who were the baddest dudes around?

a reply to: JoshuaCox

You have take into account differences in weapons technology. Vikings did have more advanced weapons then Spartans - tougher metal.

originally posted by: Mandroid7

I could destroy most wrestlers, but got my ass handed to me by a 100lb 15 year old at my first Jits class.

i remember those days. true too if youre doing jitsu rules.

these dudes back in the day were savages man. a different type. ive grappled my whole life. my bro is a pro fighter. early at it but legit. these pro guys are trained killers......for sure. but theyre not savages.

i just dont think i can comprehend the kind of hurt those mongols or vikings could put on someone.

drinking the blood of the horse while youre riding it? come on man
rickson gracie aint doing that #....

different kind of tough i guess. these pro dudes will mess you up for sure. theyre killing it with the training. i wonder if the boys at gracie humaita go whale hunting and battle to the death for odin and #.

Hannibal and Attila the Hun or Alexander the great were responsible for some servers badassery.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: JoshuaCox

You have take into account differences in weapons technology. Vikings did have more advanced weapons then Spartans - tougher metal.

I don't think that is at all insurmountable...

The Spartans are almost definitely the most well trained soldiers in history..

Literally trained and tortured from 8 years old to over 20 , and every single societal carrot and stick is designed to produce just an obscenely talented fighting unit..

There is no other culture in history who has has even close to that hard of a regiment... and they did it for 600 years!!!!

Dbl

originally posted by: TinySickTears

originally posted by: Mandroid7

I could destroy most wrestlers, but got my ass handed to me by a 100lb 15 year old at my first Jits class.

i remember those days. true too if youre doing jitsu rules.

these dudes back in the day were savages man. a different type. ive grappled my whole life. my bro is a pro fighter. early at it but legit. these pro guys are trained killers......for sure. but theyre not savages.

i just dont think i can comprehend the kind of hurt those mongols or vikings could put on someone.

drinking the blood of the horse while youre riding it? come on man
rickson gracie aint doing that #....

different kind of tough i guess. these pro dudes will mess you up for sure. theyre killing it with the training. i wonder if the boys at gracie humaita go whale hunting and battle to the death for odin and #.

Absolutely and their entire combat philosophy was to get into melee combat.. for ALL modern armies, melee is a very last resort...

Plus when you look at say Sparta.. 600 years of every single male being trained since birth to be a warrior?!?!

It's hard to even imagaibe.. we have no reference for anything like that...

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: JoshuaCox

In the past getting in close was your entire plan..

In fact in many modern methods shooting a missile from a drone at 20,000 feet and blowing up an enemy sleeping, in bed, at night is the highest form of cowardice.

So I get what you are saying about 'now bad' vs. 'back then' bad. Of course in retrospect, 'back then', the baddest were the ones with the 'trump' technology; horseback vs. the foot soldier, metal swords vs wooden sticks, bows vs spears, guns vs. everything.

And then the training, in any event.

Yes and no....

The mongols were less advanced, but still walked over everyone the encountered and historians 100% attribute that to their crazy hash upbringings.

It's the wooden to silk shoe philosophy..

A nation starts off wearing wooden shoes and living a tough life, so they become tough enough to create an empire .. but once they have the luxury of an empire.. they start wearing silk shoes and get over run by the next wooden shoe society..

Modern historians now doubt that, but it was the conventional wisdom for all of pre modern history.

Plus.. look at Sparta.. no one else had 600 years of every societal carrot and stick being situated to create amazing warriors..

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: JoshuaCox

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: JoshuaCox

originally posted by: schuyler
Neanderthals win hands down. EXTREMELY Harsh ice-age climate. Primitive technology. Mega beasts hunting them back, including likely Homo sapiens. You can't compare that to any relatively modern culture.

Except the humans at the time beat them senseless with roughly the same tech level...

So then who had a rougher life?

They shared the same environment...

From what I remember they were stronger, but had way shorter stumpier legs.. So they just couldn't compete over distances.

The idea that Homo sapiens "beat" Neanderthals is a supposition. There isn't any data to prove any sort of genocide against Neanderthal. In fact, quite the opposite as the average European has from 2-4% Neanderthal genes which proves, you guessed it, interbreeding. Competition does not assume fighting each other. It could have been simply a resource issue. I'm still going with Neanderthal as being the tougher of the two species--if, indeed, were talking two species here as there is considerable argument about that as well.

If we didn't "beat " Neanderthals then they would have 2% human DNA , not the reverse..

We hinted the same prey, the same lands, and survived the same catastrophes..

But they only got 2% of the pie...


Way less when your only counting the humans with Neanderthal DNA, relative to all humans..

Then it is prob .001% ..

Scythians - (Huns, Alans, Heruli, Gepathids, etc). In effect, proto Mongols. Like to use skulls of vanquished foes as drinking cups and also went in for a spot of Head Binding.

Vikings were mostly farmers and actually treid to live alongside (rather than replace) those whose lands were conquered.

Would also make an arguement for Norman Knights in that in the early days of Crusades, 200 Norman Knights rode off into Syria / Turkey to create a Kingdom......and succeded.

That said, almost impossible to get past the Turkic - Mongol tribes of the steppes. From the Huns to the Mongols to Tamerlane. Plus they gave the world the apple.

Or, for a leftfield pick, any Brit circa 1600-1760. Reasoning being we conquered the world when we had a population of 16!

a reply to: JoshuaCox

A nation starts off wearing wooden shoes and living a tough life, so they become tough enough to create an empire .. but once they have the luxury of an empire.. they start wearing silk shoes and get over run by the next wooden shoe society..

Good point.

The mongol en masse tactics were supreme in their day. Entire armies mounted on horseback able to ride for protracted periods (they could shoot accurately with bow from horseback), they ate on horseback (cooking meat between their horse and saddle) they outride any advance warning, descending upon hapless villages in surprise. The first warning any defense had was a mass of mounted riders at full tilt coming over the horizon.

In an aside but related, Napoleon won battles because of his fast spies also mounted on horseback. They could outpace any message system of its day, over the horizon. He was able to foresee and outmaneuver changing events on the battlefield because he had the swiftest riders.

Again though, this is mass tactics.

I saw a film the other night, documentary about Bruce Lee, his message was one of primarily fitness training, all the practice of fight moves in hand to hand combat won't win if out of shape. An individual, like an army, needs the fittest of fit troops for scouting, reconnaissance, spearhead, covert ops, ambush, etc.

History is full of examples of prowess of empires utilizing both tactics, combined with weapons tech and superior trained, fit soldiers.

originally posted by: Flavian
Scythians - (Huns, Alans, Heruli, Gepathids, etc). In effect, proto Mongols. Like to use skulls of vanquished foes as drinking cups and also went in for a spot of Head Binding.

Vikings were mostly farmers and actually treid to live alongside (rather than replace) those whose lands were conquered.

Would also make an arguement for Norman Knights in that in the early days of Crusades, 200 Norman Knights rode off into Syria / Turkey to create a Kingdom......and succeded.

That said, almost impossible to get past the Turkic - Mongol tribes of the steppes. From the Huns to the Mongols to Tamerlane. Plus they gave the world the apple.

Yea the steppes have probably changed humanity far more than any other culture...

Every few centuries they would unite around a single leader and just destroy any who opposed them...

Strangely they are kinda my least favorite.. I greatly prefer to learn about the Greeks, Persians and such..

But that said there is no denying who did the most , with the least.. the mongols..