Sword vs axe then sword is narrowly favourable. Put a shield into the equation then the Axe over a sword by a large margin. Axe is high offence. Shield's is literally main function is active Defence. Mind I would rather a mace over axe or sword out of preference. I like clubbing, something satisfying about it.
I disagree with assumption for bludgeoning/blunt weapons like maces not requiring training or thought working on instinct not knowing better is to put all their force into the swing & do as much damage in one big blow. Any one can use a club/mace because well it a weight on a stick but to use well I say that is another matter. I Use half heated blows that are plenty enough to mortally injure or kill if you not where protective gear with non Hardened softer puffy material to disperse most of the impact. I tend to use relatively large arc of circles & figures of 8 to keep then enemy at bay in the initial early contact. The amount people trained that flinch who are use to mace twirling around near their face by having your elbow & wrist fixed neutral. While you sway the mace around like a fie hose with your body & shoulder facing the held side to the enemy. The end padded weight alone if it hits a shield or anything some one is wielding & watch it get flung out their hand our they fall flat on their back side. Your parry is non existent but twirl it around near them & they are forced to defend from the mace. Once you knock their curve & flick the mace head back to them. You feel ridiculous twirl weighted pole around with fixed elbow but few are willing to step forward into that & if they do you shift or reverse away from them. They are so unwilling to be hit by looping swing weight weighted arc. If you get surprised you to the away side they & slam the club to the side. Most try to get in close from the beginning & deliver 1 big blow. Don't do that unless if you F up & they chose to come in close distance because a full pelted swing of a weight will do worse then a sword cut. A cut can be patched up or sewn together a mace shatters bone & tissue with out the padding I put on. You can't put a caved in skull back together. Shield is a 1 handed maces best friend. 2 Handed mace I'd prefer a fair bit of Harness/Armour.
In first Caliphate their army main strength as an army that each person all of them at least equal to a general in one on one compat. Especially, when it is very important in trabile warfare before Islam. Infantry had unusual way if fighting and they had organizational problems with discipline which got overcome by few tactics and how good they are on average on a personal level and in small groups. Thus personal skills matters but it depends.
Until the Revolution in Russia there was a tradition of the “Wall on Wall” bare-knuckle brawl, it was the highlight of the Maslenitsa Festival, pre-lent. Two groups of 12 to 24 men would line-up, shoulder to shoulder, opposing each other. Each man would engage the man directly in front. Once your opponent was knocked down to the ground you were free to assist your comrades on either side of you. You were not allowed to wear long sleeve’s, because in medieval times some unscrupulous people used to hide horseshoes in the sleeves. These fights would be between two neighboring villages, towns, even noble houses. And if my family is typical, and there were grizzled old crusty battlefield hardened veterans in the family, they would effectively family “drill instructors”. Grandpa would be teaching boxing, wrestling, marksmanship, and assorted fieldcraft skills(trapping, tracking, hunting, shelter construction). It was hard, but there was an unbelievable level of euphoria of accomplishment and self confidence, whenever you mastered the skill.
Yes. One of the Eastern Roman generals noted one out of every ten archers would be good. During the Hundred Years War, the English archers carried many battles, and the French continued to fight; it only took one loss similar in scale, the Battle of Patay, to knock the English permanently out of France. They simply could not replace their veteran longbowmen. The training required to weild a warbow effectively is not found in a typical levee. The English required all combat age men to practice the longbow in order to have a ready reserve for this peculiar skill.
For my perspective on the subject I'm a retired infantry sergeant of the Canadian Forces and I've taught on a fair number of basic and infantry courses over the years. I think Matt is underestimating the amount of time it would take to train a complete novice in combat skills for even the simpler weapons. Maybe he's going on personal experience where he was able to pick up a spear and learned how to use it in a day. But this is probably after he'd been training in fencing or HEMA for some years so he had a lot of complimentary skills and physical conditioning that had primed him for the task. But dealing with raw recruits who have no previous experience with weapons or fighting? Just getting them to march in step can take a week or more. I can teach a new soldier how to do the drills with a gun so he's be safe on a static range in about 2-3 days and be able to fire and move across an open field in about 10-14 days but trench and house clearing? 5-6 weeks or even more from first time holding the gun to the point I'd trust them covering my back in a basic stack. And that's assuming I'd be able to train them non-stop with no other training or work interfering. It's not just a question of physical ability. Getting them past mental barriers of dealing with noise, confusion and being knocked around. As Matt mentioned bayonet training is pretty minimal these days but pugil fighting is still common as it lets the troops get used to being physically targeted. It may sound silly to someone who hasn't been through it but the first pujil session for most troops has them baffled as they try to internalize the concept, "This guys is hitting me! Seriously is no one seeing him hit me? He's hitting me. What makes him think he is allowed to hit me?" That's why military recruiters these days like to see people that have been part of a contact sport like football, rugby or hockey. They've been in an environment of working together with other people and have taken a few hits along the way to get them past the mental barrier of realizing that yes, other people can smack you around, and no, it's not the end of the world or justification for a panic attack if they do. That said, a paint ball champion can be a nightmare to deal with as they've usually collected a string of bad habits that would get them killed in a real fire fight. As mentioned by Matt, historically people from farms were preferred as there was a lot of hard physical labour involved so they'd have some muscular development and some of the work they'd done would have had a "wax on, wax off" complimentary training value. If you used a pitchfork to stab and toss several acres worth of straw or hay onto a wagon that's not too different from using a spear or bayonet. And clearing brush or relaying a hedge row with a bill hook may not be a perfect analogy for swinging a sword or mace but it would give you a head start for concepts like edge alignment and economy of motion so you're not winding up like you're swinging for the fences.
I agree. It took us 8 weeks to make grunts, 8 months more to learn a specialty.. I entered schooled in WW1, WW2 and Korea. We fought. I was the Oldman. 11c takes90 days.
This makes sense to me. I find the idea of trying someone to be militarily effective with a spear or gun in a day quite dubious, assuming no previous experience. I'm sure in desperation people did it, & it could work ok for some folks who have a knack for fighting, but most soldiers trained in a day would be terrible on the field. Personally, I'm an amateur scholar of military history who used to spar regularly a while back & still does solo practice with swords, shields, & sticks. Despite familiarity with fencing fundamentals & extensive knowledge of historical martial practices, I wouldn't be effective in war with a spear or gun after day of training. There's no way. I've shot an AR-15 & other guns on a couple different occasions. With another day of training, I might manage putting bullets in the correct general area & executing basic orders, but that's about it. I've been practicing with staves & spears on & off for most of my life & can perform a variety of techniques. I could fight with a spear as part of some medieval-type army, but I wouldn't be effective because I don't know how to move or fight in coordination with other people or how to fight in armor. I'm also not very good at all at spear fencing, & would get rolled by anyone with modest skill. Late-medieval armies may or may not have done much training proper, but the folks who made quality soldiers extensively practiced relevant skills in shooting guilds, hunting, tournaments, formal & informal sparring, & so on. Some of Renaissance soldiers were, as Cesare d'Evoli claimed, drawn by the sound of the drum & ignorant of the art of fencing, but others had training &/or experience, & presumably mentored the newcomers.
@@catsultan949 Paintball and airsoft can be useful for teaching basics of movement but competitive paintballers will get in the habit of taking risks because there isn't really any penalty beyond the minor embarrassment of losing a match. In the Canadian military we use a system of 9mm marker ammunition that's higher velocity and can break the skin if you don't have the right protective padding. We train with helmets and frag vests and extra protective equipment is provided for the face, neck, groin and knees but some of the advanced trainers will deliberately target the unprotected part of the legs if they see someone going Rambo. Pain can be a useful teaching tool.
The Rambo part gave me a smile... I got 4 months of infantery training, (and 6 months for AAA) and thats long ago. During an exercise we were "clearing" a farm complex. I was put in front in the beginning and so we started. All went well i thought, and suddenly i was alone and had almost reached the end of the complex. I did not get any complaints by the NCO for not taking cover or anything like that, but for not waiting and instead keeping on going. "You don't need to do that alone, you are not Rambo, you are an infanterist" i was told 😁. Never did that again. The most fitting quote to that i found is from the YT channel "military history visualized". He often says "War is a team effort" to counter people with a movie or game view on war. Paintball and airsoft were not that common here back then, and to this day i have tried neither, so weren't the reason for my mistake. Adrenalin and focussing on the correct movements and possible hiding spaces for me and an opponent had my brain completely occupied. Comparable to paintball and airsoft, i think if you look at the 3 gun competitions the US has, i would think that they also have plenty of "bad habits" you would need to untrain to make them into infanterists. (They are less used to taking cover than paintballers and airsofters, drop magazines along the way as if they were disposable ect. Fine for the match, bad in infantery use)
How important is skill in mass battle? I would argue: More important than the unskilled would like, less important than the skillful would like. Numbers are probably more important. Which is specifically why the 300 Spartans (and their less famous Greek allies) fought in a position that limited their opponent's number advantage. Which highlights the importance of strategy. They are all just elements to a larger equation (which includes equipment) none of which will provide an automatic win by themselves. In the axe vs sword debate I feel that the unskilled person is unlikely to be able to effectively defend themselves with either weapon so the swords superiority in that regard isn't much of an advantage.
While personal fencing skill might be not very important the ability to operate as a unit and respond to commands corectly and swiftly is paramount. It was proven again and again from roman manipulus to spanish tercios. Talking about greeks at Thermopylae- they would be fucked up in an instant if they were untrained peasants unable to hold the line and quickly close the gaps in their defence. It takes certain amount of drill and skill to capitalize on strategical advantage. Same thing applies to european medieval warfare- cavalry charge was dominating strategy because it was effective against levies who made bulk of medieval armies. They were unable to hold the line and offten were already panicking and breaking even before the charge connects. With professional foot soldiers becoming more prevalent we see heavy cavalry charge used less and less- knights can't do shit against organized pikewall.
@@warwickthekingmaker7281 sources don't agree on how many other Greeks were there (or the size of the Persion army for that matter) so I don't presume to know how many there were.
Re bayonets. I remember hearing a story from the Jessie Kelly show. He was a Marine in Iraq during the U.S. occupation in the mid 2000's. At one point he and maybe 50 marines were surrounded by a mob. They were all ready to do damage, but there were thousands of people. It would have been a blood bath and there was not enough ammunition for them all. Before things got ugly the commander announced on a loud speaker that they had 1,000 marines hiding on the other side of town behind the mob ready to strike. (It was a lie). He then announced his marines were prepared to charge if the crowd did not disperse. And then came the order, "men, fix bayonets." The marines fixed bayonets and positioned as if ready to charge. The crowd dispersed. No one wants to get stuck in the gut with a bayonet. There's books about how it's too much to handle doing it to another human and men switching to rifle butts because of the horror.
I think part of the reason it is hard to determine how much skill matters, is that it is tied to too many other factors. Just as an example, people who are highly skilled are likely are also better equipped. Also the degree of skill likely matters. Going from completely untrained to knowing the basics probably has a much larger return than going from highly skilled to being a master.
Very good point. A lot of historical militaries expected most or all troops to bring their own equipment. If you were well-off enough to afford the best equipment of the day, you also had enough leisure time to physically train yourself and you'd inevitably land in a unit of other well-equipped men who also might have spent a lot of free time messing with weapons.
I feel like modern war has really increased the individual skill requirements of the common soldier. To be a good soldier before meant being able to hold rank, being proficient at drill, and physically fit. Modern war requires its soldiers to be marksmen, engage in scout-craft, maintain a high level of initiative and flexability, and be capable of taking in, interpreting, and acting upon an insane amount of info while coordinating with multiple units. The reason every military from the US to China to Russia are scaling down manpower is because it's been demonstrated that the gap in efficacy between resource intensive specailists/professionals and conscripts are so high that keeping extra, mediocrerly trained manpower around is more of a liability than their contributions would be worth, hence Russia holding off on mass mobilizationbfor as long as possible.
Can discipline be considered a skill? Or at least familiarity with war in general, usually experienced combatants tend to do better than younger soldiers. But if by skill we mean proficiency with a tool (or in this case weapon), you don't need the best swordsmen, you need guys who can use a weapon simple enough to defeat the enemy as easy as possible,, so you minimize the need for skilled fighters, war Is all about having the right scenario for you to win without relying entirely on the skill of the fighters.
It might be discontinued now but when i did MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) we trained with bayonets with all kinds of complicated techniques, and pugil sticks are meant to to simulate bayonets.
MCMAP is not discontinued but also one must recall the level one must reach is not the same as the top level if I recall correctly all combat role Marines must reach Green belt whereas others don't need to and the top level being black belt.
I thought there would be a discussion between skill in a group fight and skill in an individual fight. I went from 5 years of Olympic fencing to a group fight boffer larp and discovered a lot of what I had trained in was not applicable.
I joined the US Navy at age 17 in Chicago. Not a country boy! I did a total of 25 months in counter insurgency operations in Vietnam. 6mo. 6 mo. and 13 months. Dozens of fire fights. Combat skill is of great importance. You get a feel for the ebb and flow of gun fights after about a half dozen. You learn to think clearly in the maelstrom of violence. I went on to do contracting (mercenary) for twelve years. The skills I developed in Vietnam helped me survive and prevail in many instances. I made a lot of money. I made enough money to go to college and law school and start a law practice.
I think it's more relevant to ask how important individual weapon skill is vs. unit cohesion. The latter _is_ a skill, but it's a completely different kind of skill.
No. As long as you're good at your designated job it absolutely doesn't matter how amazing you are in other ways. How many masters of the blade have been speared in the face by the opposing phalanx, how many grizzled men at arms who honed their skills for a decade have caught a bolt to the face, how many expert marksmen have been picked off by some sucky conscripts? The unit doing it's task better than the opposing unit is the deciding factor, not the individual awesomeness of a soldier in the unit.
Massively, if I were to guess before even watching this video: Endurance meaning you can continue fighting consistently for longer. Strength, you can strike harder and deflect harder strikes. Awareness, less likely to be caught off guard. Speed and skill, you can out perform an adversary; parrying, striking and dodge more effectively. Experience, knowledge of how an enemy is likely to act.
When you refer to the English lack of marksmanship, this was particularly shown by contrast with Afrikaner fighters in the South African War. Afrikaner boys would often spend time in the veld, camping, fishing, and of course hunting with rifles. This 'veldsmanship' and marksmanship were important factors in being able to successfully defend against the richest, best equipped military force on Earth. But in general, I think coordination is more important than individual skill in warfare beyond the 'tribal.' One great example - among the many that will be mentioned here - is the skill of English naval gun crews at Trafalgar which allowed them to fire more often and more accurately than their lesser trained French and Spanish opponents and had no small impact on the outcome of the battle.
Here is a list (from my personal experience) of weapons and what training they would require (from least amount of training needed to most): staffs (like quartersaff) - cuz it is really just a big stick. and anyone knows how to use a stick (who did not whack something with a stick as a child speak up now) Spears (poke poke whack) - still just a stick but with one end pointy. maces, hammers and bludgeouning weapons in general ( caveman instinct go bonk) crossbows and firearms (as you said Matt, they are relatively easy to use.) - key advantage here would be number of people firing them in general direction of the enemy Axes - i would say they require more skill to use than maces or even firearms. and swords are technically at the bottom requiring most skill alongside bows
I remember a documentary in the 90s where the Roman army was described as "far from the best fighters, but by far the best soldiers" because their focus was more on having a consistent minimum standard and a focus on discipline over personal skill. This (supposedly) resulted in the ROman soldiers being much more likely to stay with their unit, and much more willing to follow orders coming from someone they believed to be legitimate.
Interesting discussion. Once you start talking about armies, you have consider economics and maintenance as well. So in the case of horses, they were like the fighter jets of their day. WE only think of the pilots, but in order to keep that plane in flying condition, it requires a large maintenance crew as well, so it really made sense that farmers would be desirable even if they couldn't ride. It's also worth asking what kind of weapons could a country afford to arm their soldiers with. Crossbows might be easier to use, but they're complicated and expensive to produce compared to a bow or a sling. Even swords can become quite expensive, while polearms have the advantage of both reach and cost to produce. I read somewhere that even George Washington had a fondness for arming his troop with pikes, which were inexpensive and reliable. When we're talking about weapons skills, there are a lot of variables. English longbowmen were notoriously influential in a lot of medieval battles. If I remember right, Henry VIII required by law all eligible men to own a bow and practice weekly, to be ready to be called up for national defense. (This may also be the root of America's contentious 2nd amendment). So skill is certainly a consideration there. Likewise, Switzerland made it's name and reputation on the quality of it's crossbow-weilding mercenaries.
I think the point about axes being easier to use than swords comes not only from a weapon training perspective, but also ease of use and common use of both. I mean that, if you've never fought or trained with weapons, you may still have used an axe. Of course, I'm talking about tool axes, like the ones used to chop wood. And yes, they are not the same as fighting axes, but the main concept of using it's own weight to gain momentum and deliver a powerful chop is still the same. That means that someone that's never been trained in fighting would probably have some understanding of how to use an axe, but not a sword. I myself have used axes a couple of times, but I've never used a sword. In a defensive sense, maybe it's easier to defend with a sword, but only if you have at least a bit of knowledge of what you're doing. If not, you probably will try to do the same with both: either you'll try to dodge the attack or you'll try to block it with your own weapon. Personally, I don't think there would be much difference between both with someone that's never used them to fight. In any case, I think the easiest weapon to use is a mace. It's pretty simple to understand (just hit with it and done) and there's no chance that you'll have trouble with it's edge alignment (something that both a sword and an axe have to be aware of).
Its interesting that you picked the Spartans as an example. Their rise and fall show that ultimately, tactics and technology trumps individual skill and training. Despite their more intensive training, the tactical innovations of the Thebans (their asymmetrical phalanx) allowed them to easily defeat Sparta. Ditto Megalopolis, where their longer pikes and more progressive tactics gave Macedon an overwhelming victory over Sparta. Arguably, the dominance of the Spartans themselves was more down to tactics rather than training (although that obviously played a part). Unlike their neighbours, the Spartans used thinner phalanxes (around half the density/number of lines) - which was at once flexible and allowed for larger formations with fewer soldiers.
Importance in combat assume like to like equipment Large unit 1. Discipline 2. Initiative 3. Physical Conditioning 4. Skill Small Unit 1. Skill 2. Physical Conditioning 3. Initiative 4. Discipline It’s why Rome was so powerful. They recognized the need to invert their thinking as warfare scales, from personal to tribal to national.
I'd in historical combat i'd say skill matters on defense more than it does on offence, looking at historical combat practically anybody can be quickly trained to savagely charge & bludgeon somebody with even the most basic of weapons but being able to hold the line requires much more skill see how the Roman army very rarely routed, even in losses usually a coordinated retreat appears to happen. In modern combat that training relates to how many different ways of being attacked can a unit deal with before discipline is lost, elite units can cope with being attacked by multiple different methods (i know there is an actual word for this which i'm sure someone will add) i.e. direct fire, indirect fire, air attack etc whereas a poorly trained conscript unit would struggle to deal with more than just direct fire before losing discipline and routing
In a battle situation the skill of an individual is only of importance as to to how it contributes to the whole, one super fast gunner would not have won the battle of Trafalgar, but I highly trained gun crew did.
Axe vs. Sword brings to mind one of my favorite series of books. Drenai legends by David Gemmell, in particular the books Legend and White Wolf depicting Druss.
While being no expert in warfare I still have some understanding of its dynamics, and I would agree that skill is important as long as the level of skill is more or less uniform at the scale of the unit. A unit made mostly of skilled combatants will be better than an unit of unskilled combatants, but I think assigning a very skilled combatant to an unskilled battle unit won't change much, unless the unit works together long enough for the skilled combatant to share his talents with his comrades.
I think modern bayonet fighting is taught less because more time needs to be devoted to training on the various support systems modern soldiers need to be familiar with. An average WW1/2 solder would be issued a uniform, a rifle, a bayonet, a mess kit and maybe a map/compass, a modern soldier has a uniform, body armour, rifle, side arm, optics, grenades, radio, night vision, transponders, batteries, medical kit, mess kit, map, compass, gas mask, chem sensors, surveillance cams, tools and then a whole other bunch of other stuff if they're performing some kind of specialist role. You still want to turn out proficient, trained soldiers at the same rate to keep costs and logistics to a minimum so you have to sacrifice certain, less commonly used, methods in favour of making sure the soldiers are basically prepared to do the job they'll be doing everyday. A soldier could go through their entire deployment without ever being within stabbing range of an enemy but they will certainly need to know how to maintain and communicate over a radio network because they'll use it daily. I'd consider it like advanced driver training, sure it's nice to know how to recover from oversteer or do a handbrake turn but it's not something that everyone needs to know.
Feels like the important part is less "skill in weaponry" and more "skill in drill" It seems less about being a master at your weapon, and more about being able to form up in square, reposition upon command, hold the line against a charge, etc.
I think it's important to distinguish discipline and professionalism from fencing skill to answer this question. Because the former is always important. The latter varies a lot.
USMC here, we are highly trained individuals from bottom to top. For the average, I leave you with a misquote. "I would rather have an army of asses led by a lion, than an army of lions led by an ass." End misquote.
What about the opposite with regards to your discussion? What common forms of soldiers and warriors required the most training? Horseback archers? Doppelsöldner? Knights on with lances?
Strategy is more important BUT huge battles mostly come down to small engagements. Those can turn the tide of a battle. In those scenarios, the gate at the farm at Hougamont etc the skill of a handful, even single soldiers, can make a big difference. Edit: I am no expert just interested in history, go easy, it’s just an opinion. 😂
My father was in the 25th infantry division 67-68 in Vietnam, his time included the infamous Tet Offensive. Though decorated twice he made it out relatively unscathed, unlike several of his friends. Anyway, I once asked him what's the one thing that separates a mediocre solider from a great solider. I assumed he would refer to being a sharp shooter, or being really fast, or brave or whatever. He said "keeping as low to the ground as possible". I later read about Audie Murphy, the most decorated American solider, and how he was 1.very short, 2. was a squirrel hunter so he knew how to crouch in order to sneak up on skittish prey. So at least in modern combat, the best skill seems to be to make oneself a small target.
It's a really tough question the more you pull back from the actual close quarters bit of the battle. (It's not a tough question AT ALL when you're very close up). Training for war implicitly means you're not training for work, and vice versa - even the basic mentality of a professional solider vs. a productive citizen can be subtly different enough to make a big impact. And big wars tend to be won by big economies. Two possible criticisms of this video: as far as 'rural recruits' goes, that was simply where the majority of the population lived, basically up until the mid 19th or 20th century, so of course they were popular places to recruit. Also, hick yokel rubes even up to the present day tend to be pro-military in a way that city people perhaps aren't. =P And situations like the 300 are a power spike of *everything* being lopsided. The Spartans had vastly more training, higher morale, much better equipment (METAL shields instead of wicker ones!), vastly more cohesion, a critical location/terrain advantage, and just the general concept of a Phalanx, as opposed to a random bunch of guys running towards the enemy and engaging them haphazardly in small mobs. Videos where specialists in a particular discipline try to argue that THIS ONE THING was what decided the battle, when even a casual reading of the situation implied that everything that could go right did go right, feel vaguely annoying, given how much modern history has gained from being able to throw off the chains of mono-discipline commentary and embrace a more holistic approach to analysis. Finally, in most of the really interesting historical mismatches, morale appeals to be a complete non-factor - basically, there's nothing more reassuring than knowing you outnumber the enemy 100 to 1 at least, and conversely nothing more depressing than realising the sheer scale against you. (Admittedly, this probably changes rapidly when climbing over a mound of your own dead to engage rampant war champions close up. But not in the 'half your army wandered off before dawn' kind of way that poor morale can utterly wreck a campaign.) So the question is probably more like 'why isn't personal skill the only thing that matters for Armies in War?' Because clearly, personal skill is the one part of the picture nearly everyone can get to grips with. The interesting, mysterious part of it is all the other things that can go wrong - being out-numbered, out-maneuvered, suffering from poor logistics, enemy mind-games, being cut-off or surrounded or flanked. Arguably, modern war enthusiasts are overly concerned with the 'war as a sport' element of conflict, and under-prepared for how nightmarishly complex the subject is as a whole. But it's weird to say that on a HEMA channel, I guess. =/
In war, I think what matters is skill level of the average soldier in a unit. A single highly skilled or incompetent fighter isn't likely to have much effect on the overall performance of the unit, but a unit where every member is well trained and possessing good skills will be far more effective than an untrained rabble.
Could you argue that a skilled soldier is a well trained soldier, and would likely be a disciplined soldier. Combine a large number of these to form an army and you have a winning combination?
What were the various styles of warfare preferred by different kingdoms in the medieval age, for example the English fighting on foot more so then the French. Were there other nations doing similar or very different things in warfare across medieval Europe? Just a curious thought.
Hi Matt, when you say that longbow men weren’t rank and file doesn’t that sort of contradict the received wisdom regarding the composition of medieval ‘English’ armies? I would have thought that from the late 12th Century the Anglo Normans and their descendants were famed for having far more ‘specialist’ well-trained archers in their ranks than they had even spearmen. Maybe I’m wrong about this, though.
It was the Australian troops in the second and first world wars, which were the most skilled ,that made them per capital the best troops, mostly in the Middle East and Africa,they could live of the land better shoot ride ect, actually Australia’s were the first special forces,the sas copied the Anzac long range untils.
The term of being effective with a melee weapon is quite nebulous. Your effectiveness with a weapon will not only depend on your skill, but the skill of the person/group you are attacking. For instance are your troops that got one day of spear training, going to be effective against a unit of infantry, that has years of experience fighting against troops wielding spears, that know all the ways to exploit its weaknesses and all the ways to defend against it. And effectiveness is measured against the performance expectations of the person deploying those troops. For some army leader effective training might mean that his spearwall managed to hold for one minute longer, before falling to pieces, but for another that might not be any measurable improvement. Also, you might want to specify, which personal skills you are referring to in your title. Personal skills covers stuff like being effective in a battle formation, knowing how to ride a horse etc. And instead of important, how about highly valued? Since it sure as hell was important, just not highly valued by people with not much knowledge and experience in warfare, illustrated by your example of paying more attention to the uniforms. Although during the feudal era, when peasants were considered property of the lords. If you were in charge, you sure as hell would not want armies of peasants with skills of elite fighting men, just in case they decided to rebel against you. Was in Estonian military, around the turn of the century. Never even saw a bayonet.
But, I would like to learn if they had any kind of special training with their kukris after they were recruited and placed in there units. The Ghurkas that is.
You can be as skilled as you want, but if your movements are not coordinated with the two people standing beside you, then the whole thing falls apart. That's the reason for drill. A group or body of men moving as one with perfect coordination.
The 300 Spartans had 2000 Greek allies (almost half of whom were Helot slaves). And as far as individual skill... how personally skilled were American *infantry* GIs in WW2 Europe? Everything I've read says that they were a lot less well trained than Germans. But they were highly motivated, and well supplied (not only with food but artillery support and air cover).
Keeping soldiers around who plow is a double edged sword because you never know what who who their going to be plowing next, often times your wife no doubt was on the list and no one wants to come home from the war to that. I'm a firm believer in not recruiting men who plow but that's just my personal opinion. The whole legal requirement for archery training back in the day is interesting to me because it achieves more than just keeping men ready to go with their bow skills. It also acts as a social ritual that gets everyone together to shoot sh1t to hell in a hand basket and everyone enjoys that. Its a really good way to preserve social cohesion and keep the men and boys entertained and happy. Perhaps for the time anyway it was one of the best laws invented.
Just because today almost everyone has a smartphone (miniature computer) do not think for a second that everyone is good at using them competently. Just like with swords I guess.
Individual skill, without first being trained to maintain cohesiveness and discipline as a maneuver unit, is fundamentally backwards. Look no further than the classical Greek city states and their phalanx. The difference between the Spartans and their contemporaries, was the Spartans drilled and practiced continuously as a unit, while the others only formed up when needed. This gave the Spartans a slight edge, but didn’t make them invincible. Fast forward to the Roman legions, where regimentation into a cohesive fighting team, able to maneuver, attack, and defend, while maintaining the formation, and subsequent mass, was more effective than individual skill with weapons. This resulted in an empire. It’s doctrine and logistics that wins wars. The British demonstrated this after a series of military reforms codified through universal regulations (what “a well regulated militia,” as stated in the U.S. Constitutions 2nd Amendment actually means), that set fundamental and universal standards for conduct, uniforms, equipment, weapons, training, and drill, enabled Great Britain to build an empire. It’s an extremely rare instance where a small side action performed by highly skilled individuals has any effect on the outcome. German and Japanese aces didn’t win WWII for the Axis. Nor did any of German Uber-weapons turn the tide in their favor. Likewise, Patton, Montgomery, or Zhukov didn’t win battles, Allied doctrine and logistics did.
In first Caliphate their army main strength as an army that each person all of them at least equal to a general in one on one compat. Especially, when it is very important in trabile warfare before Islam. Infantry had unusual way if fighting and they had organizational problems with discipline which got overcome by few tactics and how good they are on average on a personal level and in small groups. Thus personal skills matters but it depends.
Individual skill in warfare is personified by Rajput & Sikh warriors. There are numerous concrete proofs of a few warriors of said tribes decimating or halting entire armies of enemies.
So the bayonet has turned from "A weapon with a working man on either end" to a weapon with a working man on one end and the government on the other, marvellous 😂 Still, I'd love to take bayonet fighting lessons, a spiky rifle is such a peculiar weapon, a short spear with a weird back-handed club at the other end. I'm sure it's positively horrifying to have to use it but it looks like a fun thing to train.
Individual skill is extremely important in war. However, the skills that have the largest impact are not those that people might think of first. The skill of your logisticians, the skill of your animal handlers, the skill of your aircraft mechanics, etc. make up the tail that wag the dog. The Apache is a frighteningly deadly platform, a truly awesome weapon of war, but if they are deadlined 85-90% of the time on average, due to effects of dust and sand on improperly maintained turbines or lack of replacement parts, they may not be something to count on to achieve victory. The same applies with a warhorse. It certainly applies if your army is sick and starving and has to eat the horses, which would die soon anyway for lack of feed. Training and individual combat skills are important of course, but war is a team sport. The meta-skill of coordinating efforts and working as part of a cohesive unit is the trump card, and that applies at every level. That skill of creating disciplined, coordinated effort is what will carry the day, more often than not, and makes a fighting force truly lethal.
In Lianbingshiji 练兵实纪, general Qi Jiguang 戚继光 focused on the ordinary soldiers' skill to used a certain weapon (of course they train with it on a daily basis). He said that: "If they can only used 2 or 3 of the 10 things that they've learned, our army is already invicible". He highlighted the soldiers' skills only after their morale and their ability to follow orders.
One of the rare times I was not bored to death translating from Latin in high school, the text was about a "discussion" between roman military leaders. The issue was the training of soldiers. One of them was fixated with personal skills : beat a pole with a heavy wooden sword, shield proficiency, fitness in general. The other one responded with: "What you are describing is important, but for us (commanders) is more important teaching them how to move in formation, swap lines efficiently and keep their ground." and ended with something on the line of: "Every idiot can learn quickly how to stab with a sword, not every idiot can learn how to stay in line in front of a charging enemy."
Discipline, training and tactics will always trump individual prowess. The Gauls for example were formidable fighters individually but they were no match for the Roman legions.
Absolutely, but we must keep in mind that these societies promoted the individual to do great deeds on the battlefield. There was never a focus on fighting as a unit instead, the warrior that stood out amongst his peers was vaunted, so each man was basically out for himself. Hjuggernaut
That was true and yet they still were a pain for the Romans to deal with. Fas forward a century or two and the moment they got roman tactics and general defectors on their side they crushed Rome. Individual prowess is as equally important as everything you mentioned
@@alexanerose4820 Did I say individual prowess was more important? If you have equally good tactics and discipline then prowess is definitely the deciding factor, for example Spartans beating other Greek hoplites. The Romans weren't using the same tactics in the time period that I believe you are referring to, which wasn't in a century or two, it was more like four.
@@alexanerose4820 It wasn't Gaul "rising again" with Roman defectors, so much as semi-nomadic tribes whose entire noble classes were former Auxilia officers, if not the majority of their male populations former mercenaries in Roman employ.
Roman Legions is a perfect example of how important is personal skill, at difference of greek and macedonian phalanx, roman Legions used a modular strategy, very skilled individual sodiers, that can create powerful modular formation, capable to adapt themselves to fight both in formation and as individual soldiers, and they beated phalanx by crushing their formation and force greeks in close combat
Something that came up in a discussion on modern air combat, oddly, was the Parthian shot, where the light horse archers would turn around in the saddle at full gallop in order to fire at a pursuing enemy. That particular skill obviously proved so important it has been remembered culturally, and now is the name given to the ability of an air-to-air missile to target a pursuing enemy, for example the AIM9-X is reputed to have a Parthian shot capability, while the earlier models didn't. The discussion was the excellent Justin Bronk, from the RUSI, talking to Ward Carroll on his channel.
The important aspect of air combat is the skill of the average pilot. Just look at the IJNs failure against the United States. Even the best pilots get shot down eventually. And if the new pilots aren’t being properly trained, it doesn’t matter how many good pilots you previously had. The average pilot is what matters. Not the ace.
I think a sometimes overlooked aspect of troop training is in maintenance of weapons and other kit. The reason the AK-47 is such a common weapon, for example, isn't just that it was designed to be very easy to use, but also because it was easy to make and maintain. If a weapon can withstand weeks of abuse by indifferent troops in harsh conditions and still work, it allows you to field troops with less training, which in turn allows for rapid recruitment. You also see this in battle rifles that are deliberately limited to semi-auto or three-round burst settings, because otherwise low-quality troops will simply spray-and-pray on full auto. Equally maces and clubs have a big advantage in that they can't get blunt from neglect, and there's no need to align an edge to do damage with them.
I think different skills are needed. A bunch of top end duelist might be wiped out by what seems to be a much lower skilled bunch of troops if those troips were skilled at fighting as a team. Its pretty easy to see in a sports game how that breaks down. Personal skill is a huge issue but if that person doesn't work well in the team they can even become a liability. I think that it is still common to get troops from rural areas. Soldiers who had grown up hunting does have some skills that are useful. From what I understand it's not necessarily firearm skills since those are relatively easy to train. My wife is from Miami and is athetic. One of the things that always surprises me is that she doesn't have and understanding of how to understand unpredictable surfaces or rough country or to so when thing have changed as she walks through different areas or noticing when something happens. Even though she is a physical therapist she doesn't have an intuitive sence if body mechanics.
In reenactment fighting, we see the skilled opponents willing to put their ego aside and cooperate do much better than those who fight only for themselves.
Yes and feudalism favored unskilled team players(sarcasm). From castles to heavy cavalry; clearly medieval age preferred skilled individuals over large quantities of "team players" Rome indeed conquered the world but the "team players" they used are full time soldiers not peasants.
@@datuputi777 Different time, different Gov. Rome and its enemies could field ten thousand of full trained troops at will and keep them active for a long long time. Feudal Europe no longer had any centralized state with the manpower and resources of those old empires so they could only keep and core of elite fighters and support that with levy. But it is a mistake to call those troops untrained. They didn't have decade long service like those legionnaires/auxiliaries but they were trained enough for their time. Untrained peasant mobs happened very rarely as you need to supply your army so untrained peasants are drain og resource not strength.
The one type of soldier that would have a high requirement for individual combat ability is heavy cavalry, due to their relatively smaller number, the enforced spacing from their horses meaning you cant quite pack them shoulder to shoulder (meaning more room for individual skill), and skill meaning more when you can ease the relative quantitative advantage of multiple weapons coming at you with some kind of armor. In short, you need to be able to survive multiple weapons coming at you before you can show off your skill
Heavy cavalry charged shoulder to shoulder with lances. The skill is in controlling a horse in formation, couching a lance, charging in unison, breaking the target formation and getting out to form again. That is what heavy cavalry did.
Marine squad leader in Viet Nam, 2 yrs. I know this shit. Skill very important. Quick reflexes, head on a swivel, quick decision making skills. Any hesitation, death. More important, luck. You can be a natural warrior, but if Marine in front of you steps on a Bouncing Betty mine, you're as dead as he. You can't beat luck.
In a modern context, I think individual fighting skill rarely if ever wins battles. It does, however, save the lives of individual soldiers and while that isn't important to military planners, it's extremely important to individual soldiers. From a psychological standpoint, teaching individual fighting skills might be a way of showing the soldier that he/she is considered valuable. I think that's reason enough for a military to teach and emphasize those skills.
And yet, cops only shoot once or twice a year to do quals, same thing with reservists... The thing that sets groups like Seals apart, is not just better gear and tactics, but thousands upon thousands of hours of repetition on skill sets. The point is, modern military, crack Roman legion, or Chinese crossbowmen, all units are better advantaged by both group and individual training. Sweat saves blood. And practice (repetition) makes perfect.
I had the opportunity to work with soldiers from several armies during my days in the service. I also served in a number of units at different stages of training. I felt a strong link between the average level of the soldier skills on those units and how effective they were in the field. There was also a clear effect in terms of their leadership's skill and their performance. My impression was that the unit's readiness was somehow the sum of those two factors.
Even in a medieval context, alot of the conflict individual soldiers may face won't be pitched battles. Skirmishes, scouting, ambushes. Small engagements mean each individual counts towards success more. If a group of soldiers outright beats another small group, that's a big morale victory right there. It gives the soldier confidence that he IS a skilled warrior.
Matt, I could counter a bit, because at least in the book recommended by you - Kinsley, D. A - Swordsmen of the British Empire - if to take the accounts by word, there are literally dozens of cases when accomplished swordsmen were killed (or embarrassingly saved by others) when they "gave point" to their opponents as they were taught. Especially in cavalry charge or storming of breaches that could mean inability to withdraw the blade if it stuck, or being killed by the not-yet-dead opponent, who hit them by his cutting implement (tulwar, khukri or some longer Afghan knife). There is often said in that book, that the opinion on how to use the blade in battle is more than 90:10 in the favor of cut - which was dismissed in Britain as in France.
I've heard discussed that double kills happened in sword duels as well, where both opponents stabbed each other at essentially the same time, or when a sword gets stuck leaving the first striker defenseless and the other opponent responds.
I’m confused is you’re point that skill isn’t a massive factor or something else because Matt obviously I think know that no matter how skill full you are three on one is basically impossible but that doesn’t mean that a army of slightly more skilled soldiers then there opponents wouldn’t be better on average“and the sword master against three would still last better then a novices against the same odds”
cut the head hand and legs in that order in one frail sweep when sticking down a opponent alot of ppl stab or swing n watch for the effect that alone gets u stabed backso crush ur oponnet or go about qaurting ppl in this fashion but you must take his spot to fight multiables only going forwards what rensai master would say if you remain incircled the skill won't matter
It's a bit like sport, right? You got your personal skills (running, passing, shooting, etc.) And your team skills (positions, plays, communication, reading the opponent, etc.). You need sufficient training in both personal and team skills to get any measure of success. Your team can easily defeat a bunch of players who are more personally gifted, if you have the right balance of personal and team skills distributed evenly among your team. (I just coached some kids' soccer this morning, if you couldn't tell)
I think this is basically correct if we look at the development of arms in early modern history and the "infantry revolution"... organizational strategy, for a time, was everything and you could take some peasant boys and give them pikes and some drilling and have an army capable of going toe to toe with a comparably sized force of professional warriors who (because of the cultural context of existence within the class of hereditary professional warriors) COULD NOT adopt the level of rigid discipline that the peasant army would be expected to have.
@@420JackG Completely untrue peasants don't magically turn into professional armies the opposite is actually the truth there was inadequate amount of professional armies in short the competition is not steep.
@@datuputi777 obviously they didn't magically turn into professional armies, it took some drilling and some familiarization with doctrine. And notice I said they would be capable of going toe to toe with a force of "professional warriors" not another professional army, the implication there was obviously the knightly class. Those guys were obviously highly skilled fighters on an individual level, but I think we can also agree that a large host of knights does not necessarily (or even likely) indicate a professional army.
Yes that's how Italy won world cups, opening the catenaccio is super hard. Nevertheless all your players have to be good enough to play on the professional level. They are all skilled defenders, it's just that it is easier to become an skilled defender than let's say a skilled 10
Not soccer related, but I do remember WAY back in little league 'training' one of the things we kids were drilled on, aside from learning to throw and bat, was how to overcome the natural fear of pain to be able to field hopping ground balls by blocking with the whole body (and hoping to catch it in the glove). Some kids on my team learned to overcome the fear quickly, one never did. Military unit training also includes components to overcome natural fear and to stay in formations, and/or to stay on task.
Just look at Ukraine, quite assymetrical warfare scenario, on paper they should have lost already but their better western weapons, informational grid, knowledge of their terrain, western/eastern mix of tactics, skill and coordination of all branches of military allows them to hold that ork invasion back to a large degree. Lets hope it will all end soon...even though it doesn't look that way.
You could say that they have the whole nation under arms now...but not really, all those actions, counters and ambushes are performed by smaller, more mobile squads of experienced skilled soldiers, at least i'd imagine it being that way. Training up recruits takes time and they can't afford throwing them at the enemy like the orks apparently can. Still they suffer losses becouse of barrages of artillery and dumb munitions that orks like to do.
well...depending on the type of skill. seem to remember Polybius mentioning the skill of the Gaul's as fencers not being a match for the roman discipline and cohesion, and certain types of battle tactics, like shield wall and pike formation rely less on individual skill with the weapon and more on order and cohesion as a fighting group
War has every bit of interpersonal conflict you can find. Small skirmishes, foraging, scouting and harassing. They all counted as war. Not just set-piece battles. So personal skill definitely matters.
The Chieftain did a brief history of the transition of the US cavalry from horse to fully mechanized. Toward the end, one major factor was that finding "horse people" had gotten harder and harder.
I was thinking about personal skill in warfare as in comparison to someone who trained boxing and only boxing for his whole life. That means that guy is probably a pretty good boxer. Then that guy goes to mma and gets smashed. It doesn't mean that boxing isn't a usefull skill. It actually should be a nice basis for his future training. The problem is that mma requires soooo many different skills from you. In war it is similar. You can have a bunch of people who are great duelists. However, if your army doesn't have good leadership, tactics, communications and especially logistics, those guys are probably going to be deleted. Skill of the individual can be important but only as the element of the whole
There were several times I've heard of in Afghanistan that both US and British troops had to fix bayonet and in fact use them. I agree we need to do more bayonet training. As an enlisted US Marine in the 1990's, I learned to use the bayonet but it was not training we did on a regular basis.
arguable morale and zeal is more important and obviously that comes with the belief that you are more skillful or elite than your opponent. Bayonet charge is probably the prime exampe. That type of attack is mostly moral based on the less hardned unit quickly breaking and routing while the more veteran unit will take the initial casualties and charge home. Both units holding ends in a blood bath for both sides. Bayonets aren't precisely skillful weapons, you stab people. If you would want to skillfully stab people you would not use a bayonet. But they are good enough for the job and lethal enough people will run away if the other sides looks like they mean business.
@@anthonywesley5306 I think improving the E-tool and giving training for use as a weapon is the most logical thing. People have definitely used it and similar tools to kill before, even going as far as WW1 we see countless examples of troops using makeshift maces and their trench digging equipment as effective weapons. I'd say the situations in which you can shoot someone with your sidearm are pretty much all going to be a situation in which you can shoot them with your rifle.
Id say, individual skill is important in the sense that they should learn skills relevant to fighting with large numbers of other people. I dont believe duelling ability, or that kind of skill is relevant. Fighting neck to neck with allies really reduces the amount of "skill" you can bring to play, most duelist skills revolve around movement and space, something you arent guaranteed on a battlefield. Doesnt matter if you can dodge left or right or parry one weapon expertly if there is a thicket of spears coming at you. In war a quantitative advantage becomes a qualitative advantage. 10 common men with spears will kill a swordsmaster as easily as they would kill a peasant
I think skill can fall into two categories: 1. Individual combat skill and 2. How well trained you are are in movement and discipline. Essentially the warrior skills and soldier skills. I think it's important to not lump these two together
I remember reading that for a good chunk of the roman legion's lifespan, the primary "entry test" was a roughly 18-mile march. Anyone who lagged too far behind didn't make the cut.
I think this answer varies with the predominant technology of the time. A force of mounted cavalry assumes that each individual is both a skilled rider and archer as well as being able to maintain discipline if they become separated from their unit. At the same time a force of levied musketeers would require much less training, but would be much more dependent on its officers to function.
Personal skills are important to the extend of "the adequate standard" to be able to fight effectively. I would argue that a personal skills in "leadership" generally play a bigger role in warfare. I am sure there were times were some warriors & knights being hailed or even worship by an army not only because of the power/technique prowess but also because of being very charismatic.
Personal combat skills also matter for offices, because that's what enables them to survive and move on to become generals. When he was a young Lt, George Patton famously survived a shootout with Mexican bandits during the famous Pancho Villa expedition in 1915. If he had been less skilled, there would have been no General Patton.
Can't hurt! As long as the army is t prioritizing personal skill over tactics like some kind of barbarbarbarian......or in many cases a noble knight xD
@@projectilequestion well of course it takes years of training to Be a knight, but how many examples are there of medieval battles being lost because a group of glory seeking knights decided to CHARGE FOR GLORY and got wrecked because they put personal valor and martial skill over unit tactics
@@seanpoore2428 Sometimes they were seeking to get the best prisoners before their rival knights got there first, other times the were provoked by the raiding of their enemies.
An important skill you did not cover is the ability to coordinate as small and large units. This in modern military training is the next step after gaining individual skill. The discipline and indeed often bravery to remain in the appropriate formation could be important in success or avoiding defeat.
Based on my experience in combat (a little over 2 years in Iraq, having been conscripted to a military fighting with coalition troops) I would say: Often times, it seems entirely like chance that this guy dies and that guy lives. However, the better your training, the better your chances. At the end of the day, though, you're still taking your chances. Even with the best training and the best equipment, you can still fall foul of chance and cop a .50 calibre bullet to the head. Or catch a 155mm arty shell with your teeth. There's a quote from the bible (one of the very few things that the bible is good for; occasional literary quotes) that describes it rather aptly: "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all." So it seems that it always comes down to chance, but that you can improve your chance at survival by improving the quality of training and equipment.
Ok, now I will feel like a farmboy, but the amount of people not knowing what is billhook used for is terrible! 😀 It's not for forrestry, but for orchards keeping...
@@andytopley314 really? Is it useful for that? My grandma told me how to use it for the plum tree pruning, but we never used it for anything else as far as I remember
@@Tyrhor Yes, they are used routinely for hedging and coppicing (though the difference is slight). I used to see farmers using them only 10 years ago in Somerset, I now live in the city so not so much now.
I think it very much depends what you are doing. If you're fighting in large formations, personal skill probably matters less than team work. If you're in the phalanx, you could be the best single combat fighter in the world, but if you don't you job and protect the guy next to you, that doesn't really count for much. You might kill a bunch of guys but if you do so by breaking formation then you just screwed over your buddies because there's now a gap in the line. I find this comes up a lot when playing objective based games. You can be the best player in the world and top the leader board but your team might still lose because you weren't actually helping to cap or hold the objective.
Reading about ancient Greek and Roman military tactics, you definitely get the impression that the more experienced and skilled a unit was, the more likely they were to be given weapons that required more confidence. Like, the roman legion at it's height, there's a reason *that* is the period where they had the confidence to give troops armor, a gladius and say "go crash into those guys and hack some limbs off". Later on when there was less training, more "we've got a big ol' hoard of barbarians to throw at them", they reverted back to spears and smaller shields that were more useful for less cohesive troops. Where in a sense, "individual skill" would matter more, but they just didn't have the training or morale to function like those old legionaries.
Matt is correct that hand to hand combat still happens in modern combat. There is a tendency among military leadership during and since World War I to believe that missile weapons such as guns have become so deadly that close combat weapons are not a good investment in time. History begs to disagree. Any weapon training can have critical benefits in combat. Muscle memory (sorry, instinctive or trained action?) take over when combat is moving too fast for logical thought. It can and will save your life. Bayonets are perhaps less useful than they once were. Mechanically, the change from steel and wood rifle components to plastic and lightweight alloys has reduced the flexibility of the firearm/bayonet combination. A butt stroke with a modern assault rifle is likely to break the weapon butt and recoil spring, rendering it unable to fire. A block against a heavy melee weapon is also likely to result in critical components breaking or bending. While the point remains the most effective option the bayonet offers, even that advantage has shrunk due the quest for compact, lighter firearms. Assault rifles have become shorter as urban combat has become more prevalent, especially with bullpup designs which reduce the effective weapon length to that of a submachinegun/machine pistol. These changes significantly reduce the reach advantage of a bayonet, it's chief advantage. In addition, bayonets are employed as individual weapons in the essentially 'skirmish' nature of modern infantry combat. The bayonet was primarily adopted to give shoulder-to-shoulder musketmen a defensive option once the enemy was too close to reload, creating a natural (if short-hafted) phalanx, particularly when facing shock cavalry. We no longer see the hedge of points employed en masse as occurred prior to the 20th century. Again, this peels away some of the bayonet's luster as a melee weapon on the modern battlefield. As Matt has discussed in earlier videos, during World War I bayonets mounted on rifles were often set aside as unwieldy for close quarters trench combat. Officer swords went by the boards around the same time for many of the same reasons. As the war dragged on entrenching tools (short shovels), hand axes, clubs, heavy knives and even bayonets wielded as knives were employed in close combat. For command actions, where a silent thrust was needed, specialized weapons like the Sykes-Fairbairn knife came into vogue. Given the changing nature of firearms and 'open-order' combat today I suggest that a return to individual close combat weapons issued as sidearms might be more effective than a refocus on the bayonet. I'd further suggest a Bowie style knife, supplemented by a large magazine pistol, as the most flexible option for modern close combat. While many modern forces now (re) employ combat armor there are still plenty of gaps to find with the point, and plenty of exposed skin to cut (hands, wrists, face, upper leg). My two cents.
The main battle winning skills have nothing to do with martial arts / skill at arms. Hygiene, map reading, how not to die of exposure/heat,/food poisoning/medical skills, organizational skills. In ancient times disease, starvation, dehydration, weather and lack of organization often kill more than the enemy. in the Crimean War (1854-1856; 730,000 British, French and Russian combatants) 34,000 were killed in action, 26,000 died from wounds and 130,000 died from diseases. Being trained to boil your water so you don't get typhoid is more important than being able to strip your weapon blindfolded.
I would say: The Samurai were pure warriors - people who relied upon skill to survive. They studied (from childbirth) to become the best swordsman possible. Singular Combat was their combat mode. A soldier is a cog in a machine. A soldier usually works with a "unit". This Unit then works with a larger unit. The larger unit ... Soldiers do not receive the training a Warrior receives. They receive standardized Military training (designed to work within units - working with greater units - ...). --- That is not to say that the Soldier can not be trained to work in a singular manner. SpecOps are just that soldier. But, SpecOps are elites. But, individual martial skill (or the lack of it) can make or break a unit and tactics. If one "element" of battle fails, that leaves a hole for the enemy to enter and then "work within" the force. That is not good. --- Thus, a Soldier must have Martial skill (individual) that combines with (other Martial skills (individuals)) to then create a much larger effective and capable armed force.
The sword was not samurai main weapon {they didn't use it much in war} they were horse archers. The bow and the Lance were there main weapons and no they acted in cohesive form in war
Regarding modern militaries teaching bayonets or other hand to hand combat techniques most still teach something but you are right that is is dwindling with time. The United States even specifically developed a new form of hand to hand combat built entirely on the premise of putting your opponent on the ground as quickly as possible at which point you take multiple steps backward and point your gun (usually a rifle) at them. That's the whole thing. Different ways to put a melee attacker on the ground so you can point your gun at them. They are literally doubling down on firearm dependency. Special Forces and other specialized job descriptions get more advanced training, of course, but the rank and file don't.
An untrained artillery-man is as likely to blow himself and his comrades sky high. An untrained cook can sicken a battalion. An untrained driver will crash his truck and leave you without bullets. Would you let an untrained medic treat you? Training keeps soldiers safe from our ever-present enemy -- Murphy! And all the training in the world won't save you if your number's up.
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Sword vs axe then sword is narrowly favourable.
Put a shield into the equation then the Axe over a sword by a large margin.
Axe is high offence. Shield's is literally main function is active Defence.
Mind I would rather a mace over axe or sword out of preference. I like clubbing, something satisfying about it.
I disagree with assumption for bludgeoning/blunt weapons like maces not requiring training or thought
working on instinct not knowing better is to put all their force into the swing & do as much damage in one big blow.
Any one can use a club/mace because well it a weight on a stick but to use well I say that is another matter.
I Use half heated blows that are plenty enough to mortally injure or kill if you not where protective gear with non Hardened softer puffy material to disperse most of the impact.
I tend to use relatively large arc of circles & figures of 8 to keep then enemy at bay in the initial early contact.
The amount people trained that flinch who are use to mace twirling around near their face by having your elbow & wrist fixed neutral. While you sway the mace around like a fie hose with your body & shoulder facing the held side to the enemy.
The end padded weight alone if it hits a shield or anything some one is wielding & watch it get flung out their hand our they fall flat on their back side.
Your parry is non existent but twirl it around near them & they are forced to defend from the mace.
Once you knock their curve & flick the mace head back to them.
You feel ridiculous twirl weighted pole around with fixed elbow but few are willing to step forward into that & if they do you shift or reverse away from them.
They are so unwilling to be hit by looping swing weight weighted arc.
If you get surprised you to the away side they & slam the club to the side.
Most try to get in close from the beginning & deliver 1 big blow.
Don't do that unless if you F up & they chose to come in close distance because a full pelted swing of a weight will do worse then a sword cut. A cut can be patched up or sewn together a mace shatters bone & tissue with out the padding I put on.
You can't put a caved in skull back together.
Shield is a 1 handed maces best friend.
2 Handed mace I'd prefer a fair bit of Harness/Armour.
It couldn't hurt
Please keep your content about history. No need to be political and stuff as this is not your expertise
In first Caliphate their army main strength as an army that each person all of them at least equal to a general in one on one compat. Especially, when it is very important in trabile warfare before Islam. Infantry had unusual way if fighting and they had organizational problems with discipline which got overcome by few tactics and how good they are on average on a personal level and in small groups.
Thus personal skills matters but it depends.
Until the Revolution in Russia there was a tradition of the “Wall on Wall” bare-knuckle brawl, it was the highlight of the Maslenitsa Festival, pre-lent. Two groups of 12 to 24 men would line-up, shoulder to shoulder, opposing each other. Each man would engage the man directly in front. Once your opponent was knocked down to the ground you were free to assist your comrades on either side of you. You were not allowed to wear long sleeve’s, because in medieval times some unscrupulous people used to hide horseshoes in the sleeves.
These fights would be between two neighboring villages, towns, even noble houses.
And if my family is typical, and there were grizzled old crusty battlefield hardened veterans in the family, they would effectively family “drill instructors”. Grandpa would be teaching boxing, wrestling, marksmanship, and assorted fieldcraft skills(trapping, tracking, hunting, shelter construction). It was hard, but there was an unbelievable level of euphoria of accomplishment and self confidence, whenever you mastered the skill.
Although the monarchs of Russia really cracked down on boxing, so it's no surprise that it died off
Sounds like a good way to settle disputes and let off steam.
@uNnHkP8mza I've seen a video of it a few years ago.
Yes. One of the Eastern Roman generals noted one out of every ten archers would be good. During the Hundred Years War, the English archers carried many battles, and the French continued to fight; it only took one loss similar in scale, the Battle of Patay, to knock the English permanently out of France. They simply could not replace their veteran longbowmen. The training required to weild a warbow effectively is not found in a typical levee. The English required all combat age men to practice the longbow in order to have a ready reserve for this peculiar skill.
For my perspective on the subject I'm a retired infantry sergeant of the Canadian Forces and I've taught on a fair number of basic and infantry courses over the years. I think Matt is underestimating the amount of time it would take to train a complete novice in combat skills for even the simpler weapons. Maybe he's going on personal experience where he was able to pick up a spear and learned how to use it in a day. But this is probably after he'd been training in fencing or HEMA for some years so he had a lot of complimentary skills and physical conditioning that had primed him for the task.
But dealing with raw recruits who have no previous experience with weapons or fighting? Just getting them to march in step can take a week or more. I can teach a new soldier how to do the drills with a gun so he's be safe on a static range in about 2-3 days and be able to fire and move across an open field in about 10-14 days but trench and house clearing? 5-6 weeks or even more from first time holding the gun to the point I'd trust them covering my back in a basic stack. And that's assuming I'd be able to train them non-stop with no other training or work interfering.
It's not just a question of physical ability. Getting them past mental barriers of dealing with noise, confusion and being knocked around. As Matt mentioned bayonet training is pretty minimal these days but pugil fighting is still common as it lets the troops get used to being physically targeted. It may sound silly to someone who hasn't been through it but the first pujil session for most troops has them baffled as they try to internalize the concept, "This guys is hitting me! Seriously is no one seeing him hit me? He's hitting me. What makes him think he is allowed to hit me?"
That's why military recruiters these days like to see people that have been part of a contact sport like football, rugby or hockey. They've been in an environment of working together with other people and have taken a few hits along the way to get them past the mental barrier of realizing that yes, other people can smack you around, and no, it's not the end of the world or justification for a panic attack if they do. That said, a paint ball champion can be a nightmare to deal with as they've usually collected a string of bad habits that would get them killed in a real fire fight.
As mentioned by Matt, historically people from farms were preferred as there was a lot of hard physical labour involved so they'd have some muscular development and some of the work they'd done would have had a "wax on, wax off" complimentary training value. If you used a pitchfork to stab and toss several acres worth of straw or hay onto a wagon that's not too different from using a spear or bayonet. And clearing brush or relaying a hedge row with a bill hook may not be a perfect analogy for swinging a sword or mace but it would give you a head start for concepts like edge alignment and economy of motion so you're not winding up like you're swinging for the fences.
I agree. It took us 8 weeks to make grunts, 8 months more to learn a specialty.. I entered schooled in WW1, WW2 and Korea. We fought. I was the Oldman. 11c takes90 days.
This makes sense to me. I find the idea of trying someone to be militarily effective with a spear or gun in a day quite dubious, assuming no previous experience. I'm sure in desperation people did it, & it could work ok for some folks who have a knack for fighting, but most soldiers trained in a day would be terrible on the field. Personally, I'm an amateur scholar of military history who used to spar regularly a while back & still does solo practice with swords, shields, & sticks. Despite familiarity with fencing fundamentals & extensive knowledge of historical martial practices, I wouldn't be effective in war with a spear or gun after day of training. There's no way. I've shot an AR-15 & other guns on a couple different occasions. With another day of training, I might manage putting bullets in the correct general area & executing basic orders, but that's about it. I've been practicing with staves & spears on & off for most of my life & can perform a variety of techniques. I could fight with a spear as part of some medieval-type army, but I wouldn't be effective because I don't know how to move or fight in coordination with other people or how to fight in armor. I'm also not very good at all at spear fencing, & would get rolled by anyone with modest skill.
Late-medieval armies may or may not have done much training proper, but the folks who made quality soldiers extensively practiced relevant skills in shooting guilds, hunting, tournaments, formal & informal sparring, & so on. Some of Renaissance soldiers were, as Cesare d'Evoli claimed, drawn by the sound of the drum & ignorant of the art of fencing, but others had training &/or experience, & presumably mentored the newcomers.
I do airsoft but I also shoot real guns. Will airsoft give me bad habits?
@@catsultan949 Paintball and airsoft can be useful for teaching basics of movement but competitive paintballers will get in the habit of taking risks because there isn't really any penalty beyond the minor embarrassment of losing a match. In the Canadian military we use a system of 9mm marker ammunition that's higher velocity and can break the skin if you don't have the right protective padding. We train with helmets and frag vests and extra protective equipment is provided for the face, neck, groin and knees but some of the advanced trainers will deliberately target the unprotected part of the legs if they see someone going Rambo. Pain can be a useful teaching tool.
The Rambo part gave me a smile...
I got 4 months of infantery training, (and 6 months for AAA) and thats long ago. During an exercise we were "clearing" a farm complex. I was put in front in the beginning and so we started. All went well i thought, and suddenly i was alone and had almost reached the end of the complex. I did not get any complaints by the NCO for not taking cover or anything like that, but for not waiting and instead keeping on going. "You don't need to do that alone, you are not Rambo, you are an infanterist" i was told 😁. Never did that again. The most fitting quote to that i found is from the YT channel "military history visualized". He often says "War is a team effort" to counter people with a movie or game view on war.
Paintball and airsoft were not that common here back then, and to this day i have tried neither, so weren't the reason for my mistake. Adrenalin and focussing on the correct movements and possible hiding spaces for me and an opponent had my brain completely occupied.
Comparable to paintball and airsoft, i think if you look at the 3 gun competitions the US has, i would think that they also have plenty of "bad habits" you would need to untrain to make them into infanterists. (They are less used to taking cover than paintballers and airsofters, drop magazines along the way as if they were disposable ect. Fine for the match, bad in infantery use)
How important is skill in mass battle? I would argue: More important than the unskilled would like, less important than the skillful would like.
Numbers are probably more important. Which is specifically why the 300 Spartans (and their less famous Greek allies) fought in a position that limited their opponent's number advantage. Which highlights the importance of strategy. They are all just elements to a larger equation (which includes equipment) none of which will provide an automatic win by themselves.
In the axe vs sword debate I feel that the unskilled person is unlikely to be able to effectively defend themselves with either weapon so the swords superiority in that regard isn't much of an advantage.
While personal fencing skill might be not very important the ability to operate as a unit and respond to commands corectly and swiftly is paramount. It was proven again and again from roman manipulus to spanish tercios. Talking about greeks at Thermopylae- they would be fucked up in an instant if they were untrained peasants unable to hold the line and quickly close the gaps in their defence. It takes certain amount of drill and skill to capitalize on strategical advantage. Same thing applies to european medieval warfare- cavalry charge was dominating strategy because it was effective against levies who made bulk of medieval armies. They were unable to hold the line and offten were already panicking and breaking even before the charge connects. With professional foot soldiers becoming more prevalent we see heavy cavalry charge used less and less- knights can't do shit against organized pikewall.
300 Spartans and their allies isn't a very fair way to describe an army consisting of what? 7000 hoplites? Where Sparta was one of the minor parties
@@warwickthekingmaker7281 sources don't agree on how many other Greeks were there (or the size of the Persion army for that matter) so I don't presume to know how many there were.
@@AdamWhitehead111 sources agree that they were in the thousands
Re bayonets.
I remember hearing a story from the Jessie Kelly show. He was a Marine in Iraq during the U.S. occupation in the mid 2000's. At one point he and maybe 50 marines were surrounded by a mob. They were all ready to do damage, but there were thousands of people.
It would have been a blood bath and there was not enough ammunition for them all.
Before things got ugly the commander announced on a loud speaker that they had 1,000 marines hiding on the other side of town behind the mob ready to strike. (It was a lie).
He then announced his marines were prepared to charge if the crowd did not disperse. And then came the order, "men, fix bayonets." The marines fixed bayonets and positioned as if ready to charge.
The crowd dispersed.
No one wants to get stuck in the gut with a bayonet. There's books about how it's too much to handle doing it to another human and men switching to rifle butts because of the horror.
Not a good example, mob of civilians vs trained ,armed troops
I think part of the reason it is hard to determine how much skill matters, is that it is tied to too many other factors. Just as an example, people who are highly skilled are likely are also better equipped. Also the degree of skill likely matters. Going from completely untrained to knowing the basics probably has a much larger return than going from highly skilled to being a master.
Very good point. A lot of historical militaries expected most or all troops to bring their own equipment. If you were well-off enough to afford the best equipment of the day, you also had enough leisure time to physically train yourself and you'd inevitably land in a unit of other well-equipped men who also might have spent a lot of free time messing with weapons.
I feel like modern war has really increased the individual skill requirements of the common soldier. To be a good soldier before meant being able to hold rank, being proficient at drill, and physically fit. Modern war requires its soldiers to be marksmen, engage in scout-craft, maintain a high level of initiative and flexability, and be capable of taking in, interpreting, and acting upon an insane amount of info while coordinating with multiple units. The reason every military from the US to China to Russia are scaling down manpower is because it's been demonstrated that the gap in efficacy between resource intensive specailists/professionals and conscripts are so high that keeping extra, mediocrerly trained manpower around is more of a liability than their contributions would be worth, hence Russia holding off on mass mobilizationbfor as long as possible.
Usa and russia Only attacking small, weak countrys
Can discipline be considered a skill? Or at least familiarity with war in general, usually experienced combatants tend to do better than younger soldiers.
But if by skill we mean proficiency with a tool (or in this case weapon), you don't need the best swordsmen, you need guys who can use a weapon simple enough to defeat the enemy as easy as possible,, so you minimize the need for skilled fighters, war Is all about having the right scenario for you to win without relying entirely on the skill of the fighters.
It might be discontinued now but when i did MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) we trained with bayonets with all kinds of complicated techniques, and pugil sticks are meant to to simulate bayonets.
MCMAP is not discontinued but also one must recall the level one must reach is not the same as the top level if I recall correctly all combat role Marines must reach Green belt whereas others don't need to and the top level being black belt.
I thought there would be a discussion between skill in a group fight and skill in an individual fight. I went from 5 years of Olympic fencing to a group fight boffer larp and discovered a lot of what I had trained in was not applicable.
I joined the US Navy at age 17 in Chicago.
Not a country boy! I did a total of 25 months in counter insurgency operations in Vietnam. 6mo. 6 mo. and 13 months. Dozens of fire fights.
Combat skill is of great importance. You get a feel for the ebb and flow of gun fights after about a half dozen. You learn to think clearly in the maelstrom of violence.
I went on to do contracting (mercenary) for twelve years. The skills I developed in Vietnam helped me survive and prevail in many instances. I made a lot of money.
I made enough money to go to college and law school and start a law practice.
I think it's more relevant to ask how important individual weapon skill is vs. unit cohesion. The latter _is_ a skill, but it's a completely different kind of skill.
No. As long as you're good at your designated job it absolutely doesn't matter how amazing you are in other ways. How many masters of the blade have been speared in the face by the opposing phalanx, how many grizzled men at arms who honed their skills for a decade have caught a bolt to the face, how many expert marksmen have been picked off by some sucky conscripts? The unit doing it's task better than the opposing unit is the deciding factor, not the individual awesomeness of a soldier in the unit.
MOST of the time
Massively, if I were to guess before even watching this video:
Endurance meaning you can continue fighting consistently for longer.
Strength, you can strike harder and deflect harder strikes.
Awareness, less likely to be caught off guard.
Speed and skill, you can out perform an adversary; parrying, striking and dodge more effectively.
Experience, knowledge of how an enemy is likely to act.
Depends on whether you count the ability to work together and follow orders a "personal skill" or not.
When you refer to the English lack of marksmanship, this was particularly shown by contrast with Afrikaner fighters in the South African War. Afrikaner boys would often spend time in the veld, camping, fishing, and of course hunting with rifles. This 'veldsmanship' and marksmanship were important factors in being able to successfully defend against the richest, best equipped military force on Earth.
But in general, I think coordination is more important than individual skill in warfare beyond the 'tribal.' One great example - among the many that will be mentioned here - is the skill of English naval gun crews at Trafalgar which allowed them to fire more often and more accurately than their lesser trained French and Spanish opponents and had no small impact on the outcome of the battle.
Here is a list (from my personal experience) of weapons and what training they would require (from least amount of training needed to most):
staffs (like quartersaff) - cuz it is really just a big stick. and anyone knows how to use a stick (who did not whack something with a stick as a child speak up now)
Spears (poke poke whack) - still just a stick but with one end pointy.
maces, hammers and bludgeouning weapons in general ( caveman instinct go bonk)
crossbows and firearms (as you said Matt, they are relatively easy to use.) - key advantage here would be number of people firing them in general direction of the enemy
Axes - i would say they require more skill to use than maces or even firearms.
and swords are technically at the bottom requiring most skill alongside bows
I remember a documentary in the 90s where the Roman army was described as "far from the best fighters, but by far the best soldiers" because their focus was more on having a consistent minimum standard and a focus on discipline over personal skill. This (supposedly) resulted in the ROman soldiers being much more likely to stay with their unit, and much more willing to follow orders coming from someone they believed to be legitimate.
Interesting discussion. Once you start talking about armies, you have consider economics and maintenance as well. So in the case of horses, they were like the fighter jets of their day. WE only think of the pilots, but in order to keep that plane in flying condition, it requires a large maintenance crew as well, so it really made sense that farmers would be desirable even if they couldn't ride.
It's also worth asking what kind of weapons could a country afford to arm their soldiers with. Crossbows might be easier to use, but they're complicated and expensive to produce compared to a bow or a sling. Even swords can become quite expensive, while polearms have the advantage of both reach and cost to produce. I read somewhere that even George Washington had a fondness for arming his troop with pikes, which were inexpensive and reliable.
When we're talking about weapons skills, there are a lot of variables. English longbowmen were notoriously influential in a lot of medieval battles. If I remember right, Henry VIII required by law all eligible men to own a bow and practice weekly, to be ready to be called up for national defense. (This may also be the root of America's contentious 2nd amendment). So skill is certainly a consideration there. Likewise, Switzerland made it's name and reputation on the quality of it's crossbow-weilding mercenaries.
No, the 2 amendment was about hundreds of ongoing slave uprisings
I think the point about axes being easier to use than swords comes not only from a weapon training perspective, but also ease of use and common use of both.
I mean that, if you've never fought or trained with weapons, you may still have used an axe. Of course, I'm talking about tool axes, like the ones used to chop wood. And yes, they are not the same as fighting axes, but the main concept of using it's own weight to gain momentum and deliver a powerful chop is still the same. That means that someone that's never been trained in fighting would probably have some understanding of how to use an axe, but not a sword. I myself have used axes a couple of times, but I've never used a sword.
In a defensive sense, maybe it's easier to defend with a sword, but only if you have at least a bit of knowledge of what you're doing. If not, you probably will try to do the same with both: either you'll try to dodge the attack or you'll try to block it with your own weapon. Personally, I don't think there would be much difference between both with someone that's never used them to fight.
In any case, I think the easiest weapon to use is a mace. It's pretty simple to understand (just hit with it and done) and there's no chance that you'll have trouble with it's edge alignment (something that both a sword and an axe have to be aware of).
Its interesting that you picked the Spartans as an example. Their rise and fall show that ultimately, tactics and technology trumps individual skill and training.
Despite their more intensive training, the tactical innovations of the Thebans (their asymmetrical phalanx) allowed them to easily defeat Sparta.
Ditto Megalopolis, where their longer pikes and more progressive tactics gave Macedon an overwhelming victory over Sparta.
Arguably, the dominance of the Spartans themselves was more down to tactics rather than training (although that obviously played a part). Unlike their neighbours, the Spartans used thinner phalanxes (around half the density/number of lines) - which was at once flexible and allowed for larger formations with fewer soldiers.
Importance in combat assume like to like equipment
Large unit
1. Discipline 2. Initiative 3. Physical Conditioning 4. Skill
Small Unit
1. Skill 2. Physical Conditioning 3. Initiative 4. Discipline
It’s why Rome was so powerful. They recognized the need to invert their thinking as warfare scales, from personal to tribal to national.
I'd in historical combat i'd say skill matters on defense more than it does on offence, looking at historical combat practically anybody can be quickly trained to savagely charge & bludgeon somebody with even the most basic of weapons but being able to hold the line requires much more skill see how the Roman army very rarely routed, even in losses usually a coordinated retreat appears to happen. In modern combat that training relates to how many different ways of being attacked can a unit deal with before discipline is lost, elite units can cope with being attacked by multiple different methods (i know there is an actual word for this which i'm sure someone will add) i.e. direct fire, indirect fire, air attack etc whereas a poorly trained conscript unit would struggle to deal with more than just direct fire before losing discipline and routing
In a battle situation the skill of an individual is only of importance as to to how it contributes to the whole, one super fast gunner would not have won the battle of Trafalgar, but I highly trained gun crew did.
Axe vs. Sword brings to mind one of my favorite series of books.
Drenai legends by David Gemmell, in particular the books Legend and White Wolf depicting Druss.
While being no expert in warfare I still have some understanding of its dynamics, and I would agree that skill is important as long as the level of skill is more or less uniform at the scale of the unit. A unit made mostly of skilled combatants will be better than an unit of unskilled combatants, but I think assigning a very skilled combatant to an unskilled battle unit won't change much, unless the unit works together long enough for the skilled combatant to share his talents with his comrades.
I think modern bayonet fighting is taught less because more time needs to be devoted to training on the various support systems modern soldiers need to be familiar with. An average WW1/2 solder would be issued a uniform, a rifle, a bayonet, a mess kit and maybe a map/compass, a modern soldier has a uniform, body armour, rifle, side arm, optics, grenades, radio, night vision, transponders, batteries, medical kit, mess kit, map, compass, gas mask, chem sensors, surveillance cams, tools and then a whole other bunch of other stuff if they're performing some kind of specialist role. You still want to turn out proficient, trained soldiers at the same rate to keep costs and logistics to a minimum so you have to sacrifice certain, less commonly used, methods in favour of making sure the soldiers are basically prepared to do the job they'll be doing everyday. A soldier could go through their entire deployment without ever being within stabbing range of an enemy but they will certainly need to know how to maintain and communicate over a radio network because they'll use it daily. I'd consider it like advanced driver training, sure it's nice to know how to recover from oversteer or do a handbrake turn but it's not something that everyone needs to know.
Feels like the important part is less "skill in weaponry" and more "skill in drill"
It seems less about being a master at your weapon, and more about being able to form up in square, reposition upon command, hold the line against a charge, etc.
In the ranks skills training helps in building morale/confidence in personal ability/competence and those of comrades.
I think it's important to distinguish discipline and professionalism from fencing skill to answer this question. Because the former is always important. The latter varies a lot.
USMC here, we are highly trained individuals from bottom to top. For the average, I leave you with a misquote. "I would rather have an army of asses led by a lion, than an army of lions led by an ass." End misquote.
What about the opposite with regards to your discussion? What common forms of soldiers and warriors required the most training? Horseback archers? Doppelsöldner? Knights on with lances?
Strategy is more important BUT huge battles mostly come down to small engagements. Those can turn the tide of a battle. In those scenarios, the gate at the farm at Hougamont etc the skill of a handful, even single soldiers, can make a big difference.
Edit: I am no expert just interested in history, go easy, it’s just an opinion. 😂
Best question to inquire
I think the most important thing is stamina. Or at least stamina management. what is the point of skills if you are too tired/worn down to use them.
My father was in the 25th infantry division 67-68 in Vietnam, his time included the infamous Tet Offensive. Though decorated twice he made it out relatively unscathed, unlike several of his friends. Anyway, I once asked him what's the one thing that separates a mediocre solider from a great solider. I assumed he would refer to being a sharp shooter, or being really fast, or brave or whatever. He said "keeping as low to the ground as possible". I later read about Audie Murphy, the most decorated American solider, and how he was 1.very short, 2. was a squirrel hunter so he knew how to crouch in order to sneak up on skittish prey. So at least in modern combat, the best skill seems to be to make oneself a small target.
It's a really tough question the more you pull back from the actual close quarters bit of the battle. (It's not a tough question AT ALL when you're very close up). Training for war implicitly means you're not training for work, and vice versa - even the basic mentality of a professional solider vs. a productive citizen can be subtly different enough to make a big impact. And big wars tend to be won by big economies.
Two possible criticisms of this video: as far as 'rural recruits' goes, that was simply where the majority of the population lived, basically up until the mid 19th or 20th century, so of course they were popular places to recruit. Also, hick yokel rubes even up to the present day tend to be pro-military in a way that city people perhaps aren't. =P
And situations like the 300 are a power spike of *everything* being lopsided. The Spartans had vastly more training, higher morale, much better equipment (METAL shields instead of wicker ones!), vastly more cohesion, a critical location/terrain advantage, and just the general concept of a Phalanx, as opposed to a random bunch of guys running towards the enemy and engaging them haphazardly in small mobs. Videos where specialists in a particular discipline try to argue that THIS ONE THING was what decided the battle, when even a casual reading of the situation implied that everything that could go right did go right, feel vaguely annoying, given how much modern history has gained from being able to throw off the chains of mono-discipline commentary and embrace a more holistic approach to analysis.
Finally, in most of the really interesting historical mismatches, morale appeals to be a complete non-factor - basically, there's nothing more reassuring than knowing you outnumber the enemy 100 to 1 at least, and conversely nothing more depressing than realising the sheer scale against you. (Admittedly, this probably changes rapidly when climbing over a mound of your own dead to engage rampant war champions close up. But not in the 'half your army wandered off before dawn' kind of way that poor morale can utterly wreck a campaign.)
So the question is probably more like 'why isn't personal skill the only thing that matters for Armies in War?' Because clearly, personal skill is the one part of the picture nearly everyone can get to grips with. The interesting, mysterious part of it is all the other things that can go wrong - being out-numbered, out-maneuvered, suffering from poor logistics, enemy mind-games, being cut-off or surrounded or flanked.
Arguably, modern war enthusiasts are overly concerned with the 'war as a sport' element of conflict, and under-prepared for how nightmarishly complex the subject is as a whole. But it's weird to say that on a HEMA channel, I guess. =/
My view would be it depends on the troops. You don't really need an individual spearman to be good just obey orders and hold formation.
In war, I think what matters is skill level of the average soldier in a unit. A single highly skilled or incompetent fighter isn't likely to have much effect on the overall performance of the unit, but a unit where every member is well trained and possessing good skills will be far more effective than an untrained rabble.
Could you argue that a skilled soldier is a well trained soldier, and would likely be a disciplined soldier. Combine a large number of these to form an army and you have a winning combination?
I like how you had that machete like stabbing knife in your hand the whole time! I couldn't really get my eyes off it. 😁
In the Napoleonic wars, personal skill was VERY important, and a good soldier was a person who was able to fire 3 rounds a minute, in any weather!
What were the various styles of warfare preferred by different kingdoms in the medieval age, for example the English fighting on foot more so then the French. Were there other nations doing similar or very different things in warfare across medieval Europe? Just a curious thought.
Hi Matt, when you say that longbow men weren’t rank and file doesn’t that sort of contradict the received wisdom regarding the composition of medieval ‘English’ armies? I would have thought that from the late 12th Century the Anglo Normans and their descendants were famed for having far more ‘specialist’ well-trained archers in their ranks than they had even spearmen. Maybe I’m wrong about this, though.
It was the Australian troops in the second and first world wars, which were the most skilled ,that made them per capital the best troops, mostly in the Middle East and Africa,they could live of the land better shoot ride ect, actually Australia’s were the first special forces,the sas copied the Anzac long range untils.
The term of being effective with a melee weapon is quite nebulous. Your effectiveness with a weapon will not only depend on your skill, but the skill of the person/group you are attacking. For instance are your troops that got one day of spear training, going to be effective against a unit of infantry, that has years of experience fighting against troops wielding spears, that know all the ways to exploit its weaknesses and all the ways to defend against it. And effectiveness is measured against the performance expectations of the person deploying those troops. For some army leader effective training might mean that his spearwall managed to hold for one minute longer, before falling to pieces, but for another that might not be any measurable improvement.
Also, you might want to specify, which personal skills you are referring to in your title. Personal skills covers stuff like being effective in a battle formation, knowing how to ride a horse etc. And instead of important, how about highly valued? Since it sure as hell was important, just not highly valued by people with not much knowledge and experience in warfare, illustrated by your example of paying more attention to the uniforms.
Although during the feudal era, when peasants were considered property of the lords. If you were in charge, you sure as hell would not want armies of peasants with skills of elite fighting men, just in case they decided to rebel against you.
Was in Estonian military, around the turn of the century. Never even saw a bayonet.
Yes but overconfidence can be detrimental. No matter how skilled and well equipped you are the enemy, and indeed the terrain, may bring suprises.
But, I would like to learn if they had any kind of special training with their kukris after they were recruited and placed in there units. The Ghurkas that is.
Depends a whole lot on the unit.
You can be as skilled as you want, but if your movements are not coordinated with the two people standing beside you, then the whole thing falls apart.
That's the reason for drill. A group or body of men moving as one with perfect coordination.
The 300 Spartans had 2000 Greek allies (almost half of whom were Helot slaves).
And as far as individual skill... how personally skilled were American *infantry* GIs in WW2 Europe? Everything I've read says that they were a lot less well trained than Germans. But they were highly motivated, and well supplied (not only with food but artillery support and air cover).
It seems to me, that training to fence with a bayoneted rifle is better use of the time, than pugil stick fighting.
Keeping soldiers around who plow is a double edged sword because you never know what who who their going to be plowing next, often times your wife no doubt was on the list and no one wants to come home from the war to that. I'm a firm believer in not recruiting men who plow but that's just my personal opinion.
The whole legal requirement for archery training back in the day is interesting to me because it achieves more than just keeping men ready to go with their bow skills. It also acts as a social ritual that gets everyone together to shoot sh1t to hell in a hand basket and everyone enjoys that. Its a really good way to preserve social cohesion and keep the men and boys entertained and happy.
Perhaps for the time anyway it was one of the best laws invented.
The last bayonet charge was in Korea in 1950.
Maybe this one reason slings not used as much, people stopped using it as much everyday
Very good video and great subject!
Just because today almost everyone has a smartphone (miniature computer) do not think for a second that everyone is good at using them competently. Just like with swords I guess.
Individual skill, without first being trained to maintain cohesiveness and discipline as a maneuver unit, is fundamentally backwards. Look no further than the classical Greek city states and their phalanx. The difference between the Spartans and their contemporaries, was the Spartans drilled and practiced continuously as a unit, while the others only formed up when needed. This gave the Spartans a slight edge, but didn’t make them invincible. Fast forward to the Roman legions, where regimentation into a cohesive fighting team, able to maneuver, attack, and defend, while maintaining the formation, and subsequent mass, was more effective than individual skill with weapons. This resulted in an empire.
It’s doctrine and logistics that wins wars. The British demonstrated this after a series of military reforms codified through universal regulations (what “a well regulated militia,” as stated in the U.S. Constitutions 2nd Amendment actually means), that set fundamental and universal standards for conduct, uniforms, equipment, weapons, training, and drill, enabled Great Britain to build an empire.
It’s an extremely rare instance where a small side action performed by highly skilled individuals has any effect on the outcome. German and Japanese aces didn’t win WWII for the Axis. Nor did any of German Uber-weapons turn the tide in their favor. Likewise, Patton, Montgomery, or Zhukov didn’t win battles, Allied doctrine and logistics did.
Certainly is. Have seen military training many times the true value of an independent skill set. One person's abilities can definitely save a company.
Skill to live. Numbers to win
In first Caliphate their army main strength as an army that each person all of them at least equal to a general in one on one compat. Especially, when it is very important in trabile warfare before Islam. Infantry had unusual way if fighting and they had organizational problems with discipline which got overcome by few tactics and how good they are on average on a personal level and in small groups.
Thus personal skills matters but it depends.
Individual skill in warfare is personified by Rajput & Sikh warriors.
There are numerous concrete proofs of a few warriors of said tribes decimating or halting entire armies of enemies.
Didn`t the roman army have a 4 months long "basic training" period, where they trained fightinf twice a day (morning&evening)?
So the bayonet has turned from "A weapon with a working man on either end" to a weapon with a working man on one end and the government on the other, marvellous 😂
Still, I'd love to take bayonet fighting lessons, a spiky rifle is such a peculiar weapon, a short spear with a weird back-handed club at the other end. I'm sure it's positively horrifying to have to use it but it looks like a fun thing to train.
Individual skill is extremely important in war. However, the skills that have the largest impact are not those that people might think of first. The skill of your logisticians, the skill of your animal handlers, the skill of your aircraft mechanics, etc. make up the tail that wag the dog.
The Apache is a frighteningly deadly platform, a truly awesome weapon of war, but if they are deadlined 85-90% of the time on average, due to effects of dust and sand on improperly maintained turbines or lack of replacement parts, they may not be something to count on to achieve victory. The same applies with a warhorse. It certainly applies if your army is sick and starving and has to eat the horses, which would die soon anyway for lack of feed. Training and individual combat skills are important of course, but war is a team sport.
The meta-skill of coordinating efforts and working as part of a cohesive unit is the trump card, and that applies at every level. That skill of creating disciplined, coordinated effort is what will carry the day, more often than not, and makes a fighting force truly lethal.
In Lianbingshiji 练兵实纪, general Qi Jiguang 戚继光 focused on the ordinary soldiers' skill to used a certain weapon (of course they train with it on a daily basis). He said that: "If they can only used 2 or 3 of the 10 things that they've learned, our army is already invicible". He highlighted the soldiers' skills only after their morale and their ability to follow orders.
One of the rare times I was not bored to death translating from Latin in high school, the text was about a "discussion" between roman military leaders.
The issue was the training of soldiers.
One of them was fixated with personal skills : beat a pole with a heavy wooden sword, shield proficiency, fitness in general.
The other one responded with: "What you are describing is important, but for us (commanders) is more important teaching them how to move in formation, swap lines efficiently and keep their ground."
and ended with something on the line of:
"Every idiot can learn quickly how to stab with a sword,
not every idiot can learn how to stay in line in front of a charging enemy."
I've been looking for texts exactly like that. Thank you for summarizing it.
Discipline, training and tactics will always trump individual prowess. The Gauls for example were formidable fighters individually but they were no match for the Roman legions.
Absolutely, but we must keep in mind that these societies promoted the individual to do great deeds on the battlefield. There was never a focus on fighting as a unit instead, the warrior that stood out amongst his peers was vaunted, so each man was basically out for himself. Hjuggernaut
That was true and yet they still were a pain for the Romans to deal with. Fas forward a century or two and the moment they got roman tactics and general defectors on their side they crushed Rome.
Individual prowess is as equally important as everything you mentioned
@@alexanerose4820 Did I say individual prowess was more important? If you have equally good tactics and discipline then prowess is definitely the deciding factor, for example Spartans beating other Greek hoplites. The Romans weren't using the same tactics in the time period that I believe you are referring to, which wasn't in a century or two, it was more like four.
@@alexanerose4820 It wasn't Gaul "rising again" with Roman defectors, so much as semi-nomadic tribes whose entire noble classes were former Auxilia officers, if not the majority of their male populations former mercenaries in Roman employ.
Roman Legions is a perfect example of how important is personal skill, at difference of greek and macedonian phalanx, roman Legions used a modular strategy, very skilled individual sodiers, that can create powerful modular formation, capable to adapt themselves to fight both in formation and as individual soldiers, and they beated phalanx by crushing their formation and force greeks in close combat
Something that came up in a discussion on modern air combat, oddly, was the Parthian shot, where the light horse archers would turn around in the saddle at full gallop in order to fire at a pursuing enemy. That particular skill obviously proved so important it has been remembered culturally, and now is the name given to the ability of an air-to-air missile to target a pursuing enemy, for example the AIM9-X is reputed to have a Parthian shot capability, while the earlier models didn't.
The discussion was the excellent Justin Bronk, from the RUSI, talking to Ward Carroll on his channel.
The important aspect of air combat is the skill of the average pilot. Just look at the IJNs failure against the United States. Even the best pilots get shot down eventually. And if the new pilots aren’t being properly trained, it doesn’t matter how many good pilots you previously had. The average pilot is what matters. Not the ace.
@@Rokaize i'd say that example highlights the importance of numbers as well.
I think a sometimes overlooked aspect of troop training is in maintenance of weapons and other kit. The reason the AK-47 is such a common weapon, for example, isn't just that it was designed to be very easy to use, but also because it was easy to make and maintain. If a weapon can withstand weeks of abuse by indifferent troops in harsh conditions and still work, it allows you to field troops with less training, which in turn allows for rapid recruitment. You also see this in battle rifles that are deliberately limited to semi-auto or three-round burst settings, because otherwise low-quality troops will simply spray-and-pray on full auto. Equally maces and clubs have a big advantage in that they can't get blunt from neglect, and there's no need to align an edge to do damage with them.
This is a fantastic comment. When my future children are playing soldier, I'll bring this up for their future consideration
I think different skills are needed. A bunch of top end duelist might be wiped out by what seems to be a much lower skilled bunch of troops if those troips were skilled at fighting as a team. Its pretty easy to see in a sports game how that breaks down. Personal skill is a huge issue but if that person doesn't work well in the team they can even become a liability.
I think that it is still common to get troops from rural areas. Soldiers who had grown up hunting does have some skills that are useful. From what I understand it's not necessarily firearm skills since those are relatively easy to train. My wife is from Miami and is athetic. One of the things that always surprises me is that she doesn't have and understanding of how to understand unpredictable surfaces or rough country or to so when thing have changed as she walks through different areas or noticing when something happens. Even though she is a physical therapist she doesn't have an intuitive sence if body mechanics.
In reenactment fighting, we see the skilled opponents willing to put their ego aside and cooperate do much better than those who fight only for themselves.
A champion team will always defeat a team of champions.
@@lancerd4934 the Battle of The Horn between Ask and Ulfhednir in 1995 - 1997 proved that very much.
Yes and feudalism favored unskilled team players(sarcasm).
From castles to heavy cavalry; clearly medieval age preferred skilled individuals over large quantities of "team players" Rome indeed conquered the world but the "team players" they used are full time soldiers not peasants.
@@datuputi777
Different time, different Gov.
Rome and its enemies could field ten thousand of full trained troops at will and keep them active for a long long time.
Feudal Europe no longer had any centralized state with the manpower and resources of those old empires so they could only keep and core of elite fighters and support that with levy. But it is a mistake to call those troops untrained. They didn't have decade long service like those legionnaires/auxiliaries but they were trained enough for their time. Untrained peasant mobs happened very rarely as you need to supply your army so untrained peasants are drain og resource not strength.
The one type of soldier that would have a high requirement for individual combat ability is heavy cavalry, due to their relatively smaller number, the enforced spacing from their horses meaning you cant quite pack them shoulder to shoulder (meaning more room for individual skill), and skill meaning more when you can ease the relative quantitative advantage of multiple weapons coming at you with some kind of armor. In short, you need to be able to survive multiple weapons coming at you before you can show off your skill
Heavy cavalry charged shoulder to shoulder with lances. The skill is in controlling a horse in formation, couching a lance, charging in unison, breaking the target formation and getting out to form again. That is what heavy cavalry did.
Marine squad leader in Viet Nam, 2 yrs. I know this shit. Skill very important. Quick reflexes, head on a swivel, quick decision making skills. Any hesitation, death. More important, luck. You can be a natural warrior, but if Marine in front of you steps on a Bouncing Betty mine, you're as dead as he. You can't beat luck.
In a modern context, I think individual fighting skill rarely if ever wins battles. It does, however, save the lives of individual soldiers and while that isn't important to military planners, it's extremely important to individual soldiers. From a psychological standpoint, teaching individual fighting skills might be a way of showing the soldier that he/she is considered valuable. I think that's reason enough for a military to teach and emphasize those skills.
I agree on that. People will be more cooperative if feel appreciated.
And yet, cops only shoot once or twice a year to do quals, same thing with reservists... The thing that sets groups like Seals apart, is not just better gear and tactics, but thousands upon thousands of hours of repetition on skill sets.
The point is, modern military, crack Roman legion, or Chinese crossbowmen, all units are better advantaged by both group and individual training.
Sweat saves blood.
And practice (repetition) makes perfect.
Can't ignore that troops that feel they're part of a well trained force are going to be much more cohesive, purely out of confidence.
I had the opportunity to work with soldiers from several armies during my days in the service. I also served in a number of units at different stages of training.
I felt a strong link between the average level of the soldier skills on those units and how effective they were in the field. There was also a clear effect in terms of their leadership's skill and their performance. My impression was that the unit's readiness was somehow the sum of those two factors.
Even in a medieval context, alot of the conflict individual soldiers may face won't be pitched battles. Skirmishes, scouting, ambushes. Small engagements mean each individual counts towards success more. If a group of soldiers outright beats another small group, that's a big morale victory right there. It gives the soldier confidence that he IS a skilled warrior.
Matt, I could counter a bit, because at least in the book recommended by you - Kinsley, D. A - Swordsmen of the British Empire - if to take the accounts by word, there are literally dozens of cases when accomplished swordsmen were killed (or embarrassingly saved by others) when they "gave point" to their opponents as they were taught. Especially in cavalry charge or storming of breaches that could mean inability to withdraw the blade if it stuck, or being killed by the not-yet-dead opponent, who hit them by his cutting implement (tulwar, khukri or some longer Afghan knife). There is often said in that book, that the opinion on how to use the blade in battle is more than 90:10 in the favor of cut - which was dismissed in Britain as in France.
I've heard discussed that double kills happened in sword duels as well, where both opponents stabbed each other at essentially the same time, or when a sword gets stuck leaving the first striker defenseless and the other opponent responds.
I’m confused is you’re point that skill isn’t a massive factor or something else because Matt obviously I think know that no matter how skill full you are three on one is basically impossible but that doesn’t mean that a army of slightly more skilled soldiers then there opponents wouldn’t be better on average“and the sword master against three would still last better then a novices against the same odds”
cut the head hand and legs in that order in one frail
sweep when sticking down a opponent alot of ppl stab or swing n watch for the effect that alone gets u stabed backso crush ur oponnet or go about qaurting ppl in this fashion but you must take his spot to fight multiables only going forwards what rensai master would say if you remain incircled the skill won't matter
@@gwynbleidd1917 I understood it perfectly, he raised a good question aswell, what's so hard to understand precisely big boy?
It's a bit like sport, right? You got your personal skills (running, passing, shooting, etc.) And your team skills (positions, plays, communication, reading the opponent, etc.). You need sufficient training in both personal and team skills to get any measure of success. Your team can easily defeat a bunch of players who are more personally gifted, if you have the right balance of personal and team skills distributed evenly among your team.
(I just coached some kids' soccer this morning, if you couldn't tell)
I think this is basically correct if we look at the development of arms in early modern history and the "infantry revolution"... organizational strategy, for a time, was everything and you could take some peasant boys and give them pikes and some drilling and have an army capable of going toe to toe with a comparably sized force of professional warriors who (because of the cultural context of existence within the class of hereditary professional warriors) COULD NOT adopt the level of rigid discipline that the peasant army would be expected to have.
@@420JackG
Completely untrue peasants don't magically turn into professional armies the opposite is actually the truth there was inadequate amount of professional armies in short the competition is not steep.
@@datuputi777 obviously they didn't magically turn into professional armies, it took some drilling and some familiarization with doctrine. And notice I said they would be capable of going toe to toe with a force of "professional warriors" not another professional army, the implication there was obviously the knightly class. Those guys were obviously highly skilled fighters on an individual level, but I think we can also agree that a large host of knights does not necessarily (or even likely) indicate a professional army.
Yes that's how Italy won world cups, opening the catenaccio is super hard. Nevertheless all your players have to be good enough to play on the professional level. They are all skilled defenders, it's just that it is easier to become an skilled defender than let's say a skilled 10
Not soccer related, but I do remember WAY back in little league 'training' one of the things we kids were drilled on, aside from learning to throw and bat, was how to overcome the natural fear of pain to be able to field hopping ground balls by blocking with the whole body (and hoping to catch it in the glove).
Some kids on my team learned to overcome the fear quickly, one never did.
Military unit training also includes components to overcome natural fear and to stay in formations, and/or to stay on task.
Just look at Ukraine, quite assymetrical warfare scenario, on paper they should have lost already but their better western weapons, informational grid, knowledge of their terrain, western/eastern mix of tactics, skill and coordination of all branches of military allows them to hold that ork invasion back to a large degree. Lets hope it will all end soon...even though it doesn't look that way.
You forget to mention, the Ukrainians actually have a significant numerical advantage.
You could say that they have the whole nation under arms now...but not really, all those actions, counters and ambushes are performed by smaller, more mobile squads of experienced skilled soldiers, at least i'd imagine it being that way. Training up recruits takes time and they can't afford throwing them at the enemy like the orks apparently can. Still they suffer losses becouse of barrages of artillery and dumb munitions that orks like to do.
well...depending on the type of skill.
seem to remember Polybius mentioning the skill of the Gaul's as fencers not being a match for the roman discipline and cohesion, and certain types of battle tactics, like shield wall and pike formation rely less on individual skill with the weapon and more on order and cohesion as a fighting group
Ya the romans considered all the groups around them as better individual fighters.
War has every bit of interpersonal conflict you can find.
Small skirmishes, foraging, scouting and harassing. They all counted as war. Not just set-piece battles.
So personal skill definitely matters.
The Chieftain did a brief history of the transition of the US cavalry from horse to fully mechanized. Toward the end, one major factor was that finding "horse people" had gotten harder and harder.
I was thinking about personal skill in warfare as in comparison to someone who trained boxing and only boxing for his whole life. That means that guy is probably a pretty good boxer. Then that guy goes to mma and gets smashed. It doesn't mean that boxing isn't a usefull skill. It actually should be a nice basis for his future training. The problem is that mma requires soooo many different skills from you. In war it is similar. You can have a bunch of people who are great duelists. However, if your army doesn't have good leadership, tactics, communications and especially logistics, those guys are probably going to be deleted. Skill of the individual can be important but only as the element of the whole
In war, individual practice of arms counts little. Coordinated action counts for much. Courage counts for everything.
@@yeussean hate what America does
There were several times I've heard of in Afghanistan that both US and British troops had to fix bayonet and in fact use them. I agree we need to do more bayonet training. As an enlisted US Marine in the 1990's, I learned to use the bayonet but it was not training we did on a regular basis.
arguable morale and zeal is more important and obviously that comes with the belief that you are more skillful or elite than your opponent. Bayonet charge is probably the prime exampe. That type of attack is mostly moral based on the less hardned unit quickly breaking and routing while the more veteran unit will take the initial casualties and charge home. Both units holding ends in a blood bath for both sides. Bayonets aren't precisely skillful weapons, you stab people. If you would want to skillfully stab people you would not use a bayonet. But they are good enough for the job and lethal enough people will run away if the other sides looks like they mean business.
I wonder if it might not be better to provide infantry (former marine 0311) with sidearms for close combat.
@@anthonywesley5306 I think improving the E-tool and giving training for use as a weapon is the most logical thing. People have definitely used it and similar tools to kill before, even going as far as WW1 we see countless examples of troops using makeshift maces and their trench digging equipment as effective weapons.
I'd say the situations in which you can shoot someone with your sidearm are pretty much all going to be a situation in which you can shoot them with your rifle.
True, because America only engages war with poor,,small,weak countrys
Id say, individual skill is important in the sense that they should learn skills relevant to fighting with large numbers of other people. I dont believe duelling ability, or that kind of skill is relevant. Fighting neck to neck with allies really reduces the amount of "skill" you can bring to play, most duelist skills revolve around movement and space, something you arent guaranteed on a battlefield. Doesnt matter if you can dodge left or right or parry one weapon expertly if there is a thicket of spears coming at you. In war a quantitative advantage becomes a qualitative advantage. 10 common men with spears will kill a swordsmaster as easily as they would kill a peasant
What you are describing is formation discipline not really skill. The Roman Method of warfare.
I think skill can fall into two categories: 1. Individual combat skill and 2. How well trained you are are in movement and discipline. Essentially the warrior skills and soldier skills. I think it's important to not lump these two together
I remember reading that for a good chunk of the roman legion's lifespan, the primary "entry test" was a roughly 18-mile march. Anyone who lagged too far behind didn't make the cut.
I think this answer varies with the predominant technology of the time.
A force of mounted cavalry assumes that each individual is both a skilled rider and archer as well as being able to maintain discipline if they become separated from
their unit.
At the same time a force of levied musketeers would require much less training, but would be much more dependent on its officers to function.
Personal skills are important to the extend of "the adequate standard" to be able to fight effectively.
I would argue that a personal skills in "leadership" generally play a bigger role in warfare. I am sure there were times were some warriors & knights being hailed or even worship by an army not only because of the power/technique prowess but also because of being very charismatic.
Personal combat skills also matter for offices, because that's what enables them to survive and move on to become generals. When he was a young Lt, George Patton famously survived a shootout with Mexican bandits during the famous Pancho Villa expedition in 1915. If he had been less skilled, there would have been no General Patton.
Can't hurt! As long as the army is t prioritizing personal skill over tactics like some kind of barbarbarbarian......or in many cases a noble knight xD
Imagine they would have no skill in hitting their target, that would be quite a bad army. 😱
Oh wait, I wasn't thinking in historical terms. 😅 Silly me!
Knights were actually trained to deploy and charge in formations.
@@projectilequestion well of course it takes years of training to Be a knight, but how many examples are there of medieval battles being lost because a group of glory seeking knights decided to CHARGE FOR GLORY and got wrecked because they put personal valor and martial skill over unit tactics
@@seanpoore2428 Sometimes they were seeking to get the best prisoners before their rival knights got there first, other times the were provoked by the raiding of their enemies.
An important skill you did not cover is the ability to coordinate as small and large units. This in modern military training is the next step after gaining individual skill. The discipline and indeed often bravery to remain in the appropriate formation could be important in success or avoiding defeat.
we all know it's "10% luck, 20% skill
15% concentration and power of will
5% pleasure, 15% pain
and 100% (???) to remember the name"
Based on my experience in combat (a little over 2 years in Iraq, having been conscripted to a military fighting with coalition troops) I would say:
Often times, it seems entirely like chance that this guy dies and that guy lives. However, the better your training, the better your chances. At the end of the day, though, you're still taking your chances. Even with the best training and the best equipment, you can still fall foul of chance and cop a .50 calibre bullet to the head. Or catch a 155mm arty shell with your teeth.
There's a quote from the bible (one of the very few things that the bible is good for; occasional literary quotes) that describes it rather aptly:
"Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all."
So it seems that it always comes down to chance, but that you can improve your chance at survival by improving the quality of training and equipment.
Yep
Ok, now I will feel like a farmboy, but the amount of people not knowing what is billhook used for is terrible! 😀
It's not for forrestry, but for orchards keeping...
I'll be honest I thought it was just a weapon
In the UK we use them for hedgerow maintenance
@@andytopley314 really? Is it useful for that?
My grandma told me how to use it for the plum tree pruning, but we never used it for anything else as far as I remember
Like pruning branches in a way to encourage better fruit output?
@@Tyrhor Yes, they are used routinely for hedging and coppicing (though the difference is slight). I used to see farmers using them only 10 years ago in Somerset, I now live in the city so not so much now.
I think it very much depends what you are doing. If you're fighting in large formations, personal skill probably matters less than team work. If you're in the phalanx, you could be the best single combat fighter in the world, but if you don't you job and protect the guy next to you, that doesn't really count for much. You might kill a bunch of guys but if you do so by breaking formation then you just screwed over your buddies because there's now a gap in the line.
I find this comes up a lot when playing objective based games. You can be the best player in the world and top the leader board but your team might still lose because you weren't actually helping to cap or hold the objective.
Reading about ancient Greek and Roman military tactics, you definitely get the impression that the more experienced and skilled a unit was, the more likely they were to be given weapons that required more confidence. Like, the roman legion at it's height, there's a reason *that* is the period where they had the confidence to give troops armor, a gladius and say "go crash into those guys and hack some limbs off". Later on when there was less training, more "we've got a big ol' hoard of barbarians to throw at them", they reverted back to spears and smaller shields that were more useful for less cohesive troops. Where in a sense, "individual skill" would matter more, but they just didn't have the training or morale to function like those old legionaries.
Matt is correct that hand to hand combat still happens in modern combat. There is a tendency among military leadership during and since World War I to believe that missile weapons such as guns have become so deadly that close combat weapons are not a good investment in time. History begs to disagree.
Any weapon training can have critical benefits in combat. Muscle memory (sorry, instinctive or trained action?) take over when combat is moving too fast for logical thought. It can and will save your life.
Bayonets are perhaps less useful than they once were. Mechanically, the change from steel and wood rifle components to plastic and lightweight alloys has reduced the flexibility of the firearm/bayonet combination. A butt stroke with a modern assault rifle is likely to break the weapon butt and recoil spring, rendering it unable to fire. A block against a heavy melee weapon is also likely to result in critical components breaking or bending.
While the point remains the most effective option the bayonet offers, even that advantage has shrunk due the quest for compact, lighter firearms. Assault rifles have become shorter as urban combat has become more prevalent, especially with bullpup designs which reduce the effective weapon length to that of a submachinegun/machine pistol. These changes significantly reduce the reach advantage of a bayonet, it's chief advantage.
In addition, bayonets are employed as individual weapons in the essentially 'skirmish' nature of modern infantry combat. The bayonet was primarily adopted to give shoulder-to-shoulder musketmen a defensive option once the enemy was too close to reload, creating a natural (if short-hafted) phalanx, particularly when facing shock cavalry. We no longer see the hedge of points employed en masse as occurred prior to the 20th century. Again, this peels away some of the bayonet's luster as a melee weapon on the modern battlefield.
As Matt has discussed in earlier videos, during World War I bayonets mounted on rifles were often set aside as unwieldy for close quarters trench combat. Officer swords went by the boards around the same time for many of the same reasons. As the war dragged on entrenching tools (short shovels), hand axes, clubs, heavy knives and even bayonets wielded as knives were employed in close combat. For command actions, where a silent thrust was needed, specialized weapons like the Sykes-Fairbairn knife came into vogue.
Given the changing nature of firearms and 'open-order' combat today I suggest that a return to individual close combat weapons issued as sidearms might be more effective than a refocus on the bayonet. I'd further suggest a Bowie style knife, supplemented by a large magazine pistol, as the most flexible option for modern close combat. While many modern forces now (re) employ combat armor there are still plenty of gaps to find with the point, and plenty of exposed skin to cut (hands, wrists, face, upper leg).
My two cents.
The main battle winning skills have nothing to do with martial arts / skill at arms. Hygiene, map reading, how not to die of exposure/heat,/food poisoning/medical skills, organizational skills. In ancient times disease, starvation, dehydration, weather and lack of organization often kill more than the enemy. in the Crimean War (1854-1856; 730,000 British, French and Russian combatants) 34,000 were killed in action, 26,000 died from wounds and 130,000 died from diseases. Being trained to boil your water so you don't get typhoid is more important than being able to strip your weapon blindfolded.
I would say:
The Samurai were pure warriors - people who relied upon skill to survive. They studied (from childbirth) to become the best swordsman possible. Singular Combat was their combat mode.
A soldier is a cog in a machine. A soldier usually works with a "unit". This Unit then works with a larger unit. The larger unit ...
Soldiers do not receive the training a Warrior receives. They receive standardized Military training (designed to work within units - working with greater units - ...).
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That is not to say that the Soldier can not be trained to work in a singular manner. SpecOps are just that soldier. But, SpecOps are elites. But, individual martial skill (or the lack of it) can make or break a unit and tactics. If one "element" of battle fails, that leaves a hole for the enemy to enter and then "work within" the force. That is not good.
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Thus, a Soldier must have Martial skill (individual) that combines with (other Martial skills (individuals)) to then create a much larger effective and capable armed force.
The sword was not samurai main weapon {they didn't use it much in war} they were horse archers. The bow and the Lance were there main weapons and no they acted in cohesive form in war
Regarding modern militaries teaching bayonets or other hand to hand combat techniques most still teach something but you are right that is is dwindling with time. The United States even specifically developed a new form of hand to hand combat built entirely on the premise of putting your opponent on the ground as quickly as possible at which point you take multiple steps backward and point your gun (usually a rifle) at them. That's the whole thing. Different ways to put a melee attacker on the ground so you can point your gun at them. They are literally doubling down on firearm dependency. Special Forces and other specialized job descriptions get more advanced training, of course, but the rank and file don't.
Another vastly overlooked skill is survival skills.
Too many times have I seen army trainees cringing at butchering chickens.
What about the one who grins?
@@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin 8 ball. Gomer Pyle.
An untrained artillery-man is as likely to blow himself and his comrades sky high. An untrained cook can sicken a battalion. An untrained driver will crash his truck and leave you without bullets. Would you let an untrained medic treat you? Training keeps soldiers safe from our ever-present enemy -- Murphy!
And all the training in the world won't save you if your number's up.