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Beeez posted:Yeah, these are some of the reasons I found it confusing to be sure how formations actually worked. I know ultimately the goal is to rout the enemy and it wasn't very likely for battles to be fought to the last man, but from some of the descriptions and pictures I've seen I don't understand how just pushing could work that well in a lot of instances. It seems like it'd limit mobility and dexterity too much if the formations are excessively rigid. But again, I could be way off, just trying to figure it out. The most basic benefit of a formation is it prevents the individual soldier from being flanked. Another is you can rotate the troops, letting the guy behind you fight if you get tired or if you lose your weapon and so on. If I were to lose my pollaxe/halberd and needed to switch to my sword, I might step back so my friend can take over fighting while I draw a new weapon. We know rest breaks were important because (I think) Maximilian I had barrels of water assigned next to every 8 men during battle, implying they would have time to stop and drink. On top of that, you need concentrated force to penetrate into a formation. If individual men burst through the front line, the troops immediately behind will effectively surround them. Pike phalanxes are somewhat different, and more likely to get denser blocks (they tended towards shorter swords like baslers/degens or katzbalgers). However, even they gave the individual fighters some room. Essentially presenting a solid wall of pikes or spears so someone cannot slip past one weapon. Getting too cramped could lead to embarrassing defeats. For instance, part of the problem at Agincourt was the crush of men as the rear ranks of the French pressed into the backs of the front ranks so much that they could not fight effectively. So in a way, your line of thought is right. Occasionally combined arms formations were used such as archers and spearmen, either to give the archers cover from the spearmen’s shields (I think at Jaffa) or to allow longbowmen to shoot directly forwards (rather than arc shooting) while having heavily armoured infantry with them so they can shoot at the charging enemy while the infantry can block the charge (Crecy, possibly Agincourt). Combined arms + pike phalanx results in pike-and-shot warfare. The Spanish Tercio is a particularly complex example.
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Aug 20, 2013 03:25
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Railtus posted:Good explanation! That could explain how a 160 lb bow is feasible, if the conventional draw was not the full power of the bow. Mongol bows were designed to be fired from horseback where space was at a premium. I think it's totally plausible that they were designed to be shot at less than full draw just because of the reduced physical distance from bow to string.
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Aug 20, 2013 03:28
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Railtus posted:We know rest breaks were important because (I think) Maximilian I had barrels of water assigned next to every 8 men during battle, implying they would have time to stop and drink. Who was in charge of moving the barrel?
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Aug 20, 2013 03:40
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Xiahou Dun posted:Who was in charge of moving the barrel? In a large scale melee fight, you'd probably have more soldiers who aren't currently engaged in close combat in the back ranks than who are. No reason for them to just stand around waiting for their turn.
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Aug 20, 2013 06:11
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Railtus posted:
See also the battle of Cannae
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Aug 20, 2013 21:24
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Another question I have would be, was dysentery always fatal in those days, or was it possible to survive it even though it was more serious back then? I've heard that it was a common illness in soldier camps in the past but I don't know if it was an instant death sentence or not.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:09
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Beeez posted:Another question I have would be, was dysentery always fatal in those days, or was it possible to survive it even though it was more serious back then? I've heard that it was a common illness in soldier camps in the past but I don't know if it was an instant death sentence or not. The most successful cure was to hydrate enough while you had it and not let yourself get bled.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:19
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Beeez posted:Another question I have would be, was dysentery always fatal in those days, or was it possible to survive it even though it was more serious back then? I've heard that it was a common illness in soldier camps in the past but I don't know if it was an instant death sentence or not. Edit: Hey Obdicut, what's the haps?
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Aug 21, 2013 04:20
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Beeez posted:Another question I have would be, was dysentery always fatal in those days, or was it possible to survive it even though it was more serious back then? I've heard that it was a common illness in soldier camps in the past but I don't know if it was an instant death sentence or not. I think in the modern day, fatality rates for something like Cholera is like 50-70 percent without treatment, assuming you're infected and show acute symptoms and aren't one of those people who develops a really mild case or doesn't get sick at all. Of course there's a ton of other stuff that will give you dysentery too, and probably not all of it is as hideously fatal.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:22
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Obdicut posted:The most successful cure was to hydrate enough while you had it and not let yourself get bled. And they were generally aware of this?
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Aug 21, 2013 04:37
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Beeez posted:And they were generally aware of this? When you see it happen often enough, you do tend to put two and two together... Well, 'poo poo I'm thirsty' is a common response to dehydration and pretty natural and easy to do, while the whole not bleeding thing depended on the fashions of the time (you know those barbers, always on the cutting edge...) Prevention by clean water was a big deal. Armies that figured out that latrines should go here and drinking water here generally did better than those that hadn't grasped the difference.
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Aug 21, 2013 05:53
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Beeez posted:And they were generally aware of this? Well it's pretty easy to ride out a spell of bad diarrhea when you have a nice warm bed and good nutrition on your side. It's a whole nother matter when you're force-marching miles a day, cold, wet, starving, and being chased by Muslims / Mongols / Johnny Reb / the Nazis.
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Aug 21, 2013 06:12
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the JJ posted:When you see it happen often enough, you do tend to put two and two together... Well, 'poo poo I'm thirsty' is a common response to dehydration and pretty natural and easy to do, while the whole not bleeding thing depended on the fashions of the time (you know those barbers, always on the cutting edge...) Also depended on how much hydration they needed. Water alone wouldn't do it, you'd need saline to make up for the salt losses from making GBS threads your butt off. And probably sugar since you aren't absorbing much nutrition either.
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Aug 21, 2013 06:39
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veekie posted:Also depended on how much hydration they needed. Water alone wouldn't do it, you'd need saline to make up for the salt losses from making GBS threads your butt off. And probably sugar since you aren't absorbing much nutrition either.
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Aug 21, 2013 06:52
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Beeez posted:Another question I have would be, was dysentery always fatal in those days, or was it possible to survive it even though it was more serious back then? I've heard that it was a common illness in soldier camps in the past but I don't know if it was an instant death sentence or not. It was a common illness. Cholera is really hit or miss since death depends entirely on whether you can replace the water the patient is losing. So it could absolutely devastating or it could just make everyone miserable for a few weeks. It's sometimes said that amateurs study tactics and professionals study logistics. Logistics more than anything else was the specialty of the Roman army. Part of their miraculous success on campaign can likely be attributed to their meticulous attention to securing fresh water and good sanitation wherever they went. Roman camps were so organized and so predictable that during the Samnite wars a commander (I forgot his name) built a camp that was way too small for his army on purpose. The Samnites, being familiar with the size of camp the Romans would build for various numbers of troops, laid siege with an inadequate force and were taken completely by surprise when several legions poured clowncar-like out of the small camp and slaughtered them. There was another episode during the time of the Cimbri invasion where Marius was trailing the Cimbri army looking for an opportunity to give battle. One night the Cimbri made camp on the banks of a major river and Marius set up his camp in a place that conspicuously had no access to fresh water, with the Cimbri between his army and the river. He is supposed to have said, "You want a drink? There it is!" to his soldiers, gesturing at the enemy army. In fact however some of his soldiers snuck over to the river before dawn and ran into some Cimbri taking a bath and the battle kicked off in a disorganized fashion, so Marius might not have had the best idea that day. He eventually won but the battle was such a slog that they had no time to go back to camp as night fell, fighting into the night and then camping in the open just a few hundred yards from their opponents. In the morning they finished off the Cimbri. The battle was supposedly so bloody that the victorious army spent three days collecting the dead.
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Aug 21, 2013 07:43
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Arglebargle III posted:It was a common illness. Cholera is really hit or miss since death depends entirely on whether you can replace the water the patient is losing. So it could absolutely devastating or it could just make everyone miserable for a few weeks.
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Aug 21, 2013 07:49
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Still, a horribly undignified way to go either way.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:04
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Cholera just makes you piss out your rear end, dysentery happens to make you piss out bits of your intestinal linings as well.
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Aug 21, 2013 12:03
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Beeez posted:Another question I have would be, was dysentery always fatal in those days, or was it possible to survive it even though it was more serious back then? I've heard that it was a common illness in soldier camps in the past but I don't know if it was an instant death sentence or not. The English had dysentery when they won Agincourt, so I would assume it was survivable. It varies in severity.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:42
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What if they won because they had dysentery? Not only were they getting their asses handed to them, but they were getting their opponents asses handed to them as well. Imagine a dude just rocking up to you and skewering you with a spear while pooping on you. Your friends would rightfully just flee.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:50
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Remember; weapons coated with poo poo were a thing.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:50
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:Dysentery and cholera aren't the same thing, and neither one is the only thing that can cause diarrhea. This fact actually makes me suspicious of historical accounts of dysentery. Much like leprosy, the bubonic plague, and other things, without germ theory and microscopes you can't actually know what is affecting someone at a certain time except by judging their symptoms, and without the comparatively rigid systems of classification that are constructed around the 18th century, even this does not get you very far, especially when trying to look back. Thus when we talk about an army or individuals having 'dysentery', that may just be what contemporaries called it, without being the exact same thing that we today call dysentery. The chief example which causes me to question this assumption of terminological continuity in this instance is Louis VI's reported death, essentially of the disease. To quote from the Cusimano & Moorhead translation of the Deeds of Louis the Fat, quote:That summer was very hot, even more punishing than usual, and we found ourselves exhausted, weakened, and completely worn out by its all-consuming heat. The lord King Louis himself suffered another severe attack of dysentery and diarrhea in Paris, and the summer's unbearable misery totally wasted him away. While according to the Dunbabin translation: quote:At that time the hear of the summer was even more oppressive than usual, and for a while I was wearied, wasted and broken by it. The unbearable lassitude it produced exhausted King Louis who was in Paris, and brought on a very serious attack of dysentery with diarrhoea, which wore him out. I unfortunately do not have the original Latin to reference. Two things strike me about this. The first is the terminology, that Louis was suffering dysentery and diarrhea, while today we consider dysentery to be a type of diarrhea, meaning that Suger could have been using the term to simply describe rectal bleeding. The other is that Louis' dysentery is not presented as part of a larger trend, which means that he could have had something like colorectal cancer (which can be accompanied by bloody diarrhea) rather than dysentery. It's a tricky thing.
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Aug 21, 2013 19:08
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He also takes pains to say that it was really hot, which means the first thing I jump to is food poisoning. But historical medical diagnosis, as you mentioned, is always hosed up and vague. People describe symptoms more or less at random, they have weird names for things--and bacteria themselves evolve, which means even if it's the exact same disease we get now, the symptoms might have been completely different. Look at the history of syphilis, for instance.
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Aug 21, 2013 21:20
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:He also takes pains to say that it was really hot, which means the first thing I jump to is food poisoning. But historical medical diagnosis, as you mentioned, is always hosed up and vague. People describe symptoms more or less at random, they have weird names for things--and bacteria themselves evolve, which means even if it's the exact same disease we get now, the symptoms might have been completely different. Look at the history of syphilis, for instance. The point about the heat could be Suger trying to exaggerate conditions in order to make Louis seem mightier or more heroic, which is very much a key point of the Deeds. Of course, Suger could be absolutely correct, but being more interested in the martial value of the text than in Louis' death I haven't looked at other sources to corroborate. Regarding disease, one of the most controversial subjects right now is the Black Death, which I won't really go into because I haven't done a whole ton of research on it. That said, the case, as it was presented to me, that it did not transmit by fleas seems fairly conclusive.
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Aug 22, 2013 06:39
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Regarding disease, one of the most controversial subjects right now is the Black Death, which I won't really go into because I haven't done a whole ton of research on it. That said, the case, as it was presented to me, that it did not transmit by fleas seems fairly conclusive.
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Aug 22, 2013 06:44
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:Yep, pneumonic plague is airborne; we've known this since forever. I read a really good book on the Black Death a few years ago--I'll try to remember the title and get back to you with it. It's still a matter of some debate exactly how the Death manifested, with some folks still contending, like Michael McCormick in 2003, that it primarily spread by fleas. The fact that articles like this need to be published in 2011 show that 'we' is a very limited group. Hell, whether or not it's even Yersinia Pestis is debated, though recent archaeological stuff seems fairly conclusive that it is. Basically this all reinforces the fact that historical diagnosis is HARD and weird.
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Aug 22, 2013 15:59
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Did the lords in medieval times have lawns? If so, did they have lawnmowers?
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Aug 23, 2013 17:28
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What did heavily armored soldiers do when they needed to go to the bathroom? Were there any sorts of shortcuts to taking off the armor, or did they just always risk soiling their armor?
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Aug 23, 2013 17:52
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poo poo in the armour
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Aug 23, 2013 17:56
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The best plan would probably to be go before you don armor I expect. Otherwise it'd just distract you during the battle.
veekie fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 18:08
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Namarrgon posted:Did the lords in medieval times have lawns? If so, did they have lawnmowers? Apparently so - http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2009/04/17/the-medieval-lawn/ As for lawnmowers, I think goats would do the job nicely. Forgive the short answer: this is something I have never studied or even thought of before. SlothfulCobra posted:What did heavily armored soldiers do when they needed to go to the bathroom? Were there any sorts of shortcuts to taking off the armor, or did they just always risk soiling their armor? Yes, there were shortcuts. In some cases you could unlace the fauld (armoured skirt), and you could unlace the cuisses (thigh plates) and you should be able to lower your pants normally. The thigh-plates tie onto a 'pourpoint' (waistcoat), but if you untie the points holding them together, you could remove the necessary pieces of armour. It is not exactly convenient, but hardly unbearable for a grown-up. Railtus fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Aug 24, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 18:25
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Google is not being helpful, but I have a hazy memory of 18th and 19th century lawn-care being done with a scythe and special shoes with wooden blocks on the end to give you the correct height. Wikipedia agrees and mentions the practice (of course there's a wikipedia page for "lawn"), but doesn't give a citation.
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Aug 23, 2013 18:33
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Namarrgon posted:Did the lords in medieval times have lawns? If so, did they have lawnmowers? My friend was given this old grass cutting tool by his grandfather. It's not medieval but something like it would be easy to make back then. I can't find a picture of it but it's got a handle with a split bar that comes out with a two-sided blade between that rests parallel with the ground. Its length is just right that by holding the handle at about waist height you can wave it back and forth and it does a decent job of cutting grass as you slowly walk along.
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Aug 23, 2013 18:38
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Do you mean something like this? We always called that a "weed whip".
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Aug 23, 2013 18:49
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Xiahou Dun posted:Do you mean something like this? Ahh, trail maintenance.
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Aug 24, 2013 04:13
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Those are a popular drunk driving deterrent, apparently.
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Aug 24, 2013 19:18
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:The chief example which causes me to question this assumption of terminological continuity in this instance is Louis VI's reported death, essentially of the disease. To quote from the Cusimano & Moorhead translation of the Deeds of Louis the Fat, Those do seem to be fairly different translations (I versus we, eliding half of the last sentence in the second one). Is it common for translations to vary this widely, or are there separate versions of the source text?
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Aug 24, 2013 19:37
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The-Mole posted:Those are a popular drunk driving deterrent, apparently. ... how? Like, I'll whack you in the shins with this if you ding my bumper?
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Aug 24, 2013 22:52
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the JJ posted:... how? Like, I'll whack you in the shins with this if you ding my bumper? Like you end up using one while you do community service. In California, they call 'em 'hula hoes'.
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Aug 25, 2013 04:36
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Xiahou Dun posted:Do you mean something like this? Basically the same concept to the one on the right but made in the early 1900's. It has a straight blade and is perpendicular to the ~4 foot handle. Guess its designed for weeds then?
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Aug 26, 2013 20:54
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