desert battles

I've (don't know if you talked to me or anyone) never said the Europeans used a great unruly charge in battle, they just used an all out charge (with most of what they had) in pitched battles (this was not undisciplined and the men were usually in tight block or wedge formations), moslty because it could be very effective and partly because the lack of proper battlefield communications compared to the Muslims and Byzantines (who used instruments and camels with banners as mobile rallying points and so on) made more 'advanced' tactics hard to carry out. However this was not so much a problem in smaller engagements and both in Europe and the Holy Land there was always much more tactics involved in smaller scale skirmishes between troops (mostly small forces of professional soldiers).

Also the Turcopoles were either christian Turks or christian sons of mixed Frank-Turkish marriages. Atleast that was mostly the case in the Holy land.

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

I've (don't know if you talked to me or anyone) never said the Europeans used a great unruly charge in battle, they just used an all out charge (with most of what they had) in pitched battles (this was not undisciplined and the men were usually in tight block or wedge formations), moslty because it could be very effective..

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Perhaps I was unclear (or perhaps I still misunderstand you ~:) ) - the all-out charge was considerably less common than we tend to believe. The classic (and oft-repeated) example is William Marshal - who spent almost 40 years as a soldier in the 12th century - and who rode in two close charges in his entire life. The indiscipline stuff is the traditional view, which is why I included it, perhaps a bit uneccessarily preemtively.

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

and partly because the lack of proper battlefield communications compared to the Muslims and Byzantines (who used instruments and camels with banners as mobile rallying points and so on) made more 'advanced' tactics hard to carry out..

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I really don't see how this is different from the well-documented mounted and foot banners functioning as both rallying points and movement indicators, commonly in use before, during and after the medieval period everywhere, or the signal horns we have preserved in droves from the entire medieval period in the west (or, again, anywhere) - or the enormous numbers of accounts we have of a vast array of different tactical movements of infantry and cavalry in european sources from at least as early as the 800s (before that the sources are usually from later secondary accounts and thus not entirely trustworthy). Feigned retreats, inverted wedges, infantry screening cavalry horses from archery, infantry disorganizing opposing infantry to enable loose-order heavy cavalry to destroy them, archers close supporting cavalry to disorder enemy formations - the whole Vegetian panoply of battlefield tactics and more. Even from the extreme edges of europe we have, for example, norse and irish armies manouvering to signals and banner placements - the commanders usually keeping it as simple as possible for the mustered troops and conducting more creative movements with the professional forces.

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

However this was not so much a problem in smaller engagements and both in Europe and the Holy Land there was always much more tactics involved in smaller scale skirmishes between troops (mostly small forces of professional soldiers)....

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Very true, small scale skirmishing was always more common than open battle.

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

Also the Turcopoles were either christian Turks or christian sons of mixed Frank-Turkish marriages. Atleast that was mostly the case in the Holy land...

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I was primarily answering Watchman on that one. There were definitely muslim turcopoles fighting for the crusader states, however - it is a frequent lament from muslim sources, and they also appear in expences rolls.

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Originally Posted by Ringeck

Don't feed the troll.

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You are right, I shouldn't have. But I have a low fuse when it comes to people claiming "Me know, you don't!" while they don't know half of the story. People like yourself, Ringeck, and your compatriots Randarkmaan and Watchman I respect because you know your stuff, you don't brag about it and you most certainly don't come in with a "high and mighty" attitude. I respect you all very deeply.

People like Tarık I don't respect as much.

Point is, I should have kept quiet instead of reacting like the way I did. It won't happen again.

Oh, and thanks to all for this interesting topic. Keep it up. ~:)

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Originally Posted by Faenaris

you most certainly don't come in with a "high and mighty" attitude. I respect you all very deeply.

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I surprise myself negatively sometimes with an attitude that sometimes is way more aggressive than I intended it to be (as I did in my next-to-last post above :shame: ) but thank you for the compliment.

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I really don't see how this is different from the well-documented mounted and foot banners functioning as both rallying points and movement indicators, commonly in use before, during and after the medieval period everywhere, or the signal horns we have preserved in droves from the entire medieval period in the west (or, again, anywhere) - or the enormous numbers of accounts we have of a vast array of different tactical movements of infantry and cavalry in european sources from at least as early as the 800s (before that the sources are usually from later secondary accounts and thus not entirely trustworthy). Feigned retreats, inverted wedges, infantry screening cavalry horses from archery, infantry disorganizing opposing infantry to enable loose-order heavy cavalry to destroy them, archers close supporting cavalry to disorder enemy formations - the whole Vegetian panoply of battlefield tactics and more. Even from the extreme edges of europe we have, for example, norse and irish armies manouvering to signals and banner placements - the commanders usually keeping it as simple as possible for the mustered troops and conducting more creative movements with the professional forces.

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Well I may not have been clear enough, but for most of the middle-ages battlefield communications in the Byzantine Empire and by the Muslims were more advanced than what they were in Europe. Regrettably I am not able to go into detail at the moment since that would mean finding a book or something, and I don't have the patience to do that now.

Anyway one thing that often enable the Muslims to have larger armies than most many European states (though this was not always the case) was that their logistics were in fact no less than superior to the Europeans during the middle-ages... going into detail I can do but that would again mean I would have to do something I lack the patience for at the moment (finding a book). And therefore I will not do so unless you are seriously opposed to what I just claimed ~:)

But what I really want people to realize is that Islamic armies were NOT a horde of unarmoured madmen wielding short and fine sabres who relied only on huge numbers to win and were too cowardly to fight the 'noble' crusaders on equal terms.

I have to admit that I think your position is flawed on this. The sources we have on battlefield communications in latin europe vs the byzantine empire and the very diverse muslim world do not really indicate that these armies were all that more tactically manouverable than western armies except when it was a matter of troop types - naturally light horse will be more manouverable than heavy infantry. Many of the scores of vegetian manuscripts surviving from the west (before the humanist emphasis on the original source shaved such commentaries off) have extensive addendum entries on the subject of battlefields communication, and with all the accounts we have of tactical movement and cooperation from europe, I have never seen anyone being able to convincingly arguing the point - most of them fall into exactly the same trap of the really old view you mention("unarmoured madmen wielding short and fine sabres who relied only on huge numbers to win") - only underevaluing the europeans vs the middle easterners - primarily because they have limited knowledge of the former. This does of course not mean that the people of the middle east were lacking in these skills, only that, as one sees in practically every field of the exchange of military technology, differences even out fast.

As for logistics, this is actually a field that in recent years has received a lot of attention. Bachrach's collection "Warfare and Military Organization in Pre-Crusade Europe" dispels any myths that 10-11th century europeans were lacking in logistical systems, for example, and Dana Cushing has extensively analysed and studied the complex logistical challenge faced and met by Richard cour de Lion's crusade. John Lynns "Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present" are also worth a mention. Haldon did some work (Published in Byzantium at War, 1997, as I recall it) on byzantine medieval logistics and troop numbers that indicate that while the system of supply of the 6th-11th century army is well known from byzantine military sources, it seems no more effective at assembling large forces of men and keeping them fed than did much less well known logistics of its allies and enemies - such as the early caliphates or the early crusaders - indeed, when we seem to get larger armies in the later middle ages (for as long as byzantium can keep up in manpower), a period in which less is known of byzantine logistics and much more on western and osmannic logistics, than we do in the early period - the military systems develop in paralell over time.

The primary problem with comparative work in this field is that the older historians, who frequently and gleefully would compare east and west, north and south, center and pheriphery, the modern, more specialized historians have far more narrow fields - thus, reseachers tend to take their own specialized findings and compare them with the older descriptions of systems outside their own area of expertice - which almost always will make the "other side" look bad.

Well just to settle it... perhaps we should just settle with the fact that both the Europeans and the Middle-easterners were pretty equal in most matters?

Well there is one thing the Muslims (well atleast the Arabs and Persians) had that the Europeans did not have, courier pigeons for the military this enable castles/cities/armies/rulers to be given detailed orders and instruction rather quickly and with little effort.

I think that is a very important lesson one should learn overall, and one which makes sense. Besides the explosive speed of the arab invasion on the byzantine empire and some germanic states (or the former germanic and slavic migrations, or the later mongol invasion), warfare between christians and muslims in europe and the middle east was not characterized, which it should have been if one size had a lot of innate superiority over the other, by rapid changes of large tracts of territory, but by fairly slow expansion (even the 1st crusade or the Almohad invasion of Iberia gained relatively little territory) and a lot of rapid exchange of military technology. The counterweight trebuchet, for example, spread so rapidly it is impossible to tell who "invented" it (and because it spread so rapidly, it probably didn't matter all that much), as did the rapid spread of gunpowder technology in both areas - practical gunpowder weapons all rapidly appear in the mid-13th century and spread like wildfire. Additionally, when explose expansions like the migrations, arab invasion or mongol expansion are halted or stop, they tend to have problems repeating their success as their new neighbours adapt to the situation.

After all, extensive warfare almost always means a lot of cultural contact and adaptation of new methods used by the opposition, or innovations in one's own handling of troops as a reaction to the opposition's techniques.

(Carrier pigeons were a regular feature of warfare since at least 3000BC...however, a better and more reliable breed was developed somewhere in the middle east the 12th century and spread rapidly. Modern breeds are of the latter variety. Carrier pigeon dovecotes are present in monastries (and later in the monastries monastic orders of knights) from the early middle ages - a holdover from roman times. I am uncertain as to their exact spread patterns - anglo-norman 11th century castles had dovecotes (they doubled as emergency food supply and included regular pigeons for delicacy dishes (I fondly recall a dinner I had a few years ago of roasted food pigeon in strawberry sauce, a medieval recipte from 1410), and thus were often bigger than needed for just the carrier pigeons). The exact history of the carrier pigeon is less than clear, unfortunately)

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and partly because the lack of proper battlefield communications compared to the Muslims and Byzantines (who used instruments and camels with banners as mobile rallying points and so on) made more 'advanced' tactics hard to carry out..

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The Europeans had horns and banners too you know. ;) I don't think there was any gap in battlefield communications between the two sides. Maybe if Saladdin had had some walkie talkies.

Europeans had more than the "everyone charge straight ahead" tactic in their repertoire, even if certain elements of their forces were unruly and willing to charge anyone anytime anywhere. (And this wasn't as ridiculous as it sounds, as they often had great and undeserved success with this plan).

The Europeans didn't (initially) have much in the way of light skirmishers or light horse or horse archers compared to the Arabs, but what they did have they had many different sets of tactics for.

Thank you Ulstan, I think I got it covered :laugh4:

(sorry)

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

Well there is one thing the Muslims (well atleast the Arabs and Persians) had that the Europeans did not have, courier pigeons for the military this enable castles/cities/armies/rulers to be given detailed orders and instruction rather quickly and with little effort.

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Or it could be they slaughtered the carrier pigeons before a withdrawal. I'm not knowledgable on carrier pigeons but I'm sure that technology didnt take long to spread to the rest of the world, or wether western eouropeans had good knowledge of there use at this time. It's only logical to exterminate what will be useful to the enemy.

Anyways lots of good posts on this topic and hopefully they take a mix of RTW and MTW on fatigue. It's just not funny to field some of the worst troops and not because you could not afford better but because they became lethal units.

I was always under the impression a recurring problem with medieval European armies was specifically the fact they mostly fought skirmishes, sieges and raids - even career warlords usually only ever saw something like two pitched battles during their lives. Moreover, just about all the troops were raised from all over the place in multitudous smaller detachements that were then brigaded together by battlefield role (and a few other factors) for the rare set-piece battle. What this left them without was a major shortage on both training and experience in operating and maneuvering as large units, which in turn would have severely limited the tactical options available with them.

This really bit the French in the ass during the Hundred Yers' War. They usually did well enough in smaller skirmishes - the stuff feudal armies were made for - but had a tendency to become quite unmanageable and unwieldy in large gatherings.

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Odd. Richard's skirmisher-repellent was, according to every original source and every modern account I've ever read, composed of italian and angevin crossbowmen (not native troops) in addition to loaned turcopoles, who, at least according to Riley-Smith (and Nicolle, for that matter) often were latins equipped as horsebow.

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That was the standard setup for the Crusader Kingdoms. Infantry - to a large degree made up of mercenaries due to the raw fact the Outremer just plain had too little territory and Latin populace to support large feudal armies - formed the outer wings, being able to both keep the skirmishers away (the crossbowmen) and repel cavalry and absorb arrows without losing precious warhorses (the armoured spearmen). Infantry was too slow to go anywhere after light horse anyway, and didn't even try.

Where the "experience" of the troops comes in is the heavy cavalry behind the infantry screen, which formed the mobile strike arm. Ones fresh from Europe and unused to horse-archer tactics would have been seriously lacking in knowledge on how to deal with them (namely, by leaving them to the infantry crossbowmen and the turcopoles), and there would have been a very real risk of them responding in the only way European shock cavalry knew, ie. charging after them, which was exactly what the enemy wanted.

Europeans unused to horse-archers fell to the "feigned retreat" skirmisher trick often enough elsewhere too after all. They did that in the initial encounters with Turks during the First Crusade too, but learned right fast not to.

Troops used to the local conditions would naturally know to avoid that mistake - anyone who hadn't picked up the idea would doubtless have been Darwinized in the endless little skirmishes they fought if nothing else.

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Additionally, most muslim accounts of the period of the third crusade that have personal experience of the franks (and are not fanatically opposed to writing anything good about them at all, such as ‘Imad al-Din’s, who tends to describe frankish armies of 120,000 men crushed by handfuls of arab cavaliers with gleeful inaccuracy) such as Usama ibn Munqidh, Ibn al-Athir and Ibn Shaddad, emphasise the Franks (be they newly arrived or old hands, there is little differentiation between them in military matters, even when the authors are capable of distinguishing the different nationalities come from Europe) as very careful and disciplined in war. In fact, the most unruly element of the forces of Richard's crusade were the local Knight Hospitallier, who routed Saladin's right wing after charging without orders - Richard followed up their assault with his own angevin and european mercenary troops and the Templars, forcing Saladin's retreat.

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Any smart Crusader leader would have taken some pains to introduce the newcomers to the local way of doing things ASAP to forestall potential future trouble, naturally. Knights were specialist linear shock cavalry, and it would have been their natural urge to use that tactic as an answer to most every tactical situation (especially given the issues with large-unit drill feudal armies habitually had), much the same as the ancient Greeks rather unsuccesfully tried to use their hoplite tactics against the nimble Thracian peltasts. Odds are it may have been a little difficult and time-consuming to get it into the heads of many of them that their particular area of expertise really wasn't very good against clouds of fast skirmishers who could just get out of the way.

More solid enemy formations were of course an entirely different game.

As for the Hospitallers, mehtinks that was more of an issue of them considering they knew this stuff better than Richard (the Orders and assorted crownheads didn't always get along very well), which may indeed well have been the case - if they were locals they were likely to be fairly experienced after all.
...although didn't the two Orders suffer rather severe casualties at Hattin and Saladin's subsecuent flurry of siege operations ? You'd think the local branches were somewhat depleted and in dire need of reinforcements from the rest of the Orders' vast networks...

We don't know much about the makeup of the Orders' forces at Arsuf, but there is little indication of a lot of them being newcomers - after all, the Orders kept their main military strength in the Holy Land until they were dissolved (Templars), kicked out (Hospitalliers) or relocated to the pagan front (the newly formed Teutonics, who insisted on concentrating their forces in Outremer for a long time after being given Baltic lands - they did not wholly move to the baltic until well into the 14th century, headquartering in Venice after Acre fell in 1291 and participating in many minor "crusades").

I don't really think the lack of battles in most commanders' day was anything spesific to Europe - Zengi, for example, who spent most of his life campaigning, fought in relatively few battles, spending most of his military life skirmishing and besieging (just like Richard) ; for that matter, it wasn't spesific to the medieval period either - Wallenstein fought as a commander in a mere three major battles in the 30 years war. Only a few exceptional commanders would have taken part in as many as (arbitrarily chosen number follows ;-)) five major battles in their careers, and you can count on few of their subordinates to be as experienced. This applies equally to large-scale unit formations: war games were conducted in the west at least as early as 842 (see below), but full-scale manouvers of tens of thousands of troops were as difficult for logistical reasons for byzantines, turks and crusaders alike - even the mongols, whole hunt/training/games could approach thousands of cavalrymen and who suffered less under logistical limits as long as they kept to the steppes, did not pull their forces together for full-scale army manouvre. This experience was primarily gained doing "the real thing" - even 18th century professional armies, small as they were, didn't pull together for bigger war games. Prestwich (Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience ISBN: 0300076630) shows that the english armies of the high and late middle ages, although they at times had 50,000 troops mobilized for war against Scotland alone in the early 14th century, had few options for common full-scale manouvre before the campaign started - instead, as everywhere else, and as is still practiced today, the men drilled and trained locally in smaller units - a couple of hundreds to a thousand men. This practice was continued into the early modern period and beyond.

I think we have established that the tactical repertoire of the heavy cavalry went beyond the charge. The feigned flight wasn't something they were unused to either (Nithard, for example, chronicles ottonian proto-knight units and infantry units training to perform it in 842), although horsebow probably was (to an extent - those who had fought central europeans or russians before would know of it, as would in all likelihood the Sicilian Normans. Remember that the 1st crusade was just a bit over a hundred years after the Magyars had penetrated into Europe, and that the Hungarian army, for example, mostly consisted of Szekely and "Castle Warrior" light cavalry and horsebow contigents until the late 13th century - Bela IV's reforms, intended to counter mongol horsebow, emphasized more heavy cavalry in addition to better integrated horsebow - which worked brilliantly for Ladislaus "The Cuman" in 1285 even after his main cuman horsebow contigents had been wiped out by the king himself at Hód after they rebelled a few years earlier). Consider that while, on the first crusade, Dorylaeum was indeed characterized by the forces of Bohemund chasing after light horse, they were also characterized by his and the other contigents of knights dismounting to repel charges and soak up archery, cavalry manouver, flanking, cavalry charging, reforming and regrouping again to outmanouver the turks, plus the dismounted heavy cavalry screening their own lightly-armoured infantry from bowfire. As the Antiochian sally was characterized primarily by bad turkish discipline and gung-ho fanaticism, it is somewhat of an exception. Ascalon, against the Fatimids, was characterized by early archery exchange and the egyptians attacking the crusaders by charges, rather than the opposite. Thus, the earliest encounters between turkish horsebow and european militaries seems not to have been overly hampered by the horsebow tactics - the crusaders hunkered down and took the barrages, then attempted to flank and tactically trap the turks, or brought missile troops of their own.

Remember that many of the early and later crusaders had experience in fighting eastern armies from earlier as well, especially byzantine and mediterranean arabs. The infantry screening of cavalry (and cavalry dismounting to defend against archery) was practiced extensively in the west - the welch campaigns of the english in the 13th century is one example, and typical italian milita tactics in the 12th century is another. Randarkmaan (if I understand correctly, he is norwegian or at least reads it) will appreciate the Heimskringla accounts of Snorri Sturlusson (writing a few hundred years later and possibly describing 12th/13th century practices) has Harald Hardraadi's army forming distinctive anti-cavalry formations facing (possibly fictional) Anglo-Saxon spear-chucking cavalry in the 11th century, with the professional warriors operating in more mobile units while the mustered troops form hedgehogs.

I would also like to add that a lot of the sucesses in the First Crusade was due to the Turks underestimating the Crusaders and the Fatimids not understanding the Crusaders' intentions (until the crusaders attaced Jerusalem the Fatimids thought the Crusaders were allies of the Byzantine Emperor who had come to assist both against the Seljuqs) as well as underestimating them. As with the Turks underestimating them this was mostly true when Qilij Arslan (that was his name right?) tried to attack the Crusaders besieging Nicea with a very small force similar to the one he had used to massacre the people's crusade (which consisted of almost no soldiers). It can also be partially true of the battle of Dorylaeum, contrary to what most believe the Seljuq army was most likely smaller than the Crusader army, what really lost him the battle I'd say was that he (Arslan) thought he was fighting their entire force when in fact a major contingent of the Crusade had been lagging behind and unexpectedly (for Arslan) appeared on his flanks and attacked him. Antioch was as you say, bad Turkish discipline as well as lack of loyalty from subordinate commanders to the overall commander, as well as Crusaders being religiosly infuriated.

Of course there were faults lying within the Seljuq ranks as well (Antioch would be a prime example)

It is very difficult to provide any troop number assessments for Dorylaeum; the different crusader sources all claim that the Seljuq forces with their ally contigents were bigger than their own army, which makes sense since they were able to envelop both crusader flanks early in the battle. Of course, the sources are fairly brief on the battle (as usual). Where did you get those troop numbers? It would be fun to see a new view on the battle, along the lines of Curry's reassesment of Agincourt.

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

IIt can also be partially true of the battle of Dorylaeum, contrary to what most believe the Seljuq army was most likely smaller than the Crusader army, what really lost him the battle I'd say was that he (Arslan) thought he was fighting their entire force when in fact a major contingent of the Crusade had been lagging behind and unexpectedly (for Arslan) appeared on his flanks and attacked him.

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That's what most military men would call call bad recon and good manouvering respectively :laugh4: .

You know Ringeck, Medieval and Carolingian armies were rather different beasts. For one the heavy cavalry of the latter had yet to become linear assault specialists, and their infantry was still reasonably capable of offensive maneuvering (early medieval heavy infantry was nearly static and essentially defensive; they anchored the line while the cavalry and missile troops supplied the offensive power, and the ability of close-order infantry to maneuver offensively against cavalry took a while to redevelop). And even late Carolingian/Ottonian/whatever armies hadn't yet undergone the full feudalization treatment that dispersed the fighting forces all over assorted fortifications and manors as small, rather self-contained wholes.

That was their big problem when it came to operating as larger groupings, I've been given to understand. They trained quite hard all right, but virtually only ever in small tightly knit groups. The more such groups you put together the worse the overall drill and cohesion became, because the warriors and sub-units just plain weren't practiced in that sort of thing.

"Eastern" cavalry to my understanding was usually sustained and trained in larger groups typically centered around cities, rulers' residences and so on, and this added to the local geography which encouraged more maneuver-heavy warfare and widespread use of composite bow as an important weapon (which, unlike the couched lance, can be effectively employed more flexibly than just to the front) made them on the whole better at maneuvering in formation. Recall also that this was the part of the world where the war chariot had once reigned supreme.

I'm guessing the optimal battle formations for the respective main weapons also played a part. By what I've read of the use of the couched lance, it seems to have been normally used in wide shallow formation only two to four ranks deep - and as TW players also know, that kind of line can be rather cumbersome to maneuver. It had by all accounts some pretty awesome shock power though. As far as I've understood the "Eastern" technique instead deployed the horsemen in deeper and narrower formation that were rather easier to maneuver (and closer resembled the sizes they had been trained in than the massed Europan-style lines) - these apparently also went well with their penchance for horse-archery and sustained assault tactics.

It's really just a question of different approaches and specializations borne out of the respective military traditions' historical and geographical backgrounds. In major set-piece battles the European knights relied primarily on powerful but somewhat difficult-to-aim linear shock tactics - an unfortunate side effect seems to have been that if it went bust they often had a very difficult time regrouping for another try, and this seems to have plagued couched-lance tactics until the very end. (Supporting formations of lighter cavalry rectified the matter somewhat, mind you.) Think of it as a roundhouse punch; powerful and potentially devastating, but tricky to time right and prone to unbalancing the user and leaving him vulnerable. For somewhat poorly drilled troops fighting in a part of the world where there was almost invariably some sort of major obstacle around this worked right fine. The Easterners conversely put their money more on maneuver and wearing the enemy down with repeated hit-and-run attacks and archery, or in some instances took the old cataphract approach of slugging it out by virtue of more armour, powerful weaponry (Byzantine heavy maces managed to develop a fearsome reputation, I understand) and/or a rock-solid formation. This would appear to be something of a natural developement in a region with lots of wide open spaces where mobility and missile fire can be fully exploited (as they also had in the heydays of chariotry) - you might have to worry about hills and dunes and fields of volcanic boulders, but rarely the sorts of nigh-impenetrable forests that so often anchored the flanks of European battlefields.

on a side note to the desert battles.

Will we be able to prepare the ground proir to a battle? e.g a archer putting a stake into the ground to stop a mounted knight.:help:

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Originally Posted by The Teacher

on a side note to the desert battles.

Will we be able to prepare the ground proir to a battle? e.g a archer putting a stake into the ground to stop a mounted knight.:help:

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Yes we will be able.

brilliant! that was my only gripe about the RTW. Where can i find further information about this? also sorry to OP for shuffling the main push of this thread off track.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

You know Ringeck, Medieval and Carolingian armies were rather different beasts. For one the heavy cavalry of the latter had yet to become linear assault specialists, and their infantry was still reasonably capable of offensive maneuvering (early medieval heavy infantry was nearly static and essentially defensive; they anchored the line while the cavalry and missile troops supplied the offensive power, and the ability of close-order infantry to maneuver offensively against cavalry took a while to redevelop). And even late Carolingian/Ottonian/whatever armies hadn't yet undergone the full feudalization treatment that dispersed the fighting forces all over assorted fortifications and manors as small, rather self-contained wholes.

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First, I have, for the record, to mention that the feudal system isn't quite what it was, these days - the sources show a far more heterogenous picture than was thought, which makes the model less than ideal to utilize for historians.

There are plenty of later accounts of formations training, I mentioned the Nithard source because it is the earliest I know. And the Ottonians definitely had established something like the feudal system - this is the mid-800s, after all, at the point where East Francia's feudal relations are approaching as "classic" a form as they'll ever get, with the entire king-lord-milites-serf line in place. Military service contracts are common even in the time of Charlemagne. It is the late 12-14th centuries that sees the gradual replacement of direct service with more and more money fiefs. Since the muster of earlier germanic society - that predated (but always complemented, even later) the feudal system in the western europe - was composed of mostly unprofessional warriors, training less regularly than the professionals, and the larger gatherings continuing into the high medieval period and beyond (see below), the Nithard example has relevance even for later periods.

Early tournaments (11th-13th century) were small-scale battles in their own accounts - the melees gathered participants in their thousands, and it was not even really a spectator sport - that developed later - it was a big mock battle where the threat to life was replaced (partially) by the threat to property, as defeated participants paid ransom to their captor for the return of their equipment. The milites also fought in foot units at tournaments, as did commoners training for the muster - William FitzStephen's late 12th century account tells us that common Londoners, "armed with military spears and shields" (the inexperienced were not allowed to use metal-pointed dull spears to avoid chance of injure), came to the fields outside the city every Sunday in Lent to train in warfare and exercise manouvre with "the young gentles" (i.e. knights of the city), who already trained for war there. Also participating in these events where younger unlanded country knights and even the retinues of the nobility and the king. This means that even the unprofessional muster troops of London were trained at least one month yearly. Knights and men-at-arms drilled more frequently, of course. The norse King's mirror recommends training for war every day except Sunday, "with heavy weapons" to be ready for war.

We have a lot of sources on smaller tactical units as well - be they called "lances" or "conrois" (or, for the mustered light skirmish horse, "swarm") these groups seem more tightly knit and were probably trained on the local level. They fought as small tactical units on the tournament field, which again were combined into bigger units as the situation demanded. Their tactical repertoir seems to have been rich - during the 7th crusade Jean de Joinville describes milites fighting on foot during a naval landing in Egypt, facing of mamluk shock cavalry with a fence of lances, then rapidly mounting when their horses come ashore to conduct feint attacks on the assembled mamluks, causing them to flee, then breaking off pursuit and returning to guard the landing. In the anglo-welch wars, the cavalry trained to function alongside archers, who concentrated fire on certain welch spear formations, causing them to become disordered, then exploiting the holes in the formation, breaking them with a rapid charge, them withdrawing before they could be caught in a close melee. There are even a few western european accounts of, and illuminations of, heavy cavalry functioning as horse-archers, bringing bows out in pursuit rather than as a part of the battle.

Infantry varied in quality. Mustered men would typically form static formations, who could be difficult to break, but more experienced troops (such as the ones described by the Heimskringla) seems to have been fully capable of manouvre. The success of the Catalan Company, who primarily fought as infantry, against all comers in the middle east and greece - turks, byzantines and the latins of Athens alike - also comes replete with stories of what good formed medieval infantry was capable off. The norwegian response to scottish infantry and cavalry assault on broken ground at Largs in the 13th century (at least what is reported in Haakon's saga), conducted entirely with infantry since the skirmish was brought about by beached ships, is quite elaborate - the norwegians form a defensive point, repelling the assault with some cost, and slowly withdraw, then, when the scots break off, leg it toward the beach and reform again, then reboard the ships while under attack. Descriptions of infantry warfare in the norwegian civil wars period (the norwegians had little use for cavalry in the civil wars period, since armies moved by ship) sees the infantry manovering tactically, sometimes breaking up the line to enable swift rushes of smaller groups, who reform upon contact.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

That was their big problem when it came to operating as larger groupings, I've been given to understand. They trained quite hard all right, but virtually only ever in small tightly knit groups. The more such groups you put together the worse the overall drill and cohesion became, because the warriors and sub-units just plain weren't practiced in that sort of thing.

"Eastern" cavalry to my understanding was usually sustained and trained in larger groups typically centered around cities, rulers' residences and so on, and this added to the local geography which encouraged more maneuver-heavy warfare and widespread use of composite bow as an important weapon (which, unlike the couched lance, can be effectively employed more flexibly than just to the front) made them on the whole better at maneuvering in formation. Recall also that this was the part of the world where the war chariot had once reigned supreme.
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I don't really see it that way. Usamah's memoirs, for example, have few account of training of men for war - in fact, he now and then mentions young, untried men being sent directly into skirmishing engagements - from turks, arabs and latins alike - he regards this as unsafe, but gives us little on his own training except that he might say that he was trained "at my uncle's estate" (from memory, it might be his fathers') - the passage is a bit uncertain, it might just as well refer to courtly training. The comprehensive Nihayat al-Su'l wa'l Umniyaya fi Ta'lim A'mal al-Furusiyya, the mamluk training manual compiled between 1250 and 1500 and Taybugha's mamluk Cadet training manual from the same period, has an emphasis on the training of individual skills, not formation training. In all likelihood, the tactical training of professionals went much as it did in europe, with assemblies of larger bodies being gathered when it was possible. From the 12th century we also know that arab and turkish nobility staged their own tournaments.

While horse-archery predominated in turkish armies during the first crusade, later turkish and arab armies tended towards the nobility fighting increasingly as heavy cavalry, a tradition that continued into osmannic times, when the sipahi cavalry held military fiefs outside the cities. The same can be seen in Cuman/Pecheneg tribal cavalry on the russian steppes - the professional or full-time warriors tend heavily toward close combat equipment.

For an early work on european warfare, I recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Warfare-Wester...e=UTF8&s=books

It is not entirely updated, though.

Overall, as I stated above, a lot of the problem comes from the low level of knowledge many historians of the medieval middle east have of western and central europe, and that they thus use older, more accessible literature as their references. This leads to silly comparisons sometimes - comparing the worst examples of the performance of one warrior-culture to the best of another makes little sense. There is also a lot of sins of omission: the most classic one is not about warfare but about medicine, and from Usamah, again: his comments on his personal experience of frankish medicine are positive, but to contast this he adds a tale he was told by his uncle who was told it by another man - and it is this tale that makes it into every comparison in every book on the period (I blame Runciman and Malouf ~:) ). This is really bad scholarship - a primary account is neglected in favor of a tertiary one - hearsay preferred over personal experience!

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While horse-archery predominated in turkish armies during the first crusade, later turkish and arab armies tended towards the nobility fighting increasingly as heavy cavalry, a tradition that continued into osmannic times, when the sipahi cavalry held military fiefs outside the cities. The same can be seen in Cuman/Pecheneg tribal cavalry on the russian steppes - the professional or full-time warriors tend heavily toward close combat equipment.

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I'm not arguing against what you are saying, but due to my sometimes picky nature I just have to point this out: The Arabs were usually not horse-archers, nearly all their archers were infantry (who often were mounted, similar to many from Europe), the preferred weapon of the Arabs was the lance and Arab military manuals usually stress that the lance is the most dangerous weapon you can wield and the most dangerous you can face. Ofcourse horse-archers featured in Arab armies, but then you have to remember that professional armies of the time usually were made up of soldiers from all over the place. Also heavy cavalry armed with lances weren't necessarily noble, some actually had very humble origins but being a soldier made someone into a sort of social elite as well as a military elite.

And also a fun fact: Did you know that trotting (not to mention galloping) was so uncomfortable for an armoured horseman that many places it was sometimes used a form of punishment? I think this is something that the realism mods really should consider... heavy cavalry should be very powerful but should also have a very low stamina so that they should not be ordered to run before they are going to charge, and also so that they have some stamina left to fight and break the enemy.

Also... earlier we argued on the heavy cavalry tactics of the of Muslims and Europeans, and I erroneously claimed that the Europeans used simply an all out charge. Now I shall try to "redeem" myself by making a statement on the matter, but not in the same way.

European heavy cavalry would operate in a dense box formation looking for an example like this.

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They would try to hold this formation at all times because if they charged like this a dense solid mass they would have a lot higher chance of breaking the enemy as the charge would be more devastating this way. Holding this formation meant that they could go no faster than trotting, and even this way it was hard to hold the formation. The Templars are well worth mentioning here as their formations were so tight that if you threw an apple or rock or similar into it, it would not touch the ground (well it probably would, but you get my drift).

Muslim cavalrymen probably formed up in a line formation. Though when attacking they would probably speed up so as to try and wheel around the flanks of the foe and attack him from all sides, in order to do this they probably had to go pretty fast and would most likely not be able to maintain formation. This could probably be used both by light and heavy cavalry. Though some heavy cavalrymen probably also operated in dense block formations (or wedge) formations like the Europeans.
Any way for the 'wheeling around the flanks' thing Kingdom of Heaven (believe it or not) might actually be a pretty good example. I'm thinking of when Balian attacks the huge cavalry force to buy time for the people fleeing into Kerak, ofcourse the knights would probably not split up when outnumbered so badly and they would more likely have tried to keep formation, however the Muslims encircle the Crusaders and attack them from all sides, gaining the bonuses that flank attacks provides as well as cutting of escape routes.

True enough. The majority of mounted serjeants, and some of the milites, were not noble either. German ministeriales, early knights with military fiefs, were technically not even free - they were as bound to their fiefs as any serf

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

And also a fun fact: Did you know that trotting (not to mention galloping) was so uncomfortable for an armoured horseman that many places it was sometimes used a form of punishment? I think this is something that the realism mods really should consider... heavy cavalry should be very powerful but should also have a very low stamina so that they should not be ordered to run before they are going to charge, and also so that they have some stamina left to fight and break the enemy.

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Wasn't that saddleless trotting? I've heard of that from the Napoleonic era - cavalrymen unused to bareback riding would be required to ride horses over uneven ground in their full kit. While I'm not much of a horseman (actually, I'm no horseman at all), I have some jousting sport buddies that regularely hop around on the big saucages-to-be in full armour and I've never heard them complaining...these guys also think (from their melee and jousting experience) that the Kingdom of Heaven cavalry-cavalry battle (besides from demonstrating Balians abject stupidity ~:) - it is neither chivalrous nor clever to charge a vastly superior force for no reason whatsoever) features both him and his opponents using loose skirmishing "every-man-for-himself" tactics in that engagement instead of any real cavalry formation - after all, both sides just go straight forwards, with neither side attempting to hold formation or do anything except ride on. It is very UnFrankishtm do risk your entire household like that - especially in the late 12th century, with its acute manpower shortages.

I'm not sure we can attribute spesific formations to spesific cultures heavy cavalry-wise, since there are lots of descriptions of, for example, frankish cavalry forming up in line, and muslim (at least mameluke) shock cavalry forming up in shock boxes or wedges. We know, however, that the heavy frankish cavalry favored shock formations much more than the muslims did (probably).

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Originally Posted by Watchman

The horse-archers of more sedentary nations - Arabs, Byzantines, the Mamluks of Egypt - normally fought in close order and didn't skirmish; they didn't have the remount pool to replace the tired horses the harassing tactics invariably produced, and thus relied on density and weight of fire and cohesive squadrons instead.

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Not completely true.

This school of horse warfare, the so-called Iranian/Persian school, actually was developed as a counter to the steppe variant. Since it proved to be less tiring for the warrior as well as the horse, as a result they required less logistics and such while maintaining a higher rate of fire. It was not a matter of not having the required remount pool, but rather not needing it in this style, so more warriors could be fielded. Though I cannot speak for the Byzantines.

Well, steppe nomads have a lot of horses to go around pretty much by default. Those critters pretty much form the basis of their very lifestyle after all. Sedentary folks conversely have to specifically raise the animals for various purposes, which tends to jack up the expense (nevermind now all the extra resources and training that goes into proper warhorses), and moreover usually do not inhabit regions that would allow the grazing of vast horse herds if only because much of the fertile land is already in use as fields.

Ergo, the steppe peoples can recruit their rank-and-file light cavalry pretty much straight from amongst the common tribesmen who can be expected to both have a number of ponies and know how to shoot a bow, whereas among the settled peoples cavalry isn't as easy to come by and has to do with far fewer horses per man if only by sheer necessities of economies. Which will naturally show in the respective mounted tactics used.