Overated Warrior Culture/ Armies

>>35063533
The Spartans
The Navy seals

>>35063533
>pre-firearm
Samurai, And the introduction to firearms sorted that mess out fairly quick.
>Post-Creation
list is way too long, but if i had to pick one, Seals.

>Get body of guy correct
>Turn horse face into a fucking ayy

Shitty sculpter

Japan. More obsessed with looking cool than with winning wars. Too rigid and inflexible. Their honor code turned out to be WAY more of a hindrance than a help in modern war. Of *course* you should retreat sometimes; of *course* you don't let experienced officers go down with their ship; of *course* you don't expend valuable soldiers over abstract ideas like honor when your nation has a war to win. Bushido? More like Bullshitto.

>>35063601
>>35063557
Why SEALs? I agree just curious your points.

>>35063533
Pre-gun would be Vikangs
Post-gun would be the actual quality of normal US Army troops. Fighting wars against retarded sand niggers for to long has made people think their Infantry can do more then it actually can.

>>35063670
Who ever thought WW2 Japan was the best? Most agree that they were only dangerous in some aspects but overall were not gonna win.

>>35063533
Spartans. They were pretty badass but they got BTFO by a bunch of even gayer Greek buttfuckers.

>>35063670
That honor code wasn't really followed by actual samurai. That's WW2 Japanese shit. It's like taking fairy tails about King Arthur and pretending and thinking they're real and were applicable to medieval warfare.

>>35063678
>Post-gun would be the actual quality of normal US Army troops
Disagree. Might be the most experienced modern military, and is by a landslide the best equipped military on the planet. Not supersoldiers but the US could take on half the world and win just with our navy. The military disparity between the US and the rest of the world is ludicrous, at some point we're gonna have to realize the cold war is over and we don't have to be prepared to solo take on literally half of the entire planet by ourselves. Either that or just fucking do it and stop wasting a bunch of money for nothing.

>>35063678

The only countries that have comparable conventional light infantry are the UK (though really small in size) and Russia. Poland and South Korea also have some good conventional forces.

>>35063717
shut the fuck up you fat subhuman, the us army has lost to goat farmers. europe would have destroyed them. you are pathetic and weak.

gurkhas

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>>35063717
It's a very neat balance we've got going on right now.

The US imports a lot of stuff, gets into a deficet, but uses those imported resources to boost it's internal economy and then spends a great deal of that new money on defensive technology.

Nobody wants to be the tax collector on the US's doorstep, so they just keep quiet and let the debt rise.

Unfortunately the planet will run out of resources eventually, and to keep costs down some states might be grouped into commonwealths to save money...

>>35063787

You are aware the Taliban were mostly comprised of seasoned fighters that took down a European superpower in the 80's, right?

>>35063533

there is no such thing as a warrior culture

>>35063803
>European
Slavs aint Euros

>>35063787
>getting this butt blasted over another country

>>35063825

Even so, they had the best military on the European continent at the time.

>>35063533
either the Spartans or the Myrmidons

>>35063787
Sure if they played by 1700s/1800s rules and could just go through and do some ethnic cleansing, or just declare the entire population slaves and cut their fucking children's hands off if they didn't produce enough of whatever cash crop of the decade they wanted. But the US is better than you. And so we left because they'd rather stay in a state of perpetual tribal warfare than be civilized human beings.

>>35063796
You literally understand nothing. You have the political comprehension of a senile grandmother.

There is no debt collector because the US pays all on its own. Let that sink in for a minute. The US actually pays money on that debt, and it's never late. That's why people keep buying when the US offers. This might blow your mind but it's actually a good thing to have national debt. For two reasons: Now you have more money (duh) and two, nobody can fuck with you because they actually want to get paid. It is not, and should never be, the goal of a country to not be in debt.

It turns out, applying personal finance advice to an entire goddamn country is fucking retarded.

>>35063806
But your wrong.

>>35064030
>your

>>35063533
Pre-gun:Spartans
Post-gun:Zulus

>>35064251
Why Zulu?

>>35063533
Samurai by far.
I blame American weabooism starting the 80s

Spartans take second place

>What is the most overrated pre-firearm warriors and or the most overrated post creation of gun militaries and or groups?
Twofer: English archers.

>>35063533
pirates

Depends on who is your LARPer for today
>pre-firearm
/pol/nigger? vikings or knights
weeb? samurais
buttblasted /his/fag? roman legionnaires
>post-firearm
SEALs and marines hands down

>>35063717
you can't get experience by fapping in barracks shooting sandniggers from drone.
>>35063803
But USSR won killing 3 million talibs and losing 15 k men

>>35064500
because they horrifically outnumbered the brits and they walked directly into gunfire instead of ambushing them and gaining firearms. they were fucking retarded

>>35063791
Delete this!! gurkhas saved my grandfather

>>35063533
pre fire arms was the gorka, they only became what they are today post firearms and with the help of the british

>>35063533
>Samurai
Perfectly competent warriors in the historical context in which they lived, but I don't think I need to explain the GLORIOUS NIPPON STEEL you get from weebs.
>Spartans
Their single greatest achievement is forming a spearwall in a narrow pass. Again, perfectly competent warriors in their own historical context, but not the übermensch some people like to make them out to be.
>Roman legions
They won a lot of impressive battles, but they also lost a lot. They're greatest streangth was learning from mistakes, not being the unstoppable engine of death some think of them as.
>Vikings
The Kangz of Dark Ages Europe. Lootin' your monestaries, rapin' your women, stealing' your daughters, and generally not being overly amazing at fighting anyone who wasn't a bunch of peasants with pitchforks trying to prevent any of the aforementioned things from happening.
>Any modern special forces units
No, they are not super soldiers that will take down whole battalions of men, they're just soldiers with a particular skill set. In a typical military engagement they'd fair marginally better than regular soldiers.
>Mongols
Like the romans, they won through ingenuity, not superior fighting ability.

>>35065956
He's absolutely right.

Massive structural problems, well past their use by date, huge logistical trail, weird internal politics and a reputation based on media alone. They attract crap officers and the fact that the last full jungle war the UK fought they were outperformed by virtually all other Infantry regiments puts to bed the farcical idea they're capable jungle fighters.

Their course is exactly the same as their British equivalent yet they produce consistently worse soldiers. 28 weeks of Catterick, same as the rest of the Infantry, and they're routinely bottom of the pile.

>>35063787
>EU "army" beating any rich army with action ribbons
Lolno, you guys would be even more pathetic.

>>35065601
This. The longbow have become the European katana in terms of overhyping.

>>35066104
The existance of the Gurkhas does allow the UK to access a source of manpower outside its own population though. Its easier to keep them on the books than try and create something like them further down the line.

Europe is pretty safe just now but it wont always be the case.

Anything russian. Any russian victories are due to overwhelming swarms od subhumans. They only ever won because of numbers.

>>35063678
Viking were pirates, of course they weren't super effective in open battle. Hit and run meant everyone went home richer.

>>35066381
The UK recruits from all over the Commonwealth and none of those guys require the massive logistical and training effort that Gurkhas do.

It's a pointless waste.

>>35065707

Nigger has been detected; but what kind? Sand, feather, taco, euro?

>>35065706
fug u marins is best fite fource in werld nao gib jalopeno cheese pls

>>35064500
>>35065913
It's worse, they actually had firearms, but they also had zero grasp of tactics it strategy on how to use them. Pretty sure they also started the "I'm immune to bullets by doing a stupid ritual" that Africans are so fond of. Regardless people make them out to be some badass warriors when their real strategy was a Zerg rush.

>>35063533
Yes

>>35066079
Actually I don't even think, SF are better then you average grunt because some of them lack the emphasis on actually straight up fights. Like in that one Operation where the navy seals were up against Taliban in a straight up fight and got their asses kicked.

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>>35066386

>>35066386
>This is what Americans are taught and actually believe.

>>35067557
What a smug bastard.

>>35063533
Ninjas. Literally just guerilla warfare peasants who began without any martial arts skills.
They spread rumors about themselves until every peasant was spreading ninja memes.
Most of the stories people think are true are from theater stories based on real people.

>>35067688
I think he's allowed to be a little smug, one of the few generals to have never lost a battle.

>>35063846
>where is asia for 500, alex

>>35063806
not you again

>>35066482
what in the goddamn fuck is a feathernigger?

>>35063787
Lol just like the Dutch beat the Serbs?

Brits are pretty bad ass though.

>>35068598
Indians

>>35068867
poo in loo indians or wild west indians?

I don't understand why people think Sparta had an overrated warrior culture, they literally had the most pure warrior culture ever, to the point that it fucked with everything they did and basically meant they could never grow.
Spent so much time training that they had helot slaves do the work and thus could never really be away from Laconia for very long, making sure that they could never expand beyond the Peloponnesus, their lack of caring about currency and looking down at everything not Spartan made them have next to no science or technological advancement. Their societal structure and training meant that it was really hard to keep the number of Spartan Hoplites very large. The hit this number took from the Peloponnesian war was why they were hardly ever relevant at all afterward and really only their legacy remained. Though it should be noted that their legacy was still so strong almost a century later that Philip of Macedon didn't want to invade Sparta and gave them pretty lenient terms of vassal statehood.

>>35069079
Even now if a modern army went up against a bronze age area where its training for combat we would still avoid it or just pulverize it with ordinance till it gives up

>>35063678
While SEALs are good, they're exaggerated in their abilities, almost to the point where you gotta cringe at some of things people say. They're not really any different from any SoF force beyond being specialized frogmen and recon.

>>35063678
I don't recall anyone considering normal US army troops overrated. They're troops, they do their job, that's what they're paid for.

>>35069232
It was more that the risk wasn't worth it. He had an army that made him the obvious Hegemon of Greece and could effectively dictate policy to the point of effective ownership given the end of the Beotian League and the reviving Athens, but stronger control wasn't worth the risk of what he thought the spartans could do to his army in battle. It was just better policy to not risk it and offer them better terms.

>>35066403

Hardly a waste. The Army can barely keep recruits coming in these days.

But Nepal is ALWAYS packing for more and more to come over. It's a recruitment godsend to keep the numbers up.

>>35069345
If not their reputation he'd have to go pretty far out of his just to get to them and for their size probably was not worth the effort.

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>>35069345
>>35069529
Imagine how pissed youd be as a pikeman and hearing you'd be going up against Spartans

>>35066225
>t. bowlet

>>35068901

Which do you think?

>>35069529
Not really, his army spent a lot of time in lower Greece to prevent the city-states from revolting or trying anything. He was effectively right outside of Athens before he gave them his terms and Attica isn't that far away from Laconia.

>>35068901
Amerindians, the kind that wear feathers and build sacred burial grounds everywhere

>>35066079

Going to disagree on the Romans and Mongolia being overrated. Being innovative in theory is one thing, actually being able to pull off said innovations is another.

>>35068342

still fantasizing about murder cubes and the /k/iddo homeland?

>>35069079

Depends on what the purpose of a warrior culture is really. Is it to produce absolutely heroic individual soldiers and small units, or is it to win wars?

>>35066079

If it's the former, then yeah, the Romans and Mongols are overrated. If it's the latter? Nah, these two are both top tier.

Is Prussia overrated?

>>35069232
>modern army went up against a bronze age
>guns vs a bunch of dudes with spears

No amount of training is gonna save you from bombs and bullets. Also I doubt the Spartans can counter an Abrams or Apache.

>>35063806
Yes there is.

>>35063806

Maori is a warrior race let alone a warrior culture

>>35065707
>kills dictate winning
so by your own logic we won the Vietnam war/Iraq/Afghanistan?

>>35069898
>confusing a codified system of reprisals as warfare

typical /k/ stupidity

>>35069614
>>35069631
sorry but i have no clue how geronimo and his crew are in any way relevant when shitposting about us/soviet win-loss ratio over shitcanistan. which is why i asked the question

>>35069847
Its really about properly rated desu. It was a militaristic state that was able to establish itself over centuries as the preeminent german state despite being relatively small and was slated to be something of the European Hegemony that Britain would have been had it been concerned with continental affairs had it not been for the disastrous geopolitics of WWI. In effect, they lose out because without the foresight and mastery of Bismarck, they go pants on head retarded for WWI

SAS and SBS

>>35063533
>Pre-Firearms
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Crusader States, especially recently there has been a resurgence in their popularity as the greatest of kebab removers when the Mongols are the ones who basically broke the back of Islamic civilization. The crusaders probably had more campaigns against northern pagans and other Christians than against Islam.

>Age of firearms
The Marines

>>35069875
Did you miss what i said about ordinance?

>>35063533
Cossacks

>>35063791
Nonsense, vicious little midgets punch above their weight when VC's are getting handed out.

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>>35063533
In the West, the Spartans easily.
In reality they weren't these bad-ass super soldiers. They were better than their contemporaries in some way but it's way overblown. They weren't warriors nor were they a military society.

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>>35071835
And for the hell of it, the rest of this post.

>>35063867
How could the chosen companion warriors of a demi-god be over-rated?

>>35063670
>Japan. More obsessed with looking cool than with winning wars.
Pls. After introduction to firearms they fielded them in larger numbers (and better quality) than entire Europe only 50 year later.

>>35069079
>Spent so much time training that they had helot slaves do the work and thus could never really be away from Laconia for very long
Helot slave are really not much different from Medieval feudalism. Only Medieval feudalism enslaved their own people, Spartans enslaved another tribe.

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>>35067681
>>35066386
Well, the reality is during WW2 they never enjoyed numerical superiority until the very end of the war--because they could not properly equip all of their fighting aged males. What they were able to do was quickly replace wounded or killed soldiers, this kept their numbers more or less constant.

I know it sounds like "enemy at the gates" but it's the truth.

>>35071835
>>35071935
Cool beans, have any recommended reading on the subject?
>>35063601
>Samurai
To me that depends on the time period, pre-Tokugawa samurai could get pretty damned good at fighting. Also regarding firearms, Aida Nobunaga kicked massive ass when he realized how fucking useful muskets were and issued them to his troops.

>>35063670
awful

>>35072119
USSR all the time had larger army than Third Reich in number of troops, tanks and aircraft's.

>because they could not properly equip all of their fighting aged males.
Yes and no. USSR had more raw number of fielded equipment but failed to adequately supply it. Aka USSR produced and expended twice less artillery rounds and aircraft fuel than Germany.

>>35063717
the power of the us military is entirely due to the us economy and population. it has nothing to do with the abilities of your soldiers. this has been true since wwi. has it occurred to you that the cold war isn't really over, and the only reason there is relative peace atm is because the us could take on the world and win?

>>35069281

Just a shame that the British military at this point is more or less just a second USMC for America (though admittedly more logistically independent).

Spartans: They had the magical gnostic skill of training and reputation. Once everyone else did the novel function of training their men the Spartans ceased to be unstoppable, once the unstoppable unyielding 'never retreat' mythos of Sparta disappeared they ceased to exist as a meaningful entity. Their society was a ridiculous police-state hobbled by the brutal treatment of the Messenians and slaves such that they feared a slave uprising more than any foreign foe.

Romans: In logistics and especially in siegework the Romans rightfully deserve a mythological reputation. They really were that excellent. In terms of discipline then no, they were not overly exceptional. Good, but not legendary. Their legionaries were out disciplined by Batavian auxiliaries during the Batavian revolution and pretty much every exploit cited by Tacitus reads clumsily and far from rigid automatronic. If anything they showed a flagrant impetuousness during their early to mid Republican period that flew in the face of the idealized stories of that consul who killed his son because he accepted a duel with a Gaul and left his position.

Vikings: Like mentioned.

Minutemen/Frontiersmen in the United States: We were not the first to come up with asymmetrical firearm warfare nor were we the best at it. The Iranian-Afghans run circles around the kentucky long rifle with the jezail and were able to completely destroy conventional European style forces with skirmishing marksmen while we had to develop a strong conventional line-infantry doctrine to prevail.

>>35070292
>SBS
fuck you, Friday night SBS porn got me through my teen years without internet

>>35066079

I agree on the special forces bit. I am annoyed when people call some special snowflake elite heavy cavalry/infantry corps of antiquity as "the special forces/navy seals of their time". Special forces are used for surgical operations, not as conventional forces. Praetorians and Legionaries were not special forces, the Auxilia and Auxilia Palatina were because they were expected to perform unique special operations (maritime strikes, ambushes, raids, scouting runs) and were adept at fighting with a myriad of weaponry or equipment (or lack thereof). Templars were not special forces, the Turcopoles or Maronite auxiliaries were.

Like >>35067468 said. Since I like Douglas Porch's books I'd shill his Counterinsurgency Myths book because he takes to task the COINdinista culture of elevating special forces to some kind of gnostic guru-warriors who jealously preserve their fiefs. He makes a case that traditional military units have all the means, methods and knowhow to perform COIN work.

An interesting thesis raised is that special forces get the lion's share of attention/commendation by the public and policymakers whenever conventional forces are seen to be stymied or inhibited in success. In WW1 it was Lawrence of Arabia and the romanticism of the 'small war' over there that galvanized attention away from the slogfest of Somme. In WW2 it was the British commandos who achieved successes in the same small war while the British 40 to 42 were suffering one disaster after another. It was la legion etrangere's paratroopers who were vaunted and worshipped during the Franco-Algerian War. Green Berets and Navy Seals for Vietnam, and now Navy Seals and Delta Force during the muddling war on terror.

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>>35072569
>elite heavy cavalry/infantry corps of antiquity as "the special forces/navy seals of their time"
Indeed. They were Top Gun of their time not some "special forces'' mud eaters.

>>35066737
>basing whether or not Zulus were a warrior culture based on a specific battle with little reality in modern portrayals of an event hundreds of years old.

Good conclusions anon.

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Last page
>>35071935

In order:
>>35071935
>>35071835

TLDR: Spartans only military prowess was Thermopyla and it became a self-fulfilled prophecy. Spartans were not a warrior culture, they were a leisure class, with them making some innovations in Greek warfare such as practicing basic formations and having an officer hierarchy. Ancient Greek warfare was comprised of untrained and undisciplined levies fighting each other.
The image the Spartans made for themselves is one of the biggest propaganda campaigns in history.

>>35072166
Last page has some citations you might look into.

>>35073084
>muh ebil Nazis

>The image the Spartans made for themselves is one of the biggest propaganda campaigns in history.
Too bad Sparta had no propagandists i.e. writers/philosophers to run this propaganda campaign. This was Athens who shilled for Spartans (if propaganda actually took place)

>>35065706
I wouldn't say the legionaries are overrated. It isn't like they were renown for their individual capabilities.
>inb4 I took the bait

>>35063533
American plains indians

>>35063678
That depends on what you mean by "vikings"

>>35073328
It was shilled mostly by later authors. As stated, once Thebes won over Sparta their reputation mostly faltered but the mythos was already there. Since it sounds cool people rolled with It that Sparta was this hardcore warrior culture that defended a pass against overwhelming odds, despite that fact that they weren't the only ones.

In reality the Spartans were not all that different than other Greek oligarchy's. The regiments you heard of, the athletic ones, weren't done to train them to be warriors, it was done to train them to be good citizens. The whole purpose of the class is that they wouldn't have to work, this is where the helots come in place, and they could enjoy life. They would pay their dues, maintain the necessary property level to remain Spartans and do physical training with their buddies.
In short, the Spartans were more akin leisured gentlemen than warriors.

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>>35072693

That's actually very accurate.

>>35063678
Vikings did a damn good job at what they meant to do

the real overhype is Samurai

>>35066737
>(((african tactics))) are to put the young on the outside and the old in the middle so when you all mindlessly run at your tribal enemies you encircle them
>shaka zulu literally the greatest/only sub saharan african military mind
>WE WUZ'd constantly because the rest of known sub saharan african history is about them selling their conquered tribal enemies into slavery to the moslems or jews/portugues

>>35070803
>Spartans assemble in tight ranks outside of arrow range (150 yards or so, 80ish if they're being risky)
>linothorax or bronze breastplate with bronze faced shields and bronze spears
>confident in their cutting edge iron xiphos swords as a backup weapon
>to face their foe of a modern US army company of 100 men who have entered the twilight zone
>in hastily dug trenches with machine gun nests and mortars
>one guy with an M249 opens up and kills all of them

>>35063601
>And the introduction to firearms sorted that mess out fairly quick.
Because the Samurai armies all adopted them?

>>35075312
>because the tokugawa shogunate adopted them
ftfy and yes

the samurai were mounted horse archers of high caliber
tokigawa gives every nip peasant an iron hat and a musket and after btfoing all his enemies the preceding 300 years of peace turn the samurai into honoraribaru obsessed neets and unhinged duelists

army rangers

>>35063533

any SF group that people meme over, they are all more or less the fucking same across the globe, and aren't really that special

>>35063533
>most overrated pre-firearm warriors
I've got to go with the Spartans, put them up against anything but a slapdash city militia and they'll get their asses handed to them 7/10 times. Throw in the influence of Halo and 300 and they're overrated simply by virtue of oversaturation.
>post creation of gun
Probably SEALs. Again, oversaturation.