To be fair, Swiss armies crushed seemly superior opponents right and left during their glory days, roughly 1440-1525. When it comes to close combat, morale, experience, and cohesion count for so much. Charles the Bold's various armies look great on paper, but overall they were likely inferior in the Swiss in fighting spirit and cohesion. Certainly some of the Burgundian men-at-arms exemplified knightly prowess, but those - specifically Louis de Châtel-Guyon at Grandson 1476 - didn't necessary spend their energies wisely. Others among the Burgundian heavy cavalry supposedly lacked basic martial skills.
Consider what it took to actually defeat the Swiss. At Marignano you had the best men-at-arms of France - including Pierre Terrail and King Francis himself - a mighty artillery train, veteran Landsknechts, various arquebusiers, and plenty of crossbowers. The French army outnumbered the Swiss, possibly significantly. And the Swiss still managed to fight through an entire day and night and kill thousands of their foes. At Bicocca 1522 the Swiss charged against a well-fortified position defended by many guns as well as Landsknecht. Even in this nightmare scenario they didn't give up easily and only eventually withdrew.
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
| To be fair, Swiss armies crushed seemly superior opponents right and left during their glory days, roughly 1440-1525. When it comes to close combat, morale, experience, and cohesion count for so much. Charles the Bold's various armies look great on paper, but overall they were likely inferior in the Swiss in fighting spirit and cohesion. Certainly some of the Burgundian men-at-arms exemplified knightly prowess, but those - specifically Louis de Châtel-Guyon at Grandson 1476 - didn't necessary spend their energies wisely. Others among the Burgundian heavy cavalry supposedly lacked basic martial skills.
Consider what it took to actually defeat the Swiss. At Marignano you had the best men-at-arms of France - including Pierre Terrail and King Francis himself - a mighty artillery train, veteran Landsknechts, various arquebusiers, and plenty of crossbowers. The French army outnumbered the Swiss, possibly significantly. And the Swiss still managed to fight through an entire day and night and kill thousands of their foes. At Bicocca 1522 the Swiss charged against a well-fortified position defended by many guns as well as Landsknecht. Even in this nightmare scenario they didn't give up easily and only eventually withdrew. |
From a paper strength point of view it doesn't make much sense indeed. The savoyard cavalry and infantry, English archers and native troops certainly were no strangers to combat.
At Morat the Burgundian army had a pretty good(read: near perfect) position. Infantry in the center in a good position protected by a ditch and palisade (which is what made Flodden 1513 a massacre for the Scottish), Artillery on one flank on an elevated position and on the other flank his cavalry. I doubt you could be in a better position to counter the swiss than if you were standing on a castle wall. The only thing that crashed this perfect setup was the absence of the Burgundian army...
On one hand, having as many troop types as the Burgundian army did could be an advantage if these disparate troop types get the time and opportunity to practice how to work together. At the same time, it also carries a potential for disaster since coordinating multiple troop types is more complicated than it sounds and an enemy with a less diverse army might have an advantage in how quickly they could sort out the formations, dispositions, and movement plans for their forces. Wargamers the world over have conducted numerous refights of the battles in the Swiss-Burgundian War and they generally notice that the many different troop types in the Burgundian army tend to get in each other's way under anything less than perfect coordination. The Swiss have their command-and-control problems too in wargames but it's usually nowhere near the magnitude of the difficulties experienced by Burgundian players.
| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: |
| On one hand, having as many troop types as the Burgundian army did could be an advantage if these disparate troop types get the time and opportunity to practice how to work together. At the same time, it also carries a potential for disaster since coordinating multiple troop types is more complicated than it sounds and an enemy with a less diverse army might have an advantage in how quickly they could sort out the formations, dispositions, and movement plans for their forces. Wargamers the world over have conducted numerous refights of the battles in the Swiss-Burgundian War and they generally notice that the many different troop types in the Burgundian army tend to get in each other's way under anything less than perfect coordination. The Swiss have their command-and-control problems too in wargames but it's usually nowhere near the magnitude of the difficulties experienced by Burgundian players. |
That's probably true though I still wonder how Morat would have looked if the Swiss didn't arrive to late for their appointment.
I'm still not sure it would have worked out well for the Burgundians. In their previous battles -- even the ones they won -- there wasn't much evidence that they managed to successfully coordinate the various parts of their army. Their victories could generally be chalked up to the success of one or at most two different troop types rather than multiple types working in concert.
| Pieter B. wrote: | ||||
I like the image. From what I can tell the archers wear sallets and brigandine, their arms left unarmored and wearing thigh height leather boots for horse riding. They must've been some rich and fine dandy archers :cool: However I can't really tell what the pike men were wearing, could anyone tell me? |
Those are actually men-at-arms, with fauchards and normal-sized infantry spears. The plumes and the flag (which is a pennon or pennoncel) denounce that. Their armor seems to be full harness, but using brigandines instead of a full white harness.
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
| Others among the Burgundian heavy cavalry supposedly lacked basic martial skills. |
What do you mean with that? Theorically the men-at-arms must be among the most well-trained troops of an army.
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Daniel, a reenacting group called Genz d' ordennance proposed the following:
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They also interpretate "breastplate" as simply the frontal part of the cuirass.
| Daniel Staberg wrote: |
| Which arm was held forward changed as pikes grew longer. 17th Century drill has the left arm forward and the right hand gripping the rear of the pike, this is due to need to balance the 16-18 foot pikes then in use. 15th and early 16th Century pikes were shorter (10-14 feet) and used in a diffrent manner. For example all but one of the drawings made by Paul Dolnstein of his landsknecht comrades wieldidng their pikes in battle or in training durign the first years of the 16th Century show them having the right arm forward. |
Spitballing, but lets say rather than right (armored arm) forward, the left with a hanging targe/shield was covering the forward arm with the exposed back arm armored and breastplate protecting the rest of the body. when you get to secondary weapons like swords you have your right arm armored and left with a shield. Makes more sense than your rear thrusting arm being bogged down with a shield (usually shown in modern depictions protecting the body or armpit- moot when you have a breastplate as an ordinance item) while your forward arm is better armored but exposed.
Targe/target might be more of a hand pavise with a neck strap; many surviving hand pavises have two lanyard rings or such up top in addition to their T shaped cord grips.
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| Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote: | ||||||
Those are actually men-at-arms, with fauchards and normal-sized infantry spears. The plumes and the flag (which is a pennon or pennoncel) denounce that. Their armor seems to be full harness, but using brigandines instead of a full white harness. |
I'm not convinced that these were men-at-arms. We have clear statements in the Burgundian Ordonnances about the equipment of actual men-at-arms and brigandines and open-faced sallets wouldn't have cut it. Besides, at least one of the Ordonnances describes exercises for pikemen and archers operating in mixed formation (with the archers shooting over the kneeling pikemen's heads), so it makes more sense for these troops to be pikemen or similar non-chivalric heavy infantry if they're depicted together with archers in this fashion.
| Quote: | ||
What do you mean with that? Theorically the men-at-arms must be among the most well-trained troops of an army. |
Benjamin was overstating it, but we have Commynes' words that only a small fraction of the Burgundian men-at-arms at the battle of Montlhery knew how to put lance in rest (which can broadly be interpreted that they lacked the skills to mount effective cavalry charges in formation -- or at least that they were significantly worse at it than their French opponents). Commynes was an eyewitness from the Burgundian side in this battle so there's little reason to doubt his account (especially since we don't have statements to the contrary in other sources on the same battle).
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