Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXV

[Incanur]

That's not entirely right. The 30YW ended in 1648 and pike was still the queen of the battlefield.

Well, not according to Donald Lupton. His 1642 A Warlike Treatise of the Pike declared the pike rubbish for the warfare of the time for a variety of reasons. He was a bit premature, perhaps, but the writing was on the wall even at that point.

[Galloglaich]

I think snowblizz did a fairly reasonable job of conveying what training (and command and control) was like in the latter part of the time range mentioned; i.e. the Early Modern period and specifically the 17th Century. It's something recognizable to us in that it at least somewhat resembles modern basic infantry training - modern military marching is at least in part based on on 17th Century pike drill. Recruits show up and the assumption is they don't know anything about anything. They are broken down in order to have discipline imposed on them. They are taught techniques of fighting from the individual level to command and control regimes for units in systematic, simplified, step by step processes.

This is also similar to how at least some Classical armies (i.e. later period Roman and Byzantine) were trained and deployed.

In the 15th Century war-training is much more in the medieval mentality which is totally different and much harder for modern people to get their head around. I have done two academic papers and a handful of lectures on this subject and I can only say I am starting to get my head around it. It's a complex subject, as most things Late Medieval are. But the short answer is as follows:

TL : DR Medieval military training in general was done in the form of 'play' activities including warlike games, martial sports, hunting, and more or less continuous low-intensity warfare - both on the personal and unit / factional level. These activities were also done for other social, political, religious and ideological reasons which overlapped closely with military training.

Education at the time also emphasized things like war (and many, many other activities) in a very different way from later in the Early Modern Period - systems for how to do things were taught, including how to change a given strategic or tactical approach, as opposed to simply the steps for how to do things. More like learning Sun Tsu, or Machiavelli, than memorizing an infantry manual.

It's all very complex and far too much so to do justice here but I'll touch on a few points.

1. Medieval military units were based on affinity groups typically deeply rooted in the lifestyles of their constituents.
2. Knightly banners and lances of heavy cavalry were comprised of allied noble families and their henchmen - often people who worked together managing estates (think of like a ranch in a Western) or as courtiers or in some other capacity. Often they were part of Knightly Orders and leagues and had fought together many times.
3. Infantry armies like pikemen and halberdiers were often made up of either alliances of rural people - farmers, hunters, fishermen and so on, who had close family links (think Scottish clans) had the same patron saint and who had fought together many times before.
4. Marksmen (handgunners, crossbowmen, archers and so on) were typically derived from Urban militia who were organized according to craft guilds and patrician households. Streets and neighborhoods were made up of people who did the same business and were part of the same confraternities, brotherhoods and guilds which were also the basis of the organization of things like Carnival processions and parties, saints processions, and various charaties (think Freemason lodges). These people too shared the same patron saints and had fought together many times before.

Hunting big game at least was often done in such a complex and heavily organized manner that is much more militaristic than hunting today. Multiple types of dogs and horses were used in specific ways, dozens of mounted men and footmen in many different roles coordinated their activities so that the game could be systematically rounded up. Dangerous game like Aurochs, bears, wolves, bison, boars, European red deer and other large animals were intentionally hunted when they were at their most dangerous (for example when mother bears had cubs with them) and often in the most dangerous ways possible (like killing bears or boars on foot). For smaller game birds were used (i.e. falconry) also in a very sophisticated, though obviously less warlike manner

Spoiler: Hunting scenes from the 15th Century

Show

Warlike sports and games included everything from bear baiting and prize fighting (which went on in England well into the 19th Century) to bullfighting and events like the running of the bulls at pamplona, to complex organized warlike sports such as the palio of Siena, the famous bridge-fights in Venice such as at the Ponte dei Pugni (which are only a famous example of a widespread practice), and the famous knightly tournaments were far more wild, complicated and dangeorus than the basic jousting or fighting at the barriers that you see typically depicted.


Neighborhood brawl on the Ponte dei Pugni in Venice (this is actually a 17th Century depiction)


bizarre sports lke water jousting, as they do it here in France today

and shooting contests especially hosted by the towns and cities, notably in what are now Belgium, Italy, Germany and much of Central Europe;






16th Century Schutzenfest at Zwichau depicting all the other ancillary activities.

Shooting the popinjay (as done in Europe but also by the Mongols and Turks and many others)





games like Polo of course, the infamous Fox hunt in England, are all remnants of these types of games and warlike sports.





fencing masters duel for sport as part of the Carnival 'sword dance' in Nuremberg

The cities in Central Europe also sponsored fencing contests (called fechtschuler) and in rural areas grappling tournaments were very popular (in some cases surviving to this day, notably in Switzerland as Schwingen, in Brittany as Gouren, and in Iceland as Glima)


This kind of stuff also existed long before the medieval period of course.






The Celts had games like hurling (sort of a more violent form of lacrosse- also a warlike game practiced by the Native Americans) and the Vikings had a nearly identical game called Knattleikr. It was essentially a limited form of warfare - it wasn't uncommon for people to die. But it was a much better way for different communities to settle disputes, and hone warlike skills, than actually killing each other en-masse.


None of the medieval (or pre-medieval) types of warlike games and sports were completely gone by the 17th Century, it's just that they were in sharp decline while the other way, the way to train recruits from scratch in 'best practices' were sharply on the rise. This also coincides with armies getting much larger, if not necessarily more effective. The change was largely for social and political reasons rather than purely military.

It's worth pointing out that late medieval armies were both much smaller and more expensive, but also typically more skilled than equivalent armies of the 17th Century. For example Swiss or Bohemian pikemen (or German or Spanish) in the 15th Century could maneuver in the field, change tactics suddenly, retreat in good order when under fire and after taking heavy losses, and so on. Pikemen in the 17th Century were often expected (or able) to do little more than march out to a spot near the artillery or the banner and stand their with their pikes out as a largely passive defense against cavalry.

G

[snowblizz]

Well, not according to Donald Lupton. His 1642 A Warlike Treatise of the Pike declared the pike rubbish for the warfare of the time for a variety of reasons. He was a bit premature, perhaps, but the writing was on the wall even at that point.

He may have thought so, but the war that broke out 1642 was fouhgt largely with pike in "poor" old England. In truth the number of pike to shot was steadily declining since the 1500s but an army without pike in 1642 would have been rolled over completely since you couldn't guarantee to stop a cavalry charge with fire alone.

Thanks for the answer, it is a lot clearer to me now.

You sure? I could swear I got more confused the more I wrote.
The problem largely being that what is true in one par tmay not be true in another.

It seems like the spotty/ad-hoc? military training of that period run counter to everything we know about modern military training (or maybe I should say they were replaced by more modern practices precisely because they were deemed not effective enough).

Well that's why it's not modern military training is it? As Galloglaich wrote about medieaval training it was part of society in a very different way. It's only when we get into the 1600s that a need for masstraining materialises. Somethign noted in the sources I was looking at was that earlier Roman and Byzantine military knowledge existed but there was no way to apply it in the medieaval context. With pike based armies we get closer to ancient forces and greater effort is done to take advantage of famous historical military theory.

As I mentioned armies were temporary things back then. Very few institutions could afford to maintain standing forces (it's no accident even astoundingly rich Spanish empire default like every 5 years). So there wasn't the same continuity in forces. In fact the English New Model Army was oen of the best force sof it's day precisely becaus eit ahd bene a standing army made up from units experienced from the first part of the ECW. It's not an accident we tend to call the period early-modern too.

I am under the impression that most armies of the period were multinationals (i.e French cavalry + Swiss infantry). So if most soldiers only underwent short and basic training shortly before the war, and mostly only trained with 10-20s of their fellow comrades under the same colonel/captain, then

Yes and no. It's important to realise nations didn't exist in the same way as today. People didn't even considered themselves French necessarily, you were Gascon, Norman and so on. Germany even more so. But it was also accepted standard practice, you were the Potentate's man, not your nationality. For all of a religions war the 30YW was many career soldiers even changed religion as opportunity knocked. The French cavalry e.g. would contain many other nationalities. Some units, like the Swiss were more cohesive it's true. Nationality wasn't as big a problem. Also one German might not understand another German's language, this was a given and usually worked around in that officers usually spoke several languages as par for course. The Swedihs king could speak with most soldiers in his army IIRC, able to give a speach in German, Swedish, French and maybe some Finnish. Mostly one would strive to form units so people were similar though to facilitate getting along. So the Swedish Brigades had majorily Britihs one, a German one and a Swedish one for example.

a) How did a supreme commander of an army maneuver his many units around during a battle? Especially during the later part of 30 yrs war where everyone liked to field many, many smaller blocks.

Or did he simply laid out the deployment plan, and let each unit do its own things once the battle started?

Basically you had a battle plan draw up in advance. The major unit commanders would know where they were supposed to be in the line of battle and could even flex a bit.
Otherwise you had messengers that would ride back and forth with orders, and yes this was in part clunky and many a battle lost due to C&C issues.

b) How did two units from the same side communicate with each other (when they likely didn't even speak the same language?)

Officers would usually be proficient in several languages and career soldiers would likely pick up basics of other languages. Then as now there were some languages that were Lingua Francas, like unsuprisingly French. And you'd try and group ppl together who coudl understand each other. But it would happen there was communications problems. But then you might not be able to control even the men whose language you spoke...*cough*English Royalist cavalry*cough*

c) Since soldiers mostly trained in smaller 20ish men groups, won't that cause confusion for the commander of a large pike block? What if certain trumpet signal mean advance for one group and retreat for another group (within the same pike block)?

That would not happen. While basic training probably was in smaller groups they'd also train as larger bodies, just not as often. Same with even bigger forces. A good commander would of course make sure signalling was as uniform as possible. In cases where disparate groups were brought together they would try and keep smaller units together, so the "coloured brigades" of the Swedihs army were untis that had long worked together. But C&C was always problematic and forces would usually agree on a field-sign and password/battle cry for the army. Most training would be similar and based on largely the same training manuals. How broadly similar would depend on whose army it was. The Swedish king was able to impsoe a rigorously similar trainign system more or less, which was then abandoned after his death as his force of personality didn't guide them anymore.

d) Wouldn't that cause a lot of conflicts when a multinational army marched & camped together? (Especially when some of the units may had fought with each others in the past)

Well, yes. But probably no more conflict than existed *in* some units. Again the multinationality just wasn't as much of a problem. And e.g. common religion would smooth over a lot so Italians, Spanish, Wallons e.g. would all share Catholicism as a unifying force. Similarly the Protestant forces was brought together by "us vs the Papist scum".

You mentioned "trend/model" and the rapid dissemination of effective tactics/training, which suggest that at least the top commanders and thinkers did realize the shortcomings of military training practices of the period. Ditto for the drill manuals and later reforms and Swedish "part-time soldiers".

Well yes and no. There were plenty of ideas going around. What I speak of is larger "systems". There was the Spanish system, i.e. older Tercios, a reformed Ducth system with smaller units and more firepower with same numbers of troops. The Swedish system was again a more complex and developed verison of the Dutch. Which tended to develop into what was called the German system that is basically the pike and shot tactics of the 30YW as we now know them. But these are essentially systems of battlefield organisation and deployment.

[Max_Killjoy]

It's worth pointing out that late medieval armies were both much smaller and more expensive, but also typically more skilled than equivalent armies of the 17th Century. For example Swiss or Bohemian pikemen (or German or Spanish) in the 15th Century could maneuver in the field, change tactics suddenly, retreat in good order when under fire and after taking heavy losses, and so on. Pikemen in the 17th Century were often expected (or able) to do little more than march out to a spot near the artillery or the banner and stand their with their pikes out as a largely passive defense against cavalry.

Which would also seem to have contributed to the view in following eras that warfare for centuries between the Roman empire and the Napoleonic era must have been an awful ignorant uncoordinated mess. After all, if the guys in the 17th century were capable of nothing more than marching and holding a location with pikes sticking out, or firing in mass volleys, then the guys before them must have been just atrocious.

[Socratov]

Yeah, that's the only thing I've found so far that it seems to be very similar too, I was just under the impression that the hilt was kind of important. This video was fun to watch, but my sword cost nowhere near as much. Also the clips of actual cutting seem to be showing the sword used with 2 hands, and according to the stats his sword was around ~20% lighter than mine. I can get both my hands on the handle fairly easily, but I don't know what a comfortable sword-grip is supposed to feel like, and I'm slightly above-average in size. I've seen videos of zweihander techniques, and it seems like they allow you to choke up quite a bit, which this almost definitely wouldn't. If I spread my hands out to the point there they are wrapped around the metal bits of the handle, too, there is at most about 3 inches of clearance between them.

Anywho, thanks for your feedback!



I don't recall what, if anything, the description on the website said it was supposed to mimic or be designed for.


I'm an above-average sized person and it still felt heavy to me, but I admit I've never trained with a sword (or any other weapon) so maybe this is just one of those things you need to develop the muscles for.
snip

Well, as someone who is very much in the process of discovering tastes and preferences to buy his first sparring/re-enactment sword somewhere this year I have been told, expressly and multiple times in fact, that a good sword is whatever feels as a good sword at the time. I have been made to understand that weight is something you can train for, but shouldn't have to hit the gym for (if it's slightly heavier that's fine, but you need to not be completely worn out after 10 minutes with arms burning like Asmodeus' ring after a night on the vindaloo). A good test is wether you can maintain the guard positions (of which Fulltach and Langenord are great examples to try and maintain) for a few moments.

Next is control, or wobble (not sorry, couldn't resist). If you can't stop your sword mid swing or find yourself wobbling around a lot, its centre of mass is not balanced for you (or your handling of the sword at least). If you find that it moves excellent, but you couldn't swat a fly with it (i.e. it feels weightless), the sword, again, is not balanced for you (or your handling of the sword). You want the sword to have some momentum (or when you hit stuff: impact), but not too much where you are going out of control at every swing. Generally speaking, if you have a routine, try it out in the shop where you try out the weapon and see wether it works for you.

Next is handling (or the non wobbly part of it). Try, while moving the blade, to orient the sword's false and long edges, try to align it mid swing (or as some try it out: try altering the angle while keeping the tip up as some sort of reverse pendulum). Again, too light for your is bad, but don't overshoot for too heavy.

For each of these categories goes the same: if it feels good, you will know. If you don't know, don't buy it, it won't be the sword for you (yet, who knows in the future?).

[Incanur]

For example Swiss or Bohemian pikemen (or German or Spanish) in the 15th Century could maneuver in the field, change tactics suddenly, retreat in good order when under fire and after taking heavy losses, and so on.

Thanks for that post! Nitpick: Spanish armies had few or no pikers in the 15th century. This began to change at the very end of it, after Seminara 1495. It took Spanish armies a while to develop potent units of pikers. They relied heavily on German mercenaries well into the 16th century.

[Galloglaich]

Thanks for that post! Nitpick: Spanish armies had few or no pikers in the 15th century. This began to change at the very end of it, after Seminara 1495. It took Spanish armies a while to develop potent units of pikers. They relied heavily on German mercenaries well into the 16th century.

I hesitated on the Spanish - I knew they had good pikemen in the mid 16th Century in Flanders but I wasn't sure when and where that came together precisely. The Tercio's had some pikemen too?


I wanted to add - a lot of the low intensity warfare going on in Continental Europe, particularly in Central Europe and Italy, was of a kind of 'catch and release' variety; i.e. one clan steals 30 cows from a neighboring clan, and then later the other clan steals 100 sheep - with minimal casualties, and captives who are sometimes traded back for livestock. Robber knights would capture 3 merchants from Cologne, who would in turn capture a brother or uncle from their family, and a hostage exchange would then be made. Members of one noble family would capture a castle belonging to another, who would in turn seize a ship from the first family... and again an exchange would be arranged. There was a surprisingly low death rate in other words at least in some battles and skirmishes, even sometimes in quite large battles - the Poles released 14,000 mostly German prisoners 'on parole' after the Battle of Grunwald.

Not that this was always the case, there were certainly massacres and atrocities, but these were much more rare than in later eras. Also armies which were more ruthless toward prisoners etc. sometimes paid the price (as the French learned during the Italian Wars, and as Germans and everybody else learned in the Hussite Crusades).

The result was, I think, in part that people could learn from their military experiences perhaps a bit more. Knights were often repeatedly captured and later released. Some common soldiers in the 100 Years War were captured and ransomed as many as 10 times.

This all changed to some extent in the 16th and 17th Century, with the religious wars in particular being much nastier. It became more common to kill prisoners and civilians, what previously had been considered a shocking atrocity became routine, for example in the really nasty Livonian Wars, but also in the Huegonot Wars, the religious-tinged 80 Years War and to some extent in the Schmaldic war etc..

G

[PhoenixPhyre]

Question--

Are there significant differences in the tech base needed to reasonably make different types of arms and armor? Not overall tech level (discoveries and metallurgy), but more in tooling and skill levels? Are some weapons harder to make than others (at the level of comparing swords to axes or different types of polearms)?

I assume spears are dirt simple, while a longsword is harder.
Same goes for a gambeson vs a full suit of articulated plate.

Are there trends?

[Galloglaich]

A little bit more on command and control.

Language
As snowblizz mentioned, commanders, especially mercenary "military contractors" (Condottiere in Italy) often spoke multiple languages and also at least some Latin - Latin being a kind of international language among nobles in most, if not all of Europe and also understood by Burghers and most Church officials - Churchmen being the most educated were often filling the roles of ambassadors, military advisors, diplomats, and sometimes spys.

There were also regional trade dialects. While everyone in every town spoke (and for burghers or Churchmen, could usually read and write) their own local vernacular dialect, nobody more than 20 miles away necessarily knew it. So they had these regional trade languages, like Creole in the Caribbean, which were often a hybrid of multiple local dialects. Low German was a mixture of Saxon and other German dialects, Frisian, and Danish with some loan words from Swedish, Polish, Finnish and even Cuman - which itself was a trade language for Central Asia promoted by the Mongol Hordes - adopted by the Hanseatic League and thus in use from London to Livonia (~1400 miles). High German was the equivalent, more or less, used in Southern Germany and all the way from Austria and Hungary to the Rhine, and codified by the Imperial Court scribes. The Rhine itself had a trade language (Rhennish) which was a combination of all the dialects spoken along it's course.

There was a trade language in the Med called 'Sabir' which was used well into the 19th Century, it was a mixture of Latin, French Italian dialects (especially Veneto), Spanish and Portuguese, Greek, Turkish Arabic and Berber! So if you were for example a naval commander from Venice or Barcelona operating in the Med you probably knew some Sabir.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medite..._Lingua_Franca

Leadership
Command of infantry forces under control of city states broke two ways; North of the Alps it often fell to city councilors or burgomeisters (basically mayors, more or less) who had a combined civil leadership / military leadership role. They also typically commanded warships and fleets. Smaller scale units would be commanded by patrician family members, often unmarried 'journeymen' from the merchant families or younger guild aldermen from the craft guilds. In Italy town militias would more often be led by Condottieri, who sometimes acted in their own interests as Machiavelli noted. The big exception there being Venice who still relied on their own leadership strata at least for the more important missions. So again you might have an alderman in charge of 100 gunners who were all butchers that lived in a certain street in a given town, and another alderman in charge of 60 crossbowmen who were joiners or carpenters. A banner of cavalry would be lead by a patrician from a great house, often in a group that were part of the same cavalry club or confraternity, such as the Lillienvelt of Bremen.

Some Condottiero specialized in dealing with certain types of troops. There was for example a Moravian Captain in North Hungary (today Slovakia) who specialized in dealing with troublesome and unruly Hussite mercenaries. Hussites were heretics and kind of ... populist?, almost like communists, who tended to trash churches and abbeys that they were near and didn't respect noble rank. They would even dig up and loot graveyards of wealthy areas. Few could deal with them, but they were sought out because among other reasons, they could defeat Turkish armies. Jiskra made a career out of being able to win their respect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J...f_Brand%C3%BDs

Generally the towns conferred leadership by vote from below rather than appointment from above and selection was based on merit; for example if the guilds didn't have a capable military leader in their ranks they would get one from the merchants, and sometimes vice versa. Same for the free clans like the Swiss, Frisians, Bohemians, Swedes, Scottish Highlanders and so on. These leaders ruled on the basis of the force of their own personality but also at the suffrance of their own armies and if they acted against the interests of their men they could be (and were) swiftly deposed.

Sergeants and other lower ranks
The Swiss invented the rank of Sergeant, feldweibel, which was then introduced to German Landsknecht companies. As best as i can tell so far it seems to have originated with the Swiss as a way for urban (Zurich, Bern or one of the smaller cities) polities to control their rural troops. They even had a 'whores sergeant' whose job was to wrangle the camp followers. The Landsknechts were one of the first examples of a military system that developed organically (Swiss Reislauffer) being transferred to untrained troops (mostly Swabian peasants) - as Swiss instructors established the methods of training, command and control on behalf of Emperor Maximillian I in the late 15th / early 16th Centuries. It spread from there around Europe. Part of what made it work was giving the Landsknecht companies special legal immunities and their own courts and magistrates, to kind of mimic the autonomy of a Swiss militia company.

Command difficulties
Medieval armies while extremely effective whenever they were properly aligned, were notoriously difficult to control. Not everyone had the skill to deal with foreign troops for example. The French were notoriously bad at it, even literally running down their own Genoese mercenaries in at least two cases. Nobles could change sides on a whim and ride away; or alternatively they could decide that honor dictated a charge at the worst possible moment. Armies made up of a lot of high nobility from different countries often fell into confusion and made drastic mistakes leading to catastrophies (see Nicopolis or Hattin).

Urban militias were often the best gunners or marksmen (i.e. those same Genoese crossbowmen were militia who hired on as muscle around the world) but could be the most troublesome to wrangle. When deployed as regular troops (as opposed to being deployed as mercenaries as they often also were) they would routinely make all kinds of stipulations about food, lodging, how far they would go from their home city walls, and so on. They too, could turn around and march home if they didn't like how they were being treated, and would even imprison or execute leaders who they thought were irresponsible or disrespectful to them.

On the other hand, units which were accustomed to working together, even with very diverse langauges and religions and so on, could in fact be extremely effective, note for example the Fekete Sereg (Hungarian Black Army) made up of German, Bohemian, Hungarian, Serbian, Italian, Greek etc. etc. soldiers, of Catholic, Hussite, and Orthodox religion, but who routinely defeated much larger armies including the fearsome Ottomans.

Mercenaries
Many if not most medieval armies were based on mercenaries, partly because of the problems controlling knights and urban miliitia in particular. But mercenaries could have their own agendas, as so often was the case in Italy. Many would fight so long as they were paid, but once they weren't, trouble started. The French had a saying about Swiss mercenaries - "Pas d'argent, pas de Suisse"; no money, no Swiss. The Swiss famously would literally about face and march home the first day their payment went in arrears. Other mercenaries would wait around a lot longer - pay for mercenaries which was very high would often be months or even years in arrears, but if they weren't paid they felt the right to seize whatever they wanted for themselves, sometimes including villages, castles, abbeys or churches and even entire cities. This obviously could cause major problems. Bohemian mercenaries fighting for the Teutonic Knights in the 13 Years War captured three Prussian towns, but the Knights ran out of money to pay them, so after three months the Bohemian mercenaries sold the three towns to Poland for a huge sum on money) and marched back home to Prague, presumably to retire as rich men.

Religious Orders
The only armies that had true modern type command and control systems were the religious Orders, like the Hospitalers and the Teutonic Knights. But even within these organizations they held elections for leadership (at least the Teutonic Knights and Livonian Knights did, I'm not certain about the Hospitalers) and unpopular leaders could be deposed. In terms of military organization they were usually a hybrid of a hard core of the actual full brother knights, (Ritterbruden to the Teutonic Order) plus half-brothers who together formed the spine or skeleton of command and control (including logistics management which they were surprisingly good at) holding together much larger forces of levies, militia, Crusaders and mercenaries.

G

[Vinyadan]

As a side note, hunting was a very important activity for socialization. I remember reading a text in which the writer explained his son how he had become a friend of the King of Naples during a hunt. The King had separated himself from the main group, and the writer just happened to be there when a bear came up to him. That's a big bonding experience.

[Galloglaich]

Question--

Are there significant differences in the tech base needed to reasonably make different types of arms and armor? Not overall tech level (discoveries and metallurgy), but more in tooling and skill levels? Are some weapons harder to make than others (at the level of comparing swords to axes or different types of polearms)?

I assume spears are dirt simple, while a longsword is harder.
Same goes for a gambeson vs a full suit of articulated plate.

Are there trends?

yes, basically the size of the continuous pieces of ferrous metal (i.e. iron or steel) in a weapon was dependent on the size of their bloomery forges or later on, blast furnaces, and the sophistication of their weapon making industries. Same for armor. You can make mail for example at a fairly low level of iron tech, since you only need small bits of iron wire. But plate armor or say, helmets, requires much more sophisticated industry (this is part of the reason why Roman armies made a lot of helmets out of brass, which could be cast or riveted together out of smaller cast sheets).

So a society which makes iron this way




...can make daggers and spear heads and javelin and arrowheads out of iron, but not too much more. No pieces of iron longer than say 1' - 2' (and those would be fairly rare and expensive) and metalurgy limited to wrought iron and maybe a little bit of crude forge-welding.

Whereas a society which makes iron like this



...can crank out swords cheap enough for ordinary people to afford them, make five or six foot long swords out of good, flexible high-carbon steel, head to toe plate armor, and all kinds of spring steel parts, drill bits, gears for clocks and machines and so on.

The more complex uses of course also require a level of social development which not all polities can manage. The Ottomans had to kind of borrow or import a lot of ferrous technology (like making large cannon) from European origin before adapting their own industries to it.

G

[Galloglaich]

As a side note, hunting was a very important activity for socialization. I remember reading a text in which the writer explained his son how he had become a friend of the King of Naples during a hunt. The King had separated himself from the main group, and the writer just happened to be there when a bear came up to him. That's a big bonding experience.

yes there are a lot of stories like that. And hunting could be very dangerous, they may have been hunting that bear in a season when it was more likely to be aggressive. They even hunted them on foot, using special techniques:



Cesare Borgia apparently used to decapitate wild boar on foot with his sword during hunts partly to intimidate people he brought hunting with him.

G

[PhoenixPhyre]

yes, basically the size of the continuous pieces of ferrous metal (i.e. iron or steel) in a weapon was dependent on the size of their bloomery forges or later on, blast furnaces, and the sophistication of their weapon making industries. Same for armor. You can make mail for example at a fairly low level of iron tech, since you only need small bits of iron wire. But plate armor or say, helmets, requires much more sophisticated industry (this is part of the reason why Roman armies made a lot of helmets out of brass, which could be cast or riveted together out of smaller cast sheets).

So a society which makes iron this way




...can make daggers and spear heads and javelin and arrowheads out of iron, but not too much more. No pieces of iron longer than say 1' - 2' (and those would be fairly rare and expensive) and metalurgy limited to wrought iron and maybe a little bit of crude forge-welding.

Whereas a society which makes iron like this



...can crank out swords cheap enough for ordinary people to afford them, make five or six foot long swords out of good, flexible high-carbon steel, head to toe plate armor, and all kinds of spring steel parts, drill bits, gears for clocks and machines and so on.

The more complex uses of course also require a level of social development which not all polities can manage. The Ottomans had to kind of borrow or import a lot of ferrous technology (like making large cannon) from European origin before adapting their own industries to it.

G

Thanks.

What about at the more local level? Assuming that the refining and production of the semi-refined materials (ingot, bar, and sheet stock) is relatively high quality, what could a local village blacksmith reasonably turn out using that material? Mail is labor intensive, but not technically demanding. Do the larger pieces require different forges/tools/skills?

The background is I'm trying to rationalize some kind of rough quality tiers for what would be available in various smaller settlements, based on the specialties of the local large cities. The quality of the metallurgy varies tremendously, and I know that large amounts of metal (sheets, bars, etc) are heavy and difficult to transport very far. In this particular area anything above a sidearm would be pretty low demand (no armies, just warding off hostile wildlife and occasional bandit/tribal raids), so I can't imagine them stocking ready-made weapons or armor very much anywhere except in the largest cities. But I could be very wrong.

[Galloglaich]

Thanks.

What about at the more local level? Assuming that the refining and production of the semi-refined materials (ingot, bar, and sheet stock) is relatively high quality, what could a local village blacksmith reasonably turn out using that material? Mail is labor intensive, but not technically demanding. Do the larger pieces require different forges/tools/skills?

The background is I'm trying to rationalize some kind of rough quality tiers for what would be available in various smaller settlements, based on the specialties of the local large cities. The quality of the metallurgy varies tremendously, and I know that large amounts of metal (sheets, bars, etc) are heavy and difficult to transport very far. In this particular area anything above a sidearm would be pretty low demand (no armies, just warding off hostile wildlife and occasional bandit/tribal raids), so I can't imagine them stocking ready-made weapons or armor very much anywhere except in the largest cities. But I could be very wrong.

If you look closely at that model of a 15th (? I think) Century German blast furnace I posted upthread, you'll notice that they are using shallow canals to transport the charcoal, ore, and I'm sure also the finished products to and from that complex.

Canals and rivers were sort of like the railroads of the medieval world and were the main way heavy stuff like iron billets were transported. Even way back in the migration era or Viking Age for example - fairly big iron (or wootz steel) billets did get around.

So they could get the iron or steel they needed, probably, so long as they were near a waterway or on some trade road.

However to make a long sword or a breastplate you do need a fairly large forge. You can't do it around a camp fire or in some half-assed horsehoe forge like they typically show you in fantasy genre films. Most likely you would have a building with a water (or sometimes wind) powered forge, and a water or wind-powered trip hammer. Like this 18th Century one

Spoiler: Trip hammer

Show

So you could have setups like this in some villages or small towns (down to ~500 people), but unless they were making weapons for export, or for a local Lord somewhere nearby, i.e. if sword making or some other metalworking wasn't an established local industry, they probably would just import their swords on that same barge that might bring the billets.

Depending on the regional tech level swords might be fairly cheap (as they were say, in the 15th Century), but even when swords were espensive, for example in the late Migration Era, Vikings used to import most of their swords from manufacturing centers in Frankish territory, like the region around modern day Sollingen where the famous 'Ulfberht' swords come from and which has been a major center of blade making for at least 1000 years- these days they make chef knives.

in the medieval world, in Europe anyway, metal work tended to be specialized, with various places getting highly expert at making certain things. So one town might make ships and another clocks and another glass and another... guns. By the late medieval period most towns, even small ones, had the capacity to make swords bu the best armor came from a handful of international and regional centers - in the 15th Century Augsburg, Nuremberg, Milan, Brescia, and it you were equipping even a local army then it probably made more sense to buy armor from them than make it yourself.


Getting back to your game context, unless you had say, a visiting journeyman from one of these places who knew the tricks of the trade and for some reason wanted to set up your own armor making industry, access to high quality weapons and armor would probably be more related to access to markets than to blacksmiths or forges. A local smith might make arrowheads or caltrops, or even wire for mail, but if you wanted the good stuff it just made more sense to get it from places where they had centuries of local knowledge and sophisticated craft industries built up.

G

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you look closely at that model of a 15th (? I think) Century German blast furnace I posted upthread, you'll notice that they are using shallow canals to transport the charcoal, ore, and I'm sure also the finished products to and from that complex.

Canals and rivers were sort of like the railroads of the medieval world and were the main way heavy stuff like iron billets were transported. Even way back in the migration era or Viking Age for example - fairly big iron (or wootz steel) billets did get around.

So they could get the iron or steel they needed, probably, so long as they were near a waterway or on some trade road.

However to make a long sword or a breastplate you do need a fairly large forge. You can't do it around a camp fire or in some half-assed horsehoe forge like they typically show you in fantasy genre films. Most likely you would have a building with a water (or sometimes wind) powered forge, and a water or wind-powered trip hammer. Like this 18th Century one

Spoiler: Trip hammer

Show

So you could have setups like this in some villages or small towns (down to ~500 people), but unless they were making weapons for export, or for a local Lord somewhere nearby, i.e. if sword making or some other metalworking wasn't an established local industry, they probably would just import their swords on that same barge that might bring the billets.

Depending on the regional tech level swords might be fairly cheap (as they were say, in the 15th Century), but even when swords were espensive, for example in the late Migration Era, Vikings used to import most of their swords from manufacturing centers in Frankish territory, like the region around modern day Sollingen where the famous 'Ulfberht' swords come from and which has been a major center of blade making for at least 1000 years- these days they make chef knives.

in the medieval world, in Europe anyway, metal work tended to be specialized, with various places getting highly expert at making certain things. So one town might make ships and another clocks and another glass and another... guns. By the late medieval period most towns, even small ones, had the capacity to make swords bu the best armor came from a handful of international and regional centers - in the 15th Century Augsburg, Nuremberg, Milan, Brescia, and it you were equipping even a local army then it probably made more sense to buy armor from them than make it yourself.


Getting back to your game context, unless you had say, a visiting journeyman from one of these places who knew the tricks of the trade and for some reason wanted to set up your own armor making industry, access to high quality weapons and armor would probably be more related to access to markets than to blacksmiths or forges. A local smith might make arrowheads or caltrops, or even wire for mail, but if you wanted the good stuff it just made more sense to get it from places where they had centuries of local knowledge and sophisticated craft industries built up.

G

Thanks. I guess I'll figure it out based on locations then--different nations have different economic systems and internal trade, so it'll depend. One has tight control over metal work through a pseudo-guild system (more like hierarchical trade unions that run the government), so they'd probably transport finished goods where they're needed. Another is more local, but only has decent mines/metal-working in one region.

Thanks again. I learn a lot from reading these threads.

[Galloglaich]

In this particular area anything above a sidearm would be pretty low demand (no armies, just warding off hostile wildlife and occasional bandit/tribal raids), so I can't imagine them stocking ready-made weapons or armor very much anywhere except in the largest cities. But I could be very wrong.

One other comment because I didn't really address this -

I don't know about your game setting obviously but in the medieval world there really wasn't anywhere I know of that people felt so safe that they didn't stockpile arms for defense. And also take fairly elaborate defensive precautions. Even small villages would usually have a church or granary that was made out of brick or stone and reinforced for use as a refuge in the event of a raid. Some also had nearby hideouts in the forest or in caves they could run to of course, but that was risky because trouble could arrive on horseback pretty quickly in most places.

Certainly every medieval town I ever heard of had a militia of some kind. I know there is a lot of very fraught politics around the very concept these days but historically, at least in the middle ages, it was pretty universal. Even convents and monasteries had arms.

Markets would take place in towns, including very small towns, or in abbeys or castles controlled by lords. There was also such a thing as a 'market village' which had a special hybrid status. Normally though a local town was where villagers from a few days ride around would gather say once a week or twice a month to buy and sell whatever they needed. In the scenario you described the distinction on availability of resources would be limited by frequency of markets, and by the availability of a substantial town. A very small town might be specialized for one industry (butchering local cattle for example) whereas a medium or larger-sized town could be either oriented toward manufacturing (particularly if far inland) or oriented toward trade (if near the coasts) or a mixture of both (places in between, especially on big waterways)

However, if you are specifically thinking of a need to make stuff because you can't buy, because trade is interrupted or something, the scenario with the journeyman should work. Medieval artisans were very good at putting things together in a hurry - a few master artisans could supervise a mob of peasants to build a castle in a few weeks for example. So I don't doubt, assuming you had people with expertise, and access to say, the right kind of clay to make fire proof bricks, a fast moving stream or a windy hill where you could generate power, there is no reason why you couldn't make a large forge and setup a trip hammer and so on. They also had ways of powering these things with oxen and so on in a pinch, though water wheel was the most common method by far.


You really do need the trip hammer because otherwise it's just too much work to crank out weapons and armor. and you need a mechanically augmented (i.e. 'Catalan') forge to keep the forge hot. You also need access to a lot of fuel, somebodies forest is going to get cut down to make charcoal, probably, unless you have coal or some other fuel source. This often caused problems by the way for example in England where metal making industries sprang up in large forests, only to be shut down again as they started using up too much lumber.

G

[PhoenixPhyre]

One other comment because I didn't really address this -

I don't know about your game setting obviously but in the medieval world there really wasn't anywhere I know of that people felt so safe that they didn't stockpile arms for defense. And also take fairly elaborate defensive precautions. Even small villages would usually have a church or granary that was made out of brick or stone and reinforced for use as a refuge in the event of a raid. Some also had nearby hideouts in the forest or in caves they could run to of course, but that was risky because trouble could arrive on horseback pretty quickly in most places.

Certainly every medieval town I ever heard of had a militia of some kind. I know there is a lot of very fraught politics around the very concept these days but historically, at least in the middle ages, it was pretty universal. Even convents and monasteries had arms.

Markets would take place in towns, including very small towns, or in abbeys or castles controlled by lords. There was also such a thing as a 'market village' which had a special hybrid status. Normally though a local town was where villagers from a few days ride around would gather say once a week or twice a month to buy and sell whatever they needed. In the scenario you described the distinction on availability of resources would be limited by frequency of markets, and by the availability of a substantial town. A very small town might be specialized for one industry (butchering local cattle for example) whereas a medium or larger-sized town could be either oriented toward manufacturing (particularly if far inland) or oriented toward trade (if near the coasts) or a mixture of both (places in between, especially on big waterways)

However, if you are specifically thinking of a need to make stuff because you can't buy, because trade is interrupted or something, the scenario with the journeyman should work. Medieval artisans were very good at putting things together in a hurry - a few master artisans could supervise a mob of peasants to build a castle in a few weeks for example. So I don't doubt, assuming you had people with expertise, and access to say, the right kind of clay to make fire proof bricks, a fast moving stream or a windy hill where you could generate power, there is no reason why you couldn't make a large forge and setup a trip hammer and so on. They also had ways of powering these things with oxen and so on in a pinch, though water wheel was the most common method by far.


You really do need the trip hammer because otherwise it's just too much work to crank out weapons and armor. and you need a mechanically augmented (i.e. 'Catalan') forge to keep the forge hot. You also need access to a lot of fuel, somebodies forest is going to get cut down to make charcoal, probably, unless you have coal or some other fuel source. This often caused problems by the way for example in England where metal making industries sprang up in large forests, only to be shut down again as they started using up too much lumber.

G

I'm assuming that the major areas use coal (or the equivalent), as the ones with the stranglehold over metalwork are dwarves with access to and expertise using large quantities of such things. The tech generally is kinda schizo, as it's the aftermath of a massive cataclysm. They had moderate magitech, but lost 99% of it. Since the dwarves are staunch traditionalists (to the point of deeming too many changes as heresy with fatal consequences), they kept a bunch of their tech (that didn't depend on supply chains or tons of intermediate steps) but have been going on rote memorization (instead of trying to innovate). That's changing, but...

That brings up a good point. I hadn't thought about things like wind/water power. I'll have to consider how those fit in. I assume that decent gearing (enough to use a water wheel) can be made out of wood, as casting something that big seems difficult to do on the fly.

[rrgg]

@Gallogliach

I think you're exaggerating a bit here. The quality of early modern soldiers could vary quite a bit, but in general I don't really think that they were worse than medieval soldiers. It's just that they tended to be more familiar with the use of muskets, pikes, and pistols than bows or lances. Even during the 17th century the pike remained a fairly high-status weapon and the pikemen themselves continued to be more often comprised of a company's gentlemen or veterans than raw recruits.

The prevalence of skirmishing, raiding, ambushes etc. never really went away during early modern wars. But I think the main idea behind the new "scientific" approach to warfare was to figure out how to make the outcome more consistent. Some medieval knights certainly did take their training very seriously, study historical battles, and converse with experienced soldiers or may have even been a veteran themselves. But many of them definitely didn't, and as a result just because someone owned weapons was not a guarantee that they knew how to use them.

There's also the fact that even if a man was an expert hunter or an expert marksman with a musket, there was no guarantee that they would be able to shoot nearly as accurately when people were shooting back at them, and especially not when surrounded by thousands of other musketeers all shooting at the same time. In battles, skill itself typically didn't really count for much unless you had the bravery and discipline to remain calm under extreme pressure, or at least appear calm under pressure.

[Galloglaich]

@Gallogliach

I think you're exaggerating a bit here. The quality of early modern soldiers could vary quite a bit, but in general I don't really think that they were worse than medieval soldiers. It's just that they tended to be more familiar with the use of muskets, pikes, and pistols than bows or lances. Even during the 17th century the pike remained a fairly high-status weapon and the pikemen themselves continued to be more often comprised of a company's gentlemen or veterans than raw recruits.

They may have had high status, but I think I'm on firm ground when i say that it was far more common for pikemen to be limited to a 'static' role in the 17th Century whereas in the 15th (and through at least the middle of the 16th) I can cite numerous occasions when they played a highly dynamic role, the Swiss in particular of course were famous for their sudden decisions and decisive attacks, but there are many others.

There is also evidence that medieval gunners, and those again in the early to mid 16th Century, were expected to do a little more with their weapons, even though these were typically simpler and less powerful weapons, than later 'regular' musketeers were in the 17th.

I am not making the argument that all fighters in the 1630's were less capable in the 1430's, there were extraordinarily skilled warriors in the 17th Century, but certainly for some troop types it's quite clear that on average, the level of capability for independent action, the morale, and the overall flexibility had declined, while simultaneously these troops had become easier to control for a princely commander and thanks to improved weaponry, I cannot say for sure that they would be less effective. I suspect it would depend on the type of fight.

It would be really interesting to pit say, a mixed force of 10,000 from Venice, Bern or Bohemia circa 1480 vs. 10,000 soldiers from say the army of Louis XIV in 1680. I wonder which side would win. The French army would have better guns, the earlier army much better (and more ubiquitous) armor and every other kind of weapon.

The prevalence of skirmishing, raiding, ambushes etc. never really went away during early modern wars. But I think the main idea behind the new "scientific" approach to warfare was to figure out how to make the outcome more consistent. Some medieval knights certainly did take their training very seriously, study historical battles, and converse with experienced soldiers or may have even been a veteran themselves. But many of them definitely didn't, and as a result just because someone owned weapons was not a guarantee that they knew how to use them.

This is absolutely true - Feudal musters were often notoriously unreliable. In Poland the general rule of thumb was that nobles living near the border areas tended to be good fighters but the ones in peaceful areas not so much. This led to the Polish king reorganizing the army along more professional lines in the middle of the 13 Years War.

But the Late Medieval war machine didn't depend on a feudal levy the way an army did in say, the 13th Century. It's far more complex. A little too much to get into here in a lot of detail, but the complex mixture of mercenaries, militia, and proven noble cavalry that combined arms forces such as ultimately won the 13 Years War proved to be pretty formidable. It's basically why we are communicating in English right now instead of Turkish.

There's also the fact that even if a man was an expert hunter or an expert marksman with a musket, there was no guarantee that they would be able to shoot nearly as accurately when people were shooting back at them, and especially not when surrounded by thousands of other musketeers all shooting at the same time. In battles, skill itself typically didn't really count for much unless you had the bravery and discipline to remain calm under extreme pressure, or at least appear calm under pressure.

yes of course. But they did more than individual training in the middle ages.

Warfare changed and the armies of the 17th Century were what worked for the Absolute Monarchs of that era. For the most part, it was the best they could come up with. Observing the 80 Years War perhaps gives us a hint of what a desperate struggle between late medieval vs. Early Modern armies might look like. In spite of all the silver in Peru and the wealth of the Philippines, ultimately the Spanish lost control of what we call today the Netherlands, but they did retain the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium etc.) and it took 80 years for the Dutch to break free.

The advent of military "Science" may or may not represent a steady march from primitive to more sophisticated, I think it's more accurate to say it was a system which worked for the political world it was part of - the Musketeers of Louis XIV were very much his musketeers, and could be counted on to do what they were told in a way that a King in the 15th Century could never have dreamed of. But that army in the 15th Century may have proven more tricky to deal with and had more 'weapons' in it's arsenal of a less obvious nature.

But not necessarily. It's a very general trend I'm talking about. There were excellent soldiers in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries as well. In all eras. It's just the nature of warfare that changed. I'm just suggesting that change didn't (and doesn't) automatically improvement. Sometimes it's just that - change. Different but not necessarily better.

G

[Mendicant]

How was mining a medieval wall actually conducted, and with what sorts of tools? I understand the basic idea, but the specifics of what pre-gunpowder engineers were capable of are well out of my wheelhouse. Were they working through bedrock, or primarily digging through clay and soil and only encountering stone when they hit the wall's foundations?

I'm designing an adventure location and assuming a wall or tower on top of a rocky cliff would be extremely hard or impossible to mine. (Thus making a secret escape tunnel that opens sort of midway down the cliff less of a liability.) Is that a fair assumption to make?

[Max_Killjoy]

How was mining a medieval wall actually conducted, and with what sorts of tools? I understand the basic idea, but the specifics of what pre-gunpowder engineers were capable of are well out of my wheelhouse. Were they working through bedrock, or primarily digging through clay and soil and only encountering stone when they hit the wall's foundations?

I'm designing an adventure location and assuming a wall or tower on top of a rocky cliff would be extremely hard or impossible to mine. (Thus making a secret escape tunnel that opens sort of midway down the cliff less of a liability.) Is that a fair assumption to make?

Whether a wall could be undermined, and how easily if it could, does have a lot to do with what the wall is built on, etc. A wall built directly on rock, or at the top of a steep natural embankment that will hold it, is going to be functionally impossible to mine I'd think. For a wall built on softer material, it would likely depend a great deal on how far down the foundation goes and what's directly in front of the wall.

A castle or wall at the top of a rock cliff, where the defenders can see you down there? I'd forget mining it and look for another approach.

[wolflance]

You sure? I could swear I got more confused the more I wrote.
The problem largely being that what is true in one par tmay not be true in another.

Well, clearer in the sense that I now understood "the training wasn't very good", by later era standard, and perhaps by contemporary and even earlier (15th century Swiss/Bohemian) standard.

Although I can also see a constant dynamic strive for improvement during this era.

[Galloglaich]

Whether a wall could be undermined, and how easily if it could, does have a lot to do with what the wall is built on, etc. A wall built directly on rock, or at the top of a steep natural embankment that will hold it, is going to be functionally impossible to mine I'd think. For a wall built on softer material, it would likely depend a great deal on how far down the foundation goes and what's directly in front of the wall.

A castle or wall at the top of a rock cliff, where the defenders can see you down there? I'd forget mining it and look for another approach.

Basically true I agree - though it depends on the rock it's built on. The famous and extremely impressive Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers in Syria was defeated in short order by an Arab army in the 13th Century, by tunneling through the bedrock of the hill it was built on, which turned out to be soft unfortunately for the Hospitalers.

When the Krak was built on the site of an existing Kurdish fort in 1170, it was state of the art - Saladin gave up on besieging it when he approached with his army in 1188. By the time Baibers attacked it a century after it was built - in 1271 - siege warfare had advanced sufficiently that the weakness of the castle (especially defended by a small garrison) became more obvious and led to it's fairly rapid surrender.


This 14th Century Lithuanian castle for example is built on a lake


This 14th Century one in Bohemia was built on very hard stone, and defended with cannon!

By the 14th and 15th Centuries any castle meant to be permanent (many were not) would be built on challenging ground. Many in fact were built in lakes, in swamps or on islands in rivers, which made mining operations virtually impossible. Failing that a serious castle would be put on hard bedrock like granite if possible.



Mining itself was done by digging, as much as could be dug, lighting a big fire, exiting from the tunnel or hole, then coming back when the fire was out and fitting chisels into the resuilting cracks and hammering away. Rinse and repeat, basically it was that simple. It did help to have experienced miners to do it, which armies started intentionally bringing with them (this was one of the advantages of having an army that had skilled artisans in it). As the tunnel progressed it would be shored up, and once it was actually under a wall or a tower (which could take weeks or even months) they would fill the whole thing with flammable material and burn it, the supports would burn and the whole thing would collapse, bringing down part of the fort.

They did have gunpowder, or it's highly flammable antecedents, and were using it in siege warfare in the middle East by the 1230's or 1240's, in Europe as early as the 1260's and in China going back to the 9th Century. But gunpowder was pretty expensive in the middle ages, too expensive to use to make big bombs inside tunnels probably at least until the mid 15th Century.



Once you have large quantities of high explosives mining gets very nasty indeed. This same basic mining method was used for example at the Somme in 1916 to plant massive explosive charges under a German fortified position

Counter-tunneling operations could be very effective and sneaky too of course. Tunnels would be flooded, counter tunnels would be dug to trap and attack the tunnelers - resulting in brutal fights down in the dark. Tunnels were burned by the besieged - filled with naptha and lit on fire. The Romans routinely used what amounted to chemical warfare, by burning noxious substances and using bellows etc. to fan them into tunnels to kill enemy soldiers. During the 16th Century siege of Malta, diggers were detected in the basement of one of the forts. The besieged Hospitaliers brought up a huge cannon and broke a hole through the wall, and blasted the tunneling party with it. On another occasion they flooded a tunnel with waste from a cesspit then threw flaming 'hoops' made of willow soaked in linseed oil and sprinkled with saltpeter on to the emerging tunnel party.

Siege warfare is wacky as hell.

G

[Haighus]

Chalk in particular seems to be a poor rock to build castles on- it is hard enough to easily support tunnels, but soft enough to dig through. Dover still has an example of a counter-mine dug to block an undermining attempt (Dover is on chalk bedrock). Chateau Gaillard was captured by Phillip II in part by the weakness of chalk to undermining.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I never really considered that, but that's a good reason to favor a moat over a hill.

[Deepbluediver]

Well, as someone who is very much in the process of discovering tastes and preferences to buy his first sparring/re-enactment sword somewhere this year I have been told, expressly and multiple times in fact, that a good sword is whatever feels as a good sword at the time.

Thank you for all the feedback- I'll have to find some space and test out some of those moves. I have enough room in my apartment to stand still with it in hand, but with a sword this size I don't think I want to try swinging it around indoors much. That's how I lose my security deposit right-quick.

[Galloglaich]

I never really considered that, but that's a good reason to favor a moat over a hill.

These paintings of Zurich help illustrate that point:


Map of Zurich by Braun and Hogenburg circa 1580




Paintings of Zurich (detail) from a triptych by Hans Leu circa 1490

This is why rivers, and islands on rivers, made for ideal settlements:

• Water for partial protection from sieges (along with walls and guns)
• water for power (water wheels)
• water for transportation of goods

G

[Lvl 2 Expert]

This is why rivers, and islands on rivers, made for ideal settlements:

• Water for partial protection from sieges (along with walls and guns)
• water for power (water wheels)
• water for transportation of goods

O yeah, rivers for transportation, sure. I just always figured the best castles sit on the highest hill within charging distance of the river, like in Budapest or Prague, and that moat-castles like we have in the Netherlands (yes, my location says something different, short story) are a second best option for lack of any hills. A moat slows an incoming enemy like a hill does, but it doesn't provide extra range or speed for your own troops. But the mining thing turns that upside down. A nice mixed sand/rock hill a few dozen meters high and several acres in surface area provides some good places for the enemy to start digging just outside of quick strike range, while in peat lands with a several meters deep moat in the most crucial part of the approach, yeah, good luck. Even if you manage to mostly drain the moat by cutting an exit any tunneling you'll do sits well below ground water level, in an already unstable terrain. Too bad peet is such a lousy type of ground to build castles on, or it would be a great type of ground to build castles on.

[Mike_G]

O yeah, rivers for transportation, sure. I just always figured the best castles sit on the highest hill within charging distance of the river, like in Budapest or Prague, and that moat-castles like we have in the Netherlands (yes, my location says something different, short story) are a second best option for lack of any hills. A moat slows an incoming enemy like a hill does, but it doesn't provide extra range or speed for your own troops. But the mining thing turns that upside down. A nice mixed sand/rock hill a few dozen meters high and several acres in surface area provides some good places for the enemy to start digging just outside of quick strike range, while in peat lands with a several meters deep moat in the most crucial part of the approach, yeah, good luck. Even if you manage to mostly drain the moat by cutting an exit any tunneling you'll do sits well below ground water level, in an already unstable terrain. To bad peet is such a lousy type of ground to build castles on, or it would be a great type of ground to build castles on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNaXdLWt17A

[Kiero]

As a side note, hunting was a very important activity for socialization. I remember reading a text in which the writer explained his son how he had become a friend of the King of Naples during a hunt. The King had separated himself from the main group, and the writer just happened to be there when a bear came up to him. That's a big bonding experience.

This was true in antiquity too. The aristocracy of many societies considered hunting a noble endeavour (and part of training for war); for Makedonian aristocrats, a boy's right of passage into manhood required him to kill a boar on the hunt.