Ben,
Correct. I'd even push it later. We still have bands of them into the 1600 and use in war can be found into the mid 1600s as well.
To me the gun take over in the 16th is seen far too cut and dry. Even in countries where they were very progressive crossbows and bows are still fairly common throughout the 16th in Europe.
RPM
Randall,
Yeah, one could even argue that guns really didn't become superior to bows, performance wise, until the advent of cartridges and repeating rifles.
But that's not the subject of this thread, so I'll leave it.
Yeah, one could even argue that guns really didn't become superior to bows, performance wise, until the advent of cartridges and repeating rifles.
But that's not the subject of this thread, so I'll leave it.
I stand corrected when it comes to the french/burgundian adoption of archers and crossbowmen to counter the English.
However, it still remains that after the 100 years war, these troops evolved away from their missile role, the ordonance archers becoming medium cavalry, and the country archers a mixed force of pike and crossbows. The later faring poorly in battle during the italian wars.
In relation to this thread, the point I was trying to make is that even in this period, where the portion of archers and (non gunpowder) crossbow troops reach a high, melee infantry continue to prosper due to improved training and leadership.
(While a scenario more akin to WW I would be more probable if popular accounts of the range and accuracy of the longbow held true.)
When it comes to missile efficiency against shields, the relevance of the above point is that countering a organized and well led infantry force with missile troops is hard, even at the best of days. Odds are you will not be able to defeat them by fire alone, and if your infantry is to weak to hold the battle will be lost.
Thus it is more strategical to assume a melee figtht rather than maximize the number of archers. As a result there are fewer archers, and being shot by one is proportionally less of a threat.
The difference in philosophy can be illustrated by the difference between the (incredibly old fashioned) norwegian muster laws of 1275, a direct continuation of the viking age ship and shieldwall doctrine. Here each man is required to own a spear, shield and hand weapon, all the way down to the lowest tier. Bows are required as additional equipment for the more wealthy, as well as forming part of the equipment of the ships (at a ratio of one bow for every second oar. 1:6 or 1:8 men depending on ship size)
In the English laws from the same period bows where the weapon proscribed for men that could not afford anything else. This would, as we know, change in the 14th c, when infantry tactics and combined arms came back into vouge.
However, it still remains that after the 100 years war, these troops evolved away from their missile role, the ordonance archers becoming medium cavalry, and the country archers a mixed force of pike and crossbows. The later faring poorly in battle during the italian wars.
In relation to this thread, the point I was trying to make is that even in this period, where the portion of archers and (non gunpowder) crossbow troops reach a high, melee infantry continue to prosper due to improved training and leadership.
(While a scenario more akin to WW I would be more probable if popular accounts of the range and accuracy of the longbow held true.)
When it comes to missile efficiency against shields, the relevance of the above point is that countering a organized and well led infantry force with missile troops is hard, even at the best of days. Odds are you will not be able to defeat them by fire alone, and if your infantry is to weak to hold the battle will be lost.
Thus it is more strategical to assume a melee figtht rather than maximize the number of archers. As a result there are fewer archers, and being shot by one is proportionally less of a threat.
The difference in philosophy can be illustrated by the difference between the (incredibly old fashioned) norwegian muster laws of 1275, a direct continuation of the viking age ship and shieldwall doctrine. Here each man is required to own a spear, shield and hand weapon, all the way down to the lowest tier. Bows are required as additional equipment for the more wealthy, as well as forming part of the equipment of the ships (at a ratio of one bow for every second oar. 1:6 or 1:8 men depending on ship size)
In the English laws from the same period bows where the weapon proscribed for men that could not afford anything else. This would, as we know, change in the 14th c, when infantry tactics and combined arms came back into vouge.
| Elling Polden wrote: |
| And if the high estimates of the efficency of archers held true, a pike square would be the ideal target for archers. |
In a way, it was. Scottish schiltrons suffered much more heavily than any French army did under the English longbowmen's ministrations, at least when they were still predominantly made up of unarmoured or lightly-armoured spearmen. Of course, when they acquired more armour later on, they became much more resistant to arrows (exactly as you'd expect).
But yes, on the whole I think the English longbowmen's effectiveness is rather overstated. They only worked really well when they were part of a system (alongside the English men-at-arms and other heavy infantry). Without the rest of the system they were very vulnerable. And, on a more relevant note to the original subject of this thread, the French experimented with spearmen carrying very large shields to protect them against archery in the battle of Nogent-sur-Seine (1359); apparently, this worked and the spearmen drove off the English longbowmen on their part of the line. This innovation doesn't seem to have taken hold, though, and I have no idea why.
| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: | ||
In a way, it was. Scottish schiltrons suffered much more heavily than any French army did under the English longbowmen's ministrations, at least when they were still predominantly made up of unarmoured or lightly-armoured spearmen. Of course, when they acquired more armour later on, they became much more resistant to arrows (exactly as you'd expect). But yes, on the whole I think the English longbowmen's effectiveness is rather overstated. They only worked really well when they were part of a system (alongside the English men-at-arms and other heavy infantry). Without the rest of the system they were very vulnerable. And, on a more relevant note to the original subject of this thread, the French experimented with spearmen carrying very large shields to protect them against archery in the battle of Nogent-sur-Seine (1359); apparently, this worked and the spearmen drove off the English longbowmen on their part of the line. This innovation doesn't seem to have taken hold, though, and I have no idea why. |
Well, if you can make armor cheap and available enough, you can have more men holding longer spears, which more effective against calvary. Having large shield and spear unit along with pike unit and crossbow units may be cheaper in short term, but it adds another until into already increasing heterogeneous armies for the commanders to keep track off
| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: |
| . This innovation doesn't seem to have taken hold, though, and I have no idea why. |
Well, depends on what we mean by 'taken hold' I guess, maybe employing people armed like that 'out of sudden' was somehow tricky, but we do know that men with pavises were extremely popular during whole 15th century.
As far as I understand (correct me) they were usually just armed with 'personal' weapons, so this may imply that effectively using large shield and spear/polearm together was thought to be tricky.
| Philip Dyer wrote: |
| Having large shield and spear unit along with pike unit and crossbow units may be cheaper in short term, but it adds another until into already increasing heterogeneous armies for the commanders to keep track off |
This doesn't seem to be applicable to mid-14th century France, since back then the non-chivalric sort (i.e. not dismounted men-at-arms) of French infantry was not standardised in any widespread fashion with the exception of the crossbowmen. The close-combat infantry used a very heterogeneous mixture of swords, polearms, spears, and bows/crossbows, and standardising on any one type (or two) would have arguably been an improvement. This was a very different case from the Burgundian Ordonnance armies more than a century later, which did have difficulties integrating its large variety of standardised troop types (light and heavy cavalry, mounted and dismounted archers, pikes, gunners, crossbowmen, and on and on and on...).
It's interesting to note that while the French seem to have reverted to the traditional gaggle of infantrymen with mismatched weapons, these infantrymen seemed to consistently acquire more armour from that point onwards. Not that it's anything unusual since this was the era when common soldiers were getting more and more armour throughout Western Europe.
| Bartek Strojek wrote: |
| Well, depends on what we mean by 'taken hold' I guess, maybe employing people armed like that 'out of sudden' was somehow tricky, but we do know that men with pavises were extremely popular during whole 15th century. |
I'm not sure it was done quite out of the blue either, since the Italians were already using spearmen behind pavises in the 13th or perhaps even 12th century, and there was a considerable amount of exchange in military ideas across the ill-defined boundaries between "southern France" and "northern Italy" at that time. It's also worth noting that the "Genoese" crossbowmen at Crecy were originally supposed to have pavises but weren't given the time to deploy them properly.
In any case, we know that the men with spears and large shields worked once. Perhaps other commanders thought it was just a one-time gimmick that couldn't be relied upon to work the next time around. Perhaps other French armies didn't have the resources or the inclination to hire or equip more men in this fashion. Perhaps the men-at-arms (now fighting dismounted) didn't like to have the spotlight being taken from them. We just don't know at the moment (although it's possible that further research into the documentary evidence from the era might reveal why).
And the fact it takes the pike better part of 150 years to take on as well. The French try and largely fail to do this in the later 15th into the 16th and tend to hire Swiss whenever they can.
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