From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Fri 02 Oct 1998 - 20:35:51 EEST
Steve Lieb helpfully opens:
> Kevin doesn't read my post carefully enough:
Well, personally I've read both your posts on this topic, Steve, and
agree entirely with Kevin's comments, so if there's some sort of
semantic gap here either both of us are challenged in this regard,
or just possibly, it wasn't _written_ carefully enough.
Anyhoo, my basic point is the above sort of ad hominem commentary
> Anyway I wasn't discussing whose bows were effective, I was discussing
I just don't see how this statement bears up. What do you mean by
isn't useful as anything other than flamebait, I'd suggest.
> DOMINANCE on the order of that exhibited by English (Welsh) Longbowmen, who
> psychologically transfixed military thought for several centuries.
"dominance", in a way that's completely different from "effectiveness"?
And which "several centuries" would these be, pray? The Hundred Years
War seems to have been marked by at least one notable battle where the
key error was not paying _enough_ attention to the opposing archers
hardly an example of being transfixed by the very concept.
"Let's ignore the infantry plebs and charge them there knights, Jacques."
"Stand-out plan, Francois."
> This hasn't been seen in Glorantha, not that they don't have effective
> archers, just none that have been DOMINANT in that way.
ObGlorantha: With the obvious caveat that I don't fathom your use
of the word "dominant", I'll suggest that the arch-archers of Glorantha,
in terms of overall significance of their military use, are the
Pentans.
Slainte,
Alex.
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