And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thursday, October 30, 2025
How English Archers Made Knights Obsolete in One Afternoon
An interesting idea but a highly trained yeoman archer wasn't cheap to train up arm with a war bow (not common hunting bows) and had to be paid for their service.
The battles were a test of tactics. The muddy field made the horses slower and the French Knights decided foolishly "For Honor and Glory" to attack without their infantry support. They as history showed got mowed down with wounded horses tossing knights into the mud and English infantry chopped them up in the mud.
Combined arms won that battle as the French Infantry wasn't eager to advance into the fray with the mostly unengaged English Knights waiting to slaughter them if they broke spear and shield wall.
The mobile threat of horsemen continued to be effective up through the Napoleonic Wars.
A lot like modern tanks in a drone environment. They need infantry, air support and ECM-anti-drone systems.
They didn't. Not at all. Heavy armored knights were still a viable thing in the early to mid 1600s. Carrying all the same weapons, updated of course, as their ancestors n the 1100s and 1200s and 1300s and 1400s and... But with the addition of a brace of single-shot pistols, sometimes as many as 8.
All Crecy and Agincourt did was prove that picking a battlefield where there's a negative terrain feature, like a creek or a narrowing section, was and is a very bad idea. If the French had refused to meet the English in a shallow ravine (Crecy) or where the field narrows (Agincourt) and instead used their knights as mobile forces to hit and withdrawal, hit and withdrawal while the infantry slowly backs and refuses. Use the mobile forces to wipe out the English baggage train, use the mobile forces to hit the troops sent to find food, and France would have won both times.
Heavy armored troopers work. They work today, in heavy-body armored troops. And in actual armored vehicles.
Another thing that Crecy and Agincourt showed was France needed long-distance weapon troops. Which they stood up after Agincourt, and made better longbowmen than the English, as they used tempered steel bows that had a lighter draw and more powerful release than the English longbows.
What's really interesting is a longbow couldn't fire an armor penetrating arrow at farther than 100 feet and weren't deadly unless hitting a weakly armored place, while heavy crossbows were effective over 400 feet and penetrated all portions of armor. Longbows were anti-lightly armored infantry and anti-horse.
Videos like this piss me off. What a bunch of bupkis.
What next, saying battleships and gunned cruisers were 'obsolete' and a waste of money during WWII? Even though no invasion by sea was able to be successfully conducted without gunned ships, and without battleships we would have lost Guadalcanal and other places.
I read all about Crecy in the H.Rider Haggard novel, "Red Eve". I'm sure it is totally accurate and not at all biased toward the English. If you want the truth, read the book. It's a great romance with a supernatural element or two. His novels of Colonial Africa are also great reads. Try to not read them with today's sensibilities.
You would THINK that this battle would have taught the French something about tactics, but 69 years later it seems the same tactics won the day for the English at Agincort.
war was waged in "fighting seasons" and quite profitable. chivalry allowed surrender, protection, and being ransomed in relative safety. the common troops were worth the effort, too.
" The Battle of Poitiers in 1356 had ended in the English capturing huge numbers of prisoners: receipts from those prisoners, not including the king and his son, came to at least £300,000—three times what Edward III had spent on this expensive war over the previous year—and the gains also included horses, armour, clothes, and other objects taken from the defeated.24 This pitched battle, then, proved extraordinarily lucrative even before one begins to consider the unique political capital that the English gained by imprisoning the French king.
*** Known as a ‘portifory,’ or breviary, it was a small volume containing a variety of excerpted religious texts, such as psalms and prayers, designed to be carried about easily (as the name demonstrates, it was portable).1 It was worth about 20 shillings, the price of two cows, or almost three months’ pay for a carpenter, or half of the ransom of an archer captured by the French.2
Geoffery Chaucer- 1359–60 In service as a valettus or yeoman in Prince Lionel’s retinue in France; captured at the siege of Rheims and ransomed for £16 (payment from the King’s Wardrobe, 1 March 1360)
There were still lots of knights around in 1415 at Agincourt when Henry V's archers did the same thing.
ReplyDeleteAl_in_Ottawa
An interesting idea but a highly trained yeoman archer wasn't cheap to train up arm with a war bow (not common hunting bows) and had to be paid for their service.
ReplyDeleteThe battles were a test of tactics. The muddy field made the horses slower and the French Knights decided foolishly "For Honor and Glory" to attack without their infantry support. They as history showed got mowed down with wounded horses tossing knights into the mud and English infantry chopped them up in the mud.
Combined arms won that battle as the French Infantry wasn't eager to advance into the fray with the mostly unengaged English Knights waiting to slaughter them if they broke spear and shield wall.
The mobile threat of horsemen continued to be effective up through the Napoleonic Wars.
A lot like modern tanks in a drone environment. They need infantry, air support and ECM-anti-drone systems.
They didn't. Not at all. Heavy armored knights were still a viable thing in the early to mid 1600s. Carrying all the same weapons, updated of course, as their ancestors n the 1100s and 1200s and 1300s and 1400s and... But with the addition of a brace of single-shot pistols, sometimes as many as 8.
ReplyDeleteAll Crecy and Agincourt did was prove that picking a battlefield where there's a negative terrain feature, like a creek or a narrowing section, was and is a very bad idea. If the French had refused to meet the English in a shallow ravine (Crecy) or where the field narrows (Agincourt) and instead used their knights as mobile forces to hit and withdrawal, hit and withdrawal while the infantry slowly backs and refuses. Use the mobile forces to wipe out the English baggage train, use the mobile forces to hit the troops sent to find food, and France would have won both times.
Heavy armored troopers work. They work today, in heavy-body armored troops. And in actual armored vehicles.
Another thing that Crecy and Agincourt showed was France needed long-distance weapon troops. Which they stood up after Agincourt, and made better longbowmen than the English, as they used tempered steel bows that had a lighter draw and more powerful release than the English longbows.
What's really interesting is a longbow couldn't fire an armor penetrating arrow at farther than 100 feet and weren't deadly unless hitting a weakly armored place, while heavy crossbows were effective over 400 feet and penetrated all portions of armor. Longbows were anti-lightly armored infantry and anti-horse.
Videos like this piss me off. What a bunch of bupkis.
What next, saying battleships and gunned cruisers were 'obsolete' and a waste of money during WWII? Even though no invasion by sea was able to be successfully conducted without gunned ships, and without battleships we would have lost Guadalcanal and other places.
I read all about Crecy in the H.Rider Haggard novel, "Red Eve". I'm sure it is totally accurate and not at all biased toward the English. If you want the truth, read the book. It's a great romance with a supernatural element or two. His novels of Colonial Africa are also great reads. Try to not read them with today's sensibilities.
ReplyDeleteYou would THINK that this battle would have taught the French something about tactics, but 69 years later it seems the same tactics won the day for the English at Agincort.
ReplyDeleteUkraine has changed the game. Era of troops is nearly over. Drones will dominate because of effectiveness, cost and minimal exposure of personnel.
ReplyDeletewar was waged in "fighting seasons" and quite profitable. chivalry allowed surrender, protection, and being ransomed in relative safety. the common troops were worth the effort, too.
ReplyDelete"
The Battle of Poitiers in 1356 had ended in the English capturing huge numbers of prisoners: receipts from those prisoners, not including the king and his son, came to at least £300,000—three times what Edward III had spent on this expensive war over the previous year—and the gains also included horses, armour, clothes, and other objects taken from the defeated.24 This pitched battle, then, proved extraordinarily lucrative even before one begins to consider the unique political capital that the English gained by imprisoning the French king.
***
Known as a ‘portifory,’ or breviary, it was a small volume containing a variety of excerpted religious texts, such as psalms and prayers, designed to be carried about easily (as the name demonstrates, it was portable).1 It was worth about 20 shillings, the price of two cows, or almost three months’ pay for a carpenter, or half of the ransom of an archer captured by the French.2
Note:£3 4s ransom"
Geoffery Chaucer-
Delete1359–60 In service as a valettus or yeoman in Prince Lionel’s retinue in France; captured at the siege of Rheims and ransomed for £16 (payment from the King’s Wardrobe, 1 March 1360)