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Kurt Scholz
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 Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 5:27 am Post subject: |
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@William
Do you need maill to be a knight? My point is that a combination of fibres and leather might be as effective in the same threat environment, especially if you have a shield in front and don't fight from horseback where one of your sides isn't well covered.
Considering archaeology, I'm not sure we can for sure get the distribution of metal armour, because the cheaper the armour the more likely I would considered recycling. The depictions of rings in the Bayeux tapestry for example could also be rings stitched on a tough backing and that get turned into different items depending on necessity.
So I would suggest that there were possibly more men with a horse/mule/donkey/ox(ox races are an old Bavarian custom today) to ride and transport goods who rather fought on foot than from horseback. Feudalism meant that these were separated into knights, squires(and other lower nobles), sergeants and mounted crossbowmen (especially in Scandinavia). This distinction could be due to heritage, but also to wealth or career. Out of these groups the heavy cavalry is composed and the mounted men have a tendency towards also being able to afford metal armour, but only maill?
In my opinion the knights are the pinnacle of the mounted close-quarters-combat troops. But who was mounted and who of these rode his mount in battle into danger? Such a mount could be very expensive if it was trained for combat while an equine(not only horses) to move from A to B was comparably cheap and could be employed for civilian purposes. So there's a tendency to think before committing very valuable resources and it was a great help if the commander of the force was able to provide an insurance for the mounts, making war very expensive.
Concerning the highest ranking group of these mounted men, the knights, they are the ones most likely to charge something on horseback, but they can also fight on foot (and fend of knights on horseback) or ride on a cheap horse with light armour on a pillaging tour. The other men with or without mounts support them in fighting and pillaging. If they fight mounted they tend to be also heavily armoured because towering high above the battlefield with at least one unprotected side makes you a real threat magnet. Heavily armoured doesn't necessarily mean armoured with metal.
So heavy cavalry in Western Europe is not a distinctive force with a doctrine, but an option for the highest ranking and best equipped warriors, including knights. If the knights are successful, the lesser nobles, sergeants and the footmen can move in and help to finish of the enemy. Such a task needs of course preparation by the missile troops and heavy mounted warriors could be part of that missile force like mounted crossbowmen. This means that the European knight is a high ranking close-quarters-combat specialist, but as heavy cavalry he is part of squires, sergeants and mounted crossbowmen.
@Christopher VaughnStrever
Some suggestions for storytelling:
Have a knight argue about the insurance for his horse on the day before battle. It's historically correct(there are written sources on the topic) and provides contemporaries a comic and understandable picture. You can use this scene to explain a lot about war horses when these guys are arguing how much the horse is worth and for what reason.
The Bavarian writer Ludwig Ganghofer has a very famous story about a count who with his small and wild band of heavily armed men fights of the duke of Bavaria. Part of the introduction is a discussion between a sergeant and his brother, a farmer. The sergeant was sent away as a child because his family decided it couldn't support him and had been lucky to be selected by their ruling noble as part of his retinue. Now the brother, the family decided to nourish, begs his brother to help him in a legal affair concerning land because he's family and as part of his retinue he's on good terms with the ruling noble. However, the brother in the retinue is not very fond of his family that sent him into a desperate situation as a child in winter, only covered with a shirt. The brother in the retinue is also very proud of the status he has achieved by his strength, skill and determination and thinks that all girls are his to take, getting quite close to sexual molestation/rape and is only held back by remembering the explicit orders of his noble who commanded him to get along amicably with the population when the girl in question pulls out her knife for self-defence.
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 7:05 am Post subject: |
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Doh! Avars and Magyars and Muslims, oh my! I had totally forgotten about all those pre-Crusade influxes, somehow. Thanks for reminding me, and forget everything I said!
Matthew
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William P
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 7:34 am Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | @William
Do you need maill to be a knight? My point is that a combination of fibres and leather might be as effective in the same threat environment, especially if you have a shield in front and don't fight from horseback where one of your sides isn't well covered.
Considering archaeology, I'm not sure we can for sure get the distribution of metal armour, because the cheaper the armour the more likely I would considered recycling. The depictions of rings in the Bayeux tapestry for example could also be rings stitched on a tough backing and that get turned into different items depending on necessity.
So I would suggest that there were possibly more men with a horse/mule/donkey/ox(ox races are an old Bavarian custom today) to ride and transport goods who rather fought on foot than from horseback. Feudalism meant that these were separated into knights, squires(and other lower nobles), sergeants and mounted crossbowmen (especially in Scandinavia). This distinction could be due to heritage, but also to wealth or career. Out of these groups the heavy cavalry is composed and the mounted men have a tendency towards also being able to afford metal armour, but only maill?
In my opinion the knights are the pinnacle of the mounted close-quarters-combat troops. But who was mounted and who of these rode his mount in battle into danger? Such a mount could be very expensive if it was trained for combat while an equine(not only horses) to move from A to B was comparably cheap and could be employed for civilian purposes. So there's a tendency to think before committing very valuable resources and it was a great help if the commander of the force was able to provide an insurance for the mounts, making war very expensive.
Concerning the highest ranking group of these mounted men, the knights, they are the ones most likely to charge something on horseback, but they can also fight on foot (and fend of knights on horseback) or ride on a cheap horse with light armour on a pillaging tour. The other men with or without mounts support them in fighting and pillaging. If they fight mounted they tend to be also heavily armoured because towering high above the battlefield with at least one unprotected side makes you a real threat magnet. Heavily armoured doesn't necessarily mean armoured with metal.
So heavy cavalry in Western Europe is not a distinctive force with a doctrine, but an option for the highest ranking and best equipped warriors, including knights. If the knights are successful, the lesser nobles, sergeants and the footmen can move in and help to finish of the enemy. Such a task needs of course preparation by the missile troops and heavy mounted warriors could be part of that missile force like mounted crossbowmen. This means that the European knight is a high ranking close-quarters-combat specialist, but as heavy cavalry he is part of squires, sergeants and mounted crossbowmen.
@Christopher VaughnStrever
Some suggestions for storytelling:
Have a knight argue about the insurance for his horse on the day before battle. It's historically correct(there are written sources on the topic) and provides contemporaries a comic and understandable picture. You can use this scene to explain a lot about war horses when these guys are arguing how much the horse is worth and for what reason.
The Bavarian writer Ludwig Ganghofer has a very famous story about a count who with his small and wild band of heavily armed men fights of the duke of Bavaria. Part of the introduction is a discussion between a sergeant and his brother, a farmer. The sergeant was sent away as a child because his family decided it couldn't support him and had been lucky to be selected by their ruling noble as part of his retinue. Now the brother, the family decided to nourish, begs his brother to help him in a legal affair concerning land because he's family and as part of his retinue he's on good terms with the ruling noble. However, the brother in the retinue is not very fond of his family that sent him into a desperate situation as a child in winter, only covered with a shirt. The brother in the retinue is also very proud of the status he has achieved by his strength, skill and determination and thinks that all girls are his to take, getting quite close to sexual molestation/rape and is only held back by remembering the explicit orders of his noble who commanded him to get along amicably with the population when the girl in question pulls out her knife for self-defence. |
well mail for people of that time period, it was jst an example realy, becase in saxon england while you had better equipped wealthy landowners thegns earls etc.but those men didnt fight as cavary as their primary method of fighting, the acess to good armour was a semi indicator in those times of wealth, like being a cavalrymen,
i realise there are differences, which s why i admit referring to the saxons isnt exactly a fullproof method of comparison.
as you point out horses were reatively expensive due to the need for contant care, and stabling etc,
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 10:27 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: |
well mail for people of that time period, it was jst an example realy, becase in saxon england while you had better equipped wealthy landowners thegns earls etc.but those men didnt fight as cavary as their primary method of fighting, the acess to good armour was a semi indicator in those times of wealth, like being a cavalrymen,
i realise there are differences, which s why i admit referring to the saxons isnt exactly a fullproof method of comparison.
as you point out horses were reatively expensive due to the need for contant care, and stabling etc, |
I totally agree with you, but I think being clad in metal was a bit like wearing designer clothes nowadays. It looked good and gave the dandy right away when leather or leather and metal-constructions might have been not much less effective for much less money, but very much less shiny.
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 10:34 am Post subject: |
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Don't discount the possibility of fully armoured men. Contracts of feudal obligation often specified that the land holder was required to furnish a certain number of men armed and armoured in a specified way for a certain number of days of campaigning a year. The wealthier the land owner, the more specific his contract would be, which sometimes stated men armed with certain weapons and with certain kinds of armour (helms and hauberks are mentioned).
They may not have made up the majority of the army, but certain wealthy land owners would have been required to provide fully armoured men at arms (not necessarily knights) and would probably have had them in their retinues anyway.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 11:25 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The depictions of rings in the Bayeux tapestry for example could also be rings stitched on a tough backing and that get turned into different items depending on necessity. |
Considering there is 0% evidence of this "stitched of ring" type of armour used in europe, I'd believe it's the artist depiction of mail.
Not to mention that this type of armour would have been extremely ineffective, a lot of weight and a waste of expensive metal.
| Quote: |
but I think being clad in metal was a bit like wearing designer clothes nowadays. It looked good and gave the dandy right away when leather or leather and metal-constructions might have been not much less effective for much less money, but very much less shiny. |
I'm usually not a big fan of you tube armour testing. But this one seems to have been done rather well. If you watch, untreated leather (even two layers of fairly thick leather) offer very very little resistance to the weapons tested on it.
Hardened leather is better for sure, but gets cracks and stress fractures when struck. It would be fairly diposable I would think, and leather was not cheap.
The only leather armour that seems to fenction well is the hardened leather lammelar - and while it performs well, very determined thrusts can get through, as opposed to the mail, which nothing really gets through.
I'd take a look at this video before making any assumptions that leather or cloth was as effective or even close to effective as mail.
It' a series of videos actually, covering leather, real thick leather, hardened leather, lammelar of hardened leather and mail.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIWiqF9CjgY
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | Do you need maill to be a knight? My point is that a combination of fibres and leather might be as effective in the same threat environment, especially if you have a shield in front and don't fight from horseback where one of your sides isn't well covered.
Considering archaeology, I'm not sure we can for sure get the distribution of metal armour, because the cheaper the armour the more likely I would considered recycling. The depictions of rings in the Bayeux tapestry for example could also be rings stitched on a tough backing and that get turned into different items depending on necessity. |
As Gary said, the Tapestry is just showing mail. We've been around the subject of organic armors in early medieval Europe many times, and there is simply almost nothing for evidence. Why shouldn't the upper class have mail? It was the most common armor of the era. Those would could not afford it seemed happy with a shield and sometimes a helmet.
| Quote: | | Feudalism meant that these were separated into knights, squires(and other lower nobles), sergeants and mounted crossbowmen (especially in Scandinavia). This distinction could be due to heritage, but also to wealth or career. Out of these groups the heavy cavalry is composed and the mounted men have a tendency towards also being able to afford metal armour, but only maill? |
Careful. Feudalism was strictly a relationship between nobles. Sergeants and other common troops were commoners, not nobles, however they may have fought. Squires were simply nobles who had not been knighted, basically knights in training, and were not by any means "lower nobles". A baron or duke by birth would still have to be a page and then a squire before becoming a knight. You could not buy your way into nobility or a knighthood just by earning or winning enough money.
| Quote: | | In my opinion the knights are the pinnacle of the mounted close-quarters-combat troops. |
Absolutely!
| Quote: | But who was mounted and who of these rode his mount in battle into danger? Such a mount could be very expensive if it was trained for combat while an equine(not only horses) to move from A to B was comparably cheap and could be employed for civilian purposes. So there's a tendency to think before committing very valuable resources and it was a great help if the commander of the force was able to provide an insurance for the mounts, making war very expensive.
Concerning the highest ranking group of these mounted men, the knights, they are the ones most likely to charge something on horseback, but they can also fight on foot (and fend of knights on horseback) or ride on a cheap horse with light armour on a pillaging tour. |
Not sure what you're getting at, here. Knights certainly had a number of mounts, including riding horses and war horses. They also supplied horses to their squires and retainers, including mounted sergeants. They had a lot of horses, and it was expensive to maintain them all, but that's what nobles did. Compared to commoners, they were stinking rich.
| Quote: | | The other men with or without mounts support them in fighting and pillaging. If they fight mounted they tend to be also heavily armoured because towering high above the battlefield with at least one unprotected side makes you a real threat magnet. |
Except that a mounted man would be attacking as part of a mass formation, with dozens or hundreds of other mounted men. So the defenders won't have just one mounted guy to single out. They fight armored because they can afford to.
| Quote: | | Heavily armoured doesn't necessarily mean armoured with metal. |
Oh? It has every time *I've* ever heard or used the term!
| Quote: | | So heavy cavalry in Western Europe is not a distinctive force with a doctrine... |
Hmm, I'd say that's *exactly* what it is! I'm having trouble remembering any medieval battle where the heavy cavalry (if any was present!) was not a distinctive force. They could be supported by infantry, archers, etc., but they were not *mixed* with these troops. Their doctrine was basically "ATTACK!"
| Quote: | | ...but an option for the highest ranking and best equipped warriors, including knights. If the knights are successful, the lesser nobles, sergeants and the footmen can move in and help to finish of the enemy. |
Knights certainly did fight on foot sometimes. But a heavy cavalry force would include knights, squires, and sergeants (non-noble cavalry, in this case), all similarly equipped and identical in function. And if a cavalry charge was successful, mounted men would be more appropriate for pursuing the broken enemy. Sure, the infantry and missile troops would be happy to advance at that point, as part of the general pursuit, or to crack any hold-outs.
| Quote: | | Such a task needs of course preparation by the missile troops and heavy mounted warriors could be part of that missile force like mounted crossbowmen. |
Careful, I've never heard of a knight using a crossbow on horseback in battle! Do you have documentation for that claim? Missile troops would be commoners. Squires were nobles, and if they were old enough to fight they functioned as knights.
Vale,
Matthew
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 12:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Careful, I've never heard of a knight using a crossbow on horseback in battle! Do you have documentation for that claim? Missile troops would be commoners. Squires were nobles, and if they were old enough to fight they functioned as knights. |
I'd also think that these "mounted crossbowmen" werennot like eurasian horse archers, but were used more on foot, the horse was merely a means for transportation.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Quote: | | The depictions of rings in the Bayeux tapestry for example could also be rings stitched on a tough backing and that get turned into different items depending on necessity. |
Considering there is 0% evidence of this "stitched of ring" type of armour used in europe, I'd believe it's the artist depiction of mail.
Not to mention that this type of armour would have been extremely ineffective, a lot of weight and a waste of expensive metal.
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ringelpanzer are this kind of armour. They were a precaution against hunting accidents and as far as I know this kind of armour is discussed for mounted troops of the Romans. You are right that we lack much evidence for them in sources specifying armour required.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | Quote: | | Careful, I've never heard of a knight using a crossbow on horseback in battle! Do you have documentation for that claim? Missile troops would be commoners. Squires were nobles, and if they were old enough to fight they functioned as knights. |
I'd also think that these "mounted crossbowmen" werennot like eurasian horse archers, but were used more on foot, the horse was merely a means for transportation. |
The leidang regulations and theoretical treaties on what's effective against the Mongols. Plus the third image http://www.swco.ttu.edu/medieval/Coronado.html and of course Thalhofer's fencing manual on mounted combat.
We have very heavy crossbows even mounted on elephants in the Cham Empire. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ref-bayon1.jpg
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt Scholz wrote: | | Quote: | | Quote: | | The depictions of rings in the Bayeux tapestry for example could also be rings stitched on a tough backing and that get turned into different items depending on necessity. |
Considering there is 0% evidence of this "stitched of ring" type of armour used in europe, I'd believe it's the artist depiction of mail.
Not to mention that this type of armour would have been extremely ineffective, a lot of weight and a waste of expensive metal.
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ringelpanzer are this kind of armour. They were a precaution against hunting accidents and as far as I know this kind of armour is discussed for mounted troops of the Romans. You are right that we lack much evidence for them in sources specifying armour required. |
If you have some good evidence (not just some modern writer's opinion) that "ringelpanzer" meant rings sewn to a backing and not mail, we'd love to see it! I'm just not fluent in German terminology, and wondering if this isn't just another Victorian misinterpretation. Such a thing was certainly NOT used by any Romans--they used mail (along with scale, plate armor, etc.).
Vale,
Matthew
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 12 Sep, 2011 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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Well, this is another hotly debated topic, like does a longbow penetrate plate 
But, I'd say most evidence would point to very occasional use on horseback, with the mounted crossbowmen in more likelyhood functioning more in a Fyrd role or perhaps even in a dragoon role.
And the elephants point to nothing regarding cavalry, two completely different platforms. Interesting though.
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Paul Hansen
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 12:18 am Post subject: |
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| Matthew Amt wrote: | | You could not buy your way into nobility or a knighthood just by earning or winning enough money. |
That would depend on time and location...
In the early middle ages / late migration age, having money (=land + cattle + etc.) = being noble.
In the late middle ages, buying title-holding estates would become one of the favourite ways that merchants and very rich farmers used to gain prestige.
And I'm not 100% sure, but I'd think that in area's where the feudal system was less completely in place, the equation between money and nobility remained for much of the middle ages.
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Luka Borscak
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 2:11 am Post subject: |
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Yes, but nobility and knighthood is not the same. A noble is not a knight until he's knighted. At least that's how I understood that, maybe I'm wrong.
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Gabriele A. Pini
Location: Olgiate Comasco, Como Joined: 02 Sep 2008
Posts: 239
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 2:31 am Post subject: |
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My little contribuition: "oi barbaroi" the greek for "barbarians" literally means "the stutterers" for they inability to speak fluently greek
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 6:29 am Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: |
Well, this is another hotly debated topic, like does a longbow penetrate plate
But, I'd say most evidence would point to very occasional use on horseback, with the mounted crossbowmen in more likelihood functioning more in a Fyrd role or perhaps even in a dragoon role.
And the elephants point to nothing regarding cavalry, two completely different platforms. Interesting though. |
That's evidence for the use of crossbows from horseback, even by heavily armoured guys. It says nothing about frequency of use. The elephants are a gimmick of another animal as a platform for shooting very heavy crossbows (a horse is smaller and carries less, so the crossbow is smaller).
Where does this dragoon thesis come from? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to call them mounted infantry, but weren't the knights also (especially in English and German service, except if they were French and mindless)?
I've heard the dragoon claim a lot, including mounted archers and crossbowmen. but other than second guessing the Burgundian ordonnance and saying it was impossible to use a longbow on horseback (modern myth proven wrong, hold it somewhere in between horizontal and vertical and you can shoot it on horseback).
Another opinion is about being unable to use crossbows on horseback because they are clumsy. Well, they just have the same stirrup and David Nicole wrote in his source book that in Spain they developed a specific technique for loading crossbows on horseback by using belt and hook fastened at the shoulder. Perhaps people claiming this are a bit unskilled?
The only ones I can think about being mounted with a crossbow and shooting it from the ground are the zumbooruck, but I only know that they shot heavy firearms from the ground and they a history of using heavy crossbows before while maintaining camels/dromedaries as their mounts.
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Andrew W
Location: Florida, USA Joined: 14 Oct 2010
Posts: 79
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| Luka Borscak wrote: | | Yes, but nobility and knighthood is not the same. A noble is not a knight until he's knighted. At least that's how I understood that, maybe I'm wrong. |
Just what it means to be knighted can also depend on time and place. When a written source says that someone was a miles (latin for knight), we can't assume that the person went through a squiring and dubbing process. There's one often cited passage in which a noble captures some horses, 'and all his soldiers became knights' - the obvious implication there is that being a knight required little more than being a soldier on a horse (versus one who was on foot).
Just how connected knighthood was to rituals of the nobility is a matter of scholarly debate; the consensus has long been that, starting around the late 10th century, you start to see a lot of knights (milites, the plural of miles) who are really just mounted soldiers. As time went on, however, the nobility began more and more to adopt the identity of the miles for themselves, and rituals grew up around it (by the 13th century). Others disagree, and put the establishment of rituals of knighthood much earlier.
In my mind, the safest way to present these things is to avoid generalization: there was never a single system by which all milites were granted their knighthood; it could be anything from a monk wanting to flatter (or insult) a noble by calling him a knight of God (or a brigand) to a title granted by special ritual. Comparing the romances of Chretien de Troyes (late 12th century) with some of their 13th century translations into German, you can see different understandings of what knighthood means (for example, the German translator Hartmann refuses to call many of the dishonorable brigands Erec fights knights, but Chretien had no scruples in calling them knights a generation before in his version of the story); ideas of what made a knight were fluid, and changed with the rest of society.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 9:03 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | That's evidence for the use of crossbows from horseback, even by heavily armoured guys. It says nothing about frequency of use. |
Well, as opposed to my own diatribe, I'll quote this:
| Quote: | Now, there is a spectrum of competing hypotheses here to do with how the crossbow could have been used.
Theory A is that these men marches on their horses, but got off them to fight in battle - it's not unheard of, for example Anglo-Saxons unmounted for battle.
Theory B is that these men moved about the battlefield, but dismounted to fire and reload. - it's not unheard of, for example with later dragoons.
Theory C is that using technological advances like goats-foot levers and crannequins these men could have fired and reloaded all in the saddle. - it's not unheard of, for example later carbineers.
Now, most of the pictorial and written evidence doesn't especially lend itself as evidence of crossbows being reloaded in the head of battle - Talhoffer only gets off one shot, for example, and the colour picture below isn't a battle context. However, some of the pictorial evidence support this, showing saddle-quivers of bolts.
Personally I'm unconvinced by theory C - I'd like to see more evidence of crossbows having been used as such in battle. Both A and B seem perfectly believable to me, although I'm unsure of the extend to which theory B fits with my understanding of medieval battle tactics and command structures. However, it does seem very likely in a less total military context - raiding and skirmishing. Talhoffer fits in this context better than a pitched battle. All of the images from Codex Manesse can be seen to support theories A and B, especially the one of two horsemen hunting.
However, the pictures of caravan guards seem to support theory C to some extent, that people did use crossbows on horseback - in that they are shown with the saddle-quivers and holding their crossbows. However, their bows don't seem to be cocked, and so I'd say that they support theories A and B more. It might have just been a comfortable way to carry their weapons if they didn't have a holster on their saddles.
Conclusion - there doesn't seem to be enough evidence either way. But I'd say that the pictorial evidence is weighted more in favour of mounted crossbowmen dismounting to fight outside of an ambush or skirmish. |
Pretty much makes points that I agree with.
Here is the full debate:
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,25005.150.html
The other thing - my personal area of focus is more prior to the 14th century, you find less examples of this in the earlier times.
What I'd really like to see - an illustration that shows them actually reloading on horseback. One shot in a melee is not a true "mounted crossbowman".
| Quote: | | Wouldn't it be more appropriate to call them mounted infantry, but weren't the knights also (especially in English and German service, except if they were French and mindless)? |
I'd not call knights mounted infantry for the most part, though later in the middle ages they dismount more often. But they carry the weapons that are effective on horseback (lance) are are designed to be used mounted, even though from time to time they fought afoot.
| Quote: | | but other than second guessing the Burgundian ordonnance and saying it was impossible to use a longbow on horseback (modern myth proven wrong, hold it somewhere in between horizontal and vertical and you can shoot it on horseback). |
It's not that it is impossible to use on horseback - it's just that it far more effective used on foot. It is an infantry weapon. English mounted their archers as well - and they may have skirmished on rare occasion mounted, but they were mounted infantry, not mounted archers.
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William P
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 9:52 am Post subject: |
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| Chad Arnow wrote: | Don't discount the possibility of fully armoured men. Contracts of feudal obligation often specified that the land holder was required to furnish a certain number of men armed and armoured in a specified way for a certain number of days of campaigning a year. The wealthier the land owner, the more specific his contract would be, which sometimes stated men armed with certain weapons and with certain kinds of armour (helms and hauberks are mentioned).
They may not have made up the majority of the army, but certain wealthy land owners would have been required to provide fully armoured men at arms (not necessarily knights) and would probably have had them in their retinues anyway. |
this is what i was getting at with my talk about the saxons, the act that what you describe bears resemblence to the role of the saxon huscarls, the main difference between knights and huscarls is that we have cavalryman vs, to quote anna comnenus, 'axe bearing barbarians'
as to the thing about mounted archers... why do we assme that mounted archers have to dismount. i mean noone has ever said mounted crossbowmen have to be able to shoot mongol style i.e shoot and reload at full gallop, i imagne a more practical approach would be to , while still or moving, shoot, then stop, reload wile sill mounted, then move again, same for longbw, noone said that these longbowmen had to be able to shoot and reload at full gallop id imagine a more sensible tactic would be to have the archers ride to a spot, stop, andwhile still seated in their saddles, loose a fewa arrows then hgh tail it when infantry apporach,
this method of stopstart shooting was ued by the german pansers, due aparently to bad suspensio that made aiming while moving very difficult so while they were tanks, they opperated a bit like highly mobile, armoured artillery,
regular archers and crossbowmen givn abit of riding skills could have been used in the same way.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Tue 13 Sep, 2011 10:42 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | regular archers and crossbowmen givn abit of riding skills could have been used in the same way. |
Well, I guess it's possible they COULD have been used in this manner. But if this were the case, there would be accounts of the English Lonbowmen at Crecy and Agincourt using them mounted, and to the best of my knowledge we don''t have pictorial or literary evidence of them using them in this fashion. But we DO have pictorial and literary evidence of them using them afoot.
Why not use them in this fashion - Well for Longbowmen
1) Your formation will not be as dense (horses take up more room than men) so your density of fire will not be as great.
2) You present a larger target to opposing archers, and and unarmoured target
3) An arrow that hits a horse will could make the horse bolt or other similar things, disputing more of the formation with only one arrow
4) While a longbow perhaps CAN be used on horse, it is not designed to be. The rate of fire and accuracy would likley decrease, decrease also if the horse moves at all, which it is likley to do in such situations.
A mounted crossbowman would have similar issues. The other issue for a crossbow - Crossbows are often mentioned as one foot or two foot, the best interpretation is not of length but of how many feet were placed in the "stirrup" of the bow when drawing back. Could be belt claw, cord and pully, etc. Cranequin and similar device crossbows were spanned differently.
So the problem is you are not going to use a draw of a similar weight as a footman's crowwbow with most crossbows, so you lose one of the strengths of the crossbow - it's draw weight and pentetrating power.
What do you gain - The ability to run from footmen. But longbows would be very difficult to use in Turkish fashion, firing behind while withdrawing. And a crossbow would be pretty near impossible to span while on the run, even lighter draw corssbows would be best drawn at the standstill.
Turkish horse archers had similar drawbacks listed above - but the bow is more compact (for a reason I might add) allowing it to be used better on horse, particularily on the move.
And the tactics used by horse archers were different than the European bowmen tactics.
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