The way wars are going....

Cavalry is going to disappear completely from the battlefield(if it hasn't already).
I miss the good old days when people fought on horsebacks T.T
Modern warfare depends too much on technology and too little on skill.

I miss the gentlemanly way to fight. Where you would often meet with the opposing side and have a little meal between commanders and they treated each other with great respect on and off the battlefield. Now we'd rather just fight each other from hundreds of meters away with sniper rifles, or better yet nukes. :P

It's kinda cool when the thing you had to say about war was how the oldies way of people killing one another was getting phased out by newer ways of killing. And you lament how it sucks to kill another person in a less skilled based way.

Well times change, honorable ways of the past are not practice by most country now, cuz is time consuming and resource wasted in procedure, now days, they only want to end the war as quickly as possible. though it save lives and time, still resource wasted in the process.

but, i kinda like the old ways, to fight with honor and to die with honor.

I thought you were saying chivalry at first, but w/e, it's the same to me. I agree at some points; I don't really care if you fight from horseback, but to shot someone you should at least risk being shot yourself. Nukes and other long-distance weapons are for pussies.

Indeed, well i might not know that much about how everything really happened in the past, i liked more the battles done with swords and skills, they had castles w/e, the Middle Age.

Indeed nowadays you can bomb up countries with those nukes and do a lot of stuff just with technology.

Katanas <3

I guess modern warfare rely more on efficiency then something in their minds "unrealistic" like honor.

You cant kill with it, you can only die with it

Mechanized infantry and tanks are the new cavalry, they are the fast movers and heavy hitters of the modern battlefield. Cavalry isn't gone, it's just changed in its appearance.

^this, and when soldiers run out of bullets in a battle, they are trained for fighting unarmed

um.. u mean chivalry? and well, war is now different, but there is some skill needed when all the tech is taken off. i.e. small-quarters combat. also, nowadays people 'dislike' each other a lot so being gentlemanly wont keep you alive. >_>

Cavilry in itself does not mean horseback, it just means a faster, less stelthy division of troops. Cavilry is flying elbow of all armys, no one even thinks about taking out the devistating flying elbow.

Chivalry is overrated. If you went back in time and offered a rifle to those poor bastards who actually did have to swing a sword around on horseback, they would gladly take it. The only reason things like honor and chivalry existed is because they suited the period in which they were born.

I'll take a tank over a horse any day.

Errrrrrrrr....... i ride a buss

Thats pretty silly...

Sure, why dont I give my enemy a better chance of killing me...yeah right...

The point of a war for either side is to win it.
Honor is more of a cultural thing than a battle thing.

All the sort of customs and things of battle were because of how wars were fought, and how wars were fought was based on the technology of the time. At one time, high-end battle technology was a sword that wouldn't break during battle. And they didn't have any way to communicate with the other side outside of messengers, so two commanders meeting on the battlefield made sense, at a time when they needed to work out exactly why it was they were about to try to kill each other, and all that jazz.

And there isn't any less skill in battle, there is probably even more necessary. Your average soldier was trained to use his sword then, now he is trained to use a gun. Your average civilian would have the same relative effectiveness with either weapon when compared to the soldier. And now we have more advanced weapon systems that require very smart people to make sure they work properly and don't blow up the wrong country. That would also be skill.

It's not that battle has lost it's honor, or skill, it's just all done in a different manner now.

The one thing you might be able to really argue, though, is a general loss for respect of human life. It's probably easier to see killing in war objectively when you see a person you are shooting far away die, than when you are seeing someone right in your face die. But I'm still betting any soldier with a confirmed kill realizes that he's taken a human life.

Leading on whay Dante1214 mentioned, which he makes an excellent point, our technology had led us beyond the point of the killing range of your sword or polearm or even an arrow. Things are no longer "face to face", and it doesn't feel the same running an enemy over your sword than just shooting him at a distance away. Mind you, that doesn't really detract from the horrors of overall warfare, but it's less shocking. And really, wars are fought to be won, not to dally on some value or else the American's would have never won against Britain.

As it was mentioned before, war is just another things that "follow the times".

Speaking about chivalry, I too agree that it's important, but it's better to stay alive because honour can be regained, whereas life can't.

The way wars are executed nowadays are focused, as you'll agree, on specific things. 1) Keep minimum loses on your side 2) Don't hurt civilians (in an ideal world, sure..) 3) Win by doing the minimum possible yet most efficient damage on the enemy. In a simplistic way, the ideal weapon would be a long range beam that'd hit the enemy's HQs and destroy everything electronic, rendering them unable to retaliate.

Ok, in a more serious manner now, there have been indeed improvements that we may never properly understand.

The first that comes to mind is the fact that nowadays, you get to suffer less (at least if injured in a battle). An injury by any type of blade or arrow/bolt that would not kill you instantly, would've let you suffer for far longer than an injury by a bullet. Moreover the latter has less chances of letting you live as a cripple (not that it doesn't happen). Why do you think bayonets were banned when the humanitarian culture pressured the governments to agree on rules that should be followed by the waring nations? If things now seem too easy or too cowardice if you want, things back then were brutal, really brutal. Clashing armies counted thousands of men and very few remained unscratched. While weapons are increasing in potential, the number of soldiers that need to be involved is decreasing.

Secondly, the so-called "smart weapons" are still under development and we'll start seeing their use only in the future (God forbid but you understand what I mean). Let's say the atomic bomb was never used. Then, in order to reach the same conclusion to the war, we'd have loses from both sides in a number of battles. That weapon cut it in half, nullifying losses from one side. That however was done in an unforgivably crude way and I surely lament the moment it was used. And that's why they're trying to further improve it. Next time they'll have more control over the atomic procedures, the casualties will be lessen and the environmental damage as well. And, like I said, if anyone can find a way to carry out a war without anyone dying won't that be a great improvement? A most cowardice way to do things but a very welcomed one.

In the end, what is chivalry? You can't expect to see things like in rpgs, where you take turns hitting each other. Or, let's say, stop using snipers (who I believe are a very efficient way to conduct war, not a battle, but war in a bigger scale) because the opposing side won't have a chance to fight back. There's a reason why agreeing in an armed duel will get you in prison in most, if not all, countries.

The single greatest and most importance value in today's world is the human life, not the human ego. Everything's moving towards the direction that promotes this principle.

Wrong, totally wrong. If you study ethics, many people are moved by Egoism. We're a pretty selfish society, and it's only getting worse.

@g-money
Well, it's true that it's like that in today's society. Officially though, I'd have to stick to the belief that the right to life is the cornerstone of a stabilised world and all laws / agreements etc are continuously changing so as to better protect the human rights and the masses.
I don't study ethics so I take what you say as granted, but wouldn't that mean that there's also a portion of people moved by the knowledge that a common goal, what favors society, is more important than them?

Also I'm afraid we're getting a bit carried away from the topic, merely my fault for expanding it too much.

We have to clearly made a set amount of groups in humanity, previously it was no biggie for a French General to be standing in front of a German, Belgium or English one. Now however, if there is a war it's against either an African country, an Asian country or a south american one.

What i MEAN with this is COMPLETELY different cultures, how can you expect a General in suit to meet with a gorrila (Lmao, so sorry but i totally forgot how it's spelled) leader? Wouldn't you expect them to simply capture and ransom the General?

Those old rules of war don't apply seeing as it is almost always a war of weak country against strong country, they cannot talk.

Now for my opinion. Cavalery is high tech vehicle's nowadays. Tanks, BMP's, even helicopters to some extend can be considered cavalery. They are the all-awesome everything owning destructo men with something else under their butts.

If you want a good sense of how battle's are being fought out, CoD 4: MW is a great example. Though i am sure they barely gave a correct image, this does come closests of all to that.