What Happened Before and During a Medieval Battle?

[Holy Cow]

Cool reddit thread about this. http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/c ... of/ccewd6a

I've better knowledge of ancient warfare but some similarities should apply. I'm following the model advocated by scholars like Goldsworthy.
You probably started with the leader addressing his troops, pumping them up. Presumably with larger armies the general would need to make several of these to different groups of soldiers.
When it was time, he'd signal the attack, by musical instruments (horns, trumpets, drums, etc...) and begin advancing. The soldiers would either hear this or they'd simply watch their standards (whether unit or army) - if it was advancing then the battle was on.
What happens next is the big unknown - no author records the technical details of battle so we're having to extrapolate from much later wars where we more sources, human psychology, veteran accounts, etc... The general theory is that 99.9% of soldiers don't want to die (they want to make their opponent do that) and in a world without modern medicine (no antibiotics or painkillers), no Geneva Convention, and lots and lots of sharp pointy things - running into combat was a terrifying experience. None of this wild running, you'd maintain formation because that way you knew your right and left flank was being covered, if you fell there would be someone behind you to try to cover you if you could crawl back through the lines. That wild melee you see in pretty much every depiction of combat is nuts and no sane soldier would take those risks.
So what happened? One of three things:
Both sides are mega-pumped and close into battle and start swinging at each other.
One side chickens out, the unit routs away (called a 'tearless battle')
Both sides don't panic and run but aren't determined enough to close into swinging range - this probably happened the most
If both sides shambled to a halt, they'd do so at a safe psychological range - out of range of any melee combat. There the unit leaders, the nobility, the veterans, the 'hard men' would try to psych the unit up for combat. The men would be jeering, yelling insults, invoking the gods, etc... all to psych themselves up to march those last dozen meters into potential death. Eventually some would get their courage up and advance, they'd pull the unit alongside them (lest they be left unsupported). The two lines would contact and the majority would be swinging defensively - hiding behind their shield and trying to stay alive. The 'hard men' (whether nobles, centurions, veterans) would be actively trying to kill their opponents and break that formation.
Eventually everyone would tire out and the two sides would shamble back to a safe distance and catch their breaths. Wounded would filter to the back. Then the process of psyching themselves up for another bout of combat would begin. This could go on for hours - only a short amount of time would be actual fighting. Eventually one side would either take too many casualties and break, or their courage would fail and they'd rout.
Obviously if you had formations of elites (such as fully-armoured knights) then there'd be more willingness to close compared to an untrained Greek hoplite militia. The number of casualties from the actual fighting would be low, most of the dead came when one side ran away and were cut down from behind.

[Pinky]

I hope that guy never writes a screenplay.

[Bob Wildes]

How would this guy possibly know the details of something that happened that long ago?

I would imagine that he is a prodigious reader, but how can he be sure that the authors he read did not have a bias or were simply repeating a story that was already 300 or so years old when they wrote about it.

Bollocks.

[Schlegel]

Idiotic. Harassment by missile fire easily forces troops in open battle to close fast or run fast. That entire quote assumes nobody has spears or arrows or slings.

[Grandpa's Spells]

How would this guy possibly know the details of something that happened that long ago?

I would imagine that he is a prodigious reader, but how can he be sure that the authors he read did not have a bias or were simply repeating a story that was already 300 or so years old when they wrote about it.

Bollocks.

Some of it can be pulled from the historical record. You have X number of legions in a battle that lasts Y hours with only Z casualties. In an all-out Braveheart style melee, you'd have a significant percentage of participants dead in minutes.

I think Grossman gets into this for the Civil War in On Killing. If you had motivated killers on both sides, battles should have been much shorter with much higher casualties. You wouldn't find so many abandoned weapons on the battlefield that were loaded with multiple charges.

[Schlegel]

Yeah, one thing we know is they had a low tolerance for casualties by 19th or 20thC standards

[TomFurman]

So Brad Pitt doesn't show up and kill the one big guy, therefore preventing war?

[Bob Wildes]

How would this guy possibly know the details of something that happened that long ago?

I would imagine that he is a prodigious reader, but how can he be sure that the authors he read did not have a bias or were simply repeating a story that was already 300 or so years old when they wrote about it.

Bollocks.

Some of it can be pulled from the historical record. You have X number of legions in a battle that lasts Y hours with only Z casualties. In an all-out Braveheart style melee, you'd have a significant percentage of participants dead in minutes.

I think Grossman gets into this for the Civil War in On Killing. If you had motivated killers on both sides, battles should have been much shorter with much higher casualties. You wouldn't find so many abandoned weapons on the battlefield that were loaded with multiple charges.

In current times that would be a bit like the "Big sky, little bullet" theory.

[tonkadtx]

That guy knows shit about medieval warfare. The fact that he mentioned "centurion" proves it. I guess you could stretch to include Rome since Medieval usually starts with the fall of the Empire...

The Roman Legions practiced a true Combined Arms approach to warfare mixing missile, artillery, horse and infantry. They used incredibly harsh discipline to enforce formations and they deployed in a three line formation that allowed the rear lines to bolster and replace the front line.

[nafod]

[DARTH]

That guy knows shit about medieval warfare. The fact that he mentioned "centurion" proves it. I guess you could stretch to include Rome since Medieval usually starts with the fall of the Empire...

The Roman Legions practiced a true Combined Arms approach to warfare mixing missile, artillery, horse and infantry. They used incredibly harsh discipline to enforce formations and they deployed in a three line formation that allowed the rear lines to bolster and replace the front line.

The Triplex Acies and the manipler formation principle.

Granted the Roman Army had a long history and there are some big differnces between the Republican "Militia" Amry that fought the Punci Wars, The Republican porfessional Army, that fought for Sulla, Marius, Caesar and Augustus and set the model for the next 200 years but after that they started going to shit.

An Amry of the Punic War would destroy a Christian Roman Army and it would destroy most medivel armies. Warfare took a huge regression with the fall of the Roman Empire and IMO did not reach the previous levels of stratigy, tactics and battlefiled coordination of the Romans until the British Army of the 1700's and Napoleon’s Grand Arme'.

I don't think this guy conveyed much of anything from the writings of Goldsworthy that is not parsed.

Goldsworthy is one of the best scholars on the Roman military of all periods.

Caesar: Life of a Colossus
The Roman Army at War
The Punic Wars
Antony and Cleopatra
A few I forget the proper title of.

I have read at least 5 of his books and more of his articles and one of his University papers, my favourite classical scholar and I look out to see if he's coming here because I caught a lecture on C-span he did on his Caesar book and it was from Va. I hope he comes around again, I really want to talk to him.

[DARTH]

How would this guy possibly know the details of something that happened that long ago?

I would imagine that he is a prodigious reader, but how can he be sure that the authors he read did not have a bias or were simply repeating a story that was already 300 or so years old when they wrote about it.

Bollocks.

Because the good ones, who are not just making it up compare archaeological evidence (many Roman and Medieval battlefields are known) the classical text (we know so much about the Romans because the wrote a lot) and if they are really into it, thought re-enactment by people who are serious. You put them all together and you have a damn good idea.

Hunter Armstrong has done some real good work with their weapons in reconstructing how they fought at different times and conditions. We focus on big battles but there were also skirmishes, small unit actions and raids. There were special troops better trained in open order combat for these missions. That is one of the origins and meanings of the word Armratura, their advanced combative methods.

[buckethead]

He seems to have omitted the joint mobility drills.

[Batboy2/75]

The guy should spend some time in an infantry unit and talk with NCOs. It could have saved him the embarrasment of writing that drivel about motivating troops.

Motivation? I was the master of motivation as Ranger team leader. You move forward and maintain discipline or we all die. If you try to stop following orders etc, my boot is going up your ass. Iron discipline handed down from the ancient Romans, "their drills are bloodless battles, their battles bloody drills"

Modern day or ancient day, outside of indirect fire, most casualties are the result of unit cohesion breaking down. From most ancient accounts, most of the casualties were the result of the route. In general, nothing has changed about combat. We've just gotten more efficient at it.

Iron discipline, Brutal Training and Esprit de Corps; these are what make men march calmly into battle. It also ensures they have a chance to walk away from it.

As an aside; the ancient celtic, german, (name your horde) federations and the Midieval nation states were not a bunch of undisciplined hordes that hacked at each other. That have been the case with conscrpted auxiliary troops, but amoungst the nobility the old discipline was maintained. Read about the Anglo saxon and Vicking Shield walls. They were not a bunch of dumbies.

[DARTH]

The goal in ancient battles was to get the other side to lose cohesion as Bat says and get them to start running. More deaths occurred on ancient battlefields this way than any other.

The annihilation of a whole army while they are actively fighting back is pretty rare. It's one of the things that makes Cannae such an important battle.

BTW Patton and Eisenhower modeld much of what Patton did at the Bulge on Cannae.

I paraphrase cause I'm not searching Google: "The gaol of the modern commander is to whenever possable recreate the conditions of Cannae upon the enemy." Eisenhower

[Bob Wildes]

Spells and Darth posted reasonable answers to my question about how someone can write correctly about things that happened 1,700 or so years ago.

I googled the Battle of Cannae which has quite a large amount of writing in Wikipedia. There were several instances in which one author disputed accounts by other authors, particularly in numbers of infantry and cavalry on either side and battle deaths.

[Turdacious]

Deals with more modern war, but an important aspect that's often left out of these discussions:

[Bob Wildes]

Deals with more modern war, but an important aspect that's often left out of these discussions:

Yes it is very important. Some people argue that a S-4 billet better prepares an infantry
officer for battalion command than a S-3 slot.

[TerryB]

I hope that guy never writes a screenplay.

:teehee

[DARTH]

Caesar talks of food more than weapons in the Commentaries.

[Shafpocalypse Now]

Seriously: there be a dumbass who didn't bother with research

[Kazuya Mishima]

The High Lord Bigglesworth is displeased by this thread.

[DrDonkeyLove]

Shakespeare lived closer to the medieval times than we do, so he knows more about it. Kenneth Branagh is a Shakespeare expert and made this movie. Therefore it was just like this.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM[/youtube]

[Holy Cow]

Plato hates you, Dr.

[Bob Wildes]

Plato hates you, Dr.

That might be a good thing since Plato was a fagula.