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Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > Chainmail vs Plate Armor Reply to topic
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Pieter B.





Joined: 16 Feb 2014
Reading list: 10 books

Posts: 645

PostPosted: Thu 15 Oct, 2015 3:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Chainmail vs Plate Armor         Reply with quote

Michael Kelly wrote:

As I said, Medieval history isn't my focus (tho I've recently dipped my toe in) so I may be thinking of someone other than Henry II.

As for your question of my definition of discipline... I consider neither as being the definition of discipline. Certainly not the first example. And not fleeing/routing has more to do with mastering ones fear than anything else. An example of discipline would be holding formation when the enemy routs.

And Carthage didn't drill troops, they hired mercenaries. The exception was probably Hannibal who led a very disciplined army against Rome.


Henry II is probably the one you meant because he was a successful king.

The example of discipline/obedience is indeed something you could say Roman armies had more than medieval armies. However we should also consider the fact that medieval battles in which troops followed routing enemy it was usually cavalry who, by their nature, are more inclined to seize the opportunity and should do so. It would be interesting to hear how Roman cavalry commanders handled situations like that and how much freedom they had from higher command.

As for Carthage - Where did Hannibal get disciplined mercenaries from?
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Michael Kelly





Joined: 22 Sep 2015

Posts: 81

PostPosted: Thu 15 Oct, 2015 9:26 pm    Post subject: Re: Chainmail vs Plate Armor         Reply with quote

Pieter B. wrote:
Michael Kelly wrote:

As I said, Medieval history isn't my focus (tho I've recently dipped my toe in) so I may be thinking of someone other than Henry II.

As for your question of my definition of discipline... I consider neither as being the definition of discipline. Certainly not the first example. And not fleeing/routing has more to do with mastering ones fear than anything else. An example of discipline would be holding formation when the enemy routs.

And Carthage didn't drill troops, they hired mercenaries. The exception was probably Hannibal who led a very disciplined army against Rome.


Henry II is probably the one you meant because he was a successful king.

The example of discipline/obedience is indeed something you could say Roman armies had more than medieval armies. However we should also consider the fact that medieval battles in which troops followed routing enemy it was usually cavalry who, by their nature, are more inclined to seize the opportunity and should do so. It would be interesting to hear how Roman cavalry commanders handled situations like that and how much freedom they had from higher command.

As for Carthage - Where did Hannibal get disciplined mercenaries from?


Through most of their history (not counting the Byzantine's) Rome relied on their allies for cavalry. They of course had their own, but it was almost always inferior in comparison. The Romans recognized this and so used allied cavalry as much as possible. As for the freedom the Cavalry commanders had, while it's impossible to say with certainty, it's unlikely they had much independent control. The Roman military was very structured and controlled generally speaking. But again, when you're talking about allied auxiliaries, you'd have to presume they would have exercised a little more freedom than Roman cavalry, either by Roman choice or their own perogative.

As for Hannibal and his disciplined mercenaries... Most of the men he crossed the Alps with were veterans from the conquest of Hispania under his father Hamilcar. There are also references to Hannibal conducting military exercises with his men (but these don't necessarily come from contemporary historians). I think it's important to differentiate between mercenaries who are hired specifically to fight a battle or war, and those that are hired with an open contract for as long as both parties want the relationship to continue. The first is what we generally think of when we hear 'mercenary', the second is closer to what we would think of in terms of a modern military and seems to be fairly common in the ancient world.
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Tue 20 Oct, 2015 8:10 am    Post subject: Re: Chainmail vs Plate Armor         Reply with quote

Pieter B. wrote:
While the Romans conducted a fair number of impressive sieges it was hardly their modus operandi.


Oh, man. Nothing could be more wrong than that. The Romans' tenacity in prolonged warfare and their ability to dig deep into their manpower resources combined with their engineering expertise to make them essentially the siege juggernauts of the ancient world. Their numerous sieges tend to get eclipsed by more spectacular battles in the eyes of many modern historians and writers, but there's very little doubt that Rome would have gone nowhere with its wars and conquests if not for its armies' siegecraft resources and expertise. Just to draw attention to some of the Roman sieges that were really decisive:

Siege of Veii (405-396 BC). If we believe Livy, this was a watershed moment where Rome began to develop its Republican army's organisation on a separate track from the Greek models it previously followed, and also when it began to develop a professional army by officially paying its serving soldiers. Wikipedia calls it a battle rather than a siege, which I find to be completely bizarre since the "battle" -- or rather the assault -- was just one event at the end of a long and transformative siege.

Fabius Maximus' campaigns against Hannibal (late 3rd century BC). Do people really think Fabius was just sitting on his hands? Seriously, no. While his mobile field army was shadowing Hannibal's main army, he also had armies elsewhere actively besieging cities that had allied themselves with Hannibal, chipping away at Hannibal's support and resource bases. These sieges tend to receive only cursory mention in the accounts and only rose to prominence when they came to one end or another, but it's pretty interesting to note that at many points Rome had enough resources to maintain several sieges at once!

Caesar's campaign in Gaul is usually best remembered for the battles against the Chatti/Cherusci, Gergovia, and Alesia -- but notice that the last two happened within the context of sieges against Gallic towns/oppida? At Alesia in particular, it was the Gauls who needed and wanted to engage the Romans in battle. If the relief army hadn't arrived (only to be crushed by Caesar's forces), the Romans could have gone on merrily besieging the town and eventually taking it through assault or starvation.

And jumping by several centuries, remember Belisarius and his recapture of Rome, followed by the defence of the city against a prolonged siege by Ostrogothic forces?

Last but not least, remember that medieval European commanders' tendency to avoid battles unless they could secure a distinct advantage can be attributed to Vegetius -- a Roman author. And we can see from the accounts of professional Roman soldiers like Ammianus Marcellinus that in this regard Vegetius didn't confuse things as much as he usually does.
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Pieter B.





Joined: 16 Feb 2014
Reading list: 10 books

Posts: 645

PostPosted: Tue 20 Oct, 2015 12:20 pm    Post subject: Re: Chainmail vs Plate Armor         Reply with quote

Lafayette C Curtis wrote:
Pieter B. wrote:
While the Romans conducted a fair number of impressive sieges it was hardly their modus operandi.


Oh, man. Nothing could be more wrong than that. The Romans' tenacity in prolonged warfare and their ability to dig deep into their manpower resources combined with their engineering expertise to make them essentially the siege juggernauts of the ancient world. Their numerous sieges tend to get eclipsed by more spectacular battles in the eyes of many modern historians and writers, but there's very little doubt that Rome would have gone nowhere with its wars and conquests if not for its armies' siegecraft resources and expertise. Just to draw attention to some of the Roman sieges that were really decisive:

Siege of Veii (405-396 BC). If we believe Livy, this was a watershed moment where Rome began to develop its Republican army's organisation on a separate track from the Greek models it previously followed, and also when it began to develop a professional army by officially paying its serving soldiers. Wikipedia calls it a battle rather than a siege, which I find to be completely bizarre since the "battle" -- or rather the assault -- was just one event at the end of a long and transformative siege.

Fabius Maximus' campaigns against Hannibal (late 3rd century BC). Do people really think Fabius was just sitting on his hands? Seriously, no. While his mobile field army was shadowing Hannibal's main army, he also had armies elsewhere actively besieging cities that had allied themselves with Hannibal, chipping away at Hannibal's support and resource bases. These sieges tend to receive only cursory mention in the accounts and only rose to prominence when they came to one end or another, but it's pretty interesting to note that at many points Rome had enough resources to maintain several sieges at once!

Caesar's campaign in Gaul is usually best remembered for the battles against the Chatti/Cherusci, Gergovia, and Alesia -- but notice that the last two happened within the context of sieges against Gallic towns/oppida? At Alesia in particular, it was the Gauls who needed and wanted to engage the Romans in battle. If the relief army hadn't arrived (only to be crushed by Caesar's forces), the Romans could have gone on merrily besieging the town and eventually taking it through assault or starvation.

And jumping by several centuries, remember Belisarius and his recapture of Rome, followed by the defence of the city against a prolonged siege by Ostrogothic forces?

Last but not least, remember that medieval European commanders' tendency to avoid battles unless they could secure a distinct advantage can be attributed to Vegetius -- a Roman author. And we can see from the accounts of professional Roman soldiers like Ammianus Marcellinus that in this regard Vegetius didn't confuse things as much as he usually does.


I knew the Gothic - Byzantine wars in Italy had a a fair number of sieges and that Gaul had fortified towns but outside of that this is all new to me. I always held the notion that the period between 1000-1648 was dominated by siege and attrition warfare, shall I dial the former number back to Roman times? I have read Vegetius but I always thought he was describing the late Roman strategy and tactics of avoiding battle and destroying the enemy army by starvation.

I knew they performed a few impressive sieges in the middle east during the classical period but that a battle seeking strategy was standard procedure in Europe. Fabian tactics being the exception.

Who am I to blame besides myself? Worried
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Wed 11 Nov, 2015 11:51 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Yes. Battle-avoiding, siege-oriented strategies were certainly not restricted to medieval and Renaissance Europe. The advice to avoid battle unless certain of victory (in the sense that one has engineered the circumstances beforehand to gain a major or even overwhelming advantage in the upcoming battle) wasn't only found in Vegetius -- Sun Zi said pretty much the same thing, though not necessarily in so many words.

Our modern understanding of military history certainly has a bias in favour of pitched battles due to the influence of the battle-seeking strategies that became more important from the French Revolutionary Wars onwards, especially as armies grew during the 19th century to become large enough to hold contiguous nationwide fronts. But even then we still see the use of effective positional warfare and battle-avoiding manoeuvres by the Coalition/Allied armies, especially towards the end of the period when Allied armies were specifically instructed to avoid battle against Napoleon's main army while giving or even seeking battle against other armies led by his marshals.
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