Fun Fact Thread! (previously fun fact for the day, not limited to 1 per day anymore.)

[Ryaja]

29 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I always thought the new world started later from hunter gatherers so they started farming later so it was still bronze age civilizations at the end but its probably oversimplification. 
Probably more to do that they was pretty alone, not all the web of civilizations we had in Eurasia competing and share discoveries
And the idea of teams of animals was an good one. Earliest use of horses was chariots simply as horses was donkey sized back then. 

It's unknown. For example they have wheeled toys in early times but no evidence later. They knew what a wheel was and how to use it. I think it is probable they had it until a civilization wide collapse where all the evidence was destroyed. But it is unknown.

Edited April 7 by Ryaja
New page!

[kerbiloid]

The charriot is almost the worst idea of using horses in the battle.
Have any reconstructors  made a replica of it not just to ride, but to attack a team of mannequins?

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

it was still bronze age civilizations at the end

Bronze or obsidian?

Edited April 7 by kerbiloid

[Ryaja]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

The charriot is almost the worst idea of using horses in the battle.
Have any reconstructors  made a replica of it not just to ride, but to attack a team of mannequins?

Bronze or obsidian?

We don't know if they had bronze tools in the past. They have found bronze head gear but nothing else. At the end it didn't but in the past who knows.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, Ryaja said:

It's unknown. For example they have wheeled toys in early times but no evidence later. They knew what a wheel was and how to use it. I think it is probable they had it until a civilization wide collapse where all the evidence was destroyed. But it is unknown.

Who is weird, wheelbarrows or handcarts don't require animals and  are useful even today for farming or construction. Chinese even made wooden tracks for wheelbarrows who was smart. 
And its not like the Spanish would not notice this they rater noted the lack of this common tool. 
 

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The charriot is almost the worst idea of using horses in the battle.
Have any reconstructors  made a replica of it not just to ride, but to attack a team of mannequins?

Bronze or obsidian?

Pretty sure some has done this, Tutankhamen's had an nice light chariot buried with him. Pretty sure other cultures buried horses with important people. 
And I agree chariots would be easy to counter, bows is the obvious one, no need for warbows just hit the horses with arrows with the bow you use to hunt ducks, it will not die but not be happy and probably go wild this was not war hoses. 
If they get close poke spears in the wheels. 

But it was an tool to get into bow range of an good bow launch some arrows and run away, it some of the enemy follow you, you lead them to an trap. If the entire army you tire them out chasing you. 
Strategy was still in it in infancy, 

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Who is weird, wheelbarrows or handcarts don't require animals and  are useful even today for farming or construction.

The wheel should have an origin. And the most probable origin of the wheel are a potter's wheel and a handmill.

You don't need a wheel when all your agricultural tools are a sharpened stick and a microlithic sickle. You will be tired of sticking and sickling much more than of carrying.
But you need pots. While shaping the pot from the clay, you have to rotate it either on the table, or together with the table. The first way is inaccurate, the second way requires rotating the table by foot. So, you add a pusher plate (lol!) below, and then the construction quickly becomes a rotating round thing.

You mill the grain with two millstones, rotating the upper one with an excentric handle. You cut a hole in the middle.
The millstone gets bigger, and you put it vertical, stick a wooden log inside and start rolling it around the bigger lower millstone.
You move the heavy millstones by hands, so to prevent them from falling aside, you stick two millstones on one log, and roll this wheel pair.
Then you start making it from wood only to roll.

They say, that the wheel is originated from several logs, onto which you had put some stone for pyramids or so.
It's interesting, what such heavy, that it requires several logs, could be manufactured and lifted to put it on, before the much lighter things like the potter's wheel and the millstones were in use.

According to wiki, the American Indians didn't have potter's wheels.
Did they have handmills? I can see only mortars, which is natural for low grain production rate, when you have not so much to need a mill.

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Tutankhamen's had an nice light chariot buried with him.

Tutankhamen didn't fight on it.

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Pretty sure other cultures buried horses with important people. 

They also buried winged bulls with human heads. This doesn't mean, it's not anything more than a fantasy.
Any known practically working reconstruction?
If semi-naked guys with primitive tools were making them in thousands, it would not take much time to make such charriot with the famous tale-sounding blades on wheels, put three guys with a shield and a bow, and defeat several tens of mannequins made of straw, which are usual training targets for cavalry, without flying out of the chariot or sticking in.

Look at the famous Olympias trireme (afaik, the only known full-sized reconstruction). It barely can run, let alone fighting.
While the Skuldelev boats reconstruction is well documented, but they are things of much lower technical level than the trireme.

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

And I agree chariots would be easy to counter, bows is the obvious one, no need for warbows just hit the horses with arrows with the bow you use to hunt ducks, it will not die but not be happy and probably go wild this was not war hoses. 

Let them first hit something with arrow from the jumping cart without wheel springs.
Then they should either turn back on the 30 m braking distance (a horse can do it right on place, in two jumps), while the enemy is joyfully throwing things in their backs and horses' sides.
Or they should turn 90 deg and run along the infantry first line, shaving it with wheel blades, while the infantry is standing and waiting, the cart driver keeps 0.5 m accuracy, and the light charriot has not stuck in the first two or three bodies on the blades. (Notice also, that the blades are of poor bad bronze, thus not very sharp).
A picture for Conan The Barbarian.

While a horse with rider can hit with lance and rotate back in a second, without getting into the infatry mass, or even touching the spear tips.
But it needs stirrups to hold in saddle on turning back, so the only option for the primitive nomad cavalry is a carousel with bows.

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

But it was an tool to get into bow range

~30 m standing. ~150 m without aiming.

And this for a trained bowman stuck into horse, on a stadium.

Spoiler

A springless charriot on random ground would be sending arrows somewhere in that hemisphere.
And as its inertia (and a pair of horses) needs those 30 m to turn before ramming the human mass and getting stuck, they have only one chance for an accurate shot from 30 m distance.

Edited April 8 by kerbiloid

[Vanamonde]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The charriot is almost the worst idea of using horses in the battle. 

It's important to remember that ancient horses were somewhat smaller than modern ones. (They have been bred for larger size in the centuries since.) Not only was it difficult to stay on a horse before the stirrup was invented but the horses of the time would have difficult carrying the weight of a man, especially if he was wearing armor. So they yoked a couple of their smaller horses to a chariot as a way to increase battlefield mobility without riding the horses directly. 

[kerbiloid]

Just now, Vanamonde said:

It's important to remember that ancient horses were somewhat smaller than modern ones. (They have been bred for larger size in the centuries since.) Not only was it difficult to stay on a horse before the stirrup was invented but the horses of the time would have difficult carrying the weight of a man, especially if he was wearing armor. So they yoked a couple of their smaller horses to a chariot as a way to increase battlefield mobility without riding the horses directly. 

In the MidEast they had donkeys and so-called "semi-donkeys" like onagers. Can't recall if I ever had heard of using them as battle animals from anything but drawings.

The Mongolian horse is same small as onagers (300 kg or less, 120..140 cm in height), but is perfect for both riding and drafting (my grandfather was using them in pre-WWII as an artillery charriot driver in Caucasus mountains). Can run up through a narrow passage at the rock edge, without looking at ground, but deliver the cannon and the deadly-frightened crew safe.

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

It's important to remember that ancient horses were somewhat smaller than modern ones. (They have been bred for larger size in the centuries since.) Not only was it difficult to stay on a horse before the stirrup was invented but the horses of the time would have difficult carrying the weight of a man, especially if he was wearing armor. So they yoked a couple of their smaller horses to a chariot as a way to increase battlefield mobility without riding the horses directly. 

This is right on.  Armor was the big advance at the time at the cost of mobility.  The chariot gave mobility to armored soldiers, not ideal, but helped

[kerbiloid]

Btw
Do these horses on the kinda ancient pictures have anything common with real MidEast donkeys and onagers?

Spoiler

They are obviously painted from the modern hippodrome horses. They are too good even for the great artists' epoch.

***

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhal-Teke

Spoiler

 

Not exactly this kind of horse (see its nose), but close.

(Don't look at the 3000 years ago an so on, lol. Every horse had predecessors 3 000 years ago.)

Edited April 8 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, darthgently said:

This is right on.  Armor was the big advance at the time at the cost of mobility.  The chariot gave mobility to armored soldiers, not ideal, but helped

Not sure how  good armor back then was but it probably did not have to be amazing, mostly handling slingshots and hunting bows. This was the bronze ages after all not late medieval, same as first tanks saw 20 mm armor as heavy  

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Not sure how  good armor back then was but it probably did not have to be amazing, mostly handling slingshots and hunting bows. This was the bronze ages after all not late medieval, same as first tanks saw 20 mm armor as heavy  

Bronze tipped spears, bronze swords, bronze axes, bronze tipped arrows, even baseball-sized stones from slings.  But mostly the spears.  If you want to face a professionally thrown 8 foot bronze tipped spear without armor, or even an obsidian tipped spear (sharper than bronze really), then you got mas cajones, brother. 

But it wasn't just the physical defensive aspects of the armored person, it was command and control aspects.  It was the command officers in the chariots, and being able to move quickly allowed them to maintain a wider sphere of direct communication with various groups of foot soldiers

[SunlitZelkova]

All this discussion is very interesting. It’s gone on so long though I feel like it should be split off into an Ancient History Thread in the Lounge.

Unlike the 20th century, ancient history is pretty easy to discuss without getting political 

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, darthgently said:

Bronze tipped spears, bronze swords, bronze axes, bronze tipped arrows, even baseball-sized stones from slings.  But mostly the spears.  If you want to face a professionally thrown 8 foot bronze tipped spear without armor, or even an obsidian tipped spear (sharper than bronze really), then you got mas cajones, brother. 

But it wasn't just the physical defensive aspects of the armored person, it was command and control aspects.  It was the command officers in the chariots, and being able to move quickly allowed them to maintain a wider sphere of direct communication with various groups of foot soldiers

Agree but bronze armor would be very expensive and heavy to hold up to spear trust I imagine. Effective against cut and arrows however. Don't think many used bronze tipped arrows. 

And the command part is important its surprisingly hard to control an battle. 

[kerbiloid]

The remote Command & Control & Communication tools:

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Also, the bagpipes.

If the bagpipers stopped playing and are running away, better don't be late.
They are standing on a hill and see better.

 

Edited April 9 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

40 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The remote Command & Control & Communication tools:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Also, the bagpipes.

If the bagpipers stopped playing and are running away, better don't be late.
They are standing on a hill and see better.

 

This, still has limited reach and bandwidth, except flags but signal flags on ships was not standardized until 18'th century. 

[Spikemaster]

Comet C/ 2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) Which is expected to be visible from 8/9/24 till 28/10/24 (DD-MM-YY), will hit it's perihelion on 27/9/24, reaching it's peak brightness on 5/10/24.

The best part? I will be able to see it! (hopefully)  Stellarium predicts the comet will have a peak brightness of -0.14.

All expected characteristics are from Stellarium.

Edited April 9 by Spikemaster

[darthgently]

Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary on film in 2026

 

 

[Kerwood Floyd]

Cool. I had a couple of problems with the book, but they would be easily fixed in a film

[Codraroll]

I must say I preferred Artemis, but I can see how it would be much harder to adapt. And Project Hail Mary wasn't a bad book either. I really hope they will be as rigorous with the physics as the book was, though.

[DDE]

Fun fact: "USSR" on Gagarin's helmet was added impromptu on launch day. It's not present in most of the official press photos.

https://t.me/sashakots/46066

[SunlitZelkova]

9 hours ago, DDE said:

Fun fact: "USSR" on Gagarin's helmet was added impromptu on launch day. It's not present in most of the official press photos.

https://t.me/sashakots/46066

A simple and comical alternate history might have Gagarin being detained by security forces temporarily after landing, due to being suspected as a U-2 pilot on account of his orange suit and all white helmet with no markings on it.

[magnemoe]

6 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

A simple and comical alternate history might have Gagarin being detained by security forces temporarily after landing, due to being suspected as a U-2 pilot on account of his orange suit and all white helmet with no markings on it.

Its an conspiracy theory that an previous cosmonaut ending up in China perhaps after doing an orbit. 
Unlikely as Soviet union is hard to miss, for an second stage fail I agree but US and Soviet early had an agreement to return astronauts, and US was an abort option for Soyuz during the cold war. NASA even had the recovery manual for Soyuz back then. 
How to open the hatch, Dangers like primed but not fired retro rockets and antennas popping out. 
This was restricted but to be released to rescue personnel if needed much like it was in Soviet. 
If the Soviet managed an orbit and ended up in China they would screamed and US would agree.If an fail,yes the second rocket failed, sure you had the same problem comrade. 

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Its an conspiracy theory that an previous cosmonaut ending up in China perhaps after doing an orbit. 
Unlikely as Soviet union is hard to miss, for an second stage fail I agree but US and Soviet early had an agreement to return astronauts, and US was an abort option for Soyuz during the cold war. NASA even had the recovery manual for Soyuz back then. 
How to open the hatch, Dangers like primed but not fired retro rockets and antennas popping out. 
This was restricted but to be released to rescue personnel if needed much like it was in Soviet. 
If the Soviet managed an orbit and ended up in China they would screamed and US would agree.If an fail,yes the second rocket failed, sure you had the same problem comrade. 

I highly doubt this even without all the declassified records disproving it. China and the USSR were still halfway between allies and total confrontation in 1961, and China probably would have been willing to return a cosmonaut. Or at least they would certainly make noise about it.

[magnemoe]

On 4/12/2024 at 10:05 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

I highly doubt this even without all the declassified records disproving it. China and the USSR were still halfway between allies and total confrontation in 1961, and China probably would have been willing to return a cosmonaut. Or at least they would certainly make noise about it.

I agree its very unlikely.