The modern military body armor and full battle kit was 85 pounds when I was in Iraq. That's not even including a pack you would need for extended missions and those weighed 40 or more pounds. Knight's armor seems light in comparison.
Yeah, back in '99 when I left The Corps. The basic kit. . .note, basic, was about a 24-30 lb pack, inclucing flack and helmet and riffle and carry ammo. But as soon as you add the mission requirements it starts to climb fast. If you are heavy weapons, the tripod on a .50 cal is IIRC 22 lb's, and that's the lightest and most convenient component. Add food, about 1/2 lb per meal, Batteries (EFFING HEAVY!) Radio's, group and individual, expanded ammo. What the modern warfighter carries if they have to carry it all themselves adds up fast, and 33lb's ain't shit. That's why the "requirement" not at all true, but sometimes used as a test, is the ability to carry a man of the same size and weight 100 yards.K And I was a geek Marine. Even a small bit of weight adds up fast on your knee's after even a moderate hump.
Also, you wear most of that weight on your back, while knights had is somewhat uniformly distributed on their whole body. The main drawback of full suit of armour is that you cannot easily take it of when you will fall, while you can take of your backpack, stand up, and put your backpack again. And the weakest moment of a knight is when he is on the ground, because you knight's opponent will sit on the knight and try to kill him with a dagger trough visor.
There’s a good reason so many veterans are suffering from bad knees, ankles, shoulders and backs. The times we had to do an assault course in full battle gear were hard enough and that was just the training part with some downtime and physio afterwards. Edit. One big difference between knights and modern soldiers is that they had to use physical force all throughout the battle. Anyone who has ever fought hand to hand with or without weapons will know how exhausting that is, even without any armour.
A good rule of thumb is that if you ever find yourself thinking how dumb these pre-modern soldiere were for not using or doing something that seems obvious, the chances are youre misunderstanding it. These peoples lives relied on being effective at what they do. I gurantee you didnt come up with some brilliant new tactic while playing dark souls
Pretty much goes for everything historical. Our ancestors were as sharp as we are, probably sharper since you had to know how to do a lot more stuff for yourself back then.
Yes all those videos on weapons beating Armour are junk. They fail to make it realistic to begin with but the clear fact is if Armour wasn't effective, they wouldn't have worn it. The bow is a weapon that was mostly used as a harassment weapon and to wound horses at long range. Short range it might get through the less then great Armour of the times. Proof..if they worked so good, battles would have been over very quickly, yet we hear of most going on for hours and sieges for years.
One of my pet peeves about how Hollywood portrays historical combat is the notion that you 'swing' your shield around like a maniac to intercept the enemy's attack. With the exception of very small bucklers, this is NOT how you use a shield. If you do, your arm will lose its ability to actually move within minutes. A shield was held close to one's body such that its center of weight was essentially in line with your stance, with virtually no weight actually being carried by the muscles of the arm. To defend yourself you basically 'ducked', you moved 'around' the shield to interpose it between you and the enemy's attack. You could shoulder shrug or crouch and such to move it a bit, but for the most part, shields were held largely in place. This was 'especially' the case when in formation with other shieldmen. Your compatriots gain little benefit from a shield wall if you are wildly swinging your shield around.
To be fair, you could use the edge of a Viking shield to smash it into someone's face. However, yeah, regularly swinging them around would've never been practical.
And a metal rim on a shield would have been a detriment, since getting your opponent's weapon wedged into yours gives you more of an advantage than a notch on his edge. Seems a good time to note that the problem with common sense is that it only works when things are intuitive, while the correct answer's counterintuitive about as often as the intuitive. That's one of my pet peeves, though clearly not a match for your pet - may I pet it, too?
@@bookman7409 This is not universally true. Many historical shields had metal rims, or were entirely metal. I suspect it's because of what something like a falx can do; cut several inches through your shield and hit something on the other side. If you were holding your shield close to your center of mass, and a falx came down upon the edge of your shield, there is a good chance it would go through and hit you. If you don't believe me, you can look up test videos. Some weapons are perfectly capable of hacking right through the rim of a shield. A metal rim is needed to prevent this.
@@binbows2258 Disagree? On the contrary, you raise an excellent point, that context alters cases. You oversold it for me, because as soon as I saw falx, I knew I'd dropped a stitch, though my point generally stands. Thanks for pointing that out in good detail, my friend, others may learn from my error and your correction.
@@binbows2258 Same holds true with regards to how you wield a shield; shield formations weren't as uniform as people assume, i.e. they weren't universally phalanxes in every case. Also, bossed shields versus strapped shields - huge, most important difference that's not being discussed here by most. Era, culture, weapons of choice also play a role. Bossed shields inherently benefit in many contexts by shifting the shield, positioning it along the path of the incoming attack at an angle, and letting the blow's force dissipate by way of forcing the blow to deflect the shield while still being prevented from getting to you - because it can pivot freely. Conversely, gripped/strapped shields must intercept the blow instead (i.e. they can't pivot like that, so you need to deflect or redirect the blow by way of angling anyway).
It really can be summed up as "people have been killing for a long time, and doing it better has always been the goal." The Hollywood myths are hard to separate because they are the lens through which we often view "the past" but much as the Egyptians could build the pyramids, ancient commanders could lead armies, and weapons and armor were not chosen randomly. The idea of "primitive man" is perhaps the most pervasive myth among humans.
I find the idea that so many contemporary, uneducated, paranoid, ignorant morons somehow believe the pyramids were made by aliens to be absolutely insulting to humanity as a whole. It indeed comes from the historically pervasive and continuous idea that our generation and our age is oh so much smarter than those who came before. That OUR people are enlightened and our ancestors were just dumb brutes. While it's true that enlightenment values and the progress of science are largely due to the casting away of ancient, unskeptical philosophies and that the debunking and ignoring of unfalsifiable hypotheses are what lead to the immense leap of progress in terms of technology since the modern age, this was largely a change in philosophy, not a change in human intellect. Not to mention a lot of those changes were also due to the increasing power of the moneyed classes and the spread of literature making communication and the spreading of ideas much faster. (the invention of the printing press is likely the one invention that created a quiet but world-changing revolution on so many levels that it's probably one of the most underrated inventions the west has ever produced. It's literally what might have caused several wars between protestants and catholics, but I digress.) Ancient mankind was just as clever, just as smart as we are today, they just had different technology, different cultural values and perhaps a more prevalent emphasis on religious and tribal beliefs. The idea that the ancient egyptians couldn't POSSIBLY have made the pyramids is not only absurd and frankly debunkable with little to no effort, it's insulting, degrading to all humans everywhere, not to mention egyptians, and spreads cynicism and an anachronistic, teological view of the world that can only damage intellectual discourse, not help it.
The entire idea of those in the past being barbaric idiots came about largely during the Enlightenment period which is where the term “dark ages” originated, ironically, we view the Enlightenment period much in the same way they viewed the medieval dark ages.
Agreed. We will look primitive in 300 years, if we are able to survive that long and future generations manage to not be terminally stupid, which seems to be the trend
Concerning the weight of medieval armor: When I attended fire-fighting school we were told by the instructor that the total weight of the fire-fighting "Turn-Out Gear" which we were required to wear (NOMEX fire-proof suit, helmet, boots, gloves, SCBA breathing apparatus, air tank and mask, etc) came to about 70 pounds, or approximately the same weight as a medieval suit of armor. Wearing full "Turn-Out Gear" we were required not only to fight fires in a multi-story structure, but to negotiate an indoor obstacle course in pitch darkness within a limited amount of time. Many of the men with whom I did the course were in the 40s or 50s, and some were in their 60s.
youre also not dodging spear tips. that weight is worth it even if you move slow. theres some serious-fit 60-somethings that put the youngens to shame (in short bursts)
I think this is just a feature of a fit man being able to carry approximately the same load 1000 years ago as today. So a modern infantryman or a firefighter or a medieval man-at-arms would end up some similar loads because your superiors are always going to load you up with as much as you can carry and still function. That hasn't changed.
Medieval armor was so mobile that there are videos out there of people in full plate doing forward rolls and cartwheels. As for swords, they were the ancient (and medieval) equivalent of a modern soldier's pistol, the secondary weapon you pulled out when your primary weapon (usually a spear or polearm) was broken or lost in battle.
Yes and also no. He was very wrong about the weapons cavalry used. While lances (very different from the jousting variety) saw some use on the battlefield - they were basically one time use, as you would leave them in your target as you rode past, unable to retrieve them like an infantryman could. Cavalry primarily used swords, as the slicing motion was very easily performed on horseback and allowed them to cut at unprotected backs and sides when they broke into a formation. There was some use of axes and other hand weapons, but swords were by far the most common. For footmen though, yes, the spear or polearm was the mainstay till the gunpowder era.
It really helps that good quality Medieval armour plate armour in particular tend to be custom made to fit the wearer. Also due to the armour being evenly distributed that helps reduce the weight felt by the wearer.
@@ethanwilliams1880 Lance-armed cavalry of the 19th & 20th centuries did not usually leave their lance in the target - they would allow the tip of the lance to swing backwards so that it pulled out as they galloped past. The sport of "tent-pegging" uses a similar technique to pick up a wooden peg with the point of the lance - example here: ua-cam.com/video/L4xg2QIGNnI/v-deo.html
@@ethanwilliams1880 it's actually both, there was supply with replaceable lance pile in some cases, and Uhlans would use lances way into 20th century with succesfully raiding Nazi supply convoys, while other types of cavalry, like Cossacks, used sabers or a shashka, a hilt-less saber strictly for cutting from horseback. Length WAS an issue but you can still see reenactors picking them from the ground while riding as a training exercise. At the gunpowder era it really didn't matter if your lance was a meter or two longer, you either reached the target or you didn't.
@@KasumiRINA Yes, that's why I said they saw some use on the battlefield. Also, I wasn't just talking about recent history. My post was mainly aimed at contesting what the OP said about swords being only sidearms, while also pointing out a discrepancy in the video about cavalry armament.
The battle of Glorieta Pass comes to mind; out in the deserts of Arizona, the Confederate forces may have won the battle, but the Union raid on their supply wagon during the battle won them the territory!
Rommel had poorer logistics but he almost won against Montgomery Only reason he lost is because Montgomery threw every soldier and plane he had at the Desert Fox. Mont had a huge numerical superiority at his side
I would say logistics are a key part of battles and both are key for strategic victories. Yes more important, but way not enough on its own and definitely not an excuse to slack on combat effectiveness. “The sinews of war isn’t gold but good soldiers.” -Machiavelli (potential paraphrasing)
I think that people might be thinking that knights couldn't move well in armor because they are looking at suits of jousting armor. Jousting armor of the 15th-16th century were heavier (up to 110lbs) to protect the jouster and weren't designed for combat on foot. Also, they've watched Excalibur too often.
Also, a lot of the stuff that survived through to today is more along the lines of a parade uniform - flashy and decorated, to be worn only on special occasions. Armor meant to be used would have been used....
@@rtpoe The jousting stuff probably only got used, during tournaments. Since it was builder heavier for protection, it sacrificed mobility. One wouldn't want to wear it outside of the joust or a parade. One could ask a historian how much of it survived. The combat stuff probably nearly all got chewed up in combat or traded in and scrapped as it wore out and more effective or cost effective armor was produced. This is my source for saying that tournament armor was heavier in the 15th and 16th century. Edge, David; Paddock, John Miles (1988). Arms & armor of the medieval knight. Crescent Books. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-517-64468-3.
No it's way better than that: Nerdy fricking armchair Europeans made stuff up in their heads and didn't lift. Then they got reminded what real actual fight and die for your life warfare was like when the Napoleonic era escalated kind of horribly quickly to tanks and nukes and NOW college kids are much more likely to Actually lift and get sun and try to do what they've read about. Because we're a little more baseline scared we could actually need it after we saw WW1 could actually happen. Rich kids realized they could die too after the BRIEF era of war being about capture instead of kill totally definitely ended and went back to normal killing. (Spanish Succession was same tech as Napoleonic. Just different culture. Napoleon saw an exploit, and ran with it.) So in the first place we discovered 40 lbs suits of armor were actually much more usable than believed as the kind of classroom nerd changed from more theoretical to applied so people writing books stopped being quite as dumb. And 2nd place the real actual jocks, who never died out but because they spent their time exercising instead of being nerds, they proved that with effort, with the rush of adrenaline, willpower, or necessity, 110 lbs is something you'll find out you can carry and wear more than you think if it's that or be killed. Not your first pick maybe. But you wouldn't actually be slowed down as much as the books made it out to be. There's a high school football movie of some kind where the big guy does 100 yards of mountain climbing with a whole small man on his back. That's not less than 80 lbs I think. Forget the "armor was lighter than you think and heavy armor was less common" argument. No, jacked people exist, and they were scary and good at killing people because wearing 110 pounds of Armor and being able to move too wasn't actually out of the question for the strongest of them anyway. You wouldn't really want to piss these guys off if you could help it. Politicians always try to avoid war because the other side's army is in fact scary and makes people pause to think about it before they FAAFO. They couldn't break physics all the way, but your army also would be made out of the jocks not the nerds lol.
Turns out too, that the enthusiasts in the late 1800s and early 1900s who were trying to reassemble original armor often 'attached' the pieces to each other incorrectly.
Chapter three is my biggest pet peeve in depictions of ancient and medievel combat by Hollywood. It is well documented the great lengths units of infantry would keep tight ranks and order and discipline. There are exhaustive manuals on how the units could keep their lines absolutely shoulder to shoulder and be relieved by fresh units if order and morale started to break down. A unit that broke formation was generally defeated in short order.
My biggest peeve is the infantry bit, especially since he completely messed up the reasons why it was effective. I don't know why it is so hard for people to understand that musketeers were also melee combatants thanks to their bayonets, which was a huge reason that they were so effective, since they didn't need to be defended, like archers or crossbowmen, and could make their own formations, like spearmen (which is why they used spearmen formations). It was this wall of bayonets that kept the cavalry at bay, not the shots so much. Archers and crossbowmen were also out because muskets had a range advantage. Cavalry was the reason for these formations, if there wasn't cavalry on the field, they would often spread into skirmish lines to avoid getting shredded by grapeshot. The bit about orders is completely wrong, they couldn't hear shit, and anyone who's fired a gun knows it. They used drums, flags, and the like to issue orders. On top of that, he makes it sound like line infantry arose in the age of gunpowder, when it was the main style of combat throughout ALL OF HISTORY (some of my points about it are different in other ages). He got the morale bit right though, for sure.
Many, if not most, combatants throughout history did not drill, did not form ranks, and did not keep rigidly close to each other. But hardly anyone charged pellmell into a massive melee as in Hollywood. Rigid discipline and keeping in neat geometric formations is a) like nominal strength, mostly a lie even if aspired to and b) a fetish reserved for only the richest and most bureaucratic peoples in history, eg. China, Hellenistic Macedonia, late Imperial Rome and Byzantium, Prussia & co. And, speaking of the latter, it's not a coincidence that a lot of the early scholarship on ancient tactics that emphasizes "tight ranks and order and discipline" came from 19th century Europe where soldiers were idealized to follow drill so rigidly as to function as unfeeling, unconscious machines...
They did keep a loose formation but they did not engage the enemy while in tight ranks, except for pikes of course since their effectiveness relied on density.
That's something the Romans employed on a regular basis. Even the show Rome did it wrong... first they go all nicely in formation, and then bam standard nonsense of 2 armies completely mixed together.
@@awesomereviews1561 wtf are you talking about?? that’s an insane claim my dude - there are absolutely ZERO inaccuracies. can you even name a single thing he got wrong? because as far as I can tell, he really _didn’t_ want to give that lady up, much less let her down, and he certainly did *NOT* want to run around and desert her. rick astley is a straight shooter, brother; you seriously need to watch what you say about this great man D:
Yeah because he has like 20 fucking channels for some reason. I don’t understand why he feels the need to make so many channels when having one or two would work just fine.
@@awesomereviews1561you ought to make yours to correct them or even highlight them here . But I suspect you are too lazy to do either so chatting 💩 is easier
Swords were, by all intent and purpose, sidearms for most of the pre-blackpowder era. Infantrymen used spears and pikes, cavalry spears and lances. Swords were backup weapon reserved for when pike or lance got broken or was lost. Notable exception were Roman legions of the classical era, who used short thrown spears called pilum to disrupt enemy formation before closing in with their famous gladius shortswords.
@@hiimryan2388 Who interesting is the Roman time period. Think the sword and shield worked very well will well trained and disciplined forces before cavalry become too good. Most medieval battles in Europe was much smaller than the huge Roman ones and probably to easy to flank 1000 men with heavy cavalry.
@@allanwrobel6607 maces, clubs and war hammers were often preferred against armored foes, as those would maul (pun intended!) enemy even if he was inside full plate armor
Almost as if there's a chapter list for the video. Oh wait..... There is one already.... In the description.... Under "chapter list" You even got the times wrong 🤦♂️
Late medieval jousting armor could potentially have been very heavy, sometimes with thick cast iron plates. I can imagine these could have been heavy enough for the rider to require help to mount the horse or get up if they were unhorsed. These jousting armors were a bit like an ice-hockey goalkeeper's outfit - good function and protection for a specific limited context, but certainly not something you'd wear on a battlefield...
I don't think you actually mean 'cast iron'. Cast iron is brittle, not easily formed into thin sheets, and historically was very rarely used for armour, as it's just not a material very well suited to the job. It seems extremely unlikely that it'd be used for high-end sporting equipment used to protect the richest and most important members of society. Casting iron wasn't even a metallurgical technique that was widely used in Europe until late in the medieval period, as it requires temperatures much hotter than a normal blacksmith's forge can generate in order to melt iron to a point where it can be poured (cast) into a mould. Its use only really became widespread when blast furnaces were introduced, and even then it was mainly used for cannons until the technology was improved over many years. Medieval plate armour and edged weapons were usually made from wrought (hammered and worked) iron or steel.
@@chrisball3778 Also the smiths of Europe learned to harden steel in the 15th century. Amour made before then was unharden steel and you might be able to penetrate it with a powerful blow. After the 15th century, armour was impossible to penetrate with hand weapons.
It wasn't the weight of the jousting armor that restricted mobility. It was only slightly heavier than battle armor. The issue was that the joints were partially fixed to prevent injury from hyperflexing. The right arm in particular was often locked in a bend with extremely limited range to help prevent lifting the lance too high or dropping it too low and causing fatalities. This practice of limiting movement would make it very difficult to get on and off a horse alone
But what we are talking about here is the sport-fication of jousting. Allegedly some of the armour got so heavy that the jousting lance would brake before it could push them off the horse. As well as removing the gaps in the armour that allow movement
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu himself experienced the Yari (Japanese spear) effectiveness in combat and if I remember correctly he once said "give 1 gold bar to a Samurai he could make 1 nice Katana, Give me 1 gold bar I could make 300 Yari and left over to hire a man to use it" In medieval Japan spear is everywhere, if you serve your load as a farmer at lease you would have a spear head at home.
Another popular misconception is that the invention of firearms immediately killed medieval warfare when that’s not the case. From the 1500s-1700s firearms were often used in conjunction with cavalry and pikemen. Armor wasn’t immediately antiquated either as firearms lacked the necessary firepower to penetrate the toughest armors, though armor was still slowly phased out due to their low cost effectiveness ie all the metal spent on armor could’ve been used on muskets and ammo. That being said you can still find plenty of armors with dents from being shot at. A great example of this design philosophy came with the Cuirass: it was a relatively lightweight breastplate designed to protect the vital organs in your torso-even from pistols, while leaving your limbs free to attack any way you need and allows your head a full range of motion which is important for visibility.
The sword isn't even as ancient a weapon as people think. The Japanese used to issue swords to all of their soldiers as late as WW2. A number of American soldiers who served in the Pacific got to take a Japanese sword home with them. (ok technically they were often Katanas, but that's basically the same thing)
@@shadowninja6689wait.... you think that just because they were still being issued doesn't make the sword itself an ancient weapon? You do understand how time works, right?
One big thing is we assume they were all stupid. Their tactics were state of the art for their time, humans are the same, we are the same, just that technology has culture shaped us
Nah, because waging war at all is mostly an incredibly stupid act - although you can always find justifications for it. There were tons of times when someone conquered land that wasn't even of any real use to them (or they made it completely useless) just for the sake of conquering it. But certainly humans are just as stupid today. Putin's war in Ukraine is a good example.
@@13minutestomidnightthere were plenty of leaders that made stupid decisions. That doesn't mean that the people who actually went out and fought went about it in a stupid manner. Watching your buddies die gives you lots of incentive to figure out better tactics.
@@13minutestomidnight we actually still don't know what the russians want from us, really... they have TONS of land and most has resources in depths just waiting to be developed... So getting what's left of Mariupol or rubble that once was Bakhmut isn't even worth the price it cost to take them. There's also no ideology involved... This war can only be explained by a madman playing soldiers and an entire nation sick with folie a doux and cheering on the senseless destruction. Independent (as good as we get) pollsters are clear than putin's ratings are up during ANY war. Always.
From what I learnt a while ago about the line infantry (musketeers) is it played a massive psychological part. A big part of the strategies used was front line knelt whilst aimed, second line behind them aimed standing, so a highly concentrated firing squad, and all fired on command together. So a volley of musket balls all all the same time. This also meant that the smoke would not impact accuracy on the opening shots, and that the smoke would clear all that the same time for the line for the next volley. Rather then a almost permanent cloud from the random firing. So any one advancing on their location being aimed at, all got hit at the same time, the charging enemy watch their enemies disappear in smoke, and the first few lines of their team instantly drop dead. Imagine being 2-3 back from the front, feeling a little bit secure at least. Then a bang and front few lines of your squad mates in front of you drop dead in a instantly you realise you are at the front and next to suffer the same fate, from an enemy you cannot clearly see what they're doing. Crushing moral in a single bang. Do you help your brother in arms? Do you step over them and continue to charge at an enemy you can't clearly see what they're doing next? Or do you run away? Moral is shattered, and in this time, the musketeers are reloading. Where as if it was a 'fire at will' situation, people dropping one by one would not break moral nearly as easily in comparison.
While I'm sure this had an effect on morale, I guarantee it didn't hold a candle to seeing what the grapeshot did to your friends. Also the smoke usually didn't clear much at all, especially if there wasn't a strong breeze. The main reason for coordinated firing was cohesion and morale in the actual formation. Also I'm pretty sure having the front line kneel while the second line fired was a British innovation that arose late into the age. It would also require well trained troops, which weren't always the standard.
@@kenbrown2808 That would be an absurdly expensive distraction, and if that was the case, they would have also significantly up-armored their infantry in that age, when they did the opposite, mostly. Muskets were "inaccurate", but no more so than bows, and only slightly more than crossbows. They also had a range advantage over both, and could penetrate armor better. All while being usable as spears and clubs, easy to operate, required little training, and the musketeer could hold FAR more ammunition, even if he couldn't put it down field as fast.
In WW II, Russia didn't have enough rifles for all the soldiers. The back lines weren't armed. They were just supposed to pick up rifles from the fallen and keep on going.
@@ethanwilliams1880 the anecdote refers to the commanders being slow to change their doctrine, rather than the potential the long gun had. remember that during the American Revolution, the british were horrified that the colonial infantrymen had the chutzpah to actually TARGET british officers.
In movies like the Patriot they line up once and shoot at each other and sometimes charge. But in real life The lining up and firing and reloading was like something that happened a lot of cycles as fast as you can get your guys to do it. like there'd be lots of groups of them. So you'd run your lines and then you'd post up and fire and then quickly start moving before your enemy can get set up to do the same. So it was about being fast. And movies kind of make it seem like just a slug fest. Entire level people are trying to coordinate all these little blocks of people running around
Smoothbore muskets had a rapidly decreasing accuracy with increases in range, and firing in ranks created a mass of fire that would ensure hits on an enemy formation even if individual shots were inaccurate; while engagements might start at around 200 yards, most firefights occurred at ranges under 100 yards. Rifled firearms were accurate out to much longer ranges, but the slower rate of fire driven by the increased difficulty of ramming balls down a barrel while engaging the rifling, before the Civil War, generally relegated rifles to specialty units; innovations like the Minie ball, which used the burning propellant gases to force the base of the projectile into the rifling, made reloading rifles much faster.
Luc Besson's movie about Jeanne D'Arc is one example of the myth of the boiling oil poured from the castle wall on the enemies. Not only, as mentioned, is it a waste of a precious resource, but you also have to waste a lot of precious wood or other flammable material to bring the content of a big kettle to boiling temperature. Wood that is useful to cook meals or repair damage on your castle or any other accomodations. Especially when you think that sieges might take several weeks or months into the cold seasons.
And equivalent would be using water or dirt or gravel in minecraft, things you're eternally fated to have in vast and potentially unuseful surplus, or stuff that is inherently infinite. As effective as a splash potion of harming might be, those are costly and take resources that may be in finite supply (gunpowder, glass blocks, nether wart, etc.). Or lava before dripstone made lava infinitely available from a single source block. And even that gravel could make good arrows from the flint
That movie ("The Messenger") was probably the first one I ever saw where they got the operation of the trebuchet right. I give him credit for that. Most movies use what I call a "spoonapult", but they used one with a sling, which gives something on the order of double the range. And ... they did *not* chop a length of rope with an axe to fire it. Then again, she probably had cannons, which are more portable, but the trebuchet is cooler.
My kit minus rucksack in Afghanistan was 65 pounds. That's M4 and M9, 210 rounds of 5.56, 32 rounds 9mm, one hand grenade, two smoke, MBITR radio, interceptor body armor, helmet, camelback, NODs, M25 binos, boots, uniform and other stuff I am forgetting. Historically the soldiers load (for combat) has remained 45-65 pounds.
@@jamesthornton9399 Because it was an patrol returning to base or an APC afterward not an multi day march. Back in the days soldiers had to carry all their camping style gear to unless you was an knights or man at arms who had retainers and pack horses, or well equipped modern soldiers.
I used to work for a company that made military radios. (Not the MBITR.) Our product manager talked about how we "load down our soldiers with 200 pounds of lightweight equipment." I suppose exaggeration is to be expected in that line of work.
The musketeer as replaceable had another benefit. Archers had to train constantly, and owned their bows and some arrows. Therefore they were a force that could be bribed or otherwise convinced to turn against their lord. Dangerous to have around, tough to replace. Musketeers could be brought up to scratch quickly and once trained they didn’t have to keep practicing. The muskets themselves could be kept in an armory so the erstwhile musketeers were no more dangerous than any other peasant. In the era of professional armies, the technology dictated tactics. A smoothbore musket was not accurate at any distance, so a mass of them was needed to create the hail of bullets necessary to do damage. A lot of lead went into the ground or overhead. In the flintlock and bayonet era (18th to early 19th c) the British especially relied on the bayonet. Musket volleys were to soften up the opposing line before closing with bayonet. Before the Napoleonic wars, firing ten shots in a battle was considered “hot work.” It was about maneuver for advantage and a flanking bayonet charge. With the advent of the rifled musket and minie ball in the mid 19th c this became semi-suicidal.
Bayonets were rarely used throughout history. During the Civil War, the battle of little round top was one of the only places they were used, and only at the very end when no ammunition was to be found. Just a fact check for you
The Swedes were among the last armies to take up the bayonet. This was in the late 1600's early 1700's. They armed their soldiers with rapiers and some muskets, and charged the enemy right after the enemy shot at them. They often gained spectacular victories... but the soldiers were too hard to replace, and they wound up loosing their power and status. The War this happened in is called the "Great Northern War", and its a great demonstration of why the bayonet and musket worked, and what the battlefields of the time looked like.
@@ophiuchus992 Bayonets we’re used throughout the 18th and into the 19th c, but rarely actually used. That is, there were bayonets affixed to muskets in battle and bayonet charges, but comparatively few bayonet casualties. It was a morale weapon. The defending line almost always either broke and ran or stopped the charge with gunfire before contact. The exception being the Scottish rebellion of 1745, when the Scots were all about close combat. Nevertheless, the British drilled soldiers in bayonet fencing from the 1780s onward. In the American Civil War, the rifled musket and artillery prevailed over the bayonet and on those few occasions of contact soldiers preferred musket butts to bayonets at close quarters.
With the video's points, archers did use spears, historically, and they're a lot more effective than a clumsy bayonet on a very heavy musket. Many armies used guns AND bows, outside of Western Europe--let basic geography blow your mind. Many European states preferred crossbows, and muskets were similar. English yew went nearly extinct, making archery a suddenly expensive practice. And conditions became so horrible post-Enclosure that there weren't any healthy longbowmen anymore, people commenting on this problem. So it's a lot more economical in nature. Fun fact, many British soldiers didn't use bayonets, but just clubbed their enemies, since the design of bayonets tended to make them get stuck.
@@derrickthewhite1the reason the Swedes lost was because king Karl was too egotistical to accept Peter the Great's peace treaty, charged into russian territory (which had received the scorched earth treatment) and faced a massive defeat at Poltava
Okay…swords were very common as sidearms/backup weapons, there’s a reason they’re so frequently depicted in art throughout history. It was usually smart to have a backup weapon in case your spear broke or someone got inside its reach, and that backup weapon had to be small and portable. Also, archers tended to carry backup weapons including swords, hammers, axes…the notion that they were less capable in melee is also mostly thanks to Hollywood. The reason firearms took over from bows is mostly due to the ease of training that you mentioned. Logistics > strategy > tactics.
For armor I think you have to understand that heavier isn't always better. What I mean is that a 3mm armor plate gives the same amount of protection against a spear or sword than a 10mm plate. You only really start seeing thicker plates when firearms get more prominent and potent, but then the focus shifted to simply protecting your chest, not full body armor
in fact, it only takes about 1.5mm of hardened steel to 100% protect against swords, and still highly effective against other types though a lucky strike with a lance would probably get you. Armor is also designed to deflect and slide off weapons, so hard to get anything to stick in the first place. To combat that, armored combat switched to war hammers to do percussive damage to break bones without piercing the armor.
Also the volley fire was also not super common… usually only used upon final assault by charging troops. Usually defensive troops would fire by file then go into fire at will…spreading out all the shooters into a continuous fire. Or firing by rank so you always had 50% loaded and ready while the others reloaded.
The idea of very Heavy armor on knights may be the result of the beautiful tournament armor that survived in museums and was very different from the battlefield armor worn by knights and men at arms. The church tried to outlaw tournaments several times due to the number of fighting men lost in the early years and I think overly heavy armor was a bit of compromise between free for all bloodsport and no practice against resisting and capable opponents.
Even the heaviest tournament armour isn't so heavy that the knights wearing it couldn't move or mount their horses without a crane. Tournament armour in museums may have fed into the myth, but most of it probably comes from the simple fact that many of the writers and film makers who created a lot of 19th and 20th century fiction about knights just didn't know that much about armour. Most of us just instinctively assume that metal objects must be heavy, because many of the metal objects we handle from day-to-day are heavy. It's counter-intuitive to think that medieval armour was actually very thin and even a full suit could be very light.
There’s some videos out there of dudes having a full on sword battle, in a ring, with all armor that looks like it does in the books. They’re kind of boring. They can barely move, can’t turn, circle each other a lot. When they did make a big hit, the wind up came from a mile away. Never any combos. I think I’d take the helmet…maybe a gauntlet because they look cool…but ditch the rest. I’d run circles around anyone in full armor.
@@chrisball3778 An enormous portion of the popular misunderstanding of history stems from many embellishments and myths created in the 20th and 21st century, many used as propaganda. Then again, propaganda has also been used throughout history, so it could've fallen victim earlier, maybe because it was so expensive to make.
@@chrisball3778 So like many medieval/ancient times myths, the crane to help mount a knight comes from a factual rarity. There are a couple of documented cases where a hoist was made available to help knights mount their horses for a joust. In at least one documented case this was because an influential noble who wanted to compete in the joust suffered from gout. It was definitely a rarity and definitely had nothing to do with a lack of ability, even in ornamental tournament armour.
@@sendthis9480 I would suggest that what you have seen is not a good recreation then - possibly badly choreographed stage-fighting, or badly fitted armour - or just the result of unfit modern office workers attempting to do what medieval knights would have been training their entire lives for. I have seen many armoured fights and most are far more dynamic than that. I have seen a couple of people decide to ditch armour on the presumption of greater manoeuvrability - they have been the worst injured at the end of the fight (and that's when the fighters are actively trying not to hurt each other). There's a video from medievalists called 'Can you move in armour' - that should give some idea of what is possible.
The sword was very effective weapon, it just depended on the situation. A short sword and shield combination was very effective, especially in urban environments (Romans for example). Often they would be ‘sidearms’ for close in combat where a pike or polarm is not as effective.
Or not and would use Javelins or Short Spears instead. Especially if we’re talking about Urban Environments and as a group. It’s nearly not as effective as a sword. If it’s indoors, that would vary on the individual, not in general.
@@starfox300swords dont break trough armor. Rapiers could get trough the holes but a regular sword against armor is kind of useless. Even a mace would do better at that point
While his video is generally very good, that doesn't mean he didn't make any mistakes or misinterpret anything. In fact, his last point is strange. Instead of talking about an actual misconception via the way sword weight is depicted, he instead somehow thinks that "so many" people think that swords were the ONLY common weapon. If that were seriously the case, then why are halberds and polearms very well known? Or why English longbows still are so infamous to this day? Not to mention obviously Native Americans didn't have readily available access to swords; they had tomahawks instead and axes were quite common in warfare. The only reason I can think Simon even came to his conclusion was because of the prevalence of swords in video games and movies. However, he should've realized that is more so a rule of cool thing. Even then, there technically is some truth to swords being heavily used during certain time periods. Egyptians originally used axes as their primary close ranged weapon. However, they later on heavily adopted leaf shaped swords. Khopesh swords were less common, but did share some of their lineage with axes. Otherwise, they were more akin to elite swords. Greece may have primarily relied an bows and spears, but they did place some importance on swords designed for different purposes. Otherwise, the kopis wouldn't have existed and the only sword they would have bothered with is xiphos if swords were nothing more than a side arm to them. While swords may have lost a lot of relevancy by the time of mid-medieval period, it should be remembered they had more of a presence during the early medieval period back when most armor was mail armor. Especially the Falchion; it was not unheard of someone to run around with both that and a shield. Also, Rome initially had the mentality of treating swords as being secondary. They had round shields, traditional spears, and a sword similar to the xiphos. Basically, very similar tactics to Greece. But then, they came across the Gladius and that caused them to start making major revamps to their war strategies and equipment. Spears were no longer their primary weapon; now they had more disposable javelins mainly designed to disrupt formations. Their circle shield gave way to more oval shields and then eventually rectangle shields. Changes in their armor occurred gradually at first, but then went through more notable alterations once they began to rely heavily on shield walls. With shield walls, the Gladius truly became their most important close ranged weapon; their own variants of the sword now more tailored for stabbing; a very lethal tactics back when they rarely had to go against mounted men. Of course, as Rome had to deal with horsemen much more often and the Western half of the empire was declining; they brought back round shields and regular spears. However despite that, they didn't just start treating swords as being a side arm. They replaced the Gladius with the Spatha; the main advantage with those swords is being much easier to reach horsemen. They still saw swords as being quite important. As for the Byzantine Empire, they quite liked the Spatha. Also, for what reason, he never really bought up there were swords designed for cavalier. They were sometimes notably larger and had some additional heft to their weight (heck, the cavalier version of the Spatha had more blunt tips so the riders didn't accidentally impale their own horses). Also, very early WW1 actually did initially seem promising for sabers. Oh and by the way, swords were considered useful for naval combat for a while since fighting often occurred quite close.
I had a teacher who did a great job of explaining the tight lines of soldiers tactic, especially in reference to the Revolutionary War. In those days, it was seen as the respectable form of warfare by most civilized countries at the time. While the US was fighting for independence, they desperately wanted to be seen as a legitimate country by the rest of the world. Us wondering why they didn't use a safer, more effective strategy would be similar to a future generation wondering why we don't use chemical warfare or lasers intended to permanently blind the enemy. It's against international law, and even though it could save lives and give us an advantage, no country on earth would respect or ally with strategies that break the Geneva Convention.
I'm too lazy to actually check myself, but I seem to recall that the myth of knights being craned onto their horses comes from certain suits of tournament armor, which didn't need to be particularly mobile or really battle ready, so they were made thicker and heavier to maximize protection.
I believe it's complete fiction. It was probably popularised (if not necessarily invented) by the 1944 film version of Shakespeare's Henry V, directed by and starring Lawrence Olivier. Even the heaviest tournament armour needed to allow its wearer to ride and fight.
I think its a mistranslation for how words change meaning over time or have multiple meanings for the same word For example, I need a lift to get up somewhere. That could mean I need to take an elevator, or I need to stand on a stool, or I need to climb a ladder, or someone to just hold there hands out and give me a boost Needing a lift to mount a horse might have just meant that the knight needed someone to help them up on their horse, because horse are big and big warhorses would have been hard to mount even when unarmoured
Can confirm. I served as a SAW gunner in Iraq with an M-249 and your typical load was about 60-70 lbs. Granted, we didn't have horses but luckily were mostly patrolling with HMMWVs so a typical patrol would have us out for anywhere from 6-12 hours and half that time you'd be in the trucks driving around, and the other half on foot. You'd easily go through a good bit of water and you could feel yourself losing weight and even if you downed a whole MRE that's about 3000 calories, you'd still wind up lean and hungry for dinner at the DFAC; not just because MREs were terrible mind you.
I've heard the phrase "Meals, Ready to Eat" referred to as "three lies for the price of one." Source: My brother was in the Army Reserves for six years. (He figured that if he was going to be in danger of being sent overseas for the last two years, he may as well get paid for it.)
@@CharlesGriswold They're a mixed bag. I won't knock them too much since they're effective for what they do but it does suck being on the receiving end of having to consume them in a decent amount of scenarios. It was also an odd assortment. No one ever, and I mean ever, liked the egg omelet MRE but there were a few decent ones. The veggie burger surprisingly tasted way better than the regular burger since the sauce was tasty, it came with tabasco, and if you just down it with the bread in a single sit it's a good way to get some energy fast as taste is the secondary metric. Oh, and we rarely if ever used the heat element that came with it.
The ongoing joke is that every pound saved on some piece of kit makes military planners jump in the air with joy because it means they can strap on another two pounds of gear elsewhere.
@@rotwang2000 Not wrong, I assure you. Plus I remember the first few times I went out I had useless stuff on like the shoulder armor (AKA samurai pads), a spare barrel (there's always a spare in the trucks and firefights were short affairs in eastern Baghdad where insurgents were far more prone to use IEDs so a running gun battle was their last resort to evade us), spare canteen (there's always water in the trucks and you'd hydrate before going out anyway), plus you'd have to drink the whole thing in one go since you didn't want to have water audibly sloshing around), etc. By the end, there was probably a loss of ten pounds of kit as the only necessary stuff was really weapon, ammo, and armor and they tried issuing us other doodads and what not but most stayed in the trucks or in the FOB. This was fifteen years separated from Black Hawk Down so every contingency was made to prevent joes in an urban area from being out for protracted amounts of time bogged down in a firefight and with us we had round the clock gunships, mortars, and if SF was in the area we could call in fighter support as a last resort. All things they didn't have in Mogadishu.
@@erikfldt390 The tuna and chicken breast were always winners in my book. Even some of the bad ones would sometimes have good sides. But maybe hunger improved their flavor. Honestly my main complaint was they always left me kinda plugged up after eating them for too long, and then switching back to garrison food would be... messy.
As an addition to your 2nd point about line infantry: The lines and especially the combat squares were all about protection against cavalry. A horse isn't stupid, it will not simply charge a dense wall of men with bayonets that hold their nerve (which isn't easy of course). These days we severely underestimate the deadliness of horse cavalry and overestimate single shot rifles. Against a charge you'd get only a few shots of. Bayonets were a primary weapon, not a last ditch thing for when you ran out of bullets. And a large cavalry charge will make mincemeat of spread out infantry like you said.
Heavy cav charges were the most powerful thing in terms of Military up until the point that guns could reliably get through heavy armor. People also don't realize heavy cav didn't stay in the fight very long they were there to break the lines and then get out to go do it again.
Point of order: This was true until the invention of rifled, minie-ball firing muskets. Before that, the shallow depth of the field of fire/lack of range, and low rate of fire still made shock cavalry practical and bayonets necessary. (and it took me waaaaay too long to get the difference!)
@@MM22966 About the last thing, what difference are you talking about, "shallow depth of the field of fire/lack of range"? I don't think I've come across the first term (shallow...). Would you mind explaining? For the rest of your point. Of course it truly depends on what time we're talking about of course but the extra 100 to (at most) 200 meters of aimed you'd get from a rifle will not make a difference. You will not reload a muzzle loader in the time it takes for a horse to charge 200 meters. And with a trap loader you will maybe get one other shot off. The battlefield will be bathed in smoke, aimed fire is not a guaranteed thing. I just read about a Civil War battle (Shiloh) where the men were told to lie down to shoot under the smoke, and that was after the engagement had just begun.
@@exharkhun5605 For "shallow depth of the field of fire/lack of range", that was me making up a term, seeking a compact way to say: "It takes so many minutes for Calvary to charge across so many hundreds of meters, and in that time, the infantry/artillery gets so many shots, depending on their range capability". How many times do you get shot with a given weapon. Rifled muskets have a good hit chance against large groups at about 500 meters, and fire about twice as fast if they have minie balls. That was why the US Civil War/Solferino battle were so much more deadly than Napoleonic warfare, and why shock cavalry disappeared. Smoke, terrain, and those other factors you mentioned will affect things a bit, but odds are cavalry will get shot to pieces if they try charging infantry after about 1850.
@@MM22966 I don't disagree that much but I'd put the turning point a after the Franco - Prussian war. It had battles with outcomes you argue for but more than a few that I argue for. I'd say around 1885. Which is, very conveniently for me, a year after the invention of smokeless powder. Just to tie my arguments together, we wouldn't want loose arguments flapping around now do we? 😜 I think you overestimate the range aimed fire can be achieved. 500 Meters over open sights is not very realistic, even these days. I know the guns can do it, but most soldiers didn't have the training, the experience and the eyes. We're talking about a time where 50% to 60% of soldiers were reservists, most of them over 30 years old. Subjective, and just for reference: I'm nearsighted and I did some shooting back when I was 20 and still needed only -0.5 glasses (which isn't a lot these days) and I can tell you that over open sights it was center-of-mass only past 20 meters for me without glasses. A cavalry charge has a lot of center of mass of course. Now, at 45, I'd be lucky to hit center-of-a-really-big-wall at that range.
Great video, as always. Thanks. I'm especially glad you pointed out how armies with hand weapons didn't charge into a "melee consisting of a bunch of individual duels". One of the best ancient battle scenes I've seen is right at the beginning of the "Rome" series. The small engagement is being tightly managed by Lucius, with front row rotation and tight lines, when Pullo charges ahead out of formation. Despite the fact that he kills many Gauls, and the battle is a victory, he is whipped afterward for not staying in formation, as it put everyone else in danger.
One aspect I really liked about the movie “A Knight’s Tale” was that they redesigned the armor based on modern sportswear. It was a little smaller and lighter and protected the body where it was most likely to be hit. It made sense that they might leave off the back plates and maybe the other arm when they were jousting. Then reinforce the head and side of the body that was going to be dealing with the jousting lance.
The claim that archers generally didn't engage in melee combat around 5:25 is not correct. The famous English archers fought up close in numerous battles, including Agincourt. Roger Ascham considered the willingness of the English archer to attack hand to hand with a lead maul or similar weapon a point of national pride. Across Eurasia, from Poland to Japan, elite armored cavalry both used bows & fought with melee weapons as needed. Lower-quality infantry archers may have avoided close fighting in some cases, but the weight of evidence indicates the good ones were ready & willing to turn to hand strokes. This was also true for troops equipped crossbows & for those armed with firearms before the bayonet became standard: many arquebusiers, musketeers, & so on wore swords to engage in melee. The armor section is correct, though 55lbs appears to be on the low side for the sort of full harness men-at-arms wore, if you're including arming clothes (which you should be, as it's part of the harness). A surprising number of harnesses for late-medieval & Renaissance men-at-arms may have weighed 70-80lbs (including arming clothes). The section on swords curiously neglects to mention that swords were a very common sidearm for many soldiers across history. In late-medieval & Renaissance Europe, wearing a sword as a backup weapon was nearly universal for soldiers.
You are absolutely right about the archers: they did engage in melee combat as you say. However, I think his point in the video is that a musket with bayonet is itself a handy weapon in close combat. It combines some aspects of spear, club, and quarter staff. Conversely, the longbow is only good as a ranged weapon. Archers may have carried swords or small axes, knives, and, as you say, mauls. They were certainly not defenceless if the enemy made it through the arrows.
@@mikefule Curiously, according to Garcilaso de la Vega's account of Hernando de Soto's Florida expedition, Native archers repeated used their bows as bludgeon's up close. In one case, multiple archers did this against a Spaniard with sword & shield, breaking the shield & nearly killing the man (who was already wounded by arrows). In another case, blows from a bow turned club against a helmeted head caused pain & drew blood, though they didn't stop the wearer from fatally stabbing the archer with a sword. If accurate, it seems like certain longbows could be passable but not great bludgeons. A musket with a bayonet is certainly much better.
Here technology might had crossed itself, guns replaced bows as they was better at penetrating armor and you did not need to be strong to use one unlike the 180 pound draw weight war bows. But if enemy don't wear armor an hunting bow is good enough. But at 1800 it would be pretty easy to make armor to protect forces against these bows. Also native Americans switched to guns even if US forces did not use armor but then it was rifles who is way better like the revolver replaced the sword.. With one or two shoot pistols you want an sword who don't run out ammo. but if you have an 6 round drum you want an second revolver.
I got a kick out of the footage of the guy flinging his sword in the air and catching it. Yeah, that happened on a battlefield! Seriously, the spear was probably the most common infantry weapon for centuries, with other polearm types becoming more prevelant over time. Many early polearms were farming tools that were simply expedient weapons. Maces, morning stars (spiked clubs), war hammers and axes were far more common that what is depicted in the movies, with many knightd carrying these weapons instead of swords. The handheld flail was quite rare (though the two handed pole variety was more common) as was the two headed battle axe. It is interesting to see what historians have to say about what weapons were used during what time period as well as what weapons were preferred on the battlefield. Even the type of polearm could be a preference of a particular nation. I'm only beginning to learn about it.
Well, something like boiling oil works if the besieger is attempting to storm the castle/walled city with an escalade -- setting ladders against the wall & sending men to climb up them. Very dangerous for those men, especially the one at the top of the ladder. That is why siege towers were frequently used: a mobile tower that protected the men inside, rolled up against the curtain wall. The Romans would construct earthen ramps to broach walls, if an assault was called for. Most often what happened was that the attacking army would simply encircle the castle or walled city, blocking any supplies, & starve the defenders out. (A competent general knew better than to waste his men in an assault that had a good chance of failing. It took the Ottoman Turks several attempts to take Constantinople by storm.) The besieged might attempt a sally or two to break the siege lines, but mostly they just stationed archers on the walls to snipe at the enemy.
They may have used "soups" with boiling sludge that would stick to soldiers and burn them more than just water. It may have looked like "oil" but wasn't.
I think one of my favourite examples of how innovative generals can be is Ghengis Khan and his use of signal flags to effectively order different groups, and this is just one example but it shows that people never stop trying to improve the tactics.
When HBO produced the series “Rome” the opening scene shocked me. Whom ever scripted that scene made a serious attempt to show how the Roman legions would actually fight.
while spears and lances were very often used on horseback, there's also a reason for the knight to have a greatsword or something similar in size, and sometimes curved. On horseback, piercing is at it's best, because you have the momentum of a man and HORSE at the speed of said horse is running behind it. Because of that, you can pierce very deep into some very sturdy stuff. Great, that means your enemy is likely very dead, or soon will be. The problem is that after a few times your spear/ lance will likely be firmly stuck in an enemy, and the strength of a man pulling does not weigh up to the charge that drove the point in. So, the knight drops the spear and reached for his sword, with which he can slash, not risking getting it stuck. I you are skilled enough you can still use the momentum of the horse by riding past the enemy and slashing in line with the movement of the horse. A greatsword would then be the knights secondary weapon, quite ironic, as it'll follow the knight into more battles and is likely much more expensive to craft than the spears/ lances. But also fitting, as it's the back-up.
Having the momentum of the horse behind the thrust of a lance is only useful in the limited period when the lance could be couched to brace the lance to the rider, and a saddle that braced the rider to the horse -- getting pushed off the back of your saddle for lack of a rear support to brace you in the moment of impact, or having your lance torn out of your grip because you were unable to brace against your body defeats the purpose of having the lance. If you look at the way British lancers in India used their lances, or the depictions in the Bayeux Tapestry, lances were more often held in a more flexible grip for control, rather than impact, in many cases overhand, rather than tucked under the armpit.
I'm always happy to hear people correcting the common mistakes by Hollywood and this was done really well. My one gripe is that when you said that headlong charges were only done by cavalry and chariots I immediately thought "with very few exceptions". Especially when you talked about Alexander the Great right afterwards without mentioning one of the most famous exceptions: the hypaspits, who were famed not only for their fighting skill but moreso for their battlefield maneuverability, to the poin that they were often deployed interspersed with the cavalry before forming up into a tight formation on the enemy flank or charging the enemy rear. These cases certainly didn't turn into single combat battles though - sorry Hollywood. I think this one owuld be worth a follow-up because there are lots of other examples that weren't covered here and perhaps it would be worth a look at where the myths came from.
what is always forgotten is that with tight formation you can really effectively rotate soliders. in ancient times you could regularly rotate the lines around so the first line wouldnt get too exhausted or scared. ive barely ever seen this in movies. its always "first line fights until dead" while last line does practically nothing the entire fight also in musket warfare it was very helpful for morale if you would rotate two lines so the ones reloading feel relatively safe, because staring at enemy guns desperately reloading isnt very comfortable. standing in big groups gives a significant advantage that only recently with high RPM guns got outweighed to not be as effective anymore
The usefulness of cavalry in WW1 is a bit of a widespread misconception too, especially in the Middle Eastern theater of war where the British did some very effective cavalry charges against the Ottomans.
In Egypt's case, they started out with wooden axes good at slicing into unarmored people. However, they eventually needed to create bronze duck billed axes more reminiscent of what we're familiar with axes in general. Eventually, though, they adopted leaf shaped swords and more famously the Khopesh that shares some of its lineage with axes. Speaking of the leaf shaped swords, we shouldn't ignore that Xiphos still had some importance to the battlefield; even if the Greeks liked the phalanx strategy. The Xiphos were quite deadly even compared to the Egyptain Khopesh. Heck, they had a different sword more designed for chopping; which would be the Kopis. Greece did mainly use spears for close range (Rome also originally had regular spears, but over time would create their own javelins designed to be disposable), but let's not ignore the importance Greece still placed in swords.
Wow, the medieval crane shown at 9:33 is located in my home town, less than 2 kilometers from the place where live. I certainly didn't expect to see that in one of your videos
There's also another reason to group up against cavalry charges. An effective counter was to fix your bayonets and point them at the horses. A house can be trained, but you can never override their sense of self preservation. They were known to come up to a wall of spears or bayonets, freak out, and go any direction but straight, often causing chaos among fellow cavalry troops
"A house can be trained, but you can never override their sense of self preservation" I know what you're trying to say but I chuckle trying to imagine a house fighting off a demolition attempt.
One of my favourite answer to the legend of the medieval armour being so heavy knights couldn't get up from the ground was the description of one of the things apprentice knights had to do to earn their spurs: jump in the saddle without touching the stirrups. In full armour, of course.
The musket didn't have the flat trajectory of the modern rifle and the rounds were generally arced into the enemy. Often the most dangerous place could be behind the berm. And adjusting the trajectory of the musket line required communications. Lines could move right under the incoming rounds as they advanced in the smoke.
To be fair although Alexander used the Greek army incredibly well, he inherited it from his father, Phillp, who invented the spear talked about here. By the time Phillip died and Alexander inherited the army it was the best in the ancient world. As for no swords, all Greek soldiers carried a sword. The sarissa (the name for the long spear) was usually only good for one or two lunges before they were caught in dead bodies or gripped by enemy soldiers making them useless. The idea was to ram them forward, then pull back before ramming again. This tactic would devaste the front two lines of enemy infantry, but Alexanders enemies realised the short comings of the spear and began to invent ways to get around them. Once that happened the spears were dropped, swords unsheathed and the fighting continued.
Forgot to mention that standing in line warfare was necessary to reload. The old muskets were long and gravity fed. Could not be reloaded easily laying down.
I actually had the opposite for castle warfare. I always thought it takes like years, with very slow calculated moves both in and out resulting in one side eventually surrender. Then I realize years would cause both sides starve to death long before anyone can claim victory.
There are actually sieges in history that took years. One famous example is the siege of Candia, which took 21 years (Its not a castle siege though) One of the longest sieges in medieval times was the siege of Akkon from 1189-1191.
One of the things people fail to realize about ancient weapons is spears were the easiest weapon to train someone with. A sword can take years to become proficient, but a child can kill someone with a spear. Arming the populace with them and requiring training was the best way to ensure you had a good sized fighting force on hand at all times.
And there actually was medivial armour that was so heavy as described. It was armour used in jousting, where mobility did not matter and every bit of protection to prevent deadly accidents was worth the tradeoff.
It was actually at a castle in the UK (Warwick Castle or the Tower of London, I don't remember which) where my wife and I heard about pouring boiling oil through the murder holes at the gate. Of course, that was 25 years ago, so maybe they know better, now.
5:15 "archers didnt generally engage in melee combat" Yeah, im going to need a source for that. Archers/peltasts/skirmishers of many an army were known to join the melee when running out of things to throw at the enemy. made little sense for them to stand around as cheerleaders after the opening hour or so of a battle. For a famous example; the battle of Agincourt 1415 , in which the English longbowmen displayed exactly how deadly they were against heavy french knights, before joining the melee as light infantry who were able to outmanoeuvre the encumbered French.
Exactly. I made another comment repeating this same sentiment before I saw this comment. Longbowmen were professional soldiers who could do both fight in melee and shoot arrows.
The english made it manditory for men to train in the use of a bow though, so practically everyone was a trained bowman. If everyone is a trained bowman then theyre more expendable.
@@CatManThree Any culture/military with an archery tradition would have lot of men trained in archery. Whether it be the japanese Samurai, Mongol/Jurchen/Steppe warriors, or Byzantine knights. "Archer" isnt a profession. Its a role/unit formation. The profession is "soldier". Sure, you want to keep your archers positioned to use their range advantage, but after they run out of arrows, theyre not just going to walk off the battlefield and call it a day. I cannot think of an example of an archer unit so specialised that no commander would ever risk them in in melee. And if it did exist, it'd be the outlier, not the norm.
@@blahblahboii The english specifically were famous for their skilled archers because of their manditory training through. I get what youre saying but in this specific case it was bigger than that. Anyway you have a point.
Swords were basically the pre-gunpowder equivalent of a pistol. There were quite portable and easy to draw, making them popular self defence weapons commonly carried by civilians and those that don't expect to be fighting against enemy soldiers. However, in a proper battle, the weapon was relegated to more of a backup weapon as soldiers generally prefer something bigger and deadlier in combat.
From what I learnt a while ago about the line infantry (musketeers) is it played a massive psychological part. A big part of the strategies used was front line knelt whilst aimed, second line behind them aimed standing, so a highly concentrated firing squad, and all fired on command together. So a volley of musket balls all all the same time. This also meant that the smoke would not impact accuracy on the opening shots, and that the smoke would clear all that the same time for the line for the next volley. Rather then a almost permanent cloud from the random firing. So any one advancing on their location being aimed at, all got hit at the same time, the charging enemy watch their enemies disappear in smoke, and the first few lines of their team instantly drop dead. Imagine being 2-3 back from the front, feeling a little bit secure at least. Then a bang and front few lines of your squad mates in front of you drop dead in a instantly you realise you are at the front and next to suffer the same fate, from an enemy you cannot clearly see what they're doing. Crushing moral in a single bang. Do you help your brother in arms? Do you step over them and continue to charge at an enemy you can't clearly see what they're doing next? Or do you run away? Moral is shattered, and in this time, the musketeers are reloading. Where as if it was a 'fire at will' situation, people dropping one by one would not break moral nearly as easily in comparison.
I guess I already knew a lot about this stuff. Not from video games, my best tactic there was to have enough recourses to Zurg rush enough infantry at their high level troops that I would win. Only a good tactic if you have infinite peasants with a robotic loyalty and no fear of never going home. AOE II taught me nothing! But sometimes, when I thought about medieval battles, I had to know how they worked, so I did research as a child. I’m still really bad at tactics.
The idea that a knight would be a nearly immobile hulk that hed to be lifted onto a horse may have been true in a joust because jousting armor was designed to be more protective and safer, weighing up to 100 lbs with the helmet bolted in place. This was feasible because the knight was pretty much in only one position: Holding the couched lance and maybe a heater shield and steering his horse. Even his vision was more limited than on the bettlefield. a more popular helmet was the "frogmouth" which is quite popular with HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) enthusiasts like Metatron. But then, we are talking single-purpose armor that did not have to be versatile and was more protective. It would not be suprising if some knights, espeically the English, had several suites of armor; aka "harness" as they fought on foot quite a lot; from what I have seen, more so than other knights and King Henry VIII did have armor for fighting on foot
Most documented reports of a knight at a tournament needing to be hoisted onto his horse involve said knight suffering gout. Jousts were actually pretty well documented and the mounting blocks used to help even the most heavily knight mount his horse were pretty standard.
Also I think Henry the VIII and other old war horse kings feed into that idea as well. Because at one point they did need to be aided onto their horses because of the armor's weight but also if you follow their life they also would have been old men by that point so of course they needed help getting onto a horse with all that weight.
@@SusCalvin That matches with something I read about medieval warfare. Fighters were rotated out and replaced after about 5 minutes of fighting. Even an infantryman in cloth armor and some metal would probably tire or overheat after 5 minutes of vigerous activity with a spear, polearm or axe. Even the Romans had swithing maniples in and out down to a science with the checkerboard formation. As for knights, prolonged vigerous activity with about 55 pounds of armor could not be fun even on a cool spring day
@@SpacePatrollerLaser I got to try replica cloth armour a long time ago. It is thick, layer and layer of linen stitched or glued together. It was a bit stiff when layed on that thick. My friends could still move about in it. The "normal" clothes were also thick. The 18th century field uniform with felt and a great big hat and kit was not fun either on a summer day.
Re: Guns v Arrows debate. You did not menion hydrostatic shock. You can drop a charging man with a Gun, you'd have to be very lucky to do the same with a Bow and Arrow.
5:50 Another thing to point out about Muskets being better than archers is this: If you're hit by an arrow, you'll probably die, eventually. If hit bya musket, that is a large round balk of lead ripping through your internal organs, you could survive, but it's relatively rare.
Line infantry tactics was not just necessary to stop cavalry charge, it was necessary to stop any determined charge. Before rifled breach-loaders were a thing, a bayonet charge would go through open ranks like a proverbial knife through butter.
soldiers absolutely do train butt-stock fighting and even thrusts with magazine but I assume it's mostly for morale, as close combat now is dropping a bunch of grenades then doing a mag dump if they don't surrender... yet to see any close action with pistols or hand to hand in 9 and a half years of war footage, outside of torture and war crimes where knives are used.
@@KasumiRINAYeah, but you can't use them like Fred Flintstone, so much plastic. edit: I was talking about gripping the gun by the muzzle and straight up going caveman on people. Between the stock and the barrel of those older guns, that was one nice last resort club.
Regarding line musket battle- they were commonly 3-4 lines deep (similar to bow tactics) first line fire, kneel, start to reload, second fire etc. Plate armor may be a bit heavy for our smaller forebears but I’ve heard with proper fitting the weight distribution is amazing, especially compared to a backpack.
Also re: swords- choose a warpick/hammer/mace even an axe instead for a sidearm. Less bulky, less training, more effective in many situations. Just also have a stiletto for the visor/armpit/groin. Honestly I only “know” this stuff from UA-cam so please don’t hate me. It all makes sense though.
@@Madchef8u This was common for archers or other untrained troops in the medieval period. However, such sidearms suffer the downside of being almost useless against a trained swordsman - unless you also had a shield. If the swordsman had a shield, though (which he would), you were still in for the fight of your life. Incidentally, shields provided enough advantage to a swordsman to allow him to fight spears and the like. Shields were a big deal, and aren't given enough credit for how thoroughly they shaped the per-gunpowder battlefield. Just ask the Romans.
Line infantry: The British (it could be argued) Were the best musketeers in Europe and their fire and discipline alone could disorganize an enemy. They also did not all fire at once, they discharged their muskets in firings or platoon fire so a continuous ripple of fire up and down the line was maintained keeping the pressure up on an enemy. There are many other tactics the British used but that is a study un itself.
It's incredible how many misconceptions about history in general arise from this idea that "people were stupid in those days and didn't know any better!".
Yeah I remember watching the Patriot with a friend and he said that the British were stupid to fight in tight formations like they did. But as the video says it was the best way to concentrate musket fire.
@@andrewward5891 yes! Everyone was fighting in lines for that reason. Also I think skirmishers were a thing too, so it's not like we were so dumb we never thought of spreading out.
The thing with the muskets is that they didn't have the spiral in the barrel to add pressure to the bullet, they didn't have even have bullets, they had the "minie ball". The accuracy with muskets was very low so the wall would compensate for that and added crazy amount of fire volume. That tactic was built to compensate for the technology of that time. That was the napoleon tactic.
The first Crusade had many seiges of castles that lasted from months to years. They would build large trebuchetes and seige towers alot of the time getting a good dose of greek fire when they would get near the castles walls. I reccomend going and checking out kings and generals channell and his 6 hour video about the crusades👍
See, there are sieges, and there are assaults. An assault of a castle is what most people think of when they hear the word "siege". There would, however, often be many unsuccessful assaults during a siege, which would be the action of encircling the fortress/city to prevent supplies from reaching it. Sieges often involved bombardments from a safe distance as well, intended to lower the defender's morale and hopefully hit something important over the walls. These weren't used to break down the walls until the age of gunpowder made that possible, at which point castles had to evolve a bit.
As far as I know, castle sieges are much more misunderstood and not only with the boiling oil thing. Catapults (like trebuchets) were extremely rarely used to break down castle walls even if the attacker didn't want to keep the castle intact (which was rare in itself), because most engines wouldn't even been able to scratch thoes thick walls they built back then. Flaming arrows are also mostly a myth, for the fire would most probably go out before it reached its target and even if it didn't, they wouldn't light up their surroundings that easily. These are great features in strategy games like Stronghold and look awesome in medieval-style fantasy movies like LoTR, but not accurate in a historical perspective.
Siege engines were indeed used to sow chaos behind the walls and to inflict casualties on the men manning them (or even destroy defensive artillery positions). Fire arrows were definitely used but definitely wasn't common or at least wasn't common in battles as they serve a more miscellaneous purpose. Some US soldiers in the Vietnam war used fire arrows to burn down rice huts from afar or on boats
Regarding swords, it's worth noting that up to the 13th Century they were expensive items only available to well off warriors that could afford them or were battle trophies. Medieval battles were, for the most part, fought by peasant armies largely armed with agricultural tools like axes and billhooks.
A fully armored knight was ideally supposed to be able to kip up from lying flat on his back, and vault into his horse's saddle with needing to use the stirrups. The idea of things like a Medieval European swords being barely sharpened metal clubs too heavy for a modern man to lift and the knights who used them being clumsy oafs who just mindlessly beat on each other with no training or skill (in contrast to the wonderfully skilled elegance of Japanese swordsmen,) full plate armor turning knights into basically helpless turtles who needed cranes to winch them up onto their horses' backs, everyone in the Middle Ages being an ignorant idiot who thought the Earth was flat (educated people, and anyone who worked at sea, having known the Earth was round for a long, long time)... it was all created in the mid-to-late 1800s by certain authors who wanted to make the Medieval period seem as horrible as possible, making everyone from the time period out to be an ignorant moron walking around stinking and covered in dung all the time so as to make it as unattractive as possible... authors such as Mark Twain with _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court._ This was mainly because of a combination of two things: 1) plain old 19th Century arrogance, thinking that all of history was just a prelude leading up their perfect enlightened time, and B) as a reaction to the writing genre of Medieval Romanticism and stories like _Ivanhoe,_ which had become _huge_ at the time and tended to portray Medieval times as being a glorious past golden age where everything and everyone was better, and this glorification of a fake past Golden Age lead to _actual really bad things_ (as it always does) like a whole lot of rich plantation owning morons in the Southern US glorifying fake ideas of chivalry, fighting duels like they _thought_ knights did all the time, and basically using a mangled, fake version of the past to justify awful modern behavior so they could all cosplay as Medieval Barons full-time (with black slaves instead of serfs.) Authors like Twain wanted to fight back against this glorification of the past being used to justify atrocious things in the present, so they did their best to make the past look _as ugly as possible._ The problem is, in trying to fight back against this romantic glorification of the past, the authors started outright making stuff up and knowingly lying, introducing intentional lies that caught on in the popular consciousness and have lasted _far_ longer than the fanciful ideas that Romanticism had been pushing. (It wasn't really the fault of most of the Romanticist authors, but rather how their stories were being absorbed and misused by certain groups in the public audience. Southern "Gentleman" plantation owners _really really_ wanted to believe they were the modern counterparts of the glorious knights of old, which to their minds not only helped to justify slavery, but also lead to things such as the Caning of Charles Sumner, when a pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks from South Carolina viciously beat anti-slavery Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner _nearly to death_ with a cane, so hard the cane broke halfway through the beating, causing life-long crippling injuries to Sumner. (And they were even _cousins!!)_ Just read up on the event to see how "genteel" these Southern slave-holding thugs really were, and why authors like Twain wanted to do everything they could to smear Romanticism.) So the lesson is this: if you want to fight back against lies, use the truth, _not bigger lies._
The myths about Japanese combat also come from later era, either Edo period of peace, so they developed new codes for wide clothing and sitting in a way that numbs your legs to MAKE IT HARD TO FIGHT as all fighting would be for assassination or rebellion now... or from Meiji and later romanticizing samurai (Bushido stuff)... and is actually debunked by reading authors of actual feudal age, like Musashi whose fencing tips included throwing sand into people's eyes and picking the side for duel so light shines into their view.
Another myth is the excessive amount of deaths. Obviously, wars have a lot of killings, but in movie battles there are always hundreds of deaths per battle. If battles were as deadly as shown in movies, any war would be as deadly as WW2
Armies before the modern period usually couldn't keep armies in the field continuously for years. Even within an extended campaign, Individual battles could be brutal but they were relatively rare occurrences. Sieges were the exception to this though.
@@j.f.fisher5318 It's not just that. The actual battle portion of a battle was never particularly deadly - throughout history casualties usually amount to around 5% per side during; it's only after one or the other side routs that the majority of casualties are inflicted, to the tune of around 15 - 30% of the defeated force.
@@Popepaladin Oh my God, there are exceptions to the rule??!?!!1!? Even including the massive amounts of propagandistic inflation and survivorship bias inherent to any attempt to analyze Ancient battles, big pitched battles claimed a whopping 5% per side before the rout and the defeated side tended to lose somewhere between 15-40% all told. In other words, while the rout could be quite bloody, the actual battle preceding it was generally not, and exceptions tend to stem from an inability of one or the other side to retreat.
Swear to God I'd be rich if I had a nickel for every single time some drunk dude at a party said something to the effect of warfare being 'manlier' if they went back to swords and/or 'how they'd be a total badass' during 'those times'. It's incredibly persistent and I'm betting everyone has heard someone say that at LEAST once in their life, lol. Small aside: I had a guy try to 'flex' on my naval service by telling me, first, that he'd totally have joined if he knew how to swim (he was also a 'swords are manlier' commentor by the way). Then he tried to follow up a story I was telling about hitting 18 foot swells in the Gulf of Oman by saying he totally hit 22 foot swells...off the coast of southern Oregon...on a fishing boat...that he was on while not knowing how to swim. Thankfully, people nearby also put two and two together and just laughed at him, lol. Good times.
I did middle ages reenactment/combat (the SCA) for 35+years. My chain mail, helm, gauntlets etc weighed 65+lbs, plus arms and shield. Fighting in units meant archers or knights couldn't pick us off. We could communicate and act together, and were able to break through a shield wall, something My Unit specialized in. For that, our primary weapon was the 6+foot viking great axe, and we were Feared! 20 6 1/2 ft tall men with axes could go through a shield wall and break a formation.....IF- we could get through the pikes. Shields in front with pikes Right Behind them. Sadly, I Rarely saw archers used correctly or effectively. I'd commanded archer squads in a couple wars. Grouped fire was Devastating! A dozen archers focusing on 1 or 2 targets dropped the target. For arms, I carried a shortsword on 1 wrist via lanyard, a longsword on my hip, and a bearded axe on my belt, shield on my back. I'd start with the Dane axe, break the line, drop the axe for my shield and pull my bearded axe or sword- depending on my mood. Lord Skerri Valtorsson, Commander of the Royal Varangian Guard.
2:00 Boiling water may not be as hot as hot oil, but boiling water is hot enough to produce instant 3rd degree burns, so it's nearly as effective and much cheaper than oil.
In the past the sword was the hand gun. It was meant for self defense. On the battle field it was your side arm. The pole axe was your rifle, your weapon of war. You carried a sword like weapon in case your spear broke. That is why swords existed. Single combat with sword against sword was a thing that happened in duels. This was something that happened both in the east and west. Two warriors would have a sword duel as a matter of honor. But in large scale warfare, pikes and spears were the weapon of choice because of necessity. Wars were a numbers game. And keeping your distance from the opponents was a major advantage.
Swords were sidearms, but they saw extensive use in hard-fought battles. Pikers, for example, had to resort to their swords &/or daggers in close combat, as the pike becomes useless when soldiers are pressed together in a tight melee. Men-at-arms likewise often turned to their swords once their lances broke. Etc.
Also the grooves in sword blades were too reduce the weight of the weapon, not for gruesome things like blood-letting. Truly, the main movement of swordsmanship was/is a chopping motion with the side of the blade. And while this can produce a lot of blood, especially at the neck, that's not the direction of the groove, so, the blood-letting idea makes no sense.
it was far more likely to be boiling water, piss or hot sand depending what was available. the one over the gate might use tar/bitumen if they really needed to but that risks burning your wooden doors which is why you have an iron portcullis as a backup.
Another misconception about two handed swords is that they are slow. A longsword is actually not much longer than a one-handed sword, as it has blade lengths between 95 and 110 cm. The use of two hands instead of just one actually decreases the reach of the weapon. The whole point of using a longsword is that it is much faster and more accurate than one handed swords.
One of the biggest misconceptions that I see in shows nowadays is that you can just stab straight through plate armor, even game of thrones is very guilty of this. That definitely should have made the list.
5:20 Wrong. Archers can and did fight in melee combat. The only reason why we were still “worse” at it (though not as much as you might think) is because they were just not as heavily armored since it’s harder to shoot arrows with heavy armor on (but they still did wear light armor). But they were still no joke in melee. English longbowmen were professional soldiers who could do both.
Line Infantry: armies are not defeated in the field by killing their soldiers. Armies are defeated by breaking their morale. The sheer terror and shock and awe of a massed volley of fire from close-ranked line infantry was vastly more devastating than the likely superior lethality of an equal number of professional longbowmen.
Video is an Eye Opener for all of us who have been believing was we have seen in Hollywood movies Please continue the Good Work & make more Videos to destroy the Myths we have made to believe
There are also very good interpretations of war in popular media. as a historian I was always really astonished of the depiction of war in the Witcher III wild hunt. you hardly see any battles, only soldiers wandering around and plundering the villages. Sieges are not played out in direct confrontation at the city-walls, but still have decisive effects on the morals and politics inside a besieged territory. The armies do not encounter each other directly, but armies manage to destroy the enemy by hunger, disease and terror. It's just a "beautiful" and pretty accurate interpretation of the 30 years war in a fantasy-setting.
7:30 Actually, the Gauls were famous for doing that. Big impetuous infantry charges. The Sardo-Punic Army at the Battle of Cornus also did that. It is something that has been done. 10:55 Well the Macedonian Pezhetairoi, although using the Sarissa as the main weapon, still had a sword in case the spear broke. The Iberians, the Germans, and the Gauls used the sword. So did the Romans, the Carthaginians, and the Samnites. The Roman Cavalry used the Spatha ( a sword ) because of its length. The Persians also used the sword. I mean the only ones who tended to not use the sword were cavalry-dependent nomads and cavalry-only armies and those who used it as a secondary weapon were mostly Greeks and civilizations that adopted their military style such as the Etruscans ( and, initially, the Romans ). In the High Middle Ages ( 1000 - 1300 AD ), the pike may have gradually become more popular, especially in the Late Medieval Period ( 1300 - 1492 AD ) , but in the Low Middle Ages ( 476 - 1000 AD ) the sword was still in widespread use as the primary weapon for the infantry. So, it’s safe to say that it was very prevalent. Just that not everyone used it as their primary weapon, if at all.
great video! If I am guilty of believing any of these, its probably the weight ones. It makes sense when you think about it, why would they use impractical armor/weapons in battle, but I did just accept "yeah that, looks heavy" Funny thing about line battles, I used to believe it was a case of, They stood there, shot at each other in turn and just repeated until one side was dead. but it was actually multiplayer games like HoldFast, with people role playing line battles that I could see how they actually worked. Constantly repositioning, flanking, trying to get a strategic advantage before firing. It's just a really affective way of 'moving and firing as one'
For firing lines, another big thing is that smokeless gunpowder wasn't a thing yet. That's part of why they had bright uniforms and drummers as well. Battles were loud as hell and covered in a thick fog of smoke. It was a means of minimizing confusion
A major reason for gunpowder replacing archers is logistics. For England during the 100-year war training archers was complicated enough, but supplying them with enough arrows required fletchers and arrowhead smiths and taxing the entire country for feathers suitable to making fletchings. Crossbow bolts were only marginally less expensive and complicated to manufacture in numbers (since they used fletchings out of leather or wood). Meanwhile, a musket required lead bullets, wadding (cloth and later paper) and gunpowder. Things that could be easily mass manufactured. The gunpowder was the most complicated part, but an army needed gunpowder anyway (for the cannons). As for armor. Not that heavy, but wearing a full suit of plate put both weight on the limbs (where you don't want it if you're going to march several miles) and it was difficult to maintain/repair. Which meant that full armor was used by the elites (who had servants to handle maintenance/repair) and who could get to battle on horseback. If you weren't one of those lucky few you'd have to use armor that was easier to maintain and march in.
They mostly were. They were mostly rich people that could afford armour and weapons. But they also had the time and money for training which normal soldier's did not.
Rushing the enemy in close did occasionally happen, but it was rare. They usually slowly march into each others ranks and a push and shove match would ensue. And which side lost its nerve first, would panic and bunch up got slaughtered. The cavalry was usually used to exploit the rout and to chase down the fleeing enemy.
7:12 I had a phase on Roman warfare and I started to notice "everyone go into a 1v1". I think a good parody movie would have a guy kill his opponent and then wander field looking for another 1v1 instead of helping his nearby allies.
The modern military body armor and full battle kit was 85 pounds when I was in Iraq. That's not even including a pack you would need for extended missions and those weighed 40 or more pounds. Knight's armor seems light in comparison.
My poor back ;(
And everyone else's. It's not like you get to just drop that stuff and take 5.
Yeah, back in '99 when I left The Corps. The basic kit. . .note, basic, was about a 24-30 lb pack, inclucing flack and helmet and riffle and carry ammo. But as soon as you add the mission requirements it starts to climb fast. If you are heavy weapons, the tripod on a .50 cal is IIRC 22 lb's, and that's the lightest and most convenient component. Add food, about 1/2 lb per meal, Batteries (EFFING HEAVY!) Radio's, group and individual, expanded ammo. What the modern warfighter carries if they have to carry it all themselves adds up fast, and 33lb's ain't shit. That's why the "requirement" not at all true, but sometimes used as a test, is the ability to carry a man of the same size and weight 100 yards.K
And I was a geek Marine. Even a small bit of weight adds up fast on your knee's after even a moderate hump.
Also, you wear most of that weight on your back, while knights had is somewhat uniformly distributed on their whole body. The main drawback of full suit of armour is that you cannot easily take it of when you will fall, while you can take of your backpack, stand up, and put your backpack again. And the weakest moment of a knight is when he is on the ground, because you knight's opponent will sit on the knight and try to kill him with a dagger trough visor.
There’s a good reason so many veterans are suffering from bad knees, ankles, shoulders and backs. The times we had to do an assault course in full battle gear were hard enough and that was just the training part with some downtime and physio afterwards.
Edit. One big difference between knights and modern soldiers is that they had to use physical force all throughout the battle. Anyone who has ever fought hand to hand with or without weapons will know how exhausting that is, even without any armour.
Thats only 50-60kg... Amazing, I thought it'd be heavier.
A good rule of thumb is that if you ever find yourself thinking how dumb these pre-modern soldiere were for not using or doing something that seems obvious, the chances are youre misunderstanding it.
These peoples lives relied on being effective at what they do. I gurantee you didnt come up with some brilliant new tactic while playing dark souls
Pretty much goes for everything historical. Our ancestors were as sharp as we are, probably sharper since you had to know how to do a lot more stuff for yourself back then.
You're saying that medieval knights didn't live by the roly poly???
Oof. Actually, I did. Use a fucking machine gun dummies. Morons charge with spears.
People also fail to remember these armies did not have modern weapons. So their tactics had to be radically different then a modern army.
Yes all those videos on weapons beating Armour are junk. They fail to make it realistic to begin with but the clear fact is if Armour wasn't effective, they wouldn't have worn it.
The bow is a weapon that was mostly used as a harassment weapon and to wound horses at long range. Short range it might get through the less then great Armour of the times.
Proof..if they worked so good, battles would have been over very quickly, yet we hear of most going on for hours and sieges for years.
One of my pet peeves about how Hollywood portrays historical combat is the notion that you 'swing' your shield around like a maniac to intercept the enemy's attack. With the exception of very small bucklers, this is NOT how you use a shield. If you do, your arm will lose its ability to actually move within minutes. A shield was held close to one's body such that its center of weight was essentially in line with your stance, with virtually no weight actually being carried by the muscles of the arm. To defend yourself you basically 'ducked', you moved 'around' the shield to interpose it between you and the enemy's attack. You could shoulder shrug or crouch and such to move it a bit, but for the most part, shields were held largely in place. This was 'especially' the case when in formation with other shieldmen. Your compatriots gain little benefit from a shield wall if you are wildly swinging your shield around.
To be fair, you could use the edge of a Viking shield to smash it into someone's face.
However, yeah, regularly swinging them around would've never been practical.
And a metal rim on a shield would have been a detriment, since getting your opponent's weapon wedged into yours gives you more of an advantage than a notch on his edge.
Seems a good time to note that the problem with common sense is that it only works when things are intuitive, while the correct answer's counterintuitive about as often as the intuitive. That's one of my pet peeves, though clearly not a match for your pet - may I pet it, too?
@@bookman7409 This is not universally true. Many historical shields had metal rims, or were entirely metal. I suspect it's because of what something like a falx can do; cut several inches through your shield and hit something on the other side. If you were holding your shield close to your center of mass, and a falx came down upon the edge of your shield, there is a good chance it would go through and hit you.
If you don't believe me, you can look up test videos. Some weapons are perfectly capable of hacking right through the rim of a shield. A metal rim is needed to prevent this.
@@binbows2258 Disagree? On the contrary, you raise an excellent point, that context alters cases. You oversold it for me, because as soon as I saw falx, I knew I'd dropped a stitch, though my point generally stands. Thanks for pointing that out in good detail, my friend, others may learn from my error and your correction.
@@binbows2258 Same holds true with regards to how you wield a shield; shield formations weren't as uniform as people assume, i.e. they weren't universally phalanxes in every case. Also, bossed shields versus strapped shields - huge, most important difference that's not being discussed here by most. Era, culture, weapons of choice also play a role. Bossed shields inherently benefit in many contexts by shifting the shield, positioning it along the path of the incoming attack at an angle, and letting the blow's force dissipate by way of forcing the blow to deflect the shield while still being prevented from getting to you - because it can pivot freely. Conversely, gripped/strapped shields must intercept the blow instead (i.e. they can't pivot like that, so you need to deflect or redirect the blow by way of angling anyway).
It really can be summed up as "people have been killing for a long time, and doing it better has always been the goal." The Hollywood myths are hard to separate because they are the lens through which we often view "the past" but much as the Egyptians could build the pyramids, ancient commanders could lead armies, and weapons and armor were not chosen randomly. The idea of "primitive man" is perhaps the most pervasive myth among humans.
I find the idea that so many contemporary, uneducated, paranoid, ignorant morons somehow believe the pyramids were made by aliens to be absolutely insulting to humanity as a whole.
It indeed comes from the historically pervasive and continuous idea that our generation and our age is oh so much smarter than those who came before. That OUR people are enlightened and our ancestors were just dumb brutes.
While it's true that enlightenment values and the progress of science are largely due to the casting away of ancient, unskeptical philosophies and that the debunking and ignoring of unfalsifiable hypotheses are what lead to the immense leap of progress in terms of technology since the modern age, this was largely a change in philosophy, not a change in human intellect. Not to mention a lot of those changes were also due to the increasing power of the moneyed classes and the spread of literature making communication and the spreading of ideas much faster. (the invention of the printing press is likely the one invention that created a quiet but world-changing revolution on so many levels that it's probably one of the most underrated inventions the west has ever produced. It's literally what might have caused several wars between protestants and catholics, but I digress.)
Ancient mankind was just as clever, just as smart as we are today, they just had different technology, different cultural values and perhaps a more prevalent emphasis on religious and tribal beliefs.
The idea that the ancient egyptians couldn't POSSIBLY have made the pyramids is not only absurd and frankly debunkable with little to no effort, it's insulting, degrading to all humans everywhere, not to mention egyptians, and spreads cynicism and an anachronistic, teological view of the world that can only damage intellectual discourse, not help it.
The entire idea of those in the past being barbaric idiots came about largely during the Enlightenment period which is where the term “dark ages” originated, ironically, we view the Enlightenment period much in the same way they viewed the medieval dark ages.
We do?@@awesomeblader45
@@awesomeblader45
Enlightenment in intellect perhaps, but... certainly not much in their societal practicality
Agreed. We will look primitive in 300 years, if we are able to survive that long and future generations manage to not be terminally stupid, which seems to be the trend
Concerning the weight of medieval armor: When I attended fire-fighting school we were told by the instructor that the total weight of the fire-fighting "Turn-Out Gear" which we were required to wear (NOMEX fire-proof suit, helmet, boots, gloves, SCBA breathing apparatus, air tank and mask, etc) came to about 70 pounds, or approximately the same weight as a medieval suit of armor. Wearing full "Turn-Out Gear" we were required not only to fight fires in a multi-story structure, but to negotiate an indoor obstacle course in pitch darkness within a limited amount of time. Many of the men with whom I did the course were in the 40s or 50s, and some were in their 60s.
youre also not dodging spear tips. that weight is worth it even if you move slow. theres some serious-fit 60-somethings that put the youngens to shame (in short bursts)
And the armour would actually fee lighter due to being distributed over your entire body.
Plus your probably twice the size of a ancient warrior
I hate to disabuse you of that argument but I'm 5 foot 6 inches tall, so I don't think so.
@@adamwalkeraw
I think this is just a feature of a fit man being able to carry approximately the same load 1000 years ago as today. So a modern infantryman or a firefighter or a medieval man-at-arms would end up some similar loads because your superiors are always going to load you up with as much as you can carry and still function. That hasn't changed.
Medieval armor was so mobile that there are videos out there of people in full plate doing forward rolls and cartwheels. As for swords, they were the ancient (and medieval) equivalent of a modern soldier's pistol, the secondary weapon you pulled out when your primary weapon (usually a spear or polearm) was broken or lost in battle.
Yes and also no. He was very wrong about the weapons cavalry used. While lances (very different from the jousting variety) saw some use on the battlefield - they were basically one time use, as you would leave them in your target as you rode past, unable to retrieve them like an infantryman could. Cavalry primarily used swords, as the slicing motion was very easily performed on horseback and allowed them to cut at unprotected backs and sides when they broke into a formation. There was some use of axes and other hand weapons, but swords were by far the most common. For footmen though, yes, the spear or polearm was the mainstay till the gunpowder era.
It really helps that good quality Medieval armour plate armour in particular tend to be custom made to fit the wearer. Also due to the armour being evenly distributed that helps reduce the weight felt by the wearer.
@@ethanwilliams1880 Lance-armed cavalry of the 19th & 20th centuries did not usually leave their lance in the target - they would allow the tip of the lance to swing backwards so that it pulled out as they galloped past. The sport of "tent-pegging" uses a similar technique to pick up a wooden peg with the point of the lance - example here: ua-cam.com/video/L4xg2QIGNnI/v-deo.html
@@ethanwilliams1880 it's actually both, there was supply with replaceable lance pile in some cases, and Uhlans would use lances way into 20th century with succesfully raiding Nazi supply convoys, while other types of cavalry, like Cossacks, used sabers or a shashka, a hilt-less saber strictly for cutting from horseback. Length WAS an issue but you can still see reenactors picking them from the ground while riding as a training exercise. At the gunpowder era it really didn't matter if your lance was a meter or two longer, you either reached the target or you didn't.
@@KasumiRINA Yes, that's why I said they saw some use on the battlefield. Also, I wasn't just talking about recent history. My post was mainly aimed at contesting what the OP said about swords being only sidearms, while also pointing out a discrepancy in the video about cavalry armament.
1. Logistics in all its aspects were (and still are) way more deciding than battles
The battle of Glorieta Pass comes to mind; out in the deserts of Arizona, the Confederate forces may have won the battle, but the Union raid on their supply wagon during the battle won them the territory!
A tank without supplies is just a metal box with a tube sticking out the front.
Rommel had poorer logistics but he almost won against Montgomery
Only reason he lost is because Montgomery threw every soldier and plane he had at the Desert Fox. Mont had a huge numerical superiority at his side
I would say logistics are a key part of battles and both are key for strategic victories. Yes more important, but way not enough on its own and definitely not an excuse to slack on combat effectiveness.
“The sinews of war isn’t gold but good soldiers.” -Machiavelli (potential paraphrasing)
@@aaronharkins4331
Russia had better logistics than the Afghans and Chechyans
I think that people might be thinking that knights couldn't move well in armor because they are looking at suits of jousting armor. Jousting armor of the 15th-16th century were heavier (up to 110lbs) to protect the jouster and weren't designed for combat on foot. Also, they've watched Excalibur too often.
Also, a lot of the stuff that survived through to today is more along the lines of a parade uniform - flashy and decorated, to be worn only on special occasions. Armor meant to be used would have been used....
@@rtpoe The jousting stuff probably only got used, during tournaments. Since it was builder heavier for protection, it sacrificed mobility. One wouldn't want to wear it outside of the joust or a parade. One could ask a historian how much of it survived. The combat stuff probably nearly all got chewed up in combat or traded in and scrapped as it wore out and more effective or cost effective armor was produced.
This is my source for saying that tournament armor was heavier in the 15th and 16th century.
Edge, David; Paddock, John Miles (1988). Arms & armor of the medieval knight. Crescent Books. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-517-64468-3.
No it's way better than that:
Nerdy fricking armchair Europeans made stuff up in their heads and didn't lift.
Then they got reminded what real actual fight and die for your life warfare was like when the Napoleonic era escalated kind of horribly quickly to tanks and nukes and NOW college kids are much more likely to
Actually lift and get sun and try to do what they've read about. Because we're a little more baseline scared we could actually need it after we saw WW1 could actually happen.
Rich kids realized they could die too after the BRIEF era of war being about capture instead of kill totally definitely ended and went back to normal killing. (Spanish Succession was same tech as Napoleonic. Just different culture. Napoleon saw an exploit, and ran with it.)
So in the first place we discovered 40 lbs suits of armor were actually much more usable than believed as the kind of classroom nerd changed from more theoretical to applied so people writing books stopped being quite as dumb.
And 2nd place the real actual jocks, who never died out but because they spent their time exercising instead of being nerds, they proved that with effort, with the rush of adrenaline, willpower, or necessity, 110 lbs is something you'll find out you can carry and wear more than you think if it's that or be killed. Not your first pick maybe. But you wouldn't actually be slowed down as much as the books made it out to be.
There's a high school football movie of some kind where the big guy does 100 yards of mountain climbing with a whole small man on his back.
That's not less than 80 lbs I think.
Forget the "armor was lighter than you think and heavy armor was less common" argument.
No, jacked people exist, and they were scary and good at killing people because wearing 110 pounds of Armor and being able to move too wasn't actually out of the question for the strongest of them anyway.
You wouldn't really want to piss these guys off if you could help it.
Politicians always try to avoid war because the other side's army is in fact scary and makes people pause to think about it before they FAAFO.
They couldn't break physics all the way, but your army also would be made out of the jocks not the nerds lol.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court also did a lot to propagate the immobile knight myth.
Turns out too, that the enthusiasts in the late 1800s and early 1900s who were trying to reassemble original armor often 'attached' the pieces to each other incorrectly.
Chapter three is my biggest pet peeve in depictions of ancient and medievel combat by Hollywood. It is well documented the great lengths units of infantry would keep tight ranks and order and discipline. There are exhaustive manuals on how the units could keep their lines absolutely shoulder to shoulder and be relieved by fresh units if order and morale started to break down. A unit that broke formation was generally defeated in short order.
My biggest peeve is the infantry bit, especially since he completely messed up the reasons why it was effective. I don't know why it is so hard for people to understand that musketeers were also melee combatants thanks to their bayonets, which was a huge reason that they were so effective, since they didn't need to be defended, like archers or crossbowmen, and could make their own formations, like spearmen (which is why they used spearmen formations).
It was this wall of bayonets that kept the cavalry at bay, not the shots so much. Archers and crossbowmen were also out because muskets had a range advantage. Cavalry was the reason for these formations, if there wasn't cavalry on the field, they would often spread into skirmish lines to avoid getting shredded by grapeshot. The bit about orders is completely wrong, they couldn't hear shit, and anyone who's fired a gun knows it. They used drums, flags, and the like to issue orders.
On top of that, he makes it sound like line infantry arose in the age of gunpowder, when it was the main style of combat throughout ALL OF HISTORY (some of my points about it are different in other ages).
He got the morale bit right though, for sure.
Many, if not most, combatants throughout history did not drill, did not form ranks, and did not keep rigidly close to each other. But hardly anyone charged pellmell into a massive melee as in Hollywood.
Rigid discipline and keeping in neat geometric formations is a) like nominal strength, mostly a lie even if aspired to and b) a fetish reserved for only the richest and most bureaucratic peoples in history, eg. China, Hellenistic Macedonia, late Imperial Rome and Byzantium, Prussia & co. And, speaking of the latter, it's not a coincidence that a lot of the early scholarship on ancient tactics that emphasizes "tight ranks and order and discipline" came from 19th century Europe where soldiers were idealized to follow drill so rigidly as to function as unfeeling, unconscious machines...
@@melanoc3tusii205 why are you on a crusade against military discipline
They did keep a loose formation but they did not engage the enemy while in tight ranks, except for pikes of course since their effectiveness relied on density.
That's something the Romans employed on a regular basis. Even the show Rome did it wrong... first they go all nicely in formation, and then bam standard nonsense of 2 armies completely mixed together.
Simon is like the educational Rick Astley. It feels like every time I see a history channel I’ve never seen before I click on it and it’s him. 😂
And it’s sadly always full of inaccuracies…
@@awesomereviews1561 wtf are you talking about?? that’s an insane claim my dude - there are absolutely ZERO inaccuracies. can you even name a single thing he got wrong?
because as far as I can tell, he really _didn’t_ want to give that lady up, much less let her down, and he certainly did *NOT* want to run around and desert her.
rick astley is a straight shooter, brother; you seriously need to watch what you say about this great man D:
Never give you up!
Yeah because he has like 20 fucking channels for some reason. I don’t understand why he feels the need to make so many channels when having one or two would work just fine.
@@awesomereviews1561you ought to make yours to correct them or even highlight them here . But I suspect you are too lazy to do either so chatting 💩 is easier
Swords were, by all intent and purpose, sidearms for most of the pre-blackpowder era.
Infantrymen used spears and pikes, cavalry spears and lances.
Swords were backup weapon reserved for when pike or lance got broken or was lost.
Notable exception were Roman legions of the classical era, who used short thrown spears called pilum to disrupt enemy formation before closing in with their famous gladius shortswords.
Depends, the sword and shield combo was used during the Han dynasty
@@hiimryan2388 Who interesting is the Roman time period.
Think the sword and shield worked very well will well trained and disciplined forces before cavalry become too good.
Most medieval battles in Europe was much smaller than the huge Roman ones and probably to easy to flank 1000 men with heavy cavalry.
I read somewhere that, in medieval warfare for close quarter combat, a mace or some form or crushing weapon was preferred?
@@allanwrobel6607 Swords are basically useless against any metal armor, so you want a heavy, blunt weapon that can crush through chain mail and such.
@@allanwrobel6607 maces, clubs and war hammers were often preferred against armored foes, as those would maul (pun intended!) enemy even if he was inside full plate armor
0:50 - Chapter 1 - Castle warfare
3:10 - Chapter 2 - Line infantry
7:00 - Chapter 3 - Order & chaos
9:00 - Chapter 4 - Heavy armor
10:35 - Chapter 5 - Ancient weaponry
So grateful for info.
It still hurts to even study all this.
1:59 Ukrainian money
Almost as if there's a chapter list for the video.
Oh wait.....
There is one already....
In the description....
Under "chapter list"
You even got the times wrong 🤦♂️
Late medieval jousting armor could potentially have been very heavy, sometimes with thick cast iron plates. I can imagine these could have been heavy enough for the rider to require help to mount the horse or get up if they were unhorsed.
These jousting armors were a bit like an ice-hockey goalkeeper's outfit - good function and protection for a specific limited context, but certainly not something you'd wear on a battlefield...
*At 80 Years Old I need Help Mounting !*
I don't think you actually mean 'cast iron'. Cast iron is brittle, not easily formed into thin sheets, and historically was very rarely used for armour, as it's just not a material very well suited to the job. It seems extremely unlikely that it'd be used for high-end sporting equipment used to protect the richest and most important members of society. Casting iron wasn't even a metallurgical technique that was widely used in Europe until late in the medieval period, as it requires temperatures much hotter than a normal blacksmith's forge can generate in order to melt iron to a point where it can be poured (cast) into a mould. Its use only really became widespread when blast furnaces were introduced, and even then it was mainly used for cannons until the technology was improved over many years. Medieval plate armour and edged weapons were usually made from wrought (hammered and worked) iron or steel.
@@chrisball3778 Also the smiths of Europe learned to harden steel in the 15th century. Amour made before then was unharden steel and you might be able to penetrate it with a powerful blow. After the 15th century, armour was impossible to penetrate with hand weapons.
It wasn't the weight of the jousting armor that restricted mobility. It was only slightly heavier than battle armor.
The issue was that the joints were partially fixed to prevent injury from hyperflexing. The right arm in particular was often locked in a bend with extremely limited range to help prevent lifting the lance too high or dropping it too low and causing fatalities.
This practice of limiting movement would make it very difficult to get on and off a horse alone
But what we are talking about here is the sport-fication of jousting.
Allegedly some of the armour got so heavy that the jousting lance would brake before it could push them off the horse. As well as removing the gaps in the armour that allow movement
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu himself experienced the Yari (Japanese spear) effectiveness in combat and if I remember correctly he once said "give 1 gold bar to a Samurai he could make 1 nice Katana, Give me 1 gold bar I could make 300 Yari and left over to hire a man to use it" In medieval Japan spear is everywhere, if you serve your load as a farmer at lease you would have a spear head at home.
And your farming tools would have to have been kept clean and sharp as a matter of course....
Another popular misconception is that the invention of firearms immediately killed medieval warfare when that’s not the case. From the 1500s-1700s firearms were often used in conjunction with cavalry and pikemen. Armor wasn’t immediately antiquated either as firearms lacked the necessary firepower to penetrate the toughest armors, though armor was still slowly phased out due to their low cost effectiveness ie all the metal spent on armor could’ve been used on muskets and ammo. That being said you can still find plenty of armors with dents from being shot at. A great example of this design philosophy came with the Cuirass: it was a relatively lightweight breastplate designed to protect the vital organs in your torso-even from pistols, while leaving your limbs free to attack any way you need and allows your head a full range of motion which is important for visibility.
People need to realize that the sword performed essentially the same purpose as a pistol on ancient battlefields, it was a side arm.
The sword isn't even as ancient a weapon as people think. The Japanese used to issue swords to all of their soldiers as late as WW2. A number of American soldiers who served in the Pacific got to take a Japanese sword home with them. (ok technically they were often Katanas, but that's basically the same thing)
@@shadowninja6689 A katana is a class of sword, like a cutlass or a rapier, I still wouldn't want to bring one to a gun fight.
@@shadowninja6689 hm... just because it was a sword made in Japan doesn't mean it's a katana.
The Katana was not a battlefield weapon either which surprises alot of people.
@@shadowninja6689wait.... you think that just because they were still being issued doesn't make the sword itself an ancient weapon?
You do understand how time works, right?
One big thing is we assume they were all stupid. Their tactics were state of the art for their time, humans are the same, we are the same, just that technology has culture shaped us
Nah, because waging war at all is mostly an incredibly stupid act - although you can always find justifications for it. There were tons of times when someone conquered land that wasn't even of any real use to them (or they made it completely useless) just for the sake of conquering it. But certainly humans are just as stupid today. Putin's war in Ukraine is a good example.
It was when technology outran the old tactics that great massacres happened, see Civil War and WW1, but armies soon adapted...
@@13minutestomidnightthere were plenty of leaders that made stupid decisions. That doesn't mean that the people who actually went out and fought went about it in a stupid manner. Watching your buddies die gives you lots of incentive to figure out better tactics.
Arm chair generals always think they know better than the people at the time, which if they got it wrong means they died.
@@13minutestomidnight we actually still don't know what the russians want from us, really... they have TONS of land and most has resources in depths just waiting to be developed... So getting what's left of Mariupol or rubble that once was Bakhmut isn't even worth the price it cost to take them. There's also no ideology involved... This war can only be explained by a madman playing soldiers and an entire nation sick with folie a doux and cheering on the senseless destruction. Independent (as good as we get) pollsters are clear than putin's ratings are up during ANY war. Always.
From what I learnt a while ago about the line infantry (musketeers) is it played a massive psychological part.
A big part of the strategies used was front line knelt whilst aimed, second line behind them aimed standing, so a highly concentrated firing squad, and all fired on command together. So a volley of musket balls all all the same time. This also meant that the smoke would not impact accuracy on the opening shots, and that the smoke would clear all that the same time for the line for the next volley. Rather then a almost permanent cloud from the random firing.
So any one advancing on their location being aimed at, all got hit at the same time, the charging enemy watch their enemies disappear in smoke, and the first few lines of their team instantly drop dead. Imagine being 2-3 back from the front, feeling a little bit secure at least. Then a bang and front few lines of your squad mates in front of you drop dead in a instantly you realise you are at the front and next to suffer the same fate, from an enemy you cannot clearly see what they're doing. Crushing moral in a single bang.
Do you help your brother in arms? Do you step over them and continue to charge at an enemy you can't clearly see what they're doing next? Or do you run away? Moral is shattered, and in this time, the musketeers are reloading.
Where as if it was a 'fire at will' situation, people dropping one by one would not break moral nearly as easily in comparison.
anecdotally, the story was that the original muskets were primarily used to lay down a smoke screen to cover the bayonet charge.
While I'm sure this had an effect on morale, I guarantee it didn't hold a candle to seeing what the grapeshot did to your friends. Also the smoke usually didn't clear much at all, especially if there wasn't a strong breeze. The main reason for coordinated firing was cohesion and morale in the actual formation. Also I'm pretty sure having the front line kneel while the second line fired was a British innovation that arose late into the age. It would also require well trained troops, which weren't always the standard.
@@kenbrown2808 That would be an absurdly expensive distraction, and if that was the case, they would have also significantly up-armored their infantry in that age, when they did the opposite, mostly. Muskets were "inaccurate", but no more so than bows, and only slightly more than crossbows. They also had a range advantage over both, and could penetrate armor better. All while being usable as spears and clubs, easy to operate, required little training, and the musketeer could hold FAR more ammunition, even if he couldn't put it down field as fast.
In WW II, Russia didn't have enough rifles for all the soldiers. The back lines weren't armed. They were just supposed to pick up rifles from the fallen and keep on going.
@@ethanwilliams1880 the anecdote refers to the commanders being slow to change their doctrine, rather than the potential the long gun had. remember that during the American Revolution, the british were horrified that the colonial infantrymen had the chutzpah to actually TARGET british officers.
I always figured there was a good reason for lining up and firing muskets, but it's good to actually hear it broken down this well
In movies like the Patriot they line up once and shoot at each other and sometimes charge. But in real life The lining up and firing and reloading was like something that happened a lot of cycles as fast as you can get your guys to do it.
like there'd be lots of groups of them. So you'd run your lines and then you'd post up and fire and then quickly start moving before your enemy can get set up to do the same. So it was about being fast. And movies kind of make it seem like just a slug fest. Entire level people are trying to coordinate all these little blocks of people running around
It concentrates how many shooters you got in 50 meters of frontage compared to me.
Isnt it obvious
Smoothbore muskets had a rapidly decreasing accuracy with increases in range, and firing in ranks created a mass of fire that would ensure hits on an enemy formation even if individual shots were inaccurate; while engagements might start at around 200 yards, most firefights occurred at ranges under 100 yards. Rifled firearms were accurate out to much longer ranges, but the slower rate of fire driven by the increased difficulty of ramming balls down a barrel while engaging the rifling, before the Civil War, generally relegated rifles to specialty units; innovations like the Minie ball, which used the burning propellant gases to force the base of the projectile into the rifling, made reloading rifles much faster.
Luc Besson's movie about Jeanne D'Arc is one example of the myth of the boiling oil poured from the castle wall on the enemies. Not only, as mentioned, is it a waste of a precious resource, but you also have to waste a lot of precious wood or other flammable material to bring the content of a big kettle to boiling temperature. Wood that is useful to cook meals or repair damage on your castle or any other accomodations. Especially when you think that sieges might take several weeks or months into the cold seasons.
And equivalent would be using water or dirt or gravel in minecraft, things you're eternally fated to have in vast and potentially unuseful surplus, or stuff that is inherently infinite. As effective as a splash potion of harming might be, those are costly and take resources that may be in finite supply (gunpowder, glass blocks, nether wart, etc.).
Or lava before dripstone made lava infinitely available from a single source block.
And even that gravel could make good arrows from the flint
That movie ("The Messenger") was probably the first one I ever saw where they got the operation of the trebuchet right. I give him credit for that. Most movies use what I call a "spoonapult", but they used one with a sling, which gives something on the order of double the range. And ... they did *not* chop a length of rope with an axe to fire it.
Then again, she probably had cannons, which are more portable, but the trebuchet is cooler.
My kit minus rucksack in Afghanistan was 65 pounds. That's M4 and M9, 210 rounds of 5.56, 32 rounds 9mm, one hand grenade, two smoke, MBITR radio, interceptor body armor, helmet, camelback, NODs, M25 binos, boots, uniform and other stuff I am forgetting. Historically the soldiers load (for combat) has remained 45-65 pounds.
You do not say much about food.
@@jamesthornton9399 Because it was an patrol returning to base or an APC afterward not an multi day march.
Back in the days soldiers had to carry all their camping style gear to unless you was an knights or man at arms who had retainers and pack horses, or well equipped modern soldiers.
I used to work for a company that made military radios. (Not the MBITR.) Our product manager talked about how we "load down our soldiers with 200 pounds of lightweight equipment." I suppose exaggeration is to be expected in that line of work.
All that kit to achieve nothing 🤣🤣
@@barebasics Best year of my life
The musketeer as replaceable had another benefit. Archers had to train constantly, and owned their bows and some arrows. Therefore they were a force that could be bribed or otherwise convinced to turn against their lord. Dangerous to have around, tough to replace. Musketeers could be brought up to scratch quickly and once trained they didn’t have to keep practicing. The muskets themselves could be kept in an armory so the erstwhile musketeers were no more dangerous than any other peasant.
In the era of professional armies, the technology dictated tactics. A smoothbore musket was not accurate at any distance, so a mass of them was needed to create the hail of bullets necessary to do damage. A lot of lead went into the ground or overhead.
In the flintlock and bayonet era (18th to early 19th c) the British especially relied on the bayonet. Musket volleys were to soften up the opposing line before closing with bayonet. Before the Napoleonic wars, firing ten shots in a battle was considered “hot work.” It was about maneuver for advantage and a flanking bayonet charge.
With the advent of the rifled musket and minie ball in the mid 19th c this became semi-suicidal.
Bayonets were rarely used throughout history. During the Civil War, the battle of little round top was one of the only places they were used, and only at the very end when no ammunition was to be found. Just a fact check for you
The Swedes were among the last armies to take up the bayonet. This was in the late 1600's early 1700's. They armed their soldiers with rapiers and some muskets, and charged the enemy right after the enemy shot at them. They often gained spectacular victories... but the soldiers were too hard to replace, and they wound up loosing their power and status. The War this happened in is called the "Great Northern War", and its a great demonstration of why the bayonet and musket worked, and what the battlefields of the time looked like.
@@ophiuchus992 Bayonets we’re used throughout the 18th and into the 19th c, but rarely actually used. That is, there were bayonets affixed to muskets in battle and bayonet charges, but comparatively few bayonet casualties. It was a morale weapon. The defending line almost always either broke and ran or stopped the charge with gunfire before contact. The exception being the Scottish rebellion of 1745, when the Scots were all about close combat.
Nevertheless, the British drilled soldiers in bayonet fencing from the 1780s onward.
In the American Civil War, the rifled musket and artillery prevailed over the bayonet and on those few occasions of contact soldiers preferred musket butts to bayonets at close quarters.
With the video's points, archers did use spears, historically, and they're a lot more effective than a clumsy bayonet on a very heavy musket. Many armies used guns AND bows, outside of Western Europe--let basic geography blow your mind.
Many European states preferred crossbows, and muskets were similar. English yew went nearly extinct, making archery a suddenly expensive practice. And conditions became so horrible post-Enclosure that there weren't any healthy longbowmen anymore, people commenting on this problem. So it's a lot more economical in nature.
Fun fact, many British soldiers didn't use bayonets, but just clubbed their enemies, since the design of bayonets tended to make them get stuck.
@@derrickthewhite1the reason the Swedes lost was because king Karl was too egotistical to accept Peter the Great's peace treaty, charged into russian territory (which had received the scorched earth treatment) and faced a massive defeat at Poltava
Okay…swords were very common as sidearms/backup weapons, there’s a reason they’re so frequently depicted in art throughout history. It was usually smart to have a backup weapon in case your spear broke or someone got inside its reach, and that backup weapon had to be small and portable. Also, archers tended to carry backup weapons including swords, hammers, axes…the notion that they were less capable in melee is also mostly thanks to Hollywood. The reason firearms took over from bows is mostly due to the ease of training that you mentioned. Logistics > strategy > tactics.
For armor I think you have to understand that heavier isn't always better. What I mean is that a 3mm armor plate gives the same amount of protection against a spear or sword than a 10mm plate. You only really start seeing thicker plates when firearms get more prominent and potent, but then the focus shifted to simply protecting your chest, not full body armor
Ancient and mediaeval armours seem incredibly thin compared to modern armour, yes.
@@simontmnthey used metal, not polymers, so it had to be thinner
in fact, it only takes about 1.5mm of hardened steel to 100% protect against swords, and still highly effective against other types though a lucky strike with a lance would probably get you. Armor is also designed to deflect and slide off weapons, so hard to get anything to stick in the first place. To combat that, armored combat switched to war hammers to do percussive damage to break bones without piercing the armor.
Also the volley fire was also not super common… usually only used upon final assault by charging troops. Usually defensive troops would fire by file then go into fire at will…spreading out all the shooters into a continuous fire. Or firing by rank so you always had 50% loaded and ready while the others reloaded.
The idea of very Heavy armor on knights may be the result of the beautiful tournament armor that survived in museums and was very different from the battlefield armor worn by knights and men at arms. The church tried to outlaw tournaments several times due to the number of fighting men lost in the early years and I think overly heavy armor was a bit of compromise between free for all bloodsport and no practice against resisting and capable opponents.
Even the heaviest tournament armour isn't so heavy that the knights wearing it couldn't move or mount their horses without a crane. Tournament armour in museums may have fed into the myth, but most of it probably comes from the simple fact that many of the writers and film makers who created a lot of 19th and 20th century fiction about knights just didn't know that much about armour. Most of us just instinctively assume that metal objects must be heavy, because many of the metal objects we handle from day-to-day are heavy. It's counter-intuitive to think that medieval armour was actually very thin and even a full suit could be very light.
There’s some videos out there of dudes having a full on sword battle, in a ring, with all armor that looks like it does in the books.
They’re kind of boring.
They can barely move, can’t turn, circle each other a lot. When they did make a big hit, the wind up came from a mile away. Never any combos.
I think I’d take the helmet…maybe a gauntlet because they look cool…but ditch the rest.
I’d run circles around anyone in full armor.
@@chrisball3778 An enormous portion of the popular misunderstanding of history stems from many embellishments and myths created in the 20th and 21st century, many used as propaganda. Then again, propaganda has also been used throughout history, so it could've fallen victim earlier, maybe because it was so expensive to make.
@@chrisball3778 So like many medieval/ancient times myths, the crane to help mount a knight comes from a factual rarity. There are a couple of documented cases where a hoist was made available to help knights mount their horses for a joust. In at least one documented case this was because an influential noble who wanted to compete in the joust suffered from gout. It was definitely a rarity and definitely had nothing to do with a lack of ability, even in ornamental tournament armour.
@@sendthis9480 I would suggest that what you have seen is not a good recreation then - possibly badly choreographed stage-fighting, or badly fitted armour - or just the result of unfit modern office workers attempting to do what medieval knights would have been training their entire lives for.
I have seen many armoured fights and most are far more dynamic than that. I have seen a couple of people decide to ditch armour on the presumption of greater manoeuvrability - they have been the worst injured at the end of the fight (and that's when the fighters are actively trying not to hurt each other).
There's a video from medievalists called 'Can you move in armour' - that should give some idea of what is possible.
The sword was very effective weapon, it just depended on the situation. A short sword and shield combination was very effective, especially in urban environments (Romans for example). Often they would be ‘sidearms’ for close in combat where a pike or polarm is not as effective.
Or not and would use Javelins or Short Spears instead. Especially if we’re talking about Urban Environments and as a group. It’s nearly not as effective as a sword.
If it’s indoors, that would vary on the individual, not in general.
@@cekojuna6930spears are trash outside formation if the opponent is wearing armor
@@starfox300swords dont break trough armor. Rapiers could get trough the holes but a regular sword against armor is kind of useless. Even a mace would do better at that point
@@alex2005z wrong
@@starfox300 When your answer is "Wrong" with no more explanation it seems like you know you lost the argument but don't want to admit it
Well done.
Musket ammunition also takes up a LOT less space than arrows. Swords were much more expensive than spears.
While his video is generally very good, that doesn't mean he didn't make any mistakes or misinterpret anything.
In fact, his last point is strange. Instead of talking about an actual misconception via the way sword weight is depicted, he instead somehow thinks that "so many" people think that swords were the ONLY common weapon. If that were seriously the case, then why are halberds and polearms very well known? Or why English longbows still are so infamous to this day? Not to mention obviously Native Americans didn't have readily available access to swords; they had tomahawks instead and axes were quite common in warfare. The only reason I can think Simon even came to his conclusion was because of the prevalence of swords in video games and movies. However, he should've realized that is more so a rule of cool thing.
Even then, there technically is some truth to swords being heavily used during certain time periods. Egyptians originally used axes as their primary close ranged weapon. However, they later on heavily adopted leaf shaped swords. Khopesh swords were less common, but did share some of their lineage with axes. Otherwise, they were more akin to elite swords. Greece may have primarily relied an bows and spears, but they did place some importance on swords designed for different purposes. Otherwise, the kopis wouldn't have existed and the only sword they would have bothered with is xiphos if swords were nothing more than a side arm to them.
While swords may have lost a lot of relevancy by the time of mid-medieval period, it should be remembered they had more of a presence during the early medieval period back when most armor was mail armor. Especially the Falchion; it was not unheard of someone to run around with both that and a shield.
Also, Rome initially had the mentality of treating swords as being secondary. They had round shields, traditional spears, and a sword similar to the xiphos. Basically, very similar tactics to Greece. But then, they came across the Gladius and that caused them to start making major revamps to their war strategies and equipment. Spears were no longer their primary weapon; now they had more disposable javelins mainly designed to disrupt formations. Their circle shield gave way to more oval shields and then eventually rectangle shields. Changes in their armor occurred gradually at first, but then went through more notable alterations once they began to rely heavily on shield walls. With shield walls, the Gladius truly became their most important close ranged weapon; their own variants of the sword now more tailored for stabbing; a very lethal tactics back when they rarely had to go against mounted men.
Of course, as Rome had to deal with horsemen much more often and the Western half of the empire was declining; they brought back round shields and regular spears. However despite that, they didn't just start treating swords as being a side arm. They replaced the Gladius with the Spatha; the main advantage with those swords is being much easier to reach horsemen. They still saw swords as being quite important. As for the Byzantine Empire, they quite liked the Spatha.
Also, for what reason, he never really bought up there were swords designed for cavalier. They were sometimes notably larger and had some additional heft to their weight (heck, the cavalier version of the Spatha had more blunt tips so the riders didn't accidentally impale their own horses). Also, very early WW1 actually did initially seem promising for sabers. Oh and by the way, swords were considered useful for naval combat for a while since fighting often occurred quite close.
I had a teacher who did a great job of explaining the tight lines of soldiers tactic, especially in reference to the Revolutionary War. In those days, it was seen as the respectable form of warfare by most civilized countries at the time. While the US was fighting for independence, they desperately wanted to be seen as a legitimate country by the rest of the world.
Us wondering why they didn't use a safer, more effective strategy would be similar to a future generation wondering why we don't use chemical warfare or lasers intended to permanently blind the enemy. It's against international law, and even though it could save lives and give us an advantage, no country on earth would respect or ally with strategies that break the Geneva Convention.
I'm too lazy to actually check myself, but I seem to recall that the myth of knights being craned onto their horses comes from certain suits of tournament armor, which didn't need to be particularly mobile or really battle ready, so they were made thicker and heavier to maximize protection.
I believe it's complete fiction. It was probably popularised (if not necessarily invented) by the 1944 film version of Shakespeare's Henry V, directed by and starring Lawrence Olivier. Even the heaviest tournament armour needed to allow its wearer to ride and fight.
I think its a mistranslation for how words change meaning over time or have multiple meanings for the same word
For example, I need a lift to get up somewhere.
That could mean I need to take an elevator, or I need to stand on a stool, or I need to climb a ladder, or someone to just hold there hands out and give me a boost
Needing a lift to mount a horse might have just meant that the knight needed someone to help them up on their horse, because horse are big and big warhorses would have been hard to mount even when unarmoured
Can confirm. I served as a SAW gunner in Iraq with an M-249 and your typical load was about 60-70 lbs. Granted, we didn't have horses but luckily were mostly patrolling with HMMWVs so a typical patrol would have us out for anywhere from 6-12 hours and half that time you'd be in the trucks driving around, and the other half on foot. You'd easily go through a good bit of water and you could feel yourself losing weight and even if you downed a whole MRE that's about 3000 calories, you'd still wind up lean and hungry for dinner at the DFAC; not just because MREs were terrible mind you.
I've heard the phrase "Meals, Ready to Eat" referred to as "three lies for the price of one." Source: My brother was in the Army Reserves for six years. (He figured that if he was going to be in danger of being sent overseas for the last two years, he may as well get paid for it.)
@@CharlesGriswold They're a mixed bag. I won't knock them too much since they're effective for what they do but it does suck being on the receiving end of having to consume them in a decent amount of scenarios. It was also an odd assortment. No one ever, and I mean ever, liked the egg omelet MRE but there were a few decent ones. The veggie burger surprisingly tasted way better than the regular burger since the sauce was tasty, it came with tabasco, and if you just down it with the bread in a single sit it's a good way to get some energy fast as taste is the secondary metric. Oh, and we rarely if ever used the heat element that came with it.
The ongoing joke is that every pound saved on some piece of kit makes military planners jump in the air with joy because it means they can strap on another two pounds of gear elsewhere.
@@rotwang2000 Not wrong, I assure you. Plus I remember the first few times I went out I had useless stuff on like the shoulder armor (AKA samurai pads), a spare barrel (there's always a spare in the trucks and firefights were short affairs in eastern Baghdad where insurgents were far more prone to use IEDs so a running gun battle was their last resort to evade us), spare canteen (there's always water in the trucks and you'd hydrate before going out anyway), plus you'd have to drink the whole thing in one go since you didn't want to have water audibly sloshing around), etc. By the end, there was probably a loss of ten pounds of kit as the only necessary stuff was really weapon, ammo, and armor and they tried issuing us other doodads and what not but most stayed in the trucks or in the FOB. This was fifteen years separated from Black Hawk Down so every contingency was made to prevent joes in an urban area from being out for protracted amounts of time bogged down in a firefight and with us we had round the clock gunships, mortars, and if SF was in the area we could call in fighter support as a last resort. All things they didn't have in Mogadishu.
@@erikfldt390 The tuna and chicken breast were always winners in my book. Even some of the bad ones would sometimes have good sides. But maybe hunger improved their flavor. Honestly my main complaint was they always left me kinda plugged up after eating them for too long, and then switching back to garrison food would be... messy.
As an addition to your 2nd point about line infantry: The lines and especially the combat squares were all about protection against cavalry. A horse isn't stupid, it will not simply charge a dense wall of men with bayonets that hold their nerve (which isn't easy of course).
These days we severely underestimate the deadliness of horse cavalry and overestimate single shot rifles. Against a charge you'd get only a few shots of. Bayonets were a primary weapon, not a last ditch thing for when you ran out of bullets. And a large cavalry charge will make mincemeat of spread out infantry like you said.
Heavy cav charges were the most powerful thing in terms of Military up until the point that guns could reliably get through heavy armor. People also don't realize heavy cav didn't stay in the fight very long they were there to break the lines and then get out to go do it again.
Point of order: This was true until the invention of rifled, minie-ball firing muskets. Before that, the shallow depth of the field of fire/lack of range, and low rate of fire still made shock cavalry practical and bayonets necessary. (and it took me waaaaay too long to get the difference!)
@@MM22966 About the last thing, what difference are you talking about, "shallow depth of the field of fire/lack of range"?
I don't think I've come across the first term (shallow...). Would you mind explaining?
For the rest of your point. Of course it truly depends on what time we're talking about of course but the extra 100 to (at most) 200 meters of aimed you'd get from a rifle will not make a difference.
You will not reload a muzzle loader in the time it takes for a horse to charge 200 meters. And with a trap loader you will maybe get one other shot off.
The battlefield will be bathed in smoke, aimed fire is not a guaranteed thing. I just read about a Civil War battle (Shiloh) where the men were told to lie down to shoot under the smoke, and that was after the engagement had just begun.
@@exharkhun5605 For "shallow depth of the field of fire/lack of range", that was me making up a term, seeking a compact way to say: "It takes so many minutes for Calvary to charge across so many hundreds of meters, and in that time, the infantry/artillery gets so many shots, depending on their range capability". How many times do you get shot with a given weapon.
Rifled muskets have a good hit chance against large groups at about 500 meters, and fire about twice as fast if they have minie balls. That was why the US Civil War/Solferino battle were so much more deadly than Napoleonic warfare, and why shock cavalry disappeared. Smoke, terrain, and those other factors you mentioned will affect things a bit, but odds are cavalry will get shot to pieces if they try charging infantry after about 1850.
@@MM22966 I don't disagree that much but I'd put the turning point a after the Franco - Prussian war. It had battles with outcomes you argue for but more than a few that I argue for.
I'd say around 1885. Which is, very conveniently for me, a year after the invention of smokeless powder. Just to tie my arguments together, we wouldn't want loose arguments flapping around now do we? 😜
I think you overestimate the range aimed fire can be achieved. 500 Meters over open sights is not very realistic, even these days. I know the guns can do it, but most soldiers didn't have the training, the experience and the eyes. We're talking about a time where 50% to 60% of soldiers were reservists, most of them over 30 years old.
Subjective, and just for reference: I'm nearsighted and I did some shooting back when I was 20 and still needed only -0.5 glasses (which isn't a lot these days) and I can tell you that over open sights it was center-of-mass only past 20 meters for me without glasses. A cavalry charge has a lot of center of mass of course.
Now, at 45, I'd be lucky to hit center-of-a-really-big-wall at that range.
Great video, as always. Thanks. I'm especially glad you pointed out how armies with hand weapons didn't charge into a "melee consisting of a bunch of individual duels". One of the best ancient battle scenes I've seen is right at the beginning of the "Rome" series. The small engagement is being tightly managed by Lucius, with front row rotation and tight lines, when Pullo charges ahead out of formation. Despite the fact that he kills many Gauls, and the battle is a victory, he is whipped afterward for not staying in formation, as it put everyone else in danger.
"Show respect, you're under the standard!"
"Well talk to him!"
"He's not - under the standard!"
One aspect I really liked about the movie “A Knight’s Tale” was that they redesigned the armor based on modern sportswear. It was a little smaller and lighter and protected the body where it was most likely to be hit.
It made sense that they might leave off the back plates and maybe the other arm when they were jousting. Then reinforce the head and side of the body that was going to be dealing with the jousting lance.
Back plates started to drop out in early modern period armies.
The claim that archers generally didn't engage in melee combat around 5:25 is not correct. The famous English archers fought up close in numerous battles, including Agincourt. Roger Ascham considered the willingness of the English archer to attack hand to hand with a lead maul or similar weapon a point of national pride. Across Eurasia, from Poland to Japan, elite armored cavalry both used bows & fought with melee weapons as needed. Lower-quality infantry archers may have avoided close fighting in some cases, but the weight of evidence indicates the good ones were ready & willing to turn to hand strokes. This was also true for troops equipped crossbows & for those armed with firearms before the bayonet became standard: many arquebusiers, musketeers, & so on wore swords to engage in melee.
The armor section is correct, though 55lbs appears to be on the low side for the sort of full harness men-at-arms wore, if you're including arming clothes (which you should be, as it's part of the harness). A surprising number of harnesses for late-medieval & Renaissance men-at-arms may have weighed 70-80lbs (including arming clothes).
The section on swords curiously neglects to mention that swords were a very common sidearm for many soldiers across history. In late-medieval & Renaissance Europe, wearing a sword as a backup weapon was nearly universal for soldiers.
You are absolutely right about the archers: they did engage in melee combat as you say. However, I think his point in the video is that a musket with bayonet is itself a handy weapon in close combat. It combines some aspects of spear, club, and quarter staff. Conversely, the longbow is only good as a ranged weapon. Archers may have carried swords or small axes, knives, and, as you say, mauls. They were certainly not defenceless if the enemy made it through the arrows.
@@mikefule Curiously, according to Garcilaso de la Vega's account of Hernando de Soto's Florida expedition, Native archers repeated used their bows as bludgeon's up close. In one case, multiple archers did this against a Spaniard with sword & shield, breaking the shield & nearly killing the man (who was already wounded by arrows). In another case, blows from a bow turned club against a helmeted head caused pain & drew blood, though they didn't stop the wearer from fatally stabbing the archer with a sword. If accurate, it seems like certain longbows could be passable but not great bludgeons. A musket with a bayonet is certainly much better.
"Era of bow and arrow has passed"
Jack Churchill:Hold my broadsword while I take out that guard with my longbow!
A fellow man of culture I see 👏
Has anyone told Hawkeye yet?
Here technology might had crossed itself, guns replaced bows as they was better at penetrating armor and you did not need to be strong to use one unlike the 180 pound draw weight war bows.
But if enemy don't wear armor an hunting bow is good enough. But at 1800 it would be pretty easy to make armor to protect forces against these bows.
Also native Americans switched to guns even if US forces did not use armor but then it was rifles who is way better like the revolver replaced the sword..
With one or two shoot pistols you want an sword who don't run out ammo. but if you have an 6 round drum you want an second revolver.
I got a kick out of the footage of the guy flinging his sword in the air and catching it. Yeah, that happened on a battlefield! Seriously, the spear was probably the most common infantry weapon for centuries, with other polearm types becoming more prevelant over time. Many early polearms were farming tools that were simply expedient weapons. Maces, morning stars (spiked clubs), war hammers and axes were far more common that what is depicted in the movies, with many knightd carrying these weapons instead of swords. The handheld flail was quite rare (though the two handed pole variety was more common) as was the two headed battle axe. It is interesting to see what historians have to say about what weapons were used during what time period as well as what weapons were preferred on the battlefield. Even the type of polearm could be a preference of a particular nation. I'm only beginning to learn about it.
The two-handed flail is a modified grain threshing tool. The one handed flail's true form is the nunchaku, also a grain threshing tool.
I've never understood why anyone thinks they'd use boiling oil. Water is free and boiling water would have the same effect
Well, something like boiling oil works if the besieger is attempting to storm the castle/walled city with an escalade -- setting ladders against the wall & sending men to climb up them. Very dangerous for those men, especially the one at the top of the ladder. That is why siege towers were frequently used: a mobile tower that protected the men inside, rolled up against the curtain wall.
The Romans would construct earthen ramps to broach walls, if an assault was called for.
Most often what happened was that the attacking army would simply encircle the castle or walled city, blocking any supplies, & starve the defenders out. (A competent general knew better than to waste his men in an assault that had a good chance of failing. It took the Ottoman Turks several attempts to take Constantinople by storm.) The besieged might attempt a sally or two to break the siege lines, but mostly they just stationed archers on the walls to snipe at the enemy.
They may have used "soups" with boiling sludge that would stick to soldiers and burn them more than just water. It may have looked like "oil" but wasn't.
Water evaporates, burning oil sticks to your skin
Or hot Sand. And Stones. Many stones
"water is free" 🤔
I think one of my favourite examples of how innovative generals can be is Ghengis Khan and his use of signal flags to effectively order different groups, and this is just one example but it shows that people never stop trying to improve the tactics.
When HBO produced the series “Rome” the opening scene shocked me. Whom ever scripted that scene made a serious attempt to show how the Roman legions would actually fight.
while spears and lances were very often used on horseback, there's also a reason for the knight to have a greatsword or something similar in size, and sometimes curved. On horseback, piercing is at it's best, because you have the momentum of a man and HORSE at the speed of said horse is running behind it. Because of that, you can pierce very deep into some very sturdy stuff. Great, that means your enemy is likely very dead, or soon will be. The problem is that after a few times your spear/ lance will likely be firmly stuck in an enemy, and the strength of a man pulling does not weigh up to the charge that drove the point in. So, the knight drops the spear and reached for his sword, with which he can slash, not risking getting it stuck. I you are skilled enough you can still use the momentum of the horse by riding past the enemy and slashing in line with the movement of the horse. A greatsword would then be the knights secondary weapon, quite ironic, as it'll follow the knight into more battles and is likely much more expensive to craft than the spears/ lances. But also fitting, as it's the back-up.
Having the momentum of the horse behind the thrust of a lance is only useful in the limited period when the lance could be couched to brace the lance to the rider, and a saddle that braced the rider to the horse -- getting pushed off the back of your saddle for lack of a rear support to brace you in the moment of impact, or having your lance torn out of your grip because you were unable to brace against your body defeats the purpose of having the lance. If you look at the way British lancers in India used their lances, or the depictions in the Bayeux Tapestry, lances were more often held in a more flexible grip for control, rather than impact, in many cases overhand, rather than tucked under the armpit.
Love it, researching for lego stop motion battles (castle theme) and this has given me so much inspiration to make it more realistic! Thank you!
This is a very surface level introduction, if you want more in-depth you should check out Brandon F, Schola Gladiatora, Lindybeige etc.
I'm always happy to hear people correcting the common mistakes by Hollywood and this was done really well.
My one gripe is that when you said that headlong charges were only done by cavalry and chariots I immediately thought "with very few exceptions". Especially when you talked about Alexander the Great right afterwards without mentioning one of the most famous exceptions: the hypaspits, who were famed not only for their fighting skill but moreso for their battlefield maneuverability, to the poin that they were often deployed interspersed with the cavalry before forming up into a tight formation on the enemy flank or charging the enemy rear. These cases certainly didn't turn into single combat battles though - sorry Hollywood.
I think this one owuld be worth a follow-up because there are lots of other examples that weren't covered here and perhaps it would be worth a look at where the myths came from.
Hypaspists. They existed long before Alexander.
@@jpdemer5 Correct (both on the typo and the history), but Alexander was noteworthy for deploying them in formation with his cavalry.
what is always forgotten is that with tight formation you can really effectively rotate soliders. in ancient times you could regularly rotate the lines around so the first line wouldnt get too exhausted or scared. ive barely ever seen this in movies. its always "first line fights until dead" while last line does practically nothing the entire fight
also in musket warfare it was very helpful for morale if you would rotate two lines so the ones reloading feel relatively safe, because staring at enemy guns desperately reloading isnt very comfortable.
standing in big groups gives a significant advantage that only recently with high RPM guns got outweighed to not be as effective anymore
The usefulness of cavalry in WW1 is a bit of a widespread misconception too, especially in the Middle Eastern theater of war where the British did some very effective cavalry charges against the Ottomans.
In Egypt's case, they started out with wooden axes good at slicing into unarmored people. However, they eventually needed to create bronze duck billed axes more reminiscent of what we're familiar with axes in general. Eventually, though, they adopted leaf shaped swords and more famously the Khopesh that shares some of its lineage with axes.
Speaking of the leaf shaped swords, we shouldn't ignore that Xiphos still had some importance to the battlefield; even if the Greeks liked the phalanx strategy. The Xiphos were quite deadly even compared to the Egyptain Khopesh. Heck, they had a different sword more designed for chopping; which would be the Kopis. Greece did mainly use spears for close range (Rome also originally had regular spears, but over time would create their own javelins designed to be disposable), but let's not ignore the importance Greece still placed in swords.
Wow, the medieval crane shown at 9:33 is located in my home town, less than 2 kilometers from the place where live. I certainly didn't expect to see that in one of your videos
Where?
There's also another reason to group up against cavalry charges. An effective counter was to fix your bayonets and point them at the horses. A house can be trained, but you can never override their sense of self preservation. They were known to come up to a wall of spears or bayonets, freak out, and go any direction but straight, often causing chaos among fellow cavalry troops
I wish they just left the animals out of it.
"A house can be trained, but you can never override their sense of self preservation"
I know what you're trying to say but I chuckle trying to imagine a house fighting off a demolition attempt.
One of my favourite answer to the legend of the medieval armour being so heavy knights couldn't get up from the ground was the description of one of the things apprentice knights had to do to earn their spurs: jump in the saddle without touching the stirrups. In full armour, of course.
The musket didn't have the flat trajectory of the modern rifle and the rounds were generally arced into the enemy. Often the most dangerous place could be behind the berm. And adjusting the trajectory of the musket line required communications. Lines could move right under the incoming rounds as they advanced in the smoke.
To be fair although Alexander used the Greek army incredibly well, he inherited it from his father, Phillp, who invented the spear talked about here. By the time Phillip died and Alexander inherited the army it was the best in the ancient world. As for no swords, all Greek soldiers carried a sword. The sarissa (the name for the long spear) was usually only good for one or two lunges before they were caught in dead bodies or gripped by enemy soldiers making them useless. The idea was to ram them forward, then pull back before ramming again. This tactic would devaste the front two lines of enemy infantry, but Alexanders enemies realised the short comings of the spear and began to invent ways to get around them. Once that happened the spears were dropped, swords unsheathed and the fighting continued.
Thank you! Phillip never gets enough credit when people talk about Alexander
Forgot to mention that standing in line warfare was necessary to reload. The old muskets were long and gravity fed. Could not be reloaded easily laying down.
I actually had the opposite for castle warfare. I always thought it takes like years, with very slow calculated moves both in and out resulting in one side eventually surrender.
Then I realize years would cause both sides starve to death long before anyone can claim victory.
There are actually sieges in history that took years. One famous example is the siege of Candia, which took 21 years (Its not a castle siege though)
One of the longest sieges in medieval times was the siege of Akkon from 1189-1191.
One of the things people fail to realize about ancient weapons is spears were the easiest weapon to train someone with. A sword can take years to become proficient, but a child can kill someone with a spear. Arming the populace with them and requiring training was the best way to ensure you had a good sized fighting force on hand at all times.
And there actually was medivial armour that was so heavy as described. It was armour used in jousting, where mobility did not matter and every bit of protection to prevent deadly accidents was worth the tradeoff.
It was actually at a castle in the UK (Warwick Castle or the Tower of London, I don't remember which) where my wife and I heard about pouring boiling oil through the murder holes at the gate. Of course, that was 25 years ago, so maybe they know better, now.
I think part of the myth about knights having to be put on a horse by crane come from Henry VIII. He was just too corpulent to climb up.
5:15 "archers didnt generally engage in melee combat"
Yeah, im going to need a source for that. Archers/peltasts/skirmishers of many an army were known to join the melee when running out of things to throw at the enemy. made little sense for them to stand around as cheerleaders after the opening hour or so of a battle.
For a famous example; the battle of Agincourt 1415 , in which the English longbowmen displayed exactly how deadly they were against heavy french knights, before joining the melee as light infantry who were able to outmanoeuvre the encumbered French.
Exactly. I made another comment repeating this same sentiment before I saw this comment. Longbowmen were professional soldiers who could do both fight in melee and shoot arrows.
The english made it manditory for men to train in the use of a bow though, so practically everyone was a trained bowman. If everyone is a trained bowman then theyre more expendable.
@@CatManThree Any culture/military with an archery tradition would have lot of men trained in archery. Whether it be the japanese Samurai, Mongol/Jurchen/Steppe warriors, or Byzantine knights.
"Archer" isnt a profession. Its a role/unit formation. The profession is "soldier".
Sure, you want to keep your archers positioned to use their range advantage, but after they run out of arrows, theyre not just going to walk off the battlefield and call it a day.
I cannot think of an example of an archer unit so specialised that no commander would ever risk them in in melee. And if it did exist, it'd be the outlier, not the norm.
@@blahblahboii The english specifically were famous for their skilled archers because of their manditory training through. I get what youre saying but in this specific case it was bigger than that.
Anyway you have a point.
Swords were basically the pre-gunpowder equivalent of a pistol. There were quite portable and easy to draw, making them popular self defence weapons commonly carried by civilians and those that don't expect to be fighting against enemy soldiers. However, in a proper battle, the weapon was relegated to more of a backup weapon as soldiers generally prefer something bigger and deadlier in combat.
From what I learnt a while ago about the line infantry (musketeers) is it played a massive psychological part.
A big part of the strategies used was front line knelt whilst aimed, second line behind them aimed standing, so a highly concentrated firing squad, and all fired on command together. So a volley of musket balls all all the same time. This also meant that the smoke would not impact accuracy on the opening shots, and that the smoke would clear all that the same time for the line for the next volley. Rather then a almost permanent cloud from the random firing.
So any one advancing on their location being aimed at, all got hit at the same time, the charging enemy watch their enemies disappear in smoke, and the first few lines of their team instantly drop dead. Imagine being 2-3 back from the front, feeling a little bit secure at least. Then a bang and front few lines of your squad mates in front of you drop dead in a instantly you realise you are at the front and next to suffer the same fate, from an enemy you cannot clearly see what they're doing. Crushing moral in a single bang.
Do you help your brother in arms? Do you step over them and continue to charge at an enemy you can't clearly see what they're doing next? Or do you run away? Moral is shattered, and in this time, the musketeers are reloading.
Where as if it was a 'fire at will' situation, people dropping one by one would not break moral nearly as easily in comparison.
I guess I already knew a lot about this stuff. Not from video games, my best tactic there was to have enough recourses to Zurg rush enough infantry at their high level troops that I would win.
Only a good tactic if you have infinite peasants with a robotic loyalty and no fear of never going home. AOE II taught me nothing!
But sometimes, when I thought about medieval battles, I had to know how they worked, so I did research as a child.
I’m still really bad at tactics.
The idea that a knight would be a nearly immobile hulk that hed to be lifted onto a horse may have been true in a joust because jousting armor was designed to be more protective and safer, weighing up to 100 lbs with the helmet bolted in place. This was feasible because the knight was pretty much in only one position: Holding the couched lance and maybe a heater shield and steering his horse. Even his vision was more limited than on the bettlefield. a more popular helmet was the "frogmouth" which is quite popular with HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) enthusiasts like Metatron. But then, we are talking single-purpose armor that did not have to be versatile and was more protective. It would not be suprising if some knights, espeically the English, had several suites of armor; aka "harness" as they fought on foot quite a lot; from what I have seen, more so than other knights and King Henry VIII did have armor for fighting on foot
Most documented reports of a knight at a tournament needing to be hoisted onto his horse involve said knight suffering gout. Jousts were actually pretty well documented and the mounting blocks used to help even the most heavily knight mount his horse were pretty standard.
Also I think Henry the VIII and other old war horse kings feed into that idea as well. Because at one point they did need to be aided onto their horses because of the armor's weight but also if you follow their life they also would have been old men by that point so of course they needed help getting onto a horse with all that weight.
My HEMA friends seems to drop from heat exhaustion. It is dang hot inside all that padding and metal. They don't tire that fast.
@@SusCalvin That matches with something I read about medieval warfare. Fighters were rotated out and replaced after about 5 minutes of fighting. Even an infantryman in cloth armor and some metal would probably tire or overheat after 5 minutes of vigerous activity with a spear, polearm or axe. Even the Romans had swithing maniples in and out down to a science with the checkerboard formation. As for knights, prolonged vigerous activity with about 55 pounds of armor could not be fun even on a cool spring day
@@SpacePatrollerLaser I got to try replica cloth armour a long time ago. It is thick, layer and layer of linen stitched or glued together. It was a bit stiff when layed on that thick. My friends could still move about in it.
The "normal" clothes were also thick. The 18th century field uniform with felt and a great big hat and kit was not fun either on a summer day.
Re: Guns v Arrows debate. You did not menion hydrostatic shock. You can drop a charging man with a Gun, you'd have to be very lucky to do the same with a Bow and Arrow.
5:50
Another thing to point out about Muskets being better than archers is this:
If you're hit by an arrow, you'll probably die, eventually.
If hit bya musket, that is a large round balk of lead ripping through your internal organs, you could survive, but it's relatively rare.
Line infantry tactics was not just necessary to stop cavalry charge, it was necessary to stop any determined charge.
Before rifled breach-loaders were a thing, a bayonet charge would go through open ranks like a proverbial knife through butter.
2:30 So falling Beer and Bees were the Medival AirBnB? :D
A rifle in the age of muskets minus ammo and also sans bayonet is still a pretty nice club.
soldiers absolutely do train butt-stock fighting and even thrusts with magazine but I assume it's mostly for morale, as close combat now is dropping a bunch of grenades then doing a mag dump if they don't surrender... yet to see any close action with pistols or hand to hand in 9 and a half years of war footage, outside of torture and war crimes where knives are used.
@@KasumiRINAYeah, but you can't use them like Fred Flintstone, so much plastic.
edit: I was talking about gripping the gun by the muzzle and straight up going caveman on people. Between the stock and the barrel of those older guns, that was one nice last resort club.
Regarding line musket battle- they were commonly 3-4 lines deep (similar to bow tactics) first line fire, kneel, start to reload, second fire etc.
Plate armor may be a bit heavy for our smaller forebears but I’ve heard with proper fitting the weight distribution is amazing, especially compared to a backpack.
Also re: swords- choose a warpick/hammer/mace even an axe instead for a sidearm. Less bulky, less training, more effective in many situations. Just also have a stiletto for the visor/armpit/groin.
Honestly I only “know” this stuff from UA-cam so please don’t hate me. It all makes sense though.
@@Madchef8u This was common for archers or other untrained troops in the medieval period. However, such sidearms suffer the downside of being almost useless against a trained swordsman - unless you also had a shield. If the swordsman had a shield, though (which he would), you were still in for the fight of your life. Incidentally, shields provided enough advantage to a swordsman to allow him to fight spears and the like. Shields were a big deal, and aren't given enough credit for how thoroughly they shaped the per-gunpowder battlefield. Just ask the Romans.
Line infantry: The British (it could be argued) Were the best musketeers in Europe and their fire and discipline alone could disorganize an enemy. They also did not all fire at once, they discharged their muskets in firings or platoon fire so a continuous ripple of fire up and down the line was maintained keeping the pressure up on an enemy. There are many other tactics the British used but that is a study un itself.
Simon, thank you for your presence on UA-cam . U really educate us on simple mistakes that could have a bigger effect later on.
It's incredible how many misconceptions about history in general arise from this idea that "people were stupid in those days and didn't know any better!".
Yeah I remember watching the Patriot with a friend and he said that the British were stupid to fight in tight formations like they did. But as the video says it was the best way to concentrate musket fire.
@@andrewward5891 yes! Everyone was fighting in lines for that reason. Also I think skirmishers were a thing too, so it's not like we were so dumb we never thought of spreading out.
The thing with the muskets is that they didn't have the spiral in the barrel to add pressure to the bullet, they didn't have even have bullets, they had the "minie ball". The accuracy with muskets was very low so the wall would compensate for that and added crazy amount of fire volume. That tactic was built to compensate for the technology of that time. That was the napoleon tactic.
The first Crusade had many seiges of castles that lasted from months to years. They would build large trebuchetes and seige towers alot of the time getting a good dose of greek fire when they would get near the castles walls. I reccomend going and checking out kings and generals channell and his 6 hour video about the crusades👍
See, there are sieges, and there are assaults. An assault of a castle is what most people think of when they hear the word "siege". There would, however, often be many unsuccessful assaults during a siege, which would be the action of encircling the fortress/city to prevent supplies from reaching it. Sieges often involved bombardments from a safe distance as well, intended to lower the defender's morale and hopefully hit something important over the walls. These weren't used to break down the walls until the age of gunpowder made that possible, at which point castles had to evolve a bit.
As far as I know, castle sieges are much more misunderstood and not only with the boiling oil thing. Catapults (like trebuchets) were extremely rarely used to break down castle walls even if the attacker didn't want to keep the castle intact (which was rare in itself), because most engines wouldn't even been able to scratch thoes thick walls they built back then. Flaming arrows are also mostly a myth, for the fire would most probably go out before it reached its target and even if it didn't, they wouldn't light up their surroundings that easily. These are great features in strategy games like Stronghold and look awesome in medieval-style fantasy movies like LoTR, but not accurate in a historical perspective.
Siege engines were indeed used to sow chaos behind the walls and to inflict casualties on the men manning them (or even destroy defensive artillery positions). Fire arrows were definitely used but definitely wasn't common or at least wasn't common in battles as they serve a more miscellaneous purpose. Some US soldiers in the Vietnam war used fire arrows to burn down rice huts from afar or on boats
Regarding swords, it's worth noting that up to the 13th Century they were expensive items only available to well off warriors that could afford them or were battle trophies. Medieval battles were, for the most part, fought by peasant armies largely armed with agricultural tools like axes and billhooks.
A fully armored knight was ideally supposed to be able to kip up from lying flat on his back, and vault into his horse's saddle with needing to use the stirrups.
The idea of things like a Medieval European swords being barely sharpened metal clubs too heavy for a modern man to lift and the knights who used them being clumsy oafs who just mindlessly beat on each other with no training or skill (in contrast to the wonderfully skilled elegance of Japanese swordsmen,) full plate armor turning knights into basically helpless turtles who needed cranes to winch them up onto their horses' backs, everyone in the Middle Ages being an ignorant idiot who thought the Earth was flat (educated people, and anyone who worked at sea, having known the Earth was round for a long, long time)... it was all created in the mid-to-late 1800s by certain authors who wanted to make the Medieval period seem as horrible as possible, making everyone from the time period out to be an ignorant moron walking around stinking and covered in dung all the time so as to make it as unattractive as possible... authors such as Mark Twain with _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court._
This was mainly because of a combination of two things: 1) plain old 19th Century arrogance, thinking that all of history was just a prelude leading up their perfect enlightened time, and B) as a reaction to the writing genre of Medieval Romanticism and stories like _Ivanhoe,_ which had become _huge_ at the time and tended to portray Medieval times as being a glorious past golden age where everything and everyone was better, and this glorification of a fake past Golden Age lead to _actual really bad things_ (as it always does) like a whole lot of rich plantation owning morons in the Southern US glorifying fake ideas of chivalry, fighting duels like they _thought_ knights did all the time, and basically using a mangled, fake version of the past to justify awful modern behavior so they could all cosplay as Medieval Barons full-time (with black slaves instead of serfs.)
Authors like Twain wanted to fight back against this glorification of the past being used to justify atrocious things in the present, so they did their best to make the past look _as ugly as possible._ The problem is, in trying to fight back against this romantic glorification of the past, the authors started outright making stuff up and knowingly lying, introducing intentional lies that caught on in the popular consciousness and have lasted _far_ longer than the fanciful ideas that Romanticism had been pushing. (It wasn't really the fault of most of the Romanticist authors, but rather how their stories were being absorbed and misused by certain groups in the public audience. Southern "Gentleman" plantation owners _really really_ wanted to believe they were the modern counterparts of the glorious knights of old, which to their minds not only helped to justify slavery, but also lead to things such as the Caning of Charles Sumner, when a pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks from South Carolina viciously beat anti-slavery Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner _nearly to death_ with a cane, so hard the cane broke halfway through the beating, causing life-long crippling injuries to Sumner. (And they were even _cousins!!)_ Just read up on the event to see how "genteel" these Southern slave-holding thugs really were, and why authors like Twain wanted to do everything they could to smear Romanticism.)
So the lesson is this: if you want to fight back against lies, use the truth, _not bigger lies._
The myths about Japanese combat also come from later era, either Edo period of peace, so they developed new codes for wide clothing and sitting in a way that numbs your legs to MAKE IT HARD TO FIGHT as all fighting would be for assassination or rebellion now... or from Meiji and later romanticizing samurai (Bushido stuff)... and is actually debunked by reading authors of actual feudal age, like Musashi whose fencing tips included throwing sand into people's eyes and picking the side for duel so light shines into their view.
Another myth is the excessive amount of deaths. Obviously, wars have a lot of killings, but in movie battles there are always hundreds of deaths per battle. If battles were as deadly as shown in movies, any war would be as deadly as WW2
Armies before the modern period usually couldn't keep armies in the field continuously for years. Even within an extended campaign, Individual battles could be brutal but they were relatively rare occurrences. Sieges were the exception to this though.
@@j.f.fisher5318 It's not just that. The actual battle portion of a battle was never particularly deadly - throughout history casualties usually amount to around 5% per side during; it's only after one or the other side routs that the majority of casualties are inflicted, to the tune of around 15 - 30% of the defeated force.
*laughs in battle of Cannae, Arausio, Lake Trasimene, Carrhae...*
@@Popepaladin Oh my God, there are exceptions to the rule??!?!!1!?
Even including the massive amounts of propagandistic inflation and survivorship bias inherent to any attempt to analyze Ancient battles, big pitched battles claimed a whopping 5% per side before the rout and the defeated side tended to lose somewhere between 15-40% all told.
In other words, while the rout could be quite bloody, the actual battle preceding it was generally not, and exceptions tend to stem from an inability of one or the other side to retreat.
Swear to God I'd be rich if I had a nickel for every single time some drunk dude at a party said something to the effect of warfare being 'manlier' if they went back to swords and/or 'how they'd be a total badass' during 'those times'. It's incredibly persistent and I'm betting everyone has heard someone say that at LEAST once in their life, lol.
Small aside: I had a guy try to 'flex' on my naval service by telling me, first, that he'd totally have joined if he knew how to swim (he was also a 'swords are manlier' commentor by the way). Then he tried to follow up a story I was telling about hitting 18 foot swells in the Gulf of Oman by saying he totally hit 22 foot swells...off the coast of southern Oregon...on a fishing boat...that he was on while not knowing how to swim. Thankfully, people nearby also put two and two together and just laughed at him, lol. Good times.
I did middle ages reenactment/combat (the SCA) for 35+years. My chain mail, helm, gauntlets etc weighed 65+lbs, plus arms and shield.
Fighting in units meant archers or knights couldn't pick us off. We could communicate and act together, and were able to break through a shield wall, something My Unit specialized in. For that, our primary weapon was the 6+foot viking great axe, and we were Feared!
20 6 1/2 ft tall men with axes could go through a shield wall and break a formation.....IF- we could get through the pikes. Shields in front with pikes Right Behind them.
Sadly, I Rarely saw archers used correctly or effectively. I'd commanded archer squads in a couple wars. Grouped fire was Devastating! A dozen archers focusing on 1 or 2 targets dropped the target.
For arms, I carried a shortsword on 1 wrist via lanyard, a longsword on my hip, and a bearded axe on my belt, shield on my back. I'd start with the Dane axe, break the line, drop the axe for my shield and pull my bearded axe or sword- depending on my mood.
Lord Skerri Valtorsson, Commander of the Royal Varangian Guard.
2:00 Boiling water may not be as hot as hot oil, but boiling water is hot enough to produce instant 3rd degree burns, so it's nearly as effective and much cheaper than oil.
In the past the sword was the hand gun. It was meant for self defense. On the battle field it was your side arm. The pole axe was your rifle, your weapon of war. You carried a sword like weapon in case your spear broke. That is why swords existed. Single combat with sword against sword was a thing that happened in duels. This was something that happened both in the east and west. Two warriors would have a sword duel as a matter of honor. But in large scale warfare, pikes and spears were the weapon of choice because of necessity. Wars were a numbers game. And keeping your distance from the opponents was a major advantage.
your sword was more closely compared to your parade gun. they were expensive to purchase and maintain.
Swords were sidearms, but they saw extensive use in hard-fought battles. Pikers, for example, had to resort to their swords &/or daggers in close combat, as the pike becomes useless when soldiers are pressed together in a tight melee. Men-at-arms likewise often turned to their swords once their lances broke. Etc.
Also the grooves in sword blades were too reduce the weight of the weapon, not for gruesome things like blood-letting.
Truly, the main movement of swordsmanship was/is a chopping motion with the side of the blade. And while this can produce a lot of blood, especially at the neck, that's not the direction of the groove, so, the blood-letting idea makes no sense.
it was far more likely to be boiling water, piss or hot sand depending what was available. the one over the gate might use tar/bitumen if they really needed to but that risks burning your wooden doors which is why you have an iron portcullis as a backup.
Another misconception about two handed swords is that they are slow.
A longsword is actually not much longer than a one-handed sword, as it has blade lengths between 95 and 110 cm. The use of two hands instead of just one actually decreases the reach of the weapon. The whole point of using a longsword is that it is much faster and more accurate than one handed swords.
One of the biggest misconceptions that I see in shows nowadays is that you can just stab straight through plate armor, even game of thrones is very guilty of this. That definitely should have made the list.
Just finished this 'ancient history documentary'-now I’m fully prepared for any unexpected ancient trivia battles!
5:20 Wrong. Archers can and did fight in melee combat. The only reason why we were still “worse” at it (though not as much as you might think) is because they were just not as heavily armored since it’s harder to shoot arrows with heavy armor on (but they still did wear light armor). But they were still no joke in melee. English longbowmen were professional soldiers who could do both.
Just realised a medieval knights arms and armour roughly weighs the same as the gear of a modern infantry man.
My kit in the Royal Marines was often 70kg and we would be expected to carry it anywhere from 10-30miles
Line Infantry: armies are not defeated in the field by killing their soldiers. Armies are defeated by breaking their morale. The sheer terror and shock and awe of a massed volley of fire from close-ranked line infantry was vastly more devastating than the likely superior lethality of an equal number of professional longbowmen.
Video is an Eye Opener for all of us who have been believing was we have seen in Hollywood movies Please continue the Good Work & make more Videos to destroy the Myths we have made to believe
Well that was a surprise to see, Kenilworth Castle in the image card for castle warfare. And then to hear you talking about the siege!
There are also very good interpretations of war in popular media. as a historian I was always really astonished of the depiction of war in the Witcher III wild hunt. you hardly see any battles, only soldiers wandering around and plundering the villages. Sieges are not played out in direct confrontation at the city-walls, but still have decisive effects on the morals and politics inside a besieged territory. The armies do not encounter each other directly, but armies manage to destroy the enemy by hunger, disease and terror. It's just a "beautiful" and pretty accurate interpretation of the 30 years war in a fantasy-setting.
7:30
Actually, the Gauls were famous for doing that. Big impetuous infantry charges.
The Sardo-Punic Army at the Battle of Cornus also did that.
It is something that has been done.
10:55
Well the Macedonian Pezhetairoi, although using the Sarissa as the main weapon, still had a sword in case the spear broke.
The Iberians, the Germans, and the Gauls used the sword. So did the Romans, the Carthaginians, and the Samnites.
The Roman Cavalry used the Spatha ( a sword ) because of its length.
The Persians also used the sword.
I mean the only ones who tended to not use the sword were cavalry-dependent nomads and cavalry-only armies and those who used it as a secondary weapon were mostly Greeks and civilizations that adopted their military style such as the Etruscans ( and, initially, the Romans ).
In the High Middle Ages ( 1000 - 1300 AD ), the pike may have gradually become more popular, especially in the Late Medieval Period ( 1300 - 1492 AD ) , but in the Low Middle Ages ( 476 - 1000 AD ) the sword was still in widespread use as the primary weapon for the infantry.
So, it’s safe to say that it was very prevalent. Just that not everyone used it as their primary weapon, if at all.
great video! If I am guilty of believing any of these, its probably the weight ones. It makes sense when you think about it, why would they use impractical armor/weapons in battle, but I did just accept "yeah that, looks heavy"
Funny thing about line battles, I used to believe it was a case of, They stood there, shot at each other in turn and just repeated until one side was dead. but it was actually multiplayer games like HoldFast, with people role playing line battles that I could see how they actually worked. Constantly repositioning, flanking, trying to get a strategic advantage before firing. It's just a really affective way of 'moving and firing as one'
For firing lines, another big thing is that smokeless gunpowder wasn't a thing yet. That's part of why they had bright uniforms and drummers as well. Battles were loud as hell and covered in a thick fog of smoke. It was a means of minimizing confusion
A major reason for gunpowder replacing archers is logistics. For England during the 100-year war training archers was complicated enough, but supplying them with enough arrows required fletchers and arrowhead smiths and taxing the entire country for feathers suitable to making fletchings. Crossbow bolts were only marginally less expensive and complicated to manufacture in numbers (since they used fletchings out of leather or wood).
Meanwhile, a musket required lead bullets, wadding (cloth and later paper) and gunpowder. Things that could be easily mass manufactured. The gunpowder was the most complicated part, but an army needed gunpowder anyway (for the cannons).
As for armor. Not that heavy, but wearing a full suit of plate put both weight on the limbs (where you don't want it if you're going to march several miles) and it was difficult to maintain/repair. Which meant that full armor was used by the elites (who had servants to handle maintenance/repair) and who could get to battle on horseback. If you weren't one of those lucky few you'd have to use armor that was easier to maintain and march in.
one big one is knights, people always think knights are some elite medieval unit
They mostly were. They were mostly rich people that could afford armour and weapons. But they also had the time and money for training which normal soldier's did not.
Rushing the enemy in close did occasionally happen, but it was rare. They usually slowly march into each others ranks and a push and shove match would ensue. And which side lost its nerve first, would panic and bunch up got slaughtered. The cavalry was usually used to exploit the rout and to chase down the fleeing enemy.
7:12 I had a phase on Roman warfare and I started to notice "everyone go into a 1v1". I think a good parody movie would have a guy kill his opponent and then wander field looking for another 1v1 instead of helping his nearby allies.