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[MonkeyHead]

How do people feel about the importance of bladder control?

[RedKing]

It's critical to bagpipe playing.

[Leafsnail]

All this despite stopping myself derailing the whole thing into a gun law debate a dozen pages ago.

Frankly at least that's a relevant debate that this incident raises serious questions about.  It's like with our conservative users banned or retreated into persecution complex mode we've become afraid to actually disagree with each other.

[ChairmanPoo]

Actually as time went on the value of militia went up. While in the medieval times a team of 10 mounted knights could defeat a force 100 times

You think ten mounted knights could beat a thousand peasants?  If they're in a 10-wide hallway maybe but I think you're underestimating the weight of sheer numbers.

Quite the opposite, the Knights have the advantage with MORE area not with less.

The key is that the peasants can't actually stop a mounted charge.

Of all the places to see this myth, Bay12 is pretty low on the list of places I'd expect.  Field plate wasn't that heavy, it's less encumbering than a modern fire fighter's outfit.  Even the stuff mounted knights used.  Jousting plate was never used in real battle

I always have to go back to this counter which is a myth too in conotation.

It is less heavy then you think but more significant then it would seem.

If anyone still doubts it: there are actual historical examples. During the Battle of Otumba Hernan Cortes used less than a score of knights with terrifying effectiveness against overwhelming  numbers of Aztec warriors. I doubt untrained peasants would have performed any better when experienced Aztec foot soldiers could not.

[scriver]

I wouldn't call them knights, exactly.

[Sirus]

Didn't they have a bunch of native warriors to use as cannon fodder on their side as well? People who didn't like the Aztecs?

[ChairmanPoo]

Not during Otumba. At that point Cortes seemed as good as dead so his allies deserted him. He only had his column of ~600-800 foot soldiers, and 12-15 heavy cavalrymen.

[Sirus]

My mistake, then.

[alway]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/27/12993058-maryland-man-arrested-with-dozens-of-weapons-says-hes-the-joker?lite

[Scelly9]

Oh god, not another.

[alway]

Will the raving madman who thinks he is the Joker please stand up?

[Detonate]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/27/12993058-maryland-man-arrested-with-dozens-of-weapons-says-hes-the-joker?lite

You know, I bet he'll be let off pretty easily like the guy from Maine earlier, who admitted he was going to kill his co-worker and was only charged with speeding and having a concealed weapon.

[Loud Whispers]

I'm tempted to re-link the American Criminologist who gave a list of everything the media should do to avoid more massacres... Which they keep doing...

[Starver]

Besides, mounted knights were so heavily armored that if they were to become, say, unmounted, it would lead to them being almost unable to stand, walk, or move. There's a reason why only the strongest breeds of horses were warhorses.

If this hasn't already been commented on, this is so mythbusted.  (Generically, that is.  I'm not sure if the Mythbusters ever touched it.)

Some interesting videos out there of guys in genuine (or at least genuinely authentic) armour running, leaping, doing tuck-n-rolls and then springing back up, etc...

Which is not to say that the warhorses aren't strong, but dismounted knights were by no means sitting ducks.  Their problems arise due to the rise of armour-piercing/interfering weaponry (bodkin-ends for arrows, modified farm tools that could be used from well outside of a sword's-reach, etc).


And to cover another point: The big problem with a mob attack against a small number of enemy is when there's no-one motivated enough to actually get to the front and run the very real risk of being chewed up by the smaller force and being the ones essentially 'sacrificed' so that the rest of the mob can close in and take advantage of how the defenders' weapons are now busy/stuck/lost.  (Having played the part of a pikeman in a battle reconstruction situation, I know that part of the motivation might be the sheer pressure from the not-quite-so-exposed guys behind you.  In this regard, the corridor scenario mentioned at some point would be worse for the small defending force than a decent back-to-back-to-back scenario in open ground against a much more radially-dispersed set of attackers of a similar magnitude.)

[Starver]

...it allowed relatively unskilled marksmen to decimate knights...

Ah, so instead of being up against (say) ten knights, they'd now be facing nine.

(Don't mind me.  I just have a thing about the re-appropriation of the word "decimate" to be similar to "annihilate", when it should never have used in that context.  I know it's been the case for yonks, but it still bothers me that it has happened at all.)