Nets - not such a great idea in battle

some people say to me all right you get out of my garden but other people say to me Lloyd why didn't they use such and such a thing in battle why wasn't this weapon more popular I've given this some thought I think they should be using these and one thing that comes up is nets I was asked about it again recently that's how I'm going to talk about why they didn't use nets in battle now of course net did exist you're probably familiar with the reti aureus the fisherman gladiator and yes these existed they were quite considered quite a low status gladiator that didn't weren't expected to win all that many fights but it was entertain them entertaining to watch them try and let's not forget everyone that that wasn't a death sentence because most gladiators were volunteers and most of them in most fights did not die gladiators were very expensive to train and you didn't want your stable of gladiators dying all the flippin time that would be really expensive so most of the time they didn't die anyway a bit of a side side point that so the RET er is yes he did have a net but he was on the sand the Roman word for sand is arena and so you could say he was on the arena rather than in the arena but because of the meaning in modern English I suppose both are acceptable anyway he was on the sand dueling bewdley with his net in one hand and his Trident in the other or possibly trying their hand and net in that side you know he's up to him which way around he does it now you may think that a net can be made quite effective because it can be weighted it can be quite large and you could put hooks on it and so forth so in a battle can you imagine loads and loads of people casting nets onto the front ranks of the enemy and they'd have these nets flying over them to come over there Spears and shields and they'll be hooks digging into their flesh sniffing Wow oh really how does they try to get up and be struggling and then the enemy will be on them there'll be chaos and a mutilation and death and so forth and ultimate shame and defeat so why didn't people do this why did they cast net over their enemies in battle well let's think about this a little bit more like imagine you've got an infantry formation there they've got the standard weapons which is spear and shield okay so you've got a net well a small net isn't isn't going to do it this if you have a net that's sort of big bigger for a small fish or whatever you haha that's just gonna hit the rugby shield drop on the ground and embarrass everyone so you need a big net it's got to engulf a man his eight foot spirit shield and maybe if they're standing quite close together maybe you can't get around the two guys next to him as well and it's really gotta get right over them and the weights have got to fly out this net has gotta because broadly like that and it's gotta be open in the air so you can need to really swing it around this big net and cast it aren't you so you can need a lot of room around you to do that you can't just go haha like that that's not going to work you have to swing it around and cast this net but you can't do it from very far the range of such a large net you won't be able to throw it more than a few yards so you're going to be well within javelin range aren't you and you can't wield a large shield or anything whilst you're doing this it's a big net and you can't be in a dense formation because you need loads of room around you to swing this net and so if you have a load of net casters they're going to be spaced really quite far apart and they're going to be hugely outnumbered by the guys in front of them so you cast your net and as you're swinging it round and casting it or even advancing to get into position to do so they could just throw a javelin at you and then you'd been trouble wouldn't you or even a guy might just run forward out of line and lunge with a really long spear and get you before you could cast the net and that would be embarrassing too wouldn't it but let's imagine that doesn't happen and you do actually manage to cast the net well think he's got a spear he could just swap the net out of the air and he's got other guys next to him likely to be doing the same thing in fact as you cast the net because you're so spaced out on the enemy is a dense formation there might be five guys all in the position to just rip not that net out of the air with a spear oh dear but wait a minute let's imagine for some reason they don't manage that they'll try and fail and the net does go over them and doesn't go from a nil game all right I've got a net all by crikey how do I get out of this well almost no ancient formation was one rank deep gonna be at least four rank quite often eight ranks deep and so whilst the front rank is just a struggle struggle struggle all I actually have to do is just kneel down and let the guys behind them replace them and whilst they're sorting themselves out behind you've now got a new front line which is now in a position to charge a load of unarmed guys with no shields and no nets and what do you do I strongly recommend running away by the way at that point and so as soon as you've cast the net what you've got to do is then capitalize you've got a wife they're still struggling got a charging immediately but with what they're only a few of you and you're quite widely spaced yes you could be thrown out in front of another unit but that's going to be a little bit behind and there's going to be a delay and are you really going to be want to be one of those net casters because what do you think your chances of survival are as a net caster I would you know personally I'd like to have a big shield and a spear and lots of guys next to me I'd feel much much safer thanks um so by using infantry against other infantry like that is possibly just not the most effective weapon and by large you want to get people to most effective weapons but but you could use them for capturing people chilly what if you had what if you had horsemen with Nets you could gallop after people and you could you could cast a net over one of them as he's running away and you could tangle him up and capture him and captives are good right yeah but is that what your officer wants you to be doing you see if you've got a spear you can go gallop gallop gallop got stabbed gallop gallop gallop gallop out stabbed gallop gallop gallop got stabbed and keep going and you're going to down loads of the enemy and you can keep going and then maybe the enemy realizing that he's surrounded by cavalry because you've caught him up and you run run round him you take a thousand prisoners they just throw that like okay okay fair enough and you get a thousand prisoners that's great isn't it but if you've got a net which is pretty big awkward thing to have on your horse when it's not being used but then you've got it there you know for the route when there's the opportunity to capture a straggler prisoner so you then get your net out it's not gonna be easy to cast the net from a moving horse but let's imagine that you work out a way of doing this and you then cast accurately your net onto one of the stragglers and he goes down pump right you're on a horse he's on the ground he's gonna get out of that net I mean it's not it's not sealed anything that doesn't I've been not it's only made out of ropes and so forth it's probably better as a knife or sword or something sharp on him he'll be able to cut his way out if he can't get out by some other means you're gonna have to get right on that guy really really quickly so you probably gonna have to dismount okay in the middle of a battle okay good to hold your horse with one hand and say right you you're you are my prisoner stop it just stop stirring and he's quite dangerous he's a terrified man and he's got weapons and he'd much rather be somewhere else and so he's a dangerous thing he's going to take quite a bit dealing with in fact you probably need help so you flag down a couple of your mates and between two or three of you were able to capture this guy in a net and so you and two other guys have now come to a halt and what have you got you've got one personal prisoner but your officers commanding the army they'd much rather that you didn't stop three guys in order to capture one opposition guy you want them chasing those routers on mass and darling loads of the stragglers and perhaps capturing the whole lot in one big go and keeping them routing that's the job you're supposed to be doing not stopping in ones and twos and getting a few me bagging a few stragglers for yourselves so equipping your cavalry with Nets is not actually very helpful for the the job of winning the battle and taking mass prisoners and equipping your infantry probably isn't terribly effective either so yes in the arena or on the arena it's an entertaining match to see a reti aureus versus a sec Utah or Myrmidon or where there is up against but in a battle no not really although this hasn't stopped a number of video games and and other representations of the past showing units of gladiators actually equipped as gladiate in their showbiz costumes in the field know that even even Spartacus and his lot when they're in revolt that generally didn't dress as as gladiators perhaps right at the very start if some of them had grabbed some of the gladiatorial kit they might have been equipped that way but it's not the most practical stuff in battle and as soon as they had defeated load of Roman legionaries they nicked the Roman legionaries kit and equipped themselves in military kit for actual battle gladiators in the arena that's for entertainment it's not really for battle limors member

Channel: Lindybeige

Views: 771,595

Rating: 4.9468541 out of 5

Keywords: net, nets, retiarius, gladiator, fisherman, battle, combat, melee, weapon, weaponry, warfare, ancient, medieval, infantry, cavalry, netting, use, why, battlefield, war, fighting

Id: pESyj0qkxlo

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 01 2016

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