From: c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Altered history of warfare
Date: 23 Aug 92 22:16:47 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland


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

In article <BtC4LH.5Lt@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>
>From jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)
>
>
>Because of not getting sci.military this last week and a serious bout of the
>'flu this reply is a little late - apologies all round to those who are bored
>with this thread already, but I would like to correct a few points and I'm
>afraid I'm one of those people who just *has* to get the last word :-)
>
>In article <Bsw11M.EC@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:
>>From c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)

(sorry, I came into this conversation in a very, very late stage an I just wish
 to say my points of wiew)

>              < Stuff about horses and armour deleted >
>
>(One other point to remember which I don't think you mentioned in the
>stuff I deleted is that modern reconstructions use as models those suits
>which have survived. These tend to be 'show' pieces which were never
>intended to be used in battle - dress armour if you like. Real armour
>got battered and dented and so didn't get put into peoples homes as
>interesting conversation pieces (and so aren't in museums nowadays).)

Yes and no. Most of the today's armor is, indeed, show armor, but real battle
armor has, indeed, survived up to date, has been repaired and is today in
museums (for, example, in Tower Castle, London, (or Turku Castle, Finland :-),
there is an arquebus ball hole in one armor shown there)). Also the medieval
armor has been reconstructed and built by the medieval models and patterns
to resemble 100% those armors that left, f. eg. Tommaso Missaglia's workshops
during the 1440's. Still earlier armors are even more easy to duplicate
and much of the earlier armors (say, 13th century) has survived. Mail is mail
which is mail, no matter whether it is a showpiece or a battle armor.
To claim that the modern tests are invalid because of the armors used might
not be real combat armors (which is an ambiguous claim) is just not wrong.
Still, there is little difference between the surviving battle and show armor:
much more greater difference there is between jousting and combat armor (joust-
ing was the most dangerous hobby the medieval men-at-arms had, and there was
little sense to had oneself killed in a game, and therefore the tilt armors
tended to be much more massive and immobile than the battle armors and weigh-
ed about twice the weight of battle armor. Most of the surviving armors of
today are, in fact, just those tilt armors.

>>> 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.
>
>O.K. This is a misunderstanding about the term 'auxilary'. The term to stress
>is 'just' as in 'only'. The point was also about the cavalry itself - the
>Mongol Armies were primarily cavalry of various types ie the *cavalry* was
>not auxilary to the Army it was the primary force used. And I'm not sure that
>the commander was always a Mongol - I have some memory of one of the better
>Generals being from a closely related tribe but not quite a Mongol - Don't
>quote me though I'ld want to look that up. As for auxilaries, when does the
>army cease to be Mongol?

Then when the commander-in-chief and the main combat troops are no longer Mong-
ols and the Mongols serve only as allies or auxiliaries.

>I take the point about the infantry - more Koreans than Mongols in the
>invasion of Japan I believe. Just how effective they would have been (weather 
>permitting) is another matter. 

If disciplined close order, might have been quite effective against Japanese
irregular open 'order' samurai and ashigaru. True, one-on-one they were no
match for the Nipponese, but war is not fought in one-on-one duels, but the
melee is a tangled, often confused, mess.
 
>How do you take into account mass but useless levies?

It can be used as a tool of foraging, pillaging and intimidating the enemy.
In actual combat it is little other use than lance fodder.

>>>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.
>
>Isn't this roughly what I said? The Mongol Army was almost all cavalry - of
>differing types true but cavalry none the less.

Yes, but not 100% of light horse archers as often thought. They had their 
heavies too, lights tend to get hacked into pieces in melee.

>I certainly consider the
>Horse Archer to be cavalry as is the Lancer - although I think that the 20-50%
>you quote shouldn't be called 'heavy'. They weren't that seriously armoured
>surely? 

I would call mail or lamellar armor as serious armoring, though Eastern mail
is made in different pattern than Western, it is lighter and more flexible,
but weaker and less protective.

>>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 !
>
>I would qualify this to say that Steppe Hordes were a nuisance to well
>organised countries only. Whenever the agricultural states broke down so
>far that they couldn't buy intimidate or even effectively fight them they
>rolled over everyone. As to being rolled over by lancers they are usually
>very hard to catch, these nomads, 

Yes: therefore the general of the defending army had to be good and smart
and use the terrain effectively, like the Germans did against Magyars at
Lechfeld, or Teutonic Order against the Lithuanians at Strawe. Also Byzantine
generals were often very smart and they fared extremely well against the nomad
hordes (with the notable exception of Manzikert, but even this defeat can be
explained by the unreliability of the Byzantine allies, which broke and fled
at the sight of Turks, leaving their masters to fight underpowerd). 

>and they can often go around any infantry
>if they are smart enough - no foot soldier moved 100 miles a day!

"Mylord, the savages are in our flank and closing"
"What thou sayest, thou knave ? Yes, they are there, indeed"
"ATTEN-TION ! Pikes - UP ! Left - TURN ! Pikes - ON ! Butts - DOWN !"

...and very soon we see those cav guys doing their sashlik imitations...

Or, they can also be shot into pieces by the infantry archers as well.

>Besides I thought the Huns won in Italy too - they were bought off by the
>Pope weren't they - else Rome would have been just a smoking ruin.

And, more importantly, they were defeated by Aetius & Co. at Campi Catalaunici,
Chalons-sur-Marne, quite decisively, this being one of the largest battles
before the WWI.

> And their
>close friends the Goths got to sack Athens, the Visgoths got to rule Spain,
>the Vandals of course *did* sack Rome and the Franks got to keep France to
>this day (well sort of).

Yes, but Goths and Vandals were mostly heavy cavalry (the state of Visigoths
is the very ancestor of that of what we today know as the kingdom of Spain:
Visigoths - Asturias - Leon - Castilla- Castilla-Leon - Castilla - Spain, and
the oldest Spanish noble families trace their roots back to the Visigoths)
, not lights like Huns. Franks were amost all close order infantry.

>>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.
>
>The Arab armies that first left Arabia and invaded Syria and Persia was
>pretty much all cavalry - of varying types.

Yes, I thought mainly those armies, who fought the Byzantines and Visigoths.

>The Arabs didn't think much of infantry at all giving them a much smaller 
>share of the loot. I agree that Bow-armed cavalry was pretty much absent but 
>javelin throwers on horse back are similar in nature. But do you really think 
>that you could throw a javelin further than an archer could shoot? More 
>accuracy perhaps but I'm not so sure of that either. How do you judge 
>efficiency?

Javelin is heavier - more kinetic energy and better penetration than arrows,
it is more accurate, and it can also be used as a close combat weapon.
Another point is that one can use shields when throwing javelins, a bow requir-
es both hands. With shields one is quite well covered, but without it the 
lights are extremely vulnerable to the infantry archers, who shoot them down
at will.

>>After all, cavalry is nearly useless against steady, firm close-order infantr
>>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.
>
>This surely depends on the type of cavalry deployed. Crassus had *lots* of
>steady firm close order infantry - the Parthians still cut him to pieces.

It was the Parthian _cataphracts_ who rolled them over, _not_ the skirmish-
ing horse archers. Besides, Crassus was a poor general, and let his troops
to go disorganized in pursuing the lights, thus being easy fodder for the 
Parthian super-heavy cavalry. Crassus was an amateur ! Later, the Romans
burned and sacked Ctesiphon so many times they got bored with it.

>If the infantry can't get to grips with the horsemen they are just going
>to get cut up - if the horsemen can fire at them. I'll agree that cavalry
>doesn't often cut through well ordered infantry lines but if you line your
>infantry up against horse archers who shoot and run (aka Parthian shot) then
>you're in real trouble. You may as well just cut their throats for them.

Legio - AN TESTUDO ! The Legionarii had their large shields, scuti, which were
good countermeasure against the arrows. True, an arrow could penetrate it, but
it usually got stuck into it, leaving the Legionarius unharmed, and mail is
a good defense against the light arrows too. Horse archery is more a nuisance 
than a real threat for well-armored steady troops. And, again, light cavalry
can do nothing against the pike phalanges.

Also the infantry archers can outshoot the cavalry bows, and the horse archers
extremely detested historically foot bows, who outpowered and -distanced them.
At the later stages of the Empire, the Romans fielded a great amount of the
Auxiliaria Sagittarii, who rendered the Parthian shot ineffective by keeping
the light cavalry at distance. Also, one can just drive off light cavalry with
medium or heavy, like the Romans did with their javelin-armed Equites Alares.

Ever wondered whether the Mongols would have been shot into pieces by the
English longbowmen, just like the French knights were ? I would say they
had been. Also one weapon the light cxavalry extremely detested was the
crossbow: with its tremendous penetrative power and extereme accuracy and
long range the horse archers were really in trouble, like the Lithuanians
were against the Teutonic Order. The Romans did know the crossbow, Arcubalista
(hence the medieval "arbalest"), too.

>Yeah OK I was sloppy, the Roman Republic and Early Empire didn't much use
>cavalry. It was only when they were on the defensive that it became so
>important. The important thing to remember is that the Romans didn't have
>adquate horse collars, stirrups or horse shoes. Their horses couldn't move
>along those roads because of no shoes nor could they be really controlled
>without stirrups. 

In fact, spurs are more important when controlling horses. The importance
of the stirrups is often grossly overestimate. The only situation it really
gives an advantage is when slashing downwards with a sword. Modern testings
have also shown that fighting with a kontos (a kind of an Ancient two-handed 
lance) was, in fact, _easier_ without the stirrups. The cataphract lancers 
fared well without stirrups even before the era of chivalry.

Your other points were good, though. When was the horseshoe invented ?

>Noone who has *ever* had any experience with camels would say that they are
>anywhere near donkeys even as animals but they are very good beasts of burden.
>They carry a lot and for quite some way - they are better than mules even.
>The point was not about military animals but about transportation - if Europe
>had a better beast of burden than oxen et al then the wheel may have been
>forgotten, as it was in North Africa, as far as transport was concerned.

Perhaps, but only if that beast was better to carry burden in his back than
to pull them in carts AND more efficient to carry burdens in his back than oxen
or horses to pull them in carts.

Thoats in E.R. Burroughs's "Mars" series ?

>>Tuomas Viljanen
>
>Joseph Askew
>jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au
>


  ++ Tuomas Viljanen                     ++ For a battle like Crecy, you do  ++
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