12-26-2007, 08:39 PM
The units of measure quoted seem to be open to variations in interpretation not to mention scribal error, therefore reliance on them seems moot.
In heavy rainfall muskets were rendered useless and sole reliance on the bayonet was unavoidable.
I cannot but consider how infantry dealt with very heavy cavalry in other periods. In the Ancient World I seem to remember cataphracts being destroyed by club-weilding infantry, I cannot recall the particulars, however. In the Hundred Years war French knights, once their formation had been broken, were killed off by English bowmen wielding lead mallets. At Pavia the French Gendarmes, the flower of European knightly cavalry, were hacked to pieces by Imperial Landskechts with their array of polearms, which is what happened to the Burgundian men-at-arms at the hands of the Swiss.
In all cases such very heavily armoured cavalry could be held off, or their formations broken, by either spear, pike or missile armed troops, but the majority were actually killed by infantry armed with cutting or bludgeoning weapons. I cannot imagine that the Byzantines found their tactical needs in such situations so very different.
In heavy rainfall muskets were rendered useless and sole reliance on the bayonet was unavoidable.
I cannot but consider how infantry dealt with very heavy cavalry in other periods. In the Ancient World I seem to remember cataphracts being destroyed by club-weilding infantry, I cannot recall the particulars, however. In the Hundred Years war French knights, once their formation had been broken, were killed off by English bowmen wielding lead mallets. At Pavia the French Gendarmes, the flower of European knightly cavalry, were hacked to pieces by Imperial Landskechts with their array of polearms, which is what happened to the Burgundian men-at-arms at the hands of the Swiss.
In all cases such very heavily armoured cavalry could be held off, or their formations broken, by either spear, pike or missile armed troops, but the majority were actually killed by infantry armed with cutting or bludgeoning weapons. I cannot imagine that the Byzantines found their tactical needs in such situations so very different.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Fac me cocleario vomere!