Fires

If fires were so destructive and hard to extinquish in the past, why didn't rival nations do it more often to their enemies? In fact, could it not very much be the case that the something like The Great Fire of London 1666 was actually started by foreign agents? It would be an effective tactic, no?

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Because ultimately, until the industrial revolution, urban centers were rarely economically or politically vital. Burn a city down, and people would rebuild it.

you idiot think destruction is war.

They did that all the time what are you on about

Meh. Cities were destroyed and rebuilt after industrialization too.

You're offering a theory you just came up with as an established fact. It is bad.

I suppose it's mostly cultural - no one seriously considered using such underhanded tactics against the civilian populations of enemies. They had a due process to follow.
First you siege the city and only then you are morally entitled to destroy it and massacre the inhabitants.

Burning down London at any period in time would be improving it.

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Not clicking on your virus, Schlomo

An entire chapter of Sun Tzu's art of war talks about fire attacks.

This. Even today.

My house was right in between two huge fires in Sonoma county recently. The devastation the barely missed me looks like the result of a nuclear war, this made me wonder in amazement how people dealt with fires before all of our modern technology and infrastructure

>he thinks anything can save you from the military might of the Void.
>hyohyohyohyo

People in the past weren't as low IQ as Californians.

>dude lets just live in an oven lol
Are Californians human?

Who knows?

What exactly do you think people mean by "scorched earth tactics"?

>scorched earth literally means scorching the earth

Yeah, how about that. Fucking geniuses populate this board.

because if you were found out to be wanton destroying cities with no regard for human life in the modern, postmodern, and industrial eras you were seen in a very unfavorable light on the world stage and politics, making it difficult to maintain alliances and trade. you would also be violating the balance of power by inflicting significant economic losses by setting fire to their cities and thus if you ever, EVER lost the advantage youve basically put all your settlements to the torch.

before then fires were used all the time in the form of flaming projectiles, infiltrating enemy agents to set supply stores alight, and to distract the enemy (though sometimes even that failed when you look at the first crusade)

Scorched earth tactics are simply resource denial methods. You can enact scorched earth tactics without the use of fire.

It worked for Genghis Khan.

Holy shit. Retardation this intense can only be genetic.

>seen in a very unfavorable light on the world stage and politics
sorry hans. but no one cares about your stupid fucking cities an mudhuts

>digging your hole even deeper
the absolute state of you

>this retard

I have to imagine that before the modern era, you could only have a Rome/London/Tokyo sized city if you had an empire that was capable of defeating most foreign foes, at least for a period of centuries.

Like, by the time anybody can reach your city to burn it, the productive farmland that was feeding the city is gone, and most of the people in the city have dispersed to the countryside to look for food.

genghis khan used complete city burning to punish resistance, which is different from sending agents into cities and burning them all down, combined with his ruling policy of "send tribute and youre autonomous and cool with us" was one of the reasons he didnt need to burn anything to a crisp

as a master of fire tactics he burnt citi'es and their soldiers to the ground