Plan B Forum

This animation shows all important battles that took place over the last ten centuries. The sizes of the explosions and labels are proportional to the number of casualties. The music is "Ride Of The Valkyries" by Richard Wagner. The data comes from the wikipedia article, List of Battles. For more cool stuff please visit http://jordic.com

BTW I recommend blowing this up (pun intended) to full screen.

The music is "Ride Of The Valkyries" by Richard Wagner.

Fitting

Absurdly Eurocentric.

Eurocentric?
Yes.

Absurd?
No.

Well, if one were to take the list as seriously exhaustive -- and I am not saying that it claims to be -- there were no wars in the Americas before the Europeans showed up. Can anyone take that seriously? The Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs -- in all those centuries, no significant battles?

And sub-Saharan Africa. Again, no battles before the Europeans showed up? Who can believe this?

Sure, the battles did not have convenient names and dates; scrupulous record-keepers were not hanging around. That makes it hard to fit them into a video like this. It's nobody's fault.

Still, the video makes it look as if the world was mostly a big zone of ahimsa, with almost no one except those pesky Europeans stirring up trouble. And that is rubbish.

If it hasn't been written, then how can it be recorded?

Of course there were other battles. Shall we just guess who, when and where?

Surely peoples fought, but this list specifies these are 'important' and by that I think they mean large scale acts of war. In the Americas, the native inhabitants didn't even have the horse nor metal weapons, until the Europeans arrived; so most warfare was small scale hand-to-hand.

Now, that you mention it however, I notice they didn't include any naval battles.

The website claims that the video shows

... all important battles that took place over the last ten centuries.

(Emphasis added.)

The authors evidently do not consider any battles that took place in the Americas or in sub-Saharan Africa before the Europeans showed up to be "important".

There are oral histories. It does not take a lot of work to discover such things as the destruction of Tula in 1160. Or the Aztec conquests of the fourteenth century and following. Etc.

(By the way, bows and arrows are not exactly hand-to-hand weapons.)

The authors should consider changing "all" to "some".

Andrew D wrote:The website claims that the video shows

... all important battles that took place over the last ten centuries.

(Emphasis added.)

The authors evidently do not consider any battles that took place in the Americas or in sub-Saharan Africa before the Europeans showed up to be "important".

There are oral histories. It does not take a lot of work to discover such things as the destruction of Tula in 1160.

That account was attributed to the Aztecs, but here's some debate about whether it really happened, or was a legend like Atlantis.

Andrew D wrote:Or the Aztec conquests of the fourteenth century and following. Etc.

That's a good point.

Andrew D wrote: (By the way, bows and arrows are not exactly hand-to-hand weapons.)

Correct, they are [medium to] long range weapons, but they were used as part of an overall strategy that was mostly small scale hand-to-hand combat. North American native Indians didn't engage in 'Wars of Conquest' since they didn't believe in the possession of land, so they didn't fight for territory. Most often combat came in the form of raids: raiding another tribe for resources, when trading wasn't an option, pre-European era.

Tactically, the bow and arrow had disadvantages in these scenarios;

It was a limited repeat weapon; there were only so many arrows to the shooter.

It has no defense capability; you can't really block and parry with a bow.

Indian tribes didn't have the numbers of population to divide into military units like archers and infantry; you were simply a 'warrior' and carried as many weapons as you were skilled in, into combat.



In a raid, the archer was most valuable during the first volley; when he had the element of surprise. Afterwards, his position was revealed by tracing the trajectory of his arrows, then he had to move or find cover, because a good tactician knew the best course of action was to take out that shooter. By moving, the archer couldn't return fire, and the fight was between ground troops*. If he maintained his position, he would eventually be closed in on, and would have to resort to close combat weapons to defend himself. Ergo it all leads to hand to hand, in that situation. It was most practical to fire; then join/become one of the raiders for protection/better offense capability; and then flee with them and the booty before being cornered.


*Something I left out of AvataRant was the archery styles of the Na'vi, who would jump into the air and fire.
Cool looking, but not smart

As if horseback or Ikran (flying lizard) - back wasn't hard enough, they had to completely destabilize themselves and try accurately aiming at the same time. Right.
No wonder, they were losing the battle.