Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: orange on 07 Dec 2013, 03:03
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9 out of 10 modern countries (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html) have at some point been invaded/attacked by forces sponsored by a British ruler (of some kind).
Andorra
Belarus
Bolivia
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo, Republic of
Guatemala
Ivory Coast
Kyrgyzstan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Mali
Marshall Islands
Monaco
Mongolia
Paraguay
Sao Tome and Principe
Sweden
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Vatican City
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I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. :lol:
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I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. :lol:
Supposedly, from the end of the Second World War, to around about the end of the 1st Gulf War, the initials of all the places that the USA had military combat operations in, such as Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and others, could be rearranged to spell:
ELVIS S KING.
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That's why they seemed so keen on getting another "I" on the list. :lol:
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Woo. Not really.
Surprised Vatican City's on here, all those wascally Popes trying to do things like stop our King being one level below polygamy.
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To be fair, even at the time of the reformation trying to invade the vatican would have been somewhat... suicidal... somewhat on a par with flying into GSF territory and mouthing off against the Mittani in local...
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I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. :lol:
WE LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU, DAD! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfj3dPkeaqI)
Edit: Fun fact! Even though Sweden is on the list, Britain and Sweden were officially at war for two years sometime in the 1800s. They never invaded and the only casualties of the war were a group of farmers that the Swedish government killed when they revolted. Of course, the revolution was over their refusal to be conscripted... to fight a war that never actually happened. In fact, I think the Brits had a few ships peaceably stationed at a Swedish harbor.
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[spoiler](http://satwcomic.com/art/parenting.jpg) (http://satwcomic.com/parenting)[/spoiler]
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To be fair, even at the time of the reformation trying to invade the vatican would have been somewhat... suicidal... somewhat on a par with flying into GSF territory and mouthing off against the Mittani in local...
Well, it didnt stop some other people to invade Vatican, kill one pope and use the next as a political toy in early XIXth... Though reformation happened way before.
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I guess the US is in a continued race to be number 1 again by ensuring they can make it 10/10 versus the Brits. :lol:
WE LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU, DAD! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfj3dPkeaqI)
(https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/s720x720/1001807_310156915794424_893498896_n.png)
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To be fair, even at the time of the reformation trying to invade the vatican would have been somewhat... suicidal... somewhat on a par with flying into GSF territory and mouthing off against the Mittani in local...
Well, it didnt stop some other people to invade Vatican, kill one pope and use the next as a political toy in early XIXth... Though reformation happened way before.
True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic
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True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic
If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.
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True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic
If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.
It is also why withdrawal strategies included scorched earth. If you have effective lines of logistics, then scorched earth is less effective.
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True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic
If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.
It's anachronistic in some senses, but there are still issues to be considered: reinforcements, replacement equipment and what the hell you're going to do with the army when winter comes and so forth, some of which can be constructed in the field or repaired, others can't: a skilled fletcher can fetch arrows and a bowyer can indeed work from what is available (although some woods are better than others) but replacing cannon, repairing swords and armour and so forth needs smelted metal, some of that you can bring with you, you might be able to capture more but if you're setting up to take and hold vatican city you're going to need regular supplies for garrison forces, pillaging the countryside isn't capable of supporting a large army(which you would need since the Catholic nations wouldn't take a vatican invasion lying down (aside from anything else it mucks up *their* plans for controlling the papacy) for prolonged periods of time since sooner or later you've stripped the area raw: the taking isn't the hard part, as you've pointed out an army can live off the land to do that, it's the *holding* where the pseudo-supply-lines start to come into play unless you want to turn the whole thing into a full-on invasion of Italy (which if going after the vatican alone hadn't got spain and france to put their differences on hold, this would) since the vatican itself is too small to be really self supporting of more than a minimal population so either you end up with scope creep where you end up taking more of Italy, probably trigerring a larger pushback which ultimately Britain couldn't have won except maybe at the height of the empire, not against France, Spain and Italy combined or you have to look to bringing in supplies from elsewhere... or people start starving.
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True, but generally they were much better positioned to do it, for the UK it would have meant an amphibious assault at the end of very long supply lines, not quite as bad as the crusades perhaps but still... intensely problematic
If you are still speaking of the medieval era, the idea of supply lines is very anachronistic. Most of the time, armies lived off of the countryside. This continued to be the case up until around the dawn of early industrialized warfare, and even then, such as in the American civil war, many armies lived off of the land, the most famous incident of this being Sherman's March to the Sea.
It's anachronistic in some senses, but there are still issues to be considered: reinforcements, replacement equipment and what the hell you're going to do with the army when winter comes and so forth, some of which can be constructed in the field or repaired, others can't: a skilled fletcher can fetch arrows and a bowyer can indeed work from what is available (although some woods are better than others) but replacing cannon, repairing swords and armour and so forth needs smelted metal, some of that you can bring with you, you might be able to capture more but if you're setting up to take and hold vatican city you're going to need regular supplies for garrison forces, pillaging the countryside isn't capable of supporting a large army(which you would need since the Catholic nations wouldn't take a vatican invasion lying down (aside from anything else it mucks up *their* plans for controlling the papacy) for prolonged periods of time since sooner or later you've stripped the area raw: the taking isn't the hard part, as you've pointed out an army can live off the land to do that, it's the *holding* where the pseudo-supply-lines start to come into play unless you want to turn the whole thing into a full-on invasion of Italy (which if going after the vatican alone hadn't got spain and france to put their differences on hold, this would) since the vatican itself is too small to be really self supporting of more than a minimal population so either you end up with scope creep where you end up taking more of Italy, probably trigerring a larger pushback which ultimately Britain couldn't have won except maybe at the height of the empire, not against France, Spain and Italy combined or you have to look to bringing in supplies from elsewhere... or people start starving.
This is all true, and I'd also have to add here that the Brits would have had to take their navy through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. That's straight through Moors and/or Catholic nations and into a sea that was essentially owned by those same Moors and Catholics. Rome was pretty well impenetrable unless you knocked off Spain or the Holy Roman Empire in its entirety.
Not that Britain didn't try its damndest to destroy the Spanish, but it's harder than it looks.
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This is all true, and I'd also have to add here that the Brits would have had to take their navy through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. That's straight through Moors and/or Catholic nations and into a sea that was essentially owned by those same Moors and Catholics. Rome was pretty well impenetrable unless you knocked off Spain or the Holy Roman Empire in its entirety.
Not that Britain didn't try its damndest to destroy the Spanish, but it's harder than it looks.
There is a reason that Britain and Spain still have a terrortial dispute, Gilbraltar was a Royal Navy base for centuries. Also pretty sure the Battle of Trafalgar was in the Med and saw Nelson and co defeat the French Navy based out of Marsailles. That is around 1805 when the continental powers were Bonaparte and Russia. I doubt the Ottomans were going to defend Rome.
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Bonaparte (1st Empire), Russia, and also Prussia and Austria.
Little anecdote is that the resentment over Trafalgar in the french navy is still high, when the emperor deprived them of the honour to call their officers with the suffix "mon" (mon capitaine, mon lieutenant, etc) like they do in every other corps, which is still enforced in the navy today... Resentment reinflated since Mers El Kebir.
Which was a little harsh considering that the commanding officer of that time was quite capable, but still had to face Nelson (which died in the battle btw...).
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This is all true, and I'd also have to add here that the Brits would have had to take their navy through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. That's straight through Moors and/or Catholic nations and into a sea that was essentially owned by those same Moors and Catholics. Rome was pretty well impenetrable unless you knocked off Spain or the Holy Roman Empire in its entirety.
Not that Britain didn't try its damndest to destroy the Spanish, but it's harder than it looks.
There is a reason that Britain and Spain still have a terrortial dispute, Gilbraltar was a Royal Navy base for centuries. Also pretty sure the Battle of Trafalgar was in the Med and saw Nelson and co defeat the French Navy based out of Marsailles. That is around 1805 when the continental powers were Bonaparte and Russia. I doubt the Ottomans were going to defend Rome.
By the time the Brits and Dutch took Gibralter the first time, we're talking 18th century. By the time we're talking about Napoleon, we're largely out of the Christian sectarian violence and into the age of class warfare. In essence, the time when the Brits might have wanted to sack Rome was probably well before the mid 17th century. Rome's power started to emerge the way we understand it today around that time, as a bit less of a forethought than an afterthought. Hell, once the French Revolution started, it wasn't as much a concern by whose authority the royalty ruled as much as if the people would allow them to rule at all.
Sectarian conflicts continue, but the time when it ruled European politics was over by the time the Brits picked up Gibralter. I had a professor that swore up and down that the long explanation for why Rome became less powerful was the advent of machine warfare, since it ended the age of nobility. I tended to think it was more of the printing press and education being available in native languages rather than solely Latin, but he has a point. Once the knights began losing their special place above common infantry in the social ladder, kings and queens didn't seem so divine. Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
So maybe the British sort of did defeat Rome.
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Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
What made the longbow successful at the beginning of the hundred year war was poor doctrines where knights laughed at Henry V army almost exclusively composed of longbowmen. With their previous experiences against archers in mind, they considered them like mosquito bites, with reason. The first major battle at Crécy was lost not because of the longbow, but because Philip did not even wait for his army to be ready to attack, and also due to the fact that they used crossbows trying to outrange longbows... Agincourt was not better since all the knights just ran into a corridor circled by longbows, happily firing at them while they were unable to do anything. Technically, the english army was not better, but poorer. Doctrines and morale wise, though, it was the contrary.
One just has to look how knights charges just slaughtered longbowmen lines in the following battles when the tide turned.
What signed the death of knights was probably more the invention of the crossbow, and especially the arquebus and gunpowder. Though it would be more accurate to say that it caused the end of heavy cavalry in plate armour. Knights (or chivalry) which was before all an ideal and a warrior code came to an end with the arrival of moral relativism and humanism.
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Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
What made the longbow successful at the beginning of the hundred year war was poor doctrines where knights laughed at Henry V army almost exclusively composed of longbowmen. With their previous experiences against archers in mind, they considered them like mosquito bites, with reason. The first major battle at Crécy was lost not because of the longbow, but because Philip did not even wait for his army to be ready to attack, and also due to the fact that they used crossbows trying to outrange longbows... Agincourt was not better since all the knights just ran into a corridor circled by longbows, happily firing at them while they were unable to do anything. Technically, the english army was not better, but poorer. Doctrines and morale wise, though, it was the contrary.
One just has to look how knights charges just slaughtered longbowmen lines in the following battles when the tide turned.
What signed the death of knights was probably more the invention of the crossbow, and especially the arquebus and gunpowder. Though it would be more accurate to say that it caused the end of heavy cavalry in plate armour. Knights (or chivalry) which was before all an ideal and a warrior code came to an end with the arrival of moral relativism and humanism.
You know, that was true later, but longbows with bodkin points were launched from longbows with well over 100lbs of pull against armor that was not exactly up to modern standards. The problem is that a lot of people have tried it using modern steel, which is exceptionally well coked and oxidated. To get armor of that quality in the ancient age, you'd have to be using a crucible for your steel, which was very uncommon around that time.
In the end, those longbows might not have always penetrated the breastplate, but it was a lot more common to crack through the more brittle steel of the time. They've done true period reenactment where they hand-forged the steel using book techniques of the time. Surely, some people had decent steel from the Middle East even given the tensions, but steel today is nothing like steel back then, and that's assuming the most expensive armor of its time.
It did protect them, but not when they were slogging slowly through the terrain you mentioned and against the mass volleys they were firing. It's always been a matter of debate, but armor had to be redesigned once the longbow firing line became popular. That was the start of real machine war, when it became a race of technology against counter-development instead of relying on chivalrous behavior to manage the conflicts.
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Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
Minor nitpick. I did a study on the English Longbow in my undergrad courses at college, and found that even if 1cm penetration wasn't much, or even enough to kill, it was more than enough to cause serious bodily harm. Demonstrations done using modern ballistics equipment (gel, shock pads, computer sensors) on various reconstructed armors using various arrowheads showed that the English longbow was an effective weapon of war up to its maximum range. Accuracy was the only failing mark on it at long range, something made up for by massed barrages.
Penetration also depended on the arrowhead used. Armor piercing heads did exist, and can easily penetrate even modern steel. It's not a fantasy to assume they could do so with medieval quality armor as well. Keep in mind that all armor was not created equal, and the even the best armors capable of slowing, deflecting, or stopping a crossbow bolt or longbow arrow were rare and expensive. Thinner and weaker armors like leather and chainmail were far more common. Chainmail in particular was notorious for not only failing to stop an arrow but also transferring almost all of the kinetic energy directly into the body even if it slowed the arrow. Enough kinetic energy in fact to rupture soft organs and cause internal bleeding that would have been a mystery to doctors at the time. Depending on the arrowhead you might have an arrow that just knocks you off your feet, which takes you out of the action for a good several minutes as you try and lift your hundred pounds of armor off the ground in the thick of battle. With an AP arrow, you might have one that cuts through the chainmail like butter and simply pierces a lung.
Unlike in the movies, taking an arrow to the chest or even the extremity was not something you just shrug off. It was enough to take a man out of action almost immediately, and it frequently resulted in fatal wounds or infections even if he did survive the battle. Any solid hit is a worthwhile shot, even if it doesn't stop the man mid cavalry-charge.
Of course, not all bows and bowmen were created equal either, and it was no superweapon. Bows could be prone to mechanical failure on the field, and the bowmen themselves were not the best trained troops nor the best supported. It is however a mistake to dismiss the role of the longbow as a very effective weapon.
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Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
Minor nitpick. I did a study on the English Longbow in my undergrad courses at college, and found that even if 1cm penetration wasn't much, or even enough to kill, it was more than enough to cause serious bodily harm. Demonstrations done using modern ballistics equipment (gel, shock pads, computer sensors) on various reconstructed armors using various arrowheads showed that the English longbow was an effective weapon of war up to its maximum range. Accuracy was the only failing mark on it at long range, something made up for by massed barrages.
Penetration also depended on the arrowhead used. Armor piercing heads did exist, and can easily penetrate even modern steel. It's not a fantasy to assume they could do so with medieval quality armor as well. Keep in mind that all armor was not created equal, and the even the best armors capable of slowing, deflecting, or stopping a crossbow bolt or longbow arrow were rare and expensive. Thinner and weaker armors like leather and chainmail were far more common. Chainmail in particular was notorious for not only failing to stop an arrow but also transferring almost all of the kinetic energy directly into the body even if it slowed the arrow. Enough kinetic energy in fact to rupture soft organs and cause internal bleeding that would have been a mystery to doctors at the time. Depending on the arrowhead you might have an arrow that just knocks you off your feet, which takes you out of the action for a good several minutes as you try and lift your hundred pounds of armor off the ground in the thick of battle. With an AP arrow, you might have one that cuts through the chainmail like butter and simply pierces a lung.
Unlike in the movies, taking an arrow to the chest or even the extremity was not something you just shrug off. It was enough to take a man out of action almost immediately, and it frequently resulted in fatal wounds or infections even if he did survive the battle. Any solid hit is a worthwhile shot, even if it doesn't stop the man mid cavalry-charge.
Of course, not all bows and bowmen were created equal either, and it was no superweapon. Bows could be prone to mechanical failure on the field, and the bowmen themselves were not the best trained troops nor the best supported. It is however a mistake to dismiss the role of the longbow as a very effective weapon.
Especially with a straight up 120 lbs pull, a mechanical failure on a longbow sometimes meant losing an arm.
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Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
What made the longbow successful at the beginning of the hundred year war was poor doctrines where knights laughed at Henry V army almost exclusively composed of longbowmen. With their previous experiences against archers in mind, they considered them like mosquito bites, with reason. The first major battle at Crécy was lost not because of the longbow, but because Philip did not even wait for his army to be ready to attack, and also due to the fact that they used crossbows trying to outrange longbows... Agincourt was not better since all the knights just ran into a corridor circled by longbows, happily firing at them while they were unable to do anything. Technically, the english army was not better, but poorer. Doctrines and morale wise, though, it was the contrary.
One just has to look how knights charges just slaughtered longbowmen lines in the following battles when the tide turned.
What signed the death of knights was probably more the invention of the crossbow, and especially the arquebus and gunpowder. Though it would be more accurate to say that it caused the end of heavy cavalry in plate armour. Knights (or chivalry) which was before all an ideal and a warrior code came to an end with the arrival of moral relativism and humanism.
You know, that was true later, but longbows with bodkin points were launched from longbows with well over 100lbs of pull against armor that was not exactly up to modern standards. The problem is that a lot of people have tried it using modern steel, which is exceptionally well coked and oxidated. To get armor of that quality in the ancient age, you'd have to be using a crucible for your steel, which was very uncommon around that time.
In the end, those longbows might not have always penetrated the breastplate, but it was a lot more common to crack through the more brittle steel of the time. They've done true period reenactment where they hand-forged the steel using book techniques of the time. Surely, some people had decent steel from the Middle East even given the tensions, but steel today is nothing like steel back then, and that's assuming the most expensive armor of its time.
It did protect them, but not when they were slogging slowly through the terrain you mentioned and against the mass volleys they were firing. It's always been a matter of debate, but armor had to be redesigned once the longbow firing line became popular. That was the start of real machine war, when it became a race of technology against counter-development instead of relying on chivalrous behavior to manage the conflicts.
Who spoke about modern standards ? I'm speaking about what was used at the time being, and they were more or less piecing proof. Mail was vulnerable, which leaded plate armour to be more and more used. Wounds caused by the few arrow piercing through were small to severe, depending on the luck of the target. It was more lethal to the head but as I said above bascinets were rather efficient, not just against lances.
The longbow scared them for long while they were looking for counters, like dismounting their knights, covering their infantry, finding a way to clear up longbowmen lines with archers, , adding plates everywhere because they WORKED. But during that time the longbow proved lethal because it made them go all on the defensive through fabian strategy. What made longbows effective was their range that allowed the users to dictate the terms of the battle and force the other side to go on the offensive. What also put a definite end to it were field artillery pieces.
Minor nitpick. I did a study on the English Longbow in my undergrad courses at college, and found that even if 1cm penetration wasn't much, or even enough to kill, it was more than enough to cause serious bodily harm. Demonstrations done using modern ballistics equipment (gel, shock pads, computer sensors) on various reconstructed armors using various arrowheads showed that the English longbow was an effective weapon of war up to its maximum range. Accuracy was the only failing mark on it at long range, something made up for by massed barrages.
Penetration also depended on the arrowhead used. Armor piercing heads did exist, and can easily penetrate even modern steel. It's not a fantasy to assume they could do so with medieval quality armor as well. Keep in mind that all armor was not created equal, and the even the best armors capable of slowing, deflecting, or stopping a crossbow bolt or longbow arrow were rare and expensive. Thinner and weaker armors like leather and chainmail were far more common. Chainmail in particular was notorious for not only failing to stop an arrow but also transferring almost all of the kinetic energy directly into the body even if it slowed the arrow. Enough kinetic energy in fact to rupture soft organs and cause internal bleeding that would have been a mystery to doctors at the time. Depending on the arrowhead you might have an arrow that just knocks you off your feet, which takes you out of the action for a good several minutes as you try and lift your hundred pounds of armor off the ground in the thick of battle. With an AP arrow, you might have one that cuts through the chainmail like butter and simply pierces a lung.
Unlike in the movies, taking an arrow to the chest or even the extremity was not something you just shrug off. It was enough to take a man out of action almost immediately, and it frequently resulted in fatal wounds or infections even if he did survive the battle. Any solid hit is a worthwhile shot, even if it doesn't stop the man mid cavalry-charge.
Of course, not all bows and bowmen were created equal either, and it was no superweapon. Bows could be prone to mechanical failure on the field, and the bowmen themselves were not the best trained troops nor the best supported. It is however a mistake to dismiss the role of the longbow as a very effective weapon.
As said above I'm not denying that it can harm. What I said is also that the arrow had to fulfill a shitload of preconditions to actually pierce through. Everything tends to show that it was reasonably possible with a full frontal shot at 90°, or it would just bounce off. Which means that firing these arrows was usually done with lobbed shots done at good range. The longbow was only effective against plated armour at point blank, which didnt happen very often as you may guess... Archers don't linger near companies of knights.
Also, for the armour quality, you are just assuming and speculating about things.... We were speaking about knights, not the average infantry joe wearing chainmail or bad pieces of equipement.
Don't insinuate that I watch too many movies, I spent the time to check my facts...
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Especially with a straight up 120 lbs pull, a mechanical failure on a longbow sometimes meant losing an arm.
Yes. And speaking as a former longbow field archer myself (only former because I have trouble getting to shooting grounds these days as I have no wheels) this is why I wince whenever I see some clown in a film carry a strung bow looped across the body and held in place by the bowstring. When you aren't shooting you unstring the bow. It lasts longer that way.
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Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
What made the longbow successful at the beginning of the hundred year war was poor doctrines where knights laughed at Henry V army almost exclusively composed of longbowmen. With their previous experiences against archers in mind, they considered them like mosquito bites, with reason. The first major battle at Crécy was lost not because of the longbow, but because Philip did not even wait for his army to be ready to attack, and also due to the fact that they used crossbows trying to outrange longbows... Agincourt was not better since all the knights just ran into a corridor circled by longbows, happily firing at them while they were unable to do anything. Technically, the english army was not better, but poorer. Doctrines and morale wise, though, it was the contrary.
One just has to look how knights charges just slaughtered longbowmen lines in the following battles when the tide turned.
What signed the death of knights was probably more the invention of the crossbow, and especially the arquebus and gunpowder. Though it would be more accurate to say that it caused the end of heavy cavalry in plate armour. Knights (or chivalry) which was before all an ideal and a warrior code came to an end with the arrival of moral relativism and humanism.
You know, that was true later, but longbows with bodkin points were launched from longbows with well over 100lbs of pull against armor that was not exactly up to modern standards. The problem is that a lot of people have tried it using modern steel, which is exceptionally well coked and oxidated. To get armor of that quality in the ancient age, you'd have to be using a crucible for your steel, which was very uncommon around that time.
In the end, those longbows might not have always penetrated the breastplate, but it was a lot more common to crack through the more brittle steel of the time. They've done true period reenactment where they hand-forged the steel using book techniques of the time. Surely, some people had decent steel from the Middle East even given the tensions, but steel today is nothing like steel back then, and that's assuming the most expensive armor of its time.
It did protect them, but not when they were slogging slowly through the terrain you mentioned and against the mass volleys they were firing. It's always been a matter of debate, but armor had to be redesigned once the longbow firing line became popular. That was the start of real machine war, when it became a race of technology against counter-development instead of relying on chivalrous behavior to manage the conflicts.
Who spoke about modern standards ? I'm speaking about what was used at the time being, and they were more or less piecing proof. Mail was vulnerable, which leaded plate armour to be more and more used. Wounds caused by the few arrow piercing through were small to severe, depending on the luck of the target. It was more lethal to the head but as I said above bascinets were rather efficient, not just against lances.
The longbow scared them for long while they were looking for counters, like dismounting their knights, covering their infantry, finding a way to clear up longbowmen lines with archers, , adding plates everywhere because they WORKED. But during that time the longbow proved lethal because it made them go all on the defensive through fabian strategy. What made longbows effective was their range that allowed the users to dictate the terms of the battle and force the other side to go on the offensive. What also put a definite end to it were field artillery pieces.
Minor nitpick. I did a study on the English Longbow in my undergrad courses at college, and found that even if 1cm penetration wasn't much, or even enough to kill, it was more than enough to cause serious bodily harm. Demonstrations done using modern ballistics equipment (gel, shock pads, computer sensors) on various reconstructed armors using various arrowheads showed that the English longbow was an effective weapon of war up to its maximum range. Accuracy was the only failing mark on it at long range, something made up for by massed barrages.
Penetration also depended on the arrowhead used. Armor piercing heads did exist, and can easily penetrate even modern steel. It's not a fantasy to assume they could do so with medieval quality armor as well. Keep in mind that all armor was not created equal, and the even the best armors capable of slowing, deflecting, or stopping a crossbow bolt or longbow arrow were rare and expensive. Thinner and weaker armors like leather and chainmail were far more common. Chainmail in particular was notorious for not only failing to stop an arrow but also transferring almost all of the kinetic energy directly into the body even if it slowed the arrow. Enough kinetic energy in fact to rupture soft organs and cause internal bleeding that would have been a mystery to doctors at the time. Depending on the arrowhead you might have an arrow that just knocks you off your feet, which takes you out of the action for a good several minutes as you try and lift your hundred pounds of armor off the ground in the thick of battle. With an AP arrow, you might have one that cuts through the chainmail like butter and simply pierces a lung.
Unlike in the movies, taking an arrow to the chest or even the extremity was not something you just shrug off. It was enough to take a man out of action almost immediately, and it frequently resulted in fatal wounds or infections even if he did survive the battle. Any solid hit is a worthwhile shot, even if it doesn't stop the man mid cavalry-charge.
Of course, not all bows and bowmen were created equal either, and it was no superweapon. Bows could be prone to mechanical failure on the field, and the bowmen themselves were not the best trained troops nor the best supported. It is however a mistake to dismiss the role of the longbow as a very effective weapon.
As said above I'm not denying that it can harm. What I said is also that the arrow had to fulfill a shitload of preconditions to actually pierce through. Everything tends to show that it was reasonably possible with a full frontal shot at 90°, or it would just bounce off. Which means that firing these arrows was usually done with lobbed shots done at good range. The longbow was only effective against plated armour at point blank, which didnt happen very often as you may guess... Archers don't linger near companies of knights.
Also, for the armour quality, you are just assuming and speculating about things.... We were speaking about knights, not the average infantry joe wearing chainmail or bad pieces of equipement.
Don't insinuate that I watch too many movies, I spent the time to check my facts...
That's just not necessarily true. It's a simple law of physics that also applies to why so many people die from bullets dropping into the tops of their skulls. What goes up comes down with near equal force. You fire the arrow into the air at however many neutons it has. It goes up, loses its kinetic energy at the rate of the pull of gravity, then comes down at the exact same pull. Minus air drag (which is almost nonexistant with a bodkin point and a properly fletched arrow), it comes down with exactly the same amount of force it had going up. That's why in more accurate movies, you don't see them firing point blank, you see groups of archers firing volleys almost straight up.
The steel issue is actually extremely important, especially around the time period. It wasn't that knights were rich (they weren't all rich), even if they could afford the best, the best wasn't good enough. Steel made in that time period was expensive enough since all goods were hand-made, but medieval steel was complete crap compared to what we have now. Even then, for the best, you'd need crucible-fired steel, which was expensive even in its native middle eastern nations. To create that kind of fired steel, you need an extremely high temperature, essentially by building a 5 foot tall firebrick convection oven, packing it with charcoal, and then tearing the whole thing down. It yields about a coke-can size ingot of mediocre steel.
Today's steel, by contrast, is fired at nearly 4000 degrees and is mixed for uniformity. It's got incredible tensile strength, which is why stuff dents it but bounces off. By contrast, old medieval steel was so brittle that it could very often shatter and snap. That's where the problem of the arrow comes in. Without the tensile strength, steel might be able to handle something like a sword going broadside into it, but it couldn't handle a spear being rammed into it. You don't need to go full 90 degrees because if brittle steel takes a dent, it breaks apart.
They've found tons of armor that's simply got bodkin holes in it, even straight through the tops of the helmets. This became less of an issue with later introductions, but those barely preceded the first imported firearms. In fact, bows were still outperforming firearms until pitched musket battle became a standard of warfare.
Lots of armor today is made with regular old plate steel and yes, it's almost bodkin proof. In fact, it's almost anything proof at a centimeter thick. Most small arms fire can't blow through a steel plate of significant thickness. That was not the case in medieval Europe. All they had to fire their steel were air-moving bellows and coal fires. They simply didn't have enough heat and, when they did, those short bursts were used to make weapons, not armor. This was at least the problem in Calais and Crecy. The only way to get more than a bow's pull in force is by firing it downward, where the force of gravity acts on the arrow from full pull.
That's why the English had to choose their ground carefully, though. They chose high ground with barriers on the flanks to make sure they could focus their fire. Even if one arrow didn't kill a knight, they were being showered with them. The Brits only took a few hundred casualties, but left scores of Frenchmen dead at Crecy, where they were outnumbered 2 to 1. At least 2,000 were armored knights and had superior equipment and skill to English knights.
There was a vogue that went into the idea you're talking about in the 90s and early aughts, but these days it's generally understood that armor needed a significant boost in technological development to dampen the effectiveness of the longbow. It gave the Brits battlefield supremacy for almost a hundred years and essentially ended the age of chivalry with the end of the Hundred Years War. At that point, it was a technological race. The longbow was still used in some armies straight up until the first world war, if I remember right (oddly enough, I think the last recognizable cavalry charge happened during the second world war, so that technique lasted somewhat longer even though it failed).
We all do our research. You've got every reason to think that bodkin pointed arrows shattered at the shaft upon hitting plate armor; I believed the same thing until they did research with real period replications of existing technology from the 14th century. It's one of those standing myths that seems plausible until you look at the historical record and realize it couldn't be so. The Brits didn't win with foot soldiers during the Hundred Years War, they won with longbows. If knights were really immune to longbow fire, the French cavalry would have overrun the Brits at Crecy no matter how early they charged. Concentrated longbowfire was simply devastating if you can make the enemy go where you want them to. It was an incredible technological advantage, especially when old fashioned crossbows were rendered nearly useless in the wet.
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(http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Boy-That-Escalated-Quickly-Anchorman.gif)
Also probably worth making the point that topical debates about the longbow are a bit of a moot point in this particular thread because Britain didn't hit it's golden age, i.e. invading the most folk, until about the 1700s. In the medieval times we were more just tying to keep up with the French and Spanish. And the Prussians Swedish and Dutch from time to time.
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(http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Boy-That-Escalated-Quickly-Anchorman.gif)
What? She's got a perfectly good reason to think that. I've even seen the video documentaries she learned it from. I thought it as well until recent research came out.
Most people just don't find projectile ballistics and steel technology development as interesting as I do. Sort of the way a lot of EVE players probably know a lot about warp drive theories and space physics, which I don't. I just came from a pretty hardcore fantasy and cyberpunk RP background, so I try to keep my knowledge up to date.
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I was wondering if I was the only person who found the longbow vs armor discussion more interesting than the usual arguments over how game mechanics work in-character. :p
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I was wondering if I was the only person who found the longbow vs armor discussion more interesting than the usual arguments over how game mechanics work in-character. :p
Hahaha.
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I was wondering if I was the only person who found the longbow vs armor discussion more interesting than the usual arguments over how game mechanics work in-character. :p
Hey, if you've got questions, I've either got answers or know some especially experienced gun nuts and historical warfare enthusiasts who do.
Which is, of course, very useful on a forum where we fly on starships and fire laser beams. :cry:
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Meh. You have sources for your crap medieval steel ? And how it made arrows suddenly capable or piercing it ? It's not even brought up as an argument in any article I have read, so... That sounds a little bit irrelevant to me...
I found that however :
Archery was described by contemporaries as ineffective against plate armour in the Battle of Neville's Cross (1346), the siege of Bergerac (1345), and the Battle of Poitiers (1356); such armour became available to European knights of fairly modest means by the late 14th century, though never to all soldiers in any army. Strickland and Hardy suggest that "even at a range of 240 yards heavy war arrows shot from bows of poundages in the mid- to upper range possessed by the Mary Rose bows would have been capable of killing or severely wounding men equipped with armour of wrought iron. Higher-quality armour of steel would have given considerably greater protection, which accords well with the experience of Oxford's men against the elite French vanguard at Poitiers in 1356, and des Ursin's statement that the French knights of the first ranks at Agincourt, which included some of the most important (and thus best-equipped) nobles, remained comparatively unhurt by the English arrows."
The crap quality referred to here is not steel quality, but armour quality. Iron armour =/= steel armour. Also, the thickness played a part, though apparently even thin steel plate armours were hardly pierced by those arrows.
I don't believe in the excuse of poor material (especially for plate armours) or gravity suddenly making arrows "piercing" (they will still fly a lot slower than just after when being fired, and are too light to be of any harming effect like a proper rock or mace).
I'll just leave that here even if you probably already have read them all. Make of it what you will...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow)
English use of longbows was effective against the French during the Hundred Years' War, particularly at the start of the war in the battles of Sluys (1340), Crécy (1346), and Poitiers (1356), and perhaps most famously at the Battle of Agincourt (1415). They were less successful after this, with longbowmen having their lines broken at the Battle of Verneuil (1424), and being completely routed at the Battle of Patay (1429) when they were charged before they had set up their defensive position
In an early modern test by Saxton Pope, a direct hit from a steel bodkin point penetrated Damascus mail armour.
A 2006 test was made by Matheus Bane using a 75 lbf (330 N) draw (at 28") bow, shooting at 10 yards; according to Bane's calculations, this would be approximately equivalent to a 110 lbf (490 N) bow at 250 yards.[31] Measured against a replica of the thinnest contemporary "Jack coat" armour, a 905 grain needle bodkin and a 935 grain curved broadhead penetrated over 3.5 inches (89 mm). ("Jack coat" armour could be up to twice as thick as the coat tested; in Bane's opinion such a thick coat would have stopped bodkin arrows but not the cutting force of broadhead arrows.) Against "high quality riveted maille", the needle bodkin and curved broadhead penetrated 2.8". Against a coat of plates, the needle bodkin achieved 0.3" penetration. The curved broadhead did not penetrate but caused 0.3" of deformation of the metal. Results against plate armour of "minimum thickness" (1.2mm) were similar to the coat of plates, in that the needle bodkin penetrated to a shallow depth, the other arrows not at all. In Bane's view, the plate armour would have kept out all the arrows if thicker or worn with more padding.
a Primitive Archer test which demonstrated that a longbow could penetrate a plate armour breastplate. However, the Primitive Archer test used a 160 lbf (710 N) longbow at very short range, generating 160 joules (vs. 73 for Bane and 80 for Williams), so probably not representative of battles of the time.
Modern tests and contemporary accounts agree therefore that well-made plate armour could protect against longbows. However this did not necessarily make the longbow ineffective; thousands of longbowmen were deployed in the English victory at Agincourt against plate armoured French knights in 1415. Clifford Rogers has argued that while longbows might not have been able to penetrate steel breastplates at Agincourt they could still penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs. Most of the French knights advanced on foot but, exhausted by walking across wet muddy terrain in heavy armour enduring a "terrifying hail of arrow shot", they were overwhelmed in the melee.
Less heavily armoured soldiers were more vulnerable than knights. For example, enemy crossbowmen were forced to retreat at Crecy when deployed without their protecting pavises. Horses were generally less well protected than the knights themselves; shooting the French knights' horses from the side (where they were less well armoured) is described by contemporary accounts of the Battle of Poitiers, and at Agincourt John Keegan has argued that the main effect of the longbow would have been in injuring the horses of the mounted French knights.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_long_anglais (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_long_anglais) (sorry if this one is not in english but it's a stared article)
En fonction de l’effet recherché, l’archer a le choix entre plusieurs types de flèches. Les plus fréquemment utilisées sont les bodkin pointues de section carrée, particulièrement perforantes et faciles à produire. Les flèches ayant une énergie cinétique modérée (comparativement à celle du projectile d’une arme à feu), elles ne génèrent ni effet de choc, ni effet de cavitation. En revanche, du fait de leur grande longueur, elles ont une bonne densité sectionnelle et donc un grand pouvoir perforant15. Dès lors, ce type de flèche est utilisé à courte distance contre l’infanterie lourde ou la cavalerie. Ces flèches, très efficaces contre les cottes de mailles, peuvent cependant ricocher sur les armures de plates si elles n’arrivent pas perpendiculairement à la surface15. Pour un tir à moins de 60 mètres, elles peuvent s’enfoncer de plusieurs centimètres, causant des blessures plus ou moins graves15.
Most frequently used : spiked and squared bodkins, with extreme piercing properties and easy to produce. They have a moderate kinetic energy (compared to a firearm) and generate NO shock effect (so nothing from gravity or similar physical effects) and no cavitation effect (english sp?). Big lenght and small head means high cutting density (translation ?). Was used at short range against heavy infantry or heavy cavalry. Very effective against mail, will bounce off on plate armours if they do not come at 90°. If shot at less than 60m, they CAN (not WILL) pierce through several centimeters, causing more or less severe injuries.
C’est particulièrement à la tête qu’une pénétration de profondeur limitée est dévastatrice. Cette partie du corps est cependant bien protégée par le profil des bassinets de l’époque, étudiés pour dévier les lances. Les autres points vulnérables du combattant sont le cou et les membres, où passent des troncs artériels susceptibles d’êtres sectionnés. Pour cette raison, les armures des chevaliers ont progressivement évolué au cours de la guerre de Cent Ans, recourant de plus en plus à l'usage de plaques. Les capacités de perforation peuvent être améliorées par lubrification des pointes à la cire, ce procédé permettant aussi de limiter l’oxydation de l’acier (l’utilisation de ce procédé par les archers anglais est probable mais non vérifiée)16.
Contre l’infanterie peu blindée ou les chevaux, les flèches à pointe large ou à barbillon sont largement plus dévastatrices, même à longue distance.
Very effective on the head, but that part of the body is well protected by bascinets, designed to deflect lances. Other vulnerable parts are the neck and arms, where arteries can be severed. With that in mind armours of knights have evolved during the 100y war, using more and more plates. Perforating power can be upgraded by lubricating the head with wax (but its us is not verified). Against weaker armour or horses, non piercing arrows were used (like barbed heads) since they were dramatically lethal even at long range.
La portée de l’arc long (efficace sur les combattants faiblement protégés ou les chevaux à 300 mètres), oblige l’adversaire à attaquer. Cela permet de l’attirer en terrain défavorable et de le contraindre à attaquer une position fortifiée au préalable : à Crécy l’armée anglaise se retranche sur un monticule, à Poitiers derrière des haies, à Azincourt derrière un terrain embourbé. Les archers disposent des pieux devant leurs lignes de manière à briser les assauts. Leurs arrières ou leurs flancs sont couverts par des chariots22 ou des obstacles quasi infranchissables pour de la cavalerie lourde (rivières, forêts, …).
Range of longbows forces the adversary to attack. This allows to attract him into unfavorable terrain and force him to assault fortified positions : at Crécy the english army is entrenched on a mound, at Poitiers behind hedges, at Azincourt behind a muddy/swampy terrain. Pikes are erected in front of archers to break charges, and flanks are protected by chariots or natural obstacles for heavy cavalry (rivers, forests...).
À longue distance (de 100 à 300 mètres), on utilise des flèches à empennage court et à pointe plate ou « en barbillon », plus dévastatrices sur les combattants peu protégés. Les archers sont utilisés par centaines, voire par milliers (6 000 à Crécy ou Verneuil, 7 000 à Azincourt23). Cela permet de faire pleuvoir des nuées de flèches sur l’adversaire (72 flèches à la minute par mètre carré17) et compense l’imprécision du tir à pareille distance. Ceci est rendu possible grâce à l’extraordinaire cadence de tir de l’arc long (les arbalètes, qui ont un pouvoir perforant supérieur sur les armures de plates mais une cadence bien inférieure, ne peuvent produire une telle pluie de flèches). À Crécy les 6 000 arbalétriers génois engagés par les Français doivent ainsi se replier rapidement24. D’autre part, une telle pluie de traits désorganise considérablement les charges de cavalerie en blessant les chevaux (non protégés au début de la guerre de Cent Ans) qui peuvent chuter, s’emballer ou désarçonner leur cavalier (la chute du cavalier étant aggravée par le poids de l’armure)25. La densité de flèches plantées dans le sol est par ailleurs telle qu’elle gêne la progression des assauts (à la Bataille de Nájera, il est impossible de marcher au travers du champ de flèches17). Les cadavres de chevaliers et surtout de leurs chevaux sont des obstacles qui gênent la progression des lignes d’assaut, tout comme les chevaux emballés qui fuient en sens inverse et désorganisent les charges26. Pour obtenir un tir continu, les archers sont déployés sur trois doubles rangées qui vont alternativement se ravitailler en flèches17.
À plus courte distance, le tir se fait de façon moins parabolique, avec des projectiles plus perforants (pointe bodkin) et plus précis (empennage long). Les archers sont placés sur les ailes afin que leur tirs ne ricochent pas sur les armures de plates des cavaliers profilées pour dévier les flèches et lances venant de face. Ils sont disposés en V ou en croissant plutôt qu’en ligne, toujours pour obtenir un feu croisé plus efficace contre les armures de plates27.
Lorsque la charge de cavalerie arrive au contact, les montures viennent s’empaler dans les pieux disposés devant les archers (calthops). Ces derniers sont de plus en plus polyvalents au fur et à mesure de la guerre de Cent Ans et sont équipés d’épées ou de haches, pour achever les chevaliers désarçonnés, engoncés dans leurs lourdes armures28.
Too lazy to translate, but again it's mostly about doctrines and tactics allowed by the longbow rather than the power of the longbow itself.
I'm also too lazy to quote all the additional material that can be found on various battles of that time...
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NB : i'm not sure which video documentaries you speak of ? I do not think I have seen any on the subject...
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Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
What made the longbow successful at the beginning of the hundred year war was poor doctrines where knights laughed at Henry V army almost exclusively composed of longbowmen. With their previous experiences against archers in mind, they considered them like mosquito bites, with reason. The first major battle at Crécy was lost not because of the longbow, but because Philip did not even wait for his army to be ready to attack, and also due to the fact that they used crossbows trying to outrange longbows... Agincourt was not better since all the knights just ran into a corridor circled by longbows, happily firing at them while they were unable to do anything. Technically, the english army was not better, but poorer. Doctrines and morale wise, though, it was the contrary.
One just has to look how knights charges just slaughtered longbowmen lines in the following battles when the tide turned.
What signed the death of knights was probably more the invention of the crossbow, and especially the arquebus and gunpowder. Though it would be more accurate to say that it caused the end of heavy cavalry in plate armour. Knights (or chivalry) which was before all an ideal and a warrior code came to an end with the arrival of moral relativism and humanism.
Before I go on, you're taking sources that were contemporary to the 15th century, well after the era of machine warfare started. Before I start going into changes in the processes of warfare during that time and steel production advances, are you sure you aren't just confused about the dates and the definition of machine warfare?
Essentially, the idea that the Hundred Years War was won by a technological advantage and not soldiers at arms meant that knights lost their unique status as combatants on the battlefield and the idea of common soldiery being more important than the knights in armor is essentially what ended the age of chivalry. That was all done by the late 14th century. The 15th was completely different. Hell, that's when they started effectively using cannons.
I can describe either period and why chivalry ended then, including why steel was crap (not iron, steel) in the 14th century. Once you're into the 15th, you're in another reality of warfare. Either way, I can tell you what you don't understand.
I actually looked into that 2006 study, though, for your benefit. It definitely stated that they calculated primarily steel thickness, not steel quality. I can definitely tell you all about why steel quality is far more important than steel quantity, especially back then, and what technology they had. But I want to make sure I know what you're confused about before I start off on a tangent explaining something. You may just be confused about the dates.
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You know what ? Don't bother. :bash:
Just give me your sources and i'll read them since all my 81 references are obviously a vogue of the nineties...
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You know what ? Don't bother. :bash:
Just give me your sources and i'll read them since all my 81 references are obviously a vogue of the nineties...
There's no need to get touchy, I'm asking a legitimate question and I'm really not being patronizing. If you're talking about the 15th century, you're talking about the era where blast furnaces were developed, pauldrons were worn, and the French used cannons to fight the Brits. If you look through the references you just put up, you'll see that all of them talked about the longbow becoming less effective in the mid-1400s, which is the middle of the 15th century. And you wouldn't be the first person who thought the 15th century began in the 1500s.
The reason I'm asking is that a lot of my sources are my college textbooks and accumulated journals on various subjects, not all of which are on pretty medieval battle texts. To explain why arrows work better fired in a parabollic arc rather than a straight line in a volley, I'll have to start sending you links to ballistics and physics texts. To talk about steel and ferrous metallurgy, we're talking about my structural steel histories and manuals. If you want social histories of Europe, I've got a few shelves of those.
But if you're just mixing up the era of machine warfare with the era of chivalric warfare, there's no need to send you bibliographical information on my entire bookshelf. Especially since I don't think you'll want to read all of them.
Trust me, I've seen people get pissed and fly off the hinge before. Your own sources are telling you that they were a devastatingly effective weapon straight into the beginning of the 15th century. If you want to know why, I can tell you or send you the information. I'm not sure why you're arguing since you essentially bolstered my point with most of them.
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According to contemporary sources, arrows were also very effective against lightly armored joints...
(http://invalidopinions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Skyrim-Guard.png)
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According to contemporary sources, arrows were also very effective against lightly armored joints...
(http://invalidopinions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Skyrim-Guard.png)
:lol:
Seriously though, longbows were crazy. They can generally tell which skeletons they dig up were commoners from the 13th and 14th centuries. Their spines are literally twisted from pulling those bows repeatedly.
But the most awesome era of warfare were the giant pike formations of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the Swiss and German Landsknechte. If the longbow was the weapon that began the end of chivalric warfare, the pike formation was the final nail in the coffin. It was essentially impervious to anything mounted or on foot save for an archery line and, later, a firing line.
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Didn't it used to be that when you field your massed longbow formation, you aren't trying to actually kill the knight, you are trying to cripple the horses?
That way the poor guys in the steel shell will trip the other steel-shelled guys behind them and force them to slog through the open field while being pelted by large numbers of arrows repeatedly. At this point, RNG is on the longbowmen side.
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I always thought the point of longbow vs the Knight charge was to kill the steed, unhorse the rider and take advantage of bulk and weight of his armour trying to get up (assuming the fall didn't break his neck, arms or legs in which case free kill) by being able to wail on him in melee.
That said, the British Empire didn't really kick in till the gunpowder era. Years of fighting people who threw spears and shot bows taught us how to beat them. Unfortunately as said people had also developed gunpowder, we decided to take our advanced technology and beat on people still using such antiquated methods instead. It was a perfectly flawless plan that NEVER WENT WRONG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana).
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I always thought the point of longbow vs the Knight charge was to kill the steed, unhorse the rider and take advantage of bulk and weight of his armour trying to get up (assuming the fall didn't break his neck, arms or legs in which case free kill) by being able to wail on him in melee.
That said, the British Empire didn't really kick in till the gunpowder era. Years of fighting people who threw spears and shot bows taught us how to beat them. Unfortunately as said people had also developed gunpowder, we decided to take our advanced technology and beat on people still using such antiquated methods instead. It was a perfectly flawless plan that NEVER WENT WRONG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana).
And this is why repeater firearms are invented.
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I always thought the point of longbow vs the Knight charge was to kill the steed, unhorse the rider and take advantage of bulk and weight of his armour trying to get up (assuming the fall didn't break his neck, arms or legs in which case free kill) by being able to wail on him in melee.
That said, the British Empire didn't really kick in till the gunpowder era. Years of fighting people who threw spears and shot bows taught us how to beat them. Unfortunately as said people had also developed gunpowder, we decided to take our advanced technology and beat on people still using such antiquated methods instead. It was a perfectly flawless plan that NEVER WENT WRONG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana).
And this is why repeater firearms are invented.
In a way it is, but people were also armoring horses by that point. That said, horse armor failed just the same as human armor did. Until the invention of processes in the 15th century that made carbonizing steel a LOT more efficient, the longbow could drill right through a steel plate.
If you look at where a bullet hits modern steel, you'll see that it isn't strong because steel itself is unbreakable (in fact, there are a lot of harder metals out there) but because it bends. The dents you see in the plate is the steel being bent. When it is, instead of simply using raw strength to maintain its integrity it deflects and disperses the energy over a longer period. The longer the dent without being penetrated, the better the steel disperses the energy. Medieval steel didn't exactly have our modern, newfangled methods of forming near-perfect carbon crystal structures in steel. It didn't deflect nearly as much before it gave, more cracker than taffy. That was why the weapon was so effective during the Hundred Years War.
After Agincourt, the French regained their holdings with larger amounts of better steel, better armor covering their joints, and the introduction of cannon as effective weaponry. It was really the Hundred Years War that killed the idea of a landholding knight as a main battle tank of its day, since at that point we entered an arms race of weapon and armor production instead of martial skill training as the main reason battles could be won. Knights could be killed en masse by average men-at-arms and peasants with new weapons.
By the 16th century, we were completely into early small arms and pike formations. The horse-mounted knight was reduced to just another piece of a larger, more foot-centric army of mercenaries.
But before the idea of the longbow volley, knights were almost unstoppable by common people. It's harder than it looks to bring down an armored rider on an armored horse in single combat.
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You know what ? Don't bother. :bash:
Just give me your sources and i'll read them since all my 81 references are obviously a vogue of the nineties...
There's no need to get touchy, I'm asking a legitimate question and I'm really not being patronizing. If you're talking about the 15th century, you're talking about the era where blast furnaces were developed, pauldrons were worn, and the French used cannons to fight the Brits. If you look through the references you just put up, you'll see that all of them talked about the longbow becoming less effective in the mid-1400s, which is the middle of the 15th century. And you wouldn't be the first person who thought the 15th century began in the 1500s.
The reason I'm asking is that a lot of my sources are my college textbooks and accumulated journals on various subjects, not all of which are on pretty medieval battle texts. To explain why arrows work better fired in a parabollic arc rather than a straight line in a volley, I'll have to start sending you links to ballistics and physics texts. To talk about steel and ferrous metallurgy, we're talking about my structural steel histories and manuals. If you want social histories of Europe, I've got a few shelves of those.
But if you're just mixing up the era of machine warfare with the era of chivalric warfare, there's no need to send you bibliographical information on my entire bookshelf. Especially since I don't think you'll want to read all of them.
Trust me, I've seen people get pissed and fly off the hinge before. Your own sources are telling you that they were a devastatingly effective weapon straight into the beginning of the 15th century. If you want to know why, I can tell you or send you the information. I'm not sure why you're arguing since you essentially bolstered my point with most of them.
Well it sure sounds patronizing, but whatever.
The problem is not that I disagree with everything you say, the problem is that you do not want to acknowledge facts that I clearly exposed and that played a major role in the issue. I understand your position better now, but obviously you are just assuming that I am a retard that missed basic school education.
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You know what ? Don't bother. :bash:
Just give me your sources and i'll read them since all my 81 references are obviously a vogue of the nineties...
There's no need to get touchy, I'm asking a legitimate question and I'm really not being patronizing. If you're talking about the 15th century, you're talking about the era where blast furnaces were developed, pauldrons were worn, and the French used cannons to fight the Brits. If you look through the references you just put up, you'll see that all of them talked about the longbow becoming less effective in the mid-1400s, which is the middle of the 15th century. And you wouldn't be the first person who thought the 15th century began in the 1500s.
The reason I'm asking is that a lot of my sources are my college textbooks and accumulated journals on various subjects, not all of which are on pretty medieval battle texts. To explain why arrows work better fired in a parabollic arc rather than a straight line in a volley, I'll have to start sending you links to ballistics and physics texts. To talk about steel and ferrous metallurgy, we're talking about my structural steel histories and manuals. If you want social histories of Europe, I've got a few shelves of those.
But if you're just mixing up the era of machine warfare with the era of chivalric warfare, there's no need to send you bibliographical information on my entire bookshelf. Especially since I don't think you'll want to read all of them.
Trust me, I've seen people get pissed and fly off the hinge before. Your own sources are telling you that they were a devastatingly effective weapon straight into the beginning of the 15th century. If you want to know why, I can tell you or send you the information. I'm not sure why you're arguing since you essentially bolstered my point with most of them.
Well it sure sounds patronizing, but whatever.
The problem is not that I disagree with everything you say, the problem is that you do not want to acknowledge facts that I clearly exposed and that played a major role in the issue. I understand your position better now, but obviously you are just assuming that I am a retard that missed basic school education.
No, believe me, I'm not. I don't have time to be patronizing and, if I really thought you were an idiot, I wouldn't try to explain it and see what you mean. If I'd thought you were really a retard, I wouldn't even begin to explain what you wanted to know.
Hence the date thing. Machine warfare was in full swing by the 15th century and that was well after most historians recognize the age of chivalry to have ended. The problem is that I've heard a lot of people say that longbows weren't able to pierce period plate armor from that age, which simply isn't true. That was based on a lot of people using modern steel to run backyard experiments in the 90s and early aughts. When you use guild techniques from the time, you're not talking about the same kind of steel. It's not even the same kind of steel they were using in 1450. The longbow volley touched off a massive arms race that essentially killed chivalry as the world knew it. The British essentially cheated.
Believe me, I write these posts in about 10-15 minutes at work and while I'm doing other things. I really don't have the time to score internet points and I honestly don't care much about them. That's probably why I never did get into the PVP thing as much. If you think I'm being insulting, you've probably not really understood my mindset.
I don't bother talking to people I don't like or value the opinions of, and I don't tend to comment on things I'm not interested in. I have an economy of concentration to maintain.
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Ok. You keep talking about steel quality, steel quality, steel quality and steel quality, and I believe you that it probably played a role since you seem to be knowledgeable on the matter of steel carbonizing. You seem to assume that I said it is irrelevant. I'm ready to admit that it played a role, much like doctrines, tactics, and everything else induced by the emergence of the longbow played a role. All sources and documentation are rather clear on this, good steel or bad steel. Even in the hypothesis of bad steel in the early war (14th), longbows were not the best weapons to use against plate armour. Crossbows - pure products of your machine warfare - were a lot more efficient, but they suffered from other cons.
In any case, as the war progressed, counters were progressively found, like better steel, better protection either on limbs or horses, changing tactics, doctrines, and finally gunpowder. That's honestly all I had to say besides addressing the point and you continue to think that steel quality = everything...
If you are not interested in replying to my points as well, I don't really see why I should continue in all honesty... Or just say right now that all these sources and common History are de facto wrong... Longbow was certainly not an unstoppable killer at the beginning despite what it seemed to be, and was neither a useless weapon at the end.
Anyway, the real point was that the longbow brought chivalry to and end. Which I find rather fallacious. To begin with, chivalry is a code of honour and conduct, not a weapon. Chivalry was put to an end by the emergence of humanism and rationalism during the Renaissance. Unless you contest those sources too of course...
Knights (heavy plated cavalry) and late heavy infantry were more or less brought to and end by weapons, yes, though I think it is rather illogical to think that the longbow was such a weapon, since they were able to protect themselves better and better over the years, making the longbow less and less effective. Why would they have stopped using heavy plated armour if it eventually worked ?
What brought them to a stop was the appearance of firearms and the heavy use of more modern pikemen (like at Marignan).
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Ok. You keep talking about steel quality, steel quality, steel quality and steel quality, and I believe you that it probably played a role since you seem to be knowledgeable on the matter of steel carbonizing. You seem to assume that I said it is irrelevant. I'm ready to admit that it played a role, much like doctrines, tactics, and everything else induced by the emergence of the longbow played a role. All sources and documentation are rather clear on this, good steel or bad steel. Even in the hypothesis of bad steel in the early war (14th), longbows were not the best weapons to use against plate armour. Crossbows - pure products of your machine warfare - were a lot more efficient, but they suffered from other cons.
In any case, as the war progressed, counters were progressively found, like better steel, better protection either on limbs or horses, changing tactics, doctrines, and finally gunpowder. That's honestly all I had to say besides addressing the point and you continue to think that steel quality = everything...
If you are not interested in replying to my points as well, I don't really see why I should continue in all honesty... Or just say right now that all these sources and common History are de facto wrong... Longbow was certainly not an unstoppable killer at the beginning despite what it seemed to be, and was neither a useless weapon at the end.
Anyway, the real point was that the longbow brought chivalry to and end. Which I find rather fallacious. To begin with, chivalry is a code of honour and conduct, not a weapon. Chivalry was put to an end by the emergence of humanism and rationalism during the Renaissance. Unless you contest those sources too of course...
Knights (heavy plated cavalry) and late heavy infantry were more or less brought to and end by weapons, yes, though I think it is rather illogical to think that the longbow was such a weapon, since they were able to protect themselves better and better over the years, making the longbow less and less effective. Why would they have stopped using heavy plated armour if it eventually worked ?
What brought them to a stop was the appearance of firearms and the heavy use of more modern pikemen (like at Marignan).
Okay, I think I've figured out where our disagreement is. The reason I'm not going point by point on you is that, although it seems a lot of the actual debate has been about the weaponry, we aren't really disagreeing about anything there besides practices and procedures, we're simply talking about technology about a hundred years apart. I was starting to get the idea that we're not really debating what we think we're debating. It didn't seem like talking about parabolic ballistics was going to answer any of your questions and the reason I kept bringing up the steel is in response to the idea that the longbow wasn't effective against knights in expensive armor of the time. Even against them, it was a bane because of their steel quality, but that doesn't seem to be a point of real debate either. Your own sources point that out for the most part, though I'd say you should probably read the research for the Wikipedia article (that 2006 study was sort of a joke).
However, I don't think your problem is with any of that unless you thought I was saying armor was entirely ineffective. I've been going over steel and steel quality because you said you didn't think longbows could threaten knights in high-end plate armor, and in fact during the era where longbows were most heavily used, they certainly could. They definitely didn't turn plate armor of the time into butter, if that's what you thought I was saying, but a longbow volley is a lot different just in terms of physics than you firing a crossbow dead ahead at something you've lined up. Still, any armor is better than no armor, and a mounted knight would have probably fared better than someone in a mail coat.
So why the debate at all? I mean, if you want me to go over all my reasoning for why the longbow was so effective, I can. The reason I'm not is because I don't think that's necessarily where you're getting frustrated. So I started trying to figure out what exactly the confusion was over. I took a look over your posts and, I think, we might have some different definitions of knights and chivalry, then maybe in how the longbow itself began the decline of both.
I wouldn't define a "knight" as just a guy in heavy armor that rode a horse, but as a noble, politically invested landowner or vassals who followed the code of chivalry. More importantly, I think you define chivalry as just a code of polite conduct, which is true. You're probably talking about chivalry as a system of social etiquette, like Confucianism, and so it is. But that is not what chivalry was. Chivalry was a martial discipline, more akin to Bushido, and the majority of it was laden with rules about who could fight who, for how long, when, under what circumstances, what was allowed and what was not allowed. It dealt with gems like how much you could demand in ransom for a captured knight, what weapons you were permitted to duel with, and who or what it was acceptable to kill and die for. It essentially dictated politics and historical events in Europe for hundreds of years.
That code essentially began to die after Crecy and the longbow, not just because of the weapon itself, but because of who used them. A longbow volley was lethal to everything beneath it, knight and peasant alike, and was used primarily by conscripted peasants. While it wasn't technically dishonorable to just dismount your knights and use them to protect peasants while they killed your enemy for you, the fact was that you don't take captives under longbow fire until you start chasing them down. Peasants simply aimed and fired, untrained in the martial conduct and skills that knights were trained in. In essence, they were simply using machines to process whatever they wanted to kill.
There was no political maneuver the French had that they could take to stop it or skill they could train for, they simply had to wait for better armor and machinery to fight back. That's the essence of machine warfare, that it isn't essentially important who you field as much as what equipment you field. Suddenly, the knights weren't all-powerful combatants anymore and sometimes weren't even the most important element of their own armies (as in the case of the Brits). That turned them into more social leaders than military leaders, and ended the days when kings essentially conquered and reconquered empires based on that chivalric code. The code itself was altered as practices became obsolete and were phased out into what we have today.
Either way, I wouldn't call the heavily armored men who fronted pike formations to be knights, as they were almost entirely men-at-arms that were then directed in combat by landowning knights. Cavalry existed for some time after, but by then, the politically and historically important parts of the chivalric code were long gone.
It didn't necessarily make the idea of someone in a suit of armor obsolete. If anything, I'd rather be out in a deerskin bodkin than completely naked during an arrow shower, and steel of the time was definitely better than that. But the Brits essentially ended chivalric warfare in Europe with their longbow combat during the Hundred Years War.
I hope that clears up whatever you weren't getting. I thought that by going into longbow physics versus steel tolerances of the time, I wouldn't answer any of your questions.
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I'm kind of hoping I can go over parabolic ballistic performance, but forewarning you all, it's going to be the long kind of post everyone already complains about me writing even when I'm not trying to be detailed.
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The problem is that by using terms lile "that's why you are getting frustrated" isn't going to help in any way.
Reading what you say I still think there is a few misconceptions and a tendency to be rather too uncompromising on complex matters with a clear will to simplify all of it to serve your point, which is "the longbow put knights to an end", which I still strongly disagree with. Some of your arguments are sensible, like it is probably true that the rise of the weight conscripts had on war played a role. Some others like machine warfare suddenly made its appearance here sounds rather far fetched to me.
What made knights all powerful before that was already machine warfare. They were not powerful only because of their martial training, they were powerful because they had the tools and the means to be so, like expensive armour, weapons, and horses, all of which required knowledge to design and produce (it just takes a look at the specific design of any armour piece of the time to understand that it was not just steel bits put together). That longbow, like the crossbow, or especially gunpowder after, are part of the emergence of an even more technological laden machine warfare which then never stopped to increase over the next years up until nowadays, yes. What i'm saying since the beginning is that everything is relative, and you seem to speak in absolutes.
I wouldn't define a "knight" as just a guy in heavy armor that rode a horse, but as a noble, politically invested landowner or vassals who followed the code of chivalry.
Me as well.
More importantly, I think you define chivalry as just a code of polite conduct, which is true. You're probably talking about chivalry as a system of social etiquette, like Confucianism, and so it is. But that is not what chivalry was. Chivalry was a martial discipline, more akin to Bushido, and the majority of it was laden with rules about who could fight who, for how long, when, under what circumstances, what was allowed and what was not allowed. It dealt with gems like how much you could demand in ransom for a captured knight, what weapons you were permitted to duel with, and who or what it was acceptable to kill and die for. It essentially dictated politics and historical events in Europe for hundreds of years.
I am pretty sure that I referred to it as a warrior code somewhere above. I may have explained it badly, but similarly to what brought Samurai down in the end was gunpowder and a whole new combat warfare in which they were not the direct answer anymore, but also the whole modernization of their society.
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Now though I think I fell into the same trap as usual and I came rather confrontational when actually trying to have an interesting discussion, which is the genuine goal since otherwise I wouldn't bother... Sorry about that.
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Doesn't the quality of steel go both ways?
Anyways, my two cents regarding the longbow:
Not every knight was wearing top-grade armor, open helmets were common.
If longbow arrows were so deadly (trained troops firing around 10-12 arrows per minute) how could these knights enter english emplacements repeatedly (And not just die harder the closer they came).
After the hundred-years-war, a lot of these archers were looking for new employers - and seemed to have failed to achieve any successes, just like in the later battles of the war.
So, I kind of share the opinion that the main weight of these troops was not in annihilating anything, but in shaping the field of battle in their favour, combined with the arrogance of french nobility that ended up in these desasterous charges against a presumably weak opponent.
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Now though I think I fell into the same trap as usual and I came rather confrontational when actually trying to have an interesting discussion, which is the genuine goal since otherwise I wouldn't bother... Sorry about that.
Not a problem, trust me. If it's any consolation, I really don't try to come across as confrontational. I get my decisions and explanations challenged on a pretty much daily basis at work, so I really have a hard time recognizing I'm in an argument until someone says so. I think people also get the vibe that if I'm contradicting them, it's because I'm attacking them personally or even their whole argument. Which maybe isn't helped by my language; I just get into interesting debate mode and question things. It's only later that I tend to realize people are taking it personally.
I think that's a 'me' issue instead of an 'everyone else' issue, since this isn't the first time that's happened. I think that essentially living in a world of criticism has desensitized me. I'm sort of an intellectual sociopath.
On the subject, I think the point I was making was that machine warfare didn't exactly make knights all-powerful, it was chivalry and the politics behind it. Indeed, some knights were absolutely terrible at fighting, but they were all given martial training that tended to trump your ordinary peasant. What made knights so powerful was the reason they could afford that technology and had all the time in the world to be educated and learn to fight each other. It was all centered in political power.
A knight could be poor, just like anyone else, and be forced to sell his land holdings and armor and all else he had, but he could eventually get it all back simply because knights were in charge. As far as Europe at the time was concerned (for the most part, for instance there was a more populist system working in England before the Norman conquest), it was the nobility that mattered. Peasants were simply there to fuel the lifestyles of nobles. Even the Magna Carta focused a lot on the issues that nobles had with the king, not all men in general. It was just their world and they could claim that it was that way because they were the ones who went to war and fought to defend the country. My how things change...
The longbow changed that fairly intrinsically because it wasn't a bevy of knights firing the volleys that essentially won the battles of the Hundred Years War. It was the peasantry essentially rinse-repeating with the bows. Suddenly, knights weren't the most important part of their army; they were used primarily to protect the archery line. Chivalry didn't apply to the longbowmen and many of its tenets didn't work in that manner of warfare. Worse, for the nobles at least, it became apparent that they hadn't won that war. It didn't help that Britain had a much deeper populist streak than elsewhere at the time (which may have been why the tactic was first used by them).
In a way, that was really the beginning of the end, stripping away that mythic aura of demigodhood that the knights had previous to that. From then on, war was won much more regularly on technical and tactical innovation, and was won much more often by commoners and mercenaries who had no land holdings or political power. Most of the code of chivalry, the martial bits, fell off piece by piece until it became what we largely have today. You can't tell peasants you're a superior caste when your warfare tactic relies on peasants essentially winning battles against them while you protect them.
That's why the longbow and by extension the Hundred Years War essentially ended the age of chivalry. It suddenly didn't matter anymore who you were or who your parents were. In days of knight-on-knight combat, people knew and had strict rules about how they could and could not engage and kill you. Peasants with longbows firing in indiscriminate volleys didn't know and, even if they did, didn't care. The arrows certainly didn't.
I mean, is it what I'd try and use to single-handedly kill a mounted knight on my own? Definitely not. They had hooked polearms at the time that were much more effective at that. But in machine warfare, it's not even necessary. To win, as long as you don't care much about renown and just about winning, you don't need more than a handful of knights on foot to handle anyone who makes it to your line if you're pounding them with longbow fire.
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Doesn't the quality of steel go both ways?
Anyways, my two cents regarding the longbow:
Not every knight was wearing top-grade armor, open helmets were common.
If longbow arrows were so deadly (trained troops firing around 10-12 arrows per minute) how could these knights enter english emplacements repeatedly (And not just die harder the closer they came).
After the hundred-years-war, a lot of these archers were looking for new employers - and seemed to have failed to achieve any successes, just like in the later battles of the war.
So, I kind of share the opinion that the main weight of these troops was not in annihilating anything, but in shaping the field of battle in their favour, combined with the arrogance of french nobility that ended up in these desasterous charges against a presumably weak opponent.
Steel quality does go both ways, but matters most in tension (deflection). The quality of the steel is more important when it's a thin, hollow veneer trying to stop penetration than when it's a sharp, solid mass attempting to drive through. Steel isn't the most potent compressive force on the planet, but it's a lot easier. This is as long as it's metal-on-metal. Firing it into something more solid, like a rock, is when you actually need high quality steel to keep it from shattering. Armor just doesn't provide resistance throughout.
As far as formations go, longbow volleys were devastating but weren't a carpet of death (it was pure luck being hit in a vital place or not, after all). Longbow archers actually held their own in previously French fortifications until later in the 15th century when they were eventually driven out by precisely what Lyn was talking about, cannons. Cannons became reliable siege equipment during this time instead of novelties and were used to simply blow the doors open. If longbows essentially ended the age of chivalry, cannons ended the age of longbows. Also, small arms were beginning to be developed. Right when better armor finally came around to defend someone against arrow volleys, in a few decades they were facing the aforementioned small arms fire. It was definitely the nail in the coffin for the heavily armored soldier, but also for the longbow archer. Why get a longbow volley line together when a line of firearms actually does turn steel armor into swiss cheese?
War technology made a leap in that hundred years that put previous centuries to absolute shame. It certainly stripped the place in war of nobles directly out of the line of danger. In a few years time, your average army was made up almost entirely of commoners. Chivalry, the martial code, was pretty much gone, replaced by a vestigial code of behavior.
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Since I don't know much about material science I'll take your word for it. However, I'm not convinced of the conclusions you're drawing as contemporary sources regarding the early battles seem to describe the efficiency of plate armor, the effectiveness of continuous volley fire against morale and how sound strategical decisions can turn the tide of battle. If you want to swoon for archers, look to the east and their mounted archers. ;)
So far so good, I wasn't there and I can only base my opinion on the works of historians, which are mostly stricken with not very precise sources and therefore prone to a lot of interpretation.
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Apparently all the documentation left over that time period is rather accurate considering the sheer amount of contemporary written texts that have been made on the matter. Especially on how turned most battles.
Not every knight was wearing top-grade armor, open helmets were common.
From what I read they actually wore bascinets for most of them, not just nose helmets like infantry.
Though well, theorically it was effective against arrows considering its deflective angle properties, but they often wore it above a more compact helmet and used to discard it once the first shock was done since it was highly cumbersome in the middle of melee.
Not a problem, trust me. If it's any consolation, I really don't try to come across as confrontational. I get my decisions and explanations challenged on a pretty much daily basis at work, so I really have a hard time recognizing I'm in an argument until someone says so. I think people also get the vibe that if I'm contradicting them, it's because I'm attacking them personally or even their whole argument. Which maybe isn't helped by my language; I just get into interesting debate mode and question things. It's only later that I tend to realize people are taking it personally.
I think that's a 'me' issue instead of an 'everyone else' issue, since this isn't the first time that's happened. I think that essentially living in a world of criticism has desensitized me. I'm sort of an intellectual sociopath.
I didnt took it personally... That's a me issue in my case too since I always forget the form when really immersed in the content.
On the subject, I think the point I was making was that machine warfare didn't exactly make knights all-powerful, it was chivalry and the politics behind it. Indeed, some knights were absolutely terrible at fighting, but they were all given martial training that tended to trump your ordinary peasant. What made knights so powerful was the reason they could afford that technology and had all the time in the world to be educated and learn to fight each other. It was all centered in political power.
A knight could be poor, just like anyone else, and be forced to sell his land holdings and armor and all else he had, but he could eventually get it all back simply because knights were in charge. As far as Europe at the time was concerned (for the most part, for instance there was a more populist system working in England before the Norman conquest), it was the nobility that mattered. Peasants were simply there to fuel the lifestyles of nobles. Even the Magna Carta focused a lot on the issues that nobles had with the king, not all men in general. It was just their world and they could claim that it was that way because they were the ones who went to war and fought to defend the country. My how things change...
The longbow changed that fairly intrinsically because it wasn't a bevy of knights firing the volleys that essentially won the battles of the Hundred Years War. It was the peasantry essentially rinse-repeating with the bows. Suddenly, knights weren't the most important part of their army; they were used primarily to protect the archery line. Chivalry didn't apply to the longbowmen and many of its tenets didn't work in that manner of warfare. Worse, for the nobles at least, it became apparent that they hadn't won that war. It didn't help that Britain had a much deeper populist streak than elsewhere at the time (which may have been why the tactic was first used by them).
In a way, that was really the beginning of the end, stripping away that mythic aura of demigodhood that the knights had previous to that. From then on, war was won much more regularly on technical and tactical innovation, and was won much more often by commoners and mercenaries who had no land holdings or political power. Most of the code of chivalry, the martial bits, fell off piece by piece until it became what we largely have today. You can't tell peasants you're a superior caste when your warfare tactic relies on peasants essentially winning battles against them while you protect them.
That's why the longbow and by extension the Hundred Years War essentially ended the age of chivalry. It suddenly didn't matter anymore who you were or who your parents were. In days of knight-on-knight combat, people knew and had strict rules about how they could and could not engage and kill you. Peasants with longbows firing in indiscriminate volleys didn't know and, even if they did, didn't care. The arrows certainly didn't.
I mean, is it what I'd try and use to single-handedly kill a mounted knight on my own? Definitely not. They had hooked polearms at the time that were much more effective at that. But in machine warfare, it's not even necessary. To win, as long as you don't care much about renown and just about winning, you don't need more than a handful of knights on foot to handle anyone who makes it to your line if you're pounding them with longbow fire.
I think though that your point has different meaning and values of scale depending on the nation you speak of. I'm pretty sure that for the brits it was a clear confirmation of their doctrines and a real comfort for the men at arms and conscripts against aristocratic warfare. I'm somewhat more mitigated how it turned in the case of the french. When Joan of Arc came they still were heavily relying on knights and chivalry. Chivalry, as you said above, was not totally fitting to modern warfare emerging from the use of the longbow and other ensuing tactics. But instead of choosing to do the same as the brits, they never chose to use the longbow themselves since they
1) Had no expertise of doing so and longbow use required a long time of practice and training, as the brits had plenty of time to do after their misfortune at the end of the welsh, the first to use these against them, to a point where longbow practice became almost a "national" pride on this side of the Channel.
2) Had more "refined" technology, like crossbows that could be used by anyone or any peasant, which was rather well spread. However, that weapon was not the most useful against what they faced, that didnt really need lot of piercing power.
So they chose to capitalize on their strengths, which means heavy cavalry, heavy infantry. They just had to use them in a different fashion. Which they did at the battle of Patay, for example, even if a bit of luck helped them. The correct answer anyhow, was mobile warfare and aggressive tactics (=/= mindless leeroy). And of course, when it came to cities defended by longbows, field artillery and gunpowder.
In any case the short appearance of Joan seemed to have been one of the first sparks of nationalism in the middle of feudal wars, between lords and knights. It was not duke x against duke y, but rather "us vs the english invaders".
By the way this bit of wiki article seems to add credit to your steel quality argument :
The Welsh & English longbowman used a single-piece longbow (but some bows later developed a composite design) to deliver arrows that could penetrate contemporary plate armour and mail. The longbow was a difficult weapon to master, requiring long years of use and constant practice. A skilled longbowman could shoot about 12 shots per minute. This rate of fire was far superior to competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons. The nearest competitor to the longbow was the much more expensive crossbow, used often by urban militias and mercenary forces. The crossbow had greater penetrating power, and did not require the extended years of training. However, it lacked the rate of fire of the longbow.
At Crécy and Agincourt bowmen unleashed clouds of arrows into the ranks of knights. At Crécy, even 15,000 Genoese crossbowmen could not dislodge them from their hill. At Agincourt, thousands of French knights were brought down by armour-piercing bodkin point arrows and horse-maiming broadheads. Longbowmen decimated an entire generation of the French nobility.
Since the longbow was difficult to deploy in a thrusting mobile offensive, it was best used in a defensive configuration. Bowmen were extended in thin lines and protected and screened by pits (as at the Battle of Bannockburn), staves or trenches. The terrain was usually chosen to put the archers at an advantage forcing their opponents into a bottleneck (at Agincourt) or a hard climb under fire (at Crécy). Sometimes the bowmen were deployed in a shallow "W", enabling them to trap and enfilade their foes.
The pike and the longbow put an end to the dominance of cavalry in European warfare, making the use of foot soldiers more important than they had been in recent years. Knights began themselves to rather fight dismounted, using two-handed swords, poleaxes and other polearms, as the improved knightly plate armour made them fairly immune to arrows. Gunpowder eventually was to provoke even more significant changes. However, a mounted reserve was often kept, and the heavy cavalry continued to be an important battlefield arm of European armies until the 19th century, when new and more accurate weapons made the mounted soldier too easy a target, with WWI being the last instance where cavalry played a major role in the war.
Which is also why I said that as much as the longbow seriously questioned the use of heavy cavalry as a remedy for everything, and the status of knights on the battlefield, and as much as it was already more or less fully integrated in the english doctrines, the french continued to fight with knights until the end of the war, and that with more and more success. Which is why I said that what really killed them on the battlefield eventually, was like for the Samurai : cannon and arquebuses. And those also seriously threatened plated men at arms that were more and more common in use.
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As far as the nationality goes, I can't claim to be much but an European-American, so my entire native military history is neatly contained in the machine war era.
Honestly, I'm not disputing much that you said, Lyn, but I wasn't saying that longbows ended the idea of armored cavalry. It did essentially end the era where they completely dominated battle, though. In fact, the cavalry charge was still in use long after guns and cannons came along, and was still populated disproportionately by members of the upper classes. One of the nice things about being on a horse in the early era of small arms without the pike formations is that you could cross intervening terrain before the enemy could reload. Napoleon was a famous master of directing cavalry.
The issue was that chivalry was essentially done even by Joan of Arc's time, though they definitely reduced it at a slower boil in France. This gets more into the specifics of chivalry. Chivalry was a bit more "civilized" as far as warfare goes... as much as it could be. Knights tended to be a lot more kind to each other. They liked taking each other hostage and demanding ransoms, capturing flags, and the like. It was almost like a game to the nobility of the time. Being hit by a shower of longbow arrows doesn't give you any of those chances until everyone's dead. The game was over.
The reason the French did finally prevail at Patay was partly that tactical blunder by the Brits you mentioned, which sort of negated the machine warfare model and also partly done with guns becoming a larger part of the military. What this meant, though, was more a shift away from the knight as an unstoppable force. This forced a shift from heavily armored cavalry to heavily armored infantry and the lightening of cavalry units to something we'd think today of as a rapid assault force. In fact, cavalry at the time began wearing lighter armor simply because they knew armor wouldn't necessarily save them, it was speed that did that. They even broke up into very small, highly drilled groups which even then didn't cover their needs until they started using field artillery to shoot back. Chivalry might have made a comeback, but the French resurgence included things like cannons and they were seeing the first of the small arms. Heavy infantry struggled to keep up, but couldn't. As soon as the French adopted the British standard of combat, chivalry began to die as a political force.
One of the things I haven't really brought up that essentially ended the age of chivalry was associated costs. Processes were developed that made steel for armor not only better quality, but a lot cheaper to produce in bulk. The longbow, for all its amazing potential, cost next to nothing to make in comparison. Firearms were expensive at first, but became much less expensive than the armor they defeated. Common people could own all the tools they needed to be as valuable, if not more valuable, than the nobles who used to ride at the heads of their armies. By the time everyone owned the armor you'd need to regularly withstand a longbow arrow, they were on to the next innovation. This led to knights becoming sideline warriors while commoner mercenaries like the Landsknechte became the dominant military force.
I grabbed a quote on the significance of the Hundred Years War that sums it up from Wikipedia.
The Hundred Years' War was a time of rapid military evolution. Weapons, tactics, army structure and the social meaning of war all changed, partly in response to the war's costs, partly through advancement in technology and partly through lessons that warfare taught.
Before the Hundred Years' War, heavy cavalry was considered the most powerful unit in an army, but by the war's end, this belief had shifted. The heavy horse was increasingly negated by the use of the longbow (and, later, another long-distance weapon: firearms). Edward III was famous for dismounting his men-at-arms and have them and his archers stand in closely integrated battle lines; the horses only being used for transport or pursuit.[68] The English began using lightly armoured mounted troops, known as hobelars. Hobelars tactics had been developed against the Scots, in the Anglo-Scottish wars of the 14th century. Hobelars rode smaller unarmoured horses, enabling them to move through difficult or boggy terrain where heavier cavalry would struggle. Rather than fight while seated on the horse, they would also dismount to engage the enemy.[69][70][71]
By the end of the Hundred Years' War, these various factors caused the decline of the expensively outfitted, highly trained heavy cavalry and the eventual end of the armoured knight as a military force and of the nobility as a political one.[71]
The longbow didn't erase knights entirely from existence. The idea of armored cavalry on horseback survived well into the last century and it wasn't like the military tradition of nobles ended there. But the era of chivalric warfare was essentially gone by the time of Patay. France was always much more conservative and traditional, but they knew they had to adapt their warfare methods, tactics, and technology or Britain was simply going to choke them to death with cheaper and more effective technology at the expense of being tactically polite.
Longbows did begin the demise of the chivalric knight in combat and proved common people with cheap technology could be more than a match for the traditional rulers of Europe. They didn't go down without a fight, and you're right that the era of heavy chivalric cavalry was probably completely finished when the Europeans began developing relatively accurate, pitched gunfire. That was all simply part of the process the longbow volleys started, though, as those gun-toting infantry were hardly nobles schooled in traditional courtesy in cobmat. It essentially neutralized the standards of warfare people had used for hundreds and hundreds of years that, in a way, bound European governments.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg/800px-Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg)
Charge at Krojanty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty) - 1 Sept 1939
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/German_cavalry.jpg)
German Cavalry, invading Poland - Sept 1939.
It is just mounted infantry ;)
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg/800px-Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg)
Charge at Krojanty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty) - 1 Sept 1939
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/German_cavalry.jpg)
German Cavalry, invading Poland - Sept 1939.
It is just mounted infantry ;)
Hell, they were still trying to do it in 1942 during the second war. It's a romantic notion and was more affordable than buying an armored division.
It's like people didn't get the hint. The longbow, then the pike formation, then the firing line, it finally took the goddamn machine gun to convince people that charging on horseback had finally become untenable.
My favorite story was a contingent of Soviet cavalry in Moscow who charged the German line. They were mowed down and didn't kill a single German. It was an ignominious end to a tactic of such longevity. Unless you count current armored divisions. The role of a knight on a 11th century battlefield is now taken up by thinks like main battle tanks.
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It's like people didn't get the hint. The longbow, then the pike formation, then the firing line, it finally took the goddamn machine gun to convince people that charging on horseback had finally become untenable.
They didn't get the hint because, until the first world war, cavalry were still indispensable. Take a look at the American Civil War, for example. Both mounted and dismounted cavalry not only managed to change the results of infantry battles, but also to have strategic effects on campaigns - for example, Grant's first attempt to take Vicksburg was frustrated by a cavalry raid on his supply base.
One of the mistakes people make is in thinking of older methods of warfare in modern terms. The reason cavalry continued to be used so much isn't that it was so romantic, but that, until the advent of the WW2 tank, truck, and half-track, (and I do mean World War 2) there simply wasn't any way to move fast around the battlefield. Even in World War 2, the Germans often relied on horse transport. The Russians would have had to as well, save for the industrial might of the United States, which shipped them thousands of vehicles. And the Japanese just marched everywhere, for the most part.
If you want to understand why people stuck to cavalry, study the American Civil War. Using Cavalry, mounted or dismounted, provided a singular benefit: that of getting there first, with the most. In days before our own, transit times were measured in weeks, and your estimate of when you might get there could be off by as much as a week. In that situation, four-legged transportation could ride around an army, cut supply lines, charge a vulnerable flank, or hold a position until reinforcements arrive - as Buford did at Gettysburg, holding the Confederates until Meade brought his army up.
And don't knock medieval cavalry too much. Yes, pikemen could hold a charge. If they stood firm. But I've been around the kind of animals that knights rode. They are not the sleek thoroughbreds that everyone thinks of when they think of a horse. They are more like draft horses, huge, bulky animals - and when one of them gallops by, the earth shakes, from fifty feet away. I should know, I've been around them and my family owned horses - still does, although I don't. It is one thing to talk about pikemen in a comfortable chair in front of a screen - it is another thing to stand, shivering on a field, as you hold a thin pole between your hands, as the charge in front of you grows to fill the horizon, and the earth itself betrays your feet.
The reason Swiss Pikemen were so remarked upon is because they wouldn't run. Most did. And most knights were not fighting Swiss Pikemen.
People in the Middle Ages and the Victorian Era were not stupid. They used cavalry because, on the whole, it worked. The reason we remember things like Crecy is because battles like that were the exception, not the rule. Two thousand years from now, historians may be chuckling over how the idiotic Chinese Republic thought tanks could defeat Korean mech infantry armed with railguns. But the reality will have been that the reason those hypothetical future Chinese Republicans used tanks is that, until the advent of the infantry-portable railgun, tanks worked.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg/800px-Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg)
Charge at Krojanty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty) - 1 Sept 1939
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/German_cavalry.jpg)
German Cavalry, invading Poland - Sept 1939.
It is just mounted infantry ;)
Hell, they were still trying to do it in 1942 during the second war. It's a romantic notion and was more affordable than buying an armored division.
It's like people didn't get the hint. The longbow, then the pike formation, then the firing line, it finally took the goddamn machine gun to convince people that charging on horseback had finally become untenable.
My favorite story was a contingent of Soviet cavalry in Moscow who charged the German line. They were mowed down and didn't kill a single German. It was an ignominious end to a tactic of such longevity. Unless you count current armored divisions. The role of a knight on a 11th century battlefield is now taken up by thinks like main battle tanks.
They rarely used horses and cavalry to charge in the XXth century. It is true that Poland did that here and there because they just lacked everything else, but otherwise they still had armour and airplanes as well... It was not the rule.
Cavalry got replaced by cavalry tanks mostly, a concept that mostly disappeared over the years though.
Horses were used mainly as a logistical mean in itself. When Germany invaded Poland, then France in 1940, they still had 75% of their army that was unmechanized and still using horses and carts to tow their AT guns and field artillery, or just for various logistics.
Also, I wouldnt be so hasty on the so called supremacy of contemporary MBTs compared to knights.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg/800px-Polish_cavalry_in_Sochaczew%281939%29a.jpg)
Charge at Krojanty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty) - 1 Sept 1939
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/German_cavalry.jpg)
German Cavalry, invading Poland - Sept 1939.
It is just mounted infantry ;)
Hell, they were still trying to do it in 1942 during the second war. It's a romantic notion and was more affordable than buying an armored division.
It's like people didn't get the hint. The longbow, then the pike formation, then the firing line, it finally took the goddamn machine gun to convince people that charging on horseback had finally become untenable.
My favorite story was a contingent of Soviet cavalry in Moscow who charged the German line. They were mowed down and didn't kill a single German. It was an ignominious end to a tactic of such longevity. Unless you count current armored divisions. The role of a knight on a 11th century battlefield is now taken up by thinks like main battle tanks.
They rarely used horses and cavalry to charge in the XXth century. It is true that Poland did that here and there because they just lacked everything else, but otherwise they still had armour and airplanes as well... It was not the rule.
Cavalry got replaced by cavalry tanks mostly, a concept that mostly disappeared over the years though.
Horses were used mainly as a logistical mean in itself. When Germany invaded Poland, then France in 1940, they still had 75% of their army that was unmechanized and still using horses and carts to tow their AT guns and field artillery, or just for various logistics.
Also, I wouldnt be so hasty on the so called supremacy of contemporary MBTs compared to knights.
Sort of the same concept, that it was faster, more heavily armed, more heavily armored, impossible to stop, but inordinately expensive to field. I mean, don't get me wrong, armor wasn't completely arrow-proof, but you're totally right in saying that knights suffered less than everyone else because they were, at least, wearing plate armor. I think longbows might have started the decline of the knight and ended the age of chivalry, but the tactic of advancing with your unit of battlefield supremacy backed by infantry support to protect it from being surrounded and disabled is as old as time. Really, the Abrams is doing just about what knights did a thousand years ago, breaking up lines and killing other tanks to gain ground supremacy. And as knights even in later centuries, they may not have been invincible, but you'd rather be in one of them than in a Chevy S-10 with an M2 on the back.
Warfare is just a lot more asymmetrical now than it was then. Even archers had to be fairly close and reasonably visible to operate. Now, just because you've got the biggest, fastest, most invincible thing on the ground doesn't mean you can win a war.
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Modern MBTs (or even WW2 MBTs) are far from being unstoppable. Any proper artillery round or airbomb coming directly on top and it's the end, any good AT rocket (RPG-29 Vampir, Eryx, etc) and that's over, any good ATGM, and that's over...
I heard recently that the survival probability for infantry in a theorical symmetrical all raging battle these days is a lot higher than the one for a tank crew.
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Modern MBTs (or even WW2 MBTs) are far from being unstoppable. Any proper artillery round or airbomb coming directly on top and it's the end, any good AT rocket (RPG-29 Vampir, Eryx, etc) and that's over, any good ATGM, and that's over...
I heard recently that the survival probability for infantry in a theorical symmetrical all raging battle these days is a lot higher than the one for a tank crew.
Not strictly true, some MBTs are pretty durable, Merkeva and Challenger 2 particularly. I recall stories of Challenger 2s shrugging off multiple AT rockets, but I'm not sure about a bombing from the air or heavy artillery.
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Modern MBTs (or even WW2 MBTs) are far from being unstoppable. Any proper artillery round or airbomb coming directly on top and it's the end, any good AT rocket (RPG-29 Vampir, Eryx, etc) and that's over, any good ATGM, and that's over...
I heard recently that the survival probability for infantry in a theorical symmetrical all raging battle these days is a lot higher than the one for a tank crew.
Not strictly true, some MBTs are pretty durable, Merkeva and Challenger 2 particularly. I recall stories of Challenger 2s shrugging off multiple AT rockets, but I'm not sure about a bombing from the air or heavy artillery.
A main battle tank is pretty much immune to anything ground forces can bring to bear except a HEAT round. The problem with tank armor for most weapons is that it's all ablative, layers of ceramic armor and dense metal. Especially in the glacis plate, it's essentially impenetrable. For all intents and purposes, a main battle tank on the ground is not feasible to destroy.
For a while, the idea was just to blow a hole in it, but that hasn't been possible for a while. Then, someone got the bright idea to launch a concussive weapon that would simply send a shockwave through the cabin and kill everyone in it. That worked until they started layering in the ceramics. Now, the only way to really effectively destroy a tank is to use a penetrator round to throw shrapnel around the inside. That takes a pretty serious piece of ordinance. In terms of Gen 3 main battle tanks, that's not going to be potable.
Tanks can be destroyed, but they do have ground superiority. About the only things infantry or anyone else can hope to do to a main battle tank is to somehow break the treads (which is a LOT harder than it looks).
However, you might be right in the case of a symmetrical battle, Lyn, because being the big dog on the field means you're the first to get a bullet. If we assumed two well-equipped nations went to blows with every conventional weapon they had, the infantry would probably survive better simply because there are usually more of them to target. If you're in a tank on a modern battlefield, you're a target. While no recent wars have seen a battle of that nature lately (right now, an M1 crew is essentially untouchable by the Taliban since the old explosives-under-the-tank-where-the-armor-is-weak doesn't work anymore) ground superiority doesn't mean total battlefield superiority.
It's actually some spectacularly old-fashioned aircraft that I'd say constitute the most frightening nightmare for a tank crew. The A-10 Thunderbolt is a predatory reptile of an aircraft, a new evolution of a prehistoric design. They just built a plane around the most massive gun they could make. It'll put 30mm rounds completely through buildings and pulverize the foundation until it collapses. I've also heard it can go through the armor on an M1 depending on the range.
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Modern MBTs (or even WW2 MBTs) are far from being unstoppable. Any proper artillery round or airbomb coming directly on top and it's the end, any good AT rocket (RPG-29 Vampir, Eryx, etc) and that's over, any good ATGM, and that's over...
I heard recently that the survival probability for infantry in a theorical symmetrical all raging battle these days is a lot higher than the one for a tank crew.
Not strictly true, some MBTs are pretty durable, Merkeva and Challenger 2 particularly. I recall stories of Challenger 2s shrugging off multiple AT rockets, but I'm not sure about a bombing from the air or heavy artillery.
It depends of the AT rockets. The common light RPG-7 which is widely used everywhere like the old AK-47 will never dent any MBT, at least with a frontal shot. Some videos of the war in Syria can be seen on youtube where they shoot countless RPG-7 rounds on a stupidly old T-72 tank without even threatening it.
However, the Challenger 2 which is arguably one of the most armoured tank in the world following the british philosophy of "never enough armour, who cares for speed and the rest ?", got hurt pretty badly by a RPG-29 Vampir in the last war in Iraq. Full frontal shot, the rocket didnt even detonate, but it still pierced through.
(http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/6517/hull3jc3.jpg)
For artillery or bombs, the main issue is that the top armour of a tank is not as thick as front or even side armour. Granted, you have to be damn lucky to hit a tank with artillery, but you don't necessarily have to. Back in WW2 artillery shell detonations were sufficient to flip even the biggest tanks upside down. Not the best weapon against those, granted, much like longbows were not against knights (tongue in cheek).
However you have iron bombs and especially cluster bombs that are specifically designed to kill armoured vehicles. Those are deadly. Or you can just use a CAS bomber like the A-10, Su-25, or whatever, loaded with AGMs either.
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Modern MBTs (or even WW2 MBTs) are far from being unstoppable. Any proper artillery round or airbomb coming directly on top and it's the end, any good AT rocket (RPG-29 Vampir, Eryx, etc) and that's over, any good ATGM, and that's over...
I heard recently that the survival probability for infantry in a theorical symmetrical all raging battle these days is a lot higher than the one for a tank crew.
Not strictly true, some MBTs are pretty durable, Merkeva and Challenger 2 particularly. I recall stories of Challenger 2s shrugging off multiple AT rockets, but I'm not sure about a bombing from the air or heavy artillery.
A main battle tank is pretty much immune to anything ground forces can bring to bear except a HEAT round. The problem with tank armor for most weapons is that it's all ablative, layers of ceramic armor and dense metal. Especially in the glacis plate, it's essentially impenetrable. For all intents and purposes, a main battle tank on the ground is not feasible to destroy.
For a while, the idea was just to blow a hole in it, but that hasn't been possible for a while. Then, someone got the bright idea to launch a concussive weapon that would simply send a shockwave through the cabin and kill everyone in it. That worked until they started layering in the ceramics. Now, the only way to really effectively destroy a tank is to use a penetrator round to throw shrapnel around the inside. That takes a pretty serious piece of ordinance. In terms of Gen 3 main battle tanks, that's not going to be potable.
Tanks can be destroyed, but they do have ground superiority. About the only things infantry or anyone else can hope to do to a main battle tank is to somehow break the treads (which is a LOT harder than it looks).
However, you might be right in the case of a symmetrical battle, Lyn, because being the big dog on the field means you're the first to get a bullet. If we assumed two well-equipped nations went to blows with every conventional weapon they had, the infantry would probably survive better simply because there are usually more of them to target. If you're in a tank on a modern battlefield, you're a target. While no recent wars have seen a battle of that nature lately (right now, an M1 crew is essentially untouchable by the Taliban since the old explosives-under-the-tank-where-the-armor-is-weak doesn't work anymore) ground superiority doesn't mean total battlefield superiority.
It's actually some spectacularly old-fashioned aircraft that I'd say constitute the most frightening nightmare for a tank crew. The A-10 Thunderbolt is a predatory reptile of an aircraft, a new evolution of a prehistoric design. They just built a plane around the most massive gun they could make. It'll put 30mm rounds completely through buildings and pulverize the foundation until it collapses. I've also heard it can go through the armor on an M1 depending on the range.
HEAT as shells is an obsolete technology that has been defeated since long by as you say, composite armour, and especially ERA armour. It is still widely used in AT rockets though, especially in man portable RPGs or ATGMs since it can still threaten any kind of armoured vehicle, but the most modern RPGs do it specifically by using twin charges or more where one is meant to defeat the ERA layer, and the other one to pierce through the rest of the armour like in butter.
I can assure you that any modern MBT can be killed pretty easily, be it a M1 SEP, Leo A6, Challenger 2, T-80UM, T-90UM, or whatever. By planes, or by ground forces. Less so in asymmetrical warfare, granted. In most conflicts they just have to face crappy old RPG-7s and that kind of stuff... But as I said above, go ask that challenger 2 crew how they felt after getting hit by a twin shaped charged that didnt even explode. Or the few Merkhava crews that got into trouble in the last Lebanon war, and here again, against modern russian military equipment.
In any case, MBT are hardly the answer in asymmetrical warfare. They are less prone to be destroyed sure, but they are not very adequate in the role that is expected of ground forces in that kind of conflict. IFVs and APCs, as well as light armoured vehicles, are the way to go.
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Intermission (http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/intermission-why-the-english-hate-the-french.70223/)
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Intermission (http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/intermission-why-the-english-hate-the-french.70223/)
When I have time, I'll go over the parabolic ballistics, or why firing in a monstrously high arc can be more effective than firing head on, especially against something like plate where kinetic energy matters so much.
But other than a couple things, that was pretty interesting. And hilarious. I'm reminded of a joke Andy Parsons made when they were first talking about Scottish independence on Mock the Week. "The Scots hate the English, the Welsh hate the English, and the English hate everyone, including most of the English. And this is a nation known for its tolerance. Small wonder we're so tolerant, having to live in a country full of people we can't bloody stand!"
I didn't know that the French crossbowmen were deprived of their shields at Crecy due to logistics issues, though. That's new to me and goes some way to explaining why they were so absolutely ineffective at the battle. Crossbows weren't as flexible or variable as longbow tactics, but you don't have to train a crossbow archer for twenty years to have the back to use one.
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I don't know either if it's true, for that logistics issue, but apparently from what I read it was the case yes.
They manage to screw everything, they had wet crossbows unable to shoot correctly or far, no pavisces, and then all the infantry started to charge like madmen to be the first ones on the english, while the king ordered them to stop, making half of them to actually do it while the others got invigorated to see that they were even closer to be the first on the enemy that way...
It is said that documented sources are extremely confused and conflicting at times. Tbh i'm pretty surprised by the good deal of accuracy shown in that comics.
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I don't know either if it's true, for that logistics issue, but apparently from what I read it was the case yes.
They manage to screw everything, they had wet crossbows unable to shoot correctly or far, no pavisces, and then all the infantry started to charge like madmen to be the first ones on the english, while the king ordered them to stop, making half of them to actually do it while the others got invigorated to see that they were even closer to be the first on the enemy that way...
It is said that documented sources are extremely confused and conflicting at times. Tbh i'm pretty surprised by the good deal of accuracy shown in that comics.
It's a problem with historical sources.... okay it's a problem with any source of any time, that historians of their day were court historians and therefore had all the excuses in the world to exaggerate on their clients' behalf. I heard that at the battle of Crecy, the English count was fairly accurate only because they'd logged, very accurately, exactly how many people they'd had to pay to ship over and supply. There's some debate about how many they lost, but since they also had to transport them back, modern historians have a little more documentation to work from. As far as the French go, not only did their sources estimate the size of the British army to an immense degree, they also didn't count much as far as their own people went. I think they listed knights and I'm supposing have some documentation about their mercenaries, but they were joined by vast swathes of commoners who were not recorded to be there nor were their deaths recorded to any degree.
Of course, there's also another problem with historical accounts of military size: winners tend to write the history and you can't send an independent press out to take a head count of something that happened hundreds of years ago. Even if they'd wanted to be as accurate as possible, if you're on the losing side of a battle, you probably would overestimate the size of the enemy force simply because they'd seem like they were everywhere. There are plenty of ways to mask numbers that were used on a routine basis since the dawn of war that might cause a severe underestimation as well.
Also a good point, where sometimes it seems like we always give credit to the winners, Sun Tzu made an excellent point about warfare being the art of exposing your enemies' weaknesses and masking your own, while forcing them to attack your strengths and abandon theirs. The French weren't experienced in fighting a war of that style and scale. They lost it every bit as much as the Brits won it. There's nothing that helps a longbow formation like lining people up your own crossbow line just inside their range but just outside your own, then having a breakdown in discipline that sends your own infantry in a slow, uphill charge in small, bite-sized portions. You can talk about things like the machine gun being a game-changer in warfare and one of the most important military inventions of all time, but it helps when the enemy lines up and marches slowly towards you in a short rifle line with a drum and horn blaring.
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Au contraire, french reports from that time not only over inflated the brittish army (understandable, they must have thought they were legion considering the number of arrows...), told to be around 30k where they were just 12k, but also did the same with their own as well, over 100k where they were in reality "from 24k to 50k", which is still completely confused considering the mess it was in when the battle happened. They also overestimated their own casualties to over 30k where they were 1300 knights and 16000 men at arms in reality. However, there is only one account around which everyone seems to agree : the brits lost between 100 and 300 people at Crécy.
Also, the french actually won the war and didnt lost every bit as the brits won it. Which makes it interesting is that Edouard was winning at the beginning in 1337, and then suddenly started to lose due to a change of tactics done by Charles V to deny the english any battle in open field again, liberating stronghold after stronghold. In 1380 France is more or less completely liberated, and the english losing. Then Charles V starts to lose his mind and civil war breaks out between the Armagnac party (Duke of Orléans) and Burgundy, which allows the english to win another slaughter at Agincourt against a country completely disorganized again, and reconquering half of France territory. And then, it's the siege of Orléans and Patay. What is interesting is that both were victors at some point over so many years, and both kept their records.
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Au contraire, french reports from that time not only over inflated the brittish army (understandable, they must have thought they were legion considering the number of arrows...), told to be around 30k where they were just 12k, but also did the same with their own as well, over 100k where they were in reality "from 24k to 50k", which is still completely confused considering the mess it was in when the battle happened. They also overestimated their own casualties to over 30k where they were 1300 knights and 16000 men at arms in reality. However, there is only one account around which everyone seems to agree : the brits lost between 100 and 300 people at Crécy.
Also, the french actually won the war and didnt lost every bit as the brits won it. Which makes it interesting is that Edouard was winning at the beginning in 1337, and then suddenly started to lose due to a change of tactics done by Charles V to deny the english any battle in open field again, liberating stronghold after stronghold. In 1380 France is more or less completely liberated, and the english losing. Then Charles V starts to lose his mind and civil war breaks out between the Armagnac party (Duke of Orléans) and Burgundy, which allows the english to win another slaughter at Agincourt against a country completely disorganized again, and reconquering half of France territory. And then, it's the siege of Orléans and Patay. What is interesting is that both were victors at some point over so many years, and both kept their records.
I think that's my fault, I keep forgetting that the Hundred Years War is all one war, not a series of small wars like we think of everything else as. I know the French eventually kicked the Brits out, essentially after the Brits took France over. It always seemed weird to me. To that logic, we've only had one world war, since the second had quite a bit to do with the first and contained almost exactly the same belligerents.
I guess history isn't really always logical, though. You're right though, I was only thinking of the campaign that ended prior to Joan of Arc.
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Au contraire, french reports from that time not only over inflated the brittish army (understandable, they must have thought they were legion considering the number of arrows...), told to be around 30k where they were just 12k, but also did the same with their own as well, over 100k where they were in reality "from 24k to 50k", which is still completely confused considering the mess it was in when the battle happened. They also overestimated their own casualties to over 30k where they were 1300 knights and 16000 men at arms in reality. However, there is only one account around which everyone seems to agree : the brits lost between 100 and 300 people at Crécy.
Also, the french actually won the war and didnt lost every bit as the brits won it. Which makes it interesting is that Edouard was winning at the beginning in 1337, and then suddenly started to lose due to a change of tactics done by Charles V to deny the english any battle in open field again, liberating stronghold after stronghold. In 1380 France is more or less completely liberated, and the english losing. Then Charles V starts to lose his mind and civil war breaks out between the Armagnac party (Duke of Orléans) and Burgundy, which allows the english to win another slaughter at Agincourt against a country completely disorganized again, and reconquering half of France territory. And then, it's the siege of Orléans and Patay. What is interesting is that both were victors at some point over so many years, and both kept their records.
I think that's my fault, I keep forgetting that the Hundred Years War is all one war, not a series of small wars like we think of everything else as. I know the French eventually kicked the Brits out, essentially after the Brits took France over. It always seemed weird to me. To that logic, we've only had one world war, since the second had quite a bit to do with the first and contained almost exactly the same belligerents.
I guess history isn't really always logical, though. You're right though, I was only thinking of the campaign that ended prior to Joan of Arc.
Nah it's true, there was at least one truce - that was not followed by everyone - and periods of relief where both sides were just staring back at each other because they just had no more meatbags to send in the meatgrinder that was running for so many years...
It is also true that a kindof unofficial truce existed prior to Jehanne's arrival, Orléans being the last bastion that was still resisting... It was not even an army in itself, just a city.
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Au contraire, french reports from that time not only over inflated the brittish army (understandable, they must have thought they were legion considering the number of arrows...), told to be around 30k where they were just 12k, but also did the same with their own as well, over 100k where they were in reality "from 24k to 50k", which is still completely confused considering the mess it was in when the battle happened. They also overestimated their own casualties to over 30k where they were 1300 knights and 16000 men at arms in reality. However, there is only one account around which everyone seems to agree : the brits lost between 100 and 300 people at Crécy.
Also, the french actually won the war and didnt lost every bit as the brits won it. Which makes it interesting is that Edouard was winning at the beginning in 1337, and then suddenly started to lose due to a change of tactics done by Charles V to deny the english any battle in open field again, liberating stronghold after stronghold. In 1380 France is more or less completely liberated, and the english losing. Then Charles V starts to lose his mind and civil war breaks out between the Armagnac party (Duke of Orléans) and Burgundy, which allows the english to win another slaughter at Agincourt against a country completely disorganized again, and reconquering half of France territory. And then, it's the siege of Orléans and Patay. What is interesting is that both were victors at some point over so many years, and both kept their records.
I think that's my fault, I keep forgetting that the Hundred Years War is all one war, not a series of small wars like we think of everything else as. I know the French eventually kicked the Brits out, essentially after the Brits took France over. It always seemed weird to me. To that logic, we've only had one world war, since the second had quite a bit to do with the first and contained almost exactly the same belligerents.
I guess history isn't really always logical, though. You're right though, I was only thinking of the campaign that ended prior to Joan of Arc.
Nah it's true, there was at least one truce - that was not followed by everyone - and periods of relief where both sides were just staring back at each other because they just had no more meatbags to send in the meatgrinder that was running for so many years...
It is also true that a kindof unofficial truce existed prior to Jehanne's arrival, Orléans being the last bastion that was still resisting... It was not even an army in itself, just a city.
The best part is how often the Brits would invade and take over large swaths of France, then the next king would decide he didn't like running France and would essentially give it away. Then, the next king would roll through France and start killing them again. Britain was like a fast-moving human polar ice cap for Europe.
We sometimes forget, now that the Brits are a bit of an uptight society known for being stiff and proper in the States, that we learned all we know about being an evil, foreign-body-invading superpower from the Brits.
I think they learned it from the Mongols...
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I think (the Brits) learned it from the Mongols...
Normans, Vikings, Angles & Saxons, and Romans. I think that is the right order.
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I think (the Brits) learned it from the Mongols...
Normans, Vikings, Angles & Saxons, and Romans. I think that is the right order.
If a group invades Britain, takes it over, then later becomes British, does that still count? Britain was invaded over and over, but the people there invariably somehow became British. It's weird that the Danes didn't make Britain part of their country when they invaded. They're probably kicking themselves with how small their territory is now.
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I think (the Brits) learned it from the Mongols...
Normans, Vikings, Angles & Saxons, and Romans. I think that is the right order.
If a group invades Britain, takes it over, then later becomes British, does that still count? Britain was invaded over and over, but the people there invariably somehow became British. It's weird that the Danes didn't make Britain part of their country when they invaded. They're probably kicking themselves with how small their territory is now.
Well, while they never made England officially part of Denmark, King Canute (Cnut, Canut, Kanute, Knut, Kanut) the Great managed to get himself named King of England, Denmark, and parts of Southern Norway.
And yes Orange, that is the correct order (although reverse chronologically :P ). As an Englishman, and a major Viking enthusiast, I take a certain amount of pleasure in reminding people that England has never actually been invaded by the French. The Normans led by William were only around two generations down from the Viking raiders (led, I believe by Rollo) that the French King at the time bought off by giving them Normandy. As the English at the time were also so thouroughly integrated with the Danish and Norwegian settlers, 1066 was less a case of the English vs the French, and more Vikings vs other Vikings. :D
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The best part is how often the Brits would invade and take over large swaths of France, then the next king would decide he didn't like running France and would essentially give it away. Then, the next king would roll through France and start killing them again. Britain was like a fast-moving human polar ice cap for Europe.
You mean in the Hundred Years War ?
I don't recall any other true british invasion (as in for territory)...
I think (the Brits) learned it from the Mongols...
Normans, Vikings, Angles & Saxons, and Romans. I think that is the right order.
If a group invades Britain, takes it over, then later becomes British, does that still count? Britain was invaded over and over, but the people there invariably somehow became British. It's weird that the Danes didn't make Britain part of their country when they invaded. They're probably kicking themselves with how small their territory is now.
I tend to lean more on the opposite way of thought on the matter. It's not that they all suddenly became british, it's just that they all contributed at some point on what british actually means.
Britain in the 100 Years War was... not really british as we know it... It was a lot of various people ruled by a diluted Norman legacy, all with french names...
Britain before that was also defined by the other ones that came before (Angles, Saxons, etc).