twenty years of marriage  :D

Oh, and the Seanchan called the battle in PoD a defeat, the second defeat of the Ever Victorious Army, so I will too.

You said English

Oooops.  I honestly meant to say British, but it was late and I'd just gotten back from camping and was tired because of it.  I thought I'd typed British which is why I was confused by your post Ares.  Thanks for clarifying my mistake.

I should have said that chainmail was light only in comparison to plate.  I will say that I've walked around all day through rough terrain with at least forty pounds on my back while camping and it wasn't very hard and I'm really not a very big guy.  Having said that I don't know what it'd be like fight in.  However, I think it is safe to assume that most proffessional soldiers (Defenders, WC, Companions, WG, House retainers) would train within their armor and get accustomed to the weight and know how to fight in it since that's their job.  They'd also be the only ones able to afford it so peasents wouldn't have to worry.  Just an assumption though.

Rand, Lan, Galad, etc. are the books superheroes and they can do anything because of it.  My problem with the Aiel (its only a little one) is that they all seem to be superheroes, with no average or below average fighters, all just Rand/Lan quality.  A little silly, buT I guess you have to have willing suspension of disbelief.

I'm gone for a week and leaving the thread.

Ok, where to start?

Languages in South Africa I guess.  First, if your going to throw statistics out at me, at least get them from CIA World Factbook, not Wikipedia, where if I wanted to, I could go and say that the Exxon Valdez oil spill had no lasting affects on the environment and probably not get caught for a while.  Wikipedia is simply unreliable.  You ask why I didn't even do the most passing or fleeting research on languages in SA?  My dad was in SA for a month last year, went all over the country and all echelons of society.  Not once did he have to ask for an English translator.  Also, it doesn't matter if you're speaking Zulu at home, your still speaking English at work.  I live in Ottawa, if I go across the river to Hull, I will have to try very, very, very hard to find someone who doesn't speak English, despite the fact that French is an official language of Canada and is one of the major languages spoken at home.  My point is that it doesn't matter if you speak another language at home if you speak the same one as everyone else at work, cause that's the one that matters as a whole and will have the most people that are able to speak it.

Your little Act of the Union bit there.  By that I'll assume that you meant that the British Army consisted of troops from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and that because it consisted of troops from different countries/kingdoms then it should be called English, not British.  Please correct me if I'm wrong here and without condescension, cause for this paragraph at least I'm trying not to condescend either.  I have a couple of problems with calling it the English Army.  One, it was under British leadership with Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington.  Two, the Act of the Union (1707) formed the Kingdom of Great Britain and the 1800 added Ireland, so why shouldn't it be called the British Army if it comes from the Kingdom of Great Britain?  So you would be wrong in calling them English forces, seeing as how they come from Great Britain.  Once again, I assume that this is what you meant (note, British, not english, the Act of Union being signed about a century prior to the beginning of the war; if you don't even know the belligerents in the conflict, how can we take your opinions of it seriously?) even though continue to use British, rather than English for the rest of your paragraph.  If I've misinterpreted your meaning, then please correct me and enlighten the rest of the Dragonmount posters to your actual meaning.

Chainmail doesn't hinder you a great deal, it was made to be lightweight and provide great defense.  That's why it was the next step in armour's evolution.  It was easily flexible and provided great defense against edged weapons in slashing blows and against thrusts from edged or piercing weapons, like say, I don't know?  An Aiel shortspear or arrows?  Its weakness was with blunt weapons like a mace, as it wouldn't cushion the body from a blow and bones would still break, and we all know how Aiel love to use blunt weapons in battle.

Plate Armor is very heavy and limits the wearers maneuverability.  That's why it was only worn by knights, the horse could maneuver for them.  Practically impenetrable except at the inside elbow and knee joint and the armpits, none of which would be very exposed during mounted combat while using a lance.  As long as your horse has barding and you don't run into a pike, you should be relatively invulnerable on the battle field.

Put a zulu army down against a medieval European army of equal number and the Zulus lose.  Their iron assegais killed the British troops 'cause the Brits were just wearing cloth that provided no protection.  An assegai would only scratch plate armor and would do mutch more to chain mail.  Both armours are made from steel while assegais are iron.  The better metal wins hands down and even if they were steel assegais, I'd still give it to the Europeans 'cause the zulus have no armor....like the Aiel. 

I'll try and explain what I think Militiades meant by his talk about helmets, shields, and exchanging arrows between armies.  Over long distances, you can't fire arrows straight at someone because it won't reach them.  You have to fire them up in a parabola so they rain down overhead.  Helmets would protect your head from these arrows, and as has been seen in the books, most farmers (who are quite able archers) have helmets lying around upstairs in their attics.  Raise your shields overhead like a testudo and that will also stop the arrows from killing your good, heavy, core infantry while they march toward the Aiel to start the killing.  Your peasent archers will be able to kill the Aiel warriors with ease at a distance as they have no armor with which to stop the arrows and their bucklers are small and would give very, very, very little protection.  If Aiel archers kill your peasant archers with their own arrows, who cares, they're only peasants and can shoot and kill the Aiel archers with just as much ease.  The Aiel archers are more versatile than the peasant archers and therefore, if = numbers of archers are lost, than the loss is still greater for the Aiel whose archers are more versatile than the peasents.  I don't mean to put words into Militiades mouth, but this is what I think (he/she?) meant.   

As has been said a whole bunch throughout this thread, the Aiel don't fight in tight formations, or any formations at all and therefore cavalry charges are ineffective 'cause they can't charge home unless its against an actual, visible formation.  This would be wrong.  The Aiel would just be easy pickings.  The only infantry that can withstand a cavalry charge has either pikes/long spears/halberds or has depth in ranks to absorb the charge and bod it down.  Things like the square formation.  If you feel that I've misinterpreted the meaning, please enlighten me so I understand.

The Aiel did technically win at Cairhien 'cause it was mostly Aiel v. Aiel and Mat doesn't count 'cause he's one of the book's superheroes and has magical luck and memory.  No one beats Asha'man (so Dumai's Wells shouldn't count either) not Aiel, not Seanchan, not Aes Sedai, and not Trollocs.  Malden I'll give, but it fealt like Jordan just recreated Agincourt, substituting Aiel for cavalry; still very cool though.

Mat's superpowers are explained by Jordan, he has the magic luck, the memories, and the medallion.  That's why I find him plausible, 'cause its explained.  I want to know how a million people are all tall, jacked, (fair eyed, skinned and haired, but live in the dessert?  That only happens in Northern climates, your darker if you live somewhere where its hotter and sunnier) and exceptional athletes.  Genetics doesn't explain that well enough for me.   

Fighting Aiel isn't even fair.  They're a race of superhumans.  Every single on of them is either six foot tall+ weighing 200 lbs. of muscle if they're guys or 150 lb.s if they're girls.  The guys that are shorter than 6 ft. are usually only just under it and weigh at least the same 200+ lbs. of muscle.  They don't eat a huge amount of meat nor do they have gyms or creatine or muslce milk or anything like that.  Its just stupid.  Also, everyone's going on and on about those poor, poor, wetlander infantry armed only with a pike.  The pike was the height of warfare before the advent of gunpower(I realize the Swiss weren't "untrained" militia, but a pike isn't all that complicated to learn) and plowed through both infantry and cavalry.

Unfortunately, the world of the WoT is very contrived.  Cavalry are still considered the creme de la creme, but only wear breastplates and don't use lances(excluding Shienarans)?  Pikeman can mess up anything that doesn't have guns, but they're still undeveloped and scoffed at, wtf?  In all reality, a charge of heavy cavalry against Aiel would be hugely sucessful, the cavalry would have way better reach with their lances and their heavy armor would turn the Aiel arrows and spear thrusts.

Also, you can't beat up someone in heavy armor(Gaul v. WC), you'll break your hands trying to and then most likely die when a mailed fist connects with your face.

Guerilla tactics only work in the jungle, like Vietnam.  During the peninsular war, the Spanish trid it, but it was the English bailout that made the French leave.  The Zulus got their asses handed to them.  Their only real major victory was Islandlwana (can you really call it winning when it takes several thousand of your guys to kill a hundred of their's and you still lose just as many if not more?).  They speak English in South Africa, not Zulu.  The Spartans were not the warriors of three hundred and I hate the misconception people have about them after seeing the movie.  They lost to both Macedonion cavalry and Theban phalanxes.  The Scots only beat the English when the King was an idiot.  The French won the Hundred Years War when they stopped being idiots. 

CAVALRY WINS!!!!  CAVALRY WINS!!!!  CAVALRY WINS!!!!   

Viva la Vida (and thanks about the handle mmeeshal)

WoW