shootist70 wrote...
This idea of armies full of knights in full plate slugging it out on foot belongs to the movies and computer games only. Where did you get your ideas about history from? The Total War games? Some other RTS?
Must be why I talked about the non-knights footmen also. Maybe you should check your reading abilities, or simply not use selective reading.
It just didn't happen in reality. Most infantry of the period are found fighting in lighter armours - not just because full plate was more expensive and the province of nobility, but also because heavier armours are more suited to mounted cavalry who have more mobility, who won't tire as quickly, and who can withdraw faster. When heavily armoured shock infantry is used its purpose is to break enemy formations and they were always supported by other infantry types who would exploit the gaps created.
It's true that heavy armour was easier to use by mounted warriors, was more tiring, more prone to heat and the like.
This doesn't mean at all that plate armour was not designed to withstand prolonged hand to hand fighting, which was the original point I'm disputing. The very design of plate armour makes it obvious that preventing blows from hand to hand fighting was the basis - which is why they bothered with covering the inner joints in protective chainmail, which is not something you need against distant attack or in the few seconds a charge crashes onto a line, but only during actual toe to toe combat where the enemy has the time to aim for these weak points.
Tiring more quickly is certainly a disadvantage. But having much improved protection is a large advantage, and that's the very point of having armour.
It's obvious that you use heavy infantry or cavalry for breaking formations and charges, because their heavy armour make them better at it. It doesn't mean they are not supposed to fight in mélée - the formation doesn't necessarily break, and infantry at the very least has to actually fight once they have charged and are in contact.
Did you read what I posted? Did you understand it? I'll reiterate - footsoldiers in full plate tire quickly and need to maintain momentum and formation cohesion to break enemy formations and so avoid lengthy melee combat that they have neither the mobility or stamina for. That's exactly why they failed at Agincourt, and why they were overcome by mostly unarmoured enemies - because due to the conditions they could not maintain momentum and cohesion.
Did you read what I answered ? They made ridiculous mistakes, allowing the english to play on their weaknesses. It doesn't prove that plate armour is unsuitable for mélée fighting, it proves that inane tactics make you lose a battle.
Also, the simple fact that the bulk of the french army was formed of heavily armoured men-at-arms just show how ridiculous your previous argument that "infantry from that period didn't wear plate armour" is.
You basically called me an idiot that take my idea of historical battle from Medieval Total War, say that infantry by large didn't use plate armour, and then you use right after that as an example a battle that included thousands of heavy armoured infantry forming a sizable chunk, if not the majority, of the army. Hello consistency ?
This is why the swiss pikemen were so successful. It wasn't simply 'discipline' alone, it was their disciplined use of tactics. Namely to maintain mobility and so be able to refuse their flanks to fast moving cavalry and also to outflank slower moving infantry. That was the reason they fought mostly without armour. In this way they didn't suffer the weaknesses usually associated with phalanx-style tactics. That's also why they were able to defeat heavily armoured opponents so often - they were more mobile. Are you beginning to understand?
I understand. That's about exactly what I said : they were disciplined. This is what made them able to use all these tactics without making a mess. Less discplined pikemen were slaughtered by swordsmen when they lose their formation.
By the way, the Swiss pikemen were outclassed later by the tercio organisaiton, which centered around ARMOURED infantry, to be replaced by the then-largely improved firearms making armour more and more obsolete.
As for sources, I'm not here to educate you. You can find these descriptions in most battle accounts. Do your own reading.
I'm not the one looking like I need to be educated. Actually, battle accounts and history show that heavy armour were seen as desirable. It shows that heavy armour were actually constantly improved for a thousand years to answer to the specifics problems and weapons of each era. It shows that sure, there were drawback about wearing very heavy armour, and sometimes it paid to lighten them (like during the Crusades), but that they were still considered very powerful and useful for fighting.
What I see for now is just you pretending it worked that way and, despite many requests for sources, not giving any. Everything data elsewhere I had put my hand on tend to prove the opposite and yet again, the very design of plate armour is based on deflecting strikes, which would be useful only during prolonged mélée fighting - particularly all the refinement in deflecting downward strikes toward the neck, which would simply not happen to a horseman that just charged and went back.
If you're going to pretend that the very design and the actual use by soldiers are all wrong, you'll require more than simply you saying so.
Modifié par Akka le Vil, 06 octobre 2010 - 11:50 .
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