Posts: 123 Location: Slovakia
Fri 18 Oct, 2013 7:57 am
Well Im rather oriented into late middle ages/early rennaisance, Swiss were able to repeatedly and decisely defeat larger armies and despite popular claims, their cavalry killcount looks rather low, they seem to have achieved thier biggest sucess against inferior enemy infantry, with unsupported and outnumbered cavalry giving ground then. Still, cavalry seem to be the force, that would give swiss more troubles, than enemy infantry, generally.
Swiss, at least according to Contamine would be able to field 50-60000 able-bodied men in a general muster, quality might vary, but as they showed, they can effectively wage great battles involving sometimes 20000 and more men on their side well before and in 16th century. As for late middle ages and rennaisance heavy cavalry meeting face to face with soldiers equipped in roman style, I think there was a good reason noone ever tryed it at that time as far as I know. Equipment and level of protection might be as heavy, or even lighter, than that of earlier cataphracts, but I dont think, that there can be made any exact extrapolation, like french gendarmes wouldnt beat roman legionaires in open terrain, because there is not a single example of cataphracts doing it earlier. As I see it, medieval cavalry saw gradual shift towards putting emphasis on engaging enemy in close combat, rather than skirmish at range, maybe cataphracts, notwithstanding how heavily armoured, were never meant to fight in the same way as french gendarmes would hundreds of years earlier, because noone had the idea of doing it/noone needed it/noone found it to be a good idea/whatever else. Swiss would at the very least be on par with Romans and french gendarmes were at the very least able to give swiss a good fight and troubles, when they met them, generally in 1:10 ratio, or so.
Flemmish seem to be able to decisely resist and massacre the French, if they fought at the field of their choosing in a set defensive position and with severely obstructed ways of retreat, but were several times defeated, when they attempted to attack. Assuming Courtrai as one notorious example, there might be 2000 french knights charging into difficult terrain, into enemy several times their numbers, still giving them good fight despite inability to attack them other way, than frontally. Would the most elite roman legionaires of the same number fared decisely better in this case? Would they have beaten scots at Bannockburn, given the same number of legionaires as english cavalry? Would they have beaten english at
Agincourt,
Crecy,
Poitiers in same condition? On the other, better organized, more disciplined and led, wouldnt the actual defeated armies be able to gain victories in all these cases?
As for earlier ages, in France for example, numbers of miles, that could be mustered would be significantly bigger, than in later times. So the pool of profesional soldiers still would be great enough and these, while mounted, could server in any role needed. (In referrence to carolignian empire, where, not unlike in rome, every man of set weath would have a responsibility to own arms and answer to muster to fulfill his duties, or face fines. Once again from Philippe Contamines War in the middle ages, estimated size of army carolignian empire was able to muster in years 800-840 would be 35000 riders and army of about 100000 altogether. Though it is true, that they wouldnt stay in field for long and there is no undisputable argument to statement, that they would like to finish their campaign as fast as possible)
Id say, as far as early/high middle ages go, the best scenario would be a roman invasion, with medieval forces in defence. Romans seems to have clear edge in long term operations aimed at conquering enemy territory, on the other hand string of well defended fortifications hard to conquer, draining their resources each time they decide to take one and ability of many small detachments of individually skilled and well led raiding parties composed cheifly of cavalrymen, able to harass romans in the countryside, I dont think they ever met such a type of solution in defence.