User:Atlas 2091

Atlas_2091 is a high-school dropout and former real-life adventurer with a deep-seated interest in various intellectual fields. Having settled into a more stable lifestyle, he once more has time to pursue scholarly matters.

Interests include Military History, computer programming, sketching, and debating with others to resolve his own conflicting opinions.

Welcome, Atlas! Put that globe down for a while and write a bit for us! ;-) You are certainly not the only autodidact among us. --LMS

I agree. I am another one of the autodidacts here (although I think I have a high school diploma in a drawer somewhere that I haven't seen in 20 years). --Lee Daniel Crocker

Thank you! Quite a place you've got here...like a bit from an early cyberpunk novel come true.

Hey, Atlas. Neat work on Military History, I put up a few pages of ancient stuff. Maybe we could have enough that games could be played straight from the info here! I was wondering, do chariots count as AFVs? 'Cause if so, they've been around a lot earlier than tractors. --JG

Good to see the work on the ancients section. :) I'd guess you're an ancients wargamer?  I'm sure we can get enough for games.  Since we can have depth and breadth both, it'll beat rummaging through dozens of references. Hmm...  I think you're right.  Somehow chariots (along with cavalry, camelry, and knights) do deserve mention as predecessors of the AFV.  But I think that to just call them AFVs would have the wrong effect.  To me, that would be like saying that slings were the first missile launchers. Technically okay by the definition of missile, but makes me picture an ancient Assyrian slinger twirling a horse-seeking anti-chariot guided missile around overhead.    What's a word without the "piece of mechanized equipment" connotation?  'Non-mechanized AFV'? 'Muscle-powered AFV'?

Not really a wargamer, though I've played once or twice, but I have seen a lot of them. It would be need to program one if I ever got the skills, and the mechanics are interesting. My initial forays into military history have focused mostly on understanding climactic changes that are explained best through the topic, like the rise of Macedon or Rome.

You know that the usually name for slingers or archers irrespective is missile troops? :) I don't really think chariots are in the same boat as AFVs, although they play roughly the same role in battle, but they do sort of fit the definition. Maybe we should call the armored tractors the earliest motorized AFVs?

Yeah, that's why I mentioned it. :)