I've already mentioned the book titled On Killing - The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Dave Grossman (Lt. Col. of US Army). It gave some food for thought and I'm planning to write some of my speculation.

But what did the author write? Let's summarize.
He starts with the observation that most men has a natural resistance to kill (only 2% of men - those who have "predisposition toward aggressive psychopathic personality" - can go on killing without becoming a nervous wreck). This resistance is so high that even at times that our life is directly threatened (like others shoot at us) still difficult to overcome it. This resistance is the reason why infantry fire was so embarrassingly ineffective in the past 300 years - with the exception of machine guns - despite the fact that infantry weaponry (rifles) are reliable and accurate enough to cause massive losses among the enemy.
The author gives examples and sources, such as a Prussian experiment in the late 18th century, several reports and notices from several authors during 19-20th centuries (American, French, Israeli etc.), and an interesting work by a US Army historian who (and his coworkers) made mass interviews with fighting GIs during and after WWII. Also he cites his own conversation with veterans of WWII and Vietnam.
He gives new ideas on what's really happening on the battlefield. He compliments the widely known fight-or-flight model with two other options: in reality the soldiers can fight, posture, submit or flight. And most soldiers choose the second option.
Then he ponders on what enables killing (I'm gonna write more about this later) and how modern (post-WWII) armies achieve this. Then he compares these methods with the ways of contemporary mass media. His conlcusion is (after pointing out the exponential rise of violent crimes) that mass media has an undesirable effect on society.

What interesting for me is this resistance, and the enabling part. These things are actually give an entirely new way of looking warfare, and how and why battles were won.
For example the part officers (the demanding authority to kill) play in the enabling. When people (professional historians, history pros and other armchair generals) comparing the Hellenic phalanx with Roman manipulus and why the latter was more successful they compare everything but the officers. In the phalanx he's only one among those who stand in line and do the poking with pikes, but a Roman officer is one outside the formation and pressuring the soldiers to kill. It makes a huge difference if someone shouting in your ears "stab! stab! stab!" and generally pressuring you to kill. Especially if this one person is an exemplary one, a veteran whose skill in killing surpasses all the others in that particular unit. However noone talks about this because noone thinks about it.

I'll continue this sometimes, maybe only next weekend, we'll see. If you wish to read the book you can probably find it on libgen.

This thread is for the discussion of the riots/strikes/events/etc... that are happening in catalonia right now.

-What happened today (I'll do later a re-cap of what happened before and also what is happening now)
Today I went to the students strike in Barcelona, luckly nothing happened and the cops stayed calm, we walked all together for a kilometer or so and then we ate lunch.
Tomorrow is the general strike so probably that's when I'll be able to post more interesting first-hand news.

PICS:
-1 and 2: general pics
-3: the police helicopter that was over the strike watching

Tank thread reup. So.

Today I had to bury the 6th dead bird this year. Not even this year, this summer! I would say I never ever buried this much but frankly before this I had to do this only twice in my whole life. I dunno what's going on with them.
It would be easier to just dump them into the dumpster but frankly I rather spend some energy and give them an ok final rest.
During digging I came across a very interesting archaeological findings: this tank on picrels. It wasn't mine and not any of my pals owned such or even played around that spot in our childhood so I suppose one of my family members owned this there are some possibilities.
What Bernd think what type of tank is this? I think it has the Sherman looks.

Also this can be a general vehicle/weapons thread as well.

I want to begin a new series about a Hungarian pen and paper role playing game I've already mentioned in other thread(s). It's called M.A.G.U.S. - Kalandorok Krónikái (Chronicles of Adventurers) and I wish to guide you through it's history, world and maybe even rules. Frankly I'm not well prepared and most likely not the best person for the job, but, well, I'm the only one here and this is the best it's gonna get.
IRL talking with a real M.A.G.U.S. fan about M.A.G.U.S. is a real herculean challange as they can be extremely assburgerish about insignificant details, they can cite some careless comment from an obscure magazine's unknown article anytime and consider it rock solid canon they can base their opinion. It's worse to play it with an experienced fanatic as they are capable arguing to the point of the knife with the Kalandmester or Mesélő (Adventure Master or Tale Teller/Story-Teller, the DM, it's KM from no on) even if everyone knows the First Rule: the KM is always right.

Of course any other rpg can be discussed here, but I'd like to keep this thread for pnp or tabletop rpgs, crpgs should go into the Vidya thread.

>1st pic
This is the Első Törvénykönyv (First Code of Law or Rulebook, from now on ETK). It was published in 1997 for the first time.
>2nd pic
The Nagy Zöld (Big Green). Well this is the real first rulebook, published in 1993. The rules were written for a few years (I saw some parts in a mag from 1991) still it was full of errors, fuck ups and inconsistencies some of them haunt even in current year and will haunt probably forever. Never read it btw.
>3rd pic
Második Törvénykönyv (Second Code of Law) published in 1995 so even this predates the ETK... This one... I don't think it is more than some shitty addendum, even the foreword states every rule in this book is optional.
>4th pic
The continent of Ynev. I've no idea how to pronounce it so I call it Inev. The world itself is called Satriale... no, Satralis it has two other continents noone cares about only some vague shit were written about them and are unplayable by default. I think the ETK not even mentions the planet or operates on the supposition that Ynev is the name of the world. In following posts you will meet names very typical fantasy worlds. Lots of them were borrowed from IRL or other fantasy resources so prepare some familiar sounding stuff.

Oh I forgot. It's just a typical medieval fantasy world, with elves, dwarves and orcs. Luckily I don't know anything about gay-ass halflings.

Why late roman army didn't reintroduce the phalanxes, I think the immobile part of army; limitanei, feodorati could use the formation. Well if they couldn't what was the reason?

Why were they using spears but not phalanx sarissas? Is it because of 'barbarian' influences?