The Korean Civilization II

[Q Classic]

the old thread, weighing in at over 750 replies, was getting a bit slow.

here's the new thread, continue discussion here.

i will post a summary of the old one some time soon.

[Lord Merciless]

I think KoR has been terribly brainwashed by the TVs.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
I think KoR has been terribly brainwashed by the TVs.

Maybe the wrong TV, a few of the channels actually put out decent information if you bother to view the programs with a little common sense. The Discovery Channel and the History Channel continually have programs that I learn something from. Course some of it pretty wrong, too.

[King of Rasslin]

I watch the History Channel, and they only talk about modern wars and European history. Sometimes they talk about Eygpt or Greece/Rome, and other classic civilizations. I have never seen a History Channel program about Asian history...

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
Ghengis, do you honestly think that SILK can stop an arrow but iron isn't effective? Silk is very soft and only ladies like to wear it. Soldiers don't wear silk, they wear leather. Silk is not suited for combat.

Do you read posts before you reply to them? I said they wore it under their armor. And yes it is a VERY strong fiber. I also said that the arrow would penetrate the skin but the silk provided a barrier between the arrowhead and the body hindering the effects of poisoned arrows.

Originally posted by King of Rasslin And the Bessemer process supplied the steel needed to make railroads. India didn't make steel, we did! India has had very few wars because they are Hindu and they hate war. I saw a show about this Hindu guy that tied himself to a tree for a few decades to achieve enlightenment. They are very peaceful, and this is reflected well in Civ 3. They had no need for steel.

Bangs head against wall I won't even try............

Originally posted by King of Rasslin Our government gave the best equipment to our soldiers, but it was inexperience that killed a lot of our guys. The Vietcong was poorly equipped, and their cheap gear often caused them to die. It's a totally opposite problem for both sides.

My bad, I thought you were from the US. The United States equips its soldiers with the cheapest produced products it can find. I know, I've had to use those products. American soldiers spend 10-25% of their paycheck buying decent equipment and leave the cheap issued crap at home.

Originally posted by King of Rasslin And I don't like how you claim that swordsmen were more "elite" than musketmen. You often refer to musketmen as "the masses", and that implies that the British, French, and Germans fought with numbers like the Asians do.

Fact: Musketmen were the most untrained and easily equiped soldiers available. They were trained how to not kill themselves with their own gun. The Musketeers
were ELITE SWORDSMEN who also carried firearms for a quick attack and continued the bulk of the battle with blade.

Originally posted by King of Rasslin We do not, and we care more for our lives than to send wave after wave of humanity to crush the enemy. Read about Pork Chop Hill or Hamburger Hill and tell me that they really care about their soldiers.

Let's see Pork Chop Hill and Hamburger Hill got there names because of the mass of AMERICAN soldiers sent up them to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers..........

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
I watch the History Channel, and they only talk about modern wars and European history. Sometimes they talk about Eygpt or Greece/Rome, and other classic civilizations. I have never seen a History Channel program about Asian history...

The Learning Channel and The Discovery Channel tend to show more programs on Afica and Asia.

[molly bloom]

It's always good to see a vigorous wide ranging discussion; yes, the Mongols wore silk undershirts in order to make pulling out arrows easier- this in an age where a killing blow might frequently be a relatively minor arrow wound resulting in septicaemia and painful death, all for want of being able to take out an arrow head from a small wound.

Armour of various kinds can stop various projectiles- the cotton wadded armour of the Incas frquently stopped musket balls (and the Spanish adopted it in order to deal with the deadly stone shot of the Incan slingshots).

You might also refer to the lacquered layered armour (non-ferrous) of Japan and China...

The Mongols never defeated the Romans; neither did the Chinese, although it is said that there was a meeting in Central Asia between a Chinese scouting party and a Roman scouting party.

Steel was being produced in various forms in various places before Bessemer's day:

http://www.techfak.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/articles/wootz_advanced_material/wootz_steel_an_advanced_material_of_the_ancient_world.html

hence Toledo blades and Damascene steel.

As for the French and British and German using massed numbers- well, heard of WWI by any chance?

[Q Classic]

And the Bessemer process supplied the steel needed to make railroads. India didn't make steel, we did! India has had very few wars because they are Hindu and they hate war. I saw a show about this Hindu guy that tied himself to a tree for a few decades to achieve enlightenment. They are very peaceful, and this is reflected well in Civ 3. They had no need for steel.

obviously spoken by a man with no knowledge about indian history.
actually, if you want to look at it, the mogul and mughal empires were primarily hindu, and primarily military. one of them even defeated the mongol hordes, not by peace, but by steel.
furthermore, throughout history, hinduism has not entirely been about peace. the goddess kali, for example, is a hindu deity, but she is the one who destroys-- human sacrifices have been (and still are) given to her.

[Ribannah]

It is Buddhism rather than Hinduism that promotes peaceful thoughts.

Molly, did you know that there is a small region in China with
people of European origin?
They are believed to be the remnants of a Roman army that fled some battlefield in Persia.
There was trade between Rome and China, but never war.

[Hagbart]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
I watch the History Channel, and they only talk about modern wars and European history. Sometimes they talk about Eygpt or Greece/Rome, and other classic civilizations. I have never seen a History Channel program about Asian history...

The chinese are quite popular I think.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Ribannah
It is Buddhism rather than Hinduism that promotes peaceful thoughts.

Molly, did you know that there is a small region in China with
people of European origin?
They are believed to be the remnants of a Roman army that fled some battlefield in Persia.
There was trade between Rome and China, but never war.

Do you have any more info/links on that? That sounds interesting.

[King of Rasslin]

How can an arrow pierce the skin, but the silk make a barrier between the head and the skin? And if the arrow does pierce, the poison will definitely take effect. How does the silk prevent that? And the arrow will go in deep, and will be hard to pull out anyway. The difficulty of removing it is the same if it goes in the same depth, and I doubt that such a soft fibre could significantly stop it.

We spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on new, high tech gear. There is nothing cheap about the US Army. They are better equipped than any other army, and none of their gear is low quality.

The musketeers were disbanded because they were inferior to standard musketmen. If they were better, they would have been kept. You are better off reloading your musket instead of trying to stab someone. Besides, why would you need musketeers when bayonettes came about?

We lost a lot of men taking the hills, but it was defending the hills that displayed the Asian swarm tactic. After the first losses, we didn't lose so many people because we had a defensive position. However, they outnumbered us, as usual.

WWI was different. After a few disasters, the soldiers quickly learned not to commit suicide in mass charges. Artillery became the focus of the war after they learned their lesson very quickly. Us Americans would never be that stupid!

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
How can an arrow pierce the skin, but the silk make a barrier between the head and the skin?

Silk is MUCH stronger than human skin, haven't you ever fallen down and skinned your knee withour tearing a hole in your jeans?

Originally posted by King of Rasslin We spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on new, high tech gear. There is nothing cheap about the US Army. They are better equipped than any other army, and none of their gear is low quality.

Lots of our gear is very low quality. Have you served in the US Army? I have, and while some of it is very ingenius, the ingenious stuff typically gets replaced with inferior crap because some substandard manufacturer offered a lower bid. Did you know the Kevlar helmet they wear isn't even bullet proof?

The hundreds of billions of dollars isn't spent on equipment. It's spent on salaries, training, maintenance, and construction. Our soldiers live in roach infested barraks and military housing with holes in their roofs.

The core American soldier's pay is below poverty level and if a soldier is married and has children that family will be qualified for every government assistance program there is, simply because they will be that bad off. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, community service organizations collect money to give stipends for American soldiers with families to buy food for holiday dinner. Do NOT even talk about how "well off" our soldiers are until you have been there and seen how conditions.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin

How can an arrow pierce the skin, but the silk make a barrier between the head and the skin? .... and I doubt that such a soft fibre could significantly stop it.

WWI was different. After a few disasters, the soldiers quickly learned not to commit suicide in mass charges. Artillery became the focus of the war after they learned their lesson very quickly. Us Americans would never be that stupid!

Oh dear. The point of the silk is that it provides a barrier between the wound and the arrow- not that it acts as plate steel. The ' soft' material is actually quite strong (you might care to ask why scientists are trying to incorporate a spider gene in goats in order to be able to make super tough fabrics- it has modern battlefield applications, amongst other things) and FLEXIBLE. It yields, while the less elastic skin tears. Quite simple when you think about it...

As for WWI- well, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

Take for instance the Flanders offensive of June-December 1917: the Allied line moved forward 5 miles, costing 35 thousand British and 35 thousand German dead, the British capturing 25 thousand German prisoners.

The last Russian military offensive launched by Brusilov on 4 June 1916 lasted for three months, taking four hundred thousand prisoners, but failing to achieve its objectives of reaching Lublin and Lemberg.

The German advance of March-July 1918 caused 8 hundred thousand German casualties, simultaneously depressing and exhausting the German troops, as the key objectives of Ypres, Arras. Amiens and Reims eluded them. Allied casualties were almost as numerous, but because the line was held, and there was a promise of fresh troops, morale was higher.

At one battle, the Battle of the Lys, in April 1918, 20 thousand Allied troops were killed and 80 thousand injured.

Now if you think that these deaths were primarily caused by artillery- think again.

[King of Rasslin]

The cheap kevlar is used to stop shrapnel. Body armor is too cumbersome, and you need agility more than bulk in today's wars. In the middle ages, it was the opposite. You wanted tough, bulky armor and you didn't want the wimpy stuff. Silk is so soft and delicate. Are you talking about some rare silk that only the Mongols had? All of the silk I see is in lady's clothes. I still find it hard to believe that silk could prevent injury. Leather is a lot better in protecting skin.

Soldiers are not meant to make careers of their service. They are given 50k for college, and can come back as an officer! Sounds good to me.

I can actually see spider silk being used, because it is incredibly strong for something so thin and light. But silk from silk worms? Nah...

[King of Rasslin]

On topic with Korea. Do they use forks or do they still use chop-sticks? I think it would be difficult eating kimchee soup without silverware!

Does this "substance" known as kimchee have a lot of alcohol in it? They bury it in the ground and let it decay for several months before digging it back up. Gross.