06-07-2009, 07:27 PM
I also find the l.seg. comfortable to wear. I just don't find it much less, or more, comfortable than well-made white plate.
And again, I doubt the existence of a roman armour planning research central deciding what the field armies were to wear.
As I wrote earlier, that is another story. Sean has already posted the ground reasons why it is not an applicable example in this case. Here comes the story:
At Kortrijk the french attacked a flemish militia force with a mixture of goedengdags - that were not simply wooden planks with nails on top, but iron-bound clubs with a spiked top and, just, and likely far more, important: long spears, standing in a spearwall in a defensive position with severely broken ground to distrupt mounted close-order approach and with archer/skirmishers in support. Heavy cavalry had trouble with that sort of infantry formations all thorough the middle ages - Hastings being an example where the norman cavalry was unable to make much headway until the anglo-saxon line disordered itself, without the brook in fron of the anglo-saxon formation. It could be defeated head-on - by infantry-cavalry combined arms, as used extensively by the english marsher lords against the welch, for example, but the french at Kortrijk made some really bad mistakes.
What won that battle was not any new weapon, but position and tactics. At Bouvines a hundred years before, the Brabancon spearwall block, equally well equipped and proving entirely capable of dealing with heavy cavalry, were cut off as the rest of the Imperial army retreated. Then, not having the luxury of having the french attacking them across a brook and surrounded by cavalry in open ground, they were slowly ground down until they were disordered enough for the cavalry to ride them down. This would have been the fate of the flemish at Kortrijk as well, had they not been favoured by terrain, good tactical positioning and bad french dispositions, goedendag or no. We've come a good fifty years in medieval military history research since Verbruggen had to play up on the exceptionalness of Kortwijk to actually make his audience believe it was possible for such a thing to happen, to put it to a (perhaps too fine) point.
Of course armour could be defeated. If it had not been possible to defeat more heavily armoured opponents, armour would have the only tactically sound thing to wear. However, for all the reasons listed above, armour is a really good idea for heavy infantry who want to slug it out in close melee.
And again, I doubt the existence of a roman armour planning research central deciding what the field armies were to wear.
Quote:That's not exactly true. At Courtrai (1302) the number of Flemish was pretty much equal to the French, and they slew them in great numbers with a simple goedendag weapon, which was basically a wooden plank with a sharp nail attached to the top of it. The only thing the knights had was the factor of chivalric morale, and armor too when the enemy didn't have it. When the enemy was equally ferocious (as the Flemings at Courtrai were), and had a bafflingly simple armor-piercing weapon, the odds were evened out very quickly.
As I wrote earlier, that is another story. Sean has already posted the ground reasons why it is not an applicable example in this case. Here comes the story:
At Kortrijk the french attacked a flemish militia force with a mixture of goedengdags - that were not simply wooden planks with nails on top, but iron-bound clubs with a spiked top and, just, and likely far more, important: long spears, standing in a spearwall in a defensive position with severely broken ground to distrupt mounted close-order approach and with archer/skirmishers in support. Heavy cavalry had trouble with that sort of infantry formations all thorough the middle ages - Hastings being an example where the norman cavalry was unable to make much headway until the anglo-saxon line disordered itself, without the brook in fron of the anglo-saxon formation. It could be defeated head-on - by infantry-cavalry combined arms, as used extensively by the english marsher lords against the welch, for example, but the french at Kortrijk made some really bad mistakes.
What won that battle was not any new weapon, but position and tactics. At Bouvines a hundred years before, the Brabancon spearwall block, equally well equipped and proving entirely capable of dealing with heavy cavalry, were cut off as the rest of the Imperial army retreated. Then, not having the luxury of having the french attacking them across a brook and surrounded by cavalry in open ground, they were slowly ground down until they were disordered enough for the cavalry to ride them down. This would have been the fate of the flemish at Kortrijk as well, had they not been favoured by terrain, good tactical positioning and bad french dispositions, goedendag or no. We've come a good fifty years in medieval military history research since Verbruggen had to play up on the exceptionalness of Kortwijk to actually make his audience believe it was possible for such a thing to happen, to put it to a (perhaps too fine) point.
Of course armour could be defeated. If it had not been possible to defeat more heavily armoured opponents, armour would have the only tactically sound thing to wear. However, for all the reasons listed above, armour is a really good idea for heavy infantry who want to slug it out in close melee.
