On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 2:28 AM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:

Richard,
> Mercenaries were warfare artists.

<Wrong.> - this is your opinion.

However, I must admit I don't currently have a convincing enough evidence to offer as proof.

I thought of some support for my opinion: the utter failure of the "professional" mercenary companies of Renaissance Italy when attempt to resist invasion of the peninsula by the French Army. Had those mercenary units actually been competent at the craft of warfare, they should have at least been able to achieve a draw.

There was a change in the 'mercenaryship' from the Ancient times, to Renaissance, to early Modern, and beyond (at least in Europe and Ottoman Empire) that seems to point from a tribal 'leasing' of a portion of its population for warfare, to being itinerant warrior sub-culture, to an international professional commodity. This transition in turn became more individual-based, and as far as I'm concerned, skill and expereince based, offering Art of War expertise to leaders rather than just a body of troops to fill a gap in the line.

And this development parallels the change in warfare from a vocation practiced largely by an elite social class (e.g. those who could afford to equip themselves with the required gear) to a profession practiced by the standing force of a nation state. Most of those "individual-based" "international professional commodity" mercenaries were trained by the same entities which trained nation state forces and their employment was - at least in large part - an unofficial extension of the foreign policy of those same nation states. Modern mercenaries are deniable state assets much more often than they are actual independent operators.

<Mercenaries were - and are - *profit* artists.>
It seems to me you confuse military and taxation accounting professionals :-)
I would be interested to see some historical evidence rather than Traveller rules as evidence.

See above: the professional Renaissance Italian mercenary units I mentioned previously made their parole by *preparing* to fight. When called to battle against one another, opposing units would manuever about the countryside until one side had a clear tactical advantage over the other, at which point the units which had "lost" would promptly surrender. Both sides made money but neither suffered casualties. Then those dastardly French refused to play along.

The etymology of 'mercenary' is misleading.

Mercenary = Paid thug.

If you wish to define it differently, then you should have said so. I find myself agreeing with other commenters that you seem to change your definition of terms whenever this proves convenient to your argument.

<Actually having to fight [and take the concommitant casualties] in
order receive remuneration represents a degree of *failure* on the

part of their business model.>

My suggestion is that you read the rest of the Dorsai books.

I've read them all. But that was decades ago, so I'm afraid I only recall the general gist. But we've been discussing the real world and Traveller, not the Dorsai. The Dorsai of the early novels *require* a universe in which humanity has biologically fragmented along cultural lines. Once humanity begins mixing once again in the later novels, the Dorsai cease to be mercenaries; they become imperial rulers.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice." - Bill Cosby

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester