Modern Army

[Temüjin]

well, byzantines copied a lot from Steppe warfare, like cataphracts and horse archery amongst other things, but i don't like armeis made up of mercenaries from other countries.

[raapi]

Countries that have had an empire or have had an imperial history generally fight well, in fact most humans are capable of fighting well. It's down to nurture more than nature..

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

temujin said:

well, byzantines copied a lot from Steppe warfare, like cataphracts and horse archery amongst other things.

That is why I like them, my dear Shad

[aca]

OK, can you name any battle in which Byzantine army was victorious?
After Justinianus, I know only their defeats. I mean open battles, not siege warfares.
In VI c. they have lost much of their Balkan provinces to Slavs, in VII and VIII c. they lost Africa and much of Asian provinces to Arabs, in XI c. they lost Anadolia to Turks, in the beginning of XIII c. they even lost their capital city to Crusaders......

For their success in Balkan wars (first and second) they have to thank to Serbs, Romanians, and to some degree Bulgarians.

Victory against Musolini - well, Musolini was defeated on every front he fought...

I know, they were giving their best, but there was always someone better

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

aca said:

OK, can you name any battle in which Byzantine army was victorious?
After Justinianus, I know only their defeats. I mean open battles, not siege warfares.

There are many. Bad thing is that my knowledge on the Christian Roman (Byzantine) Empire is only in the beginner-level so I can not give any specific examples. In order to do that, I have to read a lot of books on the Byzantine Empire, which is something I can not do nowadays.

[Temüjin]

aca said:

OK, can you name any battle in which Byzantine army was victorious?
After Justinianus, I know only their defeats. I mean open battles, not siege warfares.
In VI c. they have lost much of their Balkan provinces to Slavs, in VII and VIII c. they lost Africa and much of Asian provinces to Arabs, in XI c. they lost Anadolia to Turks, in the beginning of XIII c. they even lost their capital city to Crusaders......

For their success in Balkan wars (first and second) they have to thank to Serbs, Romanians, and to some degree Bulgarians.

Victory against Musolini - well, Musolini was defeated on every front he fought...

I know, they were giving their best, but there was always someone better

i agree, mostly defeats, but they were sucessfull against Bulgars once and they reconquered most of the Latin empire later on. still, they were most of the time on the losers side and it's only due to their geographcial position that they survived for so long. any other emprie would have been destroyed much earlier, the byzantine empire was on a very slow but steady decline from the Arab invasions onwards...

[aca]

Here are some pics of Serbian Chetniks:


and Croatian Ustashas:


But there is something strange about these two pictures. I wander what

[tengrikut]

are they legionaries???

[aca]

No ;D

I guess these funny photos were taken at some paintball contest (or something like that) somewhere in Asia ;D

These guys look nothing like real Chetniks or Ustashas (only flags look similar). For example, if you look at the "Chetniks" you will see that only the guy with the beard looks a little bit real. But the others only have Serbian traditional hats (called Shaykacha) with Serbian national coat of arms - there is nothing else even close to the real chetniks ;D
Now, the most bizar thing about this is the guy next to the sleepy kid. He has a RED STAR on his hat (like a communist Partizan) ;D ;D ;D In real life this could never happen because chetniks and partizans were the biggest enemies to each other ;D ;D ;D

Now, about Ustashas - they look real even less. Only the Croatian flag and simbols on their hats are real.

So, I posted these pics just because they are interesting and funny. ;D

_______
The real chetnik would look like this:

They too looked funny, though ;D

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

aca said:

Here are some pics of Serbian Chetniks:


and Croatian Ustashas:


But there is something strange about these two pictures. I wander what

ROFLAMO Asian Chetniks ;D ;D

[BAWIR$AQ]

aca said:

I guess these funny photos were taken at some paintball contest (or something like that) somewhere in Asia ;D

At first I thought that was a pretty good Photoshop job created by Albanians

[aca]

Yeah, a couple of guys from some Serbian forums thought the same thing ;D


But if you guys don't mind, I would like to point out something about these flags. PLEASE don't confuse them with real Chetnik or Ustasha flags. The first ones are just modified official Serbian flags, while the one shown with Ustashas is only official flag of Croatia.

the real chetnik flag is:


and the real ustasha flag has this symbol on it:

[Bor Chono]

Using my Russian I can see :


For homeland? and ..........
Freedom or death. ;D

[aca]

Congratulations, dear Bor Chono Yabghu
You got 5 (out of 5) from Serbian ;D

It sais:

"For King and Fatherland"
"Freedom or Death"

[Temüjin]

there is a Cossacks flag who looks very similar to this one: