"What is your opinion of historical re-enacting?" Topic

To respond to a couple of points here:

We never got any grief from genuine veterans (my group was part of a late 20th Century living history group so we covered Korea and Vietnam, mainly and had close ties with WW2 groups). Servicemen, mostly retired ones, had nothing but words of encouragement for us.

As for what you learn, from my own experiences plus those of other societies who re-enacted wars from earlier periods, is how little you see of a battle. At black powder era re-enactments, there's so much smoke you can only vaguely see your enemy. In 20th century skirmish re-enactments, you're lucky if you see the enemy at all. It's mostly noise and firing your rifle in the direction of where you think the enemy is. This is something you can apply to skirmish wargame rules.

Sometimes a show's organisers want something more scripted from a re-enactment for the public so it's a case of following the authentic drill as much as you can and treat it more like a show.

The other thing I learned was how much weight a soldier has to carry around with them. For my sins, I often had to carry the radio. When some gamers want their light machinegunner figure to charge at the double over rough ground it helps to remind them that the real life grunt had a lot to carry and it wasn't light!

cosplay. But prefer the female cosplayer to a German SS reenactor.

Hey Dogged, Chill OK! I was asked for my opinion and gave it based on my own personal experiences, just because my opinion differs from your own doesn't mean it isn't valid. Never met one person that hobbies one way or another to do with anything military that wasn't weird or quirky in some respect. Each to their own bro', each to their own.

What we also do is relay little known pieces of history to people who would have never known the stories. When I do school presentations, I always include these: The Tigers at the Stone Bridge, Jackson at Henry House Hill, Stuart mistaking the 5th N.Y. for the Tigers. These are the stories that spark interest way beyond what is normally taught and keep history alive.

Ewan, I invite you to read again my statement and then not asking me to chill, which is unnecessary; as you will see, I only comment the reality that mature people playing armchair generals and moving around little toy soldiers is (way) more ridiculous than reenactors doing their business. Which if you look at it from a non defensive posture, is quite the truth. I do play wargames moving around little soldiers and playing an armchair general and I do reenacting. While people can be (and in fact they generally are) quite receptive to reenactment, even as a surprise (i.e. they did not expect to find reenactors; after knowing about reenacting, they do visit reenactments on purpose), wargaming is considered a sort of unproductive just for fun hobby and the general public don't give much thought to it (or any; they are dismissive of it, they find it a private, personal, non constructive hobby).

Also reenactment can be a great tool for history divulgation, while wargaming rarely works as such (except for people directly interested and/or involved in wargaming and disposed and able to take into account the multiple factors into the real conflict). In fact, let's face it, wargaming (out of professional wargaming like that on armed forces) is about gaming war, far more than on reflecting war. You won't see many players really interested about incorporating many psychological rules to impair troops based on deployment, climate and lots of factors which would affect soldiers in a real fight (think about the men in an outflanked flank, or after a forced march and having no meal, or thirsty in a scorching summer day, or with no line of retreat, or… Etc.).

Regarding your particular statement, you cannot form an educated opinion on reenacting based on a partial, anecdotal incident. If such was enough, opinion on wargaming must be negative as negative experiences (i.e. power gaming, rules lawyers, etc. you surely get my point), although being the least of many, tend to counterbalance positive ones. You'll easily understand what I said about wargamers needing to be receptive to reenacting.

From what you said (I quote you: " I think its silly, as is LARPng and CosPlay. I find the participants uncomfortably strange. Sort of way out there but socially awkward at the same time and it appears to be very nerdy attention seeking thing") quite frankly, you should chill about it all. Although understandable, such a feeling looks a lot more like you feel embarrassed for things others do that you would feel embarrassed doing such yourself, more than that you find that what they do is really embarrassing. I myself admire those who are able to do things I would do wouldn't I find it embarrassing. Specially if such things are constructive (and fun).

P.S.: Also, don't confuse reenacting with LARPing, which is its own thing, very enjoyable and sane (if done right, as everything, and further: don't confuse both or cosplay (another quite fun thing to do) with plain annoying behaviour, even if it's displayed along historical or fantasy costumes.

I think it's super-cool, but I don't have the time or money.

A. Medieval (sort-of: SCA), ACW (Asst. Surgeon, 7th Bn ANV), AWI (6th Pennsylvania Regt of the Continental Line), WW2 (Civilian Civil Defense Air Raid Warden and/or 4th Indian Div Havildar Commonwealth Military Provost-- a Sikh MP, and/or Soviet 193rd Rifle Division).
Mrs Carp and I do it for fun, and to educate ourselves and the public as to how much really weird stuff there is in our history.
p.s.--I'm a nerd and proud of it. Guess you're just gonna hafta deal with that fact, annoying as it is.

The only "reenactors" that really crack me up are the RenFest people.

Does the SCA count?

Heh.
Neither the SCA nor Renfaire folks are reenacting. I have nothing against either, and I dabble in the SCA with the wife. (oops…when I when back and re-read that, I realize how bad that sentence sounds! ;-) But they are much more akin to LARPing than actual reenacting. This is especially the case in the SCA with it's mythical "kingdoms", fantasy award system, no authenticity standard, etc. But sadly a minority of SCAers like to describe their hobby as a "reenactment". It's a fun game. But it's not reenacting. Sorry guys.

As to the thread question itself, I answer "A".
Over the years I've done WW1 German, WW2 German, Soviet, and American, and I've attended one of the few small English Civil War events in the US. (so small it was much more of a display than a reenactment) I also did American Civil War (Union, which may surprise some folks) for a short while. But I found that I am extremely allergic to black powder smoke and that being in a firing line was agony. Needless to say that killed it for me.

I had stopped the hobby for over a decade as I simply got too fat to play that game. But a couple of years ago I lost over 200 pounds and was able get my life back. At 45, I'm starting to get a bit old to be convincing. But part of my life change was to reward myself by returning to some of my physically demanding hobbies. So I'm a reenactor again…at least for a while.

As to why I do it, I have an unusual take on it. A lot of folks have all sorts of high minded rhetoric about "educating the public" or honoring the vets. These are honorable goals, and the hobby may actually do that on occasion. But I do it because I enjoy it. I get much of the same satisfaction in reenacting that I do playing war games. In fact, to a large degree that is what reenacting is: a skirmish wargame played at 1:1 scale. (this is especially the case when we are talking about private "tactical" events rather than public displays.

Finally, I also do something that is not exactly reenacting, but it's similar. I do full contact armoured medieval combat. (another reward for no longer being morbidly obese) I spar under a number of rule sets. As I mention above, I dabble in SCA stick fighting. But the unrealistic "monty python" system of acting out wounds and being a system that punishes those who wear realistic armour is not really my thing. I prefer HEMA and the various styles that use rebated (blunt) steel weapons. Punch "Battle of Nations" and "Armored Combat League" to see the sort of insanity I get up to! ;-)