Charge Bonus??

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

Ok, this may seem stupid, hahahah, but I really dont understand the charge bonus. Does it give the unit a bonus to their atack right when they hit the enemy? Or is it like for their next 5 swings or something? In .08 the charge problem is supposed to be fixed right? What does this problem cause, does it take away the bonus or just screw up the charge?

[tk-421]

The charge bonus is an attack bonus that a unit receives as it is charging. After a unit stops charging, it no longer receives that bonus. EB 0.8 elephants have charge bonuses in the fifties, really heavy kataphracts have charge bonuses in the forties, medium cavalry in the thirties, lighter cavalry in the twenties, and really light missile cavalry are less than twenty.

Charge bonuses do not function in RTW 1.2.

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

I still dont understand how it works, i mean i know what a charge bonus is, what i dont understand however, is how it is given to the unit. If it did work in 1.2 what would it do, give the unit an added atack power to their inital hit upon contact?
And this will be fixed in .08 right? but for now doesent this really screw up units like the giodilic ordemernaught, and the germanic axe-man, ie:all those units that are supposed to do the most damage upon charge?? The Celts are supposed to be best on the charge, so does this mean that in .08 their charges will be more effective?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

To but it in the simplest terms:

It provides a one shot bonus to the first round of attack when a charging unit makes contact.

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

oh ok thats what i was thinking.
But what about the situation with all those havy infatry i mentioned.

[soibean]

I had always thought the charge bonus to be the force that graphically threw the defenders if they were smashed into by heavy cavalry... but I dont see that effect anymore, but TK stated its not in 1.2 so that may be why.

I dont see why their answers dont work with the infantry... if it follows my line of thought then the 300 pound celt with a hammer running at you is harder to stop than a guy who casually strolls to your position and begins his attack.

[Olaf The Great]

Well a Heavily set drunken Irishman with heavy scale armour and a giant hammer would kill a whole lot of people in a melee, a man on a horse with a 15 foot lance would impale a man in less then two seconds whilst going at almost 30 miles per hour, cavalry have to use handier weapons in a melee, and this is cumbersome without a saddle or a stirrup, and of course the height thing is a problem.


When did the stirrup get invented, and when was it imported to Europe?

[Watchman]

I'm guessing you mean the stirrup.

AFAIK the stirrup first turns up somewhere in east-central Asia after the 6th to 7th century AD or so. The Catholic western part of Europe apparently didn't learn of the device before around 9th or 10th century, when it was aquired through Byzantium.

Saddles are way older. The Celts and Romans were using a "four-horned" saddle that gave a pretty firm seating already fairly early on, and I'll be damned if that had not been picked up from the steppe peoples through one channel or another. Those folks for fairly obvious reasons tended to invent most of the convenient things related to horsemanship.

[Laundreu]

One thing I should point out (in passing) is that the stirrup is not the be-all, end-all of cavalry. It is incredibly useful for horse-archery - allowing for a more stable firing platform while in motion, as well as (I think) a larger bow - but for a melee it's not so useful, nor for pure shock tactics such as a lance charge. For that, a good saddle was needed - the original 'blanket on a horse's back' just didn't cut it, really, but the four-cornered saddle provided much-needed stability in the seat, so you could swing a sword or thrust with a spear with relative impunity.

Stirrups also made it much much easier to get on horseback, mind! Vaulting onto a horse is not fun unarmored, and doing it in 40-60 pounds of gear is probably less fun yet.

[Reenk Roink]

I'm guessing you mean the stirrup.

AFAIK the stirrup first turns up somewhere in east-central Asia after the 6th to 7th century AD or so. The Catholic western part of Europe apparently didn't learn of the device before around 9th or 10th century, when it was aquired through Byzantium.

I thought the stirrup first showed up in the 2nd century BC on the steppe?

Anyway, it became common place in Europe at the time Watchman states.

Edit: Did some quick research. The Scythians probably used some sort of loop fabric "stirrup". The 2nd century BC ones were toe stirrups, found in India. The first "true" stirrups show up in China in the 4th century AD.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Correct. The stirrup made it to Europe via the Arabs around the time of Charles Martel, so early 9th Century.

[tk-421]

Charles Martel was around in the early 8th century, not 9th.

[Fenrhyl]

It is definitely through "contact" between the franks and muslim that the stirrup was acquired by the western europeans. Charles MArtel men counted few horsemen and accounts on them vary from standards franks antruscions on horse to a body of heavy armor clad and spear using elite group of horsemen (the truth might be a mix of the two) that used stirrups.

Neverthe less, it has few to do with the franks stunning voctory at Poitiers but the discipline and skill of the average frank warrior. Plus, charging through a hail of franciscae and angons only to be received by ranks of scale clad men hiding between a shield wall is like throwing yourselve against a stone wall. I guess the charge bonus of the arabian cavalry was lost against those franks

[hafensaengerx]

mhhh, sorry! my english isn't very good and so i don't know if i understand this right.

in the actual version (0.74) there is no charge bonus?
so my heavy cavallery can't break enemylines?

an is this a general problem of mods based on RTW 1.2?
What if a mod is based on RTW 1.5?

[ElectricEel]

in the actual version (0.74) there is no charge bonus?

Correct.

so my heavy cavallery can't break enemylines?

It depends on the units involved; as far as I know, the bug was taken into account while balancing the units in the current EB release.

an is this a general problem of mods based on RTW 1.2?

Correct.

What if a mod is based on RTW 1.5?

Then the charge bonus works correctly.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Charles Martel was around in the early 8th century, not 9th.

Beg pardon. I was going to say 8th. Obviosly got my dates mixes up.

[BigTex]

I guess the charge bonus of the arabian cavalry was lost against those franks

One of the few things rtw:bi got right, the shield wall will stop a cavalry charge dead. With each rank deeper the weight the horse must push is increased exponentially. By 4 ranks deep the horse has to move 16 people.

As for the topic, the charge factor is lost after the forward momentum of the charging unit halts. That can mean a super heavy cavalry charging into a rank of light infantry might not lose their charge bonus for quite some time, if they charge into loose formations they may never lose it.
__________________
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BigTex

Ridicolus
"Hilary Clinton is the devil"
~Texas proverb

[Tellos Athenaios]

It is definitely through "contact" between the franks and muslim that the stirrup was acquired by the western europeans. Charles MArtel men counted few horsemen and accounts on them vary from standards franks antruscions on horse to a body of heavy armor clad and spear using elite group of horsemen (the truth might be a mix of the two) that used stirrups.

Neverthe less, it has few to do with the franks stunning voctory at Poitiers but the discipline and skill of the average frank warrior. Plus, charging through a hail of franciscae and angons only to be received by ranks of scale clad men hiding between a shield wall is like throwing yourselve against a stone wall. I guess the charge bonus of the arabian cavalry was lost against those franks

Ah the Great Stirrup Controversy...

[Fenrhyl]

Ah the Great Stirrup Controversy...

The problem about this controversy is that the ones who say the stirrup wasn't acquired before Charlemagne became emperor use as an argument the fact that no stirrup is found before his time (roughly.)

It is a sound argument as long as you decide you

A) trust the written accounts of the clerics who had absolutely no knowledge about warfare and basically lie when they need to push christian value down the throat of their readers

B) assume a stirrup is made of metal and nothing else

C) assume the stirrups will be put in the tomb of their owner (concerning franks it is not a sound belief after the 7th century.)

That said, rope or leather stirrups did and still exist. Such items of low value would not be deemed fit to figure in a tomb deposit and even if they actually did end up in a tomb 13 centuries of rot and decay would not leave a single trace of them.
When it comes to having a clear view of what the franks used as weapons and what their methods of fighting both tactical and strategic where you have no options to consider what is a reasonable picture and what hard facts you have to support it.

What we witness at the end of the merovingian period is a shift in tactical approach. The franks rely more and more upon cavalry and progressively discard those two fantastic weapons, the francisca and the angon, that require complex infantry training and impressive coordination to use (two characteristic the romans noted about franks early and could witness first hand both fighting against and alongside them.) On the other side cavalry becomes proheminent and drawings of franks horseman, scale-clad and using the draco as an insigna are numerous. It even goes as far as calling them paladins (frank deformation from the latin palatinus.)
You can then just assume that contact with the arabians had the franks realize the advantage of heavy cavalry and use the Loire valley sarmato-alan folks knowledge of horsemanship to expand upon (hence the draco insigna.) That is just a guess, but a persistant one these days, wich could be linked to some hard facts but i require more documentation about this.

Edition : i just forgot to mention that such a shift is impossible (because shifts do not happen without reasons) without the acquisition of stirups. If the franks had wanted to shift to cavalry before they could have done so with ease, given the power, wealth and agricultural ressources they enjoyed. What happened during the 8th century is just a shift in warfare habits after a major clash with another fighting method that poves to be efficient (like the english after Bannockburn or the french after Azincourt, or to stay in line with this forum, the romans after Cannae.)

[Watchman]

It's not like the Franks hadn't had effective cavalry during the Migrations, or even before them, as much as about any other bunch of marauding Germanics (not counting the horse-heavy, steppe-influenced eastern ones). They just hadn't had the need to specifically focus on it, as infantry worked right well for most of their needs.

The Carolingian period kind of changed things. First there was the Moors. Charles Martel may have beaten back their recon-in-serious-force and they might have fallen to internecine bickering since then, but that didn't keep them from carrying out smaller raids out of Iberia and the occasional bridgehead in Italy or the southern French coast, naturally chiefly done by fast-moving mounted men. Then the Vikings turned up on the seas, and introduced a different kind of fast-moving pillager. To top it off there were first the Avars and later the Hungarian-Magyars, steppe peoples with a penchance for mounting major raids deep into Europe on horseback.

Infantry wasn't good enough to deal with these menaces as it just couldn't catch them reliably. That meant cavalry had to be emphasized. Heavy cavalry, as lighter kind would tend to be outmatched or unable to make a dent in Viking lines. But heavy cavalry is damned expensive, and for states with rather primitive adminstrative and economical structures one of the best ways of meeting this cost is to feudalize the lot so they essentially take care of it themselves. On the downside this tends to move power increasingly into the hands of the feudal landlords as they control a large part of the society's chief source of income and sustenance, and the feudal cavalry contignents they raise and maintain tend to be more loyal to them than some remote king. Moreover, as among the more effective ways to curb the maneuvering room and looting of raiders is liberal and judicious use of fortifications to control terrain, defend settlements and so on, whoever ends up garrisoning those fortifications tends to pretty much control the given region even if he doesn't press the matter.
And as he's now holed up in a network of fortified places manned by his private army he's suddenly become awfully difficult to coerce to anything...

By what I've read of it the peculiar European shift towards decentralized feudalism and feudal heavy cavalry came about quite specifically as a means of regional defense against strategically mobile raiders; it more or less worked, but with the annoying side effect it made the feudal barons rather strong and any central authority rather weak. Diverse monarchs would spend the next half a millenia trying to regain factual control of what was nominally their land.

The stirrup had little to do with the matter. All the major types of cavalry - horse-archers both light and heavy, skirmishers, heavy shock - were already around and effective long before the device. It just made their life a whole lot easier, and as a side effect is AFAIK a necessity for the couched-lance technique the Europeans went for bigtime upon learning of it and eventually pushed it to its utmost potential - and then found it to be a tactical dead-end.

[Foot]

The stirrup had little to do with the matter. All the major types of cavalry - horse-archers both light and heavy, skirmishers, heavy shock - were already around and effective long before the device. It just made their life a whole lot easier, and as a side effect is AFAIK a necessity for the couched-lance technique the Europeans went for bigtime upon learning of it and eventually pushed it to its utmost potential - and then found it to be a tactical dead-end.

As mentioned on the TWC forums, it was the four-horned saddle that allowed for the couching technique, not the stirrups. This was because stirrups only offer support for sideways movement, not front-to-back. Apparently you could couch a lance without stirrups (not that stirrups didn't help give a more stable seat, I'm sure).

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=65165

Foot

[Watchman]

That so ? Hmm, now that you mention it, not a few of those high war-saddles knights used seem to have had curving parts that look awfully like the four "horns" in function, save often rather more extensive...

I recall reading somewhere that as far as weapons use goes the ones that most benefit from stirrups are swords and similar "swung" weapons. Better "footing" to generate power from or something like that, IIRC.

[QwertyMIDX]

Stirrups were also a huge boon for mounted archers.

[Watchman]

I was under the impression you could do the Parthian Shot and all the rest of the impressive tricks right fine without the things... Seem to have worked right fine too.

I've been told stirrups rather improve the endurance of both the mount and the rider over long distances though, since the horseman need not grip the flanks of his mount with his legs for stability.

[Artificer]

As mentioned on the TWC forums, it was the four-horned saddle that allowed for the couching technique, not the stirrups. This was because stirrups only offer support for sideways movement, not front-to-back. Apparently you could couch a lance without stirrups (not that stirrups didn't help give a more stable seat, I'm sure).

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=65165

Foot

Thanks for the link Foot. The discussion within is very interesting, but leaves me scratching my head. From what I've read, I gather that an actual cavalry "charge" consisted of a rapid close with enemy troops and then really more of a needling action with one's spear rather than the Earth-shaking, formation cracking, guts & glory action that we all think of when recalling mounted combat. Is this correct, or have I misinterpreted the information? If so, shouldn't the charge bonus present in EB be drastically lowered?

[vizigothe]

I love that term. Reconnaissance in Force. Wasn't the Abd er-Rahman's "reconnaissance" force somewhere between 20,000 and 80,000 men?

I guess that would classify as a Reconnaissance in "Serious" Force

[Watchman]

Well, he didn't plan to stay (at least, not yet that time around) by what I've read of it. So aside from good old-fashioned raiding and pillaging and obliterating a few armies and razing some towns his little sightseeing trip could presumably be termed just that.

Pretty much the normal method of going about new conquests too by what I've read. Hit the place hard enough and often enough that the resistance weakens sufficiently for proper takeover. Sounds like a solid plan to me...

[QwertyMIDX]

I was under the impression you could do the Parthian Shot and all the rest of the impressive tricks right fine without the things... Seem to have worked right fine too.

Sure, but once you can stand up in the saddle and use your legs to absorb the motion of the gallop your accuracy and mobility are improved.

[vizigothe]

Continuing my attempt to stay off topic Watchman. I was under the assumption that they were driving to Tours to sack the city and then use it to drive deeper into the countryside once it got warmer. The funny thing was he didn't any recon so I guess you could say that his army was indeed a recon-in-serious-force :D

[Fenrhyl]

Basically, No one knows for sure what The muslims wanted to do. They actually wasted Aquitaine and they were retreating to these lands when they stumbled upon Charles Martel and his troops. That's for the muslim part.

For the franks part, there are serious hints that make some historians believe that Charles was witnessing the whole thing from his border and let the muslims burden themselves with loot and slaves. It allowed him to be in a position to move, decide where the batle would occur and force the muslims to fight. As a bonus, the muslims had pretty much destroyed any kind of power Eudes of Aquitaine had. An opportunity to get back these lands into his family's dominion he wasn't eager to let slip away.

It must be noted that the clash was the second one. A first one occured at Toulouse in 723 (or 725), on the old roman way (parts of it stil exist.) The muslims were sieging the town and the defnders offerd such a resistance that numerous franks and gallo-romans (as written in the accounts) could be mustered in a relief force. The muslims were surrounded by Eudes and destroyed to the last. The muslims call this battle the "paveway of the martyrs." It is often messed up with the battle of Poitiers (or Tours, anyway it was between those towns.)

It is also important to know that several cities allied themselves to the muslims (out of fear or driven by the belief the muslims would be better masters... go figure...) When the Muslims fled to Narbonne, Charles proceeded to enforce his family's grip on the lands he just got back. He took, wasted and looted every single town, village or farm that allied with the muslims, thus gaining its nickname.

The Muslims did not stop the fight after 732. They tried another raid in the Rhone valley but it failed in front of Lyon. Thereafter they were defeatd several times and Pepin the short reclaimed the lands of Septimania from them during his reign.

PS : i would recommend, in any event, to ignore any number given by the texts from these times. The figures are ludicrous and only serve to demonstrate that a handfull of christians led by god's will could defeat such a horde of heathens (If i had more time, i'd write a compendium of the lies written by clerics in those times.) Those are lies, just discard them.

PPS : Watchman, your explanation makes sense. Thank you for sharing your insights about this matter.