There's no getting around it Ellis, you just can't reproduce the psychology and behavior of combatants. I've been mulling over ways to encourage SCA armies to actually break and flee when a battle is lost, because I think it would be fascinating to see an army spontaneously disintegrate in real time.

Gavin; Of course not. However, as long as you are aware of the shortcomings of your style or activity, you can look for answers elsewhere.

Oh believe me Scott, I wish I had video of that, but it was in a wooded area and arrows were flying, so no cameras were around.

Now that I mention it a similar thing happened to me once. During a particularly messy scrap along a narrow road I got separated from my unit, and behind the enemy right as the lines backed away from each other during a lull in the fighting. Rather than go down gloriously I just turned around and stood there trying to look inconspicuous in my incredibly noticeable yellow and black countercharged tabbard and matching shield.

I wasn't about to say anything; so with a huge grin on my face I moved up to the front of the enemy and took up a position on the far right of the road.

As we (me and the foemen) were moving to re-engage my own men I remember desperately trying to signal to my men that I had hatched a plot, but it didn't work. They certainly looked puzzled, and I was still waiting for someone to club me from behind.

Anyhow just as the lines engaged I threw myself hard to the left of the line, tangling all of the enemy spears up with my big shield. Our side was able to wipe out that first row of spearmen, and I stumbled away drunk with laughter before the enemy realized what had gone wrong.

Yeah this was in the SCA, but I'm sure that similar things have happened in reenactment battles. The fog of war can be your friend if you don't lose your nerve :D

Here's a classic, from the Mougsaard viking battle in 2007, inspired by a historical roman tactic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynHONWYDWZ8&feature=related
The army on the left is deployed in two tight boar snouts or horns. As the enemy moves forward, his line is broken by the horns, and the reserves come forward between the horns to push them back out, each time leaving some of their warriors dead.
The entire battle lasted for about 25 minutes, a record :P
(yours truly was in the reserves, and died tragically on the third countrerpush)

Elling forgive my ignorance, but are these people fighting with intent, or is this entirely scripted, or a mix of the two? Do reenactors in general actually fight, or is it staged?

Gavin;
This is a free fight.
One should really seperate between "Battle Reenactments", which is recrations of historical events (like the Battle of Hastings), which are scripted, and "Reenactment figthing" which is the "sport" based on the rules first used in the afore mentioned battle reenactments, and are free form.

Shortly summed up, the reenactment figthing rules are made for simplicity, speed and low equimpent requirements.
Weapons are blunted steel, Target zones are torso and thighs (some places also upper arms) for cutting weapons, torso for thrusts, head and neck is a foul, all hits are good... and that is pretty much it, except for safety guidelines.
Realism wise it leaves a bit to be wanted, but for tactics, accesablity and fun it's great.

We compensate for the lack of head hits and so on by practicing with alternative rule setts, including full body targets and stricter QC for hits. This of course requires good gloves, underarm/elbow and knee/shin guards and hemlet or fencing mask.
Lately, there has been a trend to experiment with these rules for group combat in some places.

Thanks Elling, that gives me a better idea of where your experiences are coming from.

I don't know how much you could "learn" from reenacting the Battle of Hattin (for example) if you just fought the battle by script every year, so knowing that there is a free form competitive equivalent to the SCA makes much more sense, from a tactical experimentation viewpoint.

Scott Hrouda, I notice you signature line "let em, and leave em". I don't know if you are aware, but the tactic was employed by Colonel Charles Scott, 3rd Continental Army against Geneal Cornwallis. He was quoted as saying "Leg em, damn em, I say leg em". We may do the things we do for different reasons, but I keep finding that just about everything we do in the SCA was used in battle at one time or another.

Realistically, you can't have people drive 2 to 4 hours to get to an event just to fighting one battle and go home when they are killed once. Its just not fun and people will not do it. In order for a battle to as realistic as possible, you need to get as many people to participate as possible. The key ingredient is make it "fun" and they will come. Numbers are what make battles most realistic. Then you see how hard it is to command units.

There are two types of battles we fight. Resurrection and Non- Resurrection. In the resurrection, people usually have to take a long tiring walk back to their base to resurrect. In Non-Resurrection, they are out of the fight for that battle. But in the case of Non-Resurrection battles, there are numerous such battles in that day so that people can have 3 or 4 hours of fun. In the Non-Resurrection battles I do see people fighting noticeably more conservatively. This change alone does have the desired effect well enough in my opinion.

As far as recognizing different sorts of wounds and recreating the various types of wounds... it has to be simple. If you make complicated rules... things just get complicated and everyone uses their own rules. Its a mess. In the SCA they often run small scale battles among the knights and high level squires with different rules sets. An example would be the Battle of the Champions at Pennsic where they use "armor as worn" rules. It works in that situation because the participants are highly experienced and can incorporate new rule changes into what they are doing. Anytime you try doing something like what with less experienced people, they usually forget the rules as soon as they clash with the enemy.

To be sure, the SCA has no problem experimenting with different rules. It is done on a regular basis locally and over time the general rules have changed. The SCA is all for making fighting as realistic as possible without people actually getting hurt. Most of the things that sound like a great idea don't work so well when you have 1,000 people on each side. Communication goes out the window when your line meets the enemy. You can't hear what anyone is saying unless they are screaming in your face.

Thanks for your explanation too Sander. I did not know that is how you guys did things. Very interesting.