I was in Games Workshop with my son today, and while there my eye was caught by the display of tanks for the Warhammer 40k game series. Not because I'm interested in playing but because it's clear that in 40 thousand years time all the lessons of armour design of the last 90 years will have been lost and forgotten in the race for interstellar warfare.
Because, frankly (and a quick Google for "Warhammer 40k tanks" will demonstrate this, in the far future we're moving back to big vertical surfaces and sponson mounted main armament! Hell you could stick a Mark VI or even better an A7V on a Warhammer 40k games table and all the kiddies would be cooing and ahhing over it. Frankly, unless they've got some fancy schmancy far-future force field stuff (and I'm not interested enough to find out) I'd put money on something like an Abrams, Challenger 2 or Leopard every time.
Was it Elbert Einstein that said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."?
I was thinking the same thing the other day, short fat gun likes like medieval mortars in tanks that are mark IV lookalikes and all the tanks look the same just the size is different. They also have cavalry armed with lances. weird that warhammer stuff.
The paintscheme on one I saw (a friend was into it, not too keen myself) was the same as 1918 as well - khaki with the white/red/white stripes on the front hull
Citizens; the same thought occurred to me when these ghastly things began to appear. I am in a position to throw some light on this, thanks to a part of my education that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Many years ago I elected to write a dissertation on this phenomenon. It is an aspect of neo-mediaevalism, a term coined by Umberto Eco in the 1970s. Amongst other things, it is applied to imaginary societies in which the modern, or even the far future, can coexist with the ancient. This differentiates it from the futurism of, say, H.G. Wells or William Morris. A case in point at the time was the original Planet of the Apes film, which takes a rather pick-and-mix approach to technology in the Ape society. It also spawned the Conan films, etc, in which, it could be argued (and certainly was, by me - I had 6,000 words to find) mysticism and the supernatural were a metaphor for technology.
The concept became very fashionable amongst science-fiction and fantasy writers of the time, almost to the point where it became the norm, and gave rise to much impressive art, in which space travellers came to look more and more like gladiators. The Warhammer nonsense is the same idea moved on; Tanks of the Great War are not mediaeval in the sense that we normally use the word, but they will appear to be to people in the far future. It's us imagining how people in our future will be influenced by our, and their, past.
I should like to apologise to the people of Stockport, whose taxes funded the utter waste of time described above.
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I am loving the way we are all distancing ourselves from the wargaming/ warhammer scene (myself included). After all we make models of WW1 AFVs, a world apart!
James, I am so impressed with your dissertation subject, dont let the Daily Mail readers find out!
I am loving the way we are all distancing ourselves from the wargaming/ warhammer scene (myself included). After all we make models of WW1 AFVs, a world apart!
Interestingly enough, I got home from this shopping trip and was making slightly disparaging comments about the people whom you find in games workshop to my wife. Then a bit later I was commenting to her about this issue of the bizarre design of Warhammer tanks and their similarity to the A7V...
To which she said (smiling sweetly), and I quote "Can you actuallyhear yourself dear?"
