Why didn't more ancient soldiers dress up as monsters

Just think about it... You are a Germanic warrior fighting ordinary people, and from nowhere - some dudes with leathery scary masks, weird cloting and horns on helmets - you would be scared af
Did some tribe, civilization do this?

aztecs

Samurai did that but generally speaking not really, it is better to only wear what is going to protect you than to worry about intimidating the enemy.

Something that is more common across the world and time and was even used until WW1 are crests and plumes of some description on the helmet.
>feathers and horse hair? How is that scary?

It adds height to a person, and makes them appear larger than they actually are. Napolionic era hats are the same desu.

It seems that nobody thought that intimidating enemies could help
Like would it hurt if a soldier on top of his helmet puts few small horns or leather masks/weird masks made of steel
I think everybody would crap their pants if you enter a forest, and you find 100 horned guys with weird non-human masks

much more simple to scarify/paint your body, make loud music or scream and sing some songs

Masks aren't great for fighting on foot, they limit your peripheral vision so you won't see attacks coming from the sides. Masks are ceremonial or reserved for heavy cavalry who probably found that enemies went for the least armoured area of their bodies (the face) and so covered them.

Horns might be scary at fist but in a prolonged fight people are going to use an axe to hook your horn and pull you down. They would also stop heavy blows from glancing off the helmet so instead of surviving with a headache a sword or axe would "catch" on the horn and glance down, directing the force entirely on the helmet which could be fatal.

Why do that when you can look like an invulnerable mass of steel hell-bent on destruction?

all men look like monsters in war. And the screams, blood, and shit that gets everywhere is like being the belly of the beast himself

Pretty much summed it up.
A lot of cultures that had ceremonial horned helmets (such as the Celts) used much plainer ones in combat, and for good reason.

As for the psychological effects, ruthless, no-frills pragmatism functioned great for intimidation, just as if not more effective compared to being noisy and wearing crazy looking apparel.
The appearance of a force that was extremely well coordinated, quiet and equipped with plain, but effective gear gives an impression of ruthless efficiency that is terrifying in its own way.

Some of them did; it, along with top predators like jaguars, eagles, and the like, was the norm for military attire of mid to high rank soldiers for Nahua cultures like the Aztecs, as mentions

One of the highest ranks had you dressed up in armor made to look like their sun eating skeletal futa demons.

Why bother with an impractical costume when you can paint yourself blue or put a Gorgon on your shield?

Because they were soldiers and not barbarians?

why do that when you can get naked and run at formations of highly trained individuals with nothing more than body paint, your erection and an axe?

>this terrifies the Turk

>I think everybody would crap their pants if you enter a forest, and you find 100 horned guys with weird non-human masks
Most adults would find it transparent and it would just inspire them knowing that their enemies feel the need to use such elaborate attempts of intimidation. I'd assume that it means their fighting skills and/or equipment aren't much.

Plus, plenty of cultures had festivals where they would dress like monsters to scare away evil spirits, so a lot of people would be used to it.

Tacitus describes a tribe of germanics who would paint themselves black and then go on night raids.
There's also the azteks which you pretty much described.

Wasn't there some ERE general who taught his army to go into battle completely silent without a battlecry or anything? If I recall correctly it was quite psychologically effective on the enemy.

TFW YWN be clubbed to death by a furry.

>Because they were soldiers and not barbarians?
This is how we know that you're a brainlet.

Don't forget their swag

>Most adults would find it transparent and it would just inspire them knowing that their enemies feel the need to use such elaborate attempts of intimidation.
Have you never been in a crowd?
You're also ignoring the fact that most people in the past believed in the supernatural, especially pertaining to forests and were also brought up on horror stories about any 'others'.
I mean it's only about five generations since people stopped believing in trolls and tomtar.

Forgot the pic.

Don't play the aloof skepticist here, boy.
Yes, you would assume what you just said, on the safety of your home in the 21st century. But just imagine a band of monsters storming your position while screaming out their lungs, and you'd shit your pants

I have heard the Maori put these carvings up outside their Pa's (fortresses).

Their eyes shine in the moonlight so it looks like a demonic guard that is always watching. They use Paua, the shells of shellfish, to make the eyes. Cool as hell

Neat!

There was a Liberian warlord nicknamed "General Butt Naked" who fought naked in belief that it gives him magical protection against bullets. He also regularly sacrificed children before battle. He's a pastor now.

Clearly it worked

yup, pretty cool desu, I wonder if they also had some tipe of night ward to go along with the glowing eyes, or it just to scare of night invaders, bu now that I think about it, day invaders as well

>clubbed

More like being nearly cleaved in half; it's a giant ass thick wooden baton with edges lined with blades made from the sharpest material on the planet. The cut here may not look super deep, but remeber how thick the wood itself is: It's basically making an inch or two deep cut with the blades and then the wood is being slammed into the wound making it deeper. You can also then yank it like a saw while it's in your body as you pull it out of the wound to do more damage, and you also have little obisdian shards left in the wound.

Once the edges break after they've already cut down 5-6 of your fellow men, THEN they'll club you to death with them; or more likely, break your legs with them and knock you unconscious and then bring you back as a captive to tear your heart out.

...

Huns/Magyars/Bulgars made scars on their face, pressured baby boy heads so that they take a weird shape when they grow up, wore animal skins, had feathers and bones on their horses, etc.
They did pretend to be monsters, to honor their spirits/gods, and to scare the enemy.

It was to scare off night invaders. They also had a few people to watch out but with the carvings it was like they could show they had more people watching at night that there really was.

During the day it really didn't matter, but it did look cool, and you cant dismiss the cool factor

just what I thought
you really can't

Cutting tests should not be done on a hanging medium as the weight of the parts under the cut will help tear the wound further apart, exaggerating the damage.

The seljuk and ottoman turks grew large menacing mustaches to scare their enemies.

That and good luck cutting through iron or steel armor using volcanic glass.

...

while that's true, a giant ass thick wooden club with what's essentially razor blades stuck to it is going to do serious damage, it being hung causing extra tensile tears or not.

Have you considered that the entire reason why used volcanic glass as their edges for their weapon is precisely because nobody used iron or steel armor in the region? They had copper knives, fishhooks, tweezes and adzes used for domestic and agricultural uses: They could have adapted them for military use if they wanted, but they didn't because there wasn't a need too. Bronzeworking had only really just been starting to develop in the region in western mexico.

Also, I think that's sort of a moot point even beyond that: it's not like metal swords being swung would get through plate either: They relied on knocking people in plate over and stabbing between the plates, or projectiles to pierce it, which is basically what the Aztecs did as well when faced with people with plate armor (and there actually are reports of Alatl darts gouging, denting, and occasionally piercing spanish steel armor); not that there were that many: The majority of the spanish didn't have tons of steel armor and got majorily fucked up as a result.

Your entire point sort of hinges on "well it's shit vs stuff from europe", when if europe and mesoamerica were close enough for it to have functionally mattered in the sort of conditions you imply, then Mesoamerica would have had the benefit of trade and cultural interhchange beforehand to develop alongside it.

it was standard policy for the roman legions at the height of the empire to go into battle silent.

During the late roman empire this had changed from Germanic recruits introducing the "Barritus" a slow chant that began as a murmur but increased in volume to a defining roar by reverberating the sound behind their shields

rpg set in aztec land with blood magic when

Tfw you will never spectate such a tactic used in a battle involving thousands of men

yfw if a legion was teleported into a modern city and assumed battle formations using these tactics most people would regard them as a joke and stand still with their phones out until it was too late