/his/ - History

Scythians supposedly had female riders among their ranks.

That being said, most accounts revolving around this precise issue (i.e. the Norse shield-maidens) are legendary at best.

During the Siege of Dorostolon, the Byzantines found women in armor among the Rus dead. And an Arab chronicler mentions women armed for a fight while on pilgrimage during the Crusades. There are a couple of legendary Muslim women from the 7th century who are reputed to have been warriors as well.

>>31265

Tomoe Gozen from the Genpei War is a pretty famous example. Fought in multiple battles, supposedly incredibly skilled with both the bow and sword and managed to take at least one head.

Joanna of Flanders is another fairly famous one. Fought during the War of the Breton Succession successfully leading armies but eventually went mad and spent the rest of her life in an asylum (or what accounted to one in the middle ages).

Nadezhda Durova who served in the Russian military during the Napoleonic Wars. Supposedly incredibly courageous and competent. Was a lieutenant in a hussar unit, eventually tired with a rank equivalent to Captain. Once transferred to a different unit to avoid a woman who had fallen in love with her.

There have been times in history most notably in sieges where anyone able to hold a sword was to fight, other than that if any women did fight they most certainly were not "pretty" but burly ugly women that could be mistaken for a man.

>>31272

/pol/ pls go

>>31278

>women did fight they most certainly were not "pretty" but burly ugly women that could be mistaken for a man.

sauce?

>>31283

Game of Thrones told him so :^)

>>31278

>/pol/ pls go

oh come can you even deliver a single counterpoint except a situation were they would have given children weapons aswell?

>hurr my mainstream pleb views are superior if I spout buzzwords

Women are generally worse fighters as they lack mass and strength, of course there are exceptions but they're rare.

>>31265

Mulan from China?

From wikipedia, the 'history' doesn't tell what she actually since the original text was lost so there are a lot of romanticized version about her.

>>31278

still, they are exceptions though. It's also possible that they are not burly just like the strongest teen, Maryana naumova, who can lift without visible muscle mass. But again, they are still exceptions.

Women in battle are present only in extreme cases, like sieges breakthroughs, desperate battles, shit like that, but still

>sending a woman to war

She's the only way a population can grow and you want to send it to die off?

>>31289

"her"

Also I know there were some individual women who went to the fronts to fight, but they're individuals, not masses.

>>31265

I don't know where this legend comes from, but Joan of Ark actually fought in battle.

She got wounded thrice, once by a stone thrown at her from the walls of Orléans while she was climbing on a ladder, and once when an arrow hit her in the shoulder, and once when an arrow hit her in the leg.

When she tried to get involved in politics, however, the king and his subordinates did everything they could to stop her from fighting (and she was insisting to fight).

>>31293

She participated in battle but she didn't FIGHT fight. By her own admission she was a standard bearer and never actually used a sword in battle.

>>31267

The Scythians are really the only peoples we have direct archaeological evidence we have for the existence of warrior women.

Aside from that, there have been a few women leaders who led battles from the front. People like Amina of Zazza and the Trung sisters of Dai Nam definitely led from the front and made many accomplishments in battle.

>>31278

>/pol/ pls go

But he is absolutely right though. Is he automatically /pol/ because he disagrees with you? Also just because you are brawny doesn't mean you can't be beautiful anon.

>>31278

but he's right, if he wasn't there would've been also armies of women.

>>31299

I'd like to see a source on that, mainly because being wounded by a falling rock means that she was climbing first on a ladder to assault the walls. You have to keep in mind that she also lied quite a bit during her trial, mainly because her judges were looking for any excuse to burn her, so she could have lied about killing people.

>>31316

In both world wars the Russians deployed mixed units of men and women.

Women in combat is either desperate times like in World War 2 with the Soviets and later the Germans, as in frontline combat, or they're rarities.

I forget which empire it was but in Africa they did have female combat units, but they were made up of slave women not actual volunteers.

Overall its nothing like how Hollywood tries to portray with stronk independent womyn that kick everyone's ass and more an act of desperation, slavery, or just luck.

>>31330

The Germans did not use Women in front line combat even in Berlin.

>>31278

So disagreeing with you makes him a /pol/ack and being a /pol/ack makes him universally wrong?

GTFO

>>31323

There was also that Women's Battalion Of Death.

Badass as the name is they weren't exceptional and when the reds took over they were basically told to go home.

The Soviets used female snipers in WW2. Some of them are said to be very successful, but I'm not sure how much of it was propaganda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

>>31272

Women are better snipers though

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

>>31272

That's only on average, though. There are plenty of women who are just as capable in combat as men, they're just a small minority.

>>31272

Modern combat, albeit without hand-to-hand combat, women can be just as good as men if they are fit enough. The IDF are a good example of this, I do not know how reliable this is but my old history teacher (really good guy) said that they had to be taken off of the front-line because of their ferocity; this was dangerous as, despite proving themselves, it led to recklessness.

>>31385

The only source I've read on them is a book on the Russian Revolution which was quite sympathetic to the commies so you're probably right.

>>31392

Eh, /k/ would disagree. Apparently the main issue is their lack of endurance (which is a VERY big issue on today's battlefield) and they cave under stress easier. Also, men instinctively defend women which leads to serious fuckups and morale damage.

I wouldn't know though because I'm not a milifag and even then my nation doesn't allow women in combat roles. Maybe jewish chicks are different? Or the kikes are doing something very right with the psychological part and the heavy emphasis on urban combat (it is mostly urban, right?) negates the endurance issue?

As long as they pass the same tests and meet the same requirements that everyone else takes to get in, I don't see what the problem is.

>>31392

Although I would agree that the advent of firearms means that brute strength isn't as important on the battlefield as it used to be with melee weapons, the overall endurance of human females is lower as a result of basic human biology.

Could a female Israeli soldier beat my shit up? Quit likely, yes. Could a male Israeli soldier with the same training beat her shit up? I dare to say so.

That being said, I could imagine women would suffer no distinct disadvantages when acting from a mobile platform, i.e., as mounted soldiers or tank personell. I'm not sure about fighter pilots - they don't really have to move around all that much, but their bodies are subjected to extreme fucking stress while in the air.

>>31303

>archaeological evidence

You sure it wasn't a "They had weapons in their graves! That totally makes them warriors!" kinda thing, like the shit they tried to pull with the Vikings?

>>31392

>>31396

>>31420

>>31428

>Tread about historical cases of women in combat

>People start talking about modern times

Please stay on topic, no need to plant the seeds of a stupid, off-topic argument.

>>31265

Not really, men and women are different enough physically that women would get their shit pushed in, even today this is mostly true. Also, women are/were too valuable to waste in combat.

>>31420

Psycological abuse from their male peers, rape, pregnancy.

Right now people are cutting funding for their militaries, so if girls average 15 percent weaker why look for the shining stars at all? They definitly dont need new soldiers.

>>31454

To expand, it costs the army to even try people out.

>>31433

are we arguing? we're just showing that women have fought in Israel and this shows that they could be capable in combat with ranged weapons.

>>31490

That's not the point of threads on /his/.

The thing to understand is that most mercenariesand random grunts die anonymous deaths yound and often illiterate. If any of them were female odds are good it may never have been written down and they'd have just died in a like square like hundreds of men.

Mathematically speaking over the centuries that would happen many times. A woman is conscripted in desperation, or joins out of desperation, only to die before any kind of deal can be made of it.

We do know in the modern era that disguised women can and did survive and more than one could go years without discovery until much later, so its safe to presume it happened without coming up at other times.

I mean even if that's one in a million once you crunch the numbers on the sheer amount of people who've had to pick up a sword or gun you will get a number of them as women.

>>31490

>are we arguing?

>Please stay on topic, no need to plant the seeds of a stupid, off-topic argument.

To add, yes, you guys were indeed drifting off topic.

>>31513

>>31554

If women are capable to fight in modern combat, then perhaps they were capable to fight in battles as archers or with crossbows.

>>31581

Fuck man read the OP.

>are there any historical examples of this

The point is to find historical evidence of it happening, not speculating whether it would be possible.

>>31581

what >>31584 said.

Plus, in order to be an archer, you need to be very strong, especially from the upper body, in order to shoot. The average woman gains upper body strength at 60% of the average man's rate.

A woman may manipulate a firearm or a crossbow from a fixed position, but gender roles were very strict in the middle ages, and if it happened, it was in a desperate situation.

>>31610

>Plus, in order to be an archer, you need to be very strong, especially from the upper body, in order to shoot.

You don't, really. To shoot the upper tier of bows specifically meant for battle or strength training consistently, sure, but we're talking about the creme of the crop at that point. Most archers in history were levies or militia who used hunting bows which even children could learn to shoot, and were regularly poor and malnourished in comparison to the more professional and noble soldiers of the time. They weren't nearly as good as those professionals and nobles, but that didn't always matter either to the poor archer or their employers.

>>31613

Well, archers in the military need to have a purpose, and the low power of the hunting bow made it close to useless in battle.

That's the reason why when you couldn't afford to train professional archers, you'd make a bunch of crossbows for your peasants and call it a day.

>>31614

Low power really meant low range, which for many commanders was better than having none at all. If one couldn't afford to have professional archers, they probably couldn't also afford to make lots of crossbows either. That's what mercenaries were for.

As for hunters levied as archers, you can't get any cheaper than free.

>>31616

At this point (malnourished peasants with a 70lbs bow), we're talking about cannon fodder, not troops, and pikes would be much more efficient without being too expensive.

It might have been useful for bandits or peasants vs peasant war thought.

>>31617

Being cannon fodder means being expendable, but it still means they're soldiers. And if they already have a weapon and experience with it (as with hunters and sailors and shepherds with bows or other missile weapons), it's still cheaper to employ them versus buying equipment and training them with it.

Efficiency was not a as great a concern as mobilization and expediency. In the end, you have to go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.

The ultimate point I'm trying to make is that fighting and war was rarely so scientific that only elite corps of men in peak physical condition ever took to the field. You don't need to be very strong or healthy to fight. It certainly helps, but it rarely stopped those determined to fight anyway. This applies to more than just archers, and includes even women who, for some reason or another, found themselves killing or being killed in the middle of battle.

>>31267

>>31265

Didn't the Picts use female warriors? Or am I suffering from Hollywooditis?

>>31392

>IDF women

You mean the models specifically hired to make the IDF look good, but who don't actually see action?

Your professor was a faggot who had no intention of teaching, and only of spreading Israel's bullshit, stop basing your world view on Hollywood

>>31392

There are multiple issues with putting women in frontline combat.

Strength and stamina are less than a mans. The best women in the world are only as strong as the average teenage male. This leads to problems of what you expect from a unit. In modern times if you expect everyone to have X amount of strength and stamina, you cannot have someone with Y thats lower than that, it gets people killed when you plan situations.

The other issue is that women fuck up the dynamics of a male group. It will cause tension between other squad members because men will fight over women's attention. This is built into us on a genetic level, 99.9% of men do not act the same around women as they do men, even 1 woman fucks up that dynamic.

As you pointed out, the women who do manage to succeed in the testing are often try hards. They have no interest in the job, just being a trailblazer and getting her name in history for passing the exam. It makes them over zealous and leads to stupid decision making and lowering moral all round.

tl;dr Don't put women in frontline combat if you want optimum units. Use them in support positions.

>>31650

Well it isn't to look good though, is it.

http://www.idf.il/1589-en/Dover.aspx

The reason why Israel uses women as fighters is because they need the soldiers, otherwise they face extinction; young people in Israel are used to serving in the army, I don't see how it's meant to make "the IDF look good".

(How am I basing it on Hollywood, what the fuck)

>Your professor was a faggot who had no intention of teaching, and only of spreading Israel's bullshit

Have you thought that perhaps he wasn't a "Zionist swine" and instead was misinformed that his side-comment was wrong or misleading? Come on man, calm down.

>>31527

Sauce or gtfo.

>>31649

Hollywooditis

>>31388

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

>>31740

the state of Israel would face extinction, nearly all people have military service because they're a hated country that is surrounded by enemies.

>>31750

Women were only officially enlisted into the Israeli military after the Yom Kippur War, the last time an Arab neighbor invaded it. Since then Israel has been on the offensive in Lebanon or else patrolling its occupied territories.

There was a famous Mongolian warrior woman, but I forgot her name. Anyone here remember?

>>31750

>they're a hated country

For good reasons (READ: Israel, not jews).

>>31779

Jesus Christ, when did I say they were a hated country for "bad" reasons, I didn't go on here to learn about how Jews were hated, I was simply giving an example of women in combat.

>>31766

Which was forty years ago, meaning the army has had time to kick women out of the army, which they haven't. It seems that women are competent in reservist roles then; perhaps the women are used as "peace-keepers", like police-officers, rather than offensive soldiers.

>>31741

>my exceptional sniper is better than your exceptional sniper

>>31782

Which is exactly the point.

>muh womyn are better snipers look at this one example

And even then she wasn't the most successful one soviet propaganda couldn't even get that right :^)

>>31741

always finnish niggers shoehorn that guy who killed random ukrainian conscripts and inflated his kill count by some bullshit stories

>>31581

This is almost the exact opposite of true. Upper body strength isn't nearly as helpful to melee as D&D would have you believe. While being exceptionally strong means you can do things like shatter enemy shields or knock an enemy off-balance with a glancing blow, most men couldn't do this anyway. Melee fights, especially against armored opposition, were about direct hits to the enemy that would cripple them enough for a finishing blow even through their armor, and any adult human with a proper weapon could pull that off with a direct hit in most eras (there are exceptions: An enemy in plate armor, for example, has to be shoved to the ground so you can use your weight to push the point of your sword through their armor and body, which requires a lot of wrestling, which makes strength much more important). Endurance, technique, and speed, not strength, are the most important things in a melee fight.

Bows, on the other hand, get better range and more killing power from a higher draw weight, which means that upper body strength translates very directly into a clear advantage not just at the upper limits where colossally strong fighters can shatter enemy shields, but for every additional pound of draw weight you can manage.

Crossbows are much more manageable (harder than you might expect, but well within the range where any healthy adult human could manage), but they're also expensive as fuck and unlikely to find their way into the hands of sweet Polly Oliver.

>>31914

Endurance my friend endurance. If we're speaking of female knights remember that plate armour weighs a fucking massive amount and woman are unable to run/walk/ride in such weight for as long as men. However if we're talking about plebs then most of the rank and file of armies in the medieval period would either be spear troops to get rid of cav or archers if we're talking about golly old Blightey. These lot wouldn't really have the equipment to get these blows in on a armoured knights and as such would need to have enough upper body strength to use a long bow or to take down a horse with their spear.

In essense you need upper body more so in the medieval period than any other period in history. If you had said maybe there were a few female Musketeers then you would have a point due to less strength needed but in medieval combat you're fucked without proper upper body strength.

>>31972

>tfw no qt Kurd gf

>>31934

>If you had said maybe there were a few female Musketeers then you would have a point

See, you were doing fine until here, which where you implied you were contradicting anything I wrote. I never said anything about the validity of female warriors in a realistic setting. I was just pointing out how the 'strength is good for melee but orthogonal at range' popularized by D&D and video games is exactly backwards.

>>31907

And I'm sure that the russian sniper grill that original Anon posted legitimately got 300+ kills no russian propaganda we promise

>>31972

The IRA had female fighters too

>>31265

There is quite a few examples of women commanders tho

>>32072

Like who?

>>31272

>tfw my feminist gf literally cites the amazons as examples of historical female warriors

>>32090

does your girlfriend shave

>>32090

>feminist gf

JUST

>>31392

>>31396

women who work in male dominated fields tend to overcompensate like that, or theyre just psycho cunts.

>>31322

>lied quite a bit in her trial

did you even look at the rehabilitation of her? what lies did she tell? or, are you thinking about the cases where the judges would turn her own statements on her

>>32090

wasn't that true for those tribes from south america which gave the name to the river tho?

>>31272

>my opinions are facts

I mean, you don't state truths like this without any sources or proofs, i don't know man, that's not very mature

>>32122

>wasn't that true for those tribes from south america which gave the name to the river tho?

More because the people who attacked Francisco Orleama's expedition were mainly women, who were probably there for gathering.

>>31741

He had to kill 19 men per day from the beginning of the war until the end. (Confirmed kills)

Given how Soviet battles were, odds are he killed 45-60 on average per week, if we're going correctly. However he was out of service in early March, therefore the amount of kills raises by 12.3 more per day.

It is quite possible that he could have of killed that many men, though the odds of it with Finnish propaganda versus Soviet propaganda is slim. The Soviets claim his kill count was at 104, quite average for a sniper even during World War Two for 3 months of time, inferring the sniper used only their rifle.

It's hard to say. He was using a Finnish-Mosin Nagant, taking only 5 rounds, meaning he had to carry 8-10 clips on him, giving him 40 to 50 rounds. If he never missed, his kill-count would be accurate.

Nobody never misses. I say the real count lies within the 300's and 400's. But, I'm talking out of my ass here, so

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Sidorenko

Better sniper.

>>32122

>my opinions are facts

While I am uncertain of the veracity of the claims being made by the guy you're responding to, they are undoubtedly claims of fact and are either true or false. Opinions are, by definition, subjective assessments which cannot be either true nor false, not just a claim which we can't verify right now.

>>32696

There is the example of Beate Uhse, a German figher pilot in WW2 (who after the war became rich by creating and selling sex toys and pornography).

>>31972

very relevant post

Keep an eye on Turkey this century.

>>32251

so why do you spell them like truths?

>>32139

why did they had weapons then?

>>32742

The Amazonian Forest is a dangerous as fuck place, you don't go outside without a spear, it's like going to detroit without a gun.

>>32702

>mfw I thought you were joking

>mfw I looked her up

>>32702

>>32763

Lol why is that a bad thing it's funny and original as fuck, literally novel material

>>31265

I'm sure women in some areas were trained in order to defend their homes alongside the men. Sending women out on campaign is retarded, but since if you fail to defend your village and they all die anyway they'd might as well fight.

>>31265

>ctrl-f thread

>no dahomey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons

This looks to be the only instance of a female military corps that wasn't due to "well, all the men are dead"

>>31267

>Scythians supposedly had female riders among their ranks.

From Scythians (at least) to the Horde, there was always someone in the steppes.

Specifically with the Mongols this issue is very clear: their men traditionally had competition in riding, shooting and wresting, while women only in riding and shooting.

Most likely, same deal was with Scythians - even if not in raiding parties, they could defend the camping grounds quite nicely while men were out. There was always someone capable of using a composite bow well. And it's never just one bow, is it?

As to why archery would be commonly practised even in peaceful times… Eating and wearing what you shot is the best everyday incentive to excel.

When not defending the camp, opportunistic hunting may be a thing.

Consider a simple gopher. The Central Asia is crawling with these little buggers at times - but they tend to be found near their holes and dive in the moment becoming a lunch seems like a possibility. Which leaves two obvious ways to get one into soup - traps or picking off from far enough away that it won't worry just yet. Blowguns don't have range for this, thrown weapons and slings involve making obvious sudden movements at launch. What's left?