Quote Originally Posted by AnthoniusII
When western medeival lords came against byzantine army in early medeival times called the byzantines sniky and cowerd becaouse they used tactics,manouvres and ambouses.Acording to their custom of war chivalry ment close combat one to one and furius cavalry charges.Roman heritege was lost in western europe.Thats why suffered many losses at the first crusade by the turks...Byzantine units continued to have spesific units and uniforms(not armors).According to the byzantine military code a general laeding a province had to give to the local reqruit soldiers helmets,spears,cotton or woolen uniforms(same colored)and bows...Armors where bought by the soldiers."Tactics"by LEON IV THE WISE 9th centhury.
Information by THE BYZANTINE HISTORY of OSTROGORSKY.P.S.Units like "bandums"(battalions),"meroi"(divisions)simply didn't exist in europe since the ottomans..About tactics:the east roman empire still had military scools for lower and midlle rank officers.Scholai imperial battalion was a scool like this even this was also an ellite unit.There where an amount of writen "orders" for every case.Tactics as we know them today used in the 100years war between England and France.Foolish charges are not tactics.The most famous examble is the Hattin battle.
I don't know what kind of books you've read that states that European knights fought entirely as individuals who could do nothing but charge, but that sounds very much like seriously out-dated 20th or even 19th century research. Pretty much everyone in Europe was aware that a head-first charge against a wall of spears and a volley of bolts wasn't a very good idea. Richard Couer de Lion for one had very efficient spear/pavise crossbowmen infantry that proved effective against Saladin in the 3rd crusade.
Sure, cavalry charges were common, but they were not "furious" (although ocasionally foolish) and they were not always attempted. Roman heritage was far from forgotten in Europe; the things that eventually overthrew the Romans were put to great use (i.e. cavalry and missile infantry).

I wonder where this myth of the barbarian westeners and way, way superior easteners originates from. Since it is in fact so that each region develops its military tactics as is fit. The crusaders were defeated quite often in the Holy Land (like at the Horns of Hattin) since they were using tactics that worked where they came from (and the fact that they were always rather badly outnumbered). On the other hand, the crusader castles proved invincible more often than not, even to Saladin.