Roman Resources

[Loxuru]

1) Ornate helmets were designed that way so the owner would stand out for 3 reasons (1) HIS men could easily recognize him in the confusion of battle; (2) If he was a warrior to be feared due to his reputation enemies would be reluctant to face him and (3) Depending on the culture and time period he might be worth more alive than dead (ransom).

And 4) In some combat cultures, it was a honour to be a target for the enemy! So, only the fearless wore it!

2) Helmets are NOT designed to stop a blow but to deflect it so they would not be thick (to say nothing of the strain of a lot of weight on your neck). Depending again on the culture or time period they might not be compact (as in formed to fit the head closely) because the ancient's understood a layered defense (like a modern battle tank). So metal helmet to deflect the blow, soft padded cap underneath to absorb the shock. By the time you get to the European feudal cavalry there could be 3 or more layers (helmet, mail coif, padded cap) before you got to hair.

Correct. German WWI spike helmets had a spike to deflect sabre flows, but were insufficient against artillery shrapnel falling from above. Therefore, they were replaced by steel helmets, but even these were not designed to be bullet-proof. Furthermore, the outer shell of a helmet should never be in contact with the body part it is supposed to protect. Therefore, there is always a liner underneath, not only for the comfort of wearing it, but also to create space with the absorbing outer shell.

 

[willowfall]

And 4) In some combat cultures, it was a honour to be a target for the enemy! So, only the fearless wore it!


Correct. German WWI spike helmets had a spike to deflect sabre flows, but were insufficient against artillery shrapnel falling from above. Therefore, they were replaced by steel helmets, but even these were not designed to be bullet-proof. Furthermore, the outer shell of a helmet should never be in contact with the body part it is supposed to protect. Therefore, there is always a liner underneath, not only for the comfort of wearing it, but also to create space with the absorbing outer shell.

Small piece of minor military history. The Prussian Military was so admired that the spiked helmet was copied by non-German military forces including British Army units and US Marines (for a vey short time period) for dress parade purposes.

kisses

willowfall

 

[Loxuru]

Small piece of minor military history. The Prussian Military was so admired that the spiked helmet was copied by non-German military forces including British Army units and US Marines (for a vey short time period) for dress parade purposes.

kisses

willowfall

Small piece of minor military history (2). The Prussian military had copied it from the Russian military, who had introduced it.

 

[Hugin&Munin]

Small piece of minor military history. The Prussian Military was so admired that the spiked helmet was copied by non-German military forces including British Army units and US Marines (for a vey short time period) for dress parade purposes.

kisses

willowfall

Small piece of minor military history (2). The Prussian military had copied it from the Russian military, who had introduced it.

You forgot about the Chilean military. Here is a photo from 2016, Chilean soldiers in parade uniform.

 

[Frank Petrexa]

Did Pawlenty build the bridge???

No. But running surpluses and cutting taxes is easier if you defer maintenance. It's a fine line, but if there are no obvious problems why worry instead of actually checking is an easy route to take--especially if investors expect you to buy back stock. The fire that destroyed Paradise, California, was started when fastener on a PGE pole that was installed in the 30's snapped and allowed a live wire to fall and ignite brush. PGE also hadn't expected gas lines in a San Francisco suburb for decades and they blew up one fine day.

 

[Frank Petrexa]

Ok without getting into politics here several decades ago the north bound section of the I90 bridge over the Schoharie Creek washed away at night due to usually heavy spring runoff killing 11 people.

The investigation proved that the bridge had actually been build better than the minimum specifications considered necessary at the time of it's construction. The accident was caused by several factors (1) first and foremost the Schoharie is not considered a powerful river (and if you stand on its banks 99 out of a 100 days you'd agree) and that this particular combination of run off (heavy snow pack being hit by heavy rains causing the reservoir to overflow) was a once in a century event and (2) The amount of traffic along I90 had increased to a point well beyond anybody's expectations thus stressing the infrastructure.

Nature is massively more powerful than humans tend to give it credit for, example in 1811 the New Madrid earthquake rerouted the Mississippi River OVERNIGHT to a completely new course in the local area. And of course in Roman times Pompeii crushed several town and cities on very short notice.

Do people take shortcuts (yep and always will) but it usually out of a sense of hubris more than it is out of malice or incompetence. And frankly the planet and nature don't give a DAMN about what we want or what we find convenient for us.

kisses

willowfall

It's like Mt. St. Helen's or those people visiting the volcano on the island off New Zealand when it blew. Everyone trusts there will always be a helicopter or something. When cruises to Antarctica got to be a thing, the Chilean Navy told the companies that they really didn't have the capacity to do big rescues. When an overwintering scientist at the South Pole had a medical emergency, the US Air Force was helpless. Two ski planes had to fly down from Canada to Chile. One stayed in Chile as a back-up, while the other landed in darkness and got the scientist out. It isn't wise to bait the Earth.

 

[Frank Petrexa]

1) Ornate helmets were designed that way so the owner would stand out for 3 reasons (1) HIS men could easily recognize him in the confusion of battle; (2) If he was a warrior to be feared due to his reputation enemies would be reluctant to face him and (3) Depending on the culture and time period he might be worth more alive than dead (ransom).

In one episode of Spartacus, Pompei shows up in a helmet which probably caused the deaths of half the ostriches in Africa.

 

[thehangingtree]

No. But running surpluses and cutting taxes is easier if you defer maintenance. It's a fine line, but if there are no obvious problems why worry instead of actually checking is an easy route to take--especially if investors expect you to buy back stock. The fire that destroyed Paradise, California, was started when fastener on a PGE pole that was installed in the 30's snapped and allowed a live wire to fall and ignite brush. PGE also hadn't expected gas lines in a San Francisco suburb for decades and they blew up one fine day.

One could say his predecessors were as much to blame... and where were the engineers?

 

[Frank Petrexa]

Yep, all kinds of blame to go around. There aren't a lot of incentives to be careful until something bad happens, like Fukushima, for example. Japan is notorious for industrial disasters, but everyone always retires in shame afterward.

There is a book I have about the Challenger disaster by a sociologist. She kept dissing Feynman and his "evil manager" theory--at least 500 pages. But Feynman didn't really say that people were malevolent--he merely pointed out that it takes a lot of courage and certainty for someone down the pecking around to speak up and cancel a high-profile operation and cost an organization a lot of money on the likelihood that something might happen if he's not sure management would support him. Then Columbia burned up on re-entry, and Feynman's successors on that Commission said the same thing--there wasn't a culture to look for problems.
I read something about Green Berets on patrol in Vietnam. The same guy was always on "point". Everyone had a specific part of the scenery they were supposed to watch. Supposedly SAC used to do that too--surprise drills, you'd better be ready to go. No shit.

 

[phlebas]

One could say his predecessors were as much to blame... and where were the engineers?

That's the point, the budget wasn't there to provide for those engineers.

Yep, all kinds of blame to go around. There aren't a lot of incentives to be careful until something bad happens, like Fukushima, for example. Japan is notorious for industrial disasters, but everyone always retires in shame afterward.

There have been several high profile data beaches in Australia over the last year, hackers stealing records of millions of users from very large organisations - telecoms, health, banks. It's not that the hackers were particularly clever, it's more that these billion dollar organisations were simply not taking cyber security seriously. Now they've realised that not spending money on prevention can cost even more in lost share prices, lost reputation, compensation payouts . . . .

 

[thehangingtree]

That's the point, the budget wasn't there to provide for those engineers.

The studies show the design of the bridge was flawed.... It opened in the late 60s...

 

[malins]

lots of interesting discussions bubbling up here...

this particular combination of run off (heavy snow pack being hit by heavy rains causing the reservoir to overflow) was a once in a century event

In Summer 2021 there was a very nasty flood in Germany that cost more than 150 lives in the Ahr river region. It was initially seen as a 'practically unique' event caused by climate change but poking around in the literature showed that similar events had happened in 1910 and 1804 and were documented all the way back to the 14th century. So it really is more or less a once in a century event that has happened multiple times.

The problem is it's really hard to get people to follow rules like "you shouldn't build here because it's in a zone that got flooded 80 years ago" unless you have very strong enforcement of a local tradition, and generational memory (in this way some mountain villages from medieval times onward maintained 'Bannwald' or forbidden forests to protect from avalanches & mudslides)

Maybe one function was to identify rank in the heat of battle

I guess coordination and figuring out who is who was a lot more difficult before modern communication systems so all sorts of identification probably had greater payoffs than risks if you were trying to coordinate larger military formations than just some 'barbarian ambush' scenario.

In the thick of the battle otherwise it probably really wouldn't be easy for a soldier to maintain awareness of 'where is the strength of our guys and who do I follow' when things got difficult or tactical repositioning was needed.

And right now we see soldiers of both sides in a war wearing colored armbands and painting big white tactical marks on their vehicles...

a book called "A Deplorable Scarcity" written years ago that argued that the plantation economy of the South based on slavery actually diverted resources from industrialization and doomed the South's war effort.

In the short term it was sure profitable for a small part of Southern society but it locked them into an socio-economic model that was totally anachronistic -- what with them being part of the US, then already one of the most rapidly developing industrial nations, constantly churning out new industrial innovations. (Well OK czarist Russia did only abolish serfdom in 1861 but they were not exactly cutting edge ) ... A good example perhaps of what I was thinking of when saying "a lot of the additional costs of the slave economy system are externalized from the people using slave labor - shifted to the entire society and its future"

slavery was a political necessity for the southern slaveholding class in that slaves, while having no rights, WERE counted as part of the population for representation in the House

wasn't aware of that! talk about perverse incentives...

which calls slavery "the electricity of the ancient world".

Interestingly the opposite observation has also been made, the idea of the 'energy slave', that is the huge amount of labor that we can consume unnoticed in an industrial energy economy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_slave ... practically all of our 'magic' vs the ancients relies on getting usable, concentrated energy that doesn't have to be generated 'the hard way' by muscle power.

While it's often overlooked this has had the most drastic effect on agriculture. Ever since its inception the simple rule was that you had to get more calories of energy out of it than you put in (by way of human or animal muscle, including all the supporting work like toolmaking). That energy surplus obviously came from the sun's energy converted by the cultured plants into nutrient.

Today summing up all the energy we put in (diesel for tractors, steelmaking and factories to build the tractors, artificial fertilizers and the natural gas and ammonia industries required to create it, etc etc etc) the energy input into food production absolutely dwarfs the amount of food calories taken out.

 

[thehangingtree]

lots of interesting discussions bubbling up here...

In Summer 2021 there was a very nasty flood in Germany that cost more than 150 lives in the Ahr river region. It was initially seen as a 'practically unique' event caused by climate change but poking around in the literature showed that similar events had happened in 1910 and 1804 and were documented all the way back to the 14th century. So it really is more or less a once in a century event that has happened multiple times.

The problem is it's really hard to get people to follow rules like "you shouldn't build here because it's in a zone that got flooded 80 years ago" unless you have very strong enforcement of a local tradition, and generational memory (in this way some mountain villages from medieval times onward maintained 'Bannwald' or forbidden forests to protect from avalanches & mudslides)

There's a subdivision near here that has expensive homes in it. When they were built they weren't on a flood plain. A neighboring town finally got permission to build a levy to protect the town from flooding. Guess what houses are now in a flood plain???

 

[Frank Petrexa]

There's a subdivision near here that has expensive homes in it. When they were built they weren't on a flood plain. A neighboring town finally got permission to build a levy to protect the town from flooding. Guess what houses are now in a flood plain???

In Phoenix of all places there were periodic floods--heavy rain would send quantities of water even from far-off storms off the mountains and down "washes". In the northeast "greenways" with scrapple were built to handle those, and construction there was forbidden (hard to do politically then in Arizona).
Supposedly the Houston floods from the 2010 Hurricane Harvey (which moved slowly and lingered over the state dumping huge amounts of water) were largely due to so much of the land being paved over and no longer able to absorb run-off.
I read that some geologists in California are saying that there are "paleo rivers" coming off the mountains from the Ice Age that are filled with more porous silt and gravel. If they can be identified and building over them restricted, they could channel floods and naturally replenish groundwater, in lieu of building narrower artificial drainage with concrete to dump it into the ocean. In the Central Valley supposedly there are channels with levees, but they are narrower and the levees have been over topped.
Apparently when the Mississippi dikes in Missouri were built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1930's, some places to save money opted for lower dikes. Now they are overtopped by floods (though this summer there was the opposite problem--not enough water) but they can't be elevated on the premise that this would channel more water downstream and overtop structures there where people weren't such cheapskates.

 

[Frank Petrexa]

I guess coordination and figuring out who is who was a lot more difficult before modern communication systems so all sorts of identification probably had greater payoffs than risks if you were trying to coordinate larger military formations than just some 'barbarian ambush' scenario.

In the thick of the battle otherwise it probably really wouldn't be easy for a soldier to maintain awareness of 'where is the strength of our guys and who do I follow' when things got difficult or tactical repositioning was needed.

And right now we see soldiers of both sides in a war wearing colored armbands and painting big white tactical marks on their vehicles...

I read somewhere that the Spartans taught music to their young men, specifically so they could distinguish tones and horns and bugles could be used to direct battles.
Battle flags in 19th-century armies weren't just for show--they were used to direct troops.
I think I've mentioned this before, but it's a great story.
At Antietam during the Civil War, federal troops had crossed the creek and were menacing the rebel flanks. "Stonewall" Jackson called for a volunteer to climb a tree and assess the situation.
"How many are there?"
"Whoowee, General, there's a whole mess of 'em!"
"Count the flags, sir."

Generals used to set up on a hill to watch the proceedings. During the "race to Gettysburg", where neither side had intended to fight but the armies met, General John Buford with his 1st Cavalry Division got there early (from the book "John Buford: the Devil's to Pay"). The first thing he did was climb a church steeple. They ended up holding high ground against superior odds until the bulk of the Army of the Potomac could come up. They were joined by the "Iron Brigade" of infantry, and together they prevented Juball Early and his Confederates from seizing the most favorable ground.

 

[Frank Petrexa]

Nowadays of course "modern" communication presents another problem--radio insecurity. Supposedy Patton's drive to relieve the "Bulge" was slowed because his units didn't practice good radio security and the Germans were able to intercept messages and counter moves. The native American "code talkers" used their own languages to send messages the Japanese in the Pacific had no hope of translating in real time.

 

[willowfall]

Everyone trusts there will always be a helicopter or something.

A flood is coming and with has already reached the stoop. A couple of guys in a row boat arrive and offer the home owner a lift. He responds “No, I've been a good Christian all my life. God will take care of me.” Rowboat goes away. Water floods the first floor and a fire department power boat comes along and gets the same rejection. The waters have risen to cover the second floor and the guy is on the roof. A National Guard Helo comes up and he again refuses. Needless to say the moron dies when the house is swept away. He gets to heaven and storms up to God. “God” he yells at him “I have always been a good Christian. WHY didn't you help me!” God calmly looks at him and says “I sent a rowboat, powerboat and helo. What else did you expect me to do?”

kisses

willowfall

 

[willowfall]

At Antietam during the Civil War, federal troops had crossed the creek and were menacing the rebel flanks. "Stonewall" Jackson called for a volunteer to climb a tree and assess the situation.
"How many are there?"
"Whoowee, General, there's a whole mess of 'em!"
"Count the flags, sir."

Well that would have told Jackson how many REGIMENTS there were but not how many men. Example the 125th NY (the unit I usually hang with) had a notional strength of just over 1,000 men. At Gettysburg (only their second battle) they mustered around 500. Many Union regiments were less than that and Confederate regiments were even in worse shape.

kisses

willowfall

 

[willowfall]

The problem is it's really hard to get people to follow rules like "you shouldn't build here because it's in a zone that got flooded 80 years ago" unless you have very strong enforcement of a local tradition, and generational memory (in this way some mountain villages from medieval times onward maintained 'Bannwald' or forbidden forests to protect from avalanches & mudslides)

Humans are basically delusional (and emotional). That same Schoharie Creek regularly floods its banks about once a decade. Yet since the 1700s people have INSISTED on building right along the creek bed, and rebuilding along the creek bed and rebuilding ...........

The solution is making people suffer for their mistakes instead of supporting them. So instead of selling them flood insurance which allows them to rebuild it ought to be against the law to provide flood insurance in certain areas. If people are dumb enough to build there the attitude should be ... oh well, you were warned have fun paying for it out of your own pocket.......

I guess coordination and figuring out who is who was a lot more difficult before modern communication systems so all sorts of identification probably had greater payoffs than risks if you were trying to coordinate larger military formations than just some 'barbarian ambush' scenario.

In the thick of the battle otherwise it probably really wouldn't be easy for a soldier to maintain awareness of 'where is the strength of our guys and who do I follow' when things got difficult or tactical repositioning was needed.

And right now we see soldiers of both sides in a war wearing colored armbands and painting big white tactical marks on their vehicles...

Combat pre-modern technology (say post WWI) was a very messy and confusing affair, I have been in reenactments where due to the volume of fire I can't hear the officer shouting orders from 10 feet away. When you have an ancient helmet on your head and lots of metal is clanging in your ears all around you it it AMAZING how small and isolated the world becomes. Easy to identify visual symbols become very important.

In the short term it was sure profitable for a small part of Southern society but it locked them into an socio-economic model that was totally anachronistic -- what with them being part of the US, then already one of the most rapidly developing industrial nations, constantly churning out new industrial innovations. (Well OK czarist Russia did only abolish serfdom in 1861 but they were not exactly cutting edge ) ... A good example perhaps of what I was thinking of when saying "a lot of the additional costs of the slave economy system are externalized from the people using slave labor - shifted to the entire society and its future"

Again an emotional issue. When people lock into doing things as they have always done them they inevitably fall behind. Probably the greatest historical example is China. At one point they were among the top technology societies in the ancient world yet at some point they decided to isolate and ignore what was going on beyond their borders and by the time the Europeans showed up in Asia in force they weren't even able to effectively defend themselves because European military technology had vastly outstripped them.

Interestingly the opposite observation has also been made, the idea of the 'energy slave', that is the huge amount of labor that we can consume unnoticed in an industrial energy economy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_slave ... practically all of our 'magic' vs the ancients relies on getting usable, concentrated energy that doesn't have to be generated 'the hard way' by muscle power.

While it's often overlooked this has had the most drastic effect on agriculture. Ever since its inception the simple rule was that you had to get more calories of energy out of it than you put in (by way of human or animal muscle, including all the supporting work like toolmaking). That energy surplus obviously came from the sun's energy converted by the cultured plants into nutrient.

Today summing up all the energy we put in (diesel for tractors, steelmaking and factories to build the tractors, artificial fertilizers and the natural gas and ammonia industries required to create it, etc etc etc) the energy input into food production absolutely dwarfs the amount of food calories taken out.

While an interesting exercise in trying to define an issue I'm not sure it really has any real world relevance.

The realty is the world, thru it's technology, produces enough food for to feed a population of 8 billion people. Prior to industrialization that wasn't possible despite the MANPOWER put into agriculture. Pre-industrialized societies had regular problems feeding themselves never mind producing and shipping excess to other populations. Starvation was a very real issue (and YES I know people face starvation on this planet everyday, what WE have is a distribution issue not a quantity issue) on an annual basis.

I think about myself when using my draft horses. The 3 of us can move a 2 ton load fairly easily probably about 10 miles a day. A 53 foot tractor trailer with a single driver is moving a 40 ton load 500 miles in a single day. Am I consuming less calories per mile, probably. Am I more effective, definitely not.

There is a burgeoning middle class all around the world because of energy and our ability to replace manpower with mechanical power.

And to circle this back to the Romans, they built cranes (man\animal powered of course) to get heavy loads high up in the air where they were needed instead of relying on humans to carry or drag the load up there. And because they did that the excess manpower could be diverted to somethign else.

kisses

willowfall

 

[Loxuru]

At Antietam during the Civil War, federal troops had crossed the creek and were menacing the rebel flanks. "Stonewall" Jackson called for a volunteer to climb a tree and assess the situation.
"How many are there?"
"Whoowee, General, there's a whole mess of 'em!"
"Count the flags, sir."

Well that would have told Jackson how many REGIMENTS there were but not how many men. Example the 125th NY (the unit I usually hang with) had a notional strength of just over 1,000 men. At Gettysburg (only their second battle) they mustered around 500. Many Union regiments were less than that and Confederate regiments were even in worse shape.

kisses

willowfall

At least, counting the numbers of regiments could have given an estimation of the strength of the opposing force. Next survey would be estimating how far the flags are apart from each other. A greater distance could mean that the regimental strenght could be rather high (you better quickly develop a cunning defence plan), or that the enemy is approaching with a terribly thin line, trying to give a perception of strength, but actually being very vulnerable in case of counterattack (start with outflanking and then 'chew' the whole line; see Frederick the Great's victory at Leuthen).