We will consider the following examples in light of the most ancient race war we have evidence for, Neanderthal defenders versus Cromagnon aggressors. This occurred during the Luchamp Excursion, in which the earth’s magnetic field was reduced to 5% among other anomalies associated with a cosmic wave from the galactic core.
As Neanderthal survived numerous other ice ages and other large animals survived this extinction, including the prime Neanderthal food animal, beef, which is still with us, I suspect the new factor, Cromagonon Man, was the culprit. Additionally, protection against the radiation was best in caves. Since Neanderthals dominated cave living in Europe, and there is evidence in Thessaly that a cave was improved in 41,000 BP, I suspect that Cromagnon took the caves and forests from Neanderthal, as an expression of a migratory need.
Likewise, similar magnetic events triggering cooling trends, such as in 790 A.D. and 3,300 B.C and 1300 A.D. seem to have triggered migration and social collapse.
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-Bolo & Navy .36
Kipling wrote of the “White Man’s Burden to forcibly civilize other races as a means to convince Americans to invade the Philippines. The Philippine Insurrection featured much slaughter of natives and assassinations of U.S. officers by suicide machete men often armed with a bolo style blade. The Navy .36 did not stop the fanatics reliably. Hence, the contract went out to develop a knock down effect pistol and the Colt 1911 APC was the result, made too late to help the Cos in Mindanao.
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-Trench & Blitz
Ernst Junger and Erin Rommel developed storm trooper tactics based on “fighting in indian file” [essentially Ranger doctrine discussed in the last section] to deal with the overwhelming artillery superiority of the allies in the late stages of WWI. This, storming, was all about getting close, and at night, just like Neanderthal would have had to fight the more numerous and ranged weapon wielding Cromagnon. Dogs were the best Cromagnon defense and would be used in future American wars to guard against such close night attacks.
Although we think of tanks as long range weapons, they were developed to get to close range over trenches. The same man who helped develop storm trooper tactics in WWI, Rommel, excelled the most at improvising with lightning tank warfare, which was based on striking deep, the tank the point of a great spear, twisting in the guts of the enemy army.
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-Kukri & Katana
During WWII, in Burma, fighting often came down to hand to hand, especially in the Admin Box sector. A great advantage held by the British over the Japanese in trench fighting, is that the Brits had Gurkha tribesmen armed with short kukri swords, which proved better in trench fighting than the Japanese katana. Close takes the day, especially in close circumstances, under cover, in man made caves. This recalls the importance of trench knives, clubs and hand shovels in WWI, when fighting came into trench and dugout.
At the close of The Falklands War, when the British commander told the Argentine garrison that he was going to send in Gurkhas at night with their knives, the superior force surrendered in mass. In the end, Cromagnon man would have had to invade the caves of the Neanderthal. Again, dogs would have been ideal.
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-Bugle & Jet
Relative to the Chinese enemy, lightly armed in the extreme, the U.S. military of The Korean Conflict, might have had the best ever fire power advantage among modern armies. Despite this, the Chinese army drove the Americans back to the 38th parallel with an extreme commitment to close range fighting. The Chi-Coms took terrible casualties doing this, but drove the foes back hundreds of miles. Perhaps, Neanderthals, at some points did the same, and took too many casualties pressing the close fight and permitting the higher birth rate of Cromagnon to tell in the long run.
A certain Lt. Lewis Millet found a Chinese pamphlet about how the U.S. fighting man was mentally weak and lacked the ability for close combat, and to use the bayonet. This pissed him off. He found a crate of bayonets and sharpened them for his platoon and took them up a hill against automatic weapons and grenades. Millet described stabbing Chinese heads as like cutting cheese and was honored for this victory and ordered never to do it again.
I interviewed men who survived this winter retreat and were still haunted by the Chinese bugles notifying that they were seeking close contact, that they were coming.
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-Knife, Gun, Badge & Bracelet
In my 1996-2000 Violence Project Survey I found that knife use was more likely to cause injury and death than gun use. Currently, in American cites, a stabbing victim is more likely to die then a shooting victim. In prisons, the ultimate modern cave analogue, stabbing is the big killer, grabbing and stabbing, exactly ow a man as strong as a chimp would kill you at close range, in the dark, in his cave, in his forest.
It is universal police doctrine based on actual drills with empty guns and rubber knives that a man with a gun in his holster cannot stop a man with a knife in his hand in less than 22 feet. Considering the additional space required to ready and hurl a spear with a throwing stick, this makes the Neanderthal advantage over Cromagnon [without dogs, which police love to use] superior to the current terminal proximity advantage a criminal knifer holds over a police gunman.
This will not make sense to non combative postmodern people who value safety and life and limb over victory, honor, defiance and vengeance. But it made sense to warriors when they yet walked the earth.
Speaking of police, what is their goal, generally?
To handcuff, to capture, bind and imprison the foe. This reflects a commitment to get close, to achieve terminal and maximum proximity in order to complete the hunt successfully. Gun and dog armed police, hunting outnumbered, lone, knife-armed criminals is the closest analogue we have to the Cromagnon on Neanderthal War.
My friend Bob, the life long hunter, does not respect “these distance hunters” men who “glass from the road” and seek to take animals from hundreds of yards away. Bob and his ilk can hit targets a half mile away, but want to be sure, want to get the cleanest kill possible for various reasons. Reasons for making sure include, not letting a grizzly get to it first, saving meat quality, and avoiding having to retrieve an animal that has plunged mortally wounded down into some thicketed gully. If one were hunting a predator who might retaliate by night, like a lion, leopard or tiger, or an ape man with the strength to break backs armed with knives and spear, then one would certainly want to make sure it was dead. You don’t want that sucker stalking you for vengeance in the night.
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-Kicking & Punching
When boxers and kickboxers fight according to some kind of mixed rules, it has tended to come down to the who has adapted more to the hybrid rules and the foe’s advantage. At low levels boxers win. At high levels kickers win. [1] I have seen it go both ways. But, when kickboxers fight each other:
-Closer range styles, like Muay Thai and San Shu [that permit clinching], defeat longer range styles like TaeKwonDo and Karate
-Punches KO more men than kicks
-The world wide kickboxing KO average stands at just under 20%
-The world wide boxing KO average stands at just over 30%.
-Among boxers, most KOs are from the shortest range KO punch, the hook, not the longer range straight right.
-Punching & Grappling
Only a fool, in the wake of some thousands of MMA bouts available on video, would argue that in unarmed fighting, striking beats grappling. In fact, dominant strikers in MMA have a ground game as good or better than their foes, in order to maintain the ability to keep the foe at a distance for striking.
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Conclusion
Close combat beats distance combat with muscle powered technology. Even with firearms and tanks and planes, proximity very often grants advantage. There is a value to making sure, and a commitment to “war to the knife,” that often eliminates entire fields of enemy from the equation when they fail that proximate gut check. The very ancient reason for such sports as wrestling and boxing, is to prepare the warrior for that terminal range of combat, to make certain he is spiritually prepared to defend his tribe’s lair, to resist in their people’s den. The hunter, the Neanderthal killing the cave bear in his den, and the Cromagnon after him making it his own sacred space must get close to conquer. His descendants even manufactured great barrow mound caves, castles and cathedrals in imitation of this primal struggle. It falls to the hunter of the hunter who would eliminate his rival, to prosecute that duel of serpent and eagle under sun and moon, to seek his enemy where he breeds, where he rests and ultimately grieves.
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Notes
-1. I think this is because at low levels boxers are more aggressive due to proximate conditioning, and at high levels the generally superior intelligence of the kicker comes through as enhanced adaptability.
