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Namarrgon posted:I think they mean mercenary legions. Which are most certainly not levied peasants by virtue of being neither peasants nor were they levied. Well-equipped mercenaries were common in certain areas and periods, but they were by no means the majority. And we're launching into a semantic argument at this point. Perhaps a soldier is a landless freeman, rather than a peasant, and is motivated by payment rather than feudal obligation, but that doesn't make him particularly different than a peasant levy when it comes to fighting a knight. Rodrigo Diaz posted:It is not only knights that wore armour. Indeed, by the time of full plate harness I would say a quite small minority of armored men had been knighted. Additionally, while the levying of peasants did sometimes occur (Louis VI's use of the 'commune' system is one example) these men did not tend to fight in major battles, nor were they the vanguard in siege assaults. We also do not know how the commune system worked, exactly, and whether the men that it brought were wholly amateur, semi-professional, or professional. But in these earlier times, the ownership of a horse was the key point of distinction between 'well-armed foot-soldiers' (super armatos pedites) and knights (milites, miles, or equites). I don't think that someone's title had very much to do with how well they do on the battlefield. Getting into that kind of distinction only muddies the discussion. The reality is that having armor is a significant advantage over folks who don't have it, whether or not they have the proper heraldry and royal title to be "technically called a knight". Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Aug 1, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 21:09
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Wasn't there a law/custom in some parts where any adult male could be expected to have some kind of weapon training, a weapon and at least simple armor? It seems reasonable if you had a core of full time warriors backed up by trained, if not necessarily career infantry.
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Aug 1, 2013 21:23
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Kaal posted:Well-equipped mercenaries were common in certain areas and periods, but they were by no means the majority. And we're launching into a semantic argument at this point. Perhaps a soldier is a landless freeman, rather than a peasant, and is motivated by payment rather than feudal obligation, but that doesn't make him particularly different than a peasant levy when it comes to fighting a knight. Training and discipline, however, do make the mercenary different, and quite significantly so. I also do not know how you can say with confidence that the vast majority of combatants in any given battle would not have been wearing armour when at Fornovo in 1495, for example, nearly all combatants were, and at Bremule in 1119 ALL combatants were, quite explicitly. Additionally you have not addressed my given examples of lightly-armored but professional soldiers aptly resisting well-armed knights. Your initial claim that such men could not resist a well-armed knight is utter nonsense. edit: I double-checked my sources, and interestingly at Hastings it seems a majority of the men on the English side were professional or semi-professional troops: housecarls, mercenaries, and thegns, all of whom seem to have been at least somewhat armoured. There were, however, some fyrdmen (literal peasant levies) who were not. So I retract my earlier use of the Battle of Hastings as an example of poorly armed professionals, and instead throw it in as an example where the armoured men outnumbered the unarmoured. Mea culpa. Let us instead use the example of Pero Niño's battle with the governer of Jersey, where Don Pero's crossbowmen and archers, 'ill-armed men' and 'soldier's boys' (pillartes) defended against a charge of well-armed English foot. Keep in mind I am not saying armour is not an advantage, as that is not up for debate. I am saying that under certain circumstances (in good defensive position, against a disordered charge, and/or with the advantage of numbers for example) men with less armour (sometimes significantly less) could defeat men with more. Kaal posted:I don't think that someone's title had very much to do with how well they do on the battlefield. Getting into that kind of distinction only muddies the discussion. The reality is that having armor is a significant advantage over folks who don't have it, whether or not they have the proper heraldry and royal title to be "technically called a knight". Well, you see, language is important. In the same way that you make no distinction between professional soldiers and levied peasants when the two are really quite different, I try to distinguish between belted knights and men-at-arms. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 21:36
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I'd imagine during a route the pursuing forces might get a few opportunities to body check an opponent, which is when I think a large proportion of casualties occurred. Say if someone falls behind the rest of his comrades or gets cornered and forced to turn and fight.
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Aug 1, 2013 21:44
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Squalid posted:I'd imagine during a route the pursuing forces might get a few opportunities to body check an opponent, which is when I think a large proportion of casualties occurred. Say if someone falls behind the rest of his comrades or gets cornered and forced to turn and fight. It is possible, but this tournament is designed (unsurprisingly) to mimic the tournaments of the 14th and 15th centuries. As far as I can tell it does not do this with terribly great fidelity. I actually checked the rules, and grapples of greater than 7 seconds are stopped by the judges. This seems quite ridiculous. That said, I am no expert on tournament, and I know some of them had quite unusual rules and bouts. For example I know of one type where a single competitor would defend a narrow pass from multiple opponents. Because of the terrain he would only fight them one at a time, but in series. Still, the seemingly complete lack of organisation on the part of the competitors strikes me as ahistorical, and as EvanSchenck points out the preference for body checking does not bear out in documentation.
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Aug 1, 2013 21:52
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Oh yeah I wouldn't dispute that. I don't know why you'd even want to grapple in a free-for-all melee though, not too much you could do if a third opponent starts wailing on you. Although I guess you could just ban that kind of cherry-picking. I have no clue what rules a melee would have had.
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Aug 1, 2013 22:16
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Squalid posted:Oh yeah I wouldn't dispute that. I don't know why you'd even want to grapple in a free-for-all melee though, not too much you could do if a third opponent starts wailing on you. Although I guess you could just ban that kind of cherry-picking. I have no clue what rules a melee would have had. Probably to finish off somebody armored enough that you couldn't beat him from standing? While of course a third party could finish either of you off, it wouldn't really be trivial either, and unless it was a free for all there's a good chance he could hit the wrong dude.
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Aug 1, 2013 22:22
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Squalid posted:Oh yeah I wouldn't dispute that. I don't know why you'd even want to grapple in a free-for-all melee though, not too much you could do if a third opponent starts wailing on you. Although I guess you could just ban that kind of cherry-picking. I have no clue what rules a melee would have had. I know it is hard to tell, but I am 95% sure that video shows 5-on-5 bouts, not free-for-alls.
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Aug 1, 2013 22:36
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Kaal posted:This is backpedalling. "Training in takedown defense" is a far cry from ubermensch wrestlers that cannot be knocked down. Knocking someone to the ground is the key to fighting an armored opponent, and it's a lot easier than you think it is. You wrote this, Kaal posted:People who train in real martial arts learn how to fall well, not how to avoid it in the first place. Litmus Test posted:I take it this is totally unrealistic? I apologize if I was unclear about any of this. You also stated above that grappling was part of armored fighting, and it was, but from the sources is does not appear to have involved a lot of bullrushing guys and shoving them until they fell over. Instead the techniques seem to be mostly based around throws from arm and body locks, trips, and knee taps. For example http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/CodexW.htm. #90 in that series does show a guy hitting a nice double leg, though. At any rate what this shows is that, in order to put an opponent on the ground, it was necessary to overcome his base, which a body check is not very efficient at doing. Even if you run into him with enough force to overbalance him, he still has freedom of movement and can absorb the force by giving ground and resetting his feet.
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Aug 2, 2013 01:18
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Litmus Test posted:I take it this is totally unrealistic? Haha whatever the hell this is... I seriously doubt it's anything more than a bunch of guys in tin cans having an FFA with blunted weapons. I mean really, two tin cans are clearly fighting each other when some other tin can dashes past their field of vision and the two of them STOP FIGHTING TO GO BERSERKER RAM THIS THIRD TIN CAN TO THE GROUND!!! What the hell is that!?
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Aug 2, 2013 02:44
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Wikipedia, wonderful primary source that it is ( ) indicates that tourneys were originally free-for-alls just like you said.Wikipedia done posted:During the Middle Ages, tournaments often contained a mêlée consisting of knights fighting one another on foot or while mounted, either divided into two sides or fighting as a free-for-all. The object was to capture opposing knights so that they could be ransomed, and this could be a very profitable business for such skilled knights as William Marshal. There was a tournament ground covering several square miles in northern France to which knights came from all over Europe to prove themselves in quite real combat. This was, in fact, the original form of tournaments and the most popular between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—jousting being a later development, and one that did not completely displace the mêlée until many more centuries had passed. The original mêlée was engaged with normal weapons and fought with as much danger as a normal battle. Rules slowly tempered the danger, but at all times the mêlée was more dangerous than the joust.
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Aug 2, 2013 03:02
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SeaWolf posted:What the hell is that!? Unfortunately the "have a real job so I can afford $10,000 of swords and plate armor" cuts into the "wake up / workout / train / lunch, beer, wench / workout / train some more" regimen that makes a professional knight / soldier / athelete. Imagine if the NFL had to work office jobs 9-5 M-F to buy their own pads and plane tickets. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 03:30
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:There is a lot in this post that is wrong. While many swords contained iron components (such as those made by pattern-welding or wrapped construction) the cutting edge, was almost always made of steel. The quality of metal has something to do with the quality of the sword, but the heat treatment is very important, I would say equally so. Steel without heat treatment cannot keep an edge anywhere near as well as treated steel, nor can it flex, and is much more liable to break. Steel is iron with a small amount of carbon. The problem with early steel was the large amount of impurities, which disrupt the crystal-structure of the metal and weaken it. Heat treatment is absolutely important in that it changes the crystalline structure of the material, but I lumped it all under "quality". So I guess I should clarify my "quality" as 1) having the right percentage of carbon for the task 2) removing all impurities 3) properly heat treated for the application at hand. Unfortunately for Ye Olde Smithe, judging all 3 basically came down to experimentation and secret family recipes, without any hard objective data to work by. quote:It seems that this particular confusion continues to your understanding of spears. 'any poo poo piece of scrap iron' would not do 'just fine'. Aside from the fact that spears have sharp edges (something that wrought iron cannot maintain after first contact with wood or linen or a butterfly), wrought iron is prone to bend far more than steel. I don't know by what rationale you can say the point is not intended to be the 'load bearing component' when the point is where force is applied to the target. In a spear, the metal blade provides the cutting edge, while the shaft supports the force of the blow. This has two advantages: 1) a harder (and thus brittler) steel can be used for better edge retention because 2) the more flexible wooden shaft allows it to absorb a lot of force. This composite weapon allows both materials to be used to their respective strengths. On a sword, the blade has to be sharp enough to hold a cutting edge, AND be strong enough to withstand the force of repeated strikes. That's a lot of demand to put on a single material, which in addition to the difficulty of objectively making "good" steel, makes creating a quality sword kind of a crapshoot.
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Aug 2, 2013 03:39
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 at you historysplaining to Rodrigo loving Diaz. INTJ Mastermind posted:On a sword, the blade has to be sharp enough to hold a cutting edge, AND be strong enough to withstand the force of repeated strikes. That's a lot of demand to put on a single material, which in addition to the difficulty of objectively making "good" steel, makes creating a quality sword kind of a crapshoot. quote:While many swords contained iron components (such as those made by pattern-welding or wrapped construction) the cutting edge, was almost always made of steel. I'm going to let him do the heavy lifting here unless he wants help, but this: quote:Unfortunately for Ye Olde Smithe, judging all 3 basically came down to experimentation and secret family recipes, without any hard objective data to work by. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 04:18
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Chamale posted:How did pikes influence the reduced popularity of plate armour? I've heard that guns alone weren't enough to end the era of heavy armour, but the combination of "pike and shot" made plate mail knights obsolete on the battlefield. This is some pages back, but I'm catching up on the thread and I just wanted to point out that steel plate is actually still used in modern body armor. Some things never change, I guess. Steel is pretty awesome?
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Aug 2, 2013 05:03
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Steel is iron with a small amount of carbon. Thus making it a different material (an "alloy" as those in The Biz call it). It is general custom that when people refer to iron they mean either pure iron or wrought iron unless they are referencing Livy, or if they have turned into Livy because they had been bitten by a Classicist and a full moon is out. quote:The problem with early steel was the large amount of impurities, which disrupt the crystal-structure of the metal and weaken it. Heat treatment is absolutely important in that it changes the crystalline structure of the material, but I lumped it all under "quality". You said 'quality of the iron'. Even with material terminology aside, hardening and tempering are some of the last things done to blades before they are finished. By referring to the raw material it seemed to me you were referring to it before it had been forged by a bladesmith. quote:So I guess I should clarify my "quality" as 1) having the right percentage of carbon for the task 2) removing all impurities 3) properly heat treated for the application at hand. Unfortunately for Ye Olde Smithe, judging all 3 basically came down to experimentation and secret family recipes, without any hard objective data to work by. The venerable spark test is fairly effective at determining carbon content. While I do not know if it was used in that period, it would certainly have been available to the smith. Even without this, the simple act of forging (including welding) a given piece of steel or iron will give you some idea of its qualities. The fact that ALL of the ULFBERH+T swords tested by Alan Williams contained crucible steel shows that there was certainly SOME general knowledge. To source steel, especially to source it from as far away as India (the only place known to make crucible steel at the time) means that the makers of the ULFBERH+T swords must have understood that it was superior than locally sourced steel. quote:In a spear, the metal blade provides the cutting edge, while the shaft supports the force of the blow. This has two advantages: 1) a harder (and thus brittler) steel can be used for better edge retention because 2) the more flexible wooden shaft allows it to absorb a lot of force. This composite weapon allows both materials to be used to their respective strengths. Here, again, you seem to be confused. You called the shaft "the load bearing component" (my emphasis). While the flex of the wood certainly took a lot of the load of impact, it did not take all of it. In addition to the blade of the spear, the neck would also need to be able to resist the load of impact if the spear was to last more than a single strike. You now talk about the advantage of being able to use a harder steel. I do not know here if you mean one with more impurities or one with higher carbon content or one that is simple hardened but not tempered. None of these, however, feasibly provide the advantage you speak of, especially within your own reasoning. More slag does not make steel significantly harder, but it does make it significantly more brittle. Steel with higher carbon content is, to the best of my knowledge, not more brittle than low-carbon steel. Even if it is, however, the tradeoff for increased hardness and toughness is clearly worthwhile, considering the preference for high-carbon steel for blades both in the Middle Ages and today. Hardening but not tempering does not make sense either, as there is no reason to take a weapon to a full quench but not temper it when a slack quench provides less risk of cracks from thermal shock and is easier to do besides, while still leaving you with a weapon that can take an edge. But in your own words there was no 'hard objective data to work by', so it seems a mystery to me how a smith could identify a particularly hard piece of steel in the first place. However, the keen observer would notice that in none of these examples are we using 'any poo poo piece of scrap iron' as you originally wrote. Rather, we are using steel or, if we allow your liberties with the term 'iron', a quite narrow range of iron and not just 'any poo poo piece'. quote:On a sword, the blade has to be sharp enough to hold a cutting edge, AND be strong enough to withstand the force of repeated strikes. That's a lot of demand to put on a single material, which in addition to the difficulty of objectively making "good" steel, makes creating a quality sword kind of a crapshoot. You seem to operate in this peculiar realm where the laws of physics do not apply to spear points. They must never blunt in the slightest where you are. Or perhaps, by some method beyond my kenning, the force of an impact completely surpasses a spearhead and goes straight into the shaft? I do not know. HEGEL CURES THESES posted:
That's 'Rodrigo loving Diaz de Vivar, El Cid loving Campeador' to you. quote:I'm going to let him do the heavy lifting here unless he wants help, but this: This is true, but there was still a lot that was developed over the age, and there is an argument to be made that even skilled craftsmen had significant gaps in their knowledge. This article in particular shows what I am talking about. That there were swords whose average edge hardness does not even register on the Rockwell C scale strikes me as indicative of inconsistent methods of hardening. The transition, which Alan Williams describes in Knight and the Blast Furnace, from the use of a slack quench to a full quench and tempering over the course of the Middle Ages is also a serious advancement in bladesmithing. Though his data is not a complete set it does seem to reliably show a trend. However, one of the problems with using an article like that is that we cannot see the original blades. (Edit: by this I mean we cannot see the blades cited in the papers in their current state. Of course, it is also problematic that we cannot see the blades as they first came out of the shop either) It is possible, for example, that some of the blades have been re-shaped enough that their hardened edge has worn away partially or completely. The blade that has no evidence of heat treatment whatsoever I find particularly confusing, and is what prompts this comment to begin with. Of course, we are also operating without fully understanding what a customer might desire in a blade. Perhaps the lower hardness was a desired feature. In any case, contemporary swords were clearly good at their jobs. Secondary edit: Can anyone recommend some entertaining biographies or other primary sources, preferably with cheap English or Spanish translations? I've got Suger, Joinville, Diaz de Gamez and might be getting Alonso de Contreras soon, but I would love some other suggestions. Early modern is ok too, and non-military is just fine. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 14:52
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I thought it was El Sayyid? Or is that Al Sayyid? Goddamned Berbers, you come Iberia you need to learn spanish  Actually, speaking of El Cid, what was the deal?
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Aug 2, 2013 21:10
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Arglebargle III posted:I know it's intimidating, but the source on the Three Kingdoms period is Romance of the Three Kingdoms. There are a number of translations and (thankfully) abridged versions. DON'T feel like you have to read the whole thing, it is a novel only in the loosest sense and has many stories about a vast number of characters. It's also a work of fiction so... This is from a dozen pages (and a few months) ago but I wouldn't really say that RoTK is the best source of the Three Kingdoms period given that, like you said, it's basically historical fiction albeit great historical fiction. The best source you're going to get for anything regarding the Three Kingdoms is Records of the Three Kingdoms (aka Sanguozhi) by Chen Shou. It's not a completely unbiased source mind you: Chen Shou was the son of a Shu officer and was comissioned to write it by the Jin after Shu's fall (so there's a bit of writing up of Wei and Shu; Wu kind of gets the shaft by contrast) but it's about as contemporary and accurate a source as you're ever going to get for that time period. Kongming as a few SGZ biography translations but I'm not sure if there's a complete translation of it anywhere.
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Aug 3, 2013 19:50
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Having had to read (a couple of different versions of) it for work recently, I can also recommend Cao Cao's annotated version of the Art of War for a more historically accurate version. It's kind of a bitch to get though, even if you read Classical Chinese. Maybe one day when I have free time (ha!) I'll make a proper English translation.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:29
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First of all, sorry for the wait. I had JUST got used to the idea no one was going to reply when someone did.Unzip and Attack posted:What are the various advantages of different weapon types? I mean, it sounds like the spear was the most common weapon used pretty much up until the advent of muskets, but why would an individual choose to wield a sword vs. an axe. vs. a mace in battle? Like others have mentioned, the versatility of a sword is a very good point. They were definitely very good all-purpose weapons. Foire Dei Liberi refers to the sword (at least with two hands) as mortal against all weapons, fights near or far, closes in for disarms and wrestling, can break or bind, cover or injure. Not that the same is necessarily untrue for other weapons, but maces or axes have more of an ideal distance depending on their length – for instance, a shorter mace or axe will have less reach, and a longer mace or axe will be harder to use up-close. On the other hand a sword can be fairly long and yet still slice with at close range. One merit of the sword is balance. Axes and maces are weighted more in the head, giving them a powerful blow, while the sword has (relatively speaking) less of the weight behind the blade, making fluid changes in direction easier. This is handy if you want to both attack and defend at the same time (which you should). Another thing I notice (though from reconstructive tests) is sharp blades can do rather well at cutting leather or textile armours. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMkGF3EqUjU A very light cut, required very little power behind it, yet cut into the bone. Though this only applies if the edge is of good quality. A much stronger blow after putting nicks in the edge will do far less. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLPZSQTyfyE There is another test with leather (not armour-grade), it is mostly debunking a bad TV show, but it is to show swords can work quite well against some materials. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZNoBTDR9kY With a mace, it just hits really hard. If you are fighting something like mail or brigandine that you are not going to cut through, then delivering more impact is preferable. Not all of them were really big. I have heard of maces as light as 1 lb (though I have no sources for the weights of maces, in my experience the weights get listed a lot less than for swords) so that it would deliver impact through acceleration rather than mass. Another thing I have heard suggested is that there were shorter axes or maces for when two horsemen get close. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boEWMlWuzuI Like always, take these videos with your own judgement. With axes I have less of a confident comment, though one could look at them as like a compromise between mace and sword – it has the cutting edge like a sword but also has the clobbering force of a mace, though perhaps not as optimised as each one. However, I would warn that this is approaching the concept of an axe from a very modern point of view and the people picking axes probably did not see it in those terms. Still, I think the idea of having a cutting blade for unarmoured foes and still enough force to hurt guys in armour would be appealing. Another note is often a short axe was often very different to a larger axe. For instance, what gets called a Dane Axe (or English long axe) would handle very differently to a lot of other axes. So I am generalising a lot for convenience sake. CreepyGuy9000 posted:
My definition of well-executed is probably the opposite of glamorous. Generally speaking, if it is done right, things should not be very exciting at all. On top of that, trapping people and starving them into submission rarely fits my vision of glamour. Nor does storming the city of Jerusalem and massacring many of the inhabitants. This is probably why battles get the attention in the popular imagination. I would probably need to narrow down a reason I find a siege interesting. I like the story of Rochester Castle, since it shows just how effective a castle can be and how much effort is needed to overcome it. Edit: OR! The First Siege of Rhodes 1480, with the Hospitallers vs the Ottoman Empire. An overwhelming invasion force, held off by a relatively small number of knights and soldiers, with very modern/up-to-date and innovative weapons and tactics. Come to think of it, that would make excellent movie material. At the very least, a mortar launching 260 kg granite balls would be impressive on the big screen. LitmusTest posted:I take it this is totally unrealistic? Historical battles were probably not so entertaining to watch. Although the people in that video are using plenty of force, they are not using the most deadly techniques possible. Chopping swords would not be the first choice against plate armour. I think I would expect more sharp and nasty thrashing around like someone trying to snuggle with a barracuda in a real battle. A bit more stabbing at joints, pommel or cross-guard strikes would be in order. With full contact stuff like that, my general criteria for realism is to count how many people died. If you are using full force without killing or at least permanently maiming anybody, then you are probably not doing the same thing as historical knights were doing. This is why I should never be a judge at these contests. The common theme with the ramming you see there is it is usually being done to someone distracted. The problem with that tactic is it is sacrificing a lot of defence and also telegraphing your attack. As WoodrowSkillson & EvanSchenck pointed out, it would apply to a fairly limited set of circumstances - surprise, outnumbered and isolated foe, capturing fleeing foes during a rout. Kaal posted:As for historicity, remember that we're looking at a small subset of medieval warfare. The vast majority of medieval combatants were poorly armed peasant levies that couldn't defend themselves well against an armored knight in the first place. Combat would start in organized ranks and then devolve into a general melee as time went on. And the medieval documents are pretty clear that wrestling while in armor happened all the time, particularly when knights were facing other knights en melee. Kaal posted:"Professional soldiers" or no, they're still levied peasants and they're still poorly armed compared to a knight. That doesn't mean that they're wielding farm tools, but a spear and shield isn't comparable to armor. Not picking on you here, I am just grouping your posts together for convenience. The non-knightly foot soldiers could be quite well-equipped. To use an example, I will give the Assize of Arms of 1181. 1. Whoever possesses one knight's fee shall have a shirt of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance; and every knight shall have as many shirts of mail, helmets, shields, and lances as he possesses knight's fees in demesne. 2. Moreover, every free layman who possesses chattels or rents to the value of 16m. shall have a shirt of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance; and every free layman possessing chattels or rents to the value of 10m. shall have a hauberk, an iron cap, and a lance.[note 2] 3. Item, all burgesses and the whole community of freemen shall have [each] a gambeson,[note 3] an iron cap, and a lance. Also, Duke Albrecht V’s order of 1421 (copying from the pdf is wonky so I’ll paraphrase). Equipment included an iron hat, body armour of iron or a jerkin, gauntlets and a sword or knife. Of every 20 men, 3 handguns, 8 crossbows, 4 pikes & 4 war flails (which I know only adds up to 19, it gets discussed early on in the thread). Wonky is a technical term. In the earlier example, there are free laymen with similar kit to the knight or guys with gambesons instead of mail. Later on, the knight has full plate, but the foot soldiers have a helmet, breastplate, gauntlets and a sword or messer (seems the most logical interpretation of a knife in context). Kaal posted:I don't think that someone's title had very much to do with how well they do on the battlefield. Getting into that kind of distinction only muddies the discussion. The reality is that having armor is a significant advantage over folks who don't have it, whether or not they have the proper heraldry and royal title to be "technically called a knight". From what I have read of the discussion, no one is disputing (or has disputed) whether armour is a significant advantage, the part being disputed is your claim that "The vast majority of medieval combatants were poorly armed peasant levies that couldn't defend themselves well against an armored knight in the first place." on the grounds that many if not most were reasonably well-armed and relatively few were peasant levies unless you stretch the definition quite a bit. Rodrigo loving Diaz de Vivar, El Cid loving Campeador posted:Of course, we are also operating without fully understanding what a customer might desire in a blade. Perhaps the lower hardness was a desired feature. I find this very likely, according to this - http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_bladehardness.html In particular the sword diagram of the hardness by location of the A457 from the Wallace Collection. The distribution of hardness looks (overall, barring a few random spots) very strategic to me from that diagram. For instance, the edge at the forte is softer than further up the blade, and the spine is generally softer than the edge. Railtus fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 18:59
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Railtus posted:I find this very likely, according to this - http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_bladehardness.html That very article is linked in the post you are quoting. edit: Thanks for using my full title. double edit: Also while your characterisation of my arguments with Kaal are largely correct, I was also making the point that even troops that were comparatively lightly armed (the Scots at Falkirk) could withstand armored combatants at least some of the time and men-at-arms would not simply sweep them from the field by default as Kaal implies. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 19:26
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:That very article is linked in the post you are quoting. Whoops. Sorry about that, I didn't check your link. In that case the important bit of my comment is that the hardness distribution implies people saw at least some benefits to lower hardness. You're welcome. Another good example of less armoured men defeating armoured knights is the Battle of Golden Spurs. I think it is safe to say that if fully armoured men-at-arms get careless and cut off from support they would be in deep trouble.
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Aug 5, 2013 21:00
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Railtus posted:Another good example of less armoured men defeating armoured knights is the Battle of Golden Spurs. I think it is safe to say that if fully armoured men-at-arms get careless and cut off from support they would be in deep trouble. Were the Flemish at Courtrai significantly less armoured though? I have not examined the battle closely, but I know from early 12th century sources that Flemish foot-soldiers tended to be well-armed, at least in that period. They might, by the 14th century, have maintained the mail shirt and helmet dynamic when the French knights had moved on to heavier equipment (chausses, great helms, some plate reinforcement on the limbs etc) but I honestly do not know. By the way, don't know if you saw the tail end of my last post, but do you have any suggestions for affordable primary sources? I'd like non-fiction or semi-fictional. So no Arthurian or Dante type stuff, but something like Njall's Saga would be fine. Also welcome back
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Aug 6, 2013 03:55
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What are the different types and properties of "plate armor" ? I get the difference between transitional and actual plate, but were there qualitative advances in armor technology that differentiate stages of plate armor development in the medieval era?
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Aug 6, 2013 15:21
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Were the Flemish at Courtrai significantly less armoured though? I have not examined the battle closely, but I know from early 12th century sources that Flemish foot-soldiers tended to be well-armed, at least in that period. They might, by the 14th century, have maintained the mail shirt and helmet dynamic when the French knights had moved on to heavier equipment (chausses, great helms, some plate reinforcement on the limbs etc) but I honestly do not know. First of all, thank you. Normally I read the Flemish militia described as well-armed, though often without elaboration, so I had always taken it in the context of a militia force. I found something from the Annales Gandenses here - http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/goldenspurs.htm - there is probably quite a bit of exaggeration in there, but it gives me the impression that the militia were at least not as well-equipped as the knights. A citation I came across (though have not followed up properly) was Roger Clifford ‘Age of the Hundred Years War’ describing the French army as having a large force of light infantry as well. I also keep reading that the battle started off with the French infantry attacking and it going quite well against the Flemish, although that comment is not sourced in the articles I find. My first assumption was that the Flemish were probably not too well-armoured if the initial infantry assault worked well. However, if the French infantry were lightly equipped, and their attack went better than that of the knights, it would suggest two possibilities: either the lightly armoured Flemish defeated heavily armoured French knights, or the lightly armoured French infantry had the advantage over the heavily armoured Flemish until they were called back. I don’t really have any biography-like primary sources. I read part of a translation of Ibn Munqidh’s memoirs (Kitab al’Tibar I think) for my dissertation and it was a really entertaining read. However, I did not purchase it; I just took snippets from Google books previews and collections of documents from the Crusading period. Unzip and Attack posted:What are the different types and properties of "plate armor" ? I get the difference between transitional and actual plate, but were there qualitative advances in armor technology that differentiate stages of plate armor development in the medieval era? Arguably the main change was getting less and less transitional, using less mail and more solid plates. So you get better joint protection. There were quite a few styles of plate armour: gothic plate during the mid-late 1400s, Maximilian armour post 1500, around 1400 you get alwyte or white armour, and there was something called a kasten-brust (box-chested) armour in the early 1400s. There was also Milanese armour, which I could probably introduce you to best through Dressing in Steel video, and there was also Greenwich armour developed in the life of Henry VIII. I would say the styles were not necessarily an improvement on the others; they could often be influenced by fashion. Dr Tobias Capwell is currently working on more about the different styles of armour, which I will be very excited to learn more about. White armour was basically a full set of plate, without much extra features. It was complete enough that the only mail was small patches attached to the padded shirt beneath, so there was decent joint protection. Kasten-brust has fewer surviving sets, but is widely shown in paintings and statues. The breastplate was box-shaped, though I am not sure of the purpose of that. One noted feature is a long skirt to protect the upper legs from above, and it probably makes it more difficult to stab at the groin from underneath (skirt-like defences could protect the thighs without restricting the joint so much). As late as 1520 a tonlet armour was made for Henry VIII - http://www.royalarmouries.org/tonlet-armour Gothic armour was the German style, although features of it were seen elsewhere. This was absolutely beautiful, reinforced with fluting or ridges in the metal, which serve a few possible purposes: one is corrugated iron, adding structural strength, in the way a girder or steel I-beam has the shape it does. Another purpose is the fluting can act like stop-ribs all over the body, stopping a weapon point from sliding across the surface of the plates into somewhere vulnerable. A stop-rib on an earlier set of armour (just for the neck), in a video by a friend of mine, the armour set would be more of a white armour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PkTz23_Z60#t=3m45s A further feature of gothic armour is the sallet and bevor. Rather than have the helmet cover the chin or neck they had a separate cupped throat-guard that could cover the chin. It might attach to the breastplate or may have straps - http://pics.myarmoury.com/sallet1475d_s.jpg Maximilian armour, so named after Kaiser Maximilian I, has a great deal more fluting although the ridges are not as thick. It resembles the pleated clothing of the time. I prefer Gothic armour; I think if the fluting acts like stop-ribs then too many flutes/ridges could inhibit the deflective properties of the armour. Italian style armours are shown in Dressing in Steel, if you have 20 minutes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HwRqJwXXcQ – some features of that are the asymmetrical shoulder pieces, also the leather strap joining the upper-breastplate to the lower-breastplate (plackart). This allows the torso to flex a little bit more. Plackarts are seen on other armours too, but the strap connection is more of an Italian thing. I think the Italian suits are normally more bulky than German sets, but that is very much a generalisation. Milanese & German (Innsbruck or Augsburg) armours were notable for having really low slag content. "The Knight and the Blast Furnace", p. 940: we have numbers of slag content of German 16th century armors. You see numbers like 0,6%, 0,42%, 0,29%. Appendix 5 gives us fracture toughness numbers of iron with different slag contents. For context, "Study of Microstructures on Cross Section of Japanese Sword" by M. Yaso and T. Takaiwa, Fig. 3 shows 0,8% slag in the cutting edge of an antique Muramasa sword. Greenwich armour I have less to comment on from a functional perspective. It was really Henry VIII’s jealousy that founded it: he was upset that Maximilian I had his own armour workshops and Henry wanted to outdo him. The major story behind Greenwich armours is the decorations. There is a nice documentary on English armour and the social influence of it by Tobias Capwell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO-pX9PrzSI Some common features are the lance rest. Towards the end of Dressing In Steel. It gives support and shock absorption, taking your breastplate take some of the impact of a lance strike, rather than all on your shoulder. Another nice trait later on (1500s) is duplex armours, which is two breastplates joined together to provide two separate layers. The idea is to resist a gunshot by having a crack in the outer layer not compromise the inner layer. Armour could sometimes stop firearms of the day; depending on the size of the gun, the distance of the shot and so on. Later on, my favourite development is the munitions armour that made it economically feasible to mass-produce. These were affordable, of one-size fits most (so articulation/coverage was typically limited), but it could mean large numbers of pikemen would have partial plate. Edit: Another element was the pigeon-pointed chest, where the shape of the breastplate might have a ridge in the centre of the chest, and the shape slopes back to provide a glancing surface against missiles if they struck from the front. 
Railtus fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 20:22
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Smoking Crow posted:Speaking of banking, what did the Templars actually do? I know that they may be the beginning of the Swiss banking system, but what did they actually do besides protect Jesus's kids? For what it’s worth, I think this question deserves a proper answer, so I am going to give it. The Knights Templar: The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon were a mix of knights and monks, who trained in weapons and warfare but were bound to monastic vows such as celibacy, poverty and obedience. These were all a big deal because it drastically cut down on costs of having elite warriors: wives and children were expensive, living without personal property meant a Templar lived in much more modest accommodation than a typical knight and obedience meant they did as they were told. A badass army at a bargain price. Their purpose was not directly to fight the Muslims, although they did do plenty of that, but was to ensure safe passage to pilgrims travelling to and from Jerusalem. Outremer – “the land beyond the sea” – was not under solid control. Crusaders held military castles but could not reliably patrol the roads against bandits. How much actual patrolling they did I am not sure of, but the whole idea of banking or letters of credit is like a traveller’s cheque. The idea was that pilgrims could use a letter of credit to avoid carrying valuables through bandit-infested land. I don’t know how well it worked but they seemed to be popular. The idea was controversial, since monks being knights was iffy on religious grounds, but I suppose the Crusades did a lot to legitimise the idea of holy warriors. So they got a lot of support and donations. Outside of conspiracy theories, the other portray of the Templars is fanatic anti-Muslims, and while they certainly took their faith seriously I think it is kind of inaccurate. Do not trust the film Kingdom of Heaven – none of the guys portrayed as Templars in it were actually Templars in real life. From what I understand, Muslims used their banking services. They also opened their headquarters for Muslims to pray in. Their base, the Temple of Solomon, was also the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Muslims would visit. And there is a story from Ibn Munqidh describing the Templars preventing other newcomer Franks (West Europeans) from disrupting Munqidh’s prayers. The Templar performance was famous at the Battle of Montgisard, when an army of several thousand Crusaders defeated 26 000 of Saladin’s men. However, they suffered horrendous losses at Hattin. I don’t blame the Templars for this; Guy de Lusignan literally did lead the army across the desert with no water. Hattin was about 20 000 Crusaders vs. 30 000 Saracens, and this does highlight the main problems the Crusaders had. That one battle more or less crippled the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Saladin could lose most of his army at Montgisard and have another army just as big 10 years later. Fighting Muslims became a big deal because their duty was to preserve the Holy Land for pilgrims, which meant they joined Richard the Lionheart in the Third Crusade. They kind of sought a purpose after losing the Holy Land. Mostly that purpose was trying to get the Holy Land back, though they ended up loaning a great deal of money to kings. This would eventually be the downfall of the Order, although I presume everyone knows that story already.
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Aug 10, 2013 12:22
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I wish there was a full contact sport for using melee weapons with knockouts and people submitting due to pain instead of just the point sparring in fencing, but I imagine that would be hard to do without serious injuries or death.
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Aug 11, 2013 05:21
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Meet me behind the 7-11, bring an axe.
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Aug 11, 2013 21:30
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How much did toponyms from Antiquity and the Early Middle ages carry on into later periods? Like, if Neustria or Austrasia was brought up in conversation in 1300, would a modestly knowledgable-for-the-times monk know where that was? A knight? A merchant? The online Anglo-Norman Dictionary has entries for places like Phrygia (Frige)-- was that a contemporary term used by the Greeks, or were old toponyms like that remembered only in copies of the classics by then?
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Aug 12, 2013 18:01
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JohnsonsJohnson posted:I wish there was a full contact sport for using melee weapons with knockouts and people submitting due to pain instead of just the point sparring in fencing, but I imagine that would be hard to do without serious injuries or death. battle of the nations is as close as you will get but it's not really representative of historical martial combat.
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Aug 14, 2013 02:55
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Do we have any examples of the Fyrd levies proving useful, or do they mostly seem to have been a 'oh poo poo, we need men! OH CHRIST THE DANES ARE HERE!' thing?
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Aug 14, 2013 08:54
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So what about those slingers? In every second fantasy or alternative medieval history book, some character has the genius idea to recruit slingers to throw rocks. It turn out that every single peasant is more accurate and has a higher range and higher damage then a normal archer. And they come pre-trained. From practicing this as a hobby since they could walk. And in computer games like Total War slingers are also a special unit of some cultures which you would always favor over archers. So what is the truth? How good do they really work? And why were they (almost?) never used militarily?
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Aug 14, 2013 09:14
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At the least the range thing is probably bull. Stones are a lot less aerodynamic than arrows.
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Aug 14, 2013 09:22
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tonberrytoby posted:So what about those slingers? Slings actually were used militarily pretty extensively for a long time. Hell, for a while they genuinely did have a higher range than a lot of bows. One important consideration for range, however, is that those cultures that used slings as a matter of course tended to use specially shaped shot, not just random stones. The Greeks used cast lead ovals, for instance, which are more aerodynamic than spheres or irregular stones. Xenophon, IIRC, speaks to how those lead shot were vastly superior to stone. Later on, it saw some use in the medieval period against the Moors in Spain and, IIRC, a little bit of use in north Scandinavia. Why they lost favour, I can't answer at all.
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Aug 14, 2013 09:37
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Railtus posted:Knights Templar stuff Do you think they knew at the time that it wasn't actually Solomon's Temple, and just called it that?
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Aug 14, 2013 09:45
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tonberrytoby posted:So what about those slingers? Well, in the case of pre-Norman medieval Ireland, slings provided the principal form of long range missile fire. Archery seems to have disappeared in Ireland during pre-historic times, only to be reintroduced by the Vikings and "popularised" by the Normans. Gerarld of Wales, who wrote the chronicle Expungnatio Hibernica, relates the danger posed by the highly mobile native staff-slingers to the knights, and the need to always have archers at hand to reply with immediate and accurate return fire. So serious was that threat, that when discussing the way warfare should be conducted in Ireland, he stresses the constant need for archers to be combined with knighty formations. The archers use is to keep the Irish at bay during the swift, hit and run exchanges of Irish warfare. Gerarld notes the vulnerability of the mounted troops to the slingers, who usually attacked from ambush, or occasionally field fortifications. Security on the march was such a concern to the Normans (Norman forces getting destroyed on the march wasn't uncommon) that they changed their formations to include large numbers of both mounted and foot archers. The sling does seem to have fallen out of favour over time though, it seems that as a skirmishing weapon the bow is just superior. One advantage of the sling, the fact that ammo is everywhere, became less of a plus once native Irish boywers and fletchers become established, indeed most arrowhead finds in Ireland are of the armour-piercing bodkin type. EDIT: Heres a quote from Topographia Hibernica: Gerarld of Wales posted:But, they are armed with three kinds of weapons: namely, short spears and two darts; in which they follow the customs of the Basclenses (Basques); and they also carry heavy battle axes of iron, exceedingly well-wrought and tempered. These they borrowed from the Norwegians and Ostmen of when we shall speak hereafter. But in striking with the battle-axe they use only one hand, instead of both, clasping the haft firmly, and raising it above the head, so as to direct the blow with such force that neither the helmets which protect our head, nor the platting of the coat of mail which defends the rest of our bodies, can resist the stroke. Thus, it has happened in my own time, that one blow of the axe has cut off a knight's thigh, although it was encased in iron, the thigh and leg falling on one side of his horse, and the body of the dying horseman on the other. When other weapons fail, they hurl stones against the enemy in battle with such quickness and dexterity, that they do more execution than the slingers of any other nation. Rabhadh fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Aug 14, 2013 |
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Aug 14, 2013 10:13
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When Xenophon and his buddies were heading through Anatolia, the natives were harassing the poo poo out of the hoplite column with javelin skirmishers. So he says that all the guys from Rhodes were given slings, while the dudes from Crete got bows, and these were used to keep the enemy at bay. Which is probably where the notion that those cultures had superior skills in those weapons came from.
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Aug 14, 2013 12:45
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Another fun fact about slingers is that oftentimes you'll find preserved lead bullets (for lack of a better term) with interesting marks on them. Since lead is soft some slingers chose to personalize their ammunition. Some might have drawings on them such as snakes or lighting bolts and others might have the name of the slinger or his unit on it. Most amusing though, in my opinion, are the ones that are found with things written on them like "Ouch" or "Catch!" I believe they've even found some from the Roman period that said "For Pompey's backside"
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Aug 14, 2013 13:53
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tonberrytoby posted:So what about those slingers? I made a number of slings out of rope (woven rope baskets for the rock) and the accuracy was pretty poo poo, even though I probably launched 500-1000 rocks total out of them. The most use I ever found for a sling was shooting orange sized rocks into dead trees to knock down firewood. As to range, slings can hurl a rock an absolutely ridiculous distance. They leave at such a speed that they make a very loud whirring, buzzing sound. You can shoot rocks so far you don't even hear them land. If you ever make or purchase a sling, be very careful where you practice. Once you get the timing of a full strength release down, you don't want anything within a thousand feet of you because your first few will go in any possible direction. Moreso if your projectile slips out of the sling prematurely. Slings are a lot of fun. Especially when you realize how far you can hurl a golfball-sized rock with a sling that takes an hour to make and weighs just a few ounces. As far as potential for really hurting people, slings are pretty scary. I really know of no comparison, it's like the difference between throwing an arrow with your hand and using a bow and/or atlatl. A sling will throw a bigger rock much, much, much harder and farther than you ever could barehanded. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Aug 14, 2013 |
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Aug 14, 2013 14:08
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Great, now I want a sling.
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Aug 14, 2013 14:54
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