Ask me about Military History!

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Ask me about Military History!

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Admiral Snackbar posted:

Well, if we go the Victor Davis Hanson route, it's obviously because Europeans have a superior culture! Sarcasm aside, this answer has been assumed by many historians, both professional and amateur, for a very long time. Interestingly enough, the first analysis to really blow this cultural explanation out of the water was done by a lawyer, not an historian. In Firearms: A Global History to 1700, Kenneth Chase provides a clear explanation of how geography was in fact the primary agent in the rejection of firearms by the Chinese, as opposed to their acceptance by Europeans. Quite frankly, I find that this single book does such an excellent job of explaining this course of events, I'll only give a brief synopsis plus the recommendation that everyone read this book. It provides a really great framework for understanding how geography plays a major role in all history, which is why I happen to think that geography should be given way more attention in public schools.

Anyway, here's the short version. China has existed in one form or another for about 3,000 years, and for much of that time it faced an implacable foe: the nomadic tribes of Central Asia. These tribes, such as the Mongols, were a constant threat to China's Northern and Western frontiers. This was a primary reason for China's lack of overseas expansion, as they were constantly looking over their shoulder at these troublesome territories. It was no coincidence that China's only period of naval expansion occured during the Yuan Dynasty, which was itself Mongolian. (Since they were Mongolians themselves, they did not need to worry about the Mongolians.) The rest of the time, the Chinese had to concentrate their defense efforts on confronting these nomadic tribes.

Now, if you were Chinese, how would you defend against wandering bands of barbarian cavalry? That's right, you would build a Great Wall! This is especially wise since labor is and always has been very cheap in China, given its very large population. Unfortunately, the nomads eventually figured out that they could just ride around the wall. So, the Chinese still had to deal with nomad cavalry, though admittedly fewer of them. The Chinese quickly learned that infantry based forces were of little use in this application, since they had difficulty fighting cavalry to begin with, and virtually no hope of either retreating from a stronger enemy or pursuing a weaker one. So, the Chinese fought fire with fire and adopted cavalry forces as their primary means to confront the nomads.

At some point in or around the 1st Century AD, the Chinese came up with a curious concoction that came to be known as gunpowder. This is the point at which the cultural interpretation of military history claims the Chinese missed an incredible opportunity because of their fear of change/mistrust of science/lack of rational thought/etc., seeing as how they did not immediately sieze upon the opportunity and proceed to dominate the world. However, just try to picture this: a Chinese cavalryman in hot pursuit of a Mongolian tribesman, riding his steed across the open plains of northern China, training the large, cumbersome barrel of an even larger, more cumbersome (not to mention unreliable) early firearm, trying to steady its bulk against the gyrations of the horse, hoping that the trigger creates a spark, and that this spark causes the bullet to fire rather than the gun to explode in his face. Wonder of wonders, the shot went off properly! But it missed due to the inaccuracy of early firearms. So, the cavalryman must stop his horse, perhaps dismount, and take a few minutes to reload. Meanwhile, the Mongolian tribesman has turned around and shot the Chinese cavalryman several times with his highly accurate and easily reloaded bow. It is easy to see why this course of action did not catch on too quickly in China.

In Europe, on the other hand, roaming hoards of cavalry were less of a problem. There, due to the close and compact nature of much of the terrain, fixed fortifications were more common. These targets were much more easily attacked by large, inaccurate, and slowly reloading gunpowder weapons. So, European armies had much more of an inducement to develop such weapons. Even so, they did not do so all at once. Gunpowder weapons took literally hundreds of years to gain a position of dominance on the European battlefield. Rather than get into all the specifics here, I again recommend Chase's excellent book.

But they did end up with some of their own gun/rocket technology didn't they? I remember reading somewhere that there were hand cannon regiments in the Ming.

# ¿ May 6, 2010 17:54

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 20:11

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Chade Johnson posted:

Oversimplified, Eurocentric, environmental determinism bullshit.

Truly, mocking 400 page long books that are without any basis in research or fact whatsoever does SO amuse one, doesn't it Henry?

# ¿ May 18, 2010 15:55

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

AgentF posted:

Would it have been so important to 'win'? You could strip Japan of its colonial possessions and sink their fleets and call it a day. You don't need to invade someone's homeland to win a war against them.

This is exactly the same mistake Fuchai the King of Wu made when fighting Goujian of Yue at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period.

Oh, and World War I too.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2010 06:52

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Chade Johnson posted:

The topic at hand is that the "American actions in Europe post WWII were more benevolent than the Soviets," which is laughable.

Maybe you should tell us more about East and West Germany, compare and contrast a bit.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2010 04:28

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

HeroOfTheRevolution posted:

He was a character in an epic novel. Unlike, say, Arthur, there's no doubt he existed historically but there's also no way to tell if his historical accomplishments match up to those in the novel.

Remember that the novel was written over one thousand years after the events. Think about it as an adaptation of the era in the same way that A Knight's Tale was an adaptation of an era. Um, or maybe The Once and Future King is a better analogy.

In the historical records, not the novel, he isn't all that. Anyway, Chinese history loves its exaggerated bullshit.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2010 17:19

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

HeroOfTheRevolution posted:

Everyone's history loves its exaggerated bullshit.

As for why there's so much recreation of the Three Kingdoms period (which, and I don't know much about Chinese history so don't quote me, I do not think was a particularly crucial era), I would assume it's because the novel is considered a staple of Chinese literature in the same way the Iliad and Odyssey are staples of Western literature and thus you see a lot of portrayals of the Trojan War.

The novel is actually not a novel. It's the compilation of thousands of historical documents, records, legends, and etc. written about a thousand years later. It's written in the style used by Chinese story tellers of the oral tradition, like all the "novels" written in China before they pushed the reset button on their literature in the Republican Period. If you want to look at the real historical records for it, look at the San Guo Zhi, ie Records of the 3 Kingdoms written not too long after the three kingdoms era. However, be warned it's a terrible historical narrative, and its the point at which the historical tradition, which like everything in China peaked at its inception with the Shiji, is considered to start going downhill. In any case, that poo poo has been popular in China ever since then, they even made some of those dudes gods. But anyway dude, compared with western histories, the Chinese love to rewrite and twist things around. I wouldn't trust anything a Chinese historian of the early periods put to paper...(mostly because when you catch on to what they're doing when they write, you'll realize accuracy isn't their goal at all, the expression of morality as they see it is) Also, they love making up poo poo when things don't fit together. In fact, the first book of the Shiji is just poo poo they made up, and which has, of course, been taken deadly seriously ever since.

Barto fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jul 18, 2010

# ¿ Jul 18, 2010 18:18

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

HeroOfTheRevolution posted:

Your description could be applied almost word-for-word to the most widely read and important pseudo-history in the Western world. I'll leave it up to your imagination what I'm talking about because if I name it directly I'll be opening a can of worms that doesn't belong in this thread, but the point is that Chinese historians certainly don't have a monopoly on that kind of thing.

We're pretty much in agreement about the inability to place the historical figure of a 2nd century Chinese statesman on an imagined list of 'the 10 greatest strategists' though. Wasn't the Romance blatantly biased towards Zhuge Liang's faction anyways?

Ya, Cao Cao wasn't actually that bad a guy, probably a military figure with a lot more actual reality to go with his reputation. Zhuge Liang's faction looking so nice in the book has a lot to do with Ming politics at the time (iirc)

And, ya that's true about the book which we shan't name, point taken.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2010 19:18

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Midnight- posted:

Can anyone recommend books on Roman military history? Mainly interested in the Caesers war in Gaul, or the civil war(s) that followed.

I heard this one was good.
http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html

# ¿ Aug 5, 2010 20:28

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Perestroika posted:

If I read his post history right, his last post on the whole forums was in this thread, in June.

I wonder why he ceased posting so suddenly. Hope nothing happened to him

Add him as a friend in the User Control Panel: he's on ALL the time. So completely fine I assume.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2010 01:29

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

DarkCrawler posted:

It's kind of sad how little we really know about Asian warfare in comparison to European wars because there are some massive battles and campaigns hidden in there.

I mean this is supposed to be the deadliest conflict after WWII and nobody really has heard about it. If Subutai had been an European with the same track record he would be right there in every list of greatest generals and military history mentions as well. I mean, everyone knows Genghis Khan, but not in any massive detail.

It's pretty well known to anyone born in Asia who wasn't asleep in high school. The femme fatale of the entire affair, Precious Consort Yang, is also one of the four great beauties of China. People during the Tang valued fat women and men (men without a pot belly were looked down on as untrustworthy) and so calling someone a Precious Consort Yang is a bit of a veiled insult (hey fatty).

The conflict isn't that interesting though from a military perspective. The politics have always been the main focus when I ran into it in the literature, probably because the Chinese historical tradition eschews the kind of military detail that would make it interesting.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2010 15:40

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

ManicParroT posted:

One of the key issues with Taiwan is whether the Chinese have the naval and aerial capability to get enough troops and tanks onto the island. If Taiwan was a peninsula things would be much grimmer for them, but as it is, China doesn't have all that many aircraft and boats.

I suspect that if the US stopped backing Taiwan they could probably just grind them down over time, but as people have mentioned, it's quite unlikely that there'll be a war.

Edit: China has been very good at isolating Taiwan internationally. The US is one of a few (23, wiki says) countries that really recognizes Taiwan. Most other countries have been pried away with a combination of stick and carrot diplomacy by China.

Question: In that earlier picture of the different tank shells, etc, are any of those the famed German 88?

Second question: How useful are helicopter gunships like the Apache and Hind in a war against a 'real' opponent (ie, one that could seriously contest the airspace)? I don't understand how they wouldn't be very easy targets for enemy fighter jets.

The U.S. doesn't recognize Taiwan as a country, but Congress did pass 臺灣關係法 to gently caress with Carter.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 04:43

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Revolvyerom posted:

Could I talk you into translating for those of us who can't read that?

And that Iwo Jima dialogue is something else, goddamn.

Sorry! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act

The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA; Pub.L. 96-8, 93 Stat. 14, enacted April 10, 1979; H.R. 2479) is an act of the United States Congress passed in 1979 after the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the breaking of relations between the United States and the Republic of China (ROC) on the island of Taiwan by President Jimmy Carter. It more clearly defines the American position on Taiwan and its cross-strait relationship with Beijing. It was drafted by Harvey Feldman.[1]

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 05:52

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

ManicParroT posted:

Reading the wiki article, I thought the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) sounds like a really dick move.

Normally (not sure about the US but hey) foreign relations are seen as an executive branch function. Of course, treaties become legally binding, and it's possible to pass laws that affect foreign relations, but it sounds like a pretty intrusive bit of legislation. Supposing the Taiwan / China situation shifted suddenly, and it was no longer in the US' interest to treat Taiwan as a country? Would they then have to go and repeal that law?

They would just ignore it. Who will call them on it?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 06:21

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Fo3 posted:

Great thead, just read it for the second time.
About to buy some japanese ww2 books (downfall, guadalcanal, the rising sun)
And not to be a too big of a ww2 nerd, wouldn't mind some recommendations on books on the 30 years war or something on the ancient greeks, as long as they aren't too dry and scholarly. Anyone got input on whether the books about ww2 japan are any good, or a good book on the 30 years war and ancient greek warfare?

edit: missed the first 'l' in guadalcanal.

http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Years-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171462
C.V. Wedgewood's work on the Thirty Years War is great.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2011 03:43

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Hydrolith posted:

How come they don't get used today?

I mean, I'm familiar with the old line of "knights were the tanks of their age and guns made them obsolete", but wouldn't horsemen still be useful for flanking (ie not frontal attacks)?

Horses are not machines!

# ¿ Oct 3, 2011 09:24

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Could someone break down for me, especially in terms divisions/production capacity, the contribution of the USSR in World War II? Lately, I've been discussing with some friends about how the U.S.+Britain et al weren't that important to the Western theatre, didn't do all that much of the fighting, never faced the full brunt of the professional German army, and the USSR could have won it on their own (albeit with financial help from the west). Am I close to the mark, or pretty far off?

# ¿ Oct 9, 2011 18:42

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 20:11

Barto: Dec 27, 2004

Oxford Comma posted:

What if the Allies open a second front in the Eastern part of Russia? Say, through China?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask / Tell > Ask me about an Endless Stream of Military Hypotheticals

Wow, the allies could have taken active part in the Chinese civil war then!
= =""

# ¿ Oct 12, 2011 00:41

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Ask me about Military History!