Question about Armoured Combat

[Jeffrey Formosa]

I got into a debate with some friends about armoured combat, a friend of mine has put forth the idea that a fighter can defeat a heavier armoured foe by evading melee unit the heavier armoured fighter becomes tired enough to allow the lighter fighter to easily finish off the heavier fighter. I disagree with the idea, in battle it would be impossible to preform moving like that with all the other enemies and allies around and even in a duel I am doubtful. I am sure if such a tactic was possible it would of been mentioned by one of the masters. So what do you all think.?

[Allen Johnson]

You are right about the battle situation- it just wouldnt happen.

The other situation being a duel. If it was a judicial duel theres no way that it would be permitted for one combatant to have armor and the other not to. I also not aware of any recorded attack where someone was the recipient of a suprise attack by someone in armor when the other had none.

That being said...
Theoretically, yes you could just run around until someone tires out. However, chances are that the person in armor is going to be in pretty good shape and I dont think the contest would be as lopsided as you would think.

I dont think theres anything in the manuals that deal with armored vs unarmored, that I'm aware of.

[Nathaniel Bacon]

And also consider... does he really have to chase the un-armored guy?

And what would posses someone who could afford decent armor to not ALSO have a decent ranged weapon or a mount with him? Does the runner intend to say a few hundred yards ahead of the armored guy?

[JeffGentry]

I got into a debate with some friends about armoured combat, a friend of mine has put forth the idea that a fighter can defeat a heavier armoured foe by evading melee unit the heavier armoured fighter becomes tired enough to allow the lighter fighter to easily finish off the heavier fighter. I disagree with the idea, in battle it would be impossible to preform moving like that with all the other enemies and allies around and even in a duel I am doubtful. I am sure if such a tactic was possible it would of been mentioned by one of the masters. So what do you all think.?

Hey Jeffrey

If i were armoured i wouldn't chase my opponent, I would just turn to face his direction and wait when he tried to close distance i would strike.

You can control the initiative by forcing your opponent to do what you want by not doing much at all, Stew Feil did that to a few people last weekend at our 1.0.

Jeff

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Well, an important point is that on the battlefield everything depends on morale. Armor was principally valuable because it made the men more confident that they'd be safe from harm and therefore braver--but it's no surefire guarantee, and even the best-armored unit could still be routed with enough pressure. Once the men are routed, even unarmored men wouldn't have too much trouble tackling them down.

So, in a duel, individual evasion would have been a reasonable choice. In battle, it would be better to not send the poorly-armored men in until the enemy's heavily-armored men have been routed. Alternatively, while individual evasion wasn't always a feasible option, a group evasion usually was; the more heavily-armored men's need to stay in tighter formation would have slowed them down further (probably more than their armor alone could do) and allow the more lightly-armored formation a greater lead in the race.

[Brent Lambell]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to chime in on this one. In 1415 Henry V of England faced Charles d'Albret of France at the Battle of Agincourt. At this time in France's history, the mounted warrior reigned supreme on their battlefields. The knights were also driven mad by class pride, it was honor that formed battle tactics not military science.

The English had taken a defensive position while the French stormed the hill, literally. The fields between the two armies was freshly plowed and rain soaked farm land. For some reason, the French knights were ordered to dismount and attack the English on foot. They exhausted themselves crossing the soft muck, ankle deep the whole way. The initial impact was received by the English, but once the archers dropped their bows and entered the fray the tides were quickly turned. Henry ordered that the archers to "fall to with ax and sword." The lightly armed and rested English archers ripped the tired and encumbered French knights apart.

This is an example of how exhaustion can effect a large scale battle. I have no harnessfechten experience but I imagine one on one combat would be a different situation.

[Nathaniel Bacon]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to chime in on this one. In 1415 Henry V of England faced Charles d'Albret of France at the Battle of Agincourt. At this time in France's history, the mounted warrior reigned supreme on their battlefields. The knights were also driven mad by class pride, it was honor that formed battle tactics not military science.

The English had taken a defensive position while the French stormed the hill, literally. The fields between the two armies was freshly plowed and rain soaked farm land. For some reason, the French knights were ordered to dismount and attack the English on foot. They exhausted themselves crossing the soft muck, ankle deep the whole way. The initial impact was received by the English, but once the archers dropped their bows and entered the fray the tides were quickly turned. Henry ordered that the archers to "fall to with ax and sword." The lightly armed and rested English archers ripped the tired and encumbered French knights apart.

This is an example of how exhaustion can effect a large scale battle. I have no harnessfechten experience but I imagine one on one combat would be a different situation.

Exhaustion can take place in any physical activity and war was no exception.

Just be careful with your historical references as you make a few assumptions etc in your description of Agincourt. The battle of Crecy was fought in 1340 (75 years earlier) using the very same tactics and was a victory for the English. Man's ability to learn and think was not so diminished 600 years ago. Modern assumptions keep getting thrown out the window because they are proven to not work.

Technically the French were better rested, better fed, and in better shape then the English were at the start of the fight. The English Yeomen archers fought with their 'pants down' because many had horrible diarrhea. See the following books for some references to the battle and the 100 years war as a whole.

- The Hundred Years War: The English in France 1337-1453 by Desmond Seward
- The Hundred Years War: Revised Edition (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks) by Christopher Allmand
- Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World: Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics by Matthew Bennett, Jim Bradbury, Kelly DeVries, and Iain Dickie

It’s not hard to assume that our ancestors were intelligent enough to get us to where we are today. They preferred to wear armor and it must have been for a good reason. Most battles outcomes are decided by a 1000 different factors but I have yet to see a reference where exhaustion caused by too heavy of armor to be the primary cause.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

I also have to add that medieval tactics was hardly based on "honor rather than science." There were stupid commanders then as now, but the best medieval commanders were quite capable of conducting various strategic and tactical moves to get effective results. Agincourt was a case where the English had both luck and brilliance on their side but it was hardly a typical medieval battle. It's worth remarking that the primary accounts can be interpreted to mean that the English did not "receive" the French charge at all--they could just as well have countercharged, and it was not unlikely that they were the ones who actually attacked first. English tactics in the Hundred Years' War was generally more aggressive and enterprising than the stereotype of the line of longbowmen waiting for the French men-at-arms to come up to them.

(Not that there was such a thing as a "typical" medieval battle.)

BTW, the battle of Crecy (1346) did not employ identical tactics. The French at Crecy delivered many uncoordinated charges, both on foot and on horseback, and it was this lack of coordination that doomed them to failure since the English coudl easily repel their charges piecemeal. The battle that was somewhat similar to Agincourt is Poitiers (1356), where the French dismounted but kept several small mounted detachments meant to strike the English in the flank, just like at Agincourt. In both cases the flank attacks failed because the English defensive positions were strongly anchored and could not easily be turned. It's interesting to note that at Poitiers, while the English repelled the undermanned mounted attacks with arrows, when the main (dismounted) French force came they decided to launch an immediate countercharge.

The English men-at-arms were every bit as well armored as their French counterparts. There is some point to the argument about armor, though, since the longbowmen's lighter armor might have meant that they could maneuver better in the mud of Agincourt, choosing which of the heavier men-at-arms to ignore and which to gang up on.

[Brent Lambell]

The English men-at-arms were every bit as well armored as their French counterparts. There is some point to the argument about armor, though, since the longbowmen's lighter armor might have meant that they could maneuver better in the mud of Agincourt, choosing which of the heavier men-at-arms to ignore and which to gang up on.

That was exactly my point. I wholeheartedly agree that the dynamics of ANY medieval battle was more complicated than one simple factor such as armor. Or terrain, leadership, or weather for that matter. The fact that English yeoman engaged French men-at-arms in melee combat and (apparantly) bested them makes me believe that the weight of armor must have been a major issue for those knights.

And when I stated tactics were based more on honor than science, I apologize for generalizing (rookie mistake). There were true military tacticians in the Middle Ages, but the Battle of Agincourt was hardly a gem on the French crown in that regard.

[Will Adamson]

I saw a show on TV a few years ago that addressed the terrain at Agincourt issue. They contended that it wasn't necessarily the weight of the armor, but the suction created by a fully encased armored foot that really slowed down the french. The leather footwear of the english allowed them to move a bit better, but a bit better can be the difference.

I would wonder what percentage of the french army were wearing fully enclosed armor on the foot. Certainly the big-wigs (and those on horseback) would be fitted so, but I would think the men-at-arms that were fighting on foot would not.

[Neil Bockus]

From my own research (limited mostly to books, mind you) it seems as though the armored soldier always has had the advantage over the lightly or unarmored soldier. Right now, I'm working on the second section of my dissertation on the Two Hand Sword, which covers how the sword was used, and some information on pitched and personal opposition, including pike formations. In Machiavelli's Art of War, Fabrizio denotes that the pike soldiers of Swizerland were lightly armored and highly susceptable to attacks by better armored infantry (among other things.) If the pikemen were to drop their pikes and try to come into combat with their sword, they would very likely be felled because their sword would not have an easy time killing the better armored men at arms.

A direct quote, in reference to soldiers closing within the tips of the pikes: "their pikes are too long to do any further execution, and their swords are of no service against men that are so well secured by their armour. What a carnage! What a number of wounded men!" (Machiavelli, 127)

Another thing to think about; a well trained soldier is not going to make maniacal swings that promise no results. While the various manuals we have available to us teach how to feint or otherwise draw an attack that can be set aside or even dodged (or rather avoided) completely, leaving the attacker vulnerable, it's not Hollywood. If a man wants to run circles around another man, let him tire himself out. The armored man isn't going to expend much energy just standing there, and unless he's hell-bent on catching the less/un-armored man because of some vendetta, he wouldn't have much of a reason to chase after him anyhow.

[Shane Smith]

I would simply await you in my harness if you were coming my way or I'd chop you down if you got between me and my destination as I was on the move. I have trained in my armour for 4-5 hours at a stretch in 100+ degree weather and longer in fair weather and I doubt an individual facing me in a duel would have that much patience. On a battlefield, yes an armoured man may tire more readily, but the protection his armour provides against many attacks would go a long ways in off-setting a more lightly armoured guys speed perhaps.

[david welch]

And you wouldn't just send your armour out there by themselves anyway.

In modern warfare, armour protects the infantry and the infantry protects the armour. It is hard to imagine that they couldn't have figured that one out.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Except that at Agincourt the "armor" was also the infantry. Those "dismounted men-at-arms" are what popular culture would call "dismounted knights," except that not all of them were knights or even of the knightly social class. But all of them were certainly geared up for the knight's dual role of heavy infantry and heavy cavalry.

[Nick Ferris]

Speaking of Agincourt. There is an excellent book on it by Juliet Barker called, strangely enough, Agincourt.

The main reasons the French lost at Agincourt were: lack of coordination between the various parts of the hastily cobbled together army, the mud, the English, and pure misfortune.

An example of the lack of coordination. The English moved their lines well forward of their original position. this involved uprooting stakes, walking forward quite a ways and pounding them back into the ground. during this lengthy operation the bowmen were completely exposed to a cavalry charge.
The mounted units had gotten bored with waiting for the command to attack and had moved to the rear. By the time the commanders could rally them the English had already re formed their line.