[Gary Teuscher]

[Kurt Scholz]

[Gary Teuscher]

[Kurt Scholz]

The latest renown mounted javelineers I know of are the Balkan stradiots and Iberian jinetes. Both seem to have also liked the crossbow (with the Muslims taking it with them to their exile in the Maghreb). It's my own theory that it took the introduction of the crossbow and some decent bodyarmour to convince the Europeans that this was a suitable ersatz-javelin with some features worth considering. The crossbow didn't only supplant javelins, but to some degree also bows (in England this development was turned back to bows, strange island, but it worked for them), even in massed formations that faced mounted ranged combat troops - Scandinavia and the Baltics.

But how many ranged combat troops did you need and were they worth loosing their missiles from horseback?
My angle of view is that a lot of men knew how to handle many different weapons, including the crossbow with its steep learning curve. But if you go into combat you make choices, what can I handle well enough, what can I afford, what can I carry, what do I get paid for a certain weapon type, what are the risks involved?

Europeans could opt for less ranged combat for solving their violent disputes in the epic battles we know most about. That does not exclude their ability to switch to ranged combat for the lesser known small war. You can look at light cavalry with ranged weapons as bringing the tiresome "small war" to the battlefield in preparation of finishing off the enemy with just the same heavy cavalry charge as everyone else did. From such an angle the European forces could also fight multirole (look at English-Scottish border raiders), prepare the enemy for the final battle with ranged combat, but rather didn't switch armament and role during the battle (this might be a misconception due to misunderstanding the sources and generalizing over a large timeframe). It's possible that some European troops exercised their multirole ability to a lesser degree (for example a noble on horseback with close combat weapons and his lance-unit on horseback armed with ranged weapons during a raid).

Back to the heavy armour topic. Armour doesn't need land to constantly feed upon. It does detoriate over time to some degree, but still is a fairly good investment because you can lend it to someone you know. I read quite often in Medieval sources that persons had some parts of armour, often inherited. As the only pieces of equipment for each individual going to war, such an army would have provided a very jolly look. But these items were in demand for all the wars fought in Europe, so it was an investment that did help safe you some money for acquiring the complete set on demand or help you make money in case someone else urgently needed it(the more likely case). It's in a way similar to modern MMORPG-trade of items, but with really high demand and price spikes to speculate.
Horses by contrast were useable for transport and agriculture, competing with oxen, or a luxury in most of Europe. The regions lacking heavy armour often lacked the economic means to safe some money this way (has to do with subsistence and socio-economic structures) or had a climate that made it unsuitable to run around like this (with more chances of death due to the heat than any enemy interference). Where horses were more readily available and less of a luxury, people used the advantage provided by this resource a lot more in warfare.

[Gary Teuscher]

[Kurt Scholz]

Gary, I mostly agree with you, it's rather nitpicking.

On crossbows (from Thalhofer on mounted combat):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2188/2589977581_87c9c46d4c.jpg
And the mounted crossbowman shooting backwards don't look easy to me. Plus, you have to take many novel things into account that our technology based society is more familiar with. Crossbowmen were hired professional mercenaries who were paid a substantial amount of money and who could have servants to operate better. That doesn't fit together with a cheap ragtag force that learned the instructions printed on the weapons (like the Hitlerjugend with their panzerfaust during WWII). There were certainly different qualification levels of crossbowmen, increasing their numbers with less experienced helpers, but overall they are always treated as respected professionals of medium social standing.

Everybody can use a gun today (very easy to learn in 5 minutes), but is everybody a marksman or even a sniper?
Do you have an idea how quickly I can raise a force of archers with longbows capable of peppering an area with arrows?

The mounted raids and the battles on foot are something recurrent through the ages. For raids it's convenient if you quickly approach without a warning. Using horses on the field of battle risks live and limb of these often "luxury"/expensive animals. How many horses did William personally lose at Hastings? Equipping a mounted force for use on the battlefield might thus be prohibitively expensive (see Medieval horse insurances), but if you have a small band on a raid, the tactical situation sometimes still warrants that you don't dismount, but fight from horseback.
In my opinion the role of light cavalry is to shift the balance of power prior to the close combat clashes. You can do that via raids and ambushes or on the battlefield if the enemy has no effective options against skirmishers wearing him down. Whether you do the wearing down on foot, dismounted from the horse or from horseback is very much a tactical choice and it is much too neglected that light cavalry(including the Mongols) did dismount to engage in ranged (or close) combat with the horse as a ready means for escape.

But overall I think we have a pretty good agreement and can proceed. Thanks for your contributions, I learned some new things.

Is it OK if we return to the heavy armour in Europe issue?

[Gary Teuscher]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Gary Teuscher]

[Ryan S.]

It seems to me the conventional, but perhaps incorrect opinion is that the crossbow was easier to use, but a more experienced longbowman could fire at a faster rate, and with greater power. Interestingly though, I read that the Amsterdam crossbow guild switched to the longbow because it was simpler. Of course, the main concern may have been budgetary and not battle effectiveness.

[Randall Moffett]

Kurt, Gary and all,

I agree that the crossbow is probably not well understood and clearly its popularity over the longbow in much of Europe is not simply their inability to raise bowmen. They worked and worked well.

As to crossbows very often the elite of the elite mercs were crossbowmen. But we have to be careful as anything can be a merc and often was. My guess is actually men-at-arms might have been more common during some periods as we see some places, even France employ mercs at times and they even outnumber the other mercs provided, even crossbowmen.

But even with these elite forces places like France could after Charles V (not so much his sone Charles VI) draw on towns especially for crossbowmen. Now often they might not employ them as well as the English do but they had far more of their own home grown crossbowmen in the pool of manpower than elite merc crossbowmen. In fact during Charles's reign they do have a governmental program to visit castles and fortified places and crossbows have got to be one of the most common weapons around.

Now as to English crossbow use. They do often have them but usually in very small numbers. In a garrison of hundreds in Southampton they have around a dozen in the mid 14th century.

Ryan,

How you ever used a heavy draw crossbow? I cannot imagine them being any easier really. Having used both as far of ease of use a bow wins hand over fist. My guess is that to shoot something akin to the average of the Mary Rose bows would take years of training tp pull to full draw. Now this is just to draw and loose an arrow or bolt. Now to get good at either a person would have to get at this level first.

Depending on when Amsterdam switched they might have been using a bow that was not ever intended truly for war but for sport.

RPM

[Kurt Scholz]

Heavy armour in Europe:

If you take for example the Scottish fighting the English. It seems they considered direct cavalry clashes not to their advantage. It seems likely that Scotland had a great tradition of small, sturdy and strong animals. They were great for their kind of economy, but hardly a match for Continental breed mounts used by their opponents.
One choice left was fighting on foot in battle and using the small, but great, horses for raids and rapid strikes against enemy missile troops. This "light cavalry" were from a Scottish perspective men at arms, just like the frontline of their infantry (with the infantry rear being wealthy Lowland Scots, in status similar to the bill&bowmen who constituted much of the English forces. The Highland Scottish archers could be considered light skirmishing missile infantry. They seem not to have stood much chances against the better armoured English archers who operated in line and are perhaps best compared to the Welsh forces.

If you were de Bruce, you could opt for what I described (and he did) or you could go for light armoured cavalry, like the border raiders. The problem with these border raiders was that the more numerous English retaliated in kind. The overall result is destruction and an economic depression as far as the raids are able to penetrate. On the up side some successful raiders can fulfill their dreams of easy money and indulgence in pleasures bought with this money (look at current Somali pirates and warlords, they all have a good live in comparison to their countrymen, but Somalia is far away from being per capita as rich as Switzerland).
Societies can come to conclusions concerning how they want violence to settle their disputes. In some places the solution is constant low intensity war with the economic repercussions, in other places it is about rather short bursts of high intensity conflict over more resources at stake. For these high intensity conflict cultures armour is the best solution, while raiders are better advised to be fast and carry little arms and armour in order to plunder and escape any pursuit.
Fortifications, if properly maintained require considerable time to take. In a raid infested environment depositing wealth inside protected places helps a lot to safe your economic growth. There's still some mobile wealth like animals that comes and goes by raid and counterraid. The side that is better able to safe every year's earning in the castle can buy armour and training for that money and, in my simplified example, march as an armed force to the enemy and really hurt his economy and survival by attacking non-mobile wealth like houses and grain. Afterwards the contestant who lost the grain will have a hard time to feed and survive, sapping the ability to raid.
One problem is that some enemies have nothing you can reliably attack with heavy infantry to force upon them your will. Under these circumstances armour is rather a viable solution for the combination mobility via a carrier animal and armour, not lots of heavy infantry slowly (but steadily) walking on their own feet. So armour in many parts of the world is the result of social and economic conditions and mutual agreements from fighting each other in different ways. Other than that climate makes a major contribution concerning how much armour of what kind you want to wear for how long. This means that the overall usefulness of armour is a variable of the climate (many people die from the excessive heat and poor ventilation while wearing armour). If armour has only a marginal return for the investment you are likely to spend the money on something more promising (not related to climate, but Europe stopped heavy armour when they considered it not worth the money to withstand firearms).


Crossbow and longbow:

Concerning the crossbow, this tool required lots of technology, technology was available in a craftsmen environment such as the towns. The longbow required lots of training time, but you didn't have as many mechanical parts to repair, nor did it require as many machines and different craftsmen to produce. I totally agree that current tests seem to support the argument for a higher rate of shot for the longbow. But for how long can a longbowman keep this rate of shot? If there is an endurance rate of shot comparison, who wins, the longbow or the crossbow (that can use many different devices and thus muscles)?
The rate of shot issue of crossbows might have to do with the more difficult training of rapidly loading a crossbow, while for the longbow the problem is getting the muscles and learning accuracy. Is there a crossbow speed of shot test with an experienced professional piece rate worker? I do belive that we still might learn a few tricks from such an experienced man and correct our estimates. The same knowledge of high piece rate output with "machines"/tools was likely prevalent among the Medieval craftsmen=crossbowmen from early childhood training onwards. I suspect we still judge crossbowmen on the wrong skill set (fast loading and rapid precise aiming) with LOTS of training from an as early age as the renown longbowmen.
I would be glad to hear we had some of the mentioned professionals taking a look at the crossbow issue.

[Randall Moffett]

Kurt,

I do not think the Scottish men at arms were mounted in this manner. In fact I do not think this is why they usually avoided direct engagement as they tried to do this with infantry armies as well. I think the issue boils down to them having far fewer heavy cavalry type knights compared to the English. When the Scots fight with the French against the English in the HYW during the 14th and 15th centuries they fight mixed with French mounted men at arms and seem to be considered equal.

Now perhaps the majority of Scot horsemen were on smaller breeds of horse but they certainly did have heavier horses and could fight in traditional heavy cavalry fashion but often being largely outnumbered it was not to their advantage. Even with the lighter horse it seems they were usually outnumbered several times over by the English as well.

That said I do not think in Scot term men at arms were light cavalry. I think their hobelars were light cavalry and heavier armed and armoured men at arms were expected to fight light at need, just like other places in Europe. Chevauchee warfare was often what most consider 'light cavalry' tactic but executed by heavy in France. I think we might be creating a artificial troop type and function here if we push this too far.

That said I cannot see hobelars doing the complete function of a man at arms but they were much cheaper. So perhaps economics is a major factor with this usage.

As to crossbows. I think there is a major need for work on crossbows on both the technical and literary side of things. As has come up here often they tended to be one of the groups that most European kingdoms/states could raise on their own and with few exceptions they still are hiring mercs. Why? Because they were awesome. They were seen as being valuable in most scenarios.

I think the best a crossbowman could do is still about 50-60% what a good archer could do. I doubt rather the pro archer would get tired but figure arrow supply would be the limitation. Further if a crossbowman had a shield of some nature the slower speed of his projectiles is less vital. Since we have large evidence to this becoming common in the 14th and 15th century seems to be a possibility they knew of this disadvantage and made moves to correct it.

RPM

[Kurt Scholz]

Let's leave the Scots at that. I said "light" like that because many authors label them like this when their being light seems to have more to do with anything but their role on the field. Hobelars are Irish aren't they?

I think the crossbow can be slower than a self-bow, but I'm sure it compensates with stamina and accuracy. I really don't think an equally professional(!!!) bowman can outlast a peer crossbowman who can switch to more muscle types.
Munition supply can be cheaper for the crossbow if you take the bolts without feathers. Much research on the issue is wanting and many myth are circulating.

Armour and close combat seem to have played important roles in Europe that is not equally imitated in neighboring regions. The crossbow for example does appear in the Muslim Maghreb and in the Byzantine Empire as a European influence (including possibly South Asia). This "qaws ferenqi" seems to have been handled by very respected mercenary troops from an Arabian and Turkish point of view. Does this pertain to them being highly capable ranged armour-killers bred on the armour rich European battlefields with much close combat (enhancing the role of armour)?

[Gary Teuscher]

[Ryan S.]

an interesting test, that would be very easy to do, is give people with out any related training a crossbow and a longbow, and see which has a higher accuracy after a bit of practice.

As far as the Scottish army, its cavalry changed over time. Border reivers existed in a way since the border was created (perhaps before). However, they weren't all mounted. Most of what I read points to Bruce's cavalry being Norman-Scottish knights, that is normal medieval cavalry (perhaps a little poorer). At some point the Border Reiver with the steel bonnet we are familiar with developed, but what happened in between, I don't know.

[Randall Moffett]

Ryan,

I do not think their cavalry really changed at all in reality. What changes is the environment it was used in. Men of knightly or noble birth could be reivers. Poorer men could as well. Reivers were not a troop type really but more a term for the participants of the illicit activity there. Like brigand in some ways.

If you have not seen this gents site it is worth a look. One of only a few times in my life I really wanted to do 16th century. I have little interest/love for the Tudors, the clothing not me but this is just pretty cool.

http://www.theborderers.info/

Scotland's lowland population was an amalgamation of several groups on the noble level, but it does seem the Normans were given incentive to settle the area specifically as a way to increase the heavy cavalry. So it would be likely others copied this and as the groups merged adopted aspects of the others culture. But even if this is the case hobelars are used during this period by most of Britain, including Scotland. They are paid at different levels and expected to have specific equipment.

As well Scot nobles were not poorer than continental knights. What their limitation is is population. Scotland at its height in the Late Medieval period likely had only 1 million people. England had three to five times this number. France 15-25 times this. See Bruce Campbell's Benchmarking Medieval Economic development. It is a common misconception that is likely not going to die any time soon as it is so well entrenched.


RPM

[Gary Teuscher]

[Randall Moffett]

Gary,

The primary weapon seems to be the spear but that will not answer the question. One can use ot mounted or on foot. Some have argued either end to no end. To be honest I do not see why they could not do both as that seems fairly common for men at arms of the period.

RPM