Was war really that gully before modern weapons?

[Alvin]

We all know the epic and brutal picture movies depicts when it comes to medieval and ancient wars

Spoiler

But the reality was different. Most of the times, there was no big charge army against army, no free for all where everybody was running around on the field dishing sword hits to everybody (in the heat of the battle, covered in mud, it would have been hard to recognize who is who...)

Most of the battles were in tight formations, and as soon as one camp started to look morale, they'd flee.

Average casualty rate for pre-industrial war was only 5%-6% for all sides according to some historians and most of that happened after the losing side started to flee (so killing retreating or surrending folks)

Compare this to casualties registered for WW1:



So which type of war front was really the gulliest? Modern ones (after the industrial revolution) or the ones before that? In which type would you rather get caught?

the way to kill people with modern weapons will blow your mind, and your forgetting the big one, nuclear weapons. That being said look at the mongol conquests and Taiping Rebellion for body counts

 

[Alvin]

Especially on the Eastern front. Stalin and Hitler didn’t give a single solitary fukk. Japan too.

Probably last time we’ll ever see wars meant to capture territories at that scale.

Nuclear weapons put a stop to BS of set tripping amongst powerful nations.

Nazi's and Slavs hated each other with a passion, nazi's viewed slavs as subhuman, when the Russians started pushing back they weren't taking prisoners, civilian or military.

 

[CopiousX]

Delete

 

[Piff Perkins]

A lot of ancient battles had low casualties because of routs. If you were a peasant forced to fight for some lord you’ve never met before, and you saw armored knights charging at you on horses, you’d probably flee. So the battles would end up being armor vs armor after the regular footmen ran away.

Battles got bloodier later on when more advanced artillery (powerful bows) arrived, and when armies were able to better equip their peasant footman with armor. That’s when you start getting to reports of rivers of blood and shyt like that.

 

[Clapsteel O'Neal]

It equals out both ways

What would you rather see

A pyramid mountain of chopped off heads and people hung up on crosses decomposing down long stretches of roads?

OR

Two human bodies fused together on a building wall because the bomb that got dropped on them had so much power they blended together?



War is war, and i didn't make up anything with my choices

 

[Blackrogue]

I think it's always been the same..and the same shyt happening then from a human to human perspective still happening.

I think it was rawer then cause it was harder to kill. You wasn't sniping nikkas from a distance past arrows.

 

[Blackrogue]

And war is waged in different ways and I think those have been constant. It could be chemical, economic, it could be in undermining the other person. It could be spies. Like right now the US is in wars all around the world. Doesn't have to be physical but the end goals are the same. So the scale is larger because countries are bigger. But funny enough within the countries themselves there's still internal war amongst tribes, race, religion with the same goals.

 

[Ziploc]

The amount of troops in modern combat doesn't compare to medieval troops on the battle field. The weapons in modern times are way more deadly,combined with explosives,gas attacks makes for way more casualties. Now getting cut,sliced or impaled and dying slowly due to blood loss,shock and/or infection after the battle would not be my first choice,a bullet has the same end result but I'll see my architect faster which would be my preference to go if faced with a choice,lest we forget the life expectancy of a regular human in 700-1000 AD.

 

[CodeKansas]

trench wrfare seems like a bytch

imagine getting ordered to charge at the enemy position knowing youll get mowed down with machine guns but if you dont your own people will smoke you