Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals

This is the second half of the second part (I, IIa, IIb) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. While I hope this will be of great interest to the history nerds out there, I’ve opted to structure this specifically as a … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals →

Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration

This is the second part (I, IIa) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. While I hope this will be of great interest to the history nerds out there, I've opted to structure this specifically as a service for the worldbuilders out … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration →

Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight

This week I want to try something a little different. Rather than taking apart a particular fantasy military system, I thought I might try to lay out a more general sense of how military systems tend to map on to societies, both because such general historical frameworks are handy for thinking about the past, but … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight →

Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part V: How a Carthaginian Army Fights

This is the fifth and last part of our series (I, II, III, IV, V) looking at how Carthaginian armies were raised and constituted. Over the last four parts, we've looked at the larger components of Carthaginian armies: the relatively small role of Carthaginian citizens, the more prominent role of North African conscripts, of Numidian … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part V: How a Carthaginian Army Fights →

Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part IV: Allies and Mercenaries

This is the fourth part of our series (I, II, III, IV, V) looking at how Carthage's complex, multi-ethnic armies were raised and structured. Last week, we looked at Carthage's unusual system for raising vassal forces: long-serving Carthaginian generals could inhabit positions within the personalist, non-state mobilization systems of Numidia and Iberia, enabling them to … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part IV: Allies and Mercenaries →

Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part III: Generals, Warlords and Vassals

This is the third part (I, II, III, IV, V) of our series looking at how Carthage's complex, multipart armies were raised and constituted. Last time, we looked at the backbone of Carthage's armies: North African troops levied out of Carthage's subject communities in North Africa. These fellows seem to have been directly employed by … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part III: Generals, Warlords and Vassals →

Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part II: The African Backbone

This is the second part (I, II, III, IV, V) of our series looking at the structure of the Carthaginian army. As we discussed last time, while Carthage has an unfair reputation for being an 'un-military' society, its military system was one of the highest performing in the ancient Mediterranean, able to produce vast and … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part II: The African Backbone →

Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part I: Finding Carthaginians

This is the first part of a series (I, II, III, IV, V) looking at the structure of the Carthaginian army. Although Carthage has an (unfair!) reputation for being a country of "peaceful merchants who tended to avoid wars," Carthage was, I will argue, without question the second greatest military power the Mediterranean produced - … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part I: Finding Carthaginians →

Collections: Reconstructing the Roman Pectoral

This week we're going to look a specific piece of early Roman military equipment, the humble bronze pectoral, which it turns out is surprisingly tricky for us to confidently reconstruct, in part because the period of its use that most interests us (the run from c. 264 to c. 146 where Rome is winning its … Continue reading Collections: Reconstructing the Roman Pectoral →

Collections: Warfare in Dune, Part II: The Fremen Jihad

This is the second part (I, II) of our somewhat silly look about the plausibility of warfare in Frank Herbert's Dune. Last week, we looked at the system of warfare that is dominant in the setting when the first book opens: warfare among the Great Houses. While I noted some worldbuilding issues I see - … Continue reading Collections: Warfare in Dune, Part II: The Fremen Jihad →