Did those who were trained from birth to be a warrior (Samurai, Knights...

They won "thanks" to Cleombrotus who was a well-known traitor

Yeah. It is like football.
Most professionals trained since childhood and abandoned their studies.

Of course, Leuctra, clap clap you found a battle where the Spartans suffered a serious reverse. How amazing that (A) Spartans were mortal and not literally gods, and (B) 4th c. Spartan Hoplites, who might have had a little too much to drink, were eventually beaten when they were arrayed 12 deep against a massive, 50 deep formation of trained veteran hoplites.

It is a metaphysical truth that everything with a beginning has an end. Nobody expected Sparta to be an eternal empire. This is a Sparta that has been at war for generations, carried responsibilities and preserved Hellas in a manner that should have been far beyond the capacity of their city-state. They suffered a defeat because their allies abandoned them and they charged headlong into a battle where they were massively out-numbered by a 50 deep formation of veteran hoplites.

You want to talk about what happened within a generation or so of that battle? Let me know how those fire-breathing Theban eel-mongers fared, and what her allies experienced, in the subsequent years. Thebe's leading citizens lay dead and dying at Mantinea. Their grubby little city state was smashed by Philip II and then committed to the flames by Alexander. Let me know how her friends did, when Thebans tried to set up a new state to oppose Sparta, which was then promptly btfo at the Tearless Battle after existing for maybe a couple of years. Pathetic!

Thebes "glory" was just the culmination of their entire history of screwing Hellas. If they weren't trying to invite foreign invasion, they were trying to personally destroy Hellenic civilization by seeking to attack Sparta and execute/enslave every Athenian. Thebes was paid in full when their city was reduced to ash, whereas Laconia endurance saw their city regain a measure of power and their opponents did not dare set foot in Laconia for the time being.

Turns out mountain hicks that grew up with clan wars, blood feuds, cattle rustling and heavy work make better soldiers then spoonfed nobles.

so you saying that nobody beat sparta and they were unbeatable warriors?

Huh, turns out that somewhat organized infantry in the fucking mountains will beat cavalry who's only method of attack is frontal assault.
Wow, nobles btfo n sheeeeeeeit

> Somehow peasants and townsfolk just massacred your imperial army.

Those were citizen soldiers, well armed trained and equipped.

That is like calling a legion of late republican Roman soldiers peasants because they were commoners.

Look into the Swiss chronik's, most of the soldiers is fucking decked in plate armor.

> Once this appeared they started falling down like flies.

No, they just lost then won, then lost, then won again etc.

Also, keep in mind that the infantry would usually outnumber the knights by a huge margin.

Boeotians shouldn't play semantic games; I feel like I'm watching a dog try to climb a tree.

>Those were citizen soldiers
Yeah, peasants and townsfolk that did militia duty.

Where have you been reading Cavalry mate? Hollywood movie script about knights in shinning armor?

Turns out that somewhat organized infantry will beat cavalry wherever the fuck it wants. The Swiss effectively ended the dominance of heavy cav in European warfare.

no, faggot, he was talking about the incompetence of the HRE commanders.

If that's true, than why were there heavy cavalry in Napoleon's time, while pike died out hundred of years before? And why did the Swiss still get btfo whenever they left their land of mountains and banks?

Learn to read negrito "ended the dominance of heavy"
>the dominance
Thats right, for 400 years heavy cav has ruled the battlefields of Europe, and at the turn of the 14th century they ceased to be the main weapon and become an auxiliary force for the main infantry body.

>And why did the Swiss still get btfo whenever they left their land of mountains and banks?
A) Switzerland is not all mountains, mostly its just hilly and no different from any of the neighboring regions
B) Swizzies only seldom ventured on their own far outside Swizerland because they didn't had any logistics, They did however sack Dijon, or Milan. And waist a dozen armies or so.
C) the Swiss infantry tactics were instantly copied by all major actors in Europe and Swiss soldiers were sought after mercenaries and fought in pretty much every war on pretty much every side in the next 300 years to come.

> Yeah, peasants and townsfolk that did militia duty.

Citizen soldiery were not peasants, townsfolk yes, but very unlikely peasants.

>And why did the Swiss still get btfo whenever they left their land of mountains and banks?

Because by the time they decided to do so, everyone around them started packing fuckloads of firearms and artillery.

Being a warrior is an ethos, a lifestyle
Being a soldier is a job, a profession
One gets the job done. The other is autism.

Military service was obligatory for all able bodied free men, be it farmer or craftsmen. It is estimated that during their heyday 60% of Swiss male population was in the militia system. And given the multitude of conflicts they saw a lot of service.

>All this excuse making for to explain a vicious Spartan spanking

Dude the Spartans were beaten by guys so gay they couldn't even march straight. Lacedaemonian pride is embarrassing. They were the biggest meme city-state in ancient history.

>t. boeotian eel-monger

>Marching crooked is cheap. Fite me 1v1 faggot.

I'll meet you at the basin of Lake Kopais. Which was drained in modern times. All your best eels are gone. lmao owned.

Much of it depends on circumstance.

Knights and Samurai were mostly administrators who had more in common with Mafia made-men than they did with full time professional soldiers, but with the added advantage of bolstering their combat effectiveness with expensive equipment which only aristocrats and their vassals could afford. Spartans were predominantly terrorizers with good PR and better diplomacy whose day to day responsibilities was keeping helots in line while they weren't inventing ""religious"" excuses as to why they can't come out to battle and risk leaving the helots un-terrorized long enough to revolt.

All of these societies had the same thing in common: they were decentralized, impoverished, predominantly agrarian cultures dominated by powerful rural landowning class. These sort of economies were more reliant upon a full time class of enforcers like knights who functioned as shock troopers in the field but often performed a wide variety of civic roles beyond mere training for combat.

Centralized, urban societies invested in a professional military class because they're simply more cost-effective. A detached class raised from birth to be soldiers-for-life are expensive, impractical, might go decades without seeing conflict (causing more problems than they fix) and are very difficult to replace. Professional soldiers can be trained "well enough" and are much easier to raise and replace. Roman legionaries probably had higher quality training than Spartan Hoplites, whose agoge mostly taught them cruelty and hazing rituals while depriving them of sustenance (to the point where they were forced to steal simply to eat), while Roman drill was often described as "bloodless battles" fought with heavy wooden training equipment with shitloads of marching around in full rucksack and rations whose portion sizes rivaled that of 20th century armies.

In the case of Samurai, it was true during the warring states period that the only thing that could kill a Samurai was another Samurai

>Knights and Samurai were mostly administrators who had more in common with Mafia made-men
This is a pretty good assessment, medieval warfare was closer to Ganglord feuds in a Mad Max scenario than to organized warfare. Medieval society as a whole was based on gangs, clans, families, villages, towns, whatever, but you had to be rolling with someone or you was crow bait.

Training from birth is a meme. Reality doesn't work like a video game, past a few years you don't magically gain XP. This is why the Spartans were generally only marginally better troops than other Greeks.

The Swiss had a pretty unique military system in the medieval, based largely on Alemannic tribal traditions. The ability to perform military duties was crucial to a mans honor and his social standing, martial prowess was mandatory to be a free man, and in case of attack every man had to defend the clan/village/valley. Constant feuding, a hard outdoors life style in the mountains and general thievery and raids led to men well versed in combat. By the end of the 13th century the Gotthard pass opened, 70% of the land transport to Italy and back just went to Switzerland. Hapsburg smells the bacon, mountain tribes unite and start beating Knights with ambush tactics with halberds, and good use of terrain.
Many small cities join in, the got the same militia system and had plenty of small wars. Together they develop at the time new and unique unit tactics, massed infantry moving in good order and speed over the battlefield, lead by drums and horns. As simple as this sounds, this was unheard off at the time. At first this was largely halberds and only at the end of the 14th century the pike was added to to this. From then on cavalry was kill.
Alemannic traditions ensured that military commanders and officers get voted into office by their own men, which led to a more competent staff.
A constant excess of young men eager for adventure and plunder and absolutely no coherent strategy from the 13 main Cantons lead to the clusterfuck Swiss military adventures where from 14-16th centuries.

>Did people with instinctual knowledge defeat those with passing knowledge?

What the fuck do you think?

Can you give me some examples?

In the 14th century the clans would just amass huge peasant armies IIRC.

The Orthodox Balkan countries(Serbia, Bulgaria, Romanian principalities) were fielding mountain hicks against the knights of Poland, Hungary, Latin Empirrle or Byzantium. And winning.

>falling for the Spartan meme