Just musing, re : Buffalo. Crowd control techniques haven't changed much in 1,000 years

[dameatball]

For a number of years, I worked in a facility adjacent to another facility that hired and trained police recruits. We shared an open space with the other facility and often observed the trainings when we had occasion to be outside, going home, etc. Usually they started with basic physical fitness. Lots of exercising, some vomiting now and then, the usual stuff. But even early on, they incorporated close order drills and techniques. Advancing in unison. Hoorah! Pushing back, shoulder to shoulder, shields up, although the shields were initially imaginary.
Watching vids from Buffalo, it struck me that things had not changed much since the middle ages. Shield against shield, shield against whomever. Saxons or Danes never stopped to aid the wounded. They only advanced or shattered. This is how our LEOs are trained. It is what is expected. So when a 75 year old man is felled and bleeding, nothing changes. This what is expected. This is what is indoctrinated. This is what WE pay for.
Crush "the enemy" and let the medics follow later. Seems like we would have learned better techniques by now, at least against our own citizens.

[matt819]

1. I was thinking the same thing earlier today

Shield walls. Described at length in Bernard Cornwall’s Saxon Chronicles series, or as seen in The Vikings on tv.

And yesterday, when demonstrators called for “ “white shield.” We are a laughingstock.

[dameatball]

6. Right.We all understand the technique, just seems like when it is used to confront our citizens

we have lost something that should be simple. Rendering aid should not be optional.

[Marcuse]

2. Make that 2500 years. It resembles the Macedonian Phalanx, with batons instead of pikes.

[dameatball]

3. Hard to imagine wielding a lance that long. I guess not dying would be a motivator.

[tblue37]

4. Phalanx. nt

[tblue37]

5. Oops. I see someone else beat me too it. nt

[dameatball]

7. The point of the post was only partly about military technique. More about compassion for our

own citizens and how we probably should have learned more by now. My bad for not making that clearer. Cool pic of a phalanx though, Cornwell references, etc