of bows and arrows...

[VAE VICTUS]

i read this book that said that longbows had a range of only 60yrds.

my little cousin has this bow with arrow, and he is 10,so its not very powerful. the pull is a joke it is so easy to pull back, well i wanted to see how far i could shoot it so i aimed up some and released, and the thing went at least 100yrds, over the field and into the treeline. so how much more powerful were the mongol bows or the longbow?
it would seem that they would have much more powerful.

[matteus the inbred]

Since it's been established that longbows built to cover all the argued ranges of draw weight and construction thought reasonable by experts (and i have myself fired a reconstruction 50lb draw weight longbow well over 60 yards, and i'm a wimp) had an effective range of up to 200 yards (crossbows could do 350-400) what was the name of this highly misguided book? Or rather, how did the author arrive at this odd conclusion?

There's one account of the Battle of Formigny in 1450 where a particularly large archer fires his bow at well over that range by sitting down and using his feet to draw it, but obviously this was unusual behaviour!

[Red Peasant]

Maybe 60 yards was a reduced distance at which it could penetrate certain heavy armours developed in a mainly forlorn attempt to neutralise its effectiveness. I seem to remember something to that effect.:inquisitive:

[Incongruous]

The really interesting thing about English Longbowmen is that they pussed foreward on the bow. Interesting...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

200+ yards range, 90-120lb pull firing a 1 and1/4lb war arrow. The bow as usually 6 feet long, at least. The pull of the weapon was such that it caused physical deformity when used extensively from a young age.

Against iron plate the arrow will penetrate at 60 yards, at 20 yards the arrow will penetrate steel plate. At, I think, 100+ yards the arrow will kill a man wearing chainmail or kevlar.

[Watchman]

You sure about that ? Historical accounts of the things and thorough analyses thereof suggest somewhat different. Besides, always remember one thing: the longbow was among the things plate armoure was developed against, and the longbow disappeared from field duty a lot sooner than the heavy crossbow or the solid steel plate...

If you could kill a mail-clad man with a puny longbow at hundred paces the First Crusade would have been slaughtered by the first large group of horse-archers they ran into. Those reflex composite bows make longbows weep in envy.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I have seen a bodkin arrow go through steel plate at twenty paces and severely dent it at 60. I mean a dent bad enough to make breathing difficult. The important thing about the longbow is the arrow. IIRC arab arrows of the period were broad headed or barbed, not to mention lighter than the monster 28 inch war arrow used by the English. The bodkin head was developed to go between the links of mail and is deadly unless you wear plate, at any range really. It will go between the fibres in Kevlar as well.

Remember a lot of tests are done with lower limit bows, 60-90lb, rather than the real thing, 90-120lb.

Use of the Longbow was a lifetime commitment.

[English assassin]

I can't pretend to be an expert in these things but IIRC the reason the lognbow disappeared was not that it was an ineffective weapon (although against later suits of armour the crossbow would have the advantage) but that to use it effectively required years and years of practice. So to get 100 longbowmen you have to find 100 people who have been practicing since their teens, whereas to get 100 crossbowmen you need to pressgang the nearest pub.

As for a "range" of 60 yards, modern reconstructions, not to mention the battle of Agincourt, show that must be way off. Possibly they meant a lethal range against armour plate, I could easily believe that that might be only 60 yards or so. But then you don't need a lethal hit to take the target out of nthe battle, and if he's mounted you don't even need to hit the rider at all.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

You must remember though that the longbowman was aiming for the horses of the mounted Knight. Yes, the arrow probably couldn't penertrate the armour but it sure as hell bring down a horse, with the Knight being weighed down and the weight of the horse on top of him it would only be a matter of time when they would be dispatched by a English man at arms.

The great warbows (Longbow is only a modern day term,) were used en masse to disrupt a cavalry charge, not to halt or turn back one. Even so at fifty-sixty yards a arrow could punch through most armour

The effective range for the longbow was around 220 yards (the range is much greater but lacks any penertrating power) and with an normal archer lossing 8-10 per minute they could weather a storm of arrows (Veterans could loose up to 18-20 a minute and could often let loose an arrow, then another and loose a third before the first had hit the ground)

At Agincourt nearly 30-40,000 arrows were fired a minute and with the mounted knight, who took 15-20 seconds to cover 200 and a dismounted man around 80-90 that is a hell alot of arrows to contend with and that sheer number is demoralsing enough let alone walking through the storm of death

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yep, although with all this one should mention that every bow was different and customised to the user and that the Yew used affected quality. Apparently Spanish Yew was the best because the thiner soil made the grain tighter, the English were more worried about importing Yew than wine!

[Orda Khan]

The claim is utter nonsense to be quite frank. There have also been claims that the Longbow rarely exceded 88 lbs draw weight, which is again not true. Modern 'Victorian design' Longbows (more D shaped than ) shaped) average around 30 - 50 lbs and easily cope in Clout shoots of 180 yards or so. I forget the current flight record but it is well over 400 yards, albeit with a light, flight arrow. I have heard the 60 yard argument applied to lethality and I am not sure if I agree with it. I too have seen plate pierced by an arrow with bodkin head and that was from a 66 lb bow and the arrow was a 11/32 modern spine.
With regards to armour piercing arrowheads.....There were two types of bodkin head.
The Needle bodkin, as the name suggests was a long, thin, square section head. The fine point could pierce the rings of chain mail and the square section edges would cut/force apart the mail, allowing the arrow to pass through. This head was useless against plate as the fine point would simply bend.
This was overcome by using short bodkin heads which look almost blunt by comparison. They worked in a similar way to a dot punch tool, again the edges of the square section would cut early plate. Imagine an X shaped cut, the arrow velocity would then push the four triangular pieces of plate inward.
I am a little on the fence about their actual ability. People argue that they were not as effective as is generally thought, however if this was the case surely English armies would have employed far less Longbowmen than they did and these men would not have been granted the rights that were bestowed on them for services rendered.
The Asiatic Composite versus Longbow debate has raged for a long time. I shoot a Hun bow made by Csaba Grozer and another Hun from Kassai Lajos and at 40 lbs draw, these bows easily out perform a Longbow of similar poundage. I was recently speaking with a 19 year old girl who was visiting our club for British Squad training. She asked a few questions about my bow since her club had been in touch with Grozer, asking for support for one of their shows and she had the good fortune to win the bow he donated...a Hun of 50 lbs draw weight. When I asked if she was able to draw it she explained that she was only able to draw to approximately armpit level of her bow arm. Aiming at a 50 metre target, she missed.....and found her arrow embedded in a fence at 110!!! My wife has a 25 lb Hun and she has fired ordinary field arrows uphill, into a strong headwind and achieved a nice group at over 120 yards.
The assymetrical limbs of the Hun absorb and dissipate handshock to the point that it is hardly noticeable and I have found that it even out performs my old Mongol bow. The Longbow is another story, those long, heavy limbs can send a shock up to your elbow and care must be taken that the bow is 'warmed up' because failure is quite common. I witnessed one go a few years ago during one of our Field Tournaments.....not nice. Two local bowyers/archers recently made a Longbow of 120 lbs and trained to use it at a Flight Tournament. They achieved a distance of 380 metres with normal (not flight) arrows

.........Orda

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Oh, I forgot to mention the two types of bodkin head. I believe that 250 yards would probably the the maximum effective range for a warbow with war arrows, which are 1 1/4lbs each. By comparison modern arrows are very light. I belive the reason the longbow went out of service was its difficulty of use. Learning the bow was something of a vocation. By contrast crossbows took weeks to learn.

After the Black death hit I think there were a lack of yoemen with the skills and this was when guns became more prevelant. When you think about it the longbow out performed muskets until the early 19th Century and the Baker rifle.

[Harald Den BlåToth]

http://www.unifi.it/unifi/surfchem/solid/bardi/archery/modelingbows/bowcompare780.gif

here's some scientific stuff about bows...no figures though...just equations...The area under the curve is the energy as a function of force and draw

http://www.unifi.it/unifi/surfchem/solid/bardi/archery/modelingbows/

[Watchman]

Just for the record, I kind of categorically refuse to believe people who had been shooting at heavily armoured enemies with composite bows for millenia, such as the Middle Easterners and the various horse nomads, would have failed to produce all the special-purpose arrow and -head designs they ever needed and then some.

Or that the cataphract principle would have been developed and remained highly popular in a region lousy with such bows, archers and arrows if all you needed to take down even a heavily-armoured man was a good archer, bow and arrow. A skilled archer with a good bow on horseback was something of a military backbone in the whole region, after all.

As for the longbow, well, let's put it this way: the French always seemed quite capable of getting through the arrow-storms in enough numbers to give the English heavy troops a serious fights. In many instances they were able to make several such attempts. To my knowledge the longbowmen were never able to defend their positions with firepower alone, period. The normal technique seems to have simply been deployed out of the way of the main thrust (and they could provide enfilading fire from the flanks this way too), and use terrain and whatever field fortifications could be readied to help blunt advances against them.

And this even early on in the HYW when armour was still mail plus reinforcements.

AFAIK its killing power was secondary to the sheer distruptive effect the constant rain of arrows had on even the best protected men (hapless soldiers in less-than-topnotch armour naturally died a lot easier, although that didn't seem to keep the Genoese at Grecy from being able to get some shots of their own off before they broke). All those nasty whizzing things bouncing off your armour are going to seriously unnerve most people, all the more so as every now and then one hits an opening or weak spot by chance and does some real damage. All that and the reactions it naturally elicits from its victims result in some seriously messed-up formations, and the Medieval ones weren't exactly the best drilled and coordinated to begin with. The longbowmen weren't battle-winning troops by themselves. They were support troops that enabled the English to win battles with far smaller numbers of the hideously expensive heavy shock troops than would otherwise have been necessary - by the time the enemy's shock troops could get to grips with their waiting (and hence fully rested) English colleagues their formations would be in tatters and hence the whole bunch was far easier to deal with, all the more so as they were getting arrows to their flanks all the time too.

[Atilius]

As for the longbow, well, let's put it this way: the French always seemed quite capable of getting through the arrow-storms in enough numbers to give the English heavy troops a serious fights. In many instances they were able to make several such attempts. To my knowledge the longbowmen were never able to defend their positions with firepower alone, period. The normal technique seems to have simply been deployed out of the way of the main thrust (and they could provide enfilading fire from the flanks this way too),
...its killing power was secondary to the sheer distruptive effect the constant rain of arrows had on even the best protected men ... All those nasty whizzing things bouncing off your armour are going to seriously unnerve most people... The longbowmen weren't battle-winning troops by themselves. They were support troops that enabled the English to win battles with far smaller numbers of the hideously expensive heavy shock troops...

I agree with most of your points here, but not with your conclusion that longbowmen weren't absolutely deadly. And I don't agree with your description of longbowmen as support troops. Of course they couldn't stand up to men-at-arms alone, but the English armies that fought at Crecy and Agincourt could fairly be described as longbow armies.

At Crecy, Edward III had an army in which archers predominated: from Froissart I get 2300 men-at-arms, 5200 archers, and 1000 Welsh (knifemen?). Other sources give similar proportions and numbers. They were opposed by an army of at least 30,000 French consisting mostly of men-at-arms. The battle was a massacre in which the French lost 1,500 knights and lords alone (well over 10,000 in total), as against perhaps 100 English. The Duke of Lorraine, the archbishop of Rouen, and at least 10 Counts were killed. Even King Phillip was struck by an arrow and had a horse killed beneath him.

Henry's army at Agincourt consisted of about 5000 archers and just 1000 men-at-arms: even more bow-heavy than Edward's at Crecy, and even more heavily outnumbered by the French. The result was the same though, and the butchery so severe that the third French line was too demoralized to engage. The Constable d'Albret, 3 Dukes, 7 Counts, and perhaps 10,000 men were among the dead, and Marshal Boucicault was captured. About 300 English were killed.

In both cases the English had the benefit of high ground and the ad-hoc French armies showed appallingly poor discipline. But the sheer disparity in the numbers of the dead (including nobles) indicate that relatively few of the French reached the English line. This was indeed enough to give the English men-at-arms a serious fight - at Agincourt the Duke of Alencon beat Henry to his knees - but this is just a reflection of the small number of heavily armed and armored Englishmen. It must be that a majority of the French were killed by the English longbowmen.

[matteus the inbred]

agreed Atilius, great summary!...similar proportions appears in English armies v Scots...at Homildon Hill in 1402 chroniclers specifically mention the effect of arrows, and hardly any of the (admittedly more lightly armoured) Scots made it into combat. English armies only really appear to have been vulnerable if they could be surprised and engaged in melee without deploying archers (Baugé, Formigny), and when the French began to make heavier use of artillery and disciplined troops.

It's worth pointing out that Poitiers was a very hard scrap, hand-to-hand predominating, Froissart gives a great account of it, especially the confusion surrounding the capture of King John. Wikipedia has this to say -
'Right at the beginning of the battle, the English simulated flight on their left wing. This provoked a hasty charge by the French knights against the archers. However, they were expecting this and quickly attacked the enemy, especially the horses, with a shower of arrows. Froissart writes that the French knight's armour was invulnerable to the English arrows, that the arrowheads either skid off the armour or shattered on impact. The armour on the horses, however, was weak on the sides and back, so the English archers moved to the sides of the cavalry and shot the horses in the flanks. The results were devastating.'
Following this the dismounted English, stiffened by elite mercenaries, dealt with the French in a succession of melees, aided by confusion in the French lines. It's also worth noting that John had dismissed most of his lower quality foot to catch the Black Prince, and therefore numbers were fairly even.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think longbows are generally a little overrated by fiction and seriously underrated by some scholars. Don't forget some of these "experts" will tell you a longsword weighs 20lbs and was used to batter armour.

Agincourt is probably the best example. The English were out numbered eight to one, not counting crossbowmen, with inferior hand to hand troops and with disease in the camp they were already bellow the 6,000 odd they had when they crossed the channel. Despite this 10,000 French Knights, 1/4 of their force were killed.

Admittedly Henry exicuted the prisoners, but still.

[Gealai]

Harald, nice graphs however the first one is about the compound not the composite bow. The comp. drawing curve is the mirrored curve of the short bow, with the curve/line of the longbow as axis.

As area (under the graph) equals work, a good composite can, with the same draw. wheigt easily outperform the longbow. A composite bow was due to his lighter and shorter design also more energyefficient in transferring it's power to the arrow, especially when shooting light arrows. When using heavy ones, the relative difference in energyefficiency due to wheigt becomes less and less --> this combined with the low rate of missile troops among the english enemies let to the use of relative heavy arrows with good penetration.

The great archers of the east also faced great archers and had to vary far more between light longranged ones of various design and very heavy closeranged ones with other design.

--> Watchman:

In fact it is not just mine believe that the Catas became so heavily armored because they had to face excellent archery. In fact already the Assyrian cavalry did use horsearmor - in a time were the Scythians started raiding heavily...

Gealai

[Orda Khan]

I kind of categorically refuse to believe people who had been shooting at heavily armoured enemies with composite bows for millenia, such as the Middle Easterners and the various horse nomads, would have failed to produce all the special-purpose arrow and -head designs they ever needed
The Horse archer nations had many arrowhead variants

...........Orda

[CBR]

But the sheer disparity in the numbers of the dead (including nobles) indicate that relatively few of the French reached the English line. This was indeed enough to give the English men-at-arms a serious fight - at Agincourt the Duke of Alencon beat Henry to his knees - but this is just a reflection of the small number of heavily armed and armored Englishmen. It must be that a majority of the French were killed by the English longbowmen.

In general battles always had big differences in losses between loser and winner, and a majority of the Agincourt sources would disagree with your conclusion too. The archers did indeed kill some, although we dont know if they caused the majority of the French losses, but that was when they moved forward to engage the French in the flanks.

Factors like mud, arrows, routing cavalry hitting their own men and bad French leadership turned the dismounted attack into a tired compressed mob that got slaughtered.


I have read about several tests of longbow v plate and one them done by Royal Military College of Science Testing Grounds found that "a bodkin-tipped arrow would dent the armour at 80m (260ft), puncture it at 30m (98ft) and penetrate right through plate and underlying doublet coat to the flesh at 20m (65ft)" But everything depends on getting it all right to make the test useful, and some I have seen described just used some cheap soft steel for the armour which is not very authentic.

Orda:

I am a little on the fence about their actual ability. People argue that they were not as effective as is generally thought, however if this was the case surely English armies would have employed far less Longbowmen than they did and these men would not have been granted the rights that were bestowed on them for services rendered.

If you wanted to use archers to disrupt heavily armoured enemies you needed a lot of them to have any effect. If you didnt have many then they would best be employed like skirmishers way up front, and the main purpose would then be to keep enemy archers at a distance to protect main army.

English kings were pretty limited in what troops they could get. They had their men-at-arms and commoners to recruit and most of the commoners could not afford much more than a shield and spear or a bow.

England was a well organised but not very populous country, so the kings had enough money to more or less get all the willing men-at-arm and still be inferior in numbers. Only way to increase his armies would be mercs or regular use of commoners. Mercs could not always be relied on because of shifting politics but Gascon and Flemish knights were used on several occasions though, and of course the Welsh.

Later on when the numbers of men-at-arms dwindled, the use of Billmen became more dominant, although archers might already have been supported by spear/billmen in the earlier years of HYW but I dont think there is much specific data for the earlier years.

All my books are packed away as Im moving soon but IIRC the English did try and establish a large force of armoured spearmen during the later half of the 14th century but apparently it failed. Releasing prisoners and hiring lowlife scum and give them a bow instead turned out to be easier to do ~:)


CBR

[Incongruous]

As I said before on the bbc they had some massive Cornish bloke who at 66-70 yrds fired the short bodkin arrow at a piece of steele plate at a perpendicular angle and it went over an inch through. At Agincourt the English archers were what one might consider elite for Henry had been training them for months.

[matteus the inbred]

Indeed, it was famously illegal for English men to play football or other sports on a Sunday, they had to practice archery instead...!
I recall that there was this Yorkshire bloke called Robrt Hardy(?) who was a professional longbowman and appeared on TV, his arms and shoulders were huge.
He comments in his book
Archers started their training while children, to build their bodies and their capabilities to a fine degree. Training was compulsory, every Sunday, and that law is still on the books!
A good bowmen could shoot (not 'fire' - that only refers to guns) 15 arrows per minute at ranges of around 300+ yards.
The 'arrowstorm' was a term which fitted the scene well. 5000 archers could lay 75,000 deadly arrows on the enemy in a single minute.
At the battle of Towton in 1461 - Britain's bloodiest battle - the Yorkist faction had as many as 20,000 archers. At 15 arrows per minute that's 300,000 arrows per minute - 5000 arrows per second. 28,000 died. Nothing came close to this killing score until the First World War.

[Watchman]

Just a little reminder, but even if disproportionate amount of the effective fighting power rested on the armoured shoulders of the men-at-arms, the vast majority of troops in Medieval armies were invariably of far lesser calibre of training and armament. Archery might not cause too many outright casualties amongst the elite heavies, but it sure could do a number on their lighter support troops. And when you consider the detail that such lesser troops were employed in as large numbers as possible and unhesitantly thrown into the thick of battle side-by-side with the heavies, this would obviously be of some notable tactical significance.

It's sort of like how in RTW you usually don't concentrate your archery on the few units of nearly arrow-proof Urban Cohorts, but instead decimate the more vulnerable troops wathicng their flanks so that the Urbans will have to face your melee line unsupported.

[CBR]

As I said before on the bbc they had some massive Cornish bloke who at 66-70 yrds fired the short bodkin arrow at a piece of steele plate at a perpendicular angle and it went over an inch through. At Agincourt the English archers were what one might consider elite for Henry had been training them for months.

What was the thickness of the steel plate and what type of steel? Was it just a plate or did it have any type of backing behind it? What type of steel was the bodkin made of?

AFAIK in another BBC show "Arms in action" longbows had big problems penetrating a steel plate. Its all a matter of how the test is set up.


Archers started their training while children, to build their bodies and their capabilities to a fine degree. Training was compulsory, every Sunday, and that law is still on the books!


And training once a week would make people very familiar with bows but experts no. Some recruiters complained about archers who not only didnt bring along a bow but couldnt even draw a bow.


The 'arrowstorm' was a term which fitted the scene well. 5000 archers could lay 75,000 deadly arrows on the enemy in a single minute.
At the battle of Towton in 1461 - Britain's bloodiest battle - the Yorkist faction had as many as 20,000 archers. At 15 arrows per minute that's 300,000 arrows per minute - 5000 arrows per second. 28,000 died. Nothing came close to this killing score until the First World War.

Towton is one of the largest battles ever fought in Britain. Both sides agreed to give no quarter. The fighting is described to be very violent and lasted a long time. In the rout we hear of bridges collapsing from the weight of men and of course there is the Bloody Meadow, where it was said that men could cross the river by walking on the bodies.

There were other battles during War of the Roses that wasnt as bloody but both sides would still have used lots of bows. Arrows would have caused casualties but it would be stretching it too far to conclude they caused most of the losses.

The number of arrows shot in a battle is, although the number sounds impressive, by itself meaningless as we have to figure out what the actual effect was from all those arrows.

If archers had such high rate of fire, if armour wasnt very effective against arrows and if archers were so accurate then how come the melee always were so dominant in ancient and medieval battles? How come we only see drastic changes in infantry tactics in the era of muskets?

We can look at the numbers for comparison:

A typical archers rate of fire would be around 6-9 shots/minute and that would be 2-3 times faster than a standard belthook crossbow and 4-6 times faster than a early 19th century musket. Im not familiar with how close a formation such archers would be in, but I guess they could be standing 2 feet apart which is similar to Napoleonic infantry but maybe they would be in a slightly looser formation.

Even if we assume that only the first rank of archers could shoot at very short ranges, that would still make it twice as many missiles shot at the enemy than from muskets. And muskets would have to wait for just one short range salvo while archers could have started shooting from much further away to soften up the enemy and with more ranks that could shoot too.

It just doesnt add up. If muskets made frontal assaults very difficult if not impossible without softening up the defender first, then how could anyone even reach a line of archers? Something must not have been as effective as muskets, accuracy and/or chance of penetrating armour/shield.


If there is one thing that makes English archers stand out compared to say some merc crossbowman it would be that they were quite willing to fight in melee too. There were not some specialist that would run away when they were out of ammo.

That archers were nice for disrupting an enemy and produce some losses is without a doubt, but they were still just a support weapon for the melee element of the army.


CBR

[CBR]

Just a little reminder, but even if disproportionate amount of the effective fighting power rested on the armoured shoulders of the men-at-arms, the vast majority of troops in Medieval armies were invariably of far lesser calibre of training and armament. Archery might not cause too many outright casualties amongst the elite heavies, but it sure could do a number on their lighter support troops. And when you consider the detail that such lesser troops were employed in as large numbers as possible and unhesitantly thrown into the thick of battle side-by-side with the heavies, this would obviously be of some notable tactical significance.

True but it also varied a lot depending on what era and army. The first French line at Agincourt were made up of men-at-arms. Even relative cheap armour like brigandine was quite effective against missiles. Such armour is what you would expect a city militia to wear.

Troops had to equip themselves according to what their income level was. IIRC in England it was something like a bow (earlier shield and spear) then bow and sword and then bow, sword and armour. The higher income the better was required. Later in the 15th century armour became even more widespread/cheaper. The Flemish city militias fighting the French in early 14th century was well armoured as the region was very wealthy.


CBR

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

[QUOTE=Watchman]Just a little reminder, but even if disproportionate amount of the effective fighting power rested on the armoured shoulders of the men-at-arms, the vast majority of troops in Medieval armies were invariably of far lesser calibre of training and armament. Archery might not cause too many outright casualties amongst the elite heavies, but it sure could do a number on their lighter support troops. And when you consider the detail that such lesser troops were employed in as large numbers as possible and unhesitantly thrown into the thick of battle side-by-side with the heavies, this would obviously be of some notable tactical significance.[QUOTE]

When the French fought the English the French used almost exclusivly knights or very high level men-at-arms.

CBR, at Naysbey in the English Civil War it came down to the melee, even when the troops were less than a hundred feet apart. Muskets weren't that effective but they were demoralising. You can't get out of the way, you don't see it coming, it is loud and smoky and it knocks people off their feet. IIRC armour was rated against musket fire, often you'll see breastplates with a dent from amusket ball in, that was a proof of quality.

[matteus the inbred]

There were other battles during War of the Roses that wasnt as bloody but both sides would still have used lots of bows. Arrows would have caused casualties but it would be stretching it too far to conclude they caused most of the losses.

He said it, not me! I agree, the mere number of arrows tells us nothing other than supporting the statement that longbowmen could shoot fast and therefore probably practiced a lot. They were pretty effective at fighting up close too, given how even French victories like Formigny often involved hard fighting to beat archers in hand to hand combat.
Another good example would be Blore Heath, where some sources support the view that Yorkist longbows once again decimated an army containing mainly knights and their immediate professional retinues. Other sources state the archery to be inconclusive...so possibly even medieval witnesses were not sure how effective longbows were. My own conclusion, based on the amazing amount of evidence posted on this thread, is that longbows, used effectively, could decimate lightly armed troops (with subsequent poor morale being a factor), could obviously disrupt cavalry and kill horses, and were a danger to armoured troops but not capable of stopping armoured charges. After all, Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt all involved intense hand to hand combat in which the English leader was required to participate. Weather and the longbowmen's use of temporary barriers (stakes) all played a part too.
Two of the stories related to Towton are the deaths of Lord Dacres and Lord Clifford...allegedly both were shot in the throat after removing their helmets for a drink, which implies that had they not done so, their armour might have stopped the arrows.

[Kagemusha]

Why are we arguing whether the longbow could penetrate plate armour or not becouse the main target of the longbowmen was the horses not the men.I havent seen anywhere any evedence that the armour of the horses could have stopped the bodkin arrows.If in a classic charge you are able to shoot down lots of horses or wound them,which might have even worse results to the attackers it will disrupt the charge,like in Agincourt where the main body of the attacking army was in very tight formation in a muddy ground.Also we have to remember that the other part of the English tactic was that their knights fought on foot protecting the archers.So if the enemy knights are bogged down with arrow fire and are too heavy to attack on foot.The French man at arms had to attack against the English Knights who were superior to the French men at arms.So English beated the French becouse of the same thing that many other Knight armies lost.All the French had to do in Agincourt to win the English was not to charge,but starve them out.
The ill dicipline of the French armies combined to new tactics of the English cost lots of blood to the french in the early part of the hundred years war.

[CBR]

CBR, at Naysbey in the English Civil War it came down to the melee, even when the troops were less than a hundred feet apart. Muskets weren't that effective but they were demoralising. You can't get out of the way, you don't see it coming, it is loud and smoky and it knocks people off their feet. IIRC armour was rated against musket fire, often you'll see breastplates with a dent from amusket ball in, that was a proof of quality.

Oh yes it was still in the pike and shot era with matchlock muskets. Tactics had certainly changed but pikes still had a melee role and not just for defending against cavalry. In the first half of 17th century (and actually already starting in the 16th century) we see the role of pikes becoming less dominant and pikemen also lost their armour. Wealthy nobles could still get some nice but expensive armour that would give some protection against shot. But it would be a heavy cavalrymans armour and it wouldnt be what ordinary pikemen had AFAIK.


He said it, not me!
I didnt have any intention of making my post to sound like it was against you or anything.


Two of the stories related to Towton are the deaths of Lord Dacres and Lord Clifford...allegedly both were shot in the throat after removing their helmets for a drink, which implies that had they not done so, their armour might have stopped the arrows.

Yes and IIRC there are several examples like that in other battles too. Later 15th century knights with armoured horses doesnt appear to have that much to fear from missile weapons.


CBR

[Orda Khan]

I am really not interested in tests and reconstructions. Most things are different these days and trying to reproduce results in a test environment tells me nothing to be honest. A line of men-at-arms means nothing unless someone here was present at the scene and can tell me exactly what each man was wearing. Why should I believe that each and every man-at-arms resembled Robocop? I am sure that armour and its amount varied considerably, even amongst the wealthiest. Plate armour did not completely cover the body and limbs and it is more than reasonable when we consider the amount of arrows, that many suffered injury or death as a direct result. I still maintain that a 4-1 ratio of archers tells a different story than the 'English could not afford anything else' argument. The Freemen of Llantrisant are descendants of Welsh Longbowmen and they still hold rights over the land that was allotted to those who featured so prominantly at Crecy. Am I to believe that this treatment was the norm for a bunch of worthless peasants?

........Orda

[Watchman]

Mail seems to have been effective enough against arrows at long ranges. Decent plate could not be reliably penetrated above distances that a charging horse covers in something like two seconds.

During the HYW period horses began to receive increasing degrees of first mail and later plate barding; I somewhat fail to comprehend how and why their versions would have been of markedly inferior protective value compared to what their riders wore.

Anyway, for most of the HYW period most men-at-arms fought on foot in any case so the point is somewhat moot.

As far as late-medieval missile weapons go, there was always the arbalest. That one was something even high-ranking knights worried about, and where crossbows were particularly common - such as in Italy - armour styles seemed to place a marked emphasis on leaving as few gaps as possible against incoming bolts. Which in turn suggests that good plate could stop even bolts from steel-stave crossbows (whose sheer power far outstripped most nonmechanical bows) as long as they didn't come from too close by. By what I know of it most Early Modern firearms didn't have much of an advatnage in sheer lethality and armour-piercing ability over heavy crossbows, but they had remarkable morale impact and several other superior points over arbalests. Nonetheless, even musketeers needed a "wall" of pikemen to keep enemy shock troops and particularly cavalry away due to restricted rates of fire until the bayonet was invented.

[matteus the inbred]

I didnt have any intention of making my post to sound like it was against you or anything.CBR

I know, I never thought you did! :2thumbsup: I didn't necessarily agree with everything he (the Mary Rose archery expert) said either, it had a slightly boastful feel about it, with Francophobe comments that i deleted from the quote i used.


Later 15th century knights with armoured horses doesnt appear to have that much to fear from missile weapons.

or anything really! I think a lot of plate armour worked on the theory of deflecting by having curved or angled surfaces (I think modern tank armour is designed like this as well)...a direct hit from crossbows/arbs or even longbow 'pile' arrows at fairly close range could get through, but might have lost all its force and be stopped by the mail or other padding that knights wore under the plate armour. Would have to be a good shot though.

The shift to pikes and gunpowder weapons in the mid-sixteenth century is probably indicative of this. And almost certainly troops were trained to target the horses anyway, as you can't completely armour a horse.

[CBR]

Orda:

I dont think anyone, and certainly not me, are saying that archers were just worthless peasants. Its more a question of figuring out how big a role they played on a medieval battlefield.

Italian and German workshop were spitting out lots of plate armour and I think we have numbers for Milanese exports and they were pretty big. That was just standard generic armour that of course was too expensive for peasants, but the upper classes which men-at-arms belonged to could easily afford such armour. The real rich ones bought the Ferrari equivalent of armours as well as horses. A knights two horses might have around same cost as the armour and they certainly wouldnt last as long as the armour.

And we know lots of people of the lower classes couldnt afford anything but simple weapons and that isnt just the English. Men-at-arms didnt grow on trees. The makeup of medieval/ancient armies were highly dependent on socio-economic reasons.

The English made god use of it and gathered lots of archers instead of just making them all spearmen/polearms, as that would have required units given training and you couldnt count on soldiers that only had the most basic equipment anyway: how well would unarmoured spearmen do against say a cavalry charge. Its simply easier to get the best out of 1000 archers than 1000 spearmen even if none of them have trained that well together. It took cities to maintain well equipped and well trained militias.

Both the Swiss and Flemish militias showed that you didnt need lots of missiles to defeat big cavalry charges. Just how big a role did the archers really play at Crecy? More than all the potholes and ditches dug before the battle? More than the strong line of dismounted men-at-arms waiting for the French cavalry? More than the disordered hasty attacks from the French? Or to ask in another way: if all the archers had stayed back in England/Wales and the Italian crossbows had stayed back too would the French then have won?

And with such questions Im still not implying that archers were worthless as they surely made the victory easier for the English.

About the Freemen of Llantrisant. I found this website http://www.llantrisant.net/index.cfm?page=History%20of%20Llantrisant&more=1


One of the most notable episodes in Llantrisant's history took place in 1346, with the presentation of its first known charter, although historians have argued that such a document was entrusted to the people four centuries earlier.
Tales of courageous longbowmen from the town, fighting at the Battle of Crecy under Lord of Glamorgan Hugh le Despenser, resulted in academics believing that was the reason behind those brave soldiers being rewarded with the issue of such a significant document. Sadly, the legend isn't true, because the charter was actually presented five months earlier, on March 4, 1346. However, it is always comforting to imagine those gallant veterans of Crecy may have been the first to be bestowed with the freedom of the new Ancient Borough of Llantrisant on their return from victory.


CBR

[Lord Winter]

An arrow didn't have to even pierce the armor to effective (less effective then if it hit something soft but it still will work.) Try fighting with a some of your armor turned in so its scratching at your chest. Its going to hinder your breathing and your movement.

The main reasons archers feel out of favor was there training time. Archers took a life time to train, were a musket men could be trained in a month or so.

[Incongruous]

As far as late-medieval missile weapons go, there was always the arbalest. That one was something even high-ranking knights worried about, and where crossbows were particularly common - such as in Italy - armour styles seemed to place a marked emphasis on leaving as few gaps as possible against incoming bolts. Which in turn suggests that good plate could stop even bolts from steel-stave crossbows

Care to back this up with anything?
Other than Wiki?

[Kagemusha]

Mail seems to have been effective enough against arrows at long ranges. Decent plate could not be reliably penetrated above distances that a charging horse covers in something like two seconds.

During the HYW period horses began to receive increasing degrees of first mail and later plate barding; I somewhat fail to comprehend how and why their versions would have been of markedly inferior protective value compared to what their riders wore.

Anyway, for most of the HYW period most men-at-arms fought on foot in any case so the point is somewhat moot.

As far as late-medieval missile weapons go, there was always the arbalest. That one was something even high-ranking knights worried about, and where crossbows were particularly common - such as in Italy - armour styles seemed to place a marked emphasis on leaving as few gaps as possible against incoming bolts. Which in turn suggests that good plate could stop even bolts from steel-stave crossbows (whose sheer power far outstripped most nonmechanical bows) as long as they didn't come from too close by. By what I know of it most Early Modern firearms didn't have much of an advatnage in sheer lethality and armour-piercing ability over heavy crossbows, but they had remarkable morale impact and several other superior points over arbalests. Nonetheless, even musketeers needed a "wall" of pikemen to keep enemy shock troops and particularly cavalry away due to restricted rates of fire until the bayonet was invented.

Bah! so you are saying that he the longbow was not an advancement in English arsenal of weapons and their change of tactics was moot so basicly nothing new under the sky.Are you serious m8.Or are you just so academic that you cant see the trees from the forest?

[ajaxfetish]

Why are we arguing whether the longbow could penetrate plate armour or not becouse the main target of the longbowmen was the horses not the men.I havent seen anywhere any evedence that the armour of the horses could have stopped the bodkin arrows.
I think it's still a valid point for discussion. In major 'longbow' battles such as Poitiers and Agincourt the main French assaults were made up of dismounted knights, so the arrows were not being used against their horses. The longbows usefulness versus horseflesh certainly put an end to skirmishing or attempted mounted charges earlier in the battles, but the main fight was all on foot.

Ajax

[Orda Khan]

The books on local history that I have read, several local TV documentaries, some Welsh Professors and the several 'freemen' that I know personally are all wrong? One such documentary, screened less than 6 months ago, covered this subject in great detail. My old apprentice traced his ancestry back to this period and further and had a break down of earnings, service etc. His ancestor was one of many who returned home to a new status after Crecy

.........Orda

[Watchman]

Care to back this up with anything?
Other than Wiki?Would this (http://www.ceu.hu/medstud/manual/SRM/armor.htm) do ? And Italy with is multitude of quasi-republican city-states and the neighboring southern German-speaking areas were absolutely crawling with crossbows and capable commoner militias (the two go well together, too). Make your own conclusions.

And drop that tone if you don't have actual arguments to back it up with.


Bah! so you are saying that he the longbow was not an advancement in English arsenal of weapons and their change of tactics was moot so basicly nothing new under the sky.Are you serious m8.Or are you just so academic that you cant see the trees from the forest?Never said that. Read more carefully and don't put words in my mouth, please.

Archery certainly worked against unprotected horses, though. One of the permanent headaches to knights fighting in the Outremer (ie. the Crusader Kingdoms) was that even at long ranges massed archery could kill and cripple horses in pretty ugly numbers. The countermeasure adopted against this was to screen the cavalry with armoured infantry with large shields (the standard degree of infantry armour in the Crusader Kingdoms was incidentally heavier and more covering than in Europe; I'd really like to know what other reason that protection against arrows there might be, especially considering the climate, if someon wants to argue about it) and crossbowmen and archers to keep the nasty horse-archers at an arm's lenght.

This became duly less of an issue once horses began receiving decent armour too - even mail and padding is apparently quite sufficient against long-range fire - but then by that point the Mamluks had already kicked the "Franks" out for good.

As for the English, I understand they tended to have some trouble with the whole longbowman thing. The main problem was that the peasants really tended to have better things to do than practice at the butts, and conversely had to be forced to practice under the threat of legal sanctions. And even then the enthusiasm was duly rather low. The ones who made a career out of war were of course a different story, but then they could be considered as much professional soldiers as the Medieval socioeconomy now could produce anyway. These troubles with peasant uncooperatives persisted as long as the laws requiring longbow practice for military duties, I've read. There's a pretty simple explanation for all this - lack of hunting grounds. Comparatively densely inhabited, with not too much woodland to begin with and dwindling rapidly, and what remained being largely the private hunting grounds of the aristocracy, the commoners simply had no natural need or opportunity to practice. In Scandinavia and East-Central Europe, where population was low and woodlands plentiful and hunting hence comparatively unrestricted, there was duly a pool of woodsmen skilled with bows who could duly be drafted to military service.

It's sort of how it's perfectly possible to train horse-archers in settled regions; however, the end result is going to be rather different (and more to the point by far more resource-investive to raise and recruit) from the tribal horse-archers of the steppe nomads who learn the job in the course of their daily life.

[Watchman]

Something to note, AFAIK, about the time it took to train a decent archer is that most of that time isn't really used for developing the actual skill of hitting your target with arrows (all the more so as battlefield archery tended to be of the "massive saturation" kind; Devil take accuracy, the important part is putting as many arrows as possible in the area the enemy formation is in). My brother recently picked up an archery hobby, and had learned to hit the targets fairly reliably inside about three hours (and no, he prefers not to use the auxiliary devices if he can help it; as he puts it, "are you learning archery or how to operate sighting aids?").

What took the long time was to develop a degree of physical conditioning sufficient to handle the heavy draw weight of truly battleworthy bows for extended periods (and even then archers tended to tire fairly fast), not helped one bit in the case of the English yeomanry by the detail the amount of practice hours they put in every week was actually pretty low as they had all the normal peasant chores (like planting fields etc. etc.) to take care off too. One gets the impression people who could dedicate much of their time for practice in some form, such as Janissaries-in-training, nomad horsemen, woodland hunters, full-time professional horse archers such as many native Byzantine and Chinese cavalry and the faris of the Arabs, tended to "graduate" a fair bit faster.

[Papewaio]

As for the English, I understand they tended to have some trouble with the whole longbowman thing. The main problem was that the peasants really tended to have better things to do than practice at the butts, and conversely had to be forced to practice under the threat of legal sanctions. And even then the enthusiasm was duly rather low. The ones who made a career out of war were of course a different story, but then they could be considered as much professional soldiers as the Medieval socioeconomy now could produce anyway. These troubles with peasant uncooperatives persisted as long as the laws requiring longbow practice for military duties, I've read. There's a pretty simple explanation for all this - lack of hunting grounds. Comparatively densely inhabited, with not too much woodland to begin with and dwindling rapidly, and what remained being largely the private hunting grounds of the aristocracy, the commoners simply had no natural need or opportunity to practice. In Scandinavia and East-Central Europe, where population was low and woodlands plentiful and hunting hence comparatively unrestricted, there was duly a pool of woodsmen skilled with bows who could duly be drafted to military service.

Due to the Saxon society that the Normans inherited the peasants of England had a lot larger degree of freedoms as did the aristocracy have a larger influence on their King. In turn the Kings were expected to be warriors.

The Yeoman trained far more then the average bowmen of Europe. To the point that they could be picked out in a crowd of people because of the shape of their upper body was asymetric, their skeletons also show the asymetry present from the amount of training they went through. The Yeoman were not as uncooperative as you would make out. If anything they were a proto-middle class.

Also during the rule of the Normans the forests of England actually expanded...

As for the wearing of armour. It was not purely added to stop arrows or bolts... there were other things to die from on the battlefield. A few accounts of armies in the field talk about the richer cities fielding armies with better armour and weapons... not something that is terribly unpredictable, that a citizen army supplied by its own city would have better armour because the city was more wealthy.

So to the Crusader Knights. They would have had access to more wealth on the way out (support of the pious) and plenty of loot would then invest in items that will keep themselves holy alive longer.

[Kagemusha]

Watchman.Sorry for getting too heated up on the conversation.:bow: But the fact still remains.If the longbow was not very effective weapon against armoured knights and men-at arms.What was the reason how the english were able to defeat so much numerous enemy many times in the early part of 100 years war?In fact becouse the English were much poorer then the French at the time their average Knights were not as well armed and armoured then their French counterparts and logigally the same thing should have applied to the men at arms.
Im not talking about any other bow armed warrior types now.I know that a nomadic horse archer would have been far more experienced bowman then the average yeowman of the English.Im just asking a simple question here if the longbow was not a battle winning weapon,what was the reason of the English succes against the french?I think there were some valid reasons why The French hated the yeowmen so much that they had a habbit to cut of fingers of from the captured longbow men that resulted into to the famous victory sign of the English.

[econ21]

For most of the HYW, the French were not wearing full plate. Intuitively, I doubt the longbow was much use against full plate and indeed it does seem to lose its prominence not long after such armour become common.

But against unarmoured horses and mail (including transitional armour, mixing mail and plate), I suspect it could be a battle winner - not alone, of course, but enough of a force multiplier to give the outnumbered English victory in many of the HYW pitched battles.

I don't even think the longbows need to have been that effective - Total War games often catch the kind of tipping point effect that would be needed well. Sometimes when fighting the AI, your missiles may kill relatively few, but the extra casualties and morale effect are enough to swing the battle. You can win decisively, even with only a marginal edge.

[Watchman]

I don't consider the longbow a battle-winning weapons system. What it was was a very good support weapons system that, alongside the English advantages in command-and-control (their Continental armies were essentially state mercenaries and not feudal levies; the difference is quite important) and ability to usually force battle on their terms, made it possible for them to win battles with fewer "heavy" shock troops such as men-at-arms than would otherwise have been required.

The archers oughta been pretty useful in sieges though.

An impression I've gotten from my reading is however that their overall successes weren't so much due to English advatages than French disadvantages. The latter seem to have been quite capable of holding their own in smaller skirmishes and raids which were the bread-and-butter of Medieval campaigns; it's the major set-piece engagements where they floundered. That's probably a question of there being a certain somewhat paradoxical problem in overly great numerical superiority - increasing "command friction." Not only were the means of communication of the time limited; also the larger an army was the more problematic it became to deploy it effectively and in coordinated fashion, nevermind now maneuver it. That the French armies of the HYW period were mostly feudal levies, which weren't trained for large-unit maneuvers and cohesion, didn't help any. Neither did the feudal command structure which often saw more capable commanders being overruled by less competent but socially higher ranked ones; nor the generally low degree of professionalism and discipline that nigh invariably go with such ad hoc hosts.

And, of course, having a considerable numerical superiority especially in the elite men-at-arms over your opponent was an excellent way to get overconfident and tactically stupid too...

[Kraxis]

The english didn't consider them worthless, the french did. The french didn't seem to understand the yeoman principle, which makes quite a lot of sense really, as France lacked a free peasantry in any numbers.

In any case, this impacted the nobility and those they worked 'closely' with, the men at arms.
What do we hear of the accounts of the day? The french were gloryhounds! Add this to the fact that they considered the longbowmen as social rubbish, and the english formations it becomes fairly clear that the french were funneled into a dense blob of men.

It would be hard to get at the archers, obstructions of various kinds were in place, it was socially unacceptable to get beaten (killed or captured) by a socially inferior (until a point when it was 'fair' for a Duke to get captured by a knight) and it brought great honour to beat one who was your social peer.

Who would the french look at in such a situation? The english nobles and men at arms, perhaps even the king. The archers were simply not viable as proper targets. Sure when the english men at arms were defeated the french would gladly rip the longbowmen to pieces as their honour was satisfied. But until then they would not.

Each of the great longbow victories does not involve situations where substantial forces attacked them, but it is clear that each time the english men at arms and knights had a serious fight at their hands.
The english knew this and placed their troops in a proper fashion, with the longbowmen in a slight bowl formation to give them defilade shots from the flanks.
The french, vastly outnumbering the english would be bunched together, perhaps even condensing seriously until at some time they might even make it impossible to defend themselves or perhaps even to the point of death. And not to point out that falling down would be rather lethal (imagine a wound to the leg in such a situation). The french would not be above this at the time. Their battles continually disregarded their commanders' orders and chose their own times and targets for attack, a sign of a lack of not only discipline but of a bit of common sense. Though I have to admit that you can't see if your own press is causing problems further in or in front. I have been to enough concerts (including one where several people got killed due to press) to know that it is impossible to control and even less impossible to know what is going on unless you are in the middle of it. At the concert where the nine people died only two ranks back people didn't know what was going on...

So the french getting into this dense blob would be easy targets for archers, losses would be less than devastating, but not being able to do anything to protect against the arrows would be a severe hit to morale, as well as the feeling of being caught in place. The longbowmen then charge in from the lfanks, the already faltering french now has to deal with this too. It wouldn't take long before they would try to get away, but others would still not know what was going and still push forward and the press would only get worse... Catastrophy!

When the french finally learned that engaging the longbowmen directly could be done they seem to have fared much better in battle against them.

[Atilius]

I thought it would be of value to have a look at what the chroniclers have to say about English longbowmen at the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. Froissart recounts the battles of Crecy and Poitiers in Chapters 1 and 2 of his Chronicles (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/froissart-full.html)and I've found an account of the Battle of Agincourt (http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/agincourt.htm) by Monstrelet. Both are French, but Froissart was for many years attached to Edward III's queen Phillipa and I find his accounts of Crecy and Poitiers pro-English if anything. These were the only accounts I was able to find online; if anyone is familiar with others, I'd like to know of them. It would be especially interesting to read the account of Jean LeFevre, who fought with Henry V at Agincourt.

At Crecy, Froissart tells us that the Edward's army had 2300 men-at-arms, 5200 archers, and 1000 welshmen. As the battle opens:


The lords and knights of France came not to the assembly together in good order, for some came before and some came after in such haste and evil order, that one of them did trouble another.

The Genoese crossbowmen hired by the French are ordered forward:


...went forth till they came within shot; then they shot fiercely with their cross-bows. Then the English archers stept forth one pace and let fly their arrows so wholly [together] and so thick, that it seemed snow. When the Genoways felt the arrows piercing through heads, arms and breasts, many of them cast down their cross-bows and did cut their strings and returned discomfited. When the French king saw them fly away, he said: 'Slay these rascals, for they shall let and trouble us without reason.' Then ye should have seen the men of arms dash in among them and killed a great number of them: and ever still the Englishmen shot whereas they saw thickest press; the sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their horses, and many fell, horse and men, among the Genoways, and when they were down, they could not relieve again, the press was so thick that one overthrew another. And also among the Englishmen there were certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they went in among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they lay on the ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken prisoners.

Not surprisingly, the Genoese are unable to stand up to the synchronized shooting of the English longbowmen. The arrows do cause havoc among the horses of the men-at-arms, but this passage doesn't tell us much about how much an effect they had on the men-at-arms themselves. We do find what happens when you have a detachment of "rascals" in your army.


The earl of Alencon came to the battle right ordinately and fought with the Englishmen, and the earl of Flanders also on his part. These two lords with their companies coasted the English archers and came to the prince's battle, and there fought valiantly long. The French king would fain have come thither, when he saw their banners, but there was a great hedge of archers before him.

This seems to indicate that Alencon, Flanders, and the French king were all avoiding the archers. Whether they were avoiding bowshots or the ditches, holes, and sharpened stakes the bowmen had likely prepared in front of their position is unclear.


Moving on to Poitiers:

The French King Jean recieves advice about how to conduct the attack:


Sir Eustace said: 'Sir, let us all be afoot except three hundred men of arms, well horsed, of the best in your host and most hardiest, to the intent they somewhat to break and to open the archers, and then your battles to follow on quickly afoot and so to fight with their men of arms hand to hand.

On the day before the battle:


...the Englishmen made great dikes and hedges about their archers, to be the more stronger...

As usual, the French army is arranged in 3 "battles". The first is commanded by the Duke of Orleans, the second by the Duke of Normandy, and the last by the King.

The Black Prince details 300 mounted men-at-arms and 300 mounted archers to strike the flank of the second (Normandy's) battle. The French force of 300 assigned to attack the archers must pass through a very narrow opening between some "hedges" - I can't tell if these are natural or prepared defences or both.


Then the battle began on all parts, and the battles of the marshals of France approached, and they set forth that were appointed to break the array of the archers. They entered a-horseback into the way where the great hedges were on both sides set full of archers. As soon as the men of arms entered, the archers began to shoot on both sides and did slay and hurt horses and knights, so that the horses when they felt the sharp arrows they would in no wise go forward, but drew aback and flang and took on so fiercely, that many of them fell on their masters, so that for press they could not rise again; insomuch that the marshals' battle could never come at the prince. Certain knights and squires that were well horsed passed through the archers and thought to approach to the prince, but they could not.

The battle of the marshals began to disorder by reason of the shot of the archers with the aid of the men of arms, who came in among them and slew of them and did what they list, ...

...and the Frenchmen that were behind and could not get forward reculed back and came on the battle of the duke of Normandy, the which was great and thick and were afoot, but anon they began to open behind;...

The archers are clearly killing French men-at-arms from behind the "hedges" and this appears to be at very close range. The arrows cause terrible disorder in the french van, which flees and collides with the second battle. Only very few who were "well horsed" are able to pass through the archers. The second battle is now also struck in the flank by the English force of mounted men-at-arms and archers:


Also they saw a rout of Englishmen coming down a little mountain a-horseback, and many archers with them, who brake in on the side of the duke's battle. True to say, the archers did their company that day great advantage; for they shot so thick that the Frenchmen wist not on what side to take heed, and little and little the Englishmen won ground on them.

So the French are assailed by arrows from the front and flank.


Anon the prince with his company met with the battle of Almains, whereof the earl of Sarrebruck, the earl Nassau and the earl Nidau were captains, but in a short space they were put to flight: the archers shot so wholly together that none durst come in their dangers: they slew many a man that could not come to no ransom: these three earls was there slain, and divers other knights and squires of their company...

The archer's disciplined shooting kills men we would assume to be heavily armored: earls, knights, and squires.


Finally, Agincourt:

The English archers are described:


...they were, for the most part, without any armour, and in jackets, with their hose loose, and hatchets or swords hanging to their girdles; some indeed were barefooted and without hats.

A French force of 800 men-at-arms under Clugnet de Brabant and including William de Saveuses is directed to attack the English left flank and its archers.
Both armies stand around for a while; finally the English advance, halting frequently "to catch their breath" (and shoot perhaps?).


The English loudly sounded their trumpets as they approached, and the French stooped to prevent the arrows hitting them on the visors of their helmets; thus the distance was now but small between the two armies, although the French had retired some paces. Before, however, the general attack commenced, numbers of the French were slain and severely wounded by the English bowmen. At length the English gained on them so much, and were so close, that excepting the front line, and such as had shortened their lances, the enemy could not raise their hands against them. The division under sir Clugnet de Brabant, of eight hundred men-at-arms, who were intended to break through the English archers, were reduced to seven score, who vainly attempted it. True it is, that sir William de Saveuses, who had been also ordered on this service, quitted his troop, thinking they would follow him, to attack the English, but he was shot dead from off his horse.

So it appears that before the armies engaged in close combat, Brabant's 800 men had been reduced to just 140 by the English longbowmen and Saveuses was shot dead.


The others had their horses so severely handled by the archers, that, smarting from pain, they galloped on the van division and threw it into the utmost confusion, breaking the line in many places. The horses were become unmanageable, so that horses and riders were tumbling on the ground, and the whole army was thrown into disorder, and forced back on some lands that had been just sown with corn. Others, from fear of death, fled; and this caused so universal a panic in the army that great part followed the example.

The English took instant advantage of the disorder in the van division, and, throwing down their bows, fought lustily with swords, hatchets, mallets, and bill-hooks, slaying all before them. Thus they came to the second battalion that had been posted in the rear of the first; and the archers followed close king Henry and his men-at-arms.

It would be interesting to know if the archers were out of ammunition when they "threw down their bows" and engaged with close combat arms.

========================================================

The English archers unquestionably sowed a great deal of disorder in the French ranks in each of these battles.

The last two accounts indicate that the longbowmen were frequently shooting at very close range and that when they did, they were able to shoot down even the most heavily armored of the French nobles.

[EDIT: wrote Crecy when I meant Poitiers!]

[Orda Khan]

At Agincourt, Henry V was knocked to his knees and was saved by a Welsh Man-at-Arms by the name of David Gam. He suffered wounds (IIRC to the head and shoulder) that would prove to be fatal; he died as surgeons worked on them as the battle raged. Awarded a posthumous Knighthood he is remembered as Sir David Gam. He hailed from a small place called Llantilio Crosseny (Llandeilo Gryseny before it was slightly Anglesised) which is situated along the Old Monmouth road from Abergavenny. As a point of interest, this is very near to White Castle which is a wonderful example of a moated Norman castle

.......Orda

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Henry would know all about arrow injuries as at the battle of Shrewsbury when lifting up his visor he was hit clean in the face with an arrow with terrible damage being inflcited to his cheek and lower jaw

[Watchman]

Getting an arrow (or, later, musket ball) in the face after lifting your visor seems to actually have been pretty common. From this one can deduce two things - one, "visor down" was very uncomfortably and wasn't kept unless absolutely necessary (I understand breathing gets rather difficult and visibility is horribly limited); two, having your visor down tended to keep the damn things off your face.

Makes sense really.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Having your vizor down would restrict you from looking at anything coming from a side ward angle, straight ahead was fine but any attacks from the flanks could simply not be seen in the midst of battle.

At the same battle Harry Hotspur was mortally wounded from from the same type of incident which befelled young Henry. I could imagine it being quite common especially during a sustained arrow storm where a concentrated fire could probably hit you from anywhere.

A common tactic from British archer was after the skirmish of arrows, they would draw back behind the Men at Arms or at the flanks and would often wait until indivdual targets could located and often fired into the faces of the enemy from almost just behind the infantry. At that range it would prove fatal and you even the less skilled of the archers could hit a target that range

[Avicenna]

Indeed, it was famously illegal for English men to play football or other sports on a Sunday, they had to practice archery instead...!
I recall that there was this Yorkshire bloke called Robrt Hardy(?) who was a professional longbowman and appeared on TV, his arms and shoulders were huge.
He comments in his book
Archers started their training while children, to build their bodies and their capabilities to a fine degree. Training was compulsory, every Sunday, and that law is still on the books!
A good bowmen could shoot (not 'fire' - that only refers to guns) 15 arrows per minute at ranges of around 300+ yards.
The 'arrowstorm' was a term which fitted the scene well. 5000 archers could lay 75,000 deadly arrows on the enemy in a single minute.
At the battle of Towton in 1461 - Britain's bloodiest battle - the Yorkist faction had as many as 20,000 archers. At 15 arrows per minute that's 300,000 arrows per minute - 5000 arrows per second. 28,000 died. Nothing came close to this killing score until the First World War.

100,000 Carthaginian and Roman troops got killed in the battle of Cannae, long before 1461. Mainly Romans, of course.

[Kraxis]

100,000 Carthaginian and Roman troops got killed in the battle of Cannae, long before 1461. Mainly Romans, of course.
Take note that he says

Britain's bloodiest battle
and

Nothing came close to this killing score until the First World War.
Obviously he meant British losses.

[matteus the inbred]

100,000 Carthaginian and Roman troops got killed in the battle of Cannae, long before 1461. Mainly Romans, of course.

fair point though. possibly he meant the number of losses sustained in that short period, cos the archers may have had 20-odd arrows in their quivers and would shoot those off in about 5 mins. Cannae, while undoubtedly one of the bloodiest battles in history for the size of area in which it took place and the numbers involved, supposedly took all day.

Some of the American Civil war battles had heavy casualty figures, 23,000 at Antietam (Sharpsburg) in one day, Waterloo and Borodino were very bloody single day battles too, probably at least 50-60,000 casualties, but none of these compare to Cannae and other classical battles (for which, admittedly, our sources are less reliable). Probably the difference is that mediaeval and classical commanders tended not to spare the wounded. A few years ago they did a TV program on some archaeological research on a bunch of skeletons found near Towton and concluded they'd all been executed after the battle or cut down as they ran.

[Watchman]

Most armies suffered their heaviest casualties when they broke. As the number of dead amongst the winners tends to point out, it's not really the actual fighting that kills men but the pursuit. Light cavalry in particular has a field day cutting down routers; I've seen it observed early Roman armies had their Equites along mainly for pursuit duties and scouting...

Mind you, entire armies have also been virtually wiped out without a real fight when they tried to break contact with an enemy army too close by; fighting retreat and rearguard are apparently among the hardest moves to pull, and if you bungle them the enemy'll probably eat your host for breakfast...

At Cannae the Roman main infantry block was enveloped by Carthaginian infantry and struck in the rear by the numerous and highly capable Carth cavalry; not much else than a pretty obscene death toll is about all that can result from that, especially given the "no quarter" attitude of period warfare... Mind you, I've read the Diadochi weren't nearly as bloodthirty; their armies were heavily manned with mercenaries, and victorious commanders generally preferred to recruit those into their own ranks rather than waste them in bloodbaths.

[matteus the inbred]

Most armies suffered their heaviest casualties when they broke. As the number of dead amongst the winners tends to point out, it's not really the actual fighting that kills men but the pursuit. Light cavalry in particular has a field day cutting down routers; I've seen it observed early Roman armies had their Equites along mainly for pursuit duties and scouting...

Mind you, entire armies have also been virtually wiped out without a real fight when they tried to break contact with an enemy army too close by; fighting retreat and rearguard are apparently among the hardest moves to pull, and if you bungle them the enemy'll probably eat your host for breakfast...

At Cannae the Roman main infantry block was enveloped by Carthaginian infantry and struck in the rear by the numerous and highly capable Carth cavalry; not much else than a pretty obscene death toll is about all that can result from that, especially given the "no quarter" attitude of period warfare... Mind you, I've read the Diadochi weren't nearly as bloodthirty; their armies were heavily manned with mercenaries, and victorious commanders generally preferred to recruit those into their own ranks rather than waste them in bloodbaths.

absolutely. Hannibal was a bit of a merciless b*stard...!
sounds like the Italian condottieri as well...troops were financial assets, they preferred not to get them killed at all if possible!

of course, one accurate shot could be just as good as 20,000 arrows in the air...both Harald Hardraada and Harry Hotspur were killed by single arrows, which pretty much finished off their army's battles for them.

[Watchman]

Well, the Romans weren't any nicer. I've read they were really big on the "necessary brutality" and "making examples" side of things, which among other things involved obliterating enemy armies to the utmost possible degree so that there a) wouldn't be anyone left who dared come fight you again b) wouldn't be anyone left to fight you again. By what I know of the effects light cavalry has on pursuit, even the pitifully small wings of Equites ought to have done a pretty good job on that regard; they certainly weren't there to be particularly important battlefield factors, that's for sure...

[matteus the inbred]

Well, the Romans weren't any nicer. I've read they were really big on the "necessary brutality" and "making examples" side of things, which among other things involved obliterating enemy armies to the utmost possible degree so that there a) wouldn't be anyone left who dared come fight you again b) wouldn't be anyone left to fight you again. By what I know of the effects light cavalry has on pursuit, even the pitifully small wings of Equites ought to have done a pretty good job on that regard; they certainly weren't there to be particularly important battlefield factors, that's for sure...

yeah, hence their ultimate reaction to Carthage in the 3rd Punic War. There's not much left there even now, it was so thoroughly destroyed that it was never really resettled.
Caesar's extermination of quite a lot of Gaul is another one, i suppose. exciting times for some, very short and brutal times for others...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Little stat I've remembered.

Gauls before Caesar: 3 Million.

Executed: 1 million.

Enslaved: 1 million.

No one did it quite like the Romans.

[Watchman]

The Mongols certainly tried very hard. As did Tamerlane. Actually, one often gets the impression steppe nomads let loose on settled civilian populations often tended to result in pretty appalling death tolls, sometimes (as in Khwarimzam and Mesopotamia) with permanent demographic effects.

[Atilius]

Some of the American Civil war battles had heavy casualty figures, 23,000 at Antietam (Sharpsburg) in one day, Waterloo and Borodino were very bloody single day battles too, probably at least 50-60,000 casualties, but none of these compare to Cannae and other classical battles (for which, admittedly, our sources are less reliable).

In the same vein, Salamis was likely the bloodiest naval battle in history.

I was planning to cite figures from a table of casualties for several naval battles, including Salamis, but was having trouble locating the book. In the process of searching its lowest shelf, I bumped one of my bookcases and toppled a precariously perched boxed set of Churchill's six volume history of the 2nd World War. It hit me on the back of the head. No permanent damage done, but I'm just a bit bibliophobic right now. I'm suspending my search and will do a quick and dirty estimate instead:

Herodotus claims that most of the Persian fleet of about 1200 ships was lost. He's probably exaggerating the size of the Persian fleet and its losses. Let's suppose 200 ships were lost by the Persians, and that each had a crew of 200 - typical for a trireme. Herodotus says that most of the Persian sailors were unable to swim, so we'll assume that if a ship foundered its entire crew perished. (Even if this isn't so, the Greeks were left in possession of the "field". A fully manned trireme would have no space for prisoners, so the Greeks probably killed any Persians bobbing in the water. Greek triremes usually had a few archers aboard so this might have been done with BOWS AND ARROWS)

If we assume there were no losses among the crews of surviving ships, we come up with a total of 40,000 Persian dead. The Greeks lost about 40 ships. Deaths among the crews of Greek ships lost in the battle would have been less catastrophic (they definitely could swim), but would still have added several thousand dead to the total.

By contrast, the battle of Leyte Gulf - often called the greatest battle in naval history - killed a total of about 13,500 U.S and Japanese sailors.

In fact, the naval battle nearest to Salamis in terms of numbers of dead is probably another ancient naval battle: the Battle of Ecnomus between the the Romans and Carthaginians during the 1st Punic War.

[cunctator]

yeah, hence their ultimate reaction to Carthage in the 3rd Punic War. There's not much left there even now, it was so thoroughly destroyed that it was never really resettled.


Carthago was refounded as a roman colonia in a first attempt by Gaius Grachus 122 BC that was refused by the senate and finally by Augustus 29 BC following a decision of Julius Caesar to rebeuild the city 46 BC. It quickly become one of the largest cities in the empire and antiquity again with some 100.000 inhabitants. This is one of the main reasons why there such few remains of the punic city.

[matteus the inbred]

:bow:

shows how much i listened in Roman history eh?
having bothered to check my facts this time, i see that the Arab conquest in the 7th century resulted in Tunis displacing Carthage as the significant city in that part of the world...

Baghdad suffered something similar during the Mongol invasion, estimates varying up to 1 million dead and the removal of Baghdad as a significant city until fairly modern times.

[Kraxis]

In the same vein, Salamis was likely the bloodiest naval battle in history.

I was planning to cite figures from a table of casualties for several naval battles, including Salamis, but was having trouble locating the book. In the process of searching its lowest shelf, I bumped one of my bookcases and toppled a precariously perched boxed set of Churchill's six volume history of the 2nd World War. It hit me on the back of the head. No permanent damage done, but I'm just a bit bibliophobic right now. I'm suspending my search and will do a quick and dirty estimate instead:

Herodotus claims that most of the Persian fleet of about 1200 ships was lost. He's probably exaggerating the size of the Persian fleet and its losses. Let's suppose 200 ships were lost by the Persians, and that each had a crew of 200 - typical for a trireme. Herodotus says that most of the Persian sailors were unable to swim, so we'll assume that if a ship foundered its entire crew perished. (Even if this isn't so, the Greeks were left in possession of the "field". A fully manned trireme would have no space for prisoners, so the Greeks probably killed any Persians bobbing in the water. Greek triremes usually had a few archers aboard so this might have been done with BOWS AND ARROWS)

If we assume there were no losses among the crews of surviving ships, we come up with a total of 40,000 Persian dead. The Greeks lost about 40 ships. Deaths among the crews of Greek ships lost in the battle would have been less catastrophic (they definitely could swim), but would still have added several thousand dead to the total.

By contrast, the battle of Leyte Gulf - often called the greatest battle in naval history - killed a total of about 13,500 U.S and Japanese sailors.

In fact, the naval battle nearest to Salamis in terms of numbers of dead is probably another ancient naval battle: the Battle of Ecnomus between the the Romans and Carthaginians during the 1st Punic War.
Only the Persian ships were not of trireme design, at leas not the majority. Most of the ships were the boxy biremes of Phoenicia. They had a smaller crew of around 140.

It is most likely that the Greeks simply sailer over any strugling Persian. The heavy oars woul do the rest. And those Persians that couls swim are said to have been brought to the island, the Athenians had taken refuge on, by the current. Of course here they weren't treated all that nice and kindly shown a sword, club or similar.

The ships that fought in the 1st Punic wars were Quinqeremes for the most part with crews of about 320. Thus it is clear that the sea battles in that war was far more costly in lives.
It has been indicated that the Carthies lost some 250.000 sailors in seabattles, while the Romans lost some 150.000 (and another 250.000 sailors and troops in storms). These are absolutely staggering losses.

But if we are to talk about the single most devastating single day battle, then we hav to go to Russia. I don't even know the name of the battle, but according to both German and Russians the Russians lost a masive 150.000 killed in that single day. They were hardly equipped with more than rifles, and were desperately trying to break out of an encirclement. The Germans only needed to pour artillery and machinegun fire into the densely packed men. I saw a program about it with a former German soldier, who was clearly still half nazi (or at least held the low regard for Russians lives close). But what he could say was bloodfreezing.
And the worst part is that it isn't even recognized as a battle, but a continuing struggle, and one of the many encirclements during Barbarossa.
See, even I can't tell the name of where it was or anything like that. It is disgusting to think about when to many lives were lost for nothing on that day.

[Atilius]

Only the Persian ships were not of trireme design, at leas not the majority. Most of the ships were the boxy biremes of Phoenicia. They had a smaller crew of around 140.

The Persian fleet was probably made up of many different types of vessels. Phoenician, Cilician, Egyptian, Ionian, Carian, and Hellespontine squadrons are mentioned. The last three probably consisted mostly of triremes; I'm in the dark about the first three. Herodotus (in 7.184) assumes an average complement of 200 crew per vessel and 30 additional marines. What is your source for Phoenician biremes? This would be good to know.


The ships that fought in the 1st Punic wars were Quinqeremes for the most part with crews of about 320. Thus it is clear that the sea battles in that war was far more costly in lives.

In aggregate you are correct of course. But individually none of the great sea battles of the 1st Punic war are likely to have killed as many men as Salamis. Lets do some more quick and dirty casualty estimates: assume that each ship sunk loses its entire crew and that there are no losses otherwise.

At Ecnomus Carthage lost 30 ships sunk to 24 for the Romans. At 320 men per ship we get about 17,000 dead. Carthage also lost 64 ships captured, Polybius says "together with their crews", so we can assume that most of the captured crewmen survived.

At Drepana, Polybius mentions no Carthaginian losses and Roman losses are put at 93 ships captured. This battle was fought in very shallow water and many, if not all, of the captured Roman ships actually ran aground, perhaps explaining why no sinkings are mentioned. Again, the captured crews don't seem to have been killed, and Polybius says some of the captured Roman ships were grounded intentionally by their crews, who then escaped. This gives us (ahem) no deaths, but casualties couldn't have been greater than those at Ecnomus.

Finally, at the Aegates Islands, Polybius fails to mention Roman losses and says that 50 Carthaginian ships were sunk and 70 more captured, so we estimate 16,000 deaths.

At Salamis I guessed 200 Persian ship sunk (actually Euphemus gives this same number) and we'll use 120 men per ship if you like. This gives 24,000 dead Persians to which we would need to add the 40 sunk greek triremes at 200 men per ship for a total of 32,000 dead.

I apologize for my slapdash methodology here, but I'd be surprised if doing anything more complicated would tell you that Salamis wasn't the deadliest of these battles.


It has been indicated that the Carthies lost some 250.000 sailors in seabattles, while the Romans lost some 150.000 (and another 250.000 sailors and troops in storms). These are absolutely staggering losses.

This is an excellent point: the Romans lost more men to weather than to the Carthaginians. This is often attributed to poor Roman seamanship early in the war and use of the corvus which raised the ship's center of gravity making it less seaworthy.

[Kraxis]

I don't have any sources as this is not my area, just something I have had an interest in. In any case the Phoenicians didn't use triremes just yet, and they were for obvious reasons the most numerous of the Persian fleet. I wouldn't be surprised if the Cilicians had triremes though, they were always on the edge when it came to technology at sea. The Ionians had triremes (or at least I would expect them to), but they couldn't have supplied that many, perhaps 40-60.

A lot of mention goes to the Phoenicians and their superior seamanships, which was lost in the straits. And what I have read almost always mentions on stronger (but less maneuverable) Greek ships. The biremes were slimmer and thus more maneuverable, but also clearly less structurally sound.

In any case I remembered the losses in the seabattles of 1st Punic differently, obviously I was mistaken.

But what about the seabattle at Salamis on Cyprus between Demetrios Peliorketes and Ptolomy Soter. That was quite big if I don't remember wrong, and the losses among Ptolomy's ships was absolutely huge. And in that case the ships were also of quinqereme size with a number that were even bigger and of course the flagships which were just immense (800 crew).

[conon394]

Only the Persian ships were not of trireme design, at leas not the majority. Most of the ships were the boxy biremes of Phoenicia. They had a smaller crew of around 140.

Kraxis

How do you get that number? When Herodotus describes the battle fleet in (book 7) is explicit in numbering counting first the Trieres in the fleet (at 7.89.1) and then contrasting that with the horse transports, and the smaller 30 and 50 oared vessels. It seems to me Herodotus is implying that the battle fleet was composed solely of trieres while the smaller galleys were auxiliary ships not likely to have been involved in the battle at Salamis.

[Atilius]

But what about the seabattle at Salamis on Cyprus between Demetrios Peliorketes and Ptolomy Soter. That was quite big if I don't remember wrong, and the losses among Ptolomy's ships was absolutely huge. And in that case the ships were also of quinqereme size with a number that were even bigger and of course the flagships which were just immense (800 crew).

Thanks Kraxis, I'm looking into it. The sources of information I've been able to find so far contradict one another. Plutarch describes the battle in his life of Demetrius but his numbers don't square with other things I've dug up. Peter Connolly says that the battle was originally recorded by Hieronymus which survives only in Diodorus' book 20, but I can't it find online: Perseus seems to have only 9-17.



When Herodotus describes the battle fleet in (book 7) is explicit in numbering counting first the Trieres in the fleet (at 7.89.1)

I was looking for just that description of the Persian fleet and couldn't find it last night, but your post led me right to it. Thanks to you also.

[conon394]

Atilius

You might find these links useful for Salamis (on Cyprus). They are from for a class on naval power in antiquity by William M. Murray.

The first is of the relevant text from Diodorus and Plutarch with notes.
The second is just a summary of the ships at the battle
The Third is a link with Murray’s argument that the marine/missile platform view of the large Hellenist warships is overstated that they still remained primarily ramming units; although not in the same fluid way that the Athenians and Rhodians liked to use 3’s or 4’s.

http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~murray/classes/navsem/dem-sal-rhds-sources.pdf
http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~murray/classes/navsem/Hell-Rom-battle-notes.pdf
http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~murray/classes/navsem/murray-role-of-ram.pdf

[Atilius]

You might find these links useful for Salamis (on Cyprus).

I found them very useful and enjoyed reading the article. Thanks again.

Kraxis,

The Cyprian Salamis naval battle is difficult to analyze because neither fleet was homogeneous. Ptolemy had both quads and quinquiremes, while Demetrius had (literally) everything from triremes to 7s. According to Diodorus, (not counting transports) Ptolemy lost 40 ships captured and 80 disabled, while Demetrius had 20 ships disabled. The losses are not broken down by type.

I'm assuming that "disabled" is what other sources usually (and I think incorrectly) call "sunk": vessels of this type didn't really sink, they swamped.

I'm also assuming that Ptolemy's losses were half 4s and half 5s and that the crew of a 4 was about 255, halfway between a 3 (200) and a 5 (320). Then Ptolemy's losses are (using the same criteria as before) about 23,000.

Diodorus says that 5s predominated in Demetrius' fleet. Although there is apparently reason to doubt this, we'll take Diodorus at his word and assume all of Demetius' losses were 5s, meaning he lost about 6500 men.

Total deaths for the battle come to just under 30,000 men which is very close to the 32,000 I had estimated for the Salamis battle of 480 BC. I might quibble at this point that the average crew size of the Persian ships lost in the earlier battle was probably greater than 120, but even so, the casualty numbers would still be close enough that these rough estimates could not really tell us which was the deadlier battle.

Let's call it a tie, and hats off to you.

[EDIT: Formatting]

[Kraxis]

A tie... hmmm... I think that is the best I can hope for. The captured ships must have lost a significant number of people as well. By this time the decks did have a fairly significant amount of marines (not many though). So one can perhaps expect some 70-80 killed for the captured each?

[Atilius]

The captured ships must have lost a significant number of people as well. By this time the decks did have a fairly significant amount of marines (not many though). So one can perhaps expect some 70-80 killed for the captured each?

That's reasonable, but it would boost the bodycount of the Cyprian Salamis battle by only about 3000, which would still be a virtual tie. And it would only be fair to apply a similar adjustment to the Greek Salamis battle which would be difficult since we don't know how many Persian vessels were captured.

[conon394]

That's reasonable, but it would boost the bodycount of the Cyprian Salamis battle by only about 3000, which would still be a virtual tie. And it would only be fair to apply a similar adjustment to the Greek Salamis battle which would be difficult since we don't know how many Persian vessels were captured.

The Macedonian dynasts generally preferred not to execute Macedonians or Greek mercenaries. I suspect Demetrius would be more interested in capturing the professionals (sailors, rowers or marines) of Ptolemy’s fleet as potential employees. In contrast aside from the Ionians, I think the evidence from Aeschylus (the Persians) suggests the Greeks were going out of their way to kill the Persian troops in the water, not capture them. Overall I think it’s likely the ratio of killed to captured was higher at Salamis in Attica than at Salamis in Cyprus.

I think your being too conservative for the crews of the Persian ships. As trieres, their rowing and sailing crews amounted something around 185/6. The key is the marines, the fact is that Athens used relatively few marines (compared to other Greeks) and add to that the fact Xerxes is specifically noted as overloading his ships with Persian or Mede Marines. I would put the average Persian crew at likely over 230.


A lot of mention goes to the Phoenicians and their superior seamanships, which was lost in the straits. And what I have read almost always mentions on stronger (but less maneuverable) Greek ships. The biremes were slimmer and thus more maneuverable, but also clearly less structurally sound.

It important not to forget that fastness or maneuverability was not a permanent trait. Herodotus suggests that Themistocles intended his ships to be fast and his preference for a light crew of marines seems to reinforce this. Themistocles however had to build his ships quickly at a time when Athens cannot have had any significant stockpiles of navel supplies (that is he almost assuredly did not use in most or all cases properly treated wood - the hastily build fleet at the Arginusae was certainly not ‘fast’) or a cadre of navel experts to oversee the building; add to that that Athens also largely lacked the infrastructure to dry and maintain their hulls (between fighting and the evacuation the Greeks never seem not to have the luxury Xerxes did of taking the time to properly put their fleet in fighting condition). The Phoenician fleet was fast because it had just been fully overhauled, while the Greek fleet was in constant use.

I think that Themistocles, unlike most Greeks and Persians and even Phonecians was not blind to the Phocaean ‘revolution’ that well handled and trained galleys could win by maneuver and ramming alone vs. even extreme odds over those who persisted in largely fighting a land war at sea. In execution however his ships were not in as a good a shape as he needed and the balance of the Greek (the non Athenian components of the fleet) navy was no more ready to use maneuver than the Persians.

[Atilius]

I think your being too conservative for the crews of the Persian ships.

Guilty.

I was juggling a number of contradictory ideas in my head when thinking about this: Ships in the Persian fleet were often described as faster than the greeks, yet also mentioned as carrying a larger complement of marines. Some sources say they have higher stern castles. So are they triremes, or bigger, or smaller? Herodotus puts crew at 200 and adds 30 marines. But is the fleet really uniform? Is Herodotus correct? I was fairly certain that the Medizing Greek squadrons would have been triremes but uncertain about the types used in the other squadrons because I was unable to hunt down the passage in 7.89.1.

So I chose to be conservative.

You've helped my unravel some of this by the way. Your point about maintainence is a good one - the Persian ships would be faster if they were doing a better job of keeping their hulls dry.