Why so few hybrid missile/melee troops in history?

[Bulldog Psion]

(I'm not really sure where to put this on the forums. If it should go elsewhere, I apologize; but it doesn't seem gaming-specific, or comics-related, or media-related, or like "science and technology.")

Thinking about the pre-gunpowder ages while designing a setting, I'm a bit baffled by the general lack of hybrid missile/melee troops in history.

Why are there so few medium-armored troops with both effective melee weapons and effective missile weapons? Is it practical, cultural, or both?

While I don't have time to explore this fully, I'd like to note a few things in passing:

1. The Japanese samurai were pretty much what I'm talking about. They were a mix of missile soldiers (most were good archers and later didn't hesitate to use arquebuses), foot combatants, and elite horsemen. They were also pretty effective, and filled a lot of roles in the Japanese wars.

2. The Roman legionaries had a whiff of this with their pilum javelins, but that's not really quite the same thing. It's more a "last second volley of javelins before the melee" rush thing, meaning they were still overwhelmingly dedicated melee troops.

3. Knights were expected to be proficient with bows or crossbows, and to use them during sieges, due to their better armor allowing them to act more effectively as snipers without getting killed outright. But as soon as melee became possible, they were expected to discard the bow and use only melee weapons or be considered "cowardly."

4. Most other cultures have poorly armed for melee, weakly armored archers and heavily armored melee troops.

Now, I'm wondering if it's logistical or cultural.

While the logistical side seems plausible, the samurai are really the 800 lb gorilla in the room here. Every samurai was basically a well-rounded, thoroughly equipped elite foot soldier, elite horseman, and elite archer rolled into one. This suggests that it can be done, and can be done very effectively, too.

So I'm going to come down on the side of "cultural" -- archers are seen as weaklings and cowards who can only fight at a distance, and thus are equipped to reinforce that preexisting prejudice (that is, they can't stand up in melee because they're specifically equipped to be unable to). And the "manly man" melee troops are given all the armor and equipment other than missile weapons for the same reason. The Japanese simply randomly lacked that particular set of hangups and therefore created the samurai.

Nevertheless, I'm sure there are gaping holes in this reasoning, and I hope it'll be a good start for a conversation that all participants will enjoy! :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

Samurai were noblemen, with large amounts of leisure time in which to practice skill with multiple kinds of combat. Samurai also fought outside of formation, seeking out individual skirmishes on the battlefield using the appropriate tool. A mixed arms unit is a lot more difficult to manage, and a lot less useful.

Knights were also nobles, trained in loads of different combat techniques. They would discard bows when melee was joined because using a bow in melee is stupid.

Roman legionnaires, though they only sort of did ranged combat, were still professional soldiers of a sort that wasn't exactly common outside of the empire, where "soldier" and "peasant who was given an axe" were often synonymous.

And I'm pretty sure that if you called an English longbowman a coward, he would take issue.

[golentan]

As flickerdart specifies. Also, weapons and armor are heavy and exhaustion and foot diseases killed more soldiers than enemy swords back in the day. Not everyone can afford a horse and multiple retainers to take the load off a 40 pound marching pack the way the samurai could.

Logistics are a cruel mistress, and an army marches on its stomach.

[warty goblin]

I think you probably want to ask this question in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?421723-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVIII), since there's a couple very knowledgable people in that thread whom so far as I can tell *only* post there. I suspect if you do ask there, you will be told that many people in history did fight with both melee and ranged weapons, via the handy technique of throwing things at people. Often just plain old rocks.

[Frozen_Feet]

Romans are arguably the best example of what you're looking. While a man couldn't carry too many javelins, it can be argued to still have been their main weapon. You see, hybrid approach only makes sense if you expect your ranged troops to engage in melee after a volley. Dedicated ranged troops were meant to run away or be protected by the melee troops.

So in addition to logistics and training issues, it's also generalist versus specialist thing.

[smcmike]

The "weapons are heavy and awkward" aspect simply can't be overstated. One of the most ridiculous things about D&D is the way characters are often loaded up with three melee weapons and a crossbow. Just think about that for a moment.

Also to be factored in: weapon cost, weapon maintenance, and training costs.

And, or course, culture. But culture is not another word for stupidity. Hoplites may have looked down upon peltasts, but the unity of the phalanx also reinforced the structure of the polis... and, also, phalanxes worked.

[factotum]

I think the training aspect is probably at least as important as the weapon weight thing. A person who trains exclusively with the bow or exclusively with the sword is likely to be better at those things than someone who tries to train in both. Yes, someone who uses only the sword is at a disadvantage at range, and a dedicated longbowman is in trouble when the melee starts, but this is why you have combined arms in an army--the longbowmen take on targets at range while the sword guys protect them from enemy melee troops.

[Bulldog Psion]

And I'm pretty sure that if you called an English longbowman a coward, he would take issue.

Of course he would, and it's not my opinion that an archer is a coward. Nobody who stands to battle is a coward, IMO, armored or unarmored, ranged, or non-ranged.

Nevertheless, one can find numerous references in western literature from the medieval period to archers as "cowardly," "dastardly," "treacherous," etc. That goes back as far as the Greeks -- Paris of Troy was an archer, and also came across a rather weak, cowardly individual in the original poem, IIRC; one of the things the movie "Troy" pretty much ported over intact.

The Japanese didn't seem to have that hangup of missile = cowardice and melee = brave like the Europeans did, and I was wondering if that was part of the reason for the samurai's "lethal all-rounder" vibe.

[Fri]

Eeh, I remember reading that all englishmen at that one era were encouraged to own and practice using longbow all the time, to the point that various recreational activity were discouraged or banned by the government because they distract people from practicing with their long bow. So I doubt that there's cultural hangup that says archers are cowards.

In my opinion it's more about the use in the army. Combined arms might be useful for adventurers, but what's the point in combined army? It's better to have specific squad with bows, specific squad with spears, etc, so you can specifically maneuver the squads in the battlefield. "Archer squad go here and rain death from above, spear squad protect the archers, knight squad charge" etc.

I have limited knowledge of ancient warfare though *shrugs*

[Bulldog Psion]

Well, the Japanese had units of ashigaru archers, spearmen, pikemen, etc. with specialized roles. Yet the samurai still had a good deal of versatility, more so than knights.

(Note that I think in melee, knights would tend to defeat samurai -- point vs. edge, plate armor vs. brigandine, etc. -- but I don't really see why they didn't carry and use bows, other than, for want of a better word, stupidity.)

[Flickerdart]

I don't really see why they didn't carry and use bows, other than, for want of a better word, stupidity
A knight holds a shield in one hand, and a lance in the other. After the charge, he drops the lance and draws his sword. If he had a bow and arrows, he would need to put down his lance and shield to plink at the enemy. It would be a good idea to take off his gauntlets and narrow-visored helmet, too.

And after he's fired a few shots, the commander calls a charge, and he has to quickly put everything back on to charge - or worse, receive a charge. And now all your knights are dead because you felt like a dozen extra bows would make a difference.

[smcmike]

(Note that I think in melee, knights would tend to defeat samurai -- point vs. edge, plate armor vs. brigandine, etc. -- but I don't really see why they didn't carry and use bows, other than, for want of a better word, stupidity.)

The idea that it was simply stupidity is ridiculous. Knights didn't exist in some abstract ahistorical tournament to decide the ultimate warrior. They were products of their social structure and the prevailing tactics and technology of their time. If every man in England could pull a bow, why waste the energy of your rich young men with their shiny armor and pretty ponies? It's not like they'd mastered the art of horse archery (nor did they have the landscape to practice it properly).

[Bulldog Psion]

The idea that it was simply stupidity is ridiculous. Knights didn't exist in some abstract ahistorical tournament to decide the ultimate warrior. They were products of their social structure and the prevailing tactics and technology of their time. If every man in England could pull a bow, why waste the energy of your rich young men with their shiny armor and pretty ponies? It's not like they'd mastered the art of horse archery (nor did they have the landscape to practice it properly).

Where did I say anything about deciding the ultimate warrior?

I was merely wondering why combined melee/missile troops are rare; though the prime example of them which exists (the samurai) were highly effective. The samurai remained relevant on their battlefields much longer than the knights; I would say that the knight was pretty much useless by 1350 or so, and only continued existing because of social and cultural factors, not because of much military utility. Arguably, they were finished a century earlier when they first encountered horse archers.

It's difficult to find anywhere in the historical record where mounted knights were of much use. Every phalanx and steady group of bowmen butchered them. Yet they apparently kept creating them because of an absolutely moronic belief that missile weapons were cowardly and unworthy.

The armored cavalry charge only had any validity as long as the quality of foot soldiers was low. As soon as pikemen, archers, and halberdiers gained a bit more professionalism, melee cavalry became the least effective force on the battlefield.

I also don't particularly see why a horse archer is less useful in England than in Japan. Not only is Japan an island also, but it's extremely mountainous. Additionally, what about France? Germany? Poland? Hungary? Italy? They copied over the pattern of armored, useless cavalry again and again.

I can see having samurai-type elite fighters who fight in multiple ways; I can see having none at all. But what the point of those exceptionally expensive armored losers was, I can't fathom.

[MorgromTheOrc]

I think the big issues that causes the problem are in fact logistics. As has already been pointed out training in one form of combat rather than spreading thin is more useful from an armies standpoint because while you think personally it's great to have a lot of options, the army as a whole already has a lot of options because of multiple troop types. Archers have worse armor because plate is very expensive so if that troop is going to be falling back to let others take over melee, and thus not see melee combat why spend the extra money on the equipment and training? Plus plate armor isn't exactly practical for archery, why spend more money and encumber yourself even more just to have the option of a weapon that you can't effectively use because of your equipment and field position?

Now samurai's could afford this because they were nobles not soldiers. They pay for their own equipment and have all the time in the world to train so there's no reason for them not to. The regular soldier whose gear is largely provided for him and receives payment for time spent training and not for example farming, or crafting for a living cannot afford to spend the little money for food for his family he actually gets and his real work time, on equipment and training he'll never get an opportunity to use anyways with his position.

Ask yourself this, why isn't every man in the entire united states military piloting his own f22 or tank or hell how about they all have their own super battleship that combines all the best aspects into one giant vehicle? Emperor why don't we just have every storm trooper pilot his own special designed star destroyer? We're wasting talent! Right?

The less jerk way of saying it is just that the costs of training and equipping every soldier like a PC would be tremendous and even if neither money or time were an issue, practicality of having all that equipment that either will never see use or even hinder other equipments use, would still make it not worth it.

[Bulldog Psion]

So in other words, the Japanese had better economics and better organization than the Europeans? I can probably see that -- medieval organization in Europe was pretty pathetic.

Eh, I don't know why I'm bothering here. We're just talking past each other; this isn't really one of my more successful threads. I'm an idiot, carry on, forget what I said, etc. etc.

Thanks for the input, guys. Sorry for injecting my stupidity here.

[golentan]

Where did I say anything about deciding the ultimate warrior?

I was merely wondering why combined melee/missile troops are rare; though the prime example of them which exists (the samurai) were highly effective. The samurai remained relevant on their battlefields much longer than the knights; I would say that the knight was pretty much useless by 1350 or so, and only continued existing because of social and cultural factors, not because of much military utility. Arguably, they were finished a century earlier when they first encountered horse archers.

It's difficult to find anywhere in the historical record where mounted knights were of much use. Every phalanx and steady group of bowmen butchered them. Yet they apparently kept creating them because of an absolutely moronic belief that missile weapons were cowardly and unworthy.

The armored cavalry charge only had any validity as long as the quality of foot soldiers was low. As soon as pikemen, archers, and halberdiers gained a bit more professionalism, melee cavalry became the least effective force on the battlefield.

I also don't particularly see why a horse archer is less useful in England than in Japan. Not only is Japan an island also, but it's extremely mountainous. Additionally, what about France? Germany? Poland? Hungary? Italy? They copied over the pattern of armored, useless cavalry again and again.

I can see having samurai-type elite fighters who fight in multiple ways; I can see having none at all. But what the point of those exceptionally expensive armored losers was, I can't fathom.

The Samurai of legend wasn't useful that long, either. They had to impose relatively strict gun control and basically a death penalty on anyone else using a weapon more dangerous than a shoelace outside of Shogunate control to hold onto any semblance of relevance after some disastrous-for-traditional-samurai demonstrations of other weapon strategies (massed Tanegashima fire from Ashigaru conscripts, for example) during the sengoku period... Basically, the Tokugawa shogunate tried to hold a monopoly on violence and suddenly 20 guys with swords were useful in those fights which did occur because the scale and number of battles was drastically reduced, though firearms didn't go away and...

Prior to that, when the yumi was the preferred weapon, samura served as archery cavalry and weren't really a melee hybrid troop... They were more along the lines of Mongolian bow-cavalry using their superior mobility to launch flights of arrows from Yumi bows and fall back right up until Flintlocks were introduced, at which point firearms dominated in large scale battles and there was a movement during the Edo period to reverse-justify "nuh-uh, we've always used the Daisho as a primary combat option." Because large scale battles were mostly avoided after firearms crushed the various opposing warlords and the samurai didn't care to go back to massed cavalry charges which might invite Tanegashima fire from Daimyos or the Shogun angry that large scale battles were happening without their permission.

My favorite summary of the Meiji Revolution? "Guns are awesome" said some guys. "Nuh-uh, guns suck, and we don't like them," said the samurai. So they shot the samurai and outlawed guns.

Anyway, yeah... It's more complicated than any portrayal I've seen in fiction, and I'm pretty sure I made some inaccurate statements in my attempt to keep this relatively simple and brief, but...

[Amidus Drexel]

I'd like to point out that English longbowmen were often just as strong as the English knights, and generally carried melee weapons (heavy iron hammers, by my recollection after looking it up, staves and cudgels) in case they somehow ended up in melee range. They were far superior in melee combat (and probably ranged combat as well) than your average crossbowman, with a decent to good chance of beating someone heavily armored and wielding a sword with their quarterstaves.

[Coidzor]

Division of labor, economy of training time/aptitude, and weight are the main factors I can think of offhand.

Another good example of devastatingly effective hybrid troops were the Mongols, IIRC, since while they're famed as horse archers they also were devastating in melee as well.

[Brother Oni]

Eh, I don't know why I'm bothering here. We're just talking past each other; this isn't really one of my more successful threads. I'm an idiot, carry on, forget what I said, etc. etc.

I definitely recommend posing your question in the Real World Weapons, Armour and Tactics thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?421723-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVIII) as warty suggested.

The idea that ranged weapons were cowardly certainly didn't exist in England and possibly originated from the French as a result of major battles like Agincourt.

The main reason why plate armour went out of fashion was gunpowder - it became too expensive to build armour thick enough to stop a ball, but the armoured cavalryman still kept its relevance up to the Napoleonic era (the three main staples of that era were cavalry, infantry and cannon). Part of the Spanish dominance in the New World was due to mounted conquistadors.

That said, they did stop using lances in general and using missile weapons (there are records of late medieval/Early Modern units, known as lances, where part of their armament was a 500lb crossbow, and armoured skirmishing cavalry using a brace of pistols against infantry by wheeling at the last moment and firing into the infantry block), but until cartridge ammunition came in, they still primarily used a sabre.


My favorite summary of the Meiji Revolution? "Guns are awesome" said some guys. "Nuh-uh, guns suck, and we don't like them," said the samurai. So they shot the samurai and outlawed guns.

Anyway, yeah... It's more complicated than any portrayal I've seen in fiction, and I'm pretty sure I made some inaccurate statements in my attempt to keep this relatively simple and brief, but...

Some very inaccurate comments, since it arguably started ~15 years early with Admiral Perry sailing into Tokyo bay and demanding that Japan open up its borders at cannon point, sparking off the Bakumatsu civil war between one group which wanted no outside western influences and one who wanted to modernise, rather than just about guns 'sucking'.

[TheThan]

The samurai/warriorsfought mostly in a vacuum, they rarely fought anyone but other samurai/warriors. Therefore samurai weapons, armor, tactics and strategies were unique to Japanese warfare.

The European warriors and knights on the other hand fought all sorts of different enemies. In addition to battling each other, they fought Viking raiders from the north, Mongol and Ottoman invaders from the east, and Muslim invaders from the south. Then there where the Crusades, where the European knights waged war against the middle-east and fought against the Muslims on their home turf (not to mention they went into a totally different climate and fought). They dealt with a whole array of people from different cultures and religions. So I think the European warrior/Knight knows a little bit about war. They didn’t hybridize for several reasons. Here’s what I can imagine in no particular order.

1: Feudal culture- A boy of good family (read land owner that was on the local lord’s good side) started his training as a warrior and horseman as soon as he could walk. Then he became a page, receive more training, then as a teen, he became a squire to a Knight. Then if he was good enough, he would become a knight. So the people in charge were also the people fighting so they had a vested interest in making sure that knights were important.

2: Cost- weapons, armor, warhorses and all the other accouterments of warfare are expensive… no really expensive. It was so expensive that in Europe captured nights were ransomed back (with their gear I assume), to the families of the captured for a tremendous amount of money. With this huge cost, you have to put all your eggs in one basket, equipping someone in heavy armor, training them and their horses to charge and then giving them a bow and telling them dismount and start shooting makes no sense.


The idea that it was simply stupidity is ridiculous. Knights didn't exist in some abstract ahistorical tournament to decide the ultimate warrior. They were products of their social structure and the prevailing tactics and technology of their time. If every man in England could pull a bow, why waste the energy of your rich young men with their shiny armor and pretty ponies? It's not like they'd mastered the art of horse archery (nor did they have the landscape to practice it properly).

Comically, Knights did go to Tournaments. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_%28medieval%29)


I'd like to point out that English longbowmen were often just as strong as the English knights, and generally carried melee weapons (heavy iron hammers, by my recollection after looking it up, staves and cudgels) in case they somehow ended up in melee range. They were far superior in melee combat (and probably ranged combat as well) than your average crossbowman, with a decent to good chance of beating someone heavily armored and wielding a sword with their quarterstaves.

Yeah, but they were the exception. Most European bowmen (and I guess crossbowmen) were underfed, underpaid, undertrained, underequipped, and suffered poor moral. At least by my understanding.



I can see having samurai-type elite fighters who fight in multiple ways; I can see having none at all. But what the point of those exceptionally expensive armored losers was, I can't fathom.

Knights were basically cavalry which has proven effective across the world for literally centuries. Seriously they were using cavalry clear into the 20th century. If they weren't effective, why were they used for so long by such a wide variety of cultures and places?

[Cespenar]

Janissaries had bows and swords, IIRC.

Horse archers from many cultures doubled as light cavalry as well.

It's about quantity vs. versatility. You can't make your conscripted peasants use two kinds of weapons, they can barely wield one and hold in place as they are. You can, however, put that versatility training in your cavalry, elite troops, etc.

[Fri]

So in other words, the Japanese had better economics and better organization than the Europeans? I can probably see that -- medieval organization in Europe was pretty pathetic.

Eh, I don't know why I'm bothering here. We're just talking past each other; this isn't really one of my more successful threads. I'm an idiot, carry on, forget what I said, etc. etc.

Thanks for the input, guys. Sorry for injecting my stupidity here.

You know, bulldog, this isn't the first time you're posting something like this.

You keep posting thread, then when people explain things, you say "Why do I bother, I'm stupid, etc etc." Sometimes you even delete your op, eventhough usually nobody are rude or hostile. They're just explaining things.

Why are you making threads in the first place? Just to find confirmation and wanting people to agree to your idea? That's not how it works. Sometimes, your idea might be wrong. It's nothing personal toward you.

[Crow]

Mongols bro.

[snowblizz]

Yeah, but they were the exception. Most European bowmen (and I guess crossbowmen) were underfed, underpaid, undertrained, underequipped, and suffered poor moral. At least by my understanding.

Because we have a thread to dispel just those myths I'm going to point out it is totally off base. Most European crossbowmen were highly trained, motivated and paid, prosperous people from towns and cities. And that's when they are not crack troops. By and large, you'd never bring underfed, underequipped and poorly moraled troops to a medieaval (because a lot of the discussion touched that period) battlefield, because they won't do anything useful. The "peasant rabble" was rarely deployed and tended to get slaughtered, as happened in many (but not all, Hussites FTW!) peasant uprisings.

More generally, why not use mixed units? Because when you have 100 spears and 100 bows you can have 100 mixed troops or 200 "specialists". Meaning that while side A has to defend against 100 spear guys with their 100 guys, side B cans till shoot at them with 100 guys. It is difficult to switch from one weapon to another in battle, so invariably you'll stick to one as long as you can.

Also, samurai were never massed horse archers as others that used bows from horseback, prominently mongols. The samurai archery was much more small scale, and was pretty quickly swept aside by massed foot archers, by ironically mongols. In later years, while proficient bow users mainly in as a "sport" kinda thing, they tended to become shock cavalry with spears. A role in which like their western counterparts they excelled, except of course against solid, formed, and dug in infantry formations.

Famous mixed units. A variety of ancient and medieval horse peoples. In ancient times heavy cavalry would usually be armed with spears and bows. Pontic, Seleucian, Parthian cavalry. Later on Alans, Huns and Mongols. Almost all cavalry of the renesasinse and early modern (pike and shotte) eras, who wielded pistols, lances, swords and arquebuses to engage infantry from range and then fall upon disordered and breaking units. As mentioned, Janissaries were trained to use missile and close combat weapons. Also, during the ironage/migration period mixed units, if maybe not so many soldiers with mixed weaponry, were prevalent. As also mentioned, it makes sense to split up differently armed troops if they work markedly differently. So massing missile soldiers together means you get a finer control of your forces.

By and large, it's a practical problem, but also influenced by culture and tehcnological level.

[Teddy]

Drawing a bow powerful enough to have a chance at penetrating a knight's heavy armour is hard (and probably the thing which separated European and Japanese war bows from each other, since the Japanese warriors never wore as thick armour as the Europeans came to do). Armour piercing arrows were no joke, much thicker and heavier than regular hunting arrows, and you had to accelerate them to high speed to reach and penetrate their target. The net effect is that archery is tiring. You can't fire volley after volley unless you've trained your entire life for it. So, if the knights were to loosen a volley or two of arrows before charging, they would not only stay withing volley range of the enemy archers for longer, but they would also tire their arms before going into melee, which could be disasterous.

So, separating the melee and ranged troops was not just a conservation of logistics, but a conservation of energy as well.

By the time easy-to-carry ranged weapons arrived in the form of pistols, they were readily adopted by the men-at-arms (the military successors of knights after the decline of feudalism). This led to the development of a new form of cavalry, the cuirassiers, who sacrificed the clumsy and expensive all-round protection of a full plate mail (which was at a disadvantage against bullets) for a more front-focused armour, gradually shifting the role of cavalry from core troops intended to shatter the front line or halt an enemy advance until your army had taken up positions, to flankers often engaged in combat with the enemy cavalry.

And I think there's one thing to keep clear in mind here. Before the wide adaption of firearms in the 16th century, there were no weapons which were at distinct advantage over the heavy armour of knights and men-at-arms, meaning these people actually were hard to kill, especially in melee. And before the development of the bullet-shaped bullet, there was no close range weapon for which it wasn't possible to design an armour which at least had a decent chance of blocking it. Heavily armoured cavalry survived into the 19th century, so there must've been some value to it at least.

[smcmike]

Comically, Knights did go to Tournaments. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_%28medieval%29)


Sure, and that's part of my point. Culture and social organization is not some external restraint that hampers people from being objectively perfect warriors. It's what war is all about. Chivalric charges may look foolish on occasion, such as when the run into a wall of pikes or a muddy field surrounded by archers or a Mongol "retreat." But getting the flower of your nobility to show up on the field is half the battle, and if that requires honor and glory and shiny armor and fancy horses, so be it. Skirmish tactics require a lot of discipline. It's a lot harder to run away when you're in the middle of a charge or a phalanx.

As far as the samurai, I have to say I just don't know that much. I wonder how much anyone does, though, on a day to day level. They seem very much like the European knight in one aspect: the further you go looking for the ideal time of the samurai, the further it recedes into myth. I know most of the samurai fiction I've read and seen deals with the long end of their relevance.

[thorgrim29]

Not so sure about pre-firearm, at least in terms of foot soldiers, but the "pike and shot" era was characterized by the spanish tercio which was a 1500 man unit of 1/3 each mix of pike, muskets and swords, typically fighting in units of 3. They dominated the battlefields more or less until the 30 years war where more linear formations with greater emphasis on field artillery and infantry lines made them obsolete. Then I guess you could argue that once bayonets were developed almost every unit became combined arms.

[warty goblin]

It's also worth noting that for most of history, a warrior's primary defense was a shield, which you generally need a hand to operate. The primary melee weapon meanwhile is a spear, which takes a hand to carry. That takes care of the normal complement of two hands per person. You can free up one hand by carrying both shield and spear in the other, but that still won't let you reload a crossbow or shoot a bow at all. It does let you throw a javelin, axe, rock or similar however, and still be able to switch cover oneself with the shield and switch back to the spear relatively quickly. It helps that none of these throwing weapons are particularly expensive.

[Crow]

Also training and money. It takes longer and is more expensive to train fighters in multiple weapons. Time and money are the blood by which war flows.

[Knaight]

It's also worth noting that for most of history, a warrior's primary defense was a shield, which you generally need a hand to operate. The primary melee weapon meanwhile is a spear, which takes a hand to carry. That takes care of the normal complement of two hands per person. You can free up one hand by carrying both shield and spear in the other, but that still won't let you reload a crossbow or shoot a bow at all. It does let you throw a javelin, axe, rock or similar however, and still be able to switch cover oneself with the shield and switch back to the spear relatively quickly. It helps that none of these throwing weapons are particularly expensive.

It also helps that you can generally recover them afterwards if things go well (and if they don't, you have bigger problems), and that they are really quite useful. The roman pilum gets a lot of attention in particular, but javelins were all over the place, as were the rest of the weapons listed. Then there's how much more effective throwing weapons get when used from horseback, where they get a boost of speed from the movement of the horse.

[Vercingex]

First of all, a good example of a historical hybrid melee/ranged combatant would be any European line infantry from the late 18th/early 19th century (think Napoleonic armies). Infantry would often resort to bayonet charges to deliver the final blow to an enemy force after unleashing several volleys of musket fire. Bayonets were also essential for defending against cavalry. It's worth noting that carrying a musket and bayonet is a lot easier than carrying a sword and bow.

Getting back to classical/medieval armies, it was impractical to train and equip men to be ideal infantry and ideal archers at the same time. Infantry needed to survive in melee, while archers generally travelled light, so they were more mobile. Also, don't underestimate the cost of arrows- they are more expensive and more time consuming to make than bullets, and you could carry fewer of them.

On the subject of English longbowmen- it takes a lifetime to make one of those. Longbowmen skeletons found on the wreck of the Mary Rose had hugely deformed skeletons, with massive right sides to accommodate the strong bow pull. They were very specialized soldiers. Of course, this didn't rom breaking out the mallets and knives against the hopelessly mired French at Agincourt.

[Coidzor]

Oh wow, that's neat! I never would have thought you could identify a longbowman by his skeleton.

I wonder what other types of warrior you'd be able to identify like that...

[Teddy]

On the subject of English longbowmen- it takes a lifetime to make one of those. Longbowmen skeletons found on the wreck of the Mary Rose had hugely deformed skeletons, with massive right sides to accommodate the strong bow pull. They were very specialized soldiers. Of course, this didn't rom breaking out the mallets and knives against the hopelessly mired French at Agincourt.

On the topic of this, there's an anecdote of a British (I think) general, who in the Napoleonic-ish era realised that with the disappearance of armour from the front line troops, the superiour rate of fire of an archer could actually put them at an advantage over line infantry. He asked for a unit of archers to be set up, only to get in response that there were no archers left. Archery was such a costly craft that when they stopped investing in it, it disappeared altogether.

(Don't cite me on any of the details, though. My recollection is quite iffy, so I'm improvising...)

[warty goblin]

Oh wow, that's neat! I never would have thought you could identify a longbowman by his skeleton.

I wonder what other types of warrior you'd be able to identify like that...

You can often identify the defeated ones by the holes in their skulls
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SqhhJb_P3Kk/TTdMxFmLO4I/AAAAAAAANWI/-nGt3672Hu4/s1600/Towton+skull.jpg

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/47835000/jpg/_47835925_towtonskull_kproductions.jpg

[Dienekes]

So in other words, the Japanese had better economics and better organization than the Europeans? I can probably see that -- medieval organization in Europe was pretty pathetic.

Eh, I don't know why I'm bothering here. We're just talking past each other; this isn't really one of my more successful threads. I'm an idiot, carry on, forget what I said, etc. etc.

Thanks for the input, guys. Sorry for injecting my stupidity here.

How the? What? You posed a question, about why history acted a certain way and gave your idea. People then gave several responses about why history was the way it was and tweaked your initial comment with various reasons why it did work in certain situations and didn't work in others. How is that injecting stupidity? How is that talking past each other? This is an opportunity to learn and discuss and you're acting like everyone called you a retard and threatened to make you wear a dunce cap.

In any case, I can think of a few situations where their were mixed arms units. Most mentioned earlier, but they tend to solve the problem of training, weight, and expense in various ways.

There's the Napoleonic era guys, who solved the weight issue by making the melee and ranged weapon the same weapon. There are also various Ancient armies that used Peltasts (skirmishing spearmen) and other similar warriors that were expected to be active at both range and melee. However, they tended to be less effective when the armies actually engaged in a melee, and were mostly used just to soften up the enemy a bit before the fighting started. Another fairly interesting one were the Franks who lobbed spears and their franciscan axes at the enemy. The axes are fairly interesting as they can be used as both melee and ranged weapons and since they're smaller and more wieldy than a spear more than 2 could be carried at a time.

Now, we get to the samurai. They had a few advantages as well, they had the time to train, being nobles, they had the horses to carry their weapons, and most interestingly they had a culture that seems to have largely moved away from the use of shields. Why? I'm not sure, maybe other guys can fill you in here. As the Japanese seemed to focus more on armies of archers and two-handed spearmen, both of whom would be greatly aided with a shield.

Now, let's get to Europe and the knights and why they (may) have not used a crossbow, or a bow. And the answer is, because honestly, they didn't need it. This goes into a large study on the effectiveness of armor and arrows. But there are a few interesting points. One, even with the famous English longbows, the amount of specific named fatalities they had against the richest heaviest armored nobles of the French can be counted on one hand (they did kill many more of the nameless, less wealthy though, of course). Two, the effective 'kill zone' of an archer on a heavily armored knight has been estimated as about 30-100 yards. So, in the time that it would take a heavily armored knight charging at you full speed with a lance at your face, if you plan to use both bows and melee you have the duration of 300 feet to switch from a two handed ranged weapon to your spear and shield and get into a formation that won't get you completely murdered. It's hard to do. Much easier to have a bunch of guys who already have their shields and spears ready and waiting for these guys and the archers off to the back plucking away, or in some other way protected from the rigors of a melee. Agincourt famously had a whole hill that the French knights had to charge up to get to them. But Agincourt is really a story about how the French commanders trying to ride down an enemy in a near perfect defensive position is making a stupid decision. Quite frankly, the 100 Years War was not so hopelessly one sided that the English longbowmen gave such a fantastic advantage. The French won their fair share of battles with their heavy cavalry. Just not Agincourt, and Crecy which are the ones everyone remembers.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Now, we get to the samurai. They had a few advantages as well, they had the time to train, being nobles, they had the horses to carry their weapons, and most interestingly they had a culture that seems to have largely moved away from the use of shields. Why? I'm not sure, maybe other guys can fill you in here. As the Japanese seemed to focus more on armies of archers and two-handed spearmen, both of whom would be greatly aided with a shield.

The samurai did have shields. They just wore them on their shoulders.

Here's a more informative explanation. (http://thesamuraiarmourforum.com/post/10171/thread)

[Dienekes]

The samurai did have shields. They just wore them on their shoulders.

Here's a more informative explanation. (http://thesamuraiarmourforum.com/post/10171/thread)

Interesting views. I always just considered them a bulkier armor and didn't think about how they would work. Neat, sort of gives them the benefits of a shield and the use of a two-handed weapon.

Though personally, I think I'd kind of prefer a shield in my hand, but that might be my European biases showing.

[Vercingex]

Oh wow, that's neat! I never would have thought you could identify a longbowman by his skeleton.

I wonder what other types of warrior you'd be able to identify like that...

It's apparently very easy to identify the skeleton of anyone who spent a long time in the saddle. They end up with very strong muscular attachment points in their thighs, and they tend to be slightly bow-legged.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Interesting views. I always just considered them a bulkier armor and didn't think about how they would work. Neat, sort of gives them the benefits of a shield and the use of a two-handed weapon.

Though personally, I think I'd kind of prefer a shield in my hand, but that might be my European biases showing.

Yeah, I don't know how well it actually worked, but they also had the barricade shields, so I guess they split it into two specialized tools.

[Tvtyrant]

Napoleonic Wars say hi! All about that hybrid spear/bow!

I don't know exactly what you are asking, because there are many examples of them to me. Mongols, Mamluks, Jannisaries, gun cavalry in the early modern period, etc.

I think the question you are trying to ask is why are there unit types that don't act as switch hitters.

The answer, in my opinion, is that melee was stronger than ranged combat until the nineteenth century, and then it reversed. An army of archers had to find ways to prevent their opponent from coming into melee range, which usually meant melee soldiers. If the opponent was mostly specialized in melee combat (IE shield walls, heavy cavalry, etc) then they would carve a unit not devoted to melee into pieces, so your blockers have to be melee specialists as well.

Now we have the reverse effect, where getting into melee is all but impossible and melee specialist units are pointless.

The two methods have been balanced at certain times and places, leading to archer chariots that would dismount to attack in melee in the bronze age, or musket lines converging into melee combat, but usually one is better than the other.

[Vercingex]

(snip)

You're right, though it's a little more complicated than "melee was strong".

Throughout history, most armies had three main combat arms (this is a gross oversimplification, but it works);

1. A holding arm (infantry) to engage the enemy and keep them engaged, as well as to apply constant pressure and defend the other arms.

2. A maneuver/shock arm (cavalry), able to attack key weak spots with crushing force, outmaneuver slower infantry forces, and pursue retreating enemies.

3. A fire support arm (archers/artillery), whose job is to kill enemy soldiers with minimal risk, hopefully doing some of the infantry and cavalry's work for them.

The nature of ranged weapons before the 19th century was such that ranged soldiers couldn't do the infantry's job. Put another way, you couldn't hold a line with firepower alone- you needed bodies. It's partly for this reason that armies fought in formations.

[snowblizz]

First of all, a good example of a historical hybrid melee/ranged combatant would be any European line infantry from the late 18th/early 19th century (think Napoleonic armies). Infantry would often resort to bayonet charges to deliver the final blow to an enemy force after unleashing several volleys of musket fire. Bayonets were also essential for defending against cavalry. It's worth noting that carrying a musket and bayonet is a lot easier than carrying a sword and bow.

I'll point out that for all it's faults the OP did specifically exclude the gunpowder era, presumably for that exact reason. I had quite the stirring mention of the pike&shot and Napoleonic eras prepared that I then excluded.:smalltongue:


Why Japanese didn't use a shield is interesting though, and as mentioned, probably comes from samurai originating as mounted archers. Shields and bows tend not to go together. The manouvre aspect remainded important though, it's lighter and a bit more flexible than european armours (or so I undestand). Japanese armour also looks as it does due to limitations of the iron it was made from. Interestingly, in the east brigantine and scale type armours persisted.
The reason not to use a shield is really when your armour protects you enough that the shields protective abilities is marginal compared to the offensive boost from a twohanded weapon. That was true in europe as well. Japanese later armours stood up to bullets about as well as European plate, often drawing inspiration from such pieces, but they also never got around to use quite as heavy gunpowder weapons as was used in the west, both guns or cannons were normally lighter than western counterparts.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Thinking about the pre-gunpowder ages while designing a setting, I'm a bit baffled by the general lack of hybrid missile/melee troops in history.

The basic answer is that you just don't know enough and are coming to incorrect conclusions based on the entirely reasonable thing that you haven't studied every culture in every time period. What you call hybrid troops existed in lots of places and medieval Europe just isn't that representative.

Most stuff has been covered well enough by other posters so I'll just state what I'm not sure I saw anyone else make explicit.

What you're calling 'hybrid' troops are actually troops with secondary backup weapons. Historically pretty much all missile troops could fight in melee because they had backup weapons. A sword is not a frontline weapon so a Samurai horse-archer is not really equally good at melee as at ranged and a rival Samurai horseman with a spear would kick his arse in a melee fight.

The main reason horse archers didn't exist in medieval Europe is that you're talking about a very difficult skill. You need a tradition and a lot of cultural expertise to fight that way. One culture to point out here is the Magyars who did have that tradition and gave it up for a Frankish inspired knightly tradition so clearly horse archers weren't all that or the Magyars who fought the Franks for centuries wouldn't have adopted Frankish fighting styles.


Well, the Japanese had units of ashigaru archers, spearmen, pikemen, etc. with specialized roles. Yet the samurai still had a good deal of versatility, more so than knights.

You're following a too simplified concept of history. Samurai and Ashigaru weren't that different, they were both Bushi and for most of the Sengoku-jidai that was the more important category than Samurai vs Ashigaru which was basically just about rank.

Samurai units that were more or less just Ashigaru units on a higher pay grade existed. Not all Samurai were horse-archers, which is really a pre-Sengoku-Jidai warrior.


The samurai remained relevant on their battlefields much longer than the knights;

You're cheating here by using a woolly definition of Samurai. The Samurai was not the same thing from the Heian to the Meiji Restoration. For most of that time period the word Samurai wasn't even used. You're defining knight as "military horsemen called Knights" and Samurai as "Japanese elite soldiers who may not have been called Samurai". By that logic you could stretch the definition of Knight to include who-ever you want and say Knights lasted for longer.

Part of the problem with the study of Japanese history (by westerners but some of this will have filtered through to Japan) is that we have these words like Samurai and Ninja that are known to the audience and therefore history has to be written about these terms because that's what the audience wants. So books about the history of Japanese warfare or society will have names like "history of the Samurai" when they're not really about the people who were historically called Samurai. People are generally arrogant/naive about their ability to understand foreign cultures and therefore think they can read one book that will give them an over-view of a foriegn nation and these books homogenise the periods in a nation's history to create that defining picture you can go home with and understand while with our own history we have to keep the periods split because we live in one of those periods.

There's also a Victorian racist/imperialist context about dynamic vs static cultures to this that I won't go into.


So in other words, the Japanese had better economics and better organization than the Europeans? I can probably see that -- medieval organization in Europe was pretty pathetic.

You're comparing 12th century Europe to 16th century Japan here. Medieval economics sucked compared to later periods because they were still developing.


The armored cavalry charge only had any validity as long as the quality of foot soldiers was low. As soon as pikemen, archers, and halberdiers gained a bit more professionalism, melee cavalry became the least effective force on the battlefield.


You're not entirely wrong here, but the thing is that cavalry charges can annihilate high quality foot soldiers because the most important thing in the cavalry charge is positioning and manoeuvring.

On one level we remember the battles where infantry beat cavalry because the dramatic changes in history are always when the underdog wins and upsets the pre-existing order. So cavalry victories did happen, they just get forgotten because they weren't as decisive because they were the norm. We also don't study the dark ages and the early middle ages much except for Hastings and the first crusade where the knights did win.


My favorite summary of the Meiji Revolution? "Guns are awesome" said some guys. "Nuh-uh, guns suck, and we don't like them," said the samurai. So they shot the samurai and outlawed guns.

Anyway, yeah... It's more complicated than any portrayal I've seen in fiction, and I'm pretty sure I made some inaccurate statements in my attempt to keep this relatively simple and brief, but...

Everyone had guns in the Satsuma rebellion Boshin war (what you're calling the Meiji restoration which was closely related) [edit:I was wrong too:smallwink:]. Its a myth that anyone refused to use guns. Both parties in that war were in favour of adopting western technologies, they were arguing more about details and policy. The simple explanation is that one side wanted to abolish the caste system, make Shinto the state religion and put the Emperor in charge and the other wanted to keep the Samurai class and make Buddhism the state religion.

Boshin War facts:

1. It was actually the victorious Imperial Faction that wanted to kick out the foreigners. They just u-turned on this after winning.

2. The Shogunate forces were out of date, but that was due to a lack of resources not ideology. One of these main out of date weapons was the Büchse gun, a early 1840s Dutch import while the Imperial forces had more 1849 Minié rifle imported from France so it was actually recent European tech that was the disparity.

3. Many of the Shogunate faction leaders were pardoned and went on to leave the modernisation of Japan.

4. Both sides wore western style uniforms.

5. Traditional troops did fight in the Shogunate's army, but that was because they were throwing everything they had at the Imperial faction. They had primitive wooden cannons next to imported European ones because they thought "why the heck not have a little extra firepower" not because "these embarrassing crappy wooden jokes are part of our rich cultural tradition".

In the Satsuma rebellion after the Shogunate's defeat you did get more traditionalist hard-line Samurai complaining about modernisation but that was after the Boshin War's factions had been reconciled. But even then the Samurai rebels of Satsuma had imported European guns, actually better ones than the Shogunate had been able to get hold of due to the Satsuma rebellion having had more time to get ready.

It wasn't about tradition, it was about power. It was just that the Samurai had traditionally had the power.



The main reason why plate armour went out of fashion was gunpowder - it became too expensive to build armour thick enough to stop a ball, but the armoured cavalryman still kept its relevance up to the Napoleonic era (the three main staples of that era were cavalry, infantry and cannon). Part of the Spanish dominance in the New World was due to mounted conquistadors.

It wasn't gunpowder, it was better guns. Plate armour was very popular in the early period of firearms.

Horses were useless in the Andes, so they weren't exactly a superweapon against native Americans.


Thanks for the input, guys. Sorry for injecting my stupidity here.

Asking questions isn't stupid, not asking them is.

[BWR]

The "weapons are heavy and awkward" aspect simply can't be overstated. One of the most ridiculous things about D&D is the way characters are often loaded up with three melee weapons and a crossbow. Just think about that for a moment.


Tangent: the local gaming con (and I'm sure lots of others do too) has an event called Are you really going to carry all that where they load up participants with a typical load for a D&D adventurer, 10' pole and all.

[veti]

Specialists vs generalists.

The samurai are a special case, as a full-time warrior caste with nothing else to do with their time than fight and train for fighting. That's a very expensive lifestyle to maintain, and not the norm even in Japanese armies (where samurai are seldom a numerical majority on the battlefield). They (and the Mongols, for that matter) differ from European knights in that their armour is light enough to allow them to use bows as well as swords, without having to stop and change armour between the two.

Once armies had been thoroughly professionalised and were nearly all full-time soldiers, dual-use troops started to become the norm. By the mid-18th century, musketeers had only to fix a bayonet to their weapon to become formidable melee troops.

[Aedilred]

Nevertheless, one can find numerous references in western literature from the medieval period to archers as "cowardly," "dastardly," "treacherous," etc. That goes back as far as the Greeks -- Paris of Troy was an archer, and also came across a rather weak, cowardly individual in the original poem, IIRC; one of the things the movie "Troy" pretty much ported over intact.

Paris was far from the only archer at Troy. Odysseus famously had a bow, the ability to wield which was used as a test of Penelope's suitors' mettle (and only Odysseus could even string it). Philoctetes was a great archer, and he used the bow of Heracles, the greatest Greek hero of them all, who had also been a fine archer.

Although it's complicated, Paris wasn't considered a coward because he used a bow. He was considered a coward because he fled from the duel with Menelaus when it turned against him, because he refused to participate in melee combat almost at all (when people were dying all around him in a war he started) and because he used trickery and poison to fell Achilles, a much greater and braver hero than himself, rather than confronting him honourably, as Hector had done. He also refuses a challenge against Diomedes and tries to shoot him too. It's worth noting that the Hector-Achilles duel opened with a ranged bout in which the two of them hurled spears at each other (indeed, Hector's being tricked into throwing his last spear is a key element of the contest). Spear-throwing was a key element of hero-on-hero combat throughout the Trojan war, and a number of great heroes were also proficient archers. Indeed, though I'm not sure of the details of all the heroes, I'd be surprised if it wasn't expected for a hero to be capable with a bow as well as spear and sword.

The whole thing is more tied up in the almost culturally untranslateable concept of ancient Greek honour, but which ultimately boils down to "fighting fair", something we have retained. A fight on equal terms is considered honourable and it's better to die in such a manner than to be the victor through cheating. While an archery duel (Philoctetes vs Paris) or a spear-throwing contest (numerous occasions) is perfectly acceptable, it's not ok to shoot from cover against someone issuing a challenge to single combat (and particularly not to shoot them in the back while they're not even armed, as in some versions of the Achilles slaying).

[TheThan]

The whole thing is more tied up in the almost culturally untranslateable concept of ancient Greek honour, but which ultimately boils down to "fighting fair", something we have retained. A fight on equal terms is considered honourable and it's better to die in such a manner than to be the victor through cheating. While an archery duel (Philoctetes vs Paris) or a spear-throwing contest (numerous occasions) is perfectly acceptable, it's not ok to shoot from cover against someone issuing a challenge to single combat (and particularly not to shoot them in the back while they're not even armed, as in some versions of the Achilles slaying).

A concept that is still seen today. Look at competitive fighting and martial arts. Martial arts point fighting, Kumite, kick boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, heck old fashioned boxing. They all have rules and regulations, size and weight categories that all make for a fair fight or competition. If you break those rules it’s cheating and you get disqualified. I call it sportified martial arts; heck I’ve seen it outside of the ring. Two people square off and lay down some ground rules before going at it. (In reality, if your life is on the line, anything goes). Heck we see it in movies all the time, the good guy fights honorably (whatever that means), and the bad guy cheats, using weapons, illegal moves, cheap tricks, fighting dirty ect, they’re the bad guy so it’s expected, but the good guy overcomes the bad guy without breaking the rules and wins.

[Wardog]

It's difficult to find anywhere in the historical record where mounted knights were of much use. Every phalanx and steady group of bowmen butchered them. Yet they apparently kept creating them because of an absolutely moronic belief that missile weapons were cowardly and unworthy.

The armored cavalry charge only had any validity as long as the quality of foot soldiers was low. As soon as pikemen, archers, and halberdiers gained a bit more professionalism, melee cavalry became the least effective force on the battlefield.

I'm pretty sure that's not true.

Off-hand, I can think of a few situations where knights were effective against good-quality troops:
1: Battle of Hastings. Footsoldiers held out effectively for a long time, but when they eventually got worn down by prolonged fighting and archery (or when one group fell for the old "fake retreat" trick), they lost to armoured cavalry.
2: One battle in the Hundred Years War (I can't remember which) where the French had hired a large force of mercenaries with better armour, who were able to charge the English archers with impunity. (Incidently, the French knights at this time seem to match your description of thinking ranged troops were cowards and unimportant, and used idiotic tactics like Leeroy Jenkinsing across unsuitible terrain (and in some cases through their own archers) towards well-protected archers. But they seem to have been an exception. Most other nations seem to have been more sensible, and the English strategy was generally "The archers' job is to kill the enemy. The knights' job is to protect the archers").
3: The Crusades. Heavily-armoured knights were often very effective, including against horse-archers (which people tend to imagine are the unbeatable cheat-mode of medieval warfare).

Another point to consider: if you position heavy cavalry near a spear/pike formation, then the infantry can do three things:
1) Ignore you and carry on with whatever mission they were assigned. In which case you charge them, and they die.
2) Run away. In which case you charge them, and they die.
3) Form a defensive formation. In which case they are no longer doing whatever job they were brought for. (And if they are all facing your heavy cavalry, they are vulnerable to light cavalry making hit-and-run attacks on their rear).

Cavalry doesn't (usually) win battles on its own. What it does do is prevent the infantry doing its job, and prevents them from retreating when things start to go badly. (This also applies to Napoleonic-ear warfare as well. An infantry square is pretty much invulnerable to cavalry attack, but it is also stuck in one place not doing anything useful, has its effective firepower quartered, and is more vulnerable to cannon).

Edited to add:
The other things cavalry do are raiding/pillaging, and scouting. Armoured cavalry can do that, and be less likely to die in the process.




I also don't particularly see why a horse archer is less useful in England than in Japan. Not only is Japan an island also, but it's extremely mountainous. Additionally, what about France? Germany? Poland? Hungary? Italy? They copied over the pattern of armored, useless cavalry again and again.
Polish armoured cavalry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_hussars)certainly wasn't useless. And I think Poland and Hungary did make use of missile/melee cavalry (Russia certainly did - but then, medieval Russia was basically the answer to the question "what do you get if you cross Vikings with Steppe Nomads?").

[Aedilred]

I'm pretty sure that's not true.

Off-hand, I can think of a few situations where knights were effective against good-quality troops:
1: Battle of Hastings. Footsoldiers held out effectively for a long time, but when they eventually got worn down by prolonged fighting and archery (or when one group fell for the old "fake retreat" trick), they lost to armoured cavalry.
2: One battle in the Hundred Years War (I can't remember which) where the French had hired a large force of mercenaries with better armour, who were able to charge the English archers with impunity. (Incidently, the French knights at this time seem to match your description of thinking ranged troops were cowards and unimportant, and used idiotic tactics like Leeroy Jenkinsing across unsuitible terrain (and in some cases through their own archers) towards well-protected archers. But they seem to have been an exception. Most other nations seem to have been more sensible, and the English strategy was generally "The archers' job is to kill the enemy. The knights' job is to protect the archers").
3: The Crusades. Heavily-armoured knights were often very effective, including against horse-archers (which people tend to imagine are the unbeatable cheat-mode of medieval warfare).

Another point to consider: if you position heavy cavalry near a spear/pike formation, then the infantry can do three things:
1) Ignore you and carry on with whatever mission they were assigned. In which case you charge them, and they die.
2) Run away. In which case you charge them, and they die.
3) Form a defensive formation. In which case they are no longer doing whatever job they were brought for. (And if they are all facing your heavy cavalry, they are vulnerable to light cavalry making hit-and-run attacks on their rear).

Cavalry doesn't (usually) win battles on its own. What it does do is prevent the infantry doing its job, and prevents them from retreating when things start to go badly. (This also applies to Napoleonic-ear warfare as well. An infantry square is pretty much invulnerable to cavalry attack, but it is also stuck in one place not doing anything useful, has its effective firepower quartered, and is more vulnerable to cannon).


Indeed. I think in the Anglosphere we are conditioned to think of knights as useless because of the celebrated victories of English troops against them. But the reason these battles (and others like the Golden Spurs) are so famous is because they were exceptions, rather than the norm.

Of course, cavalry have to be used intelligently, and preferably as part of a combined arms force. Crecy was a disaster principally because the vanguard had no discipline and their commander demonstrated no tactical insight. And strategies have always existed to protect infantry from cavalry attack - but that tends to rely on availability of certain equipment and a high level of discipline among soldiers. But well-used armoured cavalry remained effective until well into the 19th century (and arguably the 20th, before new weapons made the horse largely obsolete).

If you're looking for examples of effectiveness of knights in the historical record, you could do worse than the Battle of Muret. Those mentioned by Wardog are also valid. See also most of Alexander's victories, which were won with significant input from his Companion Cavalry, and the Battle of Adrianople. Those are just the most obvious; there are many more, but it should be enough to give the lie to the idea that they were useless.

[Crow]

Cavalry are the knockout punch. They are what prevent infantry slogs from going on forever and grinding down your own troops. They are also the pursuit troops that allow you to inflict greater losses on routed enemies after the main engagement and thus prevent the enemy regrouping and mounting a counter attack.

[golentan]

Cavalry are the knockout punch. They are what prevent infantry slogs from going on forever and grinding down your own troops. They are also the pursuit troops that allow you to inflict greater losses on routed enemies after the main engagement and thus prevent the enemy regrouping and mounting a counter attack.

Infantry and Artillery win battles, cavalry ends them, is the way I've heard this phrased in the past. You can't risk the cavalry charge until you've already secured almost certain victory, lest they get mowed down and possibly rout your remaining forces. But you can use your own infantry and artillery to pin a unit, soften it, and then use the cavalry to outflank or break the line and secure the fight. Hence "Here comes the cavalry," as a term for friends showing up to break you out of combat.

Another other good thing for cavalry-like soldiers? Dragoons, using the horses (or motorcycles or whatever else) to maneuver into position rapidly, and dismounting to fire or hold a position without the jostling disorder of a charge, or the risk of having your horse killed or otherwise downed under you and taking an injury that could have been avoided since a human is not such a large and relatively soft target...

[Dienekes]

Infantry and Artillery win battles, cavalry ends them, is the way I've heard this phrased in the past. You can't risk the cavalry charge until you've already secured almost certain victory, lest they get mowed down and possibly rout your remaining forces. But you can use your own infantry and artillery to pin a unit, soften it, and then use the cavalry to outflank or break the line and secure the fight. Hence "Here comes the cavalry," as a term for friends showing up to break you out of combat.

Another other good thing for cavalry-like soldiers? Dragoons, using the horses (or motorcycles or whatever else) to maneuver into position rapidly, and dismounting to fire or hold a position without the jostling disorder of a charge, or the risk of having your horse killed or otherwise downed under you and taking an injury that could have been avoided since a human is not such a large and relatively soft target...

It's an oversimplification, that is largely true from around the second half of the Hundred's Year War on. However, history doesn't really like having simple truths work for everything. Take for example, Alexander the Great's campaigns, yes some battles were won by the infantry and ended by cavalry, but his Companion Cavalry just as often charged ahead of everything, acted as mobile harassing units, or simply got into a position where they could charge directly toward Darius avoiding the majority of the enemy infantry completely. Then there are the mongols whose success was (partially) do to them abusing the mobility of their cavalry against more infantry focused armies. Though, a part of me wants to step back a bit from saying mongols won solely by cavalry as is a somewhat popular misconception, mongol used infantry and artillery like everyone else, they just put a heavier emphasis on their cavalry.

Anyway, I'm really just getting at a minor tweak rather than a real correction. The history of combat is a complex thing, and I know of enough battles that were pretty definitively decided by the cavalry actions rather than infantry that I just felt it's important to at least bring them up.

[Killer Angel]

Most European crossbowmen were highly trained, motivated and paid, prosperous people from towns and cities. And that's when they are not crack troops.

Genoese crossbowmen, for example, were elite troops.

[Tyndmyr]

So in other words, the Japanese had better economics and better organization than the Europeans? I can probably see that -- medieval organization in Europe was pretty pathetic.

Eh, I don't know why I'm bothering here. We're just talking past each other; this isn't really one of my more successful threads. I'm an idiot, carry on, forget what I said, etc. etc.

Thanks for the input, guys. Sorry for injecting my stupidity here.

Not really. Strictly speaking, unit tactics would *usually* obliterate individual tactics of the style preferred by Japan, and unit tactics tend to require more organization. YMMV depending on exact matchup, era, all that stuff. There's a wild amount of complexity here.

Also, your list of cultures is incomplete. For instance, despite being pictured nowadays with horned helms, axes, and whatever, norse folks were actually pretty good with bows. Pretty much any ship-centric combat of the era tended to involve ranged weapons, really, and of course you'd transition to melee weapons once boarding, etc happened.

Range/melee hybrid happened pretty frequently where it made sense to do so.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The standard Viking tactic was almost a proto-Tercio in that they would find the nearest hill, stand on top with their bows and form a shield wall around the archers. The archers could still loose their arrows into the enemy even after the melee started so they were a combined ranged and melee unit even more than Samurai since they could literally do both at the same time.

The problem with this is that a couple of ranks of shield wall isn't all that much protection and archers aren't that good at backing up the second rank if the first rank dies (even when everyone has basically the same training the archers are at a disadvantage if they can't change equipment fast enough while stuck in a tight formation). As the range of bows increased, having separate blocks of billmen to shield your archers basically gives the same effect as a combined unit but keeps the archers a lot safer and the billmen much better at dealing with casualties.

After the middle ages, the Tercio quickly developed and basically was the dominant unit on European battlefields and a combined unit. I'm suspicious that the similarity between the Tercio and the Viking formation may be due to the guns of that time having bad range compared to the bows that proceeded them which would have made them similar to the shorter ranged late migration era bows.

Eventually Maurice of Nassau helps develop the pure gun formation and combined units die out until the bayonet is introduced and you get the best of both worlds (despite a bayonetted flintlock being a terribly balanced and overly heavy polearm the fully trained halberdier was too rare by that point and unlikely to get past the hail of bullets for that match up to be in their favour).

Modern troops will use their knives on occasion, but the last modern soldier to have a proper non-bayonet melee weapon was probably the shin gunto equipped WW2 Japanese Officer whose documented sword kills were opportunistic actions made when ammo was low rather than any sort of valuable tactical doctrine.

[Filippo]

Genoese crossbowmen, for example, were elite troops.

Can't resist the urge to support my city! Genova(northen Italy) was the home of these fine crossbowmen (I actually live near to their historical headquarter, some medieval building are still at their place). I learn that to enter their ranks one must hit a target few inches big, placed on a ship, while standing on another ship and that regular members were capable of hitting enemies who hide behind arrow slits.
They used bolts capable of killing a heavy armoured target. Genova, being a merchant city state selled the service of his crossbowmen all around Europe.

More on topic, multipourpose units are usefull in skirmish with low numbers and difficoult terrain. In a big battle on relatively plain terrain was more useful having more specialized units both for efficiency and ease of command

Also this: I've seen actually historical gunblades (at Torino, not so far away from my city). Wonder why there are not so may of them around? Because they where nerd stuff even in 16 -17th century, build for rich people with exotic taste in parade weapon and seldom even used, because they where bad as swords (too heavy and unbilanced) and bad as fierarms (difficult to aim). So even if you wanted to go all Squall-from-Final-Fantasy-8-300-years-ahead-of-time it was way better go for an actual gun and an actual blade, keeping things simple.
Same goes, even more, for soldiers.

Edit: I made a mess with English^^;;

[Tyndmyr]

Modern troops will use their knives on occasion, but the last modern soldier to have a proper non-bayonet melee weapon was probably the shin gunto equipped WW2 Japanese Officer whose documented sword kills were opportunistic actions made when ammo was low rather than any sort of valuable tactical doctrine.

The kukri is still a standard issue military weapon in...several militaries.

[Closet_Skeleton]

They used bolts capable of killing a heavy armoured target. Genova, being a merchant city state selled the service of his crossbowmen all around Europe.

Capable of. Most of the time armour probably did protect its wearer to some degree. I saw some experimental evidence of how armour penetration on crossbows drops off at range but can't remember the results. Most experiments showing longbows piercing steel were do terribly done the results are meaningless.


Also this: I've seen actually historical gunblades (at Torino, not so far away from my city).

Squall's Gunblade doesn't work that way (I haven't played any FF game:smalltongue:).

In Venice they have several gun-crossbows. Most armoury collections have at least one sword with a pistol built in, Italy tends to have some weirder ones.


The kukri is still a standard issue military weapon in...several militaries.

The Kukri is a knife, which I mentioned and also not dedicated weapon but a tool with secondary weapon viability. Its weird shape is a compromise design that allows it to have a level of axe-style functionality for chopping wood and the like. Its possibly more of a weapon than a machete (also a kind of knife) but has several disadvantages against specialised weapons due to its multi-use design.

[Jay R]

Virtually all missile troops also carry melee weapons. But if they are successful enough with their bows, they don't use them.

And the primary reason to go to war without wearing armor is that you cannot afford it. Armor was expensive.

[TheThan]

The kukri is still a standard issue military weapon in...several militaries.

Soldiers all over the world still carry knives, machetes, even tomahawks, that doesn't mean those weapons are their primary weapon in battle.

then there’s this badass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishnu_Shrestha).

[Killer Angel]

Soldiers all over the world still carry knives, machetes, even tomahawks, that doesn't mean those weapons are their primary weapon in battle.

then there’s this badass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishnu_Shrestha).

I don't know why, but even before following the link, I was basically sure it was about a Gurkha... :smallwink:

[JDL]

I'm saddened by the large amount of folk calling out the Napoleonic Wars but failing to mention the Thirty Years War completely. In fact, the hybrid combination of mounted cavalry with flintlock pistol was extensively used during this period in a maneuver known as a "caracole," whereby the cavalry wheel forward and discharge their flintlocks before retreating and reloading. This tactic proved disastrous compared to a straight cavalry charge.

Prior to this the use of horse archers was effective in skirmishing the ranks of an enemy force, but with an equal amount of crossbowmen a unit of horse archers is quickly countered. Simply put, it's easier to shoot a horse than a foot soldier, especially if you're shooting from horseback, which takes far more investment in training than crossbows. So ultimately heavy cavalry is best suited to straight charges, with the light horse strictly for scouting and skirmishing.

[Aedilred]

The caracole is an interesting one; I struggle to think of any comparably widespread strategy or formation that had such a limited lifespan prior to the 20th century.

I don't think the idea in itself is inherently stupid, however, and it does seem to have enjoyed a degree of effectiveness, just not for very long. The principle is similar to that of a tank, after all (heavily armoured mobile gun platform), and I suspect the reiter was an idea that was in some respects ahead of its time - and what technology of the day was capable of delivering.

I suspect the answer lies in part in the development of contemporary infantry. The pike formations which had appeared by the early 16th century rendered infantry largely immune to a traditional cavalry charge. Missile support for such formations was questionable: conventional archers and crossbowmen were falling out of use but still to be found, and their projectiles would have found it difficult to penetrate the heavy armour of the reiters. Arquebuses though were unreliable and inaccurate and still towards the start of their curve in terms of prevalence on the battlefield. What's more, pike formations were slow and unwieldy, and arquebusiers couldn't stray too far from them or they'd become vulnerable to a charge.

In the context of such a battlefield, a rolling volley by disciplined cavalry, could likely be quite effective at weakening and demoralising and disrupting large blocks of infantry: manoeuvrable enough to evade their opponents and with armour good enough to withstand most of the return fire.

With the improvement in infantry small arms both in terms of armament and quantity by the end of the 16th century, though - by which time the caracole was already falling out of use - the reiters started to become vulnerable again to return fire from the infantry they were meant to harass - who were more numerous, had a longer range, and a more stable firing platform, so were always going to win a firefight - at least, provided they had sufficient morale, discipline and leadership not to panic at the first clash of arms.

As you point out, the caracole was always vulnerable to an aggressive counter-charge from enemy cavalry, but even if on the field in numbers, enemy cavalry were likely not always present to support infantry. A battlefield is a big place, and a decent commander can make use of different formations and tactics depending on the prevailing situation. If enemy cavalry was occupied elsewhere, the caracole could be used against infantry. If cavalry approached, the reiters could still withdraw. I suspect that with the development of the more flexible, smaller-unit tactical models during the Thirty Years War (most notably the Swedish one) it became easier to ensure cavalry support for infantry, thus rendering the caracole useless. Although that didn't stop Pappenheim giving it a go at Breitenfeld.

Indeed, a combined-arms approach seems to have become relatively commonplace after the original caracole died out: cavalry armed with firearms and melee weapons who could discharge weapons (sometimes even in the conventional rank-by-rank wheeling manoeuvre) and then charge home to take advantage of the disrupted enemy lines. These are actually a reasonable example of the hybrid melee/missile troops mentioned by the OP - although the above notwithstanding, it's worth noting he did specifically exclude the gunpowder era from his initial query. :smallwink:

[Closet_Skeleton]

In fact, the hybrid combination of mounted cavalry with flintlock pistol was extensively used during this period in a maneuver known as a "caracole," whereby the cavalry wheel forward and discharge their flintlocks before retreating and reloading.

Since the Schwarz Reiter never charged into melee I wouldn't call them a hybrid melee-ranged unit at all. They're a short ranged skirmisher unit, like a more mobile version of the Ancient Greek Peltast.

The problem with the Caracole is that its kind of rubbish. Its a harassment tactic, not a battle winning one. They basically existed only so that the redundant cavalry could have something to do to pretend they were contributing. In some ways that makes them more like WW2 RAF bomber command than tanks. It seemed important at the time and you couldn't get away with not having it but in hindsight the ultimate military effect was probably almost nothing.

Ironically, it was the Swedish invention of mobile artillery tactics that (opposite to pop culture history) made proper cavalry useful again. Cannons destroyed pike blocks, so cavalry could actually charge and kill stuff in melee.

The later Reiters after the demise of the Caracole who still carried pistols but were more about the cavalry charge are more of a true hybrid unit despite having much the same equipment.

[rrgg]

Hybrid missile/melee troops did exist, very few archers went into battle without a sword or some other sort of sidearm. The main issue seems to be that for the most part the most powerful melee weapons were things like pikes, spears, or other polearms which are difficult to carry in addition to a bow. Also, in Europe at least, bows and other ranged weapons were relatively low-energy, meaning they were fairly ineffective against shields or heavy armor. As a result they were usually relegated to a skirmisher/light infantry role.

[ThinkMinty]

How has no one mentioned the Landschneckt yet?

http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/4/5/181845.jpg?v=1

They dressed like psychotic serial killer clowns, and their job was basically being a murderhobo-for-hire in early Modern Europe. They just used whatever, and they'd beat people's arsches to death with the gun if they ran out of bullets or thought it'd be funny.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Landsnechts and other Pike and Shot formations are basically Tercio rip offs so were indirectly mentioned.

[Iruka]

How has no one mentioned the Landschneckt yet?

http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/4/5/181845.jpg?v=1

They dressed like psychotic serial killer clowns, and their job was basically being a murderhobo-for-hire in early Modern Europe. They just used whatever, and they'd beat people's arsches to death with the gun if they ran out of bullets or thought it'd be funny.

A Landsknecht was just a type of mercenary. They could be equipped with almost anything but not necessarily used their arms in a hybrid fighting style.

[pendell]

It's been a long time, but if I remember my military history, prior to the gunpowder age, there were four basic kinds of troops:

1) Heavy infantry. Melee troops . Greek phalanx.
2) Light infantry. Skirmishers, archers. The slingers of the tribe of Benjamin.
3) Heavy cavalry. Shock troops. Knights, cataphracts.
4) Light cavalry. Ranged combatants, Parthian archers, Mongol horse cavalry.

*As a rule*, these jobs are so highly specialized that it makes sense to dedicate people to the job. If you're an archer , for example, the cumbersome armor of a hoplite is so much superfluous weight. NO ONE in any military outfit in history enjoys carrying more weight around than they absolutely have to. Comfort level aside, it's fatiguing and makes one that much less battle-ready.

Successful armies utilized combined arms tactics. Witness the Romans, who had heavy infantry as a base supported by a few light cavalry and relied on allies to make up the other three components on an as-needed basis. Or the ancient Israelis, who had a mix of spear/shield (heavy infantry), slingers (light infantry), and chariots (heavy cavalry).

It's usually much more effective to have several groups of mutually supporting specialists than one group of people who can do all of the above, though not well. Pure weight considerations aside, you simply won't be as good at any role than if you devote all your time to being good at one specific task.

There's also the fact that state-supported armies with state-supplied equipment is a fairly recent innovation. In ancient Greece, you showed up for battle with arms and armor you paid for and maintained yourself. If you were rich, this would mean bronze armor, shield, sword and spear. If you were poor, this meant a sling or a bow and arrow and nothing else. Which meant you would have a light-armed component even if you wanted only hoplites; the ability to fight with both melee AND missile would have been out of reach of the poor while the rich would scoff at using a "poor man's" weapon.

I suspect the poor attitude towards bows among the Greeks is also due to at least two other issues, as discussed (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=classicsfacpub):

1) In those days, shock troops were the deciding factor because they could take and hold ground. Missile troops could not generate enough firepower to hold ground themselves, and would have to retreat when the hoplites marched in. So it was the hoplites who would win or lose the battle.

2) Parallel to that is the fact that the longbow and the crossbow did not exist in ancient Greece; the weapons that they did have were adequate as hunting weapons but would require a natural 20 to penetrate bronze armor or inflict serious harm on a hoplite. Notice the contemptuous response of the Spartans to the Persian threat to fill the sky with arrows: "Then we will fight in the shade!" Of course. Armored soldiers with shields -- later , in Roman times, in a Testudo formation -- had very little to fear from missile troops. They would take casualties, sure, but not enough to be decisive.

For all these reasons and many others, the ancient Greeks held bowmen and missile troops in contempt. Indeed, their philosophers later declaimed the civic virtue of fighting in the phalanx while decrying 'cowardly' actions as unworthy of civilized men.

These attitudes would be passed on to the rest of western civilization in force and remain long after changes in technology and tactics made melee troops much, much less valuable.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[pendell]

Actually, this section in the link I just posted may be the best answer to the OP, why units capable of both melee and ranged combat were rare in the ancient world.



Th s was the fi nal battle of the Persian Wars, and first it lookedlike it was going pretty well for the Persians. Their mounted archers kept milling around the encamped Greek army. Herodotus and the
Greeks at the time looked upon these losses as wasted, lost “before the battle even started!”

Pausanias, the commander of the Greek forces,
kept sacrificing as the arrows were coming in, waiting until the omens were auspicious. Finally, the lobes of the livers looked right, and the Greek heavies advanced.

They faced an army that tried to combine the archer and the toeto-toe
warrior. The Persians kept shooting at the advancing hoplites until they were too close; they then had to prepare to welcome the Greeks hand-to-hand. But as archers, they had put their shield down.
You can’t hold a huge heavy shield on your left hand and still shoot a bow; so the Persian style was to set their shield down together, making a barricade of them. The Greeks marched through the shield barricade.

The Persians fought Greek heavies while shieldless themselves. It was a slaughter. Greek sources glory in the valor of the Greek hoplites.

Yes, they did have the machismo to march through arrows, but if archers let heavies close with them, the result is foregone.


So there you have it ; A melee+archer is going to be at a disadvantage against pure melee once in range. As discussed in the article, the Greeks drew the false lesson that archers were worthless in combat; they are not, but they need to be used as part of a combined arms force rather than asking them to play the part of both archer AND Hoplite; it puts them at a disadvantage in either role.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

So, I have skimmed the first and last page of the thread, and skipped page two entirely, so please forgive me if I'm re-stating someone else's post.

Bulldog Psion: I see a lot of of answers regarding the reasons why individual troops specialised in one either melee or range, and I don't disagree. As pertains to whole units, though, I suggest you check out the Spanish Tercios (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercio), the start of combined weapons units. Until them, military units were specialised, either light OR heavy, and infantry, cavalry OR ranged. After this period they started combining them into "heavy-light infantry(pikemen)-ranged" (cavalry remained specialised, because horses, I suspect. They were also quite a bit less useful for a while). An individual soldier was probably not going to be great at all aspects, but as a unit, it was capable of both. Now, I have seen debates of how effective the tactic actually was (and how much of the effectiveness was really due to the professionalism of the Spanish troops), but it was doubtless effective, and all other European nations rushed to adopt it.

Grey Wolf

[Closet_Skeleton]

Minor corrections and nitpicks not meant to undermine general statements of the posts.


If you're an archer , for example, the cumbersome armor of a hoplite is so much superfluous weight.

Archers often wore armour. Richer medieval archers and crossbowmen were very heavily armoured.


Or the ancient Israelis, who had a mix of spear/shield (heavy infantry), slingers (light infantry), and chariots (heavy cavalry).

Chariots are light cavalry, shock tactics with chariots are basically impossible. This is a common mistake that everyone who hasn't studied chariots makes and everyone who has finds ridiculous.


There's also the fact that state-supported armies with state-supplied equipment is a fairly recent innovation.

Its not a matter of 'recentness'. Its a matter of time, place and class. As late as a hundred years ago commissioned Officers had to pay for their own stuff. I believe Rome sometimes had a professional army with its own equipment but plenty of later armies did not. Historically most armies have been a mixture of units of different origins so its a complicated issue.


1) In those days, shock troops were the deciding factor because they could take and hold ground.

Heavy cavalry are shock troops and not that great at holding ground. Heavy infantry could also be shock troops but you didn't label them as such yourself.


These attitudes would be passed on to the rest of western civilization in force and remain long after changes in technology and tactics made melee troops much, much less valuable.

I doubt that to be honest. Its more likely that if such attitudes had any continuous effect they were revived relatively recently, perhaps only in the 19th century and then only in a romantic form.


So, I have skimmed the first and last page of the thread, and skipped page two entirely, so please forgive me if I'm re-stating someone else's post.
As pertains to whole units, though, I suggest you check out the Spanish Tercios (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercio), the start of combined weapons units. Until them, military units were specialised, either light OR heavy, and infantry, cavalry OR ranged.

You probably missed me mentioning how Viking tactics in the late migration period were basically proto-Tercios.


Now, I have seen debates of how effective the tactic actually was (and how much of the effectiveness was really due to the professionalism of the Spanish troops), but it was doubtless effective, and all other European nations rushed to adopt it.

Guns had more of a soft (morale, cover from smoke) than a hard (bullets killing people) effect in their early phase. This makes how useful they were hard to judge.

[Jay R]

Let's turn the question around.

Does anybody have an example of missile troops that didn't carry a melee weapon? Even modern riflemen have bayonets.

[ThinkMinty]

Let's turn the question around.

Does anybody have an example of missile troops that didn't carry a melee weapon? Even modern riflemen have bayonets.

Or the WWI trenchguy running around shoving sharpened shovels into people's chests. That happened a lot.

Also, kind of a...trick question, when humans have fists, which can be used for punching.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Let's turn the question around.

Does anybody have an example of missile troops that didn't carry a melee weapon? Even modern riflemen have bayonets.

There is a distinction between 'a melee weapon' and 'a melee weapon that would be okay against a serious proper melee weapon'. Even longswords were often a sidearm, more comparable to a pistol than a rifle. Shields and polearms were proper battlefield weapons fit for melee troops and many archers had shields.


Also, kind of a...trick question, when humans have fists, which can be used for punching.

Most personal weapons other than a fist is an easily carried object, which can be thrown.

[Jay R]

There is a distinction between 'a melee weapon' and 'a melee weapon that would be okay against a serious proper melee weapon'. Even longswords were often a sidearm, more comparable to a pistol than a rifle. Shields and polearms were proper battlefield weapons fit for melee troops and many archers had shields.

A. Just as a mounted knight with a lance also carries a sword, to use when the lance can't work or he is unhorsed, so too does an archer carry a sidearm, and stand prepared for melee combat if necessary.

My main (implicit) point is this - there have (as far as I know) never been missile troops that weren't hybrid missile/melee troops in history.

Of course if I have a long range weapon and you don't, I'll do my best to stay at long range. But if you successfully close, I can either die instantly or try to survive by drawing a weapon. Throughout history, missile troops have preferred to draw a weapon than to die instantly.

A D&D archer who doesn't also carry a sword, mace, or dagger is a character who is not like a true archer.

[Flickerdart]

A D&D archer who doesn't also carry a sword, mace, or dagger is a character who is not like a true archer.
A D&D archer is not a true archer by most other metrics, too.

[ThinkMinty]

Most personal weapons other than a fist is an easily carried object, which can be thrown.

You can throw your fist, if you've got a prosthetic fist. Or if you're that one guy who cheated in that swimming race to become king of something, in that one fairy tale. Then you throw your fist to become king of something.

Plus, you can always throw someone else's fist, possibly along with the rest of them if you're strong enough.

[Closet_Skeleton]

You can throw your fist, if you've got a prosthetic fist. Or if you're that one guy who cheated in that swimming race to become king of something, in that one fairy tale. Then you throw your fist to become king of something.


That's not a fairy tale, its the national myth of Ulster. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hand_of_Ulster)



My main (implicit) point is this - there have (as far as I know) never been missile troops that weren't hybrid missile/melee troops in history.

"Can fight in melee but shouldn't", "will be expected to fight in melee but its a secondary role" and "are expected to fight in melee and ranged combat as normal procedure" are all different, even the latter two were quite common.

[Bulldog Psion]

Ask yourself this, why isn't every man in the entire united states military piloting his own f22 or tank or hell how about they all have their own super battleship that combines all the best aspects into one giant vehicle? Emperor why don't we just have every storm trooper pilot his own special designed star destroyer? We're wasting talent! Right?


So you're saying that having your elite soldiers -- who are a small proportion of the army in any case -- equipped with a sword AND a bow is literally just as expensive and impractical as equipping every soldier in the U.S. Army with an F22 or tank or super-battleship?

Having a knight buy a crossbow and a quiver of arrows (which all of them had for hunting in any case) would have been as cripplingly expensive as buying a $412 million Raptor for every one of the 1.37 million-ish active duty American soldiers? :smallconfused::smallconfused::smallconfused::smal lconfused:

I'm sorry, but to me, that idea simply doesn't compute.

The knight seems to me an effectively wasted weapon system due to plain cultural blockheadedness, pure and simple.

The mounted French horsemen at Crecy and Agincourt were essentially useless: they were sacrifices wasted against the English archers.

Had they been equipped as "western samurai" -- well-armored men with considerable skill (which they were) but also armed with bows in addition to their melee weapons (which they weren't) and the cultural wherewithal to be able to use both types of weapons flexibly (which they weren't) --

-- then instead of riding over their own archers, shouting "away with this faint-hearted rabble! They only block our advance!", and then dying in the English killing ground, they might have been actually useful, moving forward rapidly on foot to engage the archers in an archery duel. Put the knights in front, so their superior armor would foil a lot of the arrows, and the mass of crossbowmen behind them. Pour arrows into the less-well-armored longbowmen until they'd been properly torn up, then charge in on foot and hew them to pieces in melee.

They might still have lost, but I think it would have given them a lot higher chance of winning than their "arrows are for cowards, charge home against the rabble to show that we're real manly men!" fixation, which just got most of them killed uselessly.

Basically, I'm wondering if there are practical reasons why there are so few "samurai" equivalents in the world, when the samurai functioned quite effectively as melee and missile all-rounders of the most formidable type. My suspicion is that it's mostly cultural -- that there are no practical reasons not to have elite missile/melee troops as the hard-hitting core "special forces," along with combined arms of specialized regular soldiers with bows, spears, etc. etc.

[Brother Oni]

Basically, I'm wondering if there are practical reasons why there are so few "samurai" equivalents in the world, when the samurai functioned quite effectively as melee and missile all-rounders of the most formidable type. My suspicion is that it's mostly cultural -- that there are no practical reasons not to have elite missile/melee troops as the hard-hitting core "special forces," along with combined arms of specialized regular soldiers with bows, spears, etc. etc.

It's been mentioned earlier that bows and crossbows are not small weapons and they're heavy or bulky enough to cause issues in melee combat and also fragile/expensive enough that discarding them just before entering melee combat is not feasible or conducive to their well being.

Bows, particularly heavy draw ones, are not something anybody can pick up and use; they require a significant amount of training to get the strength and accuracy required. Again as mentioned earlier, this archery training detracts from the time spent in melee training (entirely different muscle sets so the majority of training isn't transferable), so you end up with a bunch of generalists who end up getting pasted by their specialist melee opponents.

Crossbows, especially the heavy duty military ones of 300lb+ draws, are also quite specialised weapons with much the same training issues as bows, only they're even bulkier.

In the late Medieval Age, there were German mercenary units called lances, which had a combined arms approach with a single heavily armed and armoured knight supported by lesser armed and armoured swordsmen/spearmen and either archers or crossbowmen, and fought while mounted or dismounted.

Finally, if you're interested in finding out more details, I again recommend taking this question to the Real World Weapons, Armour and Tactics thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?421723-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVIII) as there are some very knowledgeable people there who can fill in the blanks.

[Spiryt]

The knight seems to me an effectively wasted weapon system due to plain cultural blockheadedness, pure and simple.

The mounted French horsemen at Crecy and Agincourt were essentially useless: they were sacrifices wasted against the English archers.

Had they been equipped as "western samurai" -- well-armored men with considerable skill (which they were) but also armed with bows in addition to their melee weapons (which they weren't) and the cultural wherewithal to be able to use both types of weapons flexibly (which they weren't) --

-- then instead of riding over their own archers, shouting "away with this faint-hearted rabble! They only block our advance!", and then dying in the English killing ground, they might have been actually useful, moving forward rapidly on foot to engage the archers in an archery duel. Put the knights in front, so their superior armor would foil a lot of the arrows, and the mass of crossbowmen behind them. Pour arrows into the less-well-armored longbowmen until they'd been properly torn up, then charge in on foot and hew them to pieces in melee.

They might still have lost, but I think it would have given them a lot higher chance of winning than their "arrows are for cowards, charge home against the rabble to show that we're real manly men!" fixation, which just got most of them killed uselessly.

Basically, I'm wondering if there are practical reasons why there are so few "samurai" equivalents in the world, when the samurai functioned quite effectively as melee and missile all-rounders of the most formidable type. My suspicion is that it's mostly cultural -- that there are no practical reasons not to have elite missile/melee troops as the hard-hitting core "special forces," along with combined arms of specialized regular soldiers with bows, spears, etc. etc.

Except that there were plenty of such forces. In central Europe, in particular, mounted crossbowmen were very numerous.

And French knights weren't 'useless' at Crecy, they charged multiple times, one after another, but were being pushed back by superiorly positioned and organized English man at arms and archers...

The popular trope about knights shouting something about 'girly arrows' only to be stopped dead with arrows really needs to go away.

[Wardog]

The knight seems to me an effectively wasted weapon system due to plain cultural blockheadedness, pure and simple.


Sometimes, yes. Some commanders are/were stupid. (Or sensible but misjudged the situation). Some soldiers are/were stupid, and don't follow orders (or followed bad orders when they should have known better).

But that isn't technology dependent. Just because some knights were sometimes used ineffectively doesn't mean knights were a "wasted weapons system" generally.

Any more than the Somme (or Isandlwana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana)) means that riflemen are worthless. Or the Battle of Falkirk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Falkirk) meant spearmen are worthless. Or Pearl Harbor means ships are worthless.

[Closet_Skeleton]

So you're saying that having your elite soldiers -- who are a small proportion of the army in any case -- equipped with a sword AND a bow is literally just as expensive and impractical as equipping every soldier in the U.S. Army with an F22 or tank or super-battleship?

Medieval archers all had swords with their bows. That's not relevant.


Having a knight buy a crossbow and a quiver of arrow

Its not the cost, its the weight. Carrying around a crossbow and a decent polearm on top of armour is a lot of extra weight.


The knight seems to me an effectively wasted weapon system due to plain cultural blockheadedness, pure and simple.

Sorry, but most of your examples of 'blockheadedness' are actually mythical and never happened.


The mounted French horsemen at Crecy and Agincourt were essentially useless: they were sacrifices wasted against the English archers.

Never happened. You're too informed by mythology rather than accurate history.

Agincourt and Crecy were very different battles. At Agincourt, the French knights were mostly on foot, there was no major cavalry action at Agincourt, just a small cavalry skirmish at the start of the battle. Crecy was a little more like the myths, but still very different in reality to how it has been remembered.

French Horsemen were never killed on mass my English archers. This is a myth. Most French casualties at Agincourt were in melee fighting between Footsoldiers.


then instead of riding over their own archers, shouting "away with this faint-hearted rabble! They only block our advance!", and then dying in the English killing ground, they might have been actually useful, moving forward rapidly on foot to engage the archers in an archery duel. Put the knights in front, so their superior armor would foil a lot of the arrows, and the mass of crossbowmen behind them. Pour arrows into the less-well-armored longbowmen until they'd been properly torn up, then charge in on foot and hew them to pieces in melee.

At Agincourt, the French crossbowmen were behind the elite foot soldiers while the English deployed their archers on the melee troops flanks. The Crossbowmen had no effect on the battle because they were too far behind because the French had to advance to deal with the English archers. This was a major tactical mistake.

The French had less missile troops at Agincourt, so they would have lost an archery duel. At Crecy the Englich Archers and French Crossbowmen did have a showdown and the Crossbowmen lost because the bad weather had ruined their weapons and they had had to abandon their pavises in order to increase their marching speed to get them into range.


They might still have lost, but I think it would have given them a lot higher chance of winning than their "arrows are for cowards, charge home against the rabble to show that we're real manly men!" fixation,
which just got most of them killed uselessly.

Again, NEVER HAPPENED.

Most of the guys who actually died at Agincourt were executed after being taken prisoner. Casualty rates among French men at arms/knights at Crecy were probably only 1 in 6.


Basically, I'm wondering if there are practical reasons why there are so few "samurai" equivalents in the world, when the samurai functioned quite effectively as melee and missile all-rounders of the most formidable type. My suspicion is that it's mostly cultural -- that there are no practical reasons not to have elite missile/melee troops as the hard-hitting core "special forces," along with combined arms of specialized regular soldiers with bows, spears, etc. etc.

This question was answered already. Read the thread.

It was cultural, but not because they frowned on ranged weapons because of "chivalry". Its just that horse archers need a certain cultural tradition to train them.

Horse archers (even Samurai) are not equally effective at melee and ranged. Swords are backup weapons. Spear/lance cavalry are better in melee than a horse archer whose drawn his sword.

Japanese Samurai weren't invincible. Their track record against non-Japanese is actually terrible. Its basically two campaigns against Yuan Chinese infantry armies where the Yuan troops did very well on the battlefield but lost the campaign due to logistics.

Then there was Toyotomi's invasion of Korea, but that was a very different kind of Japanese army that didn't rely on horse archers.

Horse archers just didn't beat knights. The Magyar raiding parties fought lots of battles against European heavy cavalry and decided to abandon horse archery and copy the Europeans.

[Brother Oni]

French Horsemen were never killed on mass my English archers. This is a myth. Most French casualties at Agincourt were in melee fighting between Footsoldiers.

I had heard that a large number of casualties were caused by the archers malleting the mired French knights to death with re-purposed lead tipped hammers (they were originally used to hammer in earthwork wooden spikes).


At Crecy the Englich Archers and French Crossbowmen did have a showdown and the Crossbowmen lost because the bad weather had ruined their weapons and they had had to abandon their pavises in order to increase their marching speed to get them into range.

To clarify the bad weather issue, there was a sudden downpour before the battle and while the English archers protected their bowstrings and kept them dry, the Genoese crossbow did nothing to protect their weapons. Bow strings tend to expand and stretch when wet, which reduces the tension and hence the power they can deliver; waxing a bow string helps prevent this, but there's only so much it can do to stop moisture ingress, especially in heavy rain.

[Aedilred]

I had heard that a large number of casualties were caused by the archers malleting the mired French knights to death with re-purposed lead tipped hammers (they were originally used to hammer in earthwork wooden spikes).


From what I recall, a large number of combatants also died from suffocation or drowning, as they ended up face down in the mud and then trampled or otherwise unable to free their faces. In particular, that's how the Duke of York is believed to have died, I think.

[comicshorse]

Indeed but weren't the French Knights down in the mud because the English longbowmen had cut the first wave of Knights horses from under them (simply due to the horses being much less armoured then their riders). Throwing and stunning hundreds of Knights and causing the death throes of the horses to churn the battlefield into a gory mess of mud and blood and bodies

[Bulldog Psion]

Indeed but weren't the French Knights down in the mud because the English longbowmen had cut the first wave of Knights horses from under them (simply due to the horses being much less armoured then their riders). Throwing and stunning hundreds of Knights and causing the death throes of the horses to churn the battlefield into a gory mess of mud and blood and bodies

That's pretty much it.

That was a real command failure, also. Of course, I don't think there really was much by way of command on the French side; it was pretty much a random World of Warcraft battleground group on a grand scale, wasn't it? :smallwink:

[comicshorse]

As I understand it the French King, Charles the Sixth, was old and ill and really incapable of commanding a army in the field anymore. This lead the army to be commanded by a group of the most important noble of France and leadership by committee in war has never been a good idea. Particularly when the committee are champing at the bit to get a crack at the invaders

[Aedilred]

Indeed but weren't the French Knights down in the mud because the English longbowmen had cut the first wave of Knights horses from under them (simply due to the horses being much less armoured then their riders). Throwing and stunning hundreds of Knights and causing the death throes of the horses to churn the battlefield into a gory mess of mud and blood and bodies

The majority of French knights at Agincourt were on foot when the battle started: the ground was already something of a quagmire as the field had been recently ploughed. Attempts to use cavalry certainly didn't help the situation, but it was probably a fairly minor factor in creating the conditions.

There was a problem of leadership on the French side. Boucicaut was a highly capable and experienced commander (and a good friend of Henry V's father, as it happens) and Charles d'Albret probably also knew what he was doing. But on a battlefield swarming with dukes and princes of the blood neither of them really had the status to impose any orders.

Something that probably is worth mentioning, though, is that the French commanders had by now worked out that the English battlefield model was principally a defensive one, and that English armies of the period rarely went on the attack successfully. They were astute enough to see that the field favoured the English and given the French strategic advantage in the campaign as a whole (and the fact that French reinforcements were still trickling in) they were in no hurry to attack. Had Henry followed English military orthodoxy, Agincourt might not have happened at all, and then the campaign would likely have been a dismal failure.

Again, Agincourt contrasts with Crecy in this respect. Where at Crecy an ill-disciplined French wave At Agincourt the English advanced to force an engagement on favourable terms against a French army relatively reluctant to engage, where at Crecy an ill-disciplined French cavalry wave had launched a charge almost at the earliest opportunity.

[Wardog]

ALso probably worth considering:

I can't think of any obvious example of knights failing spectaculatly that could have been improved by the knights pulling out bows and trying to fight as horse-archers.

I think mounted archery requires even more room to manuvour than a cavalry charge does. Trying to charge in shooting and then retreat while still shooting (Parthian style) or rushing around erratically shooting / lassooing people (Hun style) is unlikely to have worked at Crecy or Agincourt, and would have probably made things even worse. (Probably the only horse-archer tactics that would have improved the French knights survivability would be Scythian tactics - i.e. leave and do something more productive, like chase hares).

It might be more useful for them to dismount and fight as foot archers. They would at least have outnumbered the English archers, although specialists are usually better at their specialization than hybrids, so I don't know how that would have worked out.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Horse archer tactics do require a lot of space. Europe was heavily forested at the time while the Steppe was of course, a wide plain empty of trees. Agincourt was basically a patch of empty ground with woods on each side. If cavalry could easily get through woods then the English would have been outflanked and destroyed completely.

Horsemanship techniques are very precise and specialised things. You need decades of training to be a military horseman and training for one tactic is very specific and won't allow you to do other tactics. 18th century and 17th century horse training were completely different styles adapted to the military tactics of the time. A Mongol Horse Archer and a 18th century Hussar who fell through a time warp would probably be utterly incapable of fighting if they swapped weapons and equipment.

Mounted Archers were a thing in late medieval French and English armies. They acted as scouts and dismounted whenever they had to fight. They would have been capable of shooting their bows while mounted, but not in a mobile or accurate way like a true horse archer.


Indeed but weren't the French Knights down in the mud because the English longbowmen had cut the first wave of Knights horses from under them (simply due to the horses being much less armoured then their riders). Throwing and stunning hundreds of Knights and causing the death throes of the horses to churn the battlefield into a gory mess of mud and blood and bodies

No, not at all. (unless you're talking about Crecy which I know little about)

Horses with a lot of momentum behind them are not something that dies easily to an arrow.

Again, there were no horses in large scale at Agincourt.

The French Knights were in the mud because ground turns to mud when lots of people are moving around in it.


That's pretty much it.

No. You're relying on really really out of date scholarship and propaganda.


That was a real command failure, also.

That's sort of true. Henry V was a very good commander. Of course, since he won, we believe that. Henry V also stole a copy of the French Battle plans, which tipped things in his favour tactically.

[Bulldog Psion]

No. You're relying on really really out of date scholarship and propaganda.

Well, all I'll say here is that European knights had to be about the most useless military unit ever devised by the human mind. :smallbiggrin: Useless on horseback, useless on foot, useless for missile combat, useless in melee. And costing a ridiculous amount of money compared to any other kind of soldier at the time. A true example of an early military boondoggle program. :smallamused:

[Dienekes]

Well, all I'll say here is that European knights had to be about the most useless military unit ever devised by the human mind. :smallbiggrin: Useless on horseback, useless on foot, useless for missile combat, useless in melee. And costing a ridiculous amount of money compared to any other kind of soldier at the time. A true example of an early military boondoggle program. :smallamused:


But that is categorically wrong. The European knight was very good on horseback as for the majority of the time it was used it crushed infantry. They were exception on foot by the shear standard that they were incredibly hard to kill. European knights often fought and adapted to larger bows and later guns and remained on the battlefield in some category. They faced horse archers before and did fairly well. They won many battles in the Middle East against an enemy that by your standards should have won incredibly easily since they did use more archers. When they faced the magyars, a horse archer group the magyars switched to their way of doing things.

Really, if we want to go by the poorest showing when confronted with outside opposition, the European Knight fairs much better than the Samurai which you prop up, which quite often loses against anything that wasn't also a samurai.

[Aedilred]

Well, all I'll say here is that European knights had to be about the most useless military unit ever devised by the human mind. :smallbiggrin: Useless on horseback, useless on foot, useless for missile combat, useless in melee. And costing a ridiculous amount of money compared to any other kind of soldier at the time. A true example of an early military boondoggle program. :smallamused:

I'm not sure how you can have reached that conclusion, if I'm honest. Obviously they weren't effective at range since they didn't carry ranged weapons, but every other manner in which you suggest they're useless is just completely false, as people have gone to some lengths in this thread to debunk.

That they were ridiculously expensive is also a major oversimplification. A knight's equipment could be expensive, certainly, but he would pay for all that himself, and wouldn't be remunerated for time spent fighting (except in plunder). If he could afford it he'd also come accompanied by his own retinue which he would also equip and pay for himself. In terms of identifiable monetary outlay, a knight would probably have been cheaper to bring to the battlefield than a mercenary crossbowman, archer or pikeman.

Of course this was only the case because of the structure of society at the time, and a debate could be had over whether it was structured in such a way for the benefit of the knightly class or whether the knightly class was a product of its time. Determining the "true cost" of a knight compared to a professional soldier is going to be almost impossible, though, and well outside the scope of this thread, since apart from anything else the economics of the period were completely different, and the purchasing power of medieval money in comparative terms is already very difficult to determine.

[Bulldog Psion]

Well, I've only ever heard of knights winning against totally unprepared or poor quality opponents.

Archers defeated them, on foot or horseback; pikemen defeated them; halberdiers, such as the Swiss, defeated them; horse archers defeated them.

Defeating poor quality troops or unprepared enemies isn't really a recommendation, because any troops can do the same.

Though I will grant the feudal arrangement lessened the effective cost per knight deployed -- as it was pretty much intended to do.

[Tvtyrant]

Well, I've only ever heard of knights winning against totally unprepared or poor quality opponents.

Largely because it is popular for authors to argue as such. If knights were that bad then the French would not have defeated the English, the First Crusade would have failed and revolutions would have replaced the knights with pikemen much earlier.

The truth is that knights were a flexible, semiprofessional force. They could switch between fighting on foot and on horse, besieging enemies and open battle. They also tended to route most other types of armies, such as pikemen (look at the failure of Flanders to maintain independence despite out numbering the french and using the halberds and pikes popularly seen as their nemesis).

The armies that defeated forces incorporating knights nearly always included them, including the Ottomans and the English. The Hussites were successful without knights, but they did use large numbers of horsemen who were held back until the enemy routed.

[Misery Esquire]

When they faced the magyars, a horse archer group the magyars switched to their way of doing things.


...
Archers defeated them, on foot or horseback; pikemen defeated them; halberdiers, such as the Swiss, defeated them; horse archers defeated them.

Except the horse archers who gave up on being horse archers to take up armour, lance and sword, archers often did not defeat them, well disciplined and equipped pikes and halberds were fairly effective ; but they were largely the exception throughout history, which is why the Swiss and Landsknecht mercenaries are well known and regarded.



Well, I've only ever heard of knights winning against totally unprepared or poor quality opponents.

...

Defeating poor quality troops or unprepared enemies isn't really a recommendation, because any troops can do the same.

So, the Samuari also have no purpose, aside from being an over-valued nobility-elitism unit? Seeing they only had each other, and poorly armed peasants to fight, right?

Also ; against a prepared opponent, you either have enough force that their preparations are irrelevant, have your own preparations, or they have, as the word would indicate, prepared for you. Every military unit in history tries to avoid tackling something that was prepared for them, or suffers the consequences of going into it anyway.

Also, also ; if the French Knights at Agnicourt were archers as well, they wouldn't be using as strong a bow as the English, would have to advance well into the English range, get out their bows, and try to trade volleys having already taken a few to the face. The larger group of archers, ontop of a hill, who have been waiting for the chance to shoot are going to win that trade. Better yet, if the French advanced and tried to shoot, the English knights could've moved to kill them with sword and shield, while their own archers kept firing and the French knights would have to figure out what they wanted to do.

And sure, the answer could be drop the bow and engage the other knights in the melee, but then you have valuable bows lying around to be walked on, soaked, and otherwise mistreated. Taking the time to safely secure the bow means you take another few volleys for free, and then try to fight uphill in the mud anyway. At which point you're probably wondering if you shouldn't have just finished walking up the hill.

[Bulldog Psion]

So, the Samuari also have no purpose, aside from being an over-valued nobility-elitism unit? Seeing they only had each other, and poorly armed peasants to fight, right?


Actually, right here, you cut to the internal comparison that caused me to post this thread in the first place.

The samurai were highly effective hybrids -- melee, horseback, archery. They retained their military value well into the gunpowder era; there are plenty of pictures of samurai firing arquebuses and the like. At the same time, the Japanese foot soldiers -- ashigaru -- were decently trained, operated in formations, and were organized into specialized units (spearmen/pikemen, arquebusiers, archers, etc.). They weren't generally quite as highly trained in one-to-one combat as the samurai, and had lighter armor, but they were fairly effective.

The knights, on the other hand, seemed to start out strong in the 11th and 12th centuries and steadily lost their utility as time went on. In the 17th century, say, both the Europeans and Japanese had muskets and cannon; the samurai still formed a numerous, dangerous, elite force in a Japanese army, while by the 17th century, knights were gone, pretty much totally.

The interesting thing, of course, is that I figure that one-to-one in melee, a 15th or 16th century European knight would have a much better than even chance against a samurai. Slashing weapons pretty much failed automatically against decent plate, while the thrusting sword of the European would likely punch through the lamellar armor of samurai fairly readily.

Now it occurs to me to wonder, though, how much it was logistical also. Perhaps the Japanese were simply better at supplying large numbers of samurai, while the knights relied on a logistical system closer to that of the ancient warband, and simply became superfluous because it was easier to raise large numbers of cavalry by other means when army size ballooned in the 16th and 17th centuries.

[Brother Oni]

The samurai were highly effective hybrids -- melee, horseback, archery.

Only because Japan was extremely isolated, thus their warfare developed in isolation as well. The first time the samurai met an outside force (the first Mongol invasion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan)), they got thrashed and only a typhoon saved them from a regrouping enemy. The second Mongol invasion would have been even more devastating if it wasn't for the Kamikaze (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_(typhoon)) stopping it before it started.

Later on in the Edo, samurai were forbidden from starting fights with European sailors, because they kept losing all the time. Developing your whole fighting culture without outside influences isn't a good idea, since you expect your opponent to fight a certain way.

It's like going into a MMA fight (or worse, a street fight) while only having been taught Queensbury rules boxing. You could be the best boxer inside the boxing world, it's not going to help when a MMA striker knocks your knee out from under you with a roundhouse kick, or someone brings a knife.



The knights, on the other hand, seemed to start out strong in the 11th and 12th centuries and steadily lost their utility as time went on. In the 17th century, say, both the Europeans and Japanese had muskets and cannon; the samurai still formed a numerous, dangerous, elite force in a Japanese army, while by the 17th century, knights were gone, pretty much totally.

Look up the 1575 Battle of Nagashino (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nagashino) where the previously near invincible Takeda cavalry were shattered by entrenched arquebusiers using a rotating fire drill, supported by spearmen.
The main reason why the samurai still persisted that late was that gunpowder weapons weren't integrated (or even available in large numbers) until very late in Japanese history (via trading with the Portuguese then later the Dutch), not until the 16th century Sengoku civil war.

Japan was united by 1603 and closed itself off to the outside world by 1639, so the samurai became paper soldiers by the late 17th Century.



The interesting thing, of course, is that I figure that one-to-one in melee, a 15th or 16th century European knight would have a much better than even chance against a samurai. Slashing weapons pretty much failed automatically against decent plate, while the thrusting sword of the European would likely punch through the lamellar armor of samurai fairly readily.

So katana can't thrust?

Real world weapons and armour don't behave like in D&D: plate is not automatically better than lamellar armour (which often includes metal strips or a metal breastplate), and most bladed weapons can both thrust and slash (unlike in D&D where they're almost exclusively slashing or piercing). Katana have issues getting through lamellar (in the real world, swords are backup weapons), but the samurai developed weapons and fighting styles which let them overcome an armoured opponent, much like the Europeans did.

[Misery Esquire]

Actually, right here, you cut to the internal comparison that caused me to post this thread in the first place.

The samurai were highly effective hybrids -- melee, horseback, archery. They retained their military value well into the gunpowder era; there are plenty of pictures of samurai firing arquebuses and the like. At the same time, the Japanese foot soldiers -- ashigaru -- were decently trained, operated in formations, and were organized into specialized units (spearmen/pikemen, arquebusiers, archers, etc.). They weren't generally quite as highly trained in one-to-one combat as the samurai, and had lighter armor, but they were fairly effective.

The knights, on the other hand, seemed to start out strong in the 11th and 12th centuries and steadily lost their utility as time went on. In the 17th century, say, both the Europeans and Japanese had muskets and cannon; the samurai still formed a numerous, dangerous, elite force in a Japanese army, while by the 17th century, knights were gone, pretty much totally.

Alright, I'd like to address a main point here ; Samurai through the ages are really a greatly varied selection, while you're selecting a single set of knights and declaring they remained the same. Late gunpowder in Europe, "knights" fell off because the same people who made up their numbers were joining various other armoured cavalry groups, from reiters (if I got that right), to later dragoons and cuirassiers, who remained relevant in that they could swing battles in the Napoleonic wars, and remained in use up until World War 1 in colonial wars. The Great War of course ended any chance of their further use.

But, if we're only going with whichever persons continue to carry the same title, we could call the first Knights from (they started sometime before, assumedly, but we'll use the example) the First Crusade all the way to General Sir John Nicholas Reynolds Houghton GCB, CBE, ADC Gen., whom wields whatever he cares to select from the current British armoury.

I do not believe that it has anything to do with Europe's logistic core, seeing as they managed to run myriad wars in distant countries, but I don't have a full grasp of European logistics throughout the ages, so I leave that to others.

Edit :: Actually, strange side note that Brother Oni reminded me of ; both Japan and Britain have been saved from invasion via storms a fair number of times. They have also been successfully invaded but still, island nations for the win? :smalltongue:

[Aedilred]

Actually, right here, you cut to the internal comparison that caused me to post this thread in the first place.

The samurai were highly effective hybrids -- melee, horseback, archery. They retained their military value well into the gunpowder era; there are plenty of pictures of samurai firing arquebuses and the like. At the same time, the Japanese foot soldiers -- ashigaru -- were decently trained, operated in formations, and were organized into specialized units (spearmen/pikemen, arquebusiers, archers, etc.). They weren't generally quite as highly trained in one-to-one combat as the samurai, and had lighter armor, but they were fairly effective.

The knights, on the other hand, seemed to start out strong in the 11th and 12th centuries and steadily lost their utility as time went on. In the 17th century, say, both the Europeans and Japanese had muskets and cannon; the samurai still formed a numerous, dangerous, elite force in a Japanese army, while by the 17th century, knights were gone, pretty much totally.

Knighthood peaked around the 11th-12th centuries, probably, but it got started a lot earlier than that: probably around the mid-late 8th century. Taking that into account and even buying into the exaggerated narrative of knights being driven off the field by archers and gunpowder in the late middle ages they still remained the dominant battlefield force in Europe for half a millennium pretty much continuously, which is pretty good going: comparable to the hoplite or the Marian legionary, or indeed to the samurai in the hybrid role you're trying to push.

But it seems to me that this narrative of knightly uselessness is not only incorrect but slightly confused in its targets, too. In terms of battlefield role and equipment, what's the practical difference between a medieval man-at-arms and an early modern cuirassier or gendarme? (the etymology of "gendarme" in fact being identical to that of "man-at-arms"). Or for that matter the difference between a knight and the the companion cavalry of Alexander or near eastern cataphracts? The Roman equites class in the Republic in fact so closely resembles the institution of knighthood that the conventional English translation for its members is "knights".

Not all melee-equipped heavy cavalry have been products of the same social system (i.e. the "feudal system", however imprecise and/or inaccurate that term may be) and therefore in strict terms they are not all "knights". But they have all tended to carry similar equipment (i.e. a horse, usually a heavy one, heavy armour, lances) and occupy a similar battlefield role. Looking at it from that broader perspective, they remained a major feature of battlefields from before the invention of the stirrup until the prevalence of gunpowder artillery and rifled small arms made the horse obsolete as a weapon of war, with only the occasional usually fairly short interruption. That knights specifically stopped appearing on the field in numbers was at least as much because the social structure which had supported their existence was disintegrating and being reformed as because they lost effectiveness on the field - and, as Kinslayer says above, the knights themselves transitioned to the successor forms of heavy cavalry which for various reasons are not generally known by the same terminlogy.

[Closet_Skeleton]

(look at the failure of Flanders to maintain independence despite out numbering the french and using the halberds and pikes popularly seen as their nemesis).


Flanders didn't fail to maintain independence, it never had any interest in independence. It was able to successfully negotiate very generous and limited forms of de jure loyalty to France. Even when it lost wars against the French King it still retained most of its privileges. In the War of the Burgundian inheritance it separated from France entirely, only being reconquered for short periods.



Also, also ; if the French Knights at Agnicourt were archers as well, they wouldn't be using as strong a bow as the English, would have to advance well into the English range, get out their bows, and try to trade volleys having already taken a few to the face. The larger group of archers, ontop of a hill, who have been waiting for the chance to shoot are going to win that trade.

There was no hill at Agincourt, that was Crecy. Agincourt was a flat field with the archers arranged on the English (foot) Knight's flanks.




The samurai were highly effective hybrids -- melee, horseback, archery. They retained their military value well into the gunpowder era; there are plenty of pictures of samurai firing arquebuses and the like. At the same time, the Japanese foot soldiers -- ashigaru -- were decently trained, operated in formations, and were organized into specialized units (spearmen/pikemen, arquebusiers, archers, etc.). They weren't generally quite as highly trained in one-to-one combat as the samurai, and had lighter armor, but they were fairly effective.

Ashigaru and Samurai are simplistic distinctions that may not have been all the important at the time. Its only with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's reforms to the cast system that Samurai became an important rank. For most of the Sengoku Jidai Ashigaru and Samurai were both ranks of Bushi and basically interchangeable.

A Samurai firing an arquebus does not show that Samurai as a troop type are still an effective warrior. It shows that the social class has adapted. The European Knight class also adapted and stuck around to this very day, while Samurai were disbanded and replaced by a European Honours system in the Meiji restoration.


The knights, on the other hand, seemed to start out strong in the 11th and 12th centuries and steadily lost their utility as time went on. In the 17th century, say, both the Europeans and Japanese had muskets and cannon; the samurai still formed a numerous, dangerous, elite force in a Japanese army, while by the 17th century, knights were gone, pretty much totally.

I already answered this point, which if you had read your own thread you would know.


You're cheating here by using a woolly definition of Samurai. The Samurai was not the same thing from the Heian to the Meiji Restoration. For most of that time period the word Samurai wasn't even used. You're defining knight as "military horsemen called Knights" and Samurai as "Japanese elite soldiers who may not have been called Samurai". By that logic you could stretch the definition of Knight to include who-ever you want and say Knights lasted for longer.

Samurai did not remain constant from the 11th to 17th centuries and Knights never formed the majority of European cavalry.


Knighthood peaked around the 11th-12th centuries, probably, but it got started a lot earlier than that: probably around the mid-late 8th century.

Military knighthood is basically a thing of the 12-13th centuries. In the 11th century, Knight was just one of the words used for French Heavy Cavalry and had no particular meaning. The concept of Knights was codified by the military monastic orders that arose in the first half of the 12th century and was then secularised to non-monastic noblemen. After the 13th century, Men-At-Arms (aka professional soldiers who are functionally identical to knights but didn't always have the social gravitas) made up more and more of the cavalry proportion of the army but this was basically just a return to the 11th century norm where who was or wasn't a knight was irrelevant. Chivalry was developed in the 12th century as a way of limiting the violence associated with France's endemic state of Civil War that was finally ended by Philip August in the 13th century (creating a era of only periodic civil war that lasted until Napoleon).

There probably never was an actual point in history where French heavy cavalry were actually 100% Knights as we understand the idea, but something close to that probably existed at some indeterminable point in the late 12 century.

Most of the nobles of Europe were basically bandits who set themselves up with some land in the chaos of the 10th century and only very slowly became a codified caste. There was always some level of social mobility where peasants who joined the army as professional soldiers could rise up to become knights and lords.

Chivalry basically evolved into later European concepts of honour and Knights kept a battlefield role as officers, so the Knight never really vanished from the battlefield. What happened was that Knight stopped being synonymous with heavily armoured shock cavalry, but the issue is that in fact it never was synonymous, hence Men-At-Arms and the ill defined roles of the 11th century. Samurai are similar, we talk about Lamellar Armoured bow and Tachi carrying horsemen and Samurai as though these are synonyms but they aren't. The first mention of Samurai refers to a type of clerk, for most of Japanese history the world simply wasn't used for the elite horsemen of the Japanese military. Samurai could be a social caste of Bureaucrats and land owning noble lords like in the Edo Period, officers leading units of lower ranked troops, elite troops themselves or any number of other things.

[Bulldog Psion]

Yes, well, I don't really fully count the Edo period as part of military history, because it was more of a combination police state and all-encompassing, extremely vicious and serious kabuki play, if I may put it that way.

And yes, the lines between Ashigaru and samurai were a bit blurred; that's the characteristic, really, of feudalism as a living military and social system, so to speak. Social mobility occurred via battlefield distinction, among other methods. The same was essentially true of Europe.

Generally, a very sharp caste dividing line only emerges once the original function of the feudal hierarchy has passed away. When the knight is a heavy cavalryman also, the heavy cavalryman is very close to being a knight. The knight only emerges as a distinct and hermetic phenomenon once the military role has dwindled almost to nothing, and it is a mere title of social dominance.

The German army in World War 2 is a pretty good example of feudal remnants surviving into modern times. The "vons" pretty much all ended up as officers; yet not all officers were "vons" and a commoner Generaloberst outranked an aristocratic Generalmajor in the Wehrmacht, say.

[Brother Oni]

Alright, I'd like to address a main point here ; Samurai through the ages are really a greatly varied selection, while you're selecting a single set of knights and declaring they remained the same. Late gunpowder in Europe, "knights" fell off because the same people who made up their numbers were joining various other armoured cavalry groups, from reiters (if I got that right), to later dragoons and cuirassiers, who remained relevant in that they could swing battles in the Napoleonic wars, and remained in use up until World War 1 in colonial wars. The Great War of course ended any chance of their further use.

Actually cavalry were still being used as late as WW2: the Charge at Krojanty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty) was when Polish cavalry units encountered German forces. The Poles were in the process of being converted to mechanised infantry, so still had horses, but were otherwise equipped with modern weapons including anti-tank rifles.
They were doing quite well until German armoured cars turned up and chased them off.

Some US forces used horses in the recent Afghanistan conflict with the various allied forces (link (http://www.indepthinfo.com/afghanistan/horse-soldiers.htm)), simply because motorised vehicles couldn't negotiate the rough terrain.



Edit :: Actually, strange side note that Brother Oni reminded me of ; both Japan and Britain have been saved from invasion via storms a fair number of times. They have also been successfully invaded but still, island nations for the win? :smalltongue:

I'd like to point out that the last time the UK was successfully invaded, it was before time immemorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_immemorial) by a bunch of French Vikings, so it doesn't really count. :smalltongue:

Also having been through a typhoon or two, the UK's wind and rain doesn't really compare. :smalltongue:


Yes, well, I don't really fully count the Edo period as part of military history, because it was more of a combination police state and all-encompassing, extremely vicious and serious kabuki play, if I may put it that way.

And yes, the lines between Ashigaru and samurai were a bit blurred; that's the characteristic, really, of feudalism as a living military and social system, so to speak. Social mobility occurred via battlefield distinction, among other methods. The same was essentially true of Europe.

Except that you were comparing 17th Century samurai which is all Edo period except for the first 4 years.

The distinction between ashigaru and samurai is even more blurred with the lower class samurai typically marrying with the peasantry. There were even samurai who split their time between farming their fields and fighting for their lord (the ji-samurai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji-samurai)), much like Roman soldier farmers.

After one of the sword hunts (I think the 1588 Great Taiko Sword Hunt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_hunt)), this division became clear cut with people only farming or fighting; ashigaru became full samurai and the ji-samurai class was abolished.

[Aedilred]

I'd like to point out that the last time the UK was successfully invaded, it was before time immemorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_immemorial) by a bunch of French Vikings, so it doesn't really count. :smalltongue:

Also having been through a typhoon or two, the UK's wind and rain doesn't really compare. :smalltongue:

An argument could be made for the Glorious Revolution in 1688. But to what extent that was an invasion and to what extent an internal coup making extensive use of foreign troops is highly debatable, and would probably stray too far into politics for comfort.

A similar argument could be made for the invasion of Louis VIII in 1216, but that probably doesn't count as successful given it didn't stick, even if we treat it as an invasion.

[factotum]

I'd like to point out that the last time the UK was successfully invaded, it was before time immemorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_immemorial) by a bunch of French Vikings, so it doesn't really count. :smalltongue:


Yeah, but he was specifically referring to invasions which were *not* successful due to storms. He might have been referring to the Spanish Armada, although I'm pretty sure they'd already been beaten and were running for home when the storms got them.

[comicshorse]

Yeah, but he was specifically referring to invasions which were *not* successful due to storms. He might have been referring to the Spanish Armada, although I'm pretty sure they'd already been beaten and were running for home when the storms got them.

There was more than one Armada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Spanish_Armada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Spanish_Armada

Bad weather, England's first line of defence :smallsmile:

[Wardog]

[QUOTE=Bulldog Psion;19895259]Defeating poor quality troops or unprepared enemies isn't really a recommendation, because any troops can do the same.

Knights are cavalry. (Well, except when they're dismounted and acting as heavy infantry. Or dismounted and using their lances as pikes. Or officers. Or administrators).

One of the advantages of cavalry is that its particularly good at choosing its targets and focusing on the poor quality or unprepared enemies.

Another advantage is forcing their enemies to prepare to defend against cavalry, rather than doing whatever they were actually intending to do. (A pike formation formed up to recieve a charge - or musketeers formed into a square - isn't marching to where they are needed, assaulting a strong point, etc).

[Bulldog Psion]

Yes, that's true.

Interestingly, a lot of military history reading has persuaded me that cavalry is generally weaker than infantry. I know it had a lot of status and all that, and the reputation of being a thunderbolt-like force on the battlefield, but its main advantage is just speed; if the infantry stands firm, the cavalry is usually baffled.

That, of course, is partly because horses won't charge home into a solid mass of people most of the time. War rhinos would probably work better. :smallwink: If they could be trained, which they probably couldn't due to tiny, aggressive brains.

Cavalry: a strictly second-tier weapons system treated like a first-tier system because of its aristocratic associations.

[Dienekes]

Yes, that's true.

Interestingly, a lot of military history reading has persuaded me that cavalry is generally weaker than infantry. I know it had a lot of status and all that, and the reputation of being a thunderbolt-like force on the battlefield, but its main advantage is just speed; if the infantry stands firm, the cavalry is usually baffled.

That, of course, is partly because horses won't charge home into a solid mass of people most of the time. War rhinos would probably work better. :smallwink: If they could be trained, which they probably couldn't due to tiny, aggressive brains.

Cavalry: a strictly second-tier weapons system treated like a first-tier system because of its aristocratic associations.

And this is over simplified to the point of being just wrong.

The Roman legions, about as dedicated an infantry force as you could ask for regularly lost to the cavalry of the Scythians and the Persians until they hired them as mercenaries to deal with their weakness. Before the formation of the legion the cavalry of Hannibal was giving them trouble, not just the elephants either, the straight cavalry.

Alexander the Great's victories regularly were the result of the exceptional mobility of his heavy cavalry. Defeating the very well trained Persian infantry and cavalry of his time.

The campaigns of Belisarius was largely won on the back of heavy cavalry, same with his successor Narses, though admittedly, Narses made more use of his infantry than Belisarius did.

Hell, even in Medieval Europe it wasn't until 15th century that infantry pike squares could regularly withstand a mounted charge. Before that, infantry, even well trained infantry, beating cavalry was considered the amazing exception, not the rule.

[factotum]

Even if it were true that cavalry is weaker in combat than infantry, the additional mobility offered by the horse is a huge battlefield advantage if you use it properly. Think about it: your infantry square with pikemen round the edge might be largely invulnerable to a cavalry charge, but they're not very mobile. The cavalry can just bypass them and strike weaker units in the back, or attack your supply lines, and there's practically nothing they can do about it.

[Brother Oni]

Cavalry: a strictly second-tier weapons system treated like a first-tier system because of its aristocratic associations.

The Mongols would like to disagree with you on that one.

Can I ask whether you've actually stood next to a person on a horse? The height and manoeuvrability advantages are undeniable, let alone the extra force generated when over a tonne of man and horse are in motion (although I concede that stirrups were a critical part of that).

Even in the Napoleonic wars, cavalry were a threat if the infantry weren't in square formation, simply because they could get between the soldiers, disperse their formation, then pick them off one by one.

[comicshorse]

Even in the Napoleonic wars, cavalry were a threat if the infantry weren't in square formation, simply because they could get between the soldiers, disperse their formation, then pick them off one by one.

Or if artillery were present Cavalry could be deployed to force the infantry into nice hittable squares where every cannon ball would hit multiple soldiers. If the infantry tried to disperse to avoid the artillery fire the cavalry would ride them down

[Brother Oni]

Or if artillery were present Cavalry could be deployed to force the infantry into nice hittable squares where every cannon ball would hit multiple soldiers. If the infantry tried to disperse to avoid the artillery fire the cavalry would ride them down

Thus the power of combined arms. :smallbiggrin:

There's a scene in one of the Sharpe episodes where a French general explains this using peas on a plate as he's forced to attack with only infantry. He later retreats when Sharpe fools him into believing that the British have dragoons and artillery (the experimental Artillery Corp in fancy dress, using newfangled Congreve rockets) on top of his regular skirmishers.

[Gnoman]

Even in the Napoleonic wars, cavalry were a threat if the infantry weren't in square formation, simply because they could get between the soldiers, disperse their formation, then pick them off one by one.

Napoleonic Wars? Try World War One. Whenever the trench lines were broken enough to get troops to less-broken ground, and in areas where the trenches didn't cover, horse cavalry was used with deadly effect, including several mounted charges.

[Dienekes]

The Mongols would like to disagree with you on that one.

Interestingly, the one major defeat that the Mongols suffered in their expansion was against the Bulgars at Samara Bend. And while the exact equipment of the Bulgars is under some dispute, the few descriptions of the battle we do have seems to imply that the Bulgars were using melee focused cavalry.

[Bulldog Psion]

Or if artillery were present Cavalry could be deployed to force the infantry into nice hittable squares where every cannon ball would hit multiple soldiers. If the infantry tried to disperse to avoid the artillery fire the cavalry would ride them down

That tactic was used as early as the Battle of Marignano in 1515, with Swiss pikemen gradually reduced by alternate French cavalry charges and artillery fire. The French took almost as many casualties as the Swiss, though, according to some accounts, even though they technically won.

[Wardog]

Cavalry: a strictly second-tier weapons system treated like a first-tier system because of its aristocratic associations.

In addition to what the others have said, I think it is actually the reverse of this.

Cavalry often has a bad reputation because due to its aristocratic associations. Most of the the examples I can think of of cavalry doing stupid things (knights charging recklesly, samurai challenging the Mongols to single combat, lack of discipline in the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War, etc) have been examples of aristocrats putting their honour (or ego) ahead of sensible tactics.

However, non-aristocratic cavalry (and aristocratic cavalry too, when they act more sensibly) can be devestatingly effective, and played a critical role in many battles.

[Aedilred]

In addition to what the others have said, I think it is actually the reverse of this.

Cavalry often has a bad reputation because due to its aristocratic associations. Most of the the examples I can think of of cavalry doing stupid things (knights charging recklesly, samurai challenging the Mongols to single combat, lack of discipline in the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War, etc) have been examples of aristocrats putting their honour (or ego) ahead of sensible tactics.

However, non-aristocratic cavalry (and aristocratic cavalry too, when they act more sensibly) can be devestatingly effective, and played a critical role in many battles.

The aristocratic associations of knights (and heavy cavalry in general) have also probably led to a less favourable historiographical interpretation of them, too. For obvious reasons to do with social and political trends, Whig-style history (and indeed post-Whig history) tend to enjoy pointing to examples of knightly blunders as examples of their obsolescene and that of the traditional aristocracy in general. For some time, they've been less likely to get a sympathetic reading from a modern historian than the plucky commoner-professional/peasant-underdogs who defeat them, and that attitude has seeped through into popular culture.

[comicshorse]

In addition to what the others have said, I think it is actually the reverse of this.

Cavalry often has a bad reputation because due to its aristocratic associations. Most of the the examples I can think of of cavalry doing stupid things (knights charging recklesly, samurai challenging the Mongols to single combat, lack of discipline in the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War, etc) have been examples of aristocrats putting their honour (or ego) ahead of sensible tactics.

However, non-aristocratic cavalry (and aristocratic cavalry too, when they act more sensibly) can be devestatingly effective, and played a critical role in many battles.

Though in the example that most readily springs to mind of this (or at least springs to my mind) the battle of Naseby may have demonstrated Prince Rupert's cavalry ill discipline but the battle was still won by the disciplined Parliamentarian cavalry

[Aedilred]

Though in the example that most readily springs to mind of this (or at least springs to my mind) the battle of Naseby may have demonstrated Prince Rupert's cavalry ill discipline but the battle was still won by the disciplined Parliamentarian cavalry

Indeed, and it's worth bearing in mind that while ill-discipline was a problem for the royalist cavalry throughout the war, their actual cavalry charges (especially those coordinated by Rupert) were rarely if ever unsuccessful. Indeed they were usually victims of their own success, in that having broken enemy lines they were unable to regroup quickly enough, while Cromwell was able to keep his horsemen in hand better and thus enable them to charge again against a new opponent. This was the case at Naseby, where having completely shattered Ireton's wing with a charge, the cavalry set off in pursuit and were thus unavailable until after Cromwell had already trapped most of the rest of the royalist army and started to roll it up. As you say, it was not the ineffectiveness of cavalry that stands out so much as the difference in discipline between the cavalry on each side.

Rupert was a fine commander for the most part (indeed, he was generally successful in anything to which he turned his hand) whose reputation probably isn't as lofty as it might be for a few reasons: a slight lack of originality (he was essentially a disciple of Gustavus Adolphus); that his side lost the war (thus resulting in historiographical opinion later being biased against him); and that his career coincided with that of some bona fide greats - Condé, Turenne and Cromwell himself, among others. Also, Marston Moor was a major mistake, if I think a forgivable one at the time. Although his flamboyance and title has made him the archetypal "cavalier", it's worth noting he was actually one of the most experienced and, to a degree, professional, commanders on the royalist side.

[comicshorse]

"The only thing that cavalry can be relied on to do is to gallop too far and too fast." - Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington :smallcool: