[Shayan G]

[Hugh Knight]

[Bram Verbeek]

yes, but it takes very much control to make an effective infantry rotation system, I think that would be hard to do without the high amount of officers the romans had. I was generalising when I spoke of a more individualised combat system, but the reputed discipline of the romans is staggering, and without equal. It is not that the english at crecy had lower morale or control was less, the romans were trained to do quite a number of different tasks and follow quite a number of different orders. I am not idealising the romans, but in my opinion roman small unit tactics is about the only thing they had uniquely different from other powers, and they did that well.

but then, when guns arrived a kind of refresment was quickly adopted, so it might not have been all that uncommon

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Well, the extremely common medieval practice of arraying the soldiers in three battles can actually be seen as a line relief system. It was not as fast and as reliable as the Roman system because it lacked the gaps that allowed the second-line unit to pass ahead of the first in small, more manageable packets--but it worked, at least when properly controlled. At the very worst, it could work as a passive line-relief system--once your first line has broken and fled, you'd still have the second and third line to rely on!

(And, of course, the hastati-principes-triarii sequence only worked as an actual tactical concept during the middle of the Republican period. By the time the Romans became really dominant--the Late Republic and the Empire, that is--they had merged those three classes into a uniform cohort, and used the cohorts as building blocks for their front and reserve lines in a very similar manner to the way 18th- and 19th-century generals managed their infantry battalions.)

[Greg Coffman]

This is very informative. Tell me more. And where are the sources for this information? What are the good books to go read on these subjects?

[Lafayette C Curtis]

On which part? The Roman one or the medieval one? My quick-and-dirty online reference for Romans is LacusCurtius ( http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html ) while De Re Militari ( http://www.deremilitari.org ) is the online first stop for medieval military history. And, of course, the myArmoury bibliography section here: http://www.myArmoury.com/books/

[James Barker]

Hi I just want to toss my 2 cents in on earlier comments on bills. Bills were used by the lower class not by knights and men at arms. They might have been used against men in armor but I doubt they would have the same effect as a poleaxe. Bills are top heavy and clumsy weapons while poleaxes are balanced and elegant. Bills were gardening tools taken to war and were likely far more effective against the more lightly armed men on the field.

[Hugh Knight]

[James Barker]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[James Barker]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

I'll agree bills aren't as optimized for fighting against a man in full harness as the pollaxe, but they're not clumsy weapons.

Do you have any evidence that 15th-century bills weren't made for warfare?

[James Barker]

The fact many museum pieces have been examined and it was shown the spikes are welded on later than the original head was made (referring to the classic bill shape) and the endless amount of art from the 12th c on of men pruning trees with spikeless bills.

In the 15th c muster rolls the men with bow and bill are lightly armored or unarmored. David key wrote a great article about how "billmen" did not exist as a standard troop in the War of the Roses era; bills in the muster rolls are almost always listed with and archer. Archers turned into extra hands when the use for a the bow ended. This is not unlike Agincourt where the archers stopped loosing picked up axes, hammers, and mauls and wadded into the hand to hand combat.

As to Flodden the billmen cut the heads off the pikes of the pikemen who then drew swords; I don't know about you but I will take a bill over a sword

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[James Barker]

Unfortunately as Andrew Boardman points out in the Medieval Soldier of the War of the Roses "Harness" does not always mean a full suit of armor; it only means a breastplate or brigandine or maybe other bits of armor in this time frame.

Looking at the Strykland Muster roll men with harness and bills total about 15 out of a few hundred. Harness and bow, jack and bow, jack and bill far outnumber those listed as bill and harness.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

"Whole harness" likely meant more than just "harness."

Either way, the fact that many billmen didn't wear full armor doesn't mean the bill was a poor weapon.

People who favor a certain weapon are always eager to dismiss similar weapons as inferior. If I recall correctly, John Waldman, who focused on the halberd, didn't have much nice to say about the pollaxe. However, I believe he considered the bill to be simply an English halberd.

[James Barker]

Have to admit I will take this:



over this:



any day; having handled several examples of both I find having the better centered mass of the pollaxe both damages and handles better; pull having a spike on the cue rocks.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

At 1.6 kg without the shaft, that's a pretty heavy bill.

I certainly wouldn't want to get hit the head with it, helmet or no.

[Hugh Knight]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]