I think that such men would die very quickly by the second or third line spearmen.
Ah right, the second line. My bad.
M.
M.
| Jean Thibodeau wrote: |
|
Bottom line: Any number of fighters with a system to work cooperitavely have the advantage over even much larger numbers fighting as individuals. . |
Very true as we have proved many times in war and melees. If you have a team that knows what to do and when to do it, your a tuff customer!
Xerxes: It would be nothing short of madness were you, brave King, and your valiant troops to...perish...all because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share.
Leonidas: Oh, haven't you noticed? We've been sharing our culture with you all morning.
| Elling Polden wrote: |
| The french knights charging 15 times at Crecy, uphill, against prepared defenses, heavy infantry and about 7000 archers, is reminicent of infantry squares walking into machinegun fire during WW I.
It USED to work very well, so one keeps doing it... |
Honestly, I think this is more the result of a breakdown in the French command structure than of a deliberate decision to use an obsolete tactical method. What did Froissart say about the French charges at Crecy? That they charged ahead in such "evil order" that their piecemeal charges had nothing like the impact that they should have had if they had been delivered in greater mass and in a better-coordinated manner. And a real, massed, cohesive charge could and did break through infantry positions--mounted Lombard men-at-arms in French employ did just this thing against the vaunted English longbowmen at the Battle of Verneuil (1425), although it could be argued that they had armored horses that gave them better chances against the Englishmen's archery. In any case, the French seem to have taken the lesson to heart since their Ordinances demanded the hommes d'armes to furnish their horses with armor, probably to lessen the effect of the enemies' massed missile formation.
| Quote: |
| Since heavy cavalry was more cost effective to maintain as feudal troops, infantry was largely ignored by the elites of the major high medevial kingdoms.
The exceptions where the scandinavian countries, which lacked a knightly elite, and based their armies on mass levvies, and the italians, which, being mostly smaller city states, fielded milita armies. The result was a circle effect, where cavalry is more usefull, thus the infantry is downlplayed, making the cavalry even more dominant. The factions that started fielding effective infantry in the 1300's didn't have heavy cav, and so had to prioritze infantry, which came as a shock to the knightly elite, that where used to riding down brigands with little resistance. |
Really? Cavalry was more cost-effective for the small-scale raiding and strategic expeditions that made up much of medieval warfare, but I'm not sure that more than a few medieval lords would have raised a grand army (a somewhat rare occasion, admittedly) without involving large numbers of infantry. Bouvines--the classic medieval battle par excellence--had large numbers of infantry on both sides; the German infantry at the center broke their French counterpart and might have had an even more decisive impact if they hadn't overextended themselves, thus allowing the mounted French men-at-arms to launch an effective counterattack against them. Near the end of the battle, too, a circle of Brabantine spearmen held off repeated French attacks for quite a long time before they were finally overcome by superior numbers.
It would also be a great mistake to think of the men-at-arms as a "heavy cavalry" force, because most of the time they served in light cavalry roles of scouts and raiders, and when they fought in large-scale encounters this was more likely to be a siege (where they would have fought on foot) than a battle (where they sometimes fought on foot, too). Examples of men-at-arms dismounting to fight on foot in field battles are present through the entirety of the European Middle Ages, from the 10th-century Battle of the Dyle to the 12th-century Battle of Bremule and then to the Scottish men-at-arms who formed the front ranks of the Scottish schiltrons and of course to the dismounted fighting that dominated the field battles of the Hundred Years' War.
| Gavin Kisebach wrote: |
| What form did Chinese heavy cavalry take? Stirrups would have been available, but armor was very different, correct? were they used as a coup de gras as in western Europe? Were they using single handed lances, or something two handed like a kontos? Sorry to stray, but you've piqued my curiosity. |
Chinese cavalry? That's a very extensive subject. Chinese light cavalry was just like any other Eurasian horse archer--armed with bows, given mostly strategic tasks but also able to conduct harrassment and pursuit in a field battle. It's the heavies that varied greatly from time to time. Some periods favored armored archers on armored horses, some others favored lancers, some even got so far as to use crossbow-armed heavies when competent heavy horse-archers were in short supply. The classic Chinese heavy cavalry concept, however, seemed to have been based on the Turkic/Central Asian idea of armored horses and armored riders carrying both lance and bow. These would have fought in a similar manner to Middle Eastern ghilman or early Byzantine heavies, using the bow both for stand-off skirmishing and for softening up the enemy before the charge with sword and lance. Of course, the Turkic model wasn't the only model available, and there's some evidence (though not certain) that some states in the Three Kingdoms period fielded cataphract-like cavalry with heavily-armored horses and men.
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
| I don't know much about the English Civil War, but I'm convinced 16th-century pike combat was aggressive and bloody. I don't have the source at the moment, but an officer's account shows that the front ranks could suffer losses over ninety percent. The advice of Smythe and military writers supports this view. Smythe specifically rejected the idea that pikemen should thrust repeatedly at a distance as they might in single combat. . |
I can easily believe that 16th-century pushes of the pike could have been more deadly than their 17th-century descendants, but the 90% death rate for the front rank is probably a statistical artifact. Remember the Battle of Ceresole? Blaise do Monluc's memoir states that the second(?) rank of pikemen on both sides here were armed with pistols and were told to discharge them at point-blank range just before the two formations clashed. This did wipe out almost the entire front rank on both sides, so the idea was never used again in any of the later battles because it was too bloody even by 16th-century standards.
| M. Eversberg II wrote: |
| I do know the Greeks basic unit was their spear men, with their swords being a weapon of absolute backup. I have never tried spear fighting myself, but I had imagined that a unit armed with said swords could "slide" into the enemy and take away the usefulness of a spear, and turn it into a liability. Actually, I'm pretty sure that happened in may cases, as it makes so much sense to me. |
Well, if anything, I'd say that the Greeks' primary weapon was their shields rather than their spears. These shields were big and heavy and made nice platforms for shoving your enemy back, especially if backed with the momentum of a running charge. A massed running charge.
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
| According to Smythe, pikemen should advance and make a single thrust in unison, then drop pikes and draw swords. |
Doesn't this suport that idea that the push of pikes didn't cause the casualties? It is the subsequent close combat with other weapons that caused the damage.
| Quote: |
| Doesn't this suport that idea that the push of pikes didn't cause the casualties? It is the subsequent close combat with other weapons that caused the damage. |
Perhaps, though Smythe expected the first thrust to wound, overthrow, and kill many of the opposing pikemen. I suspect both swords and pikes took lives.
Dolnstein did some nice drawings of Landsknechts in battle.
There is especially one drawing that I like.
Itīs a clash between Landsknechts and Swedish peasants.
The Knechts form a solid line of pikes. The first rank is riddled with bolts. In the bodies, in the face, in the legs etc.
They attack with pikes and move down the Swedish ranks.
The Swedish has crossbowmen in the first rank and spearmen in the ranks behind. Many with Swordstaffs.
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd166/Lord...0003-1.jpg
It seems to be quite a nasty affair and the push of pike seems to work.
There is especially one drawing that I like.
Itīs a clash between Landsknechts and Swedish peasants.
The Knechts form a solid line of pikes. The first rank is riddled with bolts. In the bodies, in the face, in the legs etc.
They attack with pikes and move down the Swedish ranks.
The Swedish has crossbowmen in the first rank and spearmen in the ranks behind. Many with Swordstaffs.
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd166/Lord...0003-1.jpg
It seems to be quite a nasty affair and the push of pike seems to work.
Would they have mixed the formation, with shorter range weapons up in the front rank, or even shields?
M.
M.
| M. Eversberg II wrote: |
| Ah I see. My first encounter with that word was in the game "Medieval 2: Total War" and was suspicious as to why my units of spearmen would ever want to form a circle of spears -- I couldn't protect anything with them and only seems to serve the purpose of letting my units be surrounded.
M. |
Well in that game the point is to prevent the cavalry from charging into your rear in an open battle. It can be useful a few times when you're outnumbered by horsemen and there are no missile units that threatens you. Unfortunately it covers almost no ground so units can easy ride beside you and target your more vulnerable units.
As for the historical aspect, I don't know if it was used much but I remember seeing it in some movies, used by saxons at least.
| M. Eversberg II wrote: |
| Would they have mixed the formation, with shorter range weapons up in the front rank, or even shields? |
I don't recall hearing about anything like that being used in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance--most of the time the pikemen already had shorter sidearms like the katzbalger anyway and could generally draw these if they lost or broke their pikes. But some other cultures (like the Sumerians and Minoans/Mycenaeans) did use formations where most of the men bore long spears or pikes but the front rank carrying very large shields, probably to deal with the javelins, arrows, and slingstones that would have been a constant menace to the warriors on a Bronze Age battlefield. Part of the reason why they had these shields might have been the fact that they didn't wear much armor, if at all.
| Martin Evensen wrote: |
| As for the historical aspect, I don't know if it was used much but I remember seeing it in some movies, used by saxons at least. |
The Scots might have used it at Falkirk--some intepretations of the battle guess that it was the use of circular defensive schiltrons that made the Scots immobile and allowed the English archers to wreak such havoc upon them. By the same interpretation, the Scots soon sobered up and went back to using their schiltrons aggressively like they did at Stirling Bridge and later at Bannockburn.
I don't remember where, but I read somewhere that schiltrons weren't used at Stirling and that they were used at the Falkirk for the first time. Not sure about reliability of this statement.
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