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

[Galloglaich]

Uh, one-handed lances are not difficult to parry. There are plenty of accounts from the Napoleonic wars of unarmed horsemen parrying them. As mentioned, you can't feint with them, so unless you're coming up on someone distracted, they have a good chance of turning the point.

Seemingly in the medieval world too. Though I think it's assumed that it's just a lot safer to parry it with a shield if possible



G

[Vinyadan]

When I see such an image, all I can think is, "why couldn't they make Chivalry: Medieval Warfare a better game?"

[rrgg]

In fact the Dutch reforms and the Swedish brigading system derived from it was in fact a much more manouvre friendly system for individual units than any medieval system. That is the basic idea they worked to after all. To copy the Roman manipular system to weigh up their comparative troop deficiencies compared to massive Spanish tercios. They also wanted to more effectively bring firepower to bear. The Spanish Tercios were more "wasteful" of their shot than later developments which increased firepower downrange by bringing fewer troops to fire more often.

The older Spanish Tercios were in that sense much closer to the medieval way of fighting in more massive bodies. The Swiss may have been mroe dynamic but they were also utterly defeated by increased firepower?

Yeah, I would disagree with you here. The Spanish "tercios" were initially developed from swiss and landsknect tactics and organization at the beginning of the 16th century (literally, as in landsknecht mercenaries were paid to take up residence in Spain and help create the first tercios) and designed to be very flexible. The term "tercio" was primarily an administrative unit, equivalent to the Landsknecht regiment, and in a similar fashion the tercio could be deployed as either as a single large square, some number of smaller squares, or even separate into individual companies. As the number of firearms in 16th century armies increased, the bulk of the shot were initially divided into two "wings", then four, and at times even more subdivisions than that in order to keep the arquebusiers flexible and allow the tercio to deploy all its firepower in any one direction as needed.

If anything, the tactics implemented by Maurice of Nassau and later Gustavus Adolphus in many ways greatly decreased the amount of firepower available compared to the the mid 1500s tercios. By the time of Maurice's reforms though, commanders and military theorists were no longer very interested in maximizing the amount of firepower deployed first place.

I'd also have to agree with Galloglaich regarding the Swiss. At best perhaps you could argue that defeats like Bicocca started to cool their aggressiveness a bit. But the Swiss in the fifteenth century frequently had no problem defeating armies with far more handgunners and cannons than they had and the pike formations they helped develop remained continued to play an essential role well into the 1600s. The decline of the pike was was a very gradual process and in no way a liner one. In 1511 for example, according to F L Taylor the Swiss army which left for Milan the ratio of firearms was suddenly increased to 1 arquebus for every 4 soldiers. It seems that this was found unnecessary however and later swiss armies returned to fielding a much lower number of firearms.

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@Galloglaich

Knyght Errant put out a pretty good video recently which I think sums up my concerns pretty well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAcdn7HQFDY

I agree that medieval armies were way better than they were generally given credit for, but I think you're perhaps going to far in the other direction while hating on 17th century soldiers in the process.

As an example of 17th century infantry performing rapid maneuvers in combat yeah there's the Battle of Brietenfeld. But even Gustav more often tended to deploy his Swedish infantry fairly defensively with multiple layers of interlocking reserves. So do you even go about comparing the overall "quality" of soldiers from two periods where the experience of combat and what was required of them was so different?

If you replaced the veteran spanish tercios at Rocroi with Swiss pikemen from the battle of Nancy would they still have remained steadfast for so long under a hail of cannon, musket, and pistol fire even with all of their instincts screaming "Why are we just standing here? This is suicide! We need to either attack or run away Now!"?

Sure they may have been more eager to charge than most, but that isn't what was needed from 17th century pikemen anymore.

. . . and though such a squadron doth not charge without time, nor order, moued therevnto by being ill able to resiste their blowes, & esteeming it for lesse inconuenience to mingle themselues amongst those which giue them, yet commeth it ordinarily to be done with great disaduantage: and notwithstanding that it hath sometimes fallen out to be no impediment at all to the gayning of the victorie, yet grew it more by chaunce, then reason, through the rashnes of the soldiors, & not wise∣dome of the general: who is to seeke to forbeare it, and like∣wise not to fight with men tyred, vnable to carrie them with speede vnto it, which waxe breathles, the pikes not being able then to be held with strength, nor the harquebuserie to shoote with assurance, nor the cauallery to moue with force and dexteritie, and all for want of breath.

Even when it comes to using specific battles as examples, a great success for one side tends to mean a major failure on the other. I'm not sure you can say much about the quality of late medieval soldiers as a whole by giving examples where one group of late medieval soldiers did really well and another group of late medieval soldiers did really poorly.

Even going back to the subject of armor. While the Swiss certainly wore quite a lot of armor, especially the front rankers, they certainly weren't able to afford as much protection as most knights or many of the better-funded armies they squared off against. And while the Swiss were well practiced from their communal drills and war games, I'm pretty sure they didn't spend as much time training in extremely heavy jousting armor as actual knights did. Yet it was the Swiss peasants who frequently won the fight due to their skill, bravery, and rapid maneuvers.

Wearing armor a lot and strenuous exercise can help a person become accustomed to the weight, but it doesn't eliminate the effects completely and as a result it was still always a matter of weighing advantages vs disadvantages. Interestingly, the 15th century book on jousting I linked earlier does bring this up on page 35: "And if I have mentioned the clothes I can also address the armor; if the horsemen carry light armor, they can move faster in everything they have to do and therefore they will feel like stronger horsemen. there are some who say that that option is a disadvantage when they are not riding, but I say that being heavy in the saddle causes them to move slowly and it is much worse if they get themselves unbalanced. Therefore the disadvantage is greater than the advantage. Nevertheless, I agree that heavier armor is advantageous for personal defense."

[rrgg]

https://archive.org/stream/77154910T...p/search/shoot

And of course, King Dom later goes on to mention how important it is to constantly practice in whatever armor your are planning to wear into battle and stresses the importance of riding skill above all else, even when it comes to battle.

Time for another controversial opinion: With that in mind I think that the most skilled knights in medieval europe on good horses would have no problem chasing down the vast majority of mongol horse archers, even in good armor.

[wolflance]

Uh, one-handed lances are not difficult to parry. There are plenty of accounts from the Napoleonic wars of unarmed horsemen parrying them. As mentioned, you can't feint with them, so unless you're coming up on someone distracted, they have a good chance of turning the point.

Wow, unarmed lance parry sounds even more impressive than Hollywood unarmed blade block!.

Seemingly in the medieval world too. Though I think it's assumed that it's just a lot safer to parry it with a shield if possible



G

So to sum up the answers of one of my initial questions: People did attempt to parry couched lance charge, if not with a shield, then with whatever they had in hands at the moment.

(Wait, the crossbow dude actually shot a bolt into the chest of the knight while parrying, impressive!)

Time for another controversial opinion: With that in mind I think that the most skilled knights in medieval europe on good horses would have no problem chasing down the vast majority of mongol horse archers, even in good armor.

It is certainly possible, but IMO incredibly unlikely. By his weapon's nature a knight usually attack forward, while a horse archer usually attack his (right or left) sides. This means the horse archer will naturally move away from the knight's line of attack ("running circles") simply by attacking.

That is, unless a cavalry lance charge can steer/readjust direction mid-trot/gallop (or "homing lance charge" so to speak). Given my general lack of knowledge on couched charge, I can’t really say it can’t.

If said knight threw away his lance and intended to hack the horse archer to pieces with his sword/mace/axe/pick/flail, chance are he would be more likely to succeed in catching up with the horse archer.

[Brother Oni]

Time for another controversial opinion: With that in mind I think that the most skilled knights in medieval europe on good horses would have no problem chasing down the vast majority of mongol horse archers, even in good armor.

Accounts of the Battle of Legnica 1241 seem to disagree with you, where the standard Mongol horse archer feigned retreat managed to separate the Polish/Moravian/Templar knights from their infantry forces, straight into an ambush by Mongol heavy cavalry with flanking attacks by Mongol light cavalry.

Looking at the rest of the listed battles of the First and Second invasions, it didn't go very well for the Western forces at all, although they learnt their lesson by the Third invasion and defeated the Golden Horde for lighter casualties.

[Kiero]

Wow, unarmed lance parry sounds even more impressive than Hollywood unarmed blade block!.

So to sum up the answers of one of my initial questions: People did attempt to parry couched lance charge, if not with a shield, then with whatever they had in hands at the moment.

(Wait, the crossbow dude actually shot a bolt into the chest of the knight while parrying, impressive!)

General Beresford's unarmed disarm of a Polish lancer at Albuera made it into artwork:

[Deepbluediver]

Time for another controversial opinion: With that in mind I think that the most skilled knights in medieval europe on good horses would have no problem chasing down the vast majority of mongol horse archers, even in good armor.

According to Wikipedia, the use of heavy cavalry was fairly successful tactic against the mongols, at least compared to light cavalry and melee (fighting on foot) combat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol...gainst_Mongols

Given that the mongols didn't go in for sieges that much the best tactic might have been to find a heavily-armored fortress and just wait them out, but this wasn't always an option.

Accounts of the Battle of Legnica 1241 seem to disagree with you, where the standard Mongol horse archer feigned retreat managed to separate the Polish/Moravian/Templar knights from their infantry forces, straight into an ambush by Mongol heavy cavalry with flanking attacks by Mongol light cavalry.

Reading the description it sounds like the main problem for the knights was that they allowed themselves to get cut-off, outnumbered, and individually picked apart. Good tactics on that part of the mongols, certainly, but if that's what it took for them to defeat European heavy cavalry, then it seems like under more equal circumstances the knights would have held the advantage.

So could the European heavy cavalry ride down the mongols? Yes, it sounds like they could.
Was it a good idea for them to do so? No, almost definitely not.

[Galloglaich]

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@Galloglaich

Knyght Errant put out a pretty good video recently which I think sums up my concerns pretty well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAcdn7HQFDY

It's a valid point he's making in theory, but you do have to walk a very fine line and with all due respect to this guy, it's not enough to just be up on the latest consensus, you have o actually know something about the period, know some of the primary sources etc. before you can nail down what is real and what is another Trope.

To wit - his first example about leather armor isn't very good. The two images he showed were armor incorporating iron pieces (on the left) and tournament armor (on the right).

As far as I'm aware (and I'm ready to be proven otherwise) there is no actual example of a panoply of leather armor in use in Europe by Latinized armies or individual warriors the middle ages for war. I know of at least two partial panoplies which were identified in Italy as used for tournament (i.e., warlike games with blunt weapons or even 'whalebone'). There are certainly many examples of leather and other animal hide armor panoplies used in Central Asia, there is European armor which incorporates leather for example in some types of brigandine (I have seen a couple of 15th Century examples from Spain with my own eyes) or as stiffeners for mail. Maybe (possible) individual pieces of limb armor but I have yet to see clear evidence even of that (clear evidence that they were armor for war).

Of course it is possible to 'correct' too far in the other direction, and you and a couple of others have repeatedly accused me of doing so in this thread, but I'm waiting to see substantial evidence that anything I've been saying is off. I don't think Late Medieval warriors were the 'best evuh' but I do think the general trend of the emerging data is toward further rehabilitation rather than the opposite, and I think most of our current tropes are just wrong, the reality may be more at right (or oblique) angles to it than it's exact opposite in the long run, but it doesn't like like we have oversold it yet.

I agree that medieval armies were way better than they were generally given credit for, but I think you're perhaps going to far in the other direction while hating on 17th century soldiers in the process.

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So do you even go about comparing the overall "quality" of soldiers from two periods where the experience of combat and what was required of them was so different?

...

I'm not sure you can say much about the quality of late medieval soldiers as a whole by giving examples where one group of late medieval soldiers did really well and another group of late medieval soldiers did really poorly.

I was making a very specific comparison, that of late medieval infantry with 17th Century infantry. Making the point that while it was routine for late medieval infantry to perform rapid and complex maneuvers in the field, under fire, while taking casualties and so on, this became far less the case in the 17th Century. So yes I think I can make my case exactly the way I did do so. I also don't think it was a failure of all the other forces necessarily - especially since there were so many from so many different quarters- so much as their less organic composition.

Incidentally, this was true not only for the Swiss. I could easily provide a similar list of definitive examples about Czech infantry across the 15th Century, and with a little more effort (since it's a bit more scattered) about German urban infantry in the same period.

I was citing this example (comparing the relative capabilities of infantry in the two periods) to support my broader point about the differences between how late medieval armies differed from 17th Century armies. But I admit how that translates into relative merits of quality is harder to definitively prove - as you and others have pointed out we don't have a time machine. We can only examine specific data markers. I do think you could make a similar analysis with handgun accuracy but I don't have the time to plunge into that right now. Cavalry would be trickier because 17th Century cavalry had some tools at their disposal (i.e. pistols) that medieval cavalry didn't, and also the best 17th Century cavalry developed some very sophisticated tactics.

Sure they may have been more eager to charge than most, but that isn't what was needed from 17th century pikemen anymore.

If you read the examples I cited, it's far more involved than just eagerness to charge. It's the ability to make nearly instantaneous decisions on the battlefield to split forces, perform flanking maneuvers, coordinate with allies and so on. A much greater dynamism in other words, which I think it would be hard to argue simply wasn't "needed" by 17th Century armies since it certainly was needed and exploited again in later eras.

Even going back to the subject of armor. While the Swiss certainly wore quite a lot of armor, especially the front rankers, they certainly weren't able to afford as much protection as most knights or many of the better-funded armies they squared off against.

That most certainly isn't true. For one thing, their repeated large scale victories gave them all the armor they could possibly want. Their success as mercenaries also put a lot of money into their hands, and of course, contrary to the persistent trope - good quality armor wasn't so expensive that only nobles could afford it. Quite to the contrary, nobles were decorating their armor with gold leaf and silver etchings precisely to make it stand out from armor used by commoners, because the quality (tempered steel) armor was widely available.

And while the Swiss were well practiced from their communal drills and war games, I'm pretty sure they didn't spend as much time training in extremely heavy jousting armor as actual knights did. Yet it was the Swiss peasants who frequently won the fight due to their skill, bravery, and rapid maneuvers.

A lot of incorrect assumptions here again.

• Jousting armor, which was indeed heavier, wasn't used on the battlefield.
• Battlefield armor in the 15th Century, particularly and specifically armor used in German speaking areas ('Gothic' harness etc.) was not that heavy. An entire panoply could be ~ 40 lbs
• Infantry didn't wear entire panoplies anyway, typically just 'half armor' i.e. with no lower-leg protection.
• Swiss infantry in the 15th Century were actually mostly burghers. Bern and Zurich, and to a lesser extent smaller cities like Lucerne, Zug, and Solothurn and so on, were the main contributors of forces and by far the most aggressive military actors in the Confederacy. They did also have peasants particularly from the forest cantons
• There is very little evidence they did pike drill, what little we have seen seems to have been the burghers in Bern training their peasants to get them up to speed.

Here is another list which hopefully will help illustrate my point. The difference between the Late medieval (say 1420-1520) armies vs. those of the 30 Years War were as follows:

• Late medieval armies were part of organic living traditions of warfare, especially from free Estates including the gentry and lower nobility, the burghers from Free Cities and City States, and peasants from free clans.
• Early Modern armies, by contrast, were increasingly made up of people from lower-status estates who were systematically trained to emulate systems worked out in the earlier periods. As a specific example, Landsknechts were Swabian peasants (mostly) trained by Swiss Reislaufer veterans in a kind of imitation of the Swiss system. Spanish tercios were Spanish peasants (I think a lot from poorer districts like Estremadura etc. trained by Landsknecht veterans in an imitation of the Landsknecht system. With each iteration the systems got a bit simpler, but it was also more predictable and easier to control.
• Medieval armies generally had better equipment, at least better armor. Notably 15th Century was often made of steel and therefore could be made much lighter than 17th Century armor which was usually made of wrought iron and much heavier (a single breast plate could weigh as much as 60 lbs).
• Nevertheless we know from the recent Nova experiment that the relatively thin steel armor could be just as or more effective - capable of even stopping a musket ball at short range.
• Early Modern armies were easier to control, cost less and were much more loyal to their rulers, and therefore easier to keep as standing armies.
• Late Medieval armies by contrast were difficult to control and almost always for a limited duration.

My belief is that the differences had to do less with a steadily evolving progression of military science than with the changing socio-political-economic realities mostly related to the opening up of the Atlantic and Pacific and to the Wars of Religion.

These different kinds of armies in the different eras had different capabilities to be sure. In some ways the Early Modern armies were more capable probably, in others I think less.

G

[rrgg]

It is certainly possible, but IMO incredibly unlikely. By his weapon's nature a knight usually attack forward, while a horse archer usually attack his (right or left) sides. This means the horse archer will naturally move away from the knight's line of attack ("running circles") simply by attacking.

That is, unless a cavalry lance charge can steer/readjust direction mid-trot/gallop (or "homing lance charge" so to speak). Given my general lack of knowledge on couched charge, I can’t really say it can’t.

If said knight threw away his lance and intended to hack the horse archer to pieces with his sword/mace/axe/pick/flail, chance are he would be more likely to succeed in catching up with the horse archer.

Yeah, you'd think that it would be better to toss away the lance and continue on with just a sword for better speed. The lance seems to have required a lot of strength and skill to use effectively, the extra size and weight made it much more difficult to stay balanced on the horse and could even require the rider to pay close attention to the wind so that it doesn't drag him to the ground. Additionally a couched lance relied almost entirely on the horse's speed to deal damage. Especially compared to a pistol, though a bow would be closer to the other end of the spectrum as well.

In the late 16th century, complaints that the weapon made horsemen slower or less maneuverable tended to be the main arguments against continuing the use of lancers. But despite europeans having known about the use of recurve bows and crossbows from horseback the lance seems to have stuck around as the primary light cavalry weapon for a really long time. During the HYW many knights had a lighter weapon called a lancegay which they could carry instead of the full lance during a skirmish or when traveling alone, but during the 15th century it seems that even many light cavalry started to prefer using the full-sized lance.

Talhoffer's sections involving mounted crossbowmen were in part instructions for using either a crossbow or a lance and it seems that he perhaps thought this sort of lightly armored encounter was fairly common.



http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Hans_Talh...ounted_Archery

http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Talhoffer...t.290.2%C2%BA)

However as near as I can tell, mounted crossbowmen still generally continued to be seen as a sort of "inferior" light cavalry compared to lancers, even for skirmishing/harassing roles. By the Italian wars, the best light cavalry tended to be from Eastern Europe who had a great deal of experience from constant skirmishing against the turks and tartars. And while many of these horsemen learned to shoot the composite bow as well, they were most prized for their skill with the spear or lance during an ambush or skirmish and their strong lancer tradition. Polish and Cossack cavalry continued to use lances through the napoleonic wars.

Reading the description it sounds like the main problem for the knights was that they allowed themselves to get cut-off, outnumbered, and individually picked apart. Good tactics on that part of the mongols, certainly, but if that's what it took for them to defeat European heavy cavalry, then it seems like under more equal circumstances the knights would have held the advantage.

So could the European heavy cavalry ride down the mongols? Yes, it sounds like they could.
Was it a good idea for them to do so? No, almost definitely not.

That's sort of it though. These battles involving the mongols certainly weren't bloodless victories where the horse archers kited the knights around indefinately shooting them with arrows. The mongols relied on coordination to split various knights apart and draw them into favorable engagements where they could be defeated. A battle doesn't necessarily play out the same as a 1v1 though.

[Martin Greywolf]

Lance parries

Juts because you can sometimes parry a lance doesn't mean it's easy. Manuscripts have all sorts of techniques in them, would you claim that parrying a longsword with a dagger is easy, too?

Original question was about jousting lance against lance charge - parries there are a bad idea, as evidence by no one doing them unless they had no chance with standard charge tactics (way shorter lance as show in Fiore, for example).

Once you don't have a lance, it's still hard to parry it, as hard as a good, fast longsword strike, with the added, very significant, complication of having to move around to not be ran over by the opponent's horse if you happen to be on foot. If you are on horse and not charging at the lancer, then it's doable, almost like a normal parry.

One thing that makes lance parries slightly easier is that you generally don't have to be worried about followup strike. That also means that, unlike a spear, lance can be parried equally well with your hand - it's a thrusting weapon and only gets one thrust, no chopping off your arm after the stab is deflected.

As for the Napoleonic accounts, remember that there is a significant amount of they mention it because it was unusual and caught their attention effect.

Mongols vs knights

What people forget about the mongols is that they had heavy cavalry too, and it was as well armored as the European knights. The problem here isn't so much that the knights couldn't catch horse archers, but thet if they tried, they would be eventually countercharged by mongol heavies and shot in the flanks by the regrouped horse archers.

We know basically nothing about European horses of the time, but if we go forward to 1400s, knights seemed to favor large, impressive sprinter types for their warhorses (well, large for their time, which means 160 cm for the very largest), while mongols had more of an endurance runners. If this were the case earlier, then knights could well catch a portion of mongol light horse, provided they were well rested, but then swiftly fall behind because there is an awful lot of those light horsemen.

Oh, and rocket launchers. Battle of Mohi/Sajo has descriptions of what are probably hwacha-like weapons that sowed panic in Hungarian ranks - if they used these against European horses of the time (completely unused to any sort of gunpowder and explosions), the horses would likely panic. Hell, the knights would have panicked too.

[Kiero]

If you are on horse and not charging at the lancer, then it's doable, almost like a normal parry.

One thing that makes lance parries slightly easier is that you generally don't have to be worried about followup strike. That also means that, unlike a spear, lance can be parried equally well with your hand - it's a thrusting weapon and only gets one thrust, no chopping off your arm after the stab is deflected.

As for the Napoleonic accounts, remember that there is a significant amount of they mention it because it was unusual and caught their attention effect.

Beresford was unarmed, sitting on his horse, when the Pole came charging out of a squall of rain to surprise his staff. He wasn't a young man, but he had presence of mind enough to disarm the lancer. Commentators from the time often said the point was the only dangerous part, get past it and a lancer was harmless. The lancer doesn't want to stop, mobility is part of his defensive array, so he won't get multiple chances at sticking someone if he carries on travelling.

What people forget about the mongols is that they had heavy cavalry too, and it was as well armored as the European knights. The problem here isn't so much that the knights couldn't catch horse archers, but thet if they tried, they would be eventually countercharged by mongol heavies and shot in the flanks by the regrouped horse archers.

Indeed, all the steppe people who preceded them also had lots of very good quality heavy cavalry, as well as clouds of lights. Even if only 10% of their force was heavy (all the significant lords and their retinues), that would still be thousands of them.

[Galloglaich]

On the Mongols,

Their heavy cavalry definitely was not as good as the Latin (or Russian) European heavy cavalry, which is why they typically only deployed it when the other side was wavering. That isn't to say it was bad, but it wasn't as good. But their light cavalry was well trained in dealing with heavy cavalry, because they were familiar with it going back to the Cataphract days, and they had good (and lethally effective) tactics to handle a cavalry charge so long as they had room to maneuver. The Latinized forces only became effective against the Mongols in the open field when when they adapted combined-arms tactics.

However when Latin cavalry could catch mongol cavalry in a close space, they typically prevailed. Almost nobody ever mentions it but the Bohemians under Wenceslaus badly defeated a mongol 'raiding force' of ~10,000 cavalry in the mountain passes near Klodzko in the same big 1241 invasion in which they smashed Polish / German forces at Leignitz and the Hungarians at Sajo river. The Czechs even captured a Mongol commander. This had major implications for the history of the Czechs as their land was never devastated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol...of_Czech_lands

Aside from the defense of Bohemia, the first successes against the mongols were by infantry, in sieges. For example in Croatia and some places in Hungary, and in Krakow in 1287. Crossbows seemed to take a heavy toll, both according to Polish, Hungarian etc. records and in the words of the Mongols themselves. Later, it was again infantry, in the open field using Czech war-wagon tactics with crossbows and guns which had the first notable successes. The Cossacks also used Czech tactics as well as Viking style raids down rivers on boats with great success against the Mongols or Tartars as they came to be known.

Into the 15th Century you started to see two different combined-arms strategies deployed by Latin forces; the Poles and Teutonic Knights and German urban militia from Livonia etc. used a combination of heavy cavalry, supported by light cavalry and mounted crossbowmen, with Czech mercenary infantry (and other Central European infantry) using war-wagons. While in Hungary the emergence of an infantry heavy, gun-and-crossbow heavy type of army, fortified by war wagons, typified by the famous Black Army, but also used by Captains like Jan Jiskra up in Northern Hungary / Slovakia and others, supported by light cavalry and a smaller number of heavy cavalry, became the main antidote to all types of Steppe Nomads especially the Ottomans.

The Cossacks also had a kind of hybrid strategy as mentioned, but while they are famous for their cavalry today, initially they were known for their excellent infantry and use of war -wagons.

At Sajo river incidentally, the Hungarian (etc.) knights were causing problems for the Mongol heavy cavalry who tried to force a large bridge. The Mongol commander lost 30 of his bodyguards before they deployed whatever mysterious gunpowder weapon it was (we don't actually know what it was, just that it was some kind of pyrotechnic or explosive weapon).

On mounted crossbowmens
It's very dangerous to generalize about the medieval world. I can tell you for a fact that mounted crossbowmen were considered extremely important in North-Central Europe from ~ 1400 onward, and more so over time as improved technology like new spanners and ever-improving crossbows themselves made them more lethal.

I don't know as well about every other part of Europe but they were definitely important for the Swiss and in Flanders, and I believe Italy as well. I just saw a bunch of 15th Century depictions of battles in the Uffitzi museum in Florence and they depict as many mounted crossbowmen as the Swiss do (that is to say, a lot). I also saw 15th Century plaques in Lucca commemorating their "Compagnia dei Balestrieri" (crossbow guild) which depicted mounted crossbowmen.

In Prussia and Poland mounted crossbowmen were considered a crucial precaution against mounted archers and also against the Lithuanian style light cavalry (who were armed with light lances and javelins / darts primarily). All lances for the Prussian and Livonian city-states, the Teutonic and Livonian Knights, the Poles and the Bohemians included your main heavy cavalry lancer, more lightly armored light lancers, and at least one mounted crossbowmen. The mounted crossbowmen also seemed to be used independently as scouts. From reading anecdotes their main utility against the Mongols seemed to be in quickly dispatching horses.

I think this, incidentally, is what you are seeing in Talhoffer, the lesser armed elements of the lance fighting each other.

On lances
I think it's hard to parry a lance with anything other than a shield. But there are examples of other weapons being used. The thing to keep in mind is that the heavy lance was never the only type of lance used. Shorter lances were always around, there were always the lighter cavalry types (Spanish Jinetes for example but they had the equivalent everywhere) as well as javelins and darts which never entirely went away.

Latin cavalry didn't only use chargers, they also used coursers and palfreys more suited to kind of hit and run, continuously moving fights. The Teutonic Knights also bred many specific breeds of horses suitable to the colder climates of the far north.

This article is an oldy but goody which covers a lot of that

http://deremilitari.org/2014/03/hors...er-in-prussia/

G

[Martin Greywolf]

On the Mongols,

Their heavy cavalry definitely was not as good as the Latin (or Russian) European heavy cavalry, which is why they typically only deployed it when the other side was wavering. That isn't to say it was bad, but it wasn't as good. But their light cavalry was well trained in dealing with heavy cavalry, because they were familiar with it going back to the Cataphract days, and they had good (and lethally effective) tactics to handle a cavalry charge so long as they had room to maneuver. The Latinized forces only became effective against the Mongols in the open field when when they adapted combined-arms tactics.

This really depends on when we're talking about. At the start at Sajo, they were roughly equal in equipment (mail has better coverage, but lamellar protects the parts without gaps better, especially against lances and arrows), with training being sepaarte but equal deal. Once we start to see coat of plates frequently and move on to mail and plate, the mongols do fall behind. The real question would be numbers, but we have very poor estimates on those in total, let alone proportionally.

What mongols couldn't really do was countercharge couched lance charges, and they tended to loose when they had to face them in closed space - such as, among other places, Sajo itself (Rogerius mentions the terrain as being impassable because of high water and swamps).

Aside from the defense of Bohemia, the first successes against the mongols were by infantry, in sieges. For example in Croatia and some places in Hungary, and in Krakow in 1287. Crossbows seemed to take a heavy toll, both according to Polish, Hungarian etc. records and in the words of the Mongols themselves. Later, it was again infantry, in the open field using Czech war-wagon tactics with crossbows and guns which had the first notable successes. The Cossacks also used Czech tactics as well as Viking style raids down rivers on boats with great success against the Mongols or Tartars as they came to be known.

A lot of these successes, especially Hungarian ones, were due to the fact that mongols were on a raiding campaign, not a campaign of conquest, and therefore avoided besieging well fortified cities - which they could do, and do well. That reinforced a misconception of their siege incompetence in European monarchs, and by the time there were larges clashes with them after 1300, mongol empire largely fell apart.

Genghis Khan era conquering army wouldn't be easily stopped by anything short of a Crusade, or at least French-HRE alliance.

At Sajo river incidentally, the Hungarian (etc.) knights were causing problems for the Mongol heavy cavalry who tried to force a large bridge. The Mongol commander lost 30 of his bodyguards before they deployed whatever mysterious gunpowder weapon it was (we don't actually know what it was, just that it was some kind of pyrotechnic or explosive weapon).

Not quite. There are 2 major sources for Sajo battle, Carmen miserabile and Historia Salonica. Carmen miserabile talks about Koloman's countercharge across the bridge that got to mongol commanders, but it doesn't mention any sort of weapons explicitly, the sole exception being arrows that blot out the sun - well, the actual phrasing is "so many they cast a shade".

Historia Salonica does talk about what is almost certainly a hwacha and naphta bombs, though I can't quote it, I had Sasinek's translations borrowed and returned it by now. The fragments of it I have do mention mongols "throwing fire on Hungarian wagons" - naphta bombs. I swear on my life I read about fire arrows that panicked Hungarian knights in some original source (probably Salonica), but I can't say where it was with certainty.

The hwacha theory was derived from the fire arrows - using them made little sense at the time, since it was after a rain and fire arrows would do zilch, and they wouldn't really panic Hungarian army - these were veterans, and knew what fire arrows were. Hwacha seems to explain this pretty neatly, especially since we know mongols did have access to it from their earlier sieges against Khwarezmians.

The gunpowder weapons turning awayu Koloman's charge though, I don't remember sourced anywhere. Either my memory of Salonica is fuzzy, or it happened by someone mistranslating or accitentaly combining two separate incidents.

[wolflance]

However as near as I can tell, mounted crossbowmen still generally continued to be seen as a sort of "inferior" light cavalry compared to lancers, even for skirmishing/harassing roles. By the Italian wars, the best light cavalry tended to be from Eastern Europe who had a great deal of experience from constant skirmishing against the turks and tartars. And while many of these horsemen learned to shoot the composite bow as well, they were most prized for their skill with the spear or lance during an ambush or skirmish and their strong lancer tradition. Polish and Cossack cavalry continued to use lances through the napoleonic wars.

Mounted crossbowmen (and harquebusier/pistolier) were invaluable for the sedentary army that lacked a horse archery tradition to have a modicum of mounted missile firepower - they were no substitute for the real deal though.

Lance already enjoyed a sort-of prestigious position among the Europeans, so I am not surprised that they found the lance skill of Poles and Cossacks to be most valuable - even if they had a much more diversed skill set.

Plus, for ambush and raid you would prefer to ride close and chop/impale the victim (likely defenseless peasants etc) anyway.

Lance parries
Juts because you can sometimes parry a lance doesn't mean it's easy. Manuscripts have all sorts of techniques in them, would you claim that parrying a longsword with a dagger is easy, too?

Not saying it was easy, just that:

a) IMO it is about as hard as parrying most other weapons.
b) it was likely actually attempted in the past.
c) I'd say parrying longsword with a dagger is actually HARDER than parrying a couched lance with a short spear.

Original question was about jousting lance against lance charge - parries there are a bad idea, as evidence by no one doing them unless they had no chance with standard charge tactics (way shorter lance as show in Fiore, for example).

Someone mentioned Paulus Hector Mair a few replies back, and I go dug around wiktenauer for his treatise - apparently he taught parrying couched lance with another lance, although not in a way I envisioned it (the parrying knight actually grip his lance with two hand).

Mongols vs knights
We know basically nothing about European horses of the time, but if we go forward to 1400s, knights seemed to favor large, impressive sprinter types for their warhorses (well, large for their time, which means 160 cm for the very largest), while mongols had more of an endurance runners. If this were the case earlier, then knights could well catch a portion of mongol light horse, provided they were well rested, but then swiftly fall behind because there is an awful lot of those light horsemen.

That will be the case if both knight and horse archer are moving in the same direction, i.e. if the knight is chasing after the tail of horse archer, then his sprinter-type horse may well have the acceleration advantage to catch up with the Mongol (disregarding encumbrance difference etc)

More often than not however, when the knight was moving toward the Mongol, the Mongol would move out of the way to the knight's left hand side (since that's how he could aim his bow most conveniently), forcing the knight to change direction, so no "sprinting" happened in the first place.

[Brother Oni]

Historia Salonica does talk about what is almost certainly a hwacha and naphta bombs, though I can't quote it, I had Sasinek's translations borrowed and returned it by now.

If I may make a minor point of order and a clarification:

• The hwacha is a 16th Century Korean weapon which is effectively a MRL. The Mongols would have been using a Chinese predecessor, most likely a huo che (火 車) or 'fire cart' which was a cart designed to launch multiple fire arrows.
• I think you're also confusing an incendiary arrow (ie an arrow dipped in pitch or flammable substance and lit before firing) with a fire arrow (huo jian (火箭)), which is an arrow with a gunpowder charge attached.

[Martin Greywolf]

• The hwacha is a 16th Century Korean weapon which is effectively a MRL. The Mongols would have been using a Chinese predecessor, most likely a huo che (火 車) or 'fire cart' which was a cart designed to launch multiple fire arrows.

They are korean and chinese name for the same weapon (hell, hwacha means fire cart in korean, too), with only very small differences, but unlike huo che, almost everyone knows what a hwacha is. If we wanted to be proper and correct, we'd have to scour mongolian sources and find what they called them.

Also, hwacha isn't 16th century, first examples of it were probably imported in early 15th or late 14th, being used on a large scale in anti pirate campaign by 1419.

• I think you're also confusing an incendiary arrow (ie an arrow dipped in pitch or flammable substance and lit before firing) with a fire arrow (huo jian (火箭)), which is an arrow with a gunpowder charge attached.

No, I'm not. Hwacha/huo che are weapons that can fire multiple types of ammunition, from rockets to simple arrows without any additional bits attached, including incendiary arrows. I don't know if the actual explosive charge at the end porjectiles were in use in time for Sajo.

Identifying what they actually used is not easy, since only phrase I can recall referring to it is "fire arrows", and was written by someone who wasn't present at Sajo. The assumption behind the hwacha theory is that using incendiary arrows wasn't that good of an idea and wouldn't panic Hungarians, therefore it was something like a hwacha projectile, which is spewing fire and/or smoke while in flight no matter what payload it actually has.

[wolflance]

They are korean and chinese name for the same weapon (hell, hwacha means fire cart in korean, too), with only very small differences, but unlike huo che, almost everyone knows what a hwacha is. If we wanted to be proper and correct, we'd have to scour mongolian sources and find what they called them.

Also, hwacha isn't 16th century, first examples of it were probably imported in early 15th or late 14th, being used on a large scale in anti pirate campaign by 1419.

It should be noted that early Korean hwacha was a cannon-cart, closer to an ribauldequin than a Katyusha. It shoots arrows instead of rockets (many early guns shoot arrow, European pot-de-fer is one fine example). Korean did not perfect their rocket tech until much later.

I don’t have the faintest idea about what Mongols might had used, but other siege weapons could have achieve hwacha-like result (i.e. showering flaming arrow-like projectiles on the enemy) without resorting to rocketry.

A modified siege crossbow can launch entire bundle of fire arrows in one go to have similar "visual effect" like hwacha. Using whistling arrow may add to the sound effect for the shock factor. (especially when thousands of arrows are being launched).

[Brother Oni]

They are korean and chinese name for the same weapon (hell, hwacha means fire cart in korean, too), with only very small differences, but unlike huo che, almost everyone knows what a hwacha is. If we wanted to be proper and correct, we'd have to scour mongolian sources and find what they called them.

It's highly likely that the Mongolians would have called them by their Chinese name, as they would have employed Chinese sappers and siege engineers.

While I concede that hwacha were developed earlier than I originally thought, the Chinese weapons should still be called by their Chinese names as that's what they were listed as in the Chinese texts like the Huolong Shenqi Tufa and its descendant, the Huolongjing.

It's like saying the Black Army of Hungary were armed with muskets, when the musket was a later invention and they were actually armed with arquebus, or instead of The Three Musketeers, you have The Three Riflemen.

No, I'm not. Hwacha/huo che are weapons that can fire multiple types of ammunition, from rockets to simple arrows without any additional bits attached, including incendiary arrows. I don't know if the actual explosive charge at the end porjectiles were in use in time for Sajo.

Both the Mongols and Jin used gunpowder weaponry against each other during the 1232 Siege of Kaifeng so it's likely that the Mongols picked up the knowledge during the conquest of the Jin and Western Jia Dynasties, making it not implausible that the Mongolians used gunpowder weapons against the Hungarians in 1241 at Sajo.

The 11th Century military text Wujing Zongyao (武經總要) mentions the use of arcuballista with gunpowder charges:

Spoiler: Arcuballista

Show

Based on this and the readiness of the Mongols to adopt new technologies and use of conscripts to fill in capability/skill gaps in their military, I wouldn't be surprised that they did have proper exploding arrows at Sajo. As you've said, the veteran Hungarians wouldn't be surprised by incendiary arrows, but exploding ones would be something they hadn't faced before.

[Galloglaich]

The 11th Century military text Wujing Zongyao (武經總要) mentions the use of arcuballista with gunpowder charges:

Spoiler: Arcuballista

Show

Based on this and the readiness of the Mongols to adopt new technologies and use of conscripts to fill in capability/skill gaps in their military, I wouldn't be surprised that they did have proper exploding arrows at Sajo. As you've said, the veteran Hungarians wouldn't be surprised by incendiary arrows, but exploding ones would be something they hadn't faced before.

Makes sense Brother Oni, thanks for all that.

G

[Max_Killjoy]

I almost always feel like I've gained something after I read these threads.

[rrgg]

I was making a very specific comparison, that of late medieval infantry with 17th Century infantry. Making the point that while it was routine for late medieval infantry to perform rapid and complex maneuvers in the field, under fire, while taking casualties and so on, this became far less the case in the 17th Century. So yes I think I can make my case exactly the way I did do so. I also don't think it was a failure of all the other forces necessarily - especially since there were so many from so many different quarters- so much as their less organic composition.

Incidentally, this was true not only for the Swiss. I could easily provide a similar list of definitive examples about Czech infantry across the 15th Century, and with a little more effort (since it's a bit more scattered) about German urban infantry in the same period.

I was citing this example (comparing the relative capabilities of infantry in the two periods) to support my broader point about the differences between how late medieval armies differed from 17th Century armies. But I admit how that translates into relative merits of quality is harder to definitively prove - as you and others have pointed out we don't have a time machine. We can only examine specific data markers. I do think you could make a similar analysis with handgun accuracy but I don't have the time to plunge into that right now. Cavalry would be trickier because 17th Century cavalry had some tools at their disposal (i.e. pistols) that medieval cavalry didn't, and also the best 17th Century cavalry developed some very sophisticated tactics.

What I meant was that just because pikemen of the 17th century tended to be used defensively much more often doesn't prove that they were incapable of more complex maneuvers, especially if they rarely had much reason to do so in the first place. As you mentioned earlier even the swiss stopped using such dynamic tactics when they became mercenaries for other armies. Why would the pikemen need to attack first and wear themselves out when they have so many firearms and artillery to wear the enemy down and cavalry to rapidly exploit any weakness? Why would you need to rely on pikemen for ambitious flanking attacks when musketeers and cavalry are much quicker and much more flexible anyways? Why would you need to ask so much of pikemen who are under heavy fire if you can shield them with a screen of skirmishers first, or better yet just send fresh reserves to relieve them or respond to new threats?

And again when you're looking at contemporary battles like that it tends to just end up showing how the soldiers compare to contemporary threats. Perhaps the enemy infantry just wasn't good enough to respond to the maneuvers of their own, perhaps the cavalry they faced just wasn't very good at exploiting the gaps in a pike formation, perhaps gunfire back then just wasn't as numerous or effective, or perhaps the wind was just blowing the wrong way that day.

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On the subject of military theorists. They actually do end up driving European warfare in a pretty odd direction toward the end of the 1500s as many of them start to shift from "well, if we can't figure out for sure how to win a battle, maybe we can try to figure out how to avoid losing one."

The concept of a "forward", "main battle", and "rear" wasn't a completely new one, the swiss themselves tended to attack in staggered formations. But the 17th century takes this to a whole new level initially based on some vague descriptions from the ancient romans. Rather than a handful of large squares or continuous lines, the new strategy was to split the pikemen into many small formations in multiple lines, with large gaps between each regiment so that even if one is routed the men don't disorder their neighbors and don't disorder the battalions behind them while fleeing. If a weary enemy manages to overthrow one of the battalions in the front rank they find themselves up against two fresh battalions in the second rank. And if those are overthrown, they would still find themselves up against a third rank, ready to cover the retreat. "By which order it should seeme, fortune to abandon them thrice before that they should be quighte vanquished."



https://imgur.com/a/B6z1l

Exactly how successful they were at achieving this is perhaps debatable, but a number of historians such as Clifford Rogers have argued that, while it wasn't really that uncommon during the middle ages to see really lopsided battles like Agincourt where the victor manages to inflict casualties at a rate of 50:1 or even 100:1, during the early modern period in europe these sorts of victories become extremely rare, and battles most often leave the "winner" far too bloodied to actually achieve the military goals they wanted to. Especially as professional, state-funded armies grew larger, leaders generally became less and less willing to take major risks with the large, expensive, and well-trained armies that their power relies on.

Now, this type of formation isn't necessarily "better" than the great squares from earlier in the century. And during the second half of the 1500s you can already start to see sort of incremental shifts towards smaller and smaller battalions staggered to allow for interlocking fields of crossfire. Even the Tercios by the end of the century, while on paper continued to be 3000 strong, would typically only have about half of that in actual strength. As a result the the dutch brigades never really had to go up against anything quite like a full-sized swiss wedge charging at them, and the swiss never really had to go up against anything quite like the dutch brigades. It's sort of fun to speculate about, but in the end it's nothing more than wild guesses.

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[*]Early Modern armies, by contrast, were increasingly made up of people from lower-status estates who were systematically trained to emulate systems worked out in the earlier periods. As a specific example, Landsknechts were Swabian peasants (mostly) trained by Swiss Reislaufer veterans in a kind of imitation of the Swiss system. Spanish tercios were Spanish peasants (I think a lot from poorer districts like Estremadura etc. trained by Landsknecht veterans in an imitation of the Landsknecht system. With each iteration the systems got a bit simpler, but it was also more predictable and easier to control.

Anyways, going back to the subject of training. The transition isn't nearly as clear as you make it out to be, and I don't think this sort of social training ever really went away. The tercios typically included a significant number of "soldados particular" (gentlemen volunteers) and "soldados reformados" (typically former officers) who typically fought in the positions of honor among the front ranks of the pike squares. According to La Noue, the fact that the Spanish gentry were so eager to serve on foot as pikemen, while the French gentry during the 16th century largely continued to reject ever serving as infantry. As a result french Infantry tended to be mostly shot with a very weak pike component, and largely had to continue relying on the Swiss to form the strength of their armies. Though of course nobility isn't the only thing that determines military quality.

From La Noue:

". . . when any newe Souldier commeth into their bands, the olde doe instruct him in his duetie: if he transgresseth they reproue him: and if he be mean|ly apparelled they helpe him, least he should bee a dishonor to their nation: and he likewise taketh these admonitions as courteouslie, where we doe the contrary. For if a yong man newly come into a companie committeth any folly, they all doe laugh him to scorne: and if he haue any money, he is presently plumed either by play or some other practise: whereby many through this bad beginning doe start backe againe."

". . . if a Souldier among them be hurt, he that hath but one crowne will giue him halfe. Fourthly, if any one doe any notable act, all his companions will praise and honor him, and seeldome doe they through enuy conceale any vertue. This like|wise is good in them, that in their militarie commaundements euen the brauest Souldiers and of greatest calling will obey a sim|ple Serieant: so pliable are they to their officers. As also when they are called to haue any charge, they doe as well keepe their au|thoritie."

In Germany, serving as Landsknecht similarly became very popular, and by the middle of the century a regiment might need to dismiss half of all recruits because so many were eager to join. Though the Landsknechts often end up going in their own completely different direction acting more like independent societies who followed their own laws, elected their own officers. etc.

The point is that this sort of organic military culture and education never really goes away in professional armies as long as at some of the men take soldiering seriously and have battlefield experience. If anything this could sometimes end up being even stronger with soldiers gaining experience everywhere from ireland to the balkans to North Africa and Ireland, and with children born to Landsknecht's wives who grow up knowing nothing but the military life.

In either case humans tend to be pretty good at learning and adapting. If we really did somehow pit 10,000 15th century infantry against 10,000 17th century infantry, then no matter who won the first battle there is a very good chance that the second battle will turn out very differently.

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Regarding armor, I think we've gotten into a tiff about this before and my position is still more or less the same. It's already sort of unfortunate that the video doesn't give much info about the exact thickness of the armor (though it seems to be a fairly late design with both a breastplate and a reinforcing placcate), or the dimensions of the firearm (it's not entirely clear if that actually is a "musket" and not just an arquebus or caliver), or the and the mass and velocity of the bullet. In particular, it's not clear whether they made a significant effort to replicate the appropriate gunpowder, which is it's own really complicated subject. (just as how you can't take modern steel and call it medieval plate armor, you can't just take modern black powder and call it medieval gunpowder).

People still knew what the difference between iron and steel was in the early modern period. According to Sir Roger Williams, the main problem with all the old-fashioned bills stockpiled by shires and communites across england is that they "are lightlie for the most part all yron, with a little steele or none at all; but they ought to be made of good yron and steele." In England, the Greenwich armory continued to produce high-quality hardened steel armor throughout most of the 16th century, but still no one seems to have really believed that it was practical to make armor "musket proof". In fact, Sir John Smythe had his own personal suit of Greenwich armor which is still at the Royal armory today, yet despite this and him being essentially the poster child for "all of these newfangled guns and pikes and other new inventions are overrated and everyone but me is wrong" he still did not think that fully musket proof armor was practical.

But the Duke at this time being Lieutenant generall and absolute Gouernour in the Lowe Countries (as aforesaid) see∣ing the numbers of Rutters in all Armies encreased, and that the most of those Rutters, as also that manie Captaines and Officers of footmen were armed at the proofe of the Harquebuze, he to the intent to fru∣strate the resistance of their armours, did encrease his numbers of Mosquettiers, the blowes of the bullets of which, no armours wearable can resist.

You can find a lot of good reasons given for why guns hadn't made armor obsolete, but the claim that armor of any sort was actually "musket proof" is not one of them:

Their Horsemen also, and themselues seruing on horsebacke with Launces, or any other weapon, they thinke verie well armed with some kind of head∣peece, a collar, a deformed high & long bellied breast, and a backe at the proofe; but as for pouldrons, vam∣braces, gauntlets, tasses, cuisses, and greues, they hold all for superfluous. The imitating of which their vn∣soldierlike and fond arming, cost that noble & wor∣thie Gentleman Sir Philip Sidney his life, by not wea∣ring his cuisses, who in the opinion of diuers Gentle∣men that sawe him hurt with a Mosquet shot, if he had that day worne his cuisses, the bullet had not bro∣ken his thigh bone, by reason that the chiefe force of the bullet (before the blowe) was in a manner past. Besides that, it is a great encouragement to al forraine Nations their Enemies that are better armed, to en∣counter with them and their soldiers that they see so ill armed. And as their ill arming is an encouraging to the Enemie, so it is vnto them a discouragement, and a great disaduantage. For in case anie horseman or footman piquer so ill armed, should bee wounded on the thigh, or chieflie on the arme or hand, either with Launce, Pique, Sword, or any other weapon, his figh∣ting for that day were marred; besides that, by such wounds receiued, he is put in hazard either to bee slaine or taken. And to the same effect it hath been a maxime in all ages amongst all great Capraines, and skilfull soldiers, that the well arming of horsmen and footmen is a great encouragement vnto them to fight valiantlie; whereas contrariwise being euill armed, it is a great discouragement vnto them encountring with well armed men, and most commonlie through wounds receiued, the verie occasion that doth make them to turne their backes.

. . . for leauing Armes in respect of the furie of the Fireshot which no portable Armor is able to resist, is both friuolous and false. For there are many reasons to vse conuenient Armes, albeit that were true that they profited vs nothing against the Fireshot. For they de∣fend vs from the Launco, from the Pike, the Halberd, the Iauelin, the Dart, the Arrow, and the Sword: yea and from the greater part of the fireshot also that any way endaunger vs in the field: I meane euen the por∣table and indifferent Armor that is made (n•t of Mus∣ket or Caleuer proofe) but onely against the Launce and Pistoll. For the greatest part of the fire∣shot that touch the bodies of any man in the field, graze first and strike vpon the ground: And from all such shot, a meane Armor verie portable and easily to bee worne by any souldier, sufficeth to saue a mans life, as ordinary experience in the field daily teacheth. For indeed to lade men with armes of Musket proofe (I am of their opinion) were not possible to endure, and meere folly to put in vre for many respects: too long to com∣mit to writing in this place. But this light and meane Armour is still to bee continued in all battailes and bat∣talions that shall encounter with Pike or Launce, be∣cause it assureth the life of man greatly from all other weapons, yea and from the most part of the fireshott also.

in matters of armes. For where they had some reason in respect of the violence of harquebuzes & dagges to make their armor thicker and of better proofe than before, they haue now so farre exceeded, that most of thē haue laden themselues with stithies in liew of clothing their bodies with armour. Lyke∣wise all the beautie of the horseman, is conuerted into deformi∣tie. His head peece resembleth an •ron pot. On the left arme hee weareth a great gantlet vp to his elbowe, and on the right a poul∣dron, that shal scarce couer his shoulder: and ordinarily they weare no Tases: also in liew of Cassockes, a Mandilion, and no Speare. Our men of armes in ye time of K. Henry made a farre fayrer shew, wearing their Sallet, Pouldrons, Tases, Cassocke, Speare, and Banderol, neither was their armour so heauie, but they might wel∣beare it 24. houres, where those that are now worne are so waigh∣tie, that the peize of them will benumme a Gentlemans shoulders of 35. yeres of age. My selfe haue seene the late Lord of Eguillie, and the knight of Puigreffier, honourable old men, remain a whole daie armed at all assaies, marching in the face of their companies, where now a yong Captaine will hardlie continue two houres in that state.

True it is, it is necessarie, for the shocke of a horse to weare a little Cuisset to co∣uer the knee, so ought al the Launtiers to be. We know it by experience; let a horseman be armed, the forepart of his curaces of a light pistoll proofe, his head peece the like, two lames of his pouldrons the like, two or three lames of his tasses of the like proofe, the rest I meane his tasses, cuisses, pouldrons, vambraces, and gauntlets, bee also so light as you can deuise.

I'm pretty certain that even in the 15th century no armor was completely impervious to all man-portable firearms. The main difference seems to be that people generally become more familiar with firearms, how to make powder more consistent and more powerful for any given weapon, how to make gun barrels lighter and more portable while being less likely to explode under high pressure (interestingly, you sometimes see firearms made in former major armoring centers like Milan start to become very highly regarded by the end of the century), etc.

Taking a quick tanget about leather armor for a moment. Tanned leather was sometimes used as a defensive armor in the late 16th and 17th century, and experiments today can show that tanned leather is fairly light and flexibile and can offer quite a bit of resistance to cuts and stabs compared to materials like layered cloth. So why didn't soldiers in the middle ages wear leather gloves much more often? Why wouldn't the swiss at least wear leather trousers to protect their legs if even a fairly minor cut has the chance to put them out of action or worse, become infected? It might be that the swiss just didn't know how to make tanned leather into armor back then, or maybe it's just that choice of armor and weapons in any period is to some degree influenced by culture, fashion, tradition, and "eh, that's good enough" rather than pure min-maxing logic.

While the armor used during the early modern period was generally weaker relative to thickness than that of the high medieval period, the process used to create it did typically produce wrought iron with a very low slag content. So it still would have been a fair bit tougher than most medieval iron. It also may have made the armor much easier to decorate.

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I don't think I've ever heard of a single breastplate that weighs 60 lbs. 60-70 lbs seems to be about where full suits of surviving cuirasser armor top out when complete with limb armor, helmet, and reinforcing placcate attached.



John Cruso's description of a lancer's/cuirasser's armor: "His arms were a close casque or head-piece, gorget, breast, pistoll proof (as all the cuirasse in every piece of it) and calli∣ver proof (by addition of the placcate) the back, pouldrous, vanbraces, 2 gauntlets, tassets, cuissets, culets, or guard-de-rein; all fitting to his bodie: A good sword (which was to be very stiffe, cutting, and sharp pointed) with girdle and hangers, fo fastened upon his cuirasse as he might readily draw it: a buffe coat with long skirts to weare between his armour and his cloathes"

If anything it seems to have been much easier to put a cuirassier in very heavy armor than a heavy lancer once the former started to take over the heavy cavalry role. A cuirasser's horse needed to be large and strong to support the rider and his heavy armor, but because he relied more on his sword, pistol, and dense formation in a melee it didn't need to be quite so speedy. A heavy lancer's horse on the other hand needed to be just as large and strong as a cuirassier's, while also being extremely fast like the small, nimble horses used by the mounted harquebusiers. Horses like this existed but were extremely expensive and increasingly rare, especially during long periods of extending conflict like the religious wars in france. As noted by Blaise de Montluc:

One thing I perceive, that we very much lose the use of our Launces, either for want of good horses, of which methinks the Race visibly decayes, or because we are not so dextrous in that kind of fight as our Predecessors were; for I see we quit them for the German pi∣stols, and indeed fighting in gross Battalions, these are much more ready than Launces are; for if they be not fought in file the Launceers are apt to encumber one another; and also that open kind of fight is not so safe and certain as in close Bodies.

---

On the subject of mounted crossbowmen yeah I should have clarified That I think a combination of weapons with some horsemen using lances and some shooting bows or crossbows from horseback was potentially extremely effective. From what I can find about small-unit cavalry tactics from the pike and shot period they very much tend to stress the use of combined arms and reserves. If you had one company of mounted harquebusiers and another of made of lancers or pistoliers you could send the harquebusiers to charge forward while the heavier horsemen remain a good distance behind. If the harquebusers are replused or deliver a massive volley using their "wenden" or "wheeling" maneuver and retreat, then they can withdraw to safety while the lancers or cuirassiers prevent any heavier horsemen from pursuing. Which then gives the harquebusiers plenty of room to reform and prepare to charge again. Even if it's a small troupe of entirely harquebusiers out on patrol, Cruso recommends keeping a small number of the "best mounted" well behind under a good officer to serve as a rear guard. If the main body of horse gets repulsed, then this reserve is supposed to be able to somehow stop the enemy horsemen from pursuing and then escape without any casualties themselves due to their speed and small numbers.

What it mostly comes down to though is that I think King Dom was right in that when it comes to single combat by far the most important factor is riding skill, essentially the ability of a horseman to ride at full gallop, strike his lance, swing his sword, aim his bow, wear heavy armour, and throw his spear without losing his balance or falling off his horse. Oh and his ability to do all that while looking cool in the process (there seems to be quite a few chapters on that).

[Galloglaich]

Rrgg, I think you are reaching a little bit, but more importantly you are definitely missing the point I was trying to make, in spite of considerable effort to get it accross.

You can speculate all day long about why 17th Century pikemen didn't move around on the battlefield but the notion that they had no need to isn't very convincing to me.

17th Century armor was often as much as 6mm thick. 15th Century armor is typically 3-4mm at it's thickest.

I think you and I may just have to agree to disagree. Hopefully others reading the thread did learn something.

G

[rrgg]

Yeah, I'm kind of getting the sense that that's the case. I just don't think you've managed to make a very good comparison and I don't think that "the ability to make nearly instantaneous decisions on the battlefield to split forces, perform flanking maneuvers, coordinate with allies and so on" is a very useful metric. Anyone can make instantaneous decisions or walk from one place to another. What matters is making the right decisions in the first place, or at least knowing how to follow the lead of someone who's making the right decision.

Regarding armor, some armors during the 15th century and earlier could reach 3 mm or more at their thickest but many were closer to 2 mm, even dropping to <1mm in many places. Many 15th century armors were also meant to incorporate mail or very thick padding as well which would have further limited the thickness of plate which could be worn comfortably.

No armor was "bullet proof", just "bullet resistant", and I highly doubt that the armor of most 15th century knights as "bullet resistant" as the 6mm cuirasser breastplates worn in the 17th century when guns were a much more common threat, even if the latter is of a lower quality metal.

[Galloglaich]

Yeah, I'm kind of getting the sense that that's the case. I just don't think you've managed to make a very good comparison and I don't think that "the ability to make nearly instantaneous decisions on the battlefield to split forces, perform flanking maneuvers, coordinate with allies and so on" is a very useful metric. Anyone can make instantaneous decisions or walk from one place to another. What matters is making the right decisions in the first place, or at least knowing how to follow the lead of someone who's making the right decision.

You are right, any one individual can make instantaneous decisions to make flanking attacks or 'walk from one place to another' the challenge is doing this as a unit while maintaining sufficient cohesion to resist cavalry attacks. Swiss infantry was capable of this, most 17th Century were not.

Your contention that pikes didn't need to move around on the battlefield in the 17th Century because muskets, is ridiculous- Swiss pikemen coordinated closely with their marksmen who moved with them (and out ahead) and their gunners played a key role in several of the battles I mentioned above. Of course this is also doubly true for the Czechs and Germans, including Landsknechts.

Regarding armor, some armors during the 15th century and earlier could reach 3 mm or more at their thickest but many were closer to 2 mm, even dropping to <1mm in many places. Many 15th century armors were also meant to incorporate mail or very thick padding as well which would have further limited the thickness of plate which could be worn comfortably.

No armor was "bullet proof", just "bullet resistant", and I highly doubt that the armor of most 15th century knights as "bullet resistant" as the 6mm cuirasser breastplates worn in the 17th century when guns were a much more common threat, even if the latter is of a lower quality metal.

You should read Alan Williams. And watch that Nova video again.

G

[Martin Greywolf]

Both the Mongols and Jin used gunpowder weaponry against each other during the 1232 Siege of Kaifeng so it's likely that the Mongols picked up the knowledge during the conquest of the Jin and Western Jia Dynasties, making it not implausible that the Mongolians used gunpowder weapons against the Hungarians in 1241 at Sajo.

The question was never whether mongols had gunpowder weapons - we have enough records from their Khwarezmian campaign to know that they did and used them, the question is what their raiding campaign brought to Europe. One tidbit that gets forgotten when you look at Polish-Hungarian campaign is that unlike a lot of earlier mongol conquests, it was never meant to actually take the land, just plunder it. There may have been some plans to use these initial plundering campaigns to prepare for conquest later on, but collase of Mongol empire brought a stop to them.

The fire arrows in the text may not acutally be rockets, they could also possibly be arrows with gunpowder charges attached, or the whole panicking as a result of fire was added in attempt to save Hungarian noble's reputation, the bottom line is we can't know for sure. Personally, I'm leaning towards it being gunpowder rockets.

As a last interesting bit, english books often mention that Hungary employed some mongols at this time, perhaps with some gunpowder of their own - this is simply wrong. Hungary did have Cuimans on their side, but the relations fell apart after a lot of Hungarian population acccused them of being in league with mongols, or just mistook them for mongols. No chance of gunpowder there. To be fair, the period sources themselves have trouble distinguishing between nomad tribes, sometimes going as far as to call them all Huns.

[Galloglaich]

The question was never whether mongols had gunpowder weapons - we have enough records from their Khwarezmian campaign to know that they did and used them, the question is what their raiding campaign brought to Europe. One tidbit that gets forgotten when you look at Polish-Hungarian campaign is that unlike a lot of earlier mongol conquests, it was never meant to actually take the land, just plunder it. There may have been some plans to use these initial plundering campaigns to prepare for conquest later on, but collase of Mongol empire brought a stop to them.

The fire arrows in the text may not acutally be rockets, they could also possibly be arrows with gunpowder charges attached, or the whole panicking as a result of fire was added in attempt to save Hungarian noble's reputation, the bottom line is we can't know for sure. Personally, I'm leaning towards it being gunpowder rockets.
.

Like I said, we don't really know. You make some plausible suggestions here, as does Brother Oni, but at this point we are just guessing. I suspect we may learn more as more Mongol records surface or are translated / transcribed.

I've only ever seen some fragments of their various histories - it seems like there is a lot more out there to read, sadly I don't read Mongol or Cuman. The Italians also have a fair amount of data on them from the 14th Century onward (from books like the Pratica Della Mercatura and so on) but similarly, only a small part of that has been translated or transcribed.

One quibble - I don't think the Mongols ever truly collapsed or went away. There were periodic 'contractions' during various interregnums and the giant, massive unified Horde of Ghenghiz Khan didn't last forever, but the Golden Horde and later, the Crimean Khanate remained very dangerously hostile neighbors cheek by Jowl with Latin Europe (and slave masters of Russia) for centuries. You also had newer mighty warlords like Tamarlane arise who were if anything more brutal than Ghenghiz Khan was.

G

[rrgg]

You should read Alan Williams. And watch that Nova video again.

G

Alan Williams is in the Nova video, explaining that nothing would have protected against a musketeer at close range.

https://youtu.be/YNhh1yDpOEk?t=39m32s

My guess is that the show was instead trying to simulate a caliver, which was far more common than the musket on 1580s battlefields anyways, but didn't want to spend time going into detail about elizabethan terminology and explaining that just because something looks like a musket doesn't mean it actually was a musket.

Williams reaches similar conclusions in The Knight and the Blast Furnace. Firearms improved over time and over the course of the 15th and 16th century armorers responded by making armor either harder or thicker. He concludes that in the late 16th century, a bullet striking a 3mm plate made of **** steel (the highest quality) at 45 degrees would require around 3000 joules to penetrate. Full-sized muskets however were capable of achieving much more energy than that.

[Brother Oni]

Like I said, we don't really know. You make some plausible suggestions here, as does Brother Oni, but at this point we are just guessing. I suspect we may learn more as more Mongol records surface or are translated / transcribed.

Unfortunately, this is going to be tricky as the Mongols weren't the best historians, so we're highly reliant on the Yuan Dynasty Chinese chroniclers.

However the Yuan Dynasty can be a bit of a political hot potato; for example, the first (posthumous) Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, Fatian Qiyun Shengwu sounds clearly Chinese, but what happens if he's better known as Genghis Khan? By the time we get to his grandson and the actual founder of the Yuan Dynasty, Emperor Shengde Shengong Wenwu (aka Kublai Khan), are they still Mongolian or Chinese?

Although Mongolia is dwarfed politically, military and economically by China, it's still enough of a touchy subject that can't be discussed on this board.

He concludes that in the late 16th century, a bullet striking a 3mm plate made of **** steel (the highest quality) at 45 degrees would require around 3000 joules to penetrate. Full-sized muskets however were capable of achieving much more energy than that.

Wait, 3kJ? NATO 5.56mm only gets 1.8kJ and the NATO 7.62mm used in sniper rifles would just about penetrate comfortably (3.3-3.5 kJ).

[Max_Killjoy]

I still have the NOVA documentary saved on DVR, at this point I'm going to rewatch it tonight to refresh my memory.