Well... Waay back in the old days, when you had to fight for hours just to get people to acknowledge that maybe the knight in full armor wouldn't be cut in half by the first iaijutsu technique while trying to pick up his 20 lb sword, these kind of things served a purpose in getting people to think about these things.
Now that "the katana is a lightsaber and samurai near Jedi!" folks have been trimmed back, its not nearly as interesting as it used to be.
Knights vs. Samurai. Didn't we get that answer some years back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN3M26pGC8Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN3M26pGC8Q
I believe that people like me are tired of knights fighting samurai. In medieval times such duels did not really happen. ;)
| Matthew Amt wrote: |
| Over on the Historum board it's more often Rome versus China, or Romans versus medieval armies (with fully armored 15th century knights getting all the focus, of course!). A few of us are bold enough to say that just *maybe* Roman metallurgy wasn't so hideously crappy as to be more of a detriment than an advantage, or that men who trained daily might not get get trampled like a kindergarten class, and get scathingly called "fan boys"...
Matthew |
i reckon roman legionaries would know how to handle an armoured knightly charge just fine
how do we know this, because roman armies were capable of repeatedly deal with scythian, hellinistic, parthian and (later) sassanian cataphracts..
that being said, i would be remiss to not aknowledge that as powerful as parthian cataphracts would have been, the fact that late medieval cavary were better armoured in man and horse AND on more powerful horses thanks to centuries of breeding
would mean such a charge to non spear bearing infantry would be a lot more troublesome to resist, possible, but the extra force of the charge might do a lot more damage to the formations integrity, how a scutum would fare against a lance by those guys would be curious to see, could they perhaps be braced almost like pavises?
I'd also be curious to see how the inclusion of bigger, more versitile and powerful polearms such as bills and halberds might change the dynamic, i know the romans dealt with axes and the falx but these were tyypically fairly short, the extra range and power of a downward blow from such a weapon wouldnt be something legionaries would know how to deal with (at least not the first couple of times, by encounter 3 and 4 i reckon the romans would quickly figure out how to deal with it...)
not to mention the usage of crossbowmen behind pavises.. since while the romans dealt with archers, a crossbows with better steel heads would be an altogether different experience, but that scutum would probably help absorb the impact from bolts just as well as they could stop an arrow or javelin...
| William P wrote: |
| i reckon roman legionaries would know how to handle an armoured knightly charge just fine
how do we know this, because roman armies were capable of repeatedly deal with scythian, hellinistic, parthian and (later) sassanian cataphracts.. that being said, i would be remiss to not aknowledge that as powerful as parthian cataphracts would have been, the fact that late medieval cavary were better armoured in man and horse AND on more powerful horses thanks to centuries of breeding would mean such a charge to non spear bearing infantry would be a lot more troublesome to resist, possible,[...] |
Roman infantry carried spears, and they used them against cavalry. See, e.g., Arrian's Array against the Alans: http://members.tripod.com/~S_van_Dorst/Ancien...taxis.html
| Timo Nieminen wrote: | ||
Roman infantry carried spears, and they used them against cavalry. See, e.g., Arrian's Array against the Alans: http://members.tripod.com/~S_van_Dorst/Ancien...taxis.html |
i was under the impression legionaries from the punic wars until the 2nd century carried pila and gladius into the field with spears being mostly the domain of the auxiliary infantry (of course this changes as time goes on with the evolution ending finally with the pike armies of the middle byzantines in the 11th century)
not to mention the shorter length of these spears might mean theyd be outranged by many of the lances since most were a good deal longer than your average infantry spear used with a shield (which didnt usually go beyond 8 ft)
| Shahril Dzulkifli wrote: |
| I believe that people like me are tired of knights fighting samurai. In medieval times such duels did not really happen. ;) |
Of course not. Da ninjerz kill'd dem all.
| William P wrote: | ||||
i was under the impression legionaries from the punic wars until the 2nd century carried pila and gladius into the field with spears being mostly the domain of the auxiliary infantry (of course this changes as time goes on with the evolution ending finally with the pike armies of the middle byzantines in the 11th century) not to mention the shorter length of these spears might mean theyd be outranged by many of the lances since most were a good deal longer than your average infantry spear used with a shield (which didnt usually go beyond 8 ft) |
Pila were used as hand-to-hand weapons. Whether Arrian was describing such isn't obvious, since he wrote in Greek. But other sources are clear. (See commentary in that link to Arrian.)
As for reach, a pilum still gives better reach than a gladius. A horse will still be unhappy when hit by a pilum thrust, even if the rider hit a target with his lance. Don't forget the archers and javelineers behind the 4 lines of hand-to-hand spearmen!
| Timo Nieminen wrote: | ||||||
Pila were used as hand-to-hand weapons. Whether Arrian was describing such isn't obvious, since he wrote in Greek. But other sources are clear. (See commentary in that link to Arrian.) As for reach, a pilum still gives better reach than a gladius. A horse will still be unhappy when hit by a pilum thrust, even if the rider hit a target with his lance. Don't forget the archers and javelineers behind the 4 lines of hand-to-hand spearmen! |
Yeah, but I don't think is unreasonable to say that skewered target has allow lower chance of hitting his target that a skewered target and the skewer has more of a chance to drive through the line cause more distribution that the person being speared is to defend. Also, there is allot more blood in horse than a human and is relatively rare for something to die instantaneously, so the horse,even if impaled,may continue to disrupt the enemy formation in its death throes.
| Philip Dyer wrote: |
| Yeah, but I don't think is unreasonable to say that skewered target has allow lower chance of hitting his target that a skewered target and the skewer has more of a chance to drive through the line cause more distribution that the person being speared is to defend. |
Yes. Though the Roman infantry would have the advantage of out-numbering the cavalry. Denser formation, too. (If they don't outnumber them, they have a serious problem.)
| Philip Dyer wrote: |
| Also, there is allot more blood in horse than a human and is relatively rare for something to die instantaneously, so the horse,even if impaled,may continue to disrupt the enemy formation in its death throes. |
Unarmoured cavalry, with swords rather than lances, have ridden their horses into spear-armed infantry formations, successfully disrupting them. Fatal for the horse, but effective (story in one of the D. A. Kinsley, "Swordsmen of the British Empire" books). Spears aren't a panacea for infantry vs cavalry.
On a good day, the Romans would have the benefit of field fortifications.
How often did people attempt frontal charges on Romans anyways? From what I gather the Romans knew very well that they should chose to fight on broken ground if the enemy had some sort of cavalry advantage. My knowledge on the Gallic war is minimal but wasn't it usually cavalry that was posted on the flanks facing enemy cavalry most of the time?
| Pieter B. wrote: |
| How often did people attempt frontal charges on Romans anyways? From what I gather the Romans knew very well that they should chose to fight on broken ground if the enemy had some sort of cavalry advantage. My knowledge on the Gallic war is minimal but wasn't it usually cavalry that was posted on the flanks facing enemy cavalry most of the time? |
Obviously, My post was less about a hypothetical Knights versus Roman legionnaire account and more pulling the point that not all spears are useful at repelling heavy lancer cavalry. What we are doing now is sorta the opposite of this topic, doing a versus argument. If we want to get anywhere with the argument, I think we need to narrow the parameters down. Like army of ....... versus Army of ......... in such and such landscape.
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