Most badass-looking military uniform

Lack of trigger discipline FTL. Guy holding the UZI knock off has his finger on the trigger...

Not to mention his buddy on his right has a 12 gauge pointed at his nuts.

Pistol grip shotguns and fake uzis.....some shit grade weaponry to go to war with right there .
 
The French fought in the trenches like lions alongside Limeys and Canadians, not to mention ANZAC forces and various other forces from the Commonwealth. They were not unique in that respect. They definitely paid the price far more than America did in the Great War, but what does that have to do with anything I said? Also, you do realize that I'm Canadian, right? I also clearly stated that the French have a legit military; I've actually served alongside them and they are still a legit military power.

And yes, William the Conqueror lead the Normans to victory in 1066 and the Normans reigned over what is today known as England and Wales for around a century and a half. In reality, what they'd claimed was a hodge-podge of Danish colonies mixed with old Anglo-Saxon territories. What I'm really trying to say is that England didn't become England until the Normans arrived. From that point onward the country that was formed continued to grow in power and eventually became the pre-eminent military power in Europe and thus the world. We can start splitting hairs and claim that the Normans were originally Norsemen from Scandinavia and therefore not truly French but at a certain point these conversations grow very tiresome for everyone involved.

The point I was trying to make, that France had a bad century in terms of military performance, was valid. WW I was a terrible meat grinder that dragged on indefinitely and highlighted a lack of vision with regards to how to deal with this new form of trench warfare. A case could be made that every military involved in this war performed poorly and wastefully. WW II... the French were not ready for the blitzkrieg (no one was, to be fair) and were essentially annihilated early on in the war. La Resistance notwithstanding, they got owned. The debacle of Vietnam that culminated in Dien Bien Phu and their conduct in Algeria stand out as examples of a military that simply was not able to conduct a counter-insurgency campaign worth a damn. Fair enough, I understand that it's a very difficult thing to do, but when you analyze the 20th century and even the late 19th with the Franco-Prussian War and the annexing of Alsace-Lorraine it's hard to take away too many positive things from that time period. I was kinda reaching with the rest of it, but I posted that a long time ago, methinks.

As for the ad hominem, I'll just say my dad can beat the crap out of your dad, your mother dresses you funny, and the cyrillic alphabet can not hang with latin script.

Yeah I guess that we agree, then ... Sorry if I mistook your post for something that it was not.

And I am not French, BTW, but hillbillies making fun of the French military is way too prevalent in the USA and it is so annoying to me.

It displays such a lack of basic historical knowledge that it's embarrassing. You'll find the "French military is an oxymoron huh huh huh" kind of crap everywhere.
 
William the Conqueror is more Viking than French. Which is why England was never a part of France when William Conquered it. The French did beat the English in the 100 years war.

Napoleon was Italian really. A Corsican is an Italian for the most part.

But the French lost the French and Indian Wars, which really could have set them up real nice for the next 200 so years. That was an important war.

I thought they were getting spanked by Germany in WW1.

Nope ; William the Conqueror was not more Viking than French, certainly not. The Norse language was already lost somewhere between Rollo and William, so William and his parents and possibly even his grandparents spoke French as a mother language. The Normans of William the Conqueror were culturally French by almost all accounts.

Oh and on Napoleon : the fact that he was Corsican was rather even detrimental to his prestige and his carreer. It played absolutely no role and Napoleon forgot his corsican ancestry on purpose.
 
In terms of Genetics/DNA, 100 years is the equivalent of last Thursday. William the Bastard was a direct line descendant of Rollo the Walker, who founded Normandy. The Norman's method of fighting was not so much borrowed from the French as an evolution of Norse methods. It was the Normans themselves who pioneered the use of Heavy Cavalry, not the French.

Who gives a crap about ancestry. European royal families are from all over the place since they intermarried not amongst people from the same nation but rather from the same rank.

Pretty much all French kings were euro mutts of French, German/Austrian, Spanish and Italian.

I swear it's so cringe-worthy when Murrcans start applying their weird obsession with genetics to history.

Oh and wait, are you really implying that the heavy cavalry is a Norse heritage ? You actually are saying that ?
 
I mean the square-jawed, super slim but broad-shouldered guy in the paintings, vs. the probably more realistic guy on the left here:

Royal-Canadian-Mounted-Police-Uniforms.jpg

What in JBG's name are these Mounties doing in a thread about the world's most bad-ass military uniforms? :eek:
 
Yeah I guess that we agree, then ... Sorry if I mistook your post for something that it was not.

And I am not French, BTW, but hillbillies making fun of the French military is way too prevalent in the USA and it is so annoying to me.

It displays such a lack of basic historical knowledge that it's embarrassing. You'll find the "French military is an oxymoron huh huh huh" kind of crap everywhere.

I've not been following the discussion ITT but you are correct. US Americans have an inferiority complex with regard to the French, which obviously dates to the formative years of the country. The French are brave and honourable warriors and have been so for many centuries before modern-day Americans' economic migrant ancestors moved to the USA.

Nope ; William the Conqueror was not more Viking than French

The Normans were still almost pure Norwegian / Danish in 1066. Culturally I think we have to accept that they were a distinct entity. What is now France was a highly disunited area in those days.
 
Wasn't the Galactic Empire modeled after the Nazis?

Star Wars creator George Lucas sought to make the Galactic Empire aesthetically and thematically similar to Nazi Germany and to appear to be fascist.[2] Like Nazi Germany, the Galactic Empire is a dictatorship based on rigid control of society that dissolved a previous democracy and is led by an all-powerful supreme ruler.[3] The Empire, like the Nazis, desires the creation of totalitarian order[4] and utilizes excessive force and violence to achieve their ends.[4] The name of the Empire's main soldiers, the Stormtroopers, is somewhat similar to the name given to Hitler's Sturmabteilung (SA, "storm detachment") paramilitary bodyguards.[3] The visual appearance of Darth Vader in his all-black uniform combined with his devout obedience to the Emperor has allusion to the black-uniformed Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS).[3] The uniforms of Imperial military officers also bear resemblance to uniforms used in Nazi Germany as well as nineteenth-century Germany's ulans (mounted lancers)—who wore a tunic, riding breeches, and boots like the Empire's officers wear—as well as the Imperial officers' cap resembling the field caps historically worn by German and Austrian troops.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Empire_(Star_Wars)#Themes
 
I agree with what you've written and I definitely think the whole going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion attitude, while funny, is grossly inaccurate. That being said, the 20th century was not kind to the French, although a lot of that can be attributed to the opposition they faced. I'm not so certain about the French being at a strategic disadvantage following the end of World War I, at least in terms of terrain. The Maginot Line was a great idea on paper but the Germans just passed through the Ardennes to get around it using a style of warfare that no one was ready for and voila, you nearly bankrupted your country for nothing and are in for a rough 4 years or so.

Anyways, discussion can be illuminating and fun without resorting to trash talking right off the hop, so thanks for that... but you misspelled Charlemagne's name and if you speak any French the end result is kinda funny.

Lol, I was and still am posting from my phone so the spellcheck is off and I have an appetite for military history.

I still believe they were strategically disadvantaged after the Napoleonic Wars.

After Charlemagne's Empire broke down, the various regions of future France had a vague alliance to the French King. Over the centuries France reclaimed more and more power over the counts and dukes of Brittany, Aquitaine, Maine, Anjou, Normandie, etc...one region they didn't fully reclaim was the County of Flanders, the future Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands.

Quabbling with Flanders left the French open to the devastations of the Hundred Years War with England. And yes, you can say the English Army was tactically more efficient in the beginning phases of the war, but the French eventually over came it and won the Hundred Years War.

They were about to regain control over Flanders after the Burgundian Wars, but the monarchy got into major distractions with the Habsburg Empire in the Great Italian Wars, the French Civil Wars of Religion, and Franco-Spanish War. Leaving the Low Countries open was the source of France's military problems despite their regional land dominance.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars allowed France to regain Beligum and The Netherlands, making the realm, in theory, mostly secure. Britain had given up coordinating grand coalitions against Napoleonic France, but after the Russian campaign, liberating the Low Countries was Britain's key to off-shore balancing, and checking France's continental dominance.

It's just that no one foresaw the ramifications of a united Germany under Prussian control. Germany would in the future, exploit the strategic disadvantage that the Low Countries were for France.
 
The Normans were still almost pure Norwegian / Danish in 1066. Culturally I think we have to accept that they were a distinct entity. What is now France was a highly disunited area in those days.

The Normans were not mostly Norse by 1066. The original Norse had a habit of keeping "Danish wives" or "More Danico" meaning they took local women and mixed children with them and by William the Bastard's time they were 5 generations in France. Secondly, not all Norman nobles were able to trace their ancestry to the Vikings, nor would they have wanted to )it's like claiming descent from non-Christian terrorist). There were still French nobles in Neaustria that coexisted with the Norse new comers. Thirdly, 1/3 if not more, of William the Conquerors invading army to England were derived from Bretagne and Flemish auxiliaries, not purely from Normandy.

The Norman's method of fighting was not so much borrowed from the French as an evolution of Norse methods. It was the Normans themselves who pioneered the use of Heavy Cavalry, not the French.

I think the charging "couched lance" heavy cavalry tactic was likely invented by the Normans....though this is debatable as its depiction is lacking in the tapestry of Bayeux

But saying the Normans pioneered heavy calvary is like saying the Gracie's invented grappling.
 
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Wasn't the Galactic Empire modeled after the Nazis?

Star Wars creator George Lucas sought to make the Galactic Empire aesthetically and thematically similar to Nazi Germany and to appear to be fascist.[2] Like Nazi Germany, the Galactic Empire is a dictatorship based on rigid control of society that dissolved a previous democracy and is led by an all-powerful supreme ruler.[3] The Empire, like the Nazis, desires the creation of totalitarian order[4] and utilizes excessive force and violence to achieve their ends.[4] The name of the Empire's main soldiers, the Stormtroopers, is somewhat similar to the name given to Hitler's Sturmabteilung (SA, "storm detachment") paramilitary bodyguards.[3] The visual appearance of Darth Vader in his all-black uniform combined with his devout obedience to the Emperor has allusion to the black-uniformed Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS).[3] The uniforms of Imperial military officers also bear resemblance to uniforms used in Nazi Germany as well as nineteenth-century Germany's ulans (mounted lancers)—who wore a tunic, riding breeches, and boots like the Empire's officers wear—as well as the Imperial officers' cap resembling the field caps historically worn by German and Austrian troops.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Empire_(Star_Wars)#Themes

Yes. And not only the Empire; the First Order is based on ODESSA, the organisation of ex-Nazis who fled to South America after the War.

Vader's iconic helmet is based on the Stahlhelm worn by German soldiers in WWII(ironically, it also bears a resemblence to standard American military helmets).
 
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He was also a first generation immigrant, so trying to extrapolate information about William the Conqueror from him is futile.

The Norsemen were one of the people's with the biggest penchant for discarding their own culture and adopt the one of the people they settled among. That pragmatism you love so much about them meant that after 2 or 3 generations at the most they would stop being Norsemen in every way that mattered.

Look at what happened when they invaded the land of my ancestors. Once they had control of Sicily they couldn't adopt Arab customs and forms of government fast enough
.

That didn't happen after the Norman Conquest of Britain. The Normans had no desire to adopt Anglo-Saxon customs etc. Indeed, they spent a great deal of time and effort wiping out Saxon culture and replacing it with the Norman way of doing things. At the time of his death, William the Bastard didn't even speak fluent English, and neither did many of his court. And the practice of prefering Norman French to Anglo-Saxon English didn't end there. One of the most legendary kings in English history was Richard the Lion Heart. Richard didn't speak English and, in the ten years of his reign, spent roughly about six months in the country. The rest of his time was spent in Normandy or on Crusade.
 
nobody is beating the nazis in this, sad to say.

I dressed up as the guy in my avatar for Halloween last year. I defy any man to wear a long, leather coat on top of a black uniform and not feel the urge to rape, pillage and burn their way across Europe.:D
 
Stand back motherfuckers, the Greeks are here:

Greek-Evsones.jpg


21201004.jpg
 
Holy shit... here I thought I was the only one who thought that Nazi uniforms were bad ass. Sucks giving the Nazis any props whatsoever but at least this is cosmetic props.

ss03.jpg


Edit - lol @ the censored swastika, like it's nudity.
The nazis uniforms were fly. Hitler had swag.
 
That didn't happen after the Norman Conquest of Britain. The Normans had no desire to adopt Anglo-Saxon customs etc. Indeed, they spent a great deal of time and effort wiping out Saxon culture and replacing it with the Norman way of doing things. At the time of his death, William the Bastard didn't even speak fluent English, and neither did many of his court. And the practice of prefering Norman French to Anglo-Saxon English didn't end there. One of the most legendary kings in English history was Richard the Lion Heart. Richard didn't speak English and, in the ten years of his reign, spent roughly about six months in the country. The rest of his time was spent in Normandy or on Crusade.

I agree with you.

BTW, Norman French was just French with some Norse relics in it.

Not a "mix" of Norse and French.

Possibly even more French than many other dialects of French of the time.

Norman French not even a germanic language, and the Norse had converted to christianity and intermarried with locals since Rollo times.

Also, the Normans that invaded England and displaced its aristocracy were to a big extent people from other regions of France.

Oh and lastly, the Normans protected the French Crown against other Norse raiders (vikings).

All in all I really don't see how one can fail to acknowledge that the Norman invasion of England was a French invasion. Deal with it.
 
I agree with you.

BTW, Norman French was just French with some Norse relics in it.


Not a "mix" of Norse and French.

Possibly even more French than many other dialects of French of the time.

Norman French not even a germanic language, and the Norse had converted to christianity and intermarried with locals since Rollo times.

Also, the Normans that invaded England and displaced its aristocracy were to a big extent people from other regions of France.

Oh and lastly, the Normans protected the French Crown against other Norse raiders (vikings).

All in all I really don't see how one can fail to acknowledge that the Norman invasion of England was a French invasion. Deal with it.

There are still some linguistic relics of the Norman invasion in modern day English. Earl come from the Norse Jarl, or lord.
 
At the time of his death, William the Bastard didn't even speak fluent English, and neither did many of his court. And the practice of prefering Norman French to Anglo-Saxon English didn't end there. One of the most legendary kings in English history was Richard the Lion Heart. Richard didn't speak English and, in the ten years of his reign, spent roughly about six months in the country. The rest of his time was spent in Normandy or on Crusade.

Right. The idea that

I dressed up as the guy in my avatar for Halloween last year. I defy any man to wear a long, leather coat on top of a black uniform and not feel the urge to rape, pillage and burn their way across Europe.:D

The German uniforms certainly were spiffier than the no-nonsense proletarian Soviet ones but for what you have described there rather than going goth



one of these may the uniform for you:

different-soviet-soldier-uniforms-world-war-ii-50144487.jpg
 
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