From: c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)
Subject: Re: Altered history of warfare
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 20:32:08 GMT


From c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)


From c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)

In article <1992Jul28.125443.23382@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>
>From jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)
>
>
>In article <1992Jul22.170140.20249@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> Mike.Hoffmann@sniap.mchp.sni.de (Mike Hoffmann) writes:
>
>>From Mike.Hoffmann@sniap.mchp.sni.de (Mike Hoffmann)
>
>>In article <1992Jul20.134124.27197@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> ecrjbruce@economics.adelaide.edu.au writes:
>
>>>The ideal draught animal would be fast and eat garbage.

Goats ? ;-)

>>In earlier times the cavalry had the status of auxiliary troops that didn't
>>operate independantly (Romans-although I am aware that in the later Imperium
>>this had changed a bit). 

The Romans introduced their own light cavalry - Equites Sagittarii - only at
the last stages of their Imperium. Their cavalry was almost always part of
their field army, not a separate part of the armed forces, the heavy infantry
(Legionarii) having the main emphasis. From 4th century onwards, they switched
towards heavy cavalry (Clibanarii) armed with kontos.

>>Or the horses were simply carriers for nobility -
>>who often as not than fought unmounted. The knight armies weren't a
>>fast striking forse either - on the contrary, not matter what Hollywood makes
>>you think. With all there armor, knight and horse were slow and clumsy, the
>>horse barely being able to trot, never mind to gallop or even canter.

I hate to burst your bubble but this time Hollywood was more correct than they
ever were able to even think about. The medieval knights were able to deliver 
their charge in with full gallop and they also did that too ! The medieval
warhorses were large and strong beasts, specifically bred to carry a large man 
in full armor and to neglect his weight in the performance.

There were three main types of warhorses: the largest and heaviest being
destrier, with height about 2 m. It was a strong beast, but it was used
mainly in tournaments, where strength was more important than agility,
since it was not very manouevrable. The second and more important was courser,
which can be compared in size and performance in a modern-day show-jumper.
It was the main battle horse of the chivalry. The third type was roncin or
rouncey, which was in size comparable to the courser, but which was not of
any special breed. Sergeants, hobilars and other non-noble cavalry used
mainly them and it was the primary riding horse of the nobility.

Modern live tests have shown that the weight of the armor is negligible when 
making the comparison between the performance of the horses, the main diference
being in the horses themselves. Full mail armor for a man weights about 25-30 
kg, plate armor even _less_ (!). The reason why it is often assumed that a
mounted knight would be just as fas and manouevrable as a turtle falls on
the Victorian times, when the Romance writers looked at the surviving tourn-
ament armours (which were _more_ massive and about twice as heavy as the
battle harnesses) and without further tests thought that it was next to imposs-
ible to move about with this shell on, this misconception never being correct-
ed. Mark Twain in his "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is one such
infamous example, although his misconception was intentious.

Medieval knights drew in tight battle formation, in line stirrup-to-stirrup,
and began the charge in a slow trot. When the distance to the enemy was about
100 m, the commander shouted "Pognies !" (Spurs !), thus delivering the charge
home in full gallop. This precaution was taken because of preventing the
formation from breaking thus disorganizing the charge, which would have been 
a serious disadvantage.

Other formations than just a line were also in use, such as wedge, which was
favored by the Germans (and especially by the Teutonic Order). Was this the
beginning of the Panzerkeil tactics ? :-)

Mail horse barding weighed about 50 kg, but this could also be neglected, since
mail and jazeraint bards had been in use from the ancient times and it did
not hinder the horses' performance much: the Byzantines, for example, had their
Kataphraktoi long before the era of knights. And, of course, cataphract cavalry
was known and used long before the birth of Christ, and even _they_ were not
these lumbering fools the knights are often imagined. Plate bard, BTW, weighed
_less_ than a brass jazeraint bard for a cataphract horse.

>Ah, but you're thinking of European Cavalry only. The nomadic peoples who
>were serious about horse warfare didn't have this experience at all. Mongol
>horsemen were supposed to move 100 kilometers in a day! Regardless if this
>is true or not

True, indeed !

> they did move so fast that they always suprised the hell out of the opostion.

Like at Ain Jalyut 1261 ? :-)

> Nor were their horses just carriers for the nobility either let alone aux-
> iliary troops.

Close but no cigar. The Mongol field armies might have consisted of more than
70 % of auxiliaries, varying from western and Armenian knights to Chinese
and Korean force-levied infantry. These were used in various tasks, the 
commander-in-chief always being a Mongol, though.
 
>They were fast and the Mongol (Turkish/Uighur/Kirghiz/Manchu/Arab/insert other
> here) army had little else.

Please re-read your history books. The Mongol armies had up to 60% of their
army light horse-archers, which were used mainly as skirmishers, 20-50% heavy
lancers which were the striking force of the army (after the skirmishers had
had the enemy tired and disorganized in vain charges), the rest being extra-
heavy lancers (for difficult cases, like at Liegnitz), infantry (like against
the Siamese), naffatun etc.

The steppe hordes were more a nuisance than a real threat for a good general.
They could be shot into pieces by infantry archers or rolled over by lancers
when caught. The Huns won only in Hollywood ! 

Arab armies relied heavily on spear- and bow-armed infantry, their cavalry 
being medium cav lancers and javelin-armed light cavalry (which were, in fact,
more effective than mounted archers). Bow-armed light cavalry were almost
totally absent in Arab armies.

After all, cavalry is nearly useless against steady, firm close-order infantry.
The best countermeasure for mounted knights were dismounted knights with axes
or two-handed swords, and as good infantry finally was developed, the knights
fought primarily dismounted from about 1330 onwards, and the knights were, in
fact, even more efficient as infantry than as cavalry.

>>>3) Would armour be more important?  Given that you are slower to reach combat
>>>on foot would more time be taken to ensuring that you actually made it into
>>>combat?
>
>Hmm, see above for speeds. As for armour, most infantry have carried their
>own with them give or take a mule or two. I think armour might be less
>important but it would depend very much on the circumstances involved.

Armor was extremely important for medieval armies (both infantry and cavalry)
before the evolution of efficient firearms. It had nothing to do with cavalry, 
it is only question of firearms.

>The Romans didn't use cavalry very much and it can be pretty much ignored. 

False. The importance of cavalry rose in course of time, until during the Late
Imperial times the percentage of heavy cavalry in the armies could exceed 50%.
Later, the Byzantines relied almost exclusively on their kataphraktoi.
Roman cavalry just can not be neglected, although it is often denigrated.

>largest pre-modern Empires which lasted any period of time (ie not the Mongol)
>were *not* cavalry Empires.

Persian empire ? Parthian empire ? Byzantine empire ? Sassanid empire ? 
Mamluks ? Indian empires ? Saljuq Turk empire ? 

>The Romans

????? !!!

>and the Chinese didn't go for horses
>much because they couldn't fit them into their argicultural systems very well.
>You try to raise a horse in a rice paddy and see how far you get. The Chinese
>had to buy them from the very people they used them against

...like Son Ze tells in his "Art of War"...

>>>5) What would our infantry tactics be like??  
>Most of the most successful armies did not use cavalry very much at all. The
>armies mobility is decided by the slowest which is usually the baggage train
>Leaders would never agree to meet somewhere, the chance of supprising your
>enemy is just too strong an oppurtunity.

Before the introduction of firearms, the most efficient types of infantry
would have been longbow- and crossbowmen, pike phalanges, legionarii with
their heavy throwing weapons (pilums) and extra-heavies with two-handed hacking
weapons. The tactics would have been pretty same as before, though.

>The interesting question is not what would no animals be like but what if
>Europe had a *better* animal. The Romans used wheeled waggons in North
>Africa, but when the Arabs took over they brought the Camel with them.
>Camels work better than waggons so the road system fell out of usage and
>the camel ruled. Europe couldn't use camels so they had to come up with
>canals, then railroads then cars etc. If the camel didn't hate snow and rain
>so much then the modern world would be very different. The Arabs gradually
>stopped using wheeled transport very much while England had to think up
>something better.

Just tell that to the Spanish Hidalgos that a camel is a better beast than
a horse ,- well, they showed the opposite being true. Camels are of little
combat value, but as transport animals they are good, mules are still better.
Elephants ?????

>Joseph Askew




  ++ Tuomas Viljanen                     ++ For a battle like Crecy, you do  ++
  ++ Lahderanta 20 A 19                  ++ not need a military genius like  ++
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