. As you can see, they are a little dusty and clearly havent been used in several years. But I do know there are tunnels dug into the mountain with poorly hidden trapdoors and that connect the pillboxes to other parts of the mountain. I don't have a pic because an old dude (understandably) raged on me for trying to take pics of them. I'm not sure about the status of these fortifications because I have been to other mountains in Seoul that are a lot more strict -Requiring me to surrender my passport, no photography etc.      This is the kind of terrain the emaciated DPRK soldiers will have to cross with no air support. Not to mention how fast the advance would stop as soon as they reached the suburbs and started eating/looting. The capital is currently being moved to a new planned city, called Sejong City. e: And actually only a small part of the city is within range of the ancient, poorly maintained DPRK artillery. The suburbs and northwest yes, but definitely everything south of the Han is unreachable. ROK Drop is a pretty good USFK milblog and they are convinced the DPRK don't even have the oil to properly maintain their guns and that a good portion of them will explode and kill their crew the first time they are actually used. THE LUMMOX fucked around with this message at 15:32 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 9, 2012 15:28
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SeanBeansShako posted:Well it is good to know if the balloon went up, half the city isn't going to burn and the casulties won't be horrible for the innocents. Actually the reason for moving the capital is only in part because of the DPRK. It's a major problem where Seoul is a giant magnet that sucks up all the young and talented people leaving an aged and uneducated countryside. A city full of unemployed young university graduates and a countryside that has to import farm workers from south asia. What is this "balloon"? Is it a metaphor or a real thing? THE LUMMOX fucked around with this message at 15:41 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 9, 2012 15:39
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Nenonen posted:Can we maybe please stop talking about Korean hypotheticals, as they have nothing to do with military history? Thank you. It's better than the WWII OSTRFRONT circlejerk that gets rehashed every 5 pages, and the situation on the Korean peninsula is basically living history. We talked about why Seoul won't get destroyed and I posted some (hopefully) interesting pictures that none of you have seen before. Anyway, I recently finished re-reading Right Hand of the Sun. It is historical fiction but lots of the events are documented in other places. It's a gripping read. Obviously colonialism was horrible but I'll be damned if Cortes' breakout from the Aztec capital on "The Sad Night" isn't a hell of a story. What are some other battles involving war canoes?
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May 11, 2012 01:56
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Well obviously this is the place for WWII chat and I don't want to poo poo on anyone's interest but just trying to remind everyone that there are several thousand years of other important and incredibly interesting events in military history. But this is the marketplace of ideas and all that jazz. If goons want WWII then WWII it is. I don't want to poo poo up a good thread anymore than I already have.
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May 11, 2012 02:51
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Well never underestimate the man eating Badger.
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May 11, 2012 03:18
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Just a friendly reminder that: 1.) History is  as poo poo2.) Buddhism is an incredibly diverse religion. 3.) Warrior monks are awesome.  "Kim Yun-hu" - The Battle of Cheoin Fortress  "Hyujong Commanding Buddhist Volunteer Army for Retaking Pyongyang Castle from the Japanese"
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Jun 17, 2012 09:29
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ArchangeI posted:Even earlier, the career of an Admiral may well have started at age 10, when he became a naval ensign. Child soldier? What about cadet academies? Or princes in medieval times accompanying their father on campaign to learn the trade? So true. I'm reading about King Taejong right now and he was helping his daddy fight pirates as a preteen. I think there is an important distinction between the children of aristocrats fighting for their careers etc and commoner children being pressed into service. That scene in Master & Commander where the cadet gets killed was pretty
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Jun 22, 2012 13:40
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