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23 hours ago, Morien said:

The highland charge was more of a sword and a targe, i.e. a sword and a small shield. Sure, they had a dagger in the shield hand as well, but the primary function was to parry/block with the shield and attack with the sword.

Of course, yet it logical to assume that they used this daggers too. +some targes was also equipped with spikes, so too was effectively a weapon. 😉

23 hours ago, Morien said:

Are you sure it wasn't more of a case of the sword being a backup weapon? Fight normally two-handed with the bayonet and then switch to the sword if needed?

This is information mostly from eastern european sources (from countries which fought either against swedes, or on both sides of the war), there aren't many information on swedish army in english, and i don't speak swedish:

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This one referring to 1701 military regulations.

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Anyway, this one are way more relevant (From Battle of Clontarf):

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On 11/19/2021 at 10:08 PM, Oleksandr said:

So, I looked through several tables of battle sizes, and noticed that armies in it are razer.. big. I mean, really Big. This correspond to average army sizes as described in chronicles, but problem is, modern historical consensus is that this numbers are greatly exaggerated for added "epicness" (especially on enemy side 🤣). 

This matter is somewhat up for grabs.  The fact is, many of the numbers that are used are based on urban populations not the agricultural carrying capacity of the land.  People lived in rural areas, which were often pretty densely populated, as rural households liked to have plenty of children to work the fields for free.  Remember also that Pendragon also represents a multi generational period of enormous prosperity for ordinary folk whose populations grow large until the whole Grail problem destroys the fertility of the land.  This is mirrored by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere are childless.

In terms of logistics, also remember that the Khanate was able to put enormous numbers in the field by way of provisioning them by a moving herd that was basically a larder of meat on the hoof.  Recon considers places for the herd to feed and water as it rampages while also considering the disposition of the enemy.  In Britain, with its long coast and many waterways, boats become an obvious way to provision and perhaps even move armies.

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2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

This is information mostly from eastern european sources (from countries which fought either against swedes, or on both sides of the war), there aren't many information on swedish army in english, and i don't speak swedish:

OK, looks like that they are more like carrying the musket (makes sense, you wouldn't want to just leave it), rather than 'dual-wielding'. Especially when you have it tucked under your armpit like that, sure, you might be able to run into someone, but it is more as a static defense to keep people from charging you. While the sword would be doing most of the attacking.

Murchad is a chad, no question about it. 🙂 I think Harald Hardrada is reputed to wield an axe in each hand at Stamford Bridge. Still, exceptions, and heroic ones at that. I'd still argue that in both cases, it is much closer to what Deacon was proposing as his house-rule, than double attacks of D&D.

Oh, I missed your Battle Sizes one... Yeah, the Battle Size table in BoB2 seems way way off. I'd argue it is off even for later Periods. The one in Book of Uther (p. 187) is much closer to the reality of Pendragon, given the numbers of knights in Britain (in Uther Period). Now, I could see that number doubling, but the BoB2 battle sizes imply that it quadruples. Sure, the Saxon lands are conquered and trade is booming in Later Periods, but there are still significant areas of wilderness that are still uncleared even at the height of Tournament. Maybe just before Yellow Pestilence you might get there if you are willing to handwave wildly and not think about it too much. But it would logically mean that the Romance Period Salisbury should still have at least double the knights that it does in Uther Period. Based on 4e, it doesn't. Now if we take BoB2 at face value, Greg seems to have intended to change that. It is what we have in print, so I guess the number of all the knights in Logres goes from ~2200 in Uther Period to ~9000 by Tournament or so.

As for tournaments, Arthur's Pentecostal Tournament tends to draw over 3000 knights (KAP 5.2, p. 252). So this would imply that the number has gone up some, as even taking the whole of Britain, the number of knights would be just around 4500 in Uther's time, and a minimum of 2/3rds attendance is rather high.

Anyway, you do what you want with it.

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On 11/29/2022 at 11:36 AM, Morien said:

I think Delbrück needs to be taken with a fistful of salt. He was a pioneer in military history, but that doesn't make him right in his conclusions.

Happen to have just read Delbruck and he had two big things to say about medieval warfare - firstly that chronicles etc are almost always madly and impossibly inaccurate when they describe armies numbered in the hundreds or even tens of thousands and secondly that medieval armies were predominantly knightly with infantry playing little or no role on battlefields until the appearance of English longbows, Swiss pikes and firearms.

And more recent - that is to say the whole of the last century's - scholarship has broadly confirmed his views on army sizes but has largely rejected his downgrading of infantry. 

In any case we have two pretty good points of comparison: the size of the late Roman field army in Britain as per the Notitia dignitatum was only about 6,000 of which half were cavalry and the number of knights fees in Norman England was again no greater than 6,000. 

And the number of Norman era shires or counties or earldoms was depending on the date and definition you use between 30 and 40.

So you'd expect a Norman era earl should have perhaps 100 to 200 knights assuming that they have an entire county or shire to follow them (and the link between shire and earldom very quickly weakened and then disappeared over the period). 

 And in 1154 we find the actual earls holdings ranged from 21 to 365 knight's fees. 

Now in both late Roman and Norman England there were additional forces available - the limitanei garrisons of the Saxon Shore and Wall forts, and the mercenary knights and sergeants and town militias that were added to Norman and later medieval armies - but Pendragon is not a historically accurate military simulation but a game about knights.

(Source for table below https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2950/2/D050003_2.pdf)

And few and legendary as actual early medieval sources are they do tend to talk about very small armies: Hengist, Aella, Cerdic and so forth are supposed to have landed and established kingdoms with just three or five shiploads of men, King Ine of Wessex's Law code specifically states that an army is a gathering of 36 or more armed men, the Atheling Cynewulf came close to taking the throne of Wessex with just 97 followers, King Mynyddog of the Gododdin led three hundred, three score and three men in an invasion of Northumbria etc.

So a huge battle whether in actual or fantasy medieval Britain should really be one involving ten thousand plus combatants on both sides, a large one thousands, and so on down.

As for infantry in the actual middle ages there were dozens of sieges for every pitched battle and even Delbruck points out that knights didn't dig trenches or construct siege engines so infantry were still indispensable.  

  

 

 

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Edited by Professor Chaos
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4 hours ago, Professor Chaos said:

firstly that chronicles etc are almost always madly and impossibly inaccurate when they describe armies numbered in the hundreds or even tens of thousands

Oh, I am not contesting that. I am not suggesting that the French had 100 000 knights at Crecy, quite the opposite. My memory was that Delbrück tends to go more minimalistic than the modern ones, although the modern estimates are closer to his than to the chroniclers' numbers. And I have a vague memory that in some cases he went well below what the modern consensus is, although I don't have the specific examples at my fingertips.

4 hours ago, Professor Chaos said:

And few and legendary as actual early medieval sources are they do tend to talk about very small armies:

Not contesting that either.

4 hours ago, Professor Chaos said:

So a huge battle whether in actual or fantasy medieval Britain should really be one involving ten thousand plus combatants on both sides, a large one thousands, and so on down.

Yep, agreed there too.

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19 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

unrelatedly the Russian discussion of the Swedish forces has an illustration that looks almost exactly like a woman with a fake moustache. Just thought I'd throw that in there because instead of paying attention I was like "did this illustrator use women as his models?"

I suppose it more just a low quality of art 😅. Interestingly through, medieval art often depicted knights as longhaired youth, thus creating some confusion 😀. (although, anime fans like this aspect apparently. I mean, bishōnens and all that)

20 hours ago, Morien said:

OK, looks like that they are more like carrying the musket (makes sense, you wouldn't want to just leave it), rather than 'dual-wielding'. Especially when you have it tucked under your armpit like that, sure, you might be able to run into someone, but it is more as a static defense to keep people from charging you. While the sword would be doing most of the attacking

Probably, although it important to note that it's basically same way phalangists often depicted wielding pikes with shield. It still possible to thrust with it, but you need to turn your whole body... Anyway, it was completely different era, with different military doctrine... More relevant, dueling fencing (rapier and dagger) had occasional attack with both weapons, however this seem to be quite risky maneuver.

Spoiler

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B.t.w. here are some medieval examples from art:

Spoiler

pictish stone (near contemparary to KAP era 😀)

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Another pictish stone. In the bottom, centaur with two axes

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Vendel (pre-viking) era Scandinavia:

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Early middle ages - one byzantine and two karolingeans

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Another karolingean

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High middle ages

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(this one indead look like double attack..🧐)

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LMA:

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(that's one small elephant 😅👇)

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41 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

Probably, although it important to note that it's basically same way phalangists often depicted wielding pikes with shield. It still possible to thrust with it, but you need to turn your whole body...

Maybe depicted, but the pike was a two-handed weapon, with the shield slung from the neck/shoulder. Both hands on the pike to allow you to actually use it rather than just hold it in place. It is a thrusting weapon. Sweeping it from side to side would make you hella popular with your mates as you disrupt the whole formation...

41 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

More relevant, dueling fencing (rapier and dagger) had occasional attack with both weapons, however this seem to be quite risky maneuver.

I believe I mentioned sword and dagger in my original comments about dual-wielding in civilian context.

As for medieval art:

Medieval Artists Really Loved Painting Battles With Snails… For Some ...🙂

Edited by Morien
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On 12/21/2022 at 12:51 AM, Morien said:

My memory was that Delbrück tends to go more minimalistic than the modern ones, although the modern estimates are closer to his than to the chroniclers' numbers. And I have a vague memory that in some cases he went well below what the modern consensus is

Earlier here was example of Battle of Iconium, to which most of modern estimates are larger then some numbers from chronicles 😅

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On 12/21/2022 at 12:50 PM, Morien said:

I believe I mentioned sword and dagger in my original comments about dual-wielding in civilian context.

Yes, but you expressed a doubts about D&D style double attacks, which evidently existed 😉. Besides, there are surprisingly many people who believe that "parrying daggers" was used exclusively for parrying. And disproving misconceptions is always good 😀

On 12/21/2022 at 12:50 PM, Morien said:

As for medieval art

Of course medieval art can be weird 😅, yet we still can get useful information out of it. Even this image show (relatively) realistic joust. And images of people not just holding but clearly attacking with two weapons, prove that people at the time at least know such thing was possible. Again, you will be surprised how many people believe DW to be hollywood invention 😱.

(another example of DW using armies would be South-East Asia, especially Thailand, who had significant number of soldier using pair of same length curved swords (too possibly derived from "civilian" fencing). Of course, fighting in this area often happened in jungles (terrain ill-suited for maneuvering in formations, cavalry charges and long range archery) or around elephants, thus making it more practical. Wouldn't fit in KAP, but for more "generic" fantasy game...😉)

On 12/21/2022 at 12:50 PM, Morien said:

Maybe depicted, but the pike was a two-handed weapon, with the shield slung from the neck/shoulder. Both hands on the pike to allow you to actually use it rather than just hold it in place. It is a thrusting weapon. Sweeping it from side to side would make you hella popular with your mates as you disrupt the whole formation

(interestingly, svedes also used pikes during bayonet charges, one of the last european armies to do so) Well it seems muskets was lighter than pike, and better balanced. This manual 👇(it hard to tell when it was made..🤔) suggest it was used for thrusting along with the sword

 

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On 12/20/2022 at 7:58 PM, Professor Chaos said:

As for infantry in the actual middle ages there were dozens of sieges for every pitched battle and even Delbruck points out that knights didn't dig trenches or construct siege engines so infantry were still indispensable. 

What interesting there is that in chronicles when infantry mentioned it usually stated to be militia or mercenaries. Meanwhile in KAP actuall knight lance is 2/3 infantry by default...

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On 12/23/2022 at 4:21 PM, Morien said:

Half and half, when you consider that it is knight+squire. 

Well, yea, but in standard situations squires aren't supposed to fight directly, aren't they?🤨🤔

Recently i looked through interesting lecture about composition of feudal armies (unfortunately not in english), lecturer said that standard knightly lance had 3 members, knight+squire+sergeant, but wealth level of knights varied, so slightly poorer ones replaced mounted sergeants with infantry/archers/crossbowmen, richer ones added some foot troops (and possibly additional sergeants/squires). Field armies indeed seem to be overwhelmingly cavalry. Of course cavalry fought dismounted if required, like during sieges (and would use bows/crossbows), but yes, knights wouldn't dig trenches 😅.

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2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

Well, yea, but in standard situations squires aren't supposed to fight directly, aren't they?🤨🤔

Depends on the squire (and their age/prowess/Player-character status). They can take wounds from the enemies in BoB2. They are not calculated in the Unit Results, but then again, neither are NPKs (unless you have just 1-2 PKs). They are part of the Unit, and are calculated for the army size, too.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

Strange thing i noticed in book "Saxons!", in chapter about Badon battle in enemy tables modifier results in Logres having less knights then other british regions. Wasn't it supposed to be other way around? +it seems Logres end up with even inferior foot troops...

My guess is that since the fight is happening in Logres, it would make sense that local (Logresian) peasant levy and garrison troops are brought to the fight, too, whereas the reinforcements from farther away would be bringing a smaller but more elite force. Thus, you don't get common farmers in Cambrian and the North forces, but might get some from Cornwall (Jagent being relatively close to Badon).

Indeed, if you have more time than I do, you could count the numbers of knights vs. foot in page 95 and see if the non-Logresian forces have a higher knight/foot ratio than Logres does FOR THIS BATTLE. It does not mean that in general Logres has less knights per capita than the other regions. You would indeed expect just the opposite, since many of the other areas (Cambrian mountains, Highlands) are still tribal rather than feudal.

Edited by Morien
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/4/2023 at 1:14 PM, Morien said:

Indeed, if you have more time than I do, you could count the numbers of knights vs. foot in page 95 and see if the non-Logresian forces have a higher knight/foot ratio than Logres does FOR THIS BATTLE.

This indeed seem to be the case, although difference aren't as strong as modifiers suggest 😀.

On 1/4/2023 at 1:14 PM, Morien said:

it would make sense that local (Logresian) peasant levy and garrison troops are brought to the fight, too, whereas the reinforcements from farther away would be bringing a smaller but more elite force. Thus, you don't get common farmers in Cambrian and the North forces, but might get some from Cornwall

Here i wanted to again point out that peasant levy now believed to be 19th century misconception.😉

In fact, in KAP, anybody even use them?🤔

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2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

Here i wanted to again point out that peasant levy now believed to be 19th century misconception.😉

In fact, in KAP, anybody even use them?🤔

Serfs apparently did not serve, but freemen (yeomen and the like) were expected to be armed (Assize of Arms 1181) and might be called up to defend the realm. In KAP, Arthur issues similar Assize of Arms in 515 (BotW, p. 102-103). BoU p. 25 also makes this distinction, noting "a general levy is summoned, which includes all able-bodied free men".

Thus, the numbers for the manorial peasant levy are much exaggerated, since it is based on the total manpower of the manor, including serfs. Rather than 5d20, it should be closer to 3d6, IMHO. And generally no, I don't use it.

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20 hours ago, Morien said:

but freemen (yeomen and the like) were expected to be armed (Assize of Arms 1181) and might be called up to defend the realm. In KAP, Arthur issues similar Assize of Arms in 515 (BotW, p. 102-103). BoU p. 25 also makes this distinction, noting "a general levy is summoned, which includes all able-bodied free men".

Yea, yet judging by the articles earlier in this thread they only rarely was called (at least until longbow era). In example you provided, in open battle such troops were routed literally the seconds enemy attacked them... +it seems in most cases only kings and high nobility has right to call them, (of course, when manor was attacked even serfs would fight).

What also interesting, as was mentioned in other thread, Uther's Logress had half as much freemen as real England did.😁

20 hours ago, Morien said:

In KAP, Arthur issues similar Assize of Arms in 515

And what interesting, in it level of income mentioned greatly exceed ones from BoU...🤔

P.S. according to wiki, between Conquest and 1181 there indeed was no commoner levies in England...

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  • 10 months later...
On 1/17/2023 at 11:31 AM, Oleksandr said:

P.S. according to wiki, between Conquest and 1181 there indeed was no commoner levies in England...

After some research, i found out that in this century long period Fyrd was called. Twice😁 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyrd

Returning to old topic, i also found that mentioned earlier schiltron wasn't example of infantry, for it's core was dismounted knights. This two examples show it best https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Homildon_Hill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verneuil (note composition of scottish army).

There important to clarify main point. There is popular stereotype, that started back in 18/19 centuries, that medieval armies consisted almost entirely from conscripted commoners, poorly trained and poorly equipped, with just a handful of knights. I had discussions with multiple people who believed that feudal armies was almost entirely made from serfs, and that knights only ever charged said serfs 😩... Such stereotypes constantly perpetuated by many movies, games and books .

I searched through descriptions of dozens of high/late* medieval battles, and found very few examples of explicit infantry (not dismounted cavalry like at Agincourt) that wasn't militia, mercenaries or armed servants in the backline. Some interesting examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lechfeld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brémule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Muret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Legnano  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agridi (interestingly, here chronicler describe use of foot (dismounted?) sergeants in battle as some sort of groundbreaking innovation😀 )

*early medieval battles was dominated by heavy infantry, until Charlemagne era.

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