| Author |
Message |
|
Lennon R. Clotild
|
 Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
The Swiss were indeed lightly-armoured (breastplate and helm) or not armoured at all. The strength of the Swiss lay in their sustained discipline, organization and battlefield formations, and speed of attack.
After additional research, I think the major factor responsible for the decline of plate was firearms. Looking at the age of Pike and Shot, such as the Spanish tercio and battles of the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War, typical deployments would have something like columns of musketeers and arquibusiers for dealing damage, with pikemen in defensive formations against cavalry attacks. When in the advance, pikemen went along with the handgunners to cover them. In latter period armies, we see the ratio of pike men to handgunners gradually lessen until the advent of the bayonet, which rendered pikes essentially obsolete. I guess the key point here is that pikemen formed the defensive arm, and firearms the offensive.
[/i]
|
|
  |
 |
Daniel Staberg
|
| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
| Quote: | | and it is likely that only 10% of the Swiss pikemen wore any armour. |
I don't know if I believe that. What evidence do you have for this claim?
|
The muster of Pfyffers Swiss regiment in 1567, 20 companies strong it consisted of 87% pike and 13% shot. Only 10% of the enitre regiment is recorded as "Corseletes" J.B. Wood, The King's Army p. 111
i.e armoured pikemen. Segesser's massive work on the Swiss troops during the wars of Religion considers this level of equippment to be fairly typical for the Swiss of that time.
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
| Quote: | | As can be seen the Swiss had to face a lot more than a 1000 Gendarmes and it was firearms, not lances or swords which inflicted most of the Swiss casualties. |
I agree about the first part, but I'm not so sure about the second. What are you getting your account of the battle from? It's somewhat different from the one's I've read, though I'll admit Oman's account is the one I remember the best. He's rather dated, and thus perhaps incorrect. But I clearly remember Oman using a period account that considering that battle the height of Swiss valor and heroism |
Unfortunately several of Oman's battle descriptions are rather inaccurate, wether this is due to a lack of sources or the authors known tendency to fit the evidence to his preconcived conclusions and biases is a matter of debate. Dreux is one example of this, Pavia another.
The sources I've used are the chapter on Dreux in Wood's "The King's Army" mentioned above and
"Die Schlacht bei Dreux" by Erich Lenz (Berlin 1915) (Ph.D dissertation by one of Delbrücks grad students)
together with notes taken from
"L'Année 1562 et la bataille de Dreux. Etudes historique et militaire" by Raymond de Coynart (Paris 1894)
"Ludwig Pfyffer und Seine Zeit. Die Schweitzer in den drei ersten französichen Religionskrieges" by A. Segesser (Bern 1880-1881)
These sources present a much more detailed and complex view of events at Dreux. One quite far removed from Omans description of impetuously charging gendarmes and useless German troops.
Oman's source is François de la Noue and La Noue's description is accurate. However the reason that their perfomance was reconed to be so heroic was that they held on in the face of an overwhelming force for 1.5 hours and when their formation was finaly broken they refused to run but instead fought their way to safety in smaller formations. Not the simplified version of events that Oman presented.
The Surgeon Ambroise Pare treated wounded Swiss officers after the battle, all he treated had been "...wounded by pistol shots and by other diabolical firearms..."
I'm out of time at the moment so i'll have to answer the other points later
Cheers
Daniel
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lafayette C Curtis
|
| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2007 6:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | Quote: | | Two halberdiers would probably have made short work of an isolated gendarme, but a formation of gendarmes would have been much, much less vulnerable to the halberdiers' attemps even when significantly outnumbered. |
I still doubt that. They'd have a chance, but the gendarme would have a big advantage in reach, mobility, and protection. The examples I've seen footmen beating heavy cavalry involve worse than 2-to-1 odds. |
Well, perhaps I did make a mistaken assumption. I based my statement on a demonstration I watched in a WMA video, where two highly-skilled halberdiers were pitted against a single man-at-arms on a frontally-armored horse and made short work of him on two out of three occasions--usually by having one of them keep the man-at-arms busy while the other stabs the horse or "breaks its legs" (actually just tapping hard enough that the well-trained steed took the cue and collapses the touched leg). When the man-at-arms tried to charge out of the way, one of the halberdiers just stuck his halberd in the way and clotheslined him.
That was the watered-down version. If they didn't have to care for the horse's (and each other's) safety, it would probably have been a much faster and much more decisive affair.
You're right in that such a level of skill would have been rare among 15th- or 16th-century halberdiers, however, so two ordinary halberdiers would probably have been much less likely to manage the feat the way those two skilled practitioners did. And we essentially agree in that two hundred halberdiers (or two thousand) would have been hard pressed indeed to fend off half their number in mounted men-at-arms.
Last edited by Lafayette C Curtis on Sun 11 Mar, 2007 6:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lafayette C Curtis
|
| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2007 6:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Lennon R. Clotild wrote: | | After additional research, I think the major factor responsible for the decline of plate was firearms. Looking at the age of Pike and Shot, such as the Spanish tercio and battles of the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War, typical deployments would have something like columns of musketeers and arquibusiers for dealing damage, with pikemen in defensive formations against cavalry attacks. When in the advance, pikemen went along with the handgunners to cover them. In latter period armies, we see the ratio of pike men to handgunners gradually lessen until the advent of the bayonet, which rendered pikes essentially obsolete. I guess the key point here is that pikemen formed the defensive arm, and firearms the offensive. |
Yes, firearms and artillery were very important factors in the decline of armor. I'd hesitate to generalize the role of firearms as being offensive and the pike as being defensive, though. Even in the middle and late 17th century--during the last years of pike-and-shot before it was fully replaced by the bayonet--the pike was still considered an important weapon in the offensive because it was still the most powerful weapon with which an infantry formation could close with the enemy. Even an enemy shattered and demoralized by shot usually wouldn't break until the pikemen actually advanced to threaten them. And then, the bayonet didn't render the pike obsolete overnight. The Swedish army of the early 18th century (if I remember correctly) used both pikes and bayonet-equipped muskets in their formation. Their favorite approach was to march close in and fire only a single volley before launching a charge, the pike and shot charging together for a double dose of shock.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rod Walker
Location: NSW, Australia. Joined: 05 Feb 2004
Posts: 230
|
| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2007 7:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: |
I based my statement on a demonstration I watched in a WMA video, . |
Where did you see this and can I get a copy? I would be most interested in seeing it.
Cheers
Rod
Jouster
www.jousting.com.au
"Come! Let us lay a lance in rest,
And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!
For who would live so petty and unblessed
That dare not tilt at something, ere he die?"
--Errantry, John Galsworthy
|
|
 |
|
Benjamin H. Abbott
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 7:00 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | Only 10% of the enitre regiment is recorded as "Corseletes" J.B. Wood, The King's Army p. 111
i.e armoured pikemen. |
What does that mean in this case? How much armor did one of these corseletes wear? Is it clear that the rest of the pikemen wore no armor, or could be that the troops mentioned simply wore more (i.e. three-quarters harness instead of just a helmet and breastplate)?
I guess Fourquevaux did write that some of the soldiers of his day went without armor, but I'm still a bit dubious. Even Sir Roger Williams wanted all pikemen to have breastplate and helmet, but perhaps the English just wore more armor. If that's the case, no wonder Fourquevaux thought heavily armored pikemen would do well.
| Quote: | | You're right in that such a level of skill would have been rare among 15th- or 16th-century halberdiers, however, |
Whoa. I wouldn't say that at all. We can't know for sure, of course, but I tend to believe that the martial skills of us moderns very rarely come close to the prowess of those who actually fought with hand weapons.
I haven't see the video you're talking about. Perhaps you're right, though I wonder about the skill of the horseman in question.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lafayette C Curtis
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 8:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'l ltry to look for the danish site where I found it. Unfortunately, it's not Middelaldercentret, so it might be something of a tough job.
BTW, it seems that we'l lencounter a significant problem whenever we talk about how common armor was among the pikemen because it seems to have changed considerably within the course of the 16th century. The pikemen seem to have taken up more armor as the century wore on, and then began to abandon it again near its end. So, benjamin and Daniel might not exactly be talking about the same kind of pikemen. If the illustrations are to be trusted, then armor seems to have become more widespread even among the Swiss!
|
|
|
|
|
Jean Henri Chandler
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 9:09 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Daniel Staberg wrote: |
[In the text below 'Gendarme' is used to describe both the actual Gendarms but also their supporting archers aswell as the gentleman volunteers who made up a large part of the Huguenot cavalry]
|
Excellent anecdote. The more battles I read about I am repeatedly amazed by the discipline, courage, and fighting skill of the Swiss. They were truly a phenom. I wish I understood more about how or why it was that the Swiss seemed to be so incredibly ferocious in hand-to-hand combat. Any battle where they were able to come to grips with their enemy in this way seemed to end in catastrophe for their opponents. Of course I do realise that eventually new troop types like the Spanish Rodloero (sp?) seemed to have their number to some extent even in close-in fighting.
J
Books and games on Medieval Europe Codex Integrum
Codex Guide to the Medieval Baltic Now available in print
|
|
|
|
|
Gordon Frye
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 9:59 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | Quote: | Only 10% of the enitre regiment is recorded as "Corseletes" J.B. Wood, The King's Army p. 111
i.e armoured pikemen. |
What does that mean in this case? How much armor did one of these corseletes wear? Is it clear that the rest of the pikemen wore no armor, or could be that the troops mentioned simply wore more (i.e. three-quarters harness instead of just a helmet and breastplate)?
I guess Fourquevaux did write that some of the soldiers of his day went without armor, but I'm still a bit dubious. Even Sir Roger Williams wanted all pikemen to have breastplate and helmet, but perhaps the English just wore more armor. If that's the case, no wonder Fourquevaux thought heavily armored pikemen would do well.
|
Benjamin;
Every source I've found so far (for late-16th Century at least) refers to "Corselets" as being fairly heavily armoured pikemen, usually in breast, back and gorget, with pauldrons (if not also vambraces) and tassets. And of course a helmet of some sort, be it a burgonet, morion or cabasset. (Rather akin to the arming of the Swiss Guard at the Vatican today, though I believe they usually dispense with the tassets.) The Spaniards and French were probably the heaviest in this regard, the Swiss, oddly enough, usually the lightest, both in regards to the numbers and degree of arming. The French "corselets" were definitely sought out above their unarmed fellows, as they were considered to be steadier in the field, and much more useful in the assault during sieges. It was noted that the Swiss were fairly useless in siege work for this very reason: that they weren't armoured well enough (though were happy enough to volunteer for pioneer duty). (This particular information too comes mostly from Wood's "The King's Army", BTW. I highly recommend it!)
The Spaniards definitely divided their Pikes into two separate groups: "Armed" and "Dry", and there was a fairly significant pay difference between the armoured pikemen and the unarmoured pikemen. I believe that this was the case in most, if not all armies of the day. The armed pikemen not only had to pack their armour around and pay for it too, but got to be in the front ranks as well, so they earned their pay! And the arming of each man was inspected by a notary, to insure that armour wasn't being passed around between men, too. Spaniards were VERY bureaucratic. 
At Ceresole, the Imperialist Infantry was noted as doing particularly well against the Swiss due to the fact that the Imperial troops were so heavily armoured, and it made up for the elán that the Swiss always had. At least the armour worked for them until the Gascons hit them on one flank, while a company of gendarmes hit them on the other flank simultaniously...
Of note is that this is one area in which Sir Roger Williams and Sir John Smythe seem to actually agree (which is a major oddity in and of itself), and that is that more armour on pikemen is a good thing. Smythe especially laments that many do not wear as much armour as of his writing (1590's) as they had, and ought to. The discarding of pauldrons and vambraces had already begun by then, or so it seems from his complaints. Certainly by the 1610's most pikemen were reduced to breast and back, tassets and helmet.
Cheers!
Gordon
"After God, we owe our victory to our Horses"
Gonsalo Jimenez de Quesada
http://www.renaissancesoldier.com/
http://historypundit.blogspot.com/
|
|
 |
|
Benjamin H. Abbott
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 10:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
Well, I picked up of a copy of The King's Army at the library today. I'm still not convinced most Swiss pikemen went around completely unarmored. For example, about the Swiss, Wood writes, "Only a very small proportion were protected by corselets, or full armor, and at sieges that and their almost complete lack of firearms limited their role to guarding of the artillery park and trenches."
By that, I think he's saying that the corselet means complete armor (the three-quarters harness, most likely) in this case. Corselet is a rather broad term for body armor. On the other hand, I guess he could mean that few Swiss had either corselets or full armor.
Either way, I found it interesting that up to 43% of the men in other armies had corselets. And Wood does seem to give a fuller battle account of the battle of Dreux than Oman. While I underestimated the importance of guns in the battle, I don't think Pare's account of treating fourteen Swiss soldiers for bullet wounds proves few Swiss died from sword or lance wounds. It does seem like the reiters did quite a number of them, though.
|
|
|
|
|
Benjamin H. Abbott
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | Of note is that this is one area in which Sir Roger Williams and Sir John Smythe seem to actually agree (which is a major oddity in and of itself), and that is that more armour on pikemen is a good thing. |
So you think Williams intended about as much armor as Smythe when he wrote that pikemen should have morions and corselets?
And Smythe and Williams also agreed that halberds remained useful, though Smythe seems to have liked them more than Williams. This relates to minor complaint I have against Wood. He calls the halberd obsolete in the Wars of Religion, when later military writers still called for its use.
As far the topic of weapons against armor goes, we should probably note the opinions of Cesare D'Evoli. According to Sydney Anglo, D'Evoli considered both plate and mail armor an imperfect defense staff weapons, pikes, lances, hammers, bows, crossbows, and, of course, guns. In general, D'Evoli had a low opinion of armor. This is, of course, in stark contrast to other 16th-century military writers, and I'm not sure what to make of it.
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Staberg
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 4:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
| Quote: | Only 10% of the enitre regiment is recorded as "Corseletes" J.B. Wood, The King's Army p. 111
i.e armoured pikemen. |
What does that mean in this case? How much armor did one of these corseletes wear? Is it clear that the rest of the pikemen wore no armor, or could be that the troops mentioned simply wore more (i.e. three-quarters harness instead of just a helmet and breastplate)?
I guess Fourquevaux did write that some of the soldiers of his day went without armor, but I'm still a bit dubious. Even Sir Roger Williams wanted all pikemen to have breastplate and helmet, but perhaps the English just wore more armor. If that's the case, no wonder Fourquevaux thought heavily armored pikemen would do well.
|
Corselete is a catch all phrase for armoured pikemen used in mid-late 16th Century military records in France and Spain. The exact nature of the armour would vary over time, in the 1560's a Corselete was a full 3/4 harness but the 1590's the long tassets had been shortend and the the arm harness had disaperead. In practice it seems that a soldier passed muster as a Corselete it he had at least helmet, gorget and breast plate with tassets. But some paymasters would be more thorugh than otehrs when it came to enforcign the wearing of armour.
There would be 'national' variations to the armour as well, Swiss and especially Germans would wear half or full lenght mail sleeves instead of a plate arm harness, German armour often had spaulders rather than pauldrons and so on.
There is ample evidence that a significant number of soldiers (including pikemen) went without armour. According to regulations the Spanish Tercios in Flanders were supposed to field 50%of their pikemen as Corseletes while the Tercios in Italy had 75% Corseletes. A 1571 muster of the Arny of Flanders showed that 33% of the 7509 men in the 50 companies of Spanish infantry were Corseletes, another 33% were unarmoured pikemen.
Other 'nations' in the army of Flanders could and would field more armoured pikemen, in the 1601 muster about 60% of the Wallon and Italian pikemen were armoured, over 80% of the Burgundian pikemen wore armour and nearly 90% of the Germans did so.
Fourquevaux was published in 1548 while Dreux was fought in 1562 and there had been significant changes in the art of war in those 14 years. Personally I would be hesitant to rely too much on his writings as far as the wars of Religion is concerned since Fourquevaux had no experience of battles between armies with the kind of firepower that the armies at Dreux possesed.
/Daniel
|
|
|
|
|
Benjamin H. Abbott
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 4:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
Well, Robert Barret, writing the end of the 16th century, grouped pikemen wearing only "bare cuyrats" and a morion with unarmored pikemen. I'm not entirely sure what "cuyrats" means, but I suspect it means just a breastplate and backplate in this case.
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Staberg
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 5:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
On the other hand Fronsberger (Aka Frondsberger, Fronsperger) the mosted noted German military writer of the mid-late 16th C put all pikemen with any body armour in the armoured category and considered all others to be unarmoured. So do Basta and Wallhausen as well.
And I have my doubts about if one can use an Enligsh writer to determine the level of armout worn by Swiss pikemen. Many English military writers tend to be a bit "old fashioned* compared continetal writers and they were certainly not used by continetal armies as instructions for their troops. Experienced soldiers who had served overseas such as Roger Williams seems to have argued for a more 'modern' approach to warfare.
There is also exists a problem common to all military writers regardless of nationality. How much of what they wrote is theory and how much was actually used in Practice? That is why I regard army regulations, reports and muster rolls and other papers as more important sources than military textbooks.
Cheers
Daniel
|
|
|
|
|
Benjamin H. Abbott
|
| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2007 5:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Did you see that bit I quoted from Wood that suggests the corselet meant full armor in the case of the Swiss? Things like that make me doubt the other 90% of the Swiss force went completely unarmored, though I'll grant that many may have done that. There is indeed evidence for some pikemen being lightly armored at times. This article is a good example:
http://www.arador.com/articles/pikemen.html
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Staberg
|
| Posted: Tue 13 Mar, 2007 6:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
[
And Smythe and Williams also agreed that halberds remained useful, though Smythe seems to have liked them more than Williams. This relates to minor complaint I have against Wood. He calls the halberd obsolete in the Wars of Religion, when later military writers still called for its use.
|
I assume that the "later military writers" are English? I.e Smythe and Williams?
The French regarded the halberd as obsolete or at least inefficient and it's use was abolished in 1568. Which probably is why Wood declares it obsolete in his book about the Royal French army.
The Dutch and part of army of Flanders did likewise in the following decades. By 1600 only the Germans and Swiss have been the only ones to field halberdiers in any numbers but the pikes generally outnumbered the halberds 6-1 to 8-1.
Of course the Swedes did experiment with significant numbers of halberdiers in the first decade of 1600's but only got ridden down by the Polish cavalry for their troubles.
Many armies & militas still kept stores of halberds which were used for special duties, notably the assault or defence of fortifications. But in the field the halberdier disappeared at an increasing rate from the 1560's onwards
Cheers
Daniel
|
|
|
|
|
Benjamin H. Abbott
|
| Posted: Tue 13 Mar, 2007 7:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | I assume that the "later military writers" are English? I.e Smythe and Williams? |
Smythe, Williams, and Barret, yes. Writing at the very end of the 16th century, Barret still wanted 7-10% of soldiers to carry halberds. Williams had wanted about the same proportion.
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Staberg
|
| Posted: Tue 13 Mar, 2007 7:59 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | Did you see that bit I quoted from Wood that suggests the corselet meant full armor in the case of the Swiss? Things like that make me doubt the other 90% of the Swiss force went completely unarmored, though I'll grant that many may have done that. There is indeed evidence for some pikemen being lightly armored at times. This article is a good example:
http://www.arador.com/articles/pikemen.html |
Yes I saw it. However since I had written fairly extensively about the nature of Corseletes in an earlier post I didn't see the need for a new post in which I repeated my views. Yes, he can be interpreted that way but as I've tried to explain I regard that as the the theory. In practice corselet came to cover all pikemen who plate armour for the body, while pike sieches refered to those only with helmet (and mail if one looks at the German practice).
If we look at Wood's table 4.7 the non-corselete category is consistenly made up of unarmoured pikemen/halberdiers ("pike sieches") except in the case of Brissacs company and The Swiss. Brissac has troops classed as "pike" who are better paid than the pike sieches. Saddly Wood doesn't provide a detailed breakdown for the Swiss regiment but the Swiss writers consider the the non-Corselet men to be unarmoured except for helmets.
BTW Wood isn't my only source as far as the Swiss troops are concerned, I've referenced Segesser and other Swiss writers on the subject as well.
Cheers
Daniel
|
|
|
|
|
Benjamin H. Abbott
|
| Posted: Tue 13 Mar, 2007 10:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
I wouldn't say a man with a helmet and perhaps some mail is completely unarmored. But, if you are correct, I guess most the Swiss, at in the Wars of Religion, were very light armored, if at all.
|
|
|
|
|
Stephane Rabier
|
| Posted: Wed 14 Mar, 2007 8:15 am Post subject: |
|
|
Hello,
I'm a complete novice but it puts me in mind of the perfect tank Vs the ultimate antitank weapon problem.
I guess today no one would attack a Abrams or Leclerc tank using a 1918 antitank rifle, a 1944 bazooka and even with the latest rocket launcher a skilled soldier would certainly avoid to aim to the front plates and he would rather choose to attack the tracks, the turret/body joint or any vulnerable point, am I wrong?
What do you think about those pictures from Talhoffer's manual? http://base.kb.dk/pls/hsk_web/hsk_vis.side?p_...p_lang=eng (132-recto to 137-verso)
I know this is not a battlefield but obviously the goal is to get the adversary down then to kill him with a knife, not to cut him into two halves like the hero generally does in the Chanson de Roland or any similar old chronicle 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum
|
This is a standard topic