Re: [GZG] re: Mercs and "Realism"

["John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/20/06, laserlight@xxxxxxxxxxx <laserlight@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>These units would consist of the desperate and the sociopathic
> >>only. Anyone who would kill their fellow human beings with only >>the motivation of financial reward falls into one of those categories.
> >
> >1)  Surely killing and avoiding being killed are rewards enough.
> >Most of those people would do it for free -- even pay for the chance.
>
> My understanding is that a lot of mercs--eg historically Scots, Irish, Swiss, etc--enlist because there are more men than jobs and the farmland available isn't worth working. This is particularly the case when a nation takes a "peace dividend" and draws down the military. You get men who've been soldiers for ten years, are used to being soldiers, have skills which don't easily transfer to the civilian market, and just want to ply their trade.

Yeah, I'll grudgingly concede the term 'desperate' for them.

Although a large number of the Scots and Irish worked for the French
in the outside hope that they would end up fighting the English.

John
--
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani
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