Viking longships, were they really that combat effective?

[Valdemar]

The cost of running a fleet comes into this question. The Byzantines wiped the floor with their opponents whenever they were running a full efficient fleet (which was only sometimes). Alfred the Great gave the Vikings a drubbing when he organised (and paid for) a significant fleet.

The Viking ships were cheap and maintanance costs were minimal (hope of booty, land).........complicated and expensive fleets to oppose them rather rare.

IIRC Alfreds navy in great part was made of longships, Viking, Norman, or simply hired?? I may be wrong thgouh

V

[Valdemar]

The Vikings also beat the snot out of the Byzantines - they just were unable to take Constantinople itself.

They-and the Rus'-raided the Black Sea coast for some time.  I'd hardly call that "beating the snot out of", considering that once the military apparatus of the Byzantine state was arrayed against them they really didn't stand much of a chance.  No matter how ruthless or blonde they were, their ships burned.

The Rus are Vikings in the same sense the Normans are.. or are not, which is it? Can descendents be Viking or not?

The Normans didn't speak, pray, fight, rule, eat, or build buildings like 9th Century Scandinavians.  They might have used similar ships for a while (as seen in the Bayeux tapestry), but I think that is the extent of the relationship besides a few nautical terms and some genetic background.  In my mind they have about the same relationship with Vikings that the Mitanni did with Indo-Aryans, or the French do with the Franks.

You refer to the tapestry of Bayeux, IF you'd care to look into it the Normans had only ONE significant difference in means of weaponry and tactics, the horse, and it wasn't THAT that won at Hasting. Same armour, same formationsd, same weapons. As to the rest, they were christened, so were a number of other vikings, including those in Denmark, Norway, and England, THAT is hardly a reliable argument for not being a viking. The Normans were to a great extend Vikings, not French at Hastings. The Swedish Vikings spoke Rus, Danish Vikings learned greek, they truly were multicultural, open to other cultures, easily adapting, and other ideas.. something you seem quite incapable of, and please, try to be civil next time.. this IS languish after all

Normans are called Normans, not after Normandy, but after Nord Man, Nothern Man, and yes they adapted tactics for horses, built different churches, where christened, does that make them NOT Viking descendent?

I didn't argue that they weren't from descended, I argued *were*.  There's a key difference.  I have some Norman, Viking and Saxon blood in me-does that make me a Viking?

Obviously not, we don't want to be too familiar with you , but also there is a tad of difference in centuries here. At Hastings the Normans had been Vikings at sea only a few generations before. And you DID argue they were named after Normandy, not their descendants.

Kiev Rus, essentially localised Swedish Vikings did fairly well against Byzantine before uniting with them, a great deal of Vikings as late as after the fall of England to Wilhelm went to become the Byzintine Væringer, they might not have beaten or conquored Byzants, but certainly Byzants learned that they were better as ired armies than fighting them

This is horse shit.  The brilliance of the Byzantine and later Ottoman forces was that in an age of dependence on a single military strength (infantry and archery for Arabs, super-heavy cavalry for Persians), they mastered combined arms tactics. If you look at the books on Byzantine strategy this is always apparent; there are different suggestions for fighting against Magyars, Vikings, Arabs and Slavs. 

Do you always start your arguments by spreading manure?

Ofc the Byzantine army could beat a Viking one in a set piece battle but they didn't and you fail the point as to WHY the Rus and the Byzantine allied, and Why they hired the Rus over the indegious Greeks.

And you also fail to adress the fact that they never managed to subdue the Vikings by force.. which was the point, not the sheer military might of the Byzantine

V

[Valdemar]

The Viking way of life outside of raids on non-viking areas naturally lent itself to maritime raiding and settlement. 

I REALLY hope you are trying to say something else, because this is so utterly wrong that it defies nature

I wouldn't dream of lecturing you on the Byzanteens way of life, past or present, but by far the majority of Vikings, as a people, not as a raiding army, were merchants or farmers. Only those unable to suport life any other way went "Viking" in the raid sense.

So NOTHING in a the home life of Scandinavia would suit you to become a born warrior anymore than a citizen of Byzans was born to be a stratego or cataract (sp?).

V

[Valdemar]

Generally speaking though, Steppe peoples have a lot of advantages the Vikings just didn't though.

1) Horses, and tons of them.  Way more than sedentary peoples could ever hope to muster.
2) Knowledge of horses.  The leap from spending your life on the saddle, organizing herds to living on the saddle, fighting armies isn't as big as the leap from fishing to mass invasion.
3) Organization.  Steppe peoples, partially due to necessity of organizing flocks or the fact that most are highly militarized due to harsh nature of steppes, appear to naturally be far better organized than the armies of sedentary peoples.
4) Motive.  The necessity of raiding (for flocks, women) is far more omnipresent on the Steppe.  Big flocks meant you could pay bride price; raiding another village for a wife meant you could bypass that entirely.  This was more or less true from the time of the Proto-Indo-Europeans till Stalin, and is once again true in parts of Central Asia.

By that argument the Vikings held the advantage over the steppe with plenty of water, timber and able seamen.. Really those advantage are born of the environment, what would vikings need horses for, or steppe people need ships?

the last two goes just as well for vikings, the viking society of the English invasions were highly organised, some fleets counted up towards 1000 ships from a very diverse spread nation of semi dependents.

The drive to Vikings came just as much as a need to expend, spend surplus populace and go exploring as anything else, but it was well organised, as were the early state forms, try look up some facts of the Viking nation organisation like Roskilde, Trelleborg and few other facts

V

[The Minsky Moment]

I think a well organized, sufficiently powerful, functional state has little/no difficulty dealing with "barbarians".  The Romans in the time of Augustine didn't, and generally speaking, the Macedonian-era Byzantines, the Ummayads, the Abbasids and the Tang Dynasty were all capable of dealing with barbarians. 

Late  4th century Rome was a very well organized and powerful state.  Even the strongest state beset by too many challenges is going to have problems.

[grumbler]

So, what gives?

Once you've sailed a clinker built ship with dead silent cotton sails through the swedish archipelago on a sunny summers day with a steady onshore breeze you know that there is no greater means of transportation.

If that is your only experience with transportation, you are correct.

[crazy canuck]

The Byzantines, Ummayads and Abbasids were all either at or near the peak of their respective martial prowess, and therefore I still suspect that the these three Empires had less problems with Vikings partially due to their well disciplined, organized forces; 

Well then you have to explain why the Byzantines could not stop the Normans from conquering their holdings in Southern Italy.  Could it be that the Byzantines were far removed from the peak of their martial prowess?

And I think you are getting your time lines a bit mixed up.  Are you suggesting that both the Ummayads and Abbasids were at their peak in the same time period?

The Vikings were more of a threat in their own geographical area.  That is hardly surprising.  Geography had more to do with the Muslims and Byzantines being spared Viking raiding then their superior arms.  The Vikings could hit coastlines at will.  An army cant be everywhere no matter how well organized it is.

[Ed Anger]

The Byzantines could shoot fireballs out their arse.

[crazy canuck]

The Byzantines could shoot fireballs out their arse.

Thats why all their transport ships sank.

[The Brain]

The Byzantines could shoot fireballs out their arse.

I haven't had Indian food in a while.

[The Minsky Moment]

The Vikings also had little incentive to conquer Byzantium.  They already held vast territories and received very lucrative concessions from the Byzantines.  Why kill the golden goose?

[The Brain]

Why kill any goose?

[The Minsky Moment]

Why kill any goose?

Foie gras.

[Eddie Teach]

Why kill any goose?

Don't tell me you're a vegetarian.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The cost of running a fleet comes into this question. The Byzantines wiped the floor with their opponents whenever they were running a full efficient fleet (which was only sometimes). Alfred the Great gave the Vikings a drubbing when he organised (and paid for) a significant fleet.

The Viking ships were cheap and maintanance costs were minimal (hope of booty, land).........complicated and expensive fleets to oppose them rather rare.

IIRC Alfreds navy in great part was made of longships, Viking, Norman, or simply hired?? I may be wrong thgouh

V

The English myth is that he studied Viking longships and built English ships on similar lines but twice as long.............and then kicked shit out of the Danes 

So, he is known as the "father of the English navy"; how much of a myth this is I'm not really sure 

Alfred is 871-899 btw, pre-dating the Normans therefore.