From: mike@aloysius.equinox.gen.nz (Mike Campbell)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Warfare in the Middle Ages 
Distribution: world
Date: Fri, 01 Jan 93 22:43:43 GMT
Organization: Me? Organized?


In article <1992Dec31.083246.2171@nntp.hut.fi> c34657b@saha.hut.fi writes:

  > 
  > In article <725614928snx@aloysius.equinox.gen.nz> mike@aloysius.equinox.gen.nz  >  (Mike Campbell) writes:
  > >
  > >Generally medieval missile troops could provide real trouble for their 
  > >opponents, but they were very vulnerable to heavy cavalry.  The 
  > >English solved this by hiding behind stakes.  Most other nations 
  > 
  > Only after the battle of Agincourt. The real English solution of the problem
  > was to intersperse units of dismounted knights with the archer units, thus
  > providing staying and hacking power the archers lacked. Archers shot and
  > men-at-arms fought.

I'd tend to disagree with this - the men-at-arms were not interspersed 
to any great degree with the archers.   Rather there were alternating 
sections of men-at-arms and archers - usually something like 2-4000 
would form a single block, with a few hundred (500-1000) men-at-arms 
on each flank, and more archers beyond them.

The English carried wooden stakes into battle habitually after 
Agincourt, and their archers also gained a lot of armour and 
equipment.  Each archer needed to carry a large maul to hammer his 
stake in with, and at least some English archers were armoured from 
head to toe, so as to be indistinguishable from the men-at-arms apart 
from their bow, and carried bastard swords.

  > >used such troops in much smaller numbers, so they could be protected 
  > >by spearmen.  King Richard I (the Lionheart) used mixed crossbow/spear 
  > >units against the Moslems in the Outremer.
  > 
  > Yep, this was also the Italian solution (to have first ranks pavisiers
  > with long spears and rear ranks crossbowmen), as did the Teutonic Order
  > in the Baltic countries.

The Chinese had used crossbows against steppe nomads from the earliest 
times.  The nomads hated them, due to the reasons you mention (range 
and hitting power).  The Chinese also habitually used units of mixed 
crossbow and long spear armed troops.

  > Horse archery was more a nuisance than a real threat. The range of cavalry
  > bows was remarkably shorter than the foot bows and the fire density of the
  > horse archery was smaller (missiles hit/square meter*minute) with the mounted
  > archery than with the foot archery. Generally also the arrows shot with the
  > horse bows were lighter, thereby having less penetrative power, than with the
  > foot bows; having hit a dozen time in a battle and surviving was not uncommon
  > in the Crusader-Turks battles.

True - but it could be a deadly nuisance if there was plenty of time 
to subject your foe to it.  Horses were susceptible to arrows, even 
light ones, and wounds often became infected.  Also if your horse 
archers are backed up by a decent heavy cavalry (eg Huns, Mongols, 
Avars, Byzantines, Kazars, Parthians, Sassanids, etc) they can afford 
to get close and be more destructive - any troops trying to chase them 
off can be attacked by the heavies (eg the Romans at Carrhae (sp?))

  > Horse archers were skirmishers, and little else. Their job was to ride in
  > front of the enemy, irritate it into battle by shooting at their ranks, and
  > evade as the enemy charged, letting heavier cavalry (lancers/cataphracts)
  > deal with the disorganized enemy. If the terrain favored the lights, these
  > tactics could be murderously effective. if the terrain was somewhat closed,
  > the light cavalry could be easily rolled over with the heavy cavalry, like
  > knights. The Lithuanians seemed never to learn this fact: they lost each
  > and every battle against the Teutonic Order at open field.

The Lithuanians also had little in the way of heavy cavalry.  The 
Teutons, from memory, were eventually undone when Lithuania was 
absrbed by Poland, and the resulting army was better equiped to stand 
up to knights.

  > One subject not yet covered are slings. Although childish-looking, a sling is
  > harasser's dream: simple yet effective, and good even against armored foe: a
  > slingshot can cause considerable damage (broken bones etc) by impact, like mace  > and its range was rather long. An improvement of this was staff sling, which
  > was even stronger a weapon and was used in numbers, especially in Spain.

Byzantines also used them in some numbers, but their rate of fire is 
very slow compared to a standard sling.  Apparently the byzantines 
found them very useful in seiges, as they could fire large burning 
projectiles without needing to resort to artillery.



Mike Campbell, Christchurch, New Zealand
mike@aloysius.equinox.gen.nz 
Newsgroups: alt.war