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1941: a Captain Churchill (an Olympic archer and probably no relation to the other Churchill) went everywhere with his longbow apparently, and used it in action in Normandy and Saarland, at least once to take out sentries. It's not like there was a regiment of them or anything :laugh4:
Oh, "The Bowmen of England" by Donald Featherstone, a Pen and Sword publication, by the way.
:2thumbsup: Thank the gods!
So it wasnt whole divisions of archers, I was having nightmares - " right Chaps! get those stakes in,take up your positions, get ready!, the panzers should be coming over the hill any moment now!":laugh4:
I tried to find a pic of Captain churchill but couldn't, I did find a site Archerytalk.com which had a link to a picture of an American soldier who carried and used a longbow during WW2, I would put up a link but Im not sure how to :embarrassed:or if im allowed to being Jnr.
Cheers for the link Csar Very interesting particulary the references to the battle of Flodden, as Ive Seen Bits of the Flodden wall In Edinburgh
Cheers guys:knight:
@Vidar
I can see it now - a company of longbows softening up the Panzer division just before the Polish Hussars charge them ~;)
Nothing would surprise me ~:) Didnt Troops carry out bayonet charges against machine gun nests in WW1, and unless Im mistaken wasnt there an incident with British troops fixing bayonets and charging insurgents in Iraq recently:inquisitive: - Oh and of course the stupefying Charge of the Light brigade
For added coolness , he was in a Welsh Regiment : the Welsh Fusiliers . The last action was thus by Welsh Longbows .Quote:
Originally Posted by macsen rufus
lol...unfortunately for Poland, that's pretty much how the reality of their "defense" against German forces actually was. I was reading an in depth article on that yesterday and also couldn't get it out of my mind. Panzer tank divisions with machine gun infantry storming a town filled with the same Cavalry used prior to ww1?!Quote:
Originally Posted by macsen rufus
Unbelievable. Kinda makes you wonder what the Poles were thinking. I'd have to speculate that they at least had a clue that horseman were outdated at that time.
Jeez...I could even still imagine infantry using crossbows and longbows with REGULARITY TODAY than I can a country using horseman as cavalry in 1940.
Amazing.
Are you sure? I thought death-or-glory charges were out of fashion since WWI. The Polish cavalry probably functioned as scouts and mobile infantry: remember that with the exception of the Germans, most armed forces weren't mechanized yet. Incidentally, the Americans also had a cavalry unit at the beginning of WWII, but it never saw action, and IIRC a German cavalry unit took part of the invasion of Poland as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarMachine420
Actually the Polish cavalry did quite well against the Germans. Although they mostly fought as mounted infantry, they did actually do a couple of cavalry charges and almost half of them were actually successful it seems. ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by WarMachine420
That's amazing...how on earth did the cavarly charge work? :inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by AggonyDuck
I mean if flaming arrows scare a horse...what did machine gun fire and artillery shells do to it?
Well, if they could train cavalery in Napoleonic time to get used to all the horrors of the battlefield, I guess they could do so in 1940's Poland :)
Well in most cases we are talking of sudden cavalry charges against Germans that were not entrenched. Against dug-in positions a cavalry charge would be sheer suicide.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarMachine420
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_...and_Propaganda
You could make your horses poo on the Germans:sweatdrop:
No, srr, thx for the link though, interesting read
Id be interested to know opinions on the fine line between clever and stupid when it comes to military actions :inquisitive: - Capt churchill killing sentries with his longbow seems kinda clever to me,swift silent deadly, The poles attacking Tanks with horses,just sounds desperate - I hope if there were any cav left, they lynched the commanding officer who sent them in to fight panzers!
There was never a Polish cavalry charge against German tanks. The few charges that were done were against infantry and in most cases against infantry that wasn't properly dug in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vidar
The cavalry charging tanks is a myth based on German propaganda and it certainly isn't true.
Well, the first item of the list your Wiki-article mentions a charge on elements of the 4th panzer division. One that was succesfull by the way. Off course, at this point most German tanks were more like armoured cars on tracks than real tanks (as we understand the term).Quote:
Originally Posted by AggonyDuck
Yeah...that's exactly what it was, desperation. Although people got awefully defensive around here when I brought it up. Don't know what the issue is, it's common knowledge that the Poles defense was an embarrassment as was pretty much every other defense in eastern europe against the Nazis. I've done more research on the subject...turns out, yes...they did do a couple cavalry charges...half of them died, half of them surrendered almost immediately. This is to be expected...put me on a horse and have me charge a tank or machine gun fire and I'll probably look like a big heap of desperation in a couple of seconds also.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vidar
How anyone actually thought that the there was a "silver lining" to the poles defense simply baffles me.
Guess we have some proud Polish citizens on these forums. Even still, the Poles' defense was a joke. Like a one legged man in a...well you know how it goes.
Lb's sound nasty :book:
this was of much more interest to me than the cavalry of Poland anyway...apologies for dragging this off topic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaeopath
and yes archeo...I've been doing a little research on LBs also. You should look at enemy accountings of what it was like to take fire from a LB unit. I think someone on this thread already mentioned that many a time broad daylight would actually turn DARK (like midnight dark) from the rain of arrows overhead. I saw something on the history channel this weekend about that too. Hearing this made me actually try to imagine marching towards the enemy with 50+ pounds of armour/gear while watching hundreds and thousands of men around me be annihilated by rains of arrows which could just as easily kill me any second. Think about that the next time your local paper writes up an article calling a man who found someone's car keys a "hero".
One of the reasons why the English Longbowers were so successful was because of the mass of arrows that the longbowmen could fire. When you got hundreds if not thousands of arrows blanketing an area, you don't need accuracy to score hits. My main source of information on the battle comes from the A&E documentary series Arms in Action (unfortunately only available on VHS). According to it the English had to move their position closer to the French as the French just sat back, waiting for the English to tire. At their new position, a single arrow was fired to start off the battle as it landed fairly close to the French troops thereby indicating their range, thus coaxing the French to attack.Quote:
Originally Posted by CBR
From the three battles in MTW, I found Agincourt was the easiest, as a matter of fact.
Crecy was a lot tougher, Poitiers wasn´t exactly a walk in the park either, but Agincourt wasn´t that difficult.
I put up my spearmen in the center at the hedges (I don´t think they give any bonus, but they mark a slight ridge, thus giving a height advantage), the billmen took the flanks of the spears and the men at arms I sent into the left-handed woods. the archers went behind. All the cavalry seved as a reserve. Then it was simply a matter of waiting for the French to come. I don´t remember the exact results, but they were something like four of theirs to one of mine lost.
In the real battle, by the way, Henry V ordered over a thousand French prisoners killed when the French cavalry tried a flanking attempt, that was one of the factors which caused the French to rout.
Since my initial post ive bought the Gold edition DVD and reinstalled MTW/VI, so my progress was reset, ive played up to agincourt but havent tried it again as i got a bit distracted with the Barbarosa campaign - which i completed with out to much trauma - I'll probably have another go at agincourt soon hopefully this time there will be some bowmen left alive - anyone know why you dont seem to be able to take prisoners (and kill them) in the historical battles? :viking:
Im sure the poles taking part in cavalry charges against panzers had no choice and were individually very brave - I think i would have been ill that day however
Because, just like in custom battles, it matters not whether you took the men as prisoners or killed them, on the result screen they show up as lost in either case. And you do get a breakdown of prisoners and killed enemies on the battle summary screen.
Cheers Ciaran, that explains the results window info - which did confuse me a wee bit :embarassed: - I tried Agincourt again earlier today, it took me two goes but I managed it and didnt lose all my archers this time, my king got killed the first time through,but I was more cautious with him second time around I used similar tactics to my previous victorious attempt (see earlier post) but got My archers in behind the small copse of woods quickly then strung my foot soldiers out in a v shape following the edge of the woods facing the french this kept the archers out of hand to hand for most of the battle - one unit did get caught on the right flank of the woods by french knights - but all in all way better than my very first victory which saw me lose all my archers -French dead = 1158. English dead = 561. - now to try the french battles :knight:
You placed the archers in the woods? It´s better not to do that, their arrows get caught in the trees (they do! Don´t place archers in woods). It´s better to place them slightly outside of the woods, as soon as the enemy cavalry comes close they´ll retreat into the woods and we all know that cavalry are sitting ducks in forests...
I didnt put them in the woods, but just behind them - although it does occur to me that either way it must be pretty hard to target the enemy through or over trees, hmm is this a bug, dont archers need line of sight? :inquisitive:
I agree about the woods and cav usually, but when I played through the last barbarossa battle I was soundly pummeled when I tried to use the woods on the left of the start position - I found that sitting tight with my main force and then using the unit of horse archers to draw the enemy general out of the main force and then into a position that allowed barbarossa to flank him worked best.
havent tried the French battles yet but any day now :2thumbsup:
In MTW, archers do need a line of sight or they get an accuracy penalty, that´s why you should deploy them with maximum two ranks depth, or else the lines in the back get the penalty.
Unlike crossbows they still can shoot without a line of sight, of course, but you´ll notice they´ll score less hits. And I don´t know whether archers can shoot over a copse of wood or if they try to shoot through it, with a lot of arrows getting stuck in the foilage.
Cheers Ciaran, :2thumbsup: In the MTW game Im playing at the moment, Ive just played my first castle defense - Im pretty sure its the first time the AI has stormed one of my castles, and if not, then i must have simmed the defense before - The defense was a citadel in Arragon, I had two units of arbalests a unit of archers, and a couple units of pavis crossbow men, and a unit of foot knights against a vast army of rebels, Now Im sure that the missile units were firing even though they didnt have line of sight, but it did seem that they only caused damage when they had line of sight - at the gates, and when the vast rebel army eventually broke in, and preceded to slaughter my guys to a man - if what you say about crossbows is true, are they as my results suggest a poor defensive weapon in castle defense or am i just rubbish at castle defense
You had a castle defense in a campaign? In my campaigns I´ve never, ever played one. Oh, there were some castle assaults, usually when I had one half unit of peasants left, so playing that out wouldn´t be that much fun.
But back to the topic at hand. I suppose you´re refering to the "firing" icon in the top right corner of the missile units. Yes, that´ll say the unit is shooting, even if only one man actually works his weapon. Take a look at the unit itself, the little men on screen, you´ll find that, if they have no line of sight, the individual man will not shoot. And if only one man out of a unit of 80 (I´ll assume) shoots, the chances for causing damage are slim.
Yeah! I was Surprised the rebel units attacked the castle - It was barcelona not Arragon - I had quick saved the battle so, so i tried it couple of times, but alas to no avail, to many rebels. I had initially thought like ive said that my guys were firing at the enemy troops all the way from there lines to the front gate, but the results and what you say Ciaran makes sense. I suppose thats why they give you arrow towers which automatically fire at the enemy, it would have been a different story if the game had allowed me to line the various different types of bowmen up on the battlements
Ive started stringing my archers/bowmen out as you suggested, and yes it does seem to make a difference so cheers! :2thumbsup:
Do you get friendly fire in MTW?
Certainly. Under certain conditions they can even hit the archer standing in front of them. However, when not given orders to fire, your missile troops will generally stop firing if there is a risk of hitting comrades. On the other hand, if they have been ordered to shoot at a unit, they will keep shooting at it even if it means hitting theor own men.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vidar