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#46
I agree that CA is going to do whatever they want to do on the basis that "the historians are just interpreting the sources one way, we're interpreting them another." What a cop-out!<br>
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As for gladiators, they were attested a few times, OK, but nevertheless not on the standard menu of selection for provincial governors! Let's be real.<br>
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Can anyone find a source for war dogs??? Flaming pigs <em>in this period</em>? Again, AS A UNIT.<br>
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Cheers<br>
Jenny<br>
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<p></p><i></i>
Cheers,
Jenny
Founder, Roman Army Talk and RomanArmy.com

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson
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#47
"Gladiators were used in combat by Vitellius' commanders against Vespasian's troops during their march into Italy. See Tacitus, Historiae III.57."<br>
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Ok - so there is ONE instance. But as Jenny wrote, it was not at all a common practice to use gladiators on the battlefield - or flaming pigs or war dogs, etc. These UNITS are in there to "jazz things up" and while understandable it is a bit sad for those of us who think that historical accuracy is something worth achieving. <p></p><i></i>
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#48
@Stickers<br>
First, my apologies for not replying to this sooner; I have been away on vacation, and been quite busy since I got back.<br>
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<em>StrategyM I did not say that Scipio raised a Paerorian Guard - you seem to think that everyone must equate Praetorian units with the later Guard - I do not - the 2 are quite seperate.</em><br>
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Well, good for you. Everyone else will, though, so I don't see how that defends their inclusion as a unit. And my original point was precisely that Scipio did not raise, create, or found th Praetorians and - despite the "history" invented by some historians (there I agree with CA) - the regular usage of a Praetorian unit cannot be traced back further than the civil wars (by which time the extraordinarii no longer existed - thus making it logical that it had been replaced by a picked unit of some form).<br>
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<em>I also did not say that Praetorian units were battle-field bodyguards - I said they were HEADQUARTERS guards - the headquarters being a particular place in a Roman camp. I completely agree that Roman generals made their own arrangements for their battlefield bodyguards.</em><br>
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There is no distinction between a headquarters guard and a battlefield bodyguard. If you can point to any sources that distinguish, please do so.<br>
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<em>Later on, despite the propaganda you put forth, they ALWAYS accompanied the emperor on campaign - it was simply not true that they devolved to useles troops - as their batlefield performance shows.</em><br>
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Of course they accompanied the Emperor on campaign. I fail to see how that makes them into better troops. Very few emperors between Augustus and Domitian actually went on real military campaigns after taking office, which leaves long stretches of total inactivity for the Guard. Prior to the war of the 4 Emperor's, I think there are at least 50 years where the Guard is almost completely inactive militarily.<br>
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Of course they were useful under the General emperors such as Trajan and Hadrian; that is after all the nature of any unit you throw into batle - the weak and stupid die and the capable survive. After being thrown into battle for 5 years successively by Trajan (and no doubt having their ranks replenished from the Legions), obviously the Guard will be a capable enough unit.<br>
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But a few years of good performance does not change the fact that as a unit, for most of their history the Praetorians were anything but elite in their military ability when compared to the average legionary soldier.<br>
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<em>They were NOT as hardened as various border legions for sure, but neitehr were they soft sybarites who couldn't fight.</em><br>
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In other words - they were not as good as the regular legions. Which is all I've been saying.<br>
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You're the one calling them soft sybarites. Nice one; I'll see if I can use that in Imperium somewhere.<br>
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<em>Extraordinarii are not, AFAIK noted as being used for bodyguards - I'd be interested in your references for this.</em><br>
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Here you go: Polybius VI.32 (Emphasis mine)<br>
Quote:</em></strong><hr>Behind the last tent of the tribunes on either side, and more or less at right angles to these tents, are the quarters of the cavalry picked out from the extraordinarii, and a certain number of volunteers serving to oblige the consuls. These are all encamped parallel to the two sides of the agger,and facing in the one case the quaestors' depot and in the other the market. As a rule these troops are <strong>not only thus encamped near the consuls but on the march and on other occasions are in constant attendance on the consul and quaestor</strong>. Back to back with them, and looking towards the agger are the select infantry who perform the same service as the cavalry just described.<hr><br>
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Note the fact that in addition to the picked Extraordinarii, there were also volunteers serving with the Consul. Probably the only reason why we hear anything special about Scipio's bodyguard at all is because he "stretched" the custom for volunteers by bringing his own private army to Spain instead of the usual moderate number of clients that most Consuls would have had along with them.<br>
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<em>and they were generally Italians were they not?</em><br>
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So? The Caesars (including the first one) had Barbarian German and Gallic bodyguards; foreign bodyguard units are a common feature of this (and other) periods.<br>
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Finally, since your question was: What do you mean "modelled correctly?", I can briefly describe how I would model such a unit as the Guard in "Imperium".<br>
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Every unit type in Imperium has a "service period", which essentially determines how often troops are relieved from service and replaced with recruits. Recruits have different starting "virtus"/combat ability depending on the unit type. The virtus of a unit type generally increases from being in combat, and otherwise remains unchanged except for the gradual replacement of troops which will eventually average out the virtus of a unit to be equivalent to that of a completely new one.<br>
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Typically a Guard unit such as the Praetorians have a better quality of recruits (reflected by the virtus level), so a newly raised Guard would typically be better than a newly raised legion. In prolonged combat periods the Guard will eventually have the edge in quality over even veteran Legions, due to the higher quality of replacements. However, due to the shorter service period, the quality of the Guard will deteriorate faster when out of action than a Legion and thus a historical (lack of) usage of the Guard as in 14-69 AD will see them being little better than raw recruits if they are suddenly taken into battle. Which I think reflects their historical ability fairly well.<br>
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Anyway, that's how I would model it. But then again, I'm mostly interested in historical grand strategy, rather than RTS battle games.<br>
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Sorry for the length of the post; guess I got carried away again. <p>Strategy <br>
Designer/Developer <br>
Imperium - Rise of Rome</p><i></i>
Regards,

Michael A./MicaByte
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#49
Barkerhorn...<br>
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I said they weer used - not that they were necessarily used by Romans.<br>
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However Romans did alelgedly use flming pigs against Phyrus's elephants, and gladiators a few times during the 1st century BC - I'll see if I can find some references for you. Gladiators were of course used famously in Spartacus's revolt, although they used captured roman equipment once they got their hands on it.<br>
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Seleucid elephants sometimes wore armour - no-one said it was complete, and some societies did use wardogs.<br>
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I never said they were common.<br>
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How common does it have to be before you are willing for it to be in RTW?<br>
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StrategyM I'm surprised you consider the scions of the upper classes to be better soldiers than the lower classes in your game.<br>
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I think we are only talking a matter of degree.<br>
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However to my knowledge teh Praetorium is a particular location in a roman camp - it is the Headquarters, regardless of where the General may be - jsut as the gates are named, the various "streets", etc - so the Praetorian cohorte's primary duty is to guard that location - whether they also provide bodyguards for the general is up to him. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=stickers>Stickers</A> at: 8/19/03 2:27 am<br></i>
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#50
Gladiators were used numerous times in the civil wars - a lot are mentioned in Cicero's letters - mainly as armed bands that terrorised Rome on several occasions in some "political" campaign or other, but there are also several references to their use by generals.<br>
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Caesar mentions them in use in his "Commentaries" on the Civil War:<br>
- Caelius, 3.19<br>
- Lentulus, 1.12, as garrisons for various cities<br>
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You can go here: www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi...advanced=1<br>
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and search a wide range of texts online for yourself - be patient tho - it takes a while. <p></p><i></i>
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#51
SALVE, HONESTVS POPVLVS.<br>
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This is my first trip to this forum, I came across it as I was wondering how the C was spelled in the time of the Roman Empire. I found numerous sources that suggested C and Q were only uttered with a K sound. So the "Sæsar" pronounciation we have today is a bit incorrect as it is closer to "Kaisr"/"Kaisar" - and a name is a name. I personally dislike the constant translation/morphing of the names of historical people. It's ok to name our newly born children using chronologically mutated names. But, when we refer to a historical figure, I think we should treat their names with respect and at least try to utter it and type it the way it was back. Example, there was a 19 year old warrior leader called Jehanne d'Arc. The name she carries eventually mutated to Jeanne in France, and in English it was translated into Joan. This historical character's name was mutated as well as the generic name.<br>
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Enough of that. I must say I really liked Jenny's suggestion about the relationships between TRIARII, HASTATI and PRINCIPES in R:TW. Just like I would have said it myself -well I did in the LegionTWCenter forum, but not as concisely as this.<br>
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Quote:</em></strong><hr>Perhaps triarii will be the slowest, but best defensively, like spearmen, with the highest morale and armor. While hastati and principes will be faster, but hastati lack much armor and have lower morale, and principes have good armor and normal morale. And all will have an excellent attack, let's say, because the legion was always a straightforward meatgrinding machine.<br>
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Perhaps the hastati and principes could suffer a drop in morale if the triarii are too far out of "rescue" range.<hr><br>
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Yes, the Triarii would be primarily spearmen as they carried the hastae as their primary weapon (no pilae), gladivs was always secondary to them. They were the oldest (35-40), they had the most experience from battles, but they had a lowered state of bodily physique - however, this affected their agility and joints, not as much the stamina. There is a popular contemporary misconception that the older men (or women) has a stamina (lounge capacity + heart capacity) that is much inferior to the younger ones. This is of course the case in our society, in which you MAY start getting lazy after 35-40 and start eating unhealthily and stop working out. This is not the case with the triarii, even if they rarely were used in combat (due to the hastati/principes winning), that doesn't change the fact that they had seen much more fighting previously as they were veteran principes once, and they would surely hone their skills in some training facilities daily - simply maintaining their hard-fought experience, like some anti-rust.<br>
And if this high state of workout is the case, I can assure you, the heart/lounge capacity is actually HIGHER in the veterans (35-40) than that of the younger generation (25).<br>
I regard this as a medical fact, and I can't bother myself to look for sources at this time. Suffice to say, I learned this from a persuasive lecturer in a Physiology/Biology class.<br>
However, it is also a fact that the older you get the more likely are you to acquire diseases in your joints, as well as general deterioration of the quality of the joint-cartilage. Thus, the triarii should have excellent close-combat skills, but should be slower moving, and slower at wielding a strike with their hastae or gladivs. Their stamina should be higher than usual.<br>
I totally agree with the aspect of each their respective morales.<br>
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It's good to see so many patrons from the TW-forums <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=shigawire>Shigawire</A> at: 8/19/03 11:38 am<br></i>
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#52
"How common does it have to be before you are willing for it to be in RTW?"<br>
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Pretty common IMO - not just one shot (or two shot) deals.<br>
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You must admit that glads, flaming pigs and war dogs are ONLY included for the "cool" factor. And FULLY armored elephants stretches the Selucid model to an extreme.<br>
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Watching the 3rd video that came out this week, I was first amused by the gladiators chasing down some Egytian spearmen. On second viewing it looked kind of lame to see them in their arena regalia on a battlefield.<br>
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And then we have the Egyptian chariots and Spartan hoplites. Units that while not appropriate for the timeframe, at least were common in an earlier period.<br>
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I guess I'll have to resign myself to the fact that R:TW is more a game than good history and count on StrategyM to deliver the goods.<br>
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Barkhorn. <p></p><i></i>
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#53
Quote:</em></strong><hr>StrategyM I'm surprised you consider the scions of the upper classes to be better soldiers than the lower classes in your game.<hr><br>
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I would hardly consider the regular Praetorian soldier a scion of the upper class.<br>
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Better pay, equipment, and status would however always provide an initial morale advantage to "favored" troops when recruited, regardless of the time period in which they exist.<br>
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Particularly in the ancient world, the nobility often provided the best troops of the ancient world, since they were the one's with the most motivation for fighting and the one's able to afford the best arms; e.g., the Macedonian companions, the Spartans (each of whom would be a minor landowner). <p>Strategy <br>
Designer/Developer <br>
Imperium - Rise of Rome</p><i></i>
Regards,

Michael A./MicaByte
Reply
#54
<em>I guess I'll have to resign myself to the fact that R:TW is more a game than good history and count on StrategyM to deliver the goods</em><br>
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But a splendid game it is likely to be.<br>
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As for delivering the goods, I hope I don't end up dissappointing. I'm beginning to feel very happy with the way the Imperium battle game is shaping up (inspired a lot by Phil Sabin's latest work), but it is taking the system even more in the direction of "simplicity" than ever before.<br>
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Every "historical" game has to walk the balance between simulation/historicity and gameplay. I'll be the first to claim that most games could easily walk closer to good historicity without loosing one iota of gameplay, but then again 1) I've spent far too many years (and continue to spend them) with my head buried in historical books, and 2) don't need to worry about Imperium being profitable.<br>
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I think most of the decisions of the CA are perfectly understandable; even as they (i.e., their kind of games) is precisely the reason why I started developing Imperium.<br>
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I shall have to be uncommonly strong-willed when R:TW comes out though; I don't dare buy it, lest I spend far too much time playing it. Because, despite the lack of historical reality, I'm very sure its going to be a great game. <p>Strategy <br>
Designer/Developer <br>
Imperium - Rise of Rome</p><i></i>
Regards,

Michael A./MicaByte
Reply
#55
Quote:Better pay, equipment, and status would however always provide an initial morale advantage to "favored" troops when recruited, regardless of the time period in which they exist.<br>
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I'd suggest that this was normally because they are richer and can afford better and/or heavier equipment. The Roman army around the turn of hte millenium was, of course, equipped by the state and no longer by the individuals who formed it.<br>
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Barkhorn - alas I have not been able to find a copy of Appian's "Civil Wars", inwhich I am assured there are multiple references to gladiators being used in battles - so I've ordered the Penguin translation from Amazon - it was obviously a major hole in my library!!<br>
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Apparently the pigs used by the Romans against Phyros were not set alight, but Megarans did set some alight vs Atigonos Gonatas - who then started stabling his elephants with pigs to get them used to the noise!! <p></p><i></i>
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#56
It isn't so annoying that this game includes Galdiators, but depicting them in their <strong>arena kit</strong> which gives them just a zero-protection for most of the upper part of their bodies. You don't have to be a historian to find that totally silly. It's like saying: "the customer is just to dumb to discover the nonsense of it" ... and that's quite insulting.....<br>
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and with those stereotypic (old) Egyptians they just repeat the same schmonses that "Praetorans" was already trying to sell.... <p>---------------<br>
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<img src="http://home.nexgo.de/berzelmayr/hadrian.gif"/> Est vita misero longa, felici brevis.<br>
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</p><i></i>
Reply
#57
Stickers wrote:<br>
<em>I'd suggest that this was normally because they are richer and can afford better and/or heavier equipment. The Roman army around the turn of hte millenium was, of course, equipped by the state and no longer by the individuals who formed it</em><br>
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Uhm - and? Praetorians are still likely to have ben first in line for the best/finest equipment; they certainly had better pay, and they would have felt very favored by the Emperor knowing that their chances for advancement in Roman society was miles ahead of their poor cousins on the frontiers.<br>
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All that, adds up - IMO - to a strong indication that newly recruited Praetorians would have had the morale advantage over his frontier counterpart when recruited.<br>
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It has nothing to do with them being scions of the upper class; which I wouldn't consider them to be. You were the one doubting that upper class troops should have better morale than lower class troops; which was why I drew the - IMO - very noticeable parallel between their situations.<br>
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Funnily, Gladiators were just brought up on Ancmed, and two instances were identified from Appian by Duncan Head:<br>
- Used by Decimus Brutus against Antony in 44 BC (Appian Civil War III.49): "His army was made up of a quantity of gladiators and three regular legions..."<br>
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- Used by Lucius Antonius against Octavian in 41 BC (Appian V.30 "Lucius moved rapidly on Rome by sending ahead three cohorts which entered the city unobserved at night, and followed himself with a large force including cavalry and gladiators" and 33 "Octavian's men were better at<br>
throwing missiles, Lucius' gladiators at hand-to-hand combat..." ).<br>
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But as Hadrianus mentions; the point that makes their inclusion stupid is not their presence; it's the fact that they are distinguished equipment wise from the other troops. Which they wouldn't have been - they would either have been given real combat gear, or scrounged it at the first given opportunity, making them indistinguishable from any of the other hastily raised forces created during the Civil wars.<br>
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Let's just forget about the Egyptians. It seems likely that the Total War series standings as historical games are going to be taking something of a hit with R:TW (as compared to the previous games); at least many of the errors this time around are so blatant that even people with little knowledge of history will catch some of them out.<br>
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Doesn't bother me; it's still not the historical simulation part that will make me play R:TW.<br>
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Regards, <p>Strategy <br>
Designer/Developer <br>
Imperium - Rise of Rome</p><i></i>
Regards,

Michael A./MicaByte
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#58
It was me who asked about them on AncMed!!<br>
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And the initial point WAS about them being included at all - Barkhorn had a problem with them being in teh game in teh first place when he didn't think they'd ever been used.<br>
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I agree that the depiction of them is stoopid - but it's only eye-candy and there for the kiddies! <p></p><i></i>
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