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But wouldn't ice balls be more effective?
No, because they don't come out as long as the ground is frozen. As soon as it starts to thaw they go to town though.Yes, I plan on putting up a video of it in action.
Now how incredible would that have been had it gone out and she were lip syncing. Milli Vanilli x 100!
Not incredible, hilarious. 😀 😀 😀
You guys just gave me the idea for the subject of the movie I have to make in one of the classes I am taking. Thanks! 😀
Donnie, Rome did command the undying loyalty of it's soldiers. I think there is something about the died in the wool southerner that actually likes lost causes. It is the only explanation I can come up with for why they idolize what were in the end losers, such as Lee and Hannibal. Of course, Napoleon was also a loser who did not know when to stop either.I will simply point out Lee’s greatest mistake and one that historians have rightly pointed to as the point when the South lost the war: that is allowing Pickett’s charge to happen. There is no argument you can make on military merit for Pickett’s Charge. You can argue por communication or order transmittal, or bad intel. The fact remains however that if Pickett was acting within Lee’s intent and there is every indication that he was then Lee was horrible at the tactical art. Given that the South lost the artillery battle, sending men across that field was tantamount to murder as they were open to being atritted the whole way and any who gained Union lines would not be strong enough to make a breach and hold it until Reb support got there. A horrible decision that wasted veteran troops who could have been put to good use later in the war.Phid, do you really think a solid phalanx could defeat an articulated one? I would like to hear the explanation for how that would work tactically. Especially given that Greek tactics consisted of trying to break the enemy phalanx which the Romans already had done by the way they organized. The Roman legion arrayed for battle in a manner guaranteed to break the continuity of any solid phalanx attacking their front, such a break being the death knell for a solid phalanx.We can estimate that after the appalling losses Alexander would have suffered in any victory over Rome he could not have followed it up in time to stop Rome from raising another army. If Hannibal couldn’t do that what makes you think Alexander could. Romans under the republic did not fight for their Consuls, they fought for Rome. The Romans showed that they were more than willing to raise new armies when theirs were destroyed, why would the do any different when fighting Alexander.
When Kruschev came to power the Russians went through a de-Stalinization process that was even more destructive than the Allied de-Nazification post-WWII. Wikipedia has a brief but incomplete explanation of the process.
Donnie, both your examples of Lee and Hannibal prove the point that many military historians make about the big battalions. Perhaps the apocryphal quote from Stalin is right and "quantity has a quality all its own."Let us talk battlefield tactics. Alexander beat Darius because he used his companion cavalry to go after the Persian command group and force a decision. The bulk of Alexander's army fought what was essentially a holding action while Alexander and his Companions cut off the head. The Alexandrian phalanx was a blunt instrument that defeated the geeks with better weapons and determination but little tactical finesse. The Macedonians still came straight on phalanx on phalanx. The Macedonian phalanx was not articulated at all.The Early republican legion was not a solid phalanx; it was articulated phalanx, although not truly manipular as under Caesar. The fact remains that the Roman phalanx could actually move on the battlefield where the Macedonians could only go straight ahead. Any deviation by the Macedonians meant defeat as their phalanx lost cohesion and ceased being an army and started being a mob.Both of Hannibal’s great victories over the Romans at Trasimene and Cannae are battles where he used either terrain or formation to cause the Roman army to lose its cohesion. At Trasimene he backed them into the water at Cannae he compressed their formation.The Roman phalanxes would have defeated Alexander by flanking his phalanx. In fact, that is what they did to the Greeks 200 years later and those Greeks were fighting in the Macedonian style. Explain to me how the Alexandrian army would have defeated the Roman legion?Lastly, the Parthians and Persians are two different peoples who fought completely differently. The Parthians never managed to inflict a decisive defeat on the Romans either. Carrhae does not count because the Parthians could not follow it up. A victory without exploitation is no true victory. The Parthians could not exploit their victory at Carrhae any more than Hannibal could exploit Trasimene or Cannae. The Parthian fighting style was perfect for the steppe and desert where the Roman fighting style was perfect for mountain and forest. Heck, even Pyrrhus of Epirus could not beat the Romans.If Alexander had turned West, he would have been the guy who took his father’s magnificent army and wasted it and been no more than a historical footnote.
They did not want to curb Soviet enthusiasm, they wanted to destroy the cult of personality Stalin had encouraged. That is a minor but significant difference.
Hannibal was able to play havoc with the vaunted Roman legions.
Yet he still couldn't beat them. What does that tell you about how good Hannibal really was?That begs another question. Why are so many military leaders held up as great who were defeated? Hannibal, Napoleon, Manstein, and Guderian come immediately to mind. They may have been good but not great. Great leaders do not go down to defeat.
I like to study it because I am fascinated by the evolution of ideas. Sometimes I would rather read what historians are saying about one another than the historical subject itself. Why that is I have no clue.
Maybe because you need to get out of the house more? 😀
I would tend to argue that the Romans would have beaten Alexander's army. Even the 4th Century BC legion was more maneuverable and flexible than the Sarissa armed phalanx of Macedon and Alexander's companion cavalry could not have been so decisive in the closer terrain of western as they were in the deserts of the east.
Historiography can be very helpful, but it's really only helpful if you already have a good grasp of history.
I like that statement and can very much agree with it. What did you think I was going to say? ???
