What's the point of burning a village while you're pillaging it? Sure, if you're just a rampaging army that never intends to come back, who gives a shit - burn the houses, salt the fields. But otherwise, wouldn't you want to be able to come back and rob these people again?I need the answer for stuff.
It's usually not a great idea to rob a place multiple times in quick succession, burning or no burning. If you burn the place down, it becomes a good visual identifier that it's ready to rob again once enough time has passed for everything to get rebuilt.
its a tactic to smoke people out
You burn it so the defenders have to divide their forces between fighting you and the fire. Doesn't take much to start one, but it's exhausting and time consuming to put out a large fire.
>>92706760If you are pillaging you don't really care if you knock shit over like candles etc and it catches alight
>>92706760It's called havoc, you wouldn't get it
>>92706760Here are some reasons I thought of to do this.War of Extermination: Burn the village, resettle with your own at your convenience. If the locals are a determined enough enemy, even the women and children are worth getting rid of. The pillaging is merely an act of opportunity. Apathy/Organizational Failure: In a LARGE enough village, fires may start on their own as a side-effect of the pillaging process. These fires will spread because the usual method of putting them out, getting lots of dudes to help put it out, is not possible. This is especially likely in a city, and has happened many times throughout history.Tactical necessity: Villages are dangerous places often situated on necessary thoroughfares. They provide lots of cover for enemies and make excellent locations for ambushes. Sadism/Hatred/Pyromania: Self-ExplanatoryReligion/Magic: Depends on the setting.Secret shit: It's a lot easier to find a needle in a haystack after you've burnt the haystack.
>>92706760Deny the peasants their homes, create refugees, creates a massive burden on the state and weakens the rule of your enemies.This is what the English did in the 100 years war, it's super effective.
>>92706760you gotta make sure that their magic does not haunt you and cause mischeif. it is a scientiffic fact that fire is the best cleanser of bad magic>t. why vikings burned after pillaging
>>92706760You're not a Swede, so you can't steal it like you would steal a forest.So you put it to the torch.
>>92706760In medieval warfare, raiding villages not only supplied your own troops, but also disrupted the region's economy. With most lords' income coming from agriculture, the less time peasants work on the fields, the better for the attacker
>>92706805This is pretty much it. Well, and denying a home to the enemy population. The utility of arson depends on the objectives of your band of fighters.
>>92706972Actual Vikings: HAHA LOOK BJORN! SAXON HUT BURNS NICE!
>>92706760One time I read a book about sieges and they talked about how fire was a core component to creating chaos in your prey's house. If you attack someone, that's obviously bad. If you attack someone while your buddies steal their stuff, that's even worse. If you attack someone while your buddies steal their stuff, and they're overcoming the psychological damage of you sexually assaulting their women, that's horrific. If you do all that AND you're burning their house down, that's more than most people can take and often leads them to just give up.
>>92708549During small wars, burning your opponent's property was a sensible political move. The conflicts generally weren't about you trying to conquer his lands and people but about getting him to write off on something completely unrelated and damaging his economic basis was just one way to put pressure on him.
>>92706760Sun Tzŭ said: There are five ways of attacking with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp; the second is to burn stores; the third is to burn baggage-trains; the fourth is to burn arsenals and magazines; the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy.2. In order to carry out an attack, we must have means available. The material for raising fire should always be kept in readiness.3. There is a proper season for making attacks with fire, and special days for starting a conflagration.4. The proper season is when the weather is very dry; the special days are those when the moon is in the constellations of the Sieve, the Wall, the Wing or the Cross-bar; for these four are all days of rising wind.5. In attacking with fire, one should be prepared to meet five possible developments:6. (1) When fire breaks out inside the enemy’s camp, respond at once with an attack from without.7. (2) If there is an outbreak of fire, but the enemy’s soldiers remain quiet, bide your time and do not attack.8. (3) When the force of the flames has reached its height, follow it up with an attack, if that is practicable; if not, stay where you are. 9. (4) If it is possible to make an assault with fire from without, do not wait for it to break out within, but deliver your attack at a favourable moment. 10. (5) When you start a fire, be to windward of it. Do not attack from the leeward. 11. A wind that rises in the daytime lasts long, but a night breeze soon falls. 12. In every army, the five developments connected with fire must be known, the movements of the stars calculated, and a watch kept for the proper days. 13. Hence those who use fire as an aid to the attack show intelligence; those who use water as an aid to the attack gain an accession of strength.14. By means of water, an enemy may be intercepted, but not robbed of all his belongings.
>>9270897815. Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating the spirit of enterprise; for the result is waste of time and general stagnation. 16. Hence the saying: The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources. 17. Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. 18. No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.19. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. 20. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.21. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.22. Hence the enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution. This is the way to keep a country at peace and an army intact.
It's pretty much only done in a military context. If you're just raiders, you neither have the time (setting fires isn't as easy as it looks in movies without ready access to accelerants) or the inclination. Your goal is to grab portable wealth and get out of there with a minimum of fuss. If you're a foraging army though, burning homes and farms displaces the local population and denies their resources to your enemy, who presumably has the time and connections to make continued use of the territory when you've moved on. So it's a military exigency.
>>92706760The whole "burn-and-pillage" thing is more or less a Hollywood invention. Look up the first sacking of Rome if you're interested what pillaging usually looked like. It's boring though, I'll warn you. Threats of fire were very common in extortion though, but that's a long topic to talk about.
>>92706760Kinda depends on the context, I think, severe resistance to invaders in the cases of sieges and guerilla warfare often leads to retaliation by the occupying forces
LTR: Irish, Norwegian, Swede and Finn.>Tyrdammit, Baobdh, why did you set the village on fire again?>I, I, I thought you told me to, chief?>Helevetin tollot... eihän tästä tuu mitään...
>>92712485Rome was not a typical sacking, though.
>>92706760>>92716217And the serious answer:Vikings, and later scandinavians, had a "burn tax". Conquered settlement must pay this much silver to us, or be looted and burned.
>>92712485read a book you ignoramusAmericans and their Hollywoodhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauch%C3%A9e
>>92706760It's a game raiders play. You see, there are two tiers of raiders: mounted & unmounted; the mounted guys set fire to the village, and the unmounted guys have to run in and loot everything as fast as they can before the fire destroys everything left in the village. That's how the unmounted guys earn their mounts and become mounted guys. It's a lot of fun for everyone, and keeps people motivated, otherwise the looters get lazy, slow down and start fighting over the spoils they've already looted, and then the raid stalls because there's no incentive to rush. You don't want the raid to stall, because then the people you're raiding get their shit together, or their friends arrive, and then the raid's over. Anyway, if you want to loot as quickly as possible, you've gotta set fire right before the plunderers go in. You'll probably think it's dumb, but you're not a marauder, so you just wouldn't get it.
>>92707232>"like you would steal a forest"i have a feeling there's a story there
>>9271765830 Year's War joke.Forces aligned with or operating in the wake of the Swedish coalition completely harvested a couple forests and sold or shipped the wood off to wherever. That was relevant because many a nobleman had reforested at the price of reducing the number of villages in their domain.
>>92706760>What's the point of burning a village while you're pillaging it?power play
Which game are you discussing?
>>92723588The game I play with your whore of a mother, while you're crying outside.
>>92706805>>92706783>>92706780/thread
>>92707995see Sadism/Hatred/Pyromania
>>92708978>All warfare is basedwtf I love Sun Tzŭ
>>92706760Look at blue citesGenuine sub human retards that have neir eldrigh horror level of stupidity and hypocracy, basically wanna be larpers
