"Agincourt - crossbows" Topic

Hi

the idea with assyrians bia relief art is that it is a lot more than 2 archers deep, worse has them shooting over shield bearers with shields taller than any of the men.

Therefore indirct volley fire.

This is to refute the assertian that the archers cannot see.

The rest, wagons of reloads at Agincourt either every archer has a unique mark on his sheeves and someone running up re-supplies can tell which marks go to which archers under fire, there is going to be standarization.

As for 22" spacing. Muskets. Archers actually have all sorts of things on them, short swords, sheeves in belts, sometimes a buckler, and so on. No one mentions them using a different spacing than other infantry, and in most cases where we know spacing it is 36 inches.

R

"As for 22" spacing. Muskets. Archers actually have all sorts of things on them, short swords, sheeves in belts, sometimes a buckler, and so on."

So do musketeers. Back pack (can be as much as 6" deep), bayonet, cartridge boxes etc. IMHO pretty much the same level of encumbrance. In fact the back pack itself probably represents more of a space reducing encumbrance than anything carried by an archer.

"No one mentions them using a different spacing than other infantry, and in most cases where we know spacing it is 36 inches."

Arguing from omission is always a risky position. And where is the 36" spacing for other infantry (I assume you mean men-at arms) actually documented?

Doug, I'm not sure where the 2or 3 ranks has crept in but I have not argued for that. I argue for exactlywhat Mike has written, a very usualdepth of 4-6 ranks. If they are offset every man can see, especially if the ground slopes a bit and shorter men stand at the front.

The Assyrian reliefs are a bit wild as evidence for indirect shooting because a) we cannot see how they would be arranged in plan view and b) we dont know about Assyrian archery technique c) I am not sure how saying Assyrians shot from behind pavises they could not see over proves that they could see ?

We know the English ordered arrows in the hundreds of thousands and they must have been made to a specification but at the size of arrow this deals with, the variation in bows is not so important. A long, thick war arrow, c 32 inches long and half an inch thick,is more like a small javelin it is impressively awful. the spine of such arrows must have varied because they could be made of a wide variety of woods.Richard Ascham gives a dozen or so as suitable types. In fact,the spine of a war arrow suggests bows in the range of 110-180 lbs. (G.Head Physics Review 1995).Kooi and bergman in an paper in European Journal of Physics in the 90s proved that mathematical models fitted the Mary Rose bows. This allowed confirmaton of medieval bows routinely having draw weights of 90 lbs. 90lb arrows go through armour when shot directly at point blank and if there is no armour,ugh..

Also,the Mary Rose arrows are highly standardised but the bowstaves vary in draw weight from 80 to 140lbs.

As I wrote before, there is plenty of evidence for direct shooting,non for indirect shooting. I think we must choose evidence from history and archery over the wargame construct. Perhaps a little rule tweaking is called for.

p.s. Do your rules allow crossbows to shoot 17 deep? This would theoretically be more effective because the mechanisms could be made more similar than 17 bowmen.

the spine of such arrows must have varied because they could be made of a wide variety of woods.

As noted above by "Hauptmann6", spine of arrows is not negotiable. They are either correctly matched within a very few pounds to the draw weight, or you have major accuracy (and even safety) problems. Here's how it works: an arrow that is too soft for the bow's strength, warps around the bow on release with too much flex, causing the arrow to wobble and this uses up energy massively; in addition, if this arrow is too soft beyond a point, it will crack and sometimes come apart on release! If an arrow is too stiff for the draw weight, it does not flex around the bow on release and caromes off the bow, causing even worse inaccuracy and making the arrow go off to wherever; much like an arrow striking the limb of a tree in the way. So if the extant artifacts we have indicate 90 lbs, that is pretty close to the draw weight of the bows those arrows were intended to be shot from.

The standard "warbow" used standard arrows; otherwise, there were different wagons marked with different arrows for different units within the English army using different draw weights: given the bugbear of logistics, which do you think was the more likely?

Also,the Mary Rose arrows are highly standardised but the bowstaves vary in draw weight from 80 to 140lbs.

We've had this topic out before as well :) An early research archer, Saxton Pope, measured the M.R. bow staves then on display in the museum and created his own yew longbow; the finished weapon was c. 80 lbs. He said, if I am remembering Rocky's quote accurately, that the bow staves on display were in fact UNFINISHED and were not intended for combat in their packed condition. Shot as is, they are most of them well over 100 lbs draw weight.

Do your rules allow crossbows to shoot 17 deep? This would theoretically be more effective because the mechanisms could be made more similar than 17 bowmen.

No. As I said earlier, the English are the ONLY example of such deep shooting. Nobody else does this, and even they don't do it usually; usually having plenty of frontage for the archers present to form up in a normal depth. That deep would have been an expediency thing, not a condition deliberately hoped for!

There's no physical reason why crossbows would be made to order at a specific draw weight more consistently than longbows are. And the shooting mechanism on a crossbow is no more accurate than the release of a practiced archer: the difference is in the amount of training/experience required to achieve accuracy: a crossbowman achieving it in an afternoon, and an archer over weeks or months….

Saxton Pope did only have acess to the few damaged and incorrectly preserved Mary Rose bows recovered in the 19th Century. He had been dead for almost 50 years when the 137 well preserved bows were recovered so can not be used as a source about them in any way.
Do note that these alledegedly 'unfinished' bows come complete with horn nocks and why on earth would a warship hotly engaged in active service carry unfinished bows.

Oh, no, not Saxton Pope again!! May I remind you of what I said about him on another thread?

Pope says:
"Determined to duplicate these old bows, I selected a very fine grained stave of seasoned yew and made an exact duplicate, according to the recorded measurements."

In other words Pope took the measurements ("recorded in Badminton") and made an approximation based on those measurements. He had never seen or measured the actual bow staves himself and he certainly didn't "finish" one, by his own admission. By contrast Hardy et al made exact copies of the bow staves raised from the Mary Rose by measuring them directly.

I echo the previous posts. Saxton Pope, aaarrrrgh.
You prefer the evidence of a bloke who made something from what he saw in a museum case and obviously did not understand over scientifically made measurements from1990's.?

Stiff arrows are not so sensitive as light modern target arrows when matched to powerful bows. Otherwise the Mary Rose arrows must have all intended to be used in just a few of the bows on board.Probably not.

Your comments about the MAry Rose material summarised:

a) the bows are for the best of the best not normal troops
b) the bows are not for battlefield shooting
c) only a few of the bows could successfully shoot the arrows onboard
d) the Kings showpiece ship carried unfinished weapons onboard (weapons which a skilled bowyer takes a coupleof hours to make)
e) evidence from analysing finds 100 years ago is preferred over modern analysis of newly excavated material.

Your wicket looks decidedly sticky.

If longbowmen at Agincourt are the only example of 'deep formation' shooting ( and they only do it sometimes !, why not always if it is so lethal ?) you have, then probably it is the rules that are wrong,not the history.

Bowmen served in the army with their own bow or one from ordinance if that was lost. Every bowyer did not use the same tools even if he followed a set of dimensions finished bows from different timber would not be tillered to specific weight in pounds. They would be tillered to take the usual drawlength of 32 inches or so. Bowmen did not switch bowsin mid-battle.They had been shooting in the same bow for months before battle was joined, they knew how to shoot with the arrows they were issued.

Arrows could be made to a tight spec and we have seen from Mary Rose that they were. One arrow can be successfully shot from more than one bow. If most of the shooting is at point blank then it matters even less.

There is no evidence for English troops shooting longbows indirectly. If there is, where is it ?

You obviously don't take Agincourt as even a possible example of deep shooting (doing your best to stretch the line and lessen the numbers to get what you want). You discount utterly the spline requirements of ANY arrow (the age of archery in this regard changes nothing, but you seem to take "modern" wood arrows as something different from the stuff back then). Because the M.R. had unfinished bow staves aboard and the only extant arrows are all of a spline, you think the arrows necessarily match ALL of the bows. Not all of the M.R. bows have finished or horn ends; not all of them are FINISHED staves; they were imports from Spain most likely (native yew had not supplied the needs of England for some time). So making facile connections satisfies nothing. You want the only archeological find of any real significance to apply to field battles of a hundred years-plus earlier. Shipboard fighting was not the same as massed units on a battlefield; you discount that as well.

a) the bows are for the best of the best not normal troops

Conjucture on my part: only IF the bow staves on M.R. are in fact all 100+ lbs, that would be the best of the best archers onboard.

b) the bows are not for battlefield shooting

They would be if they were in a land battle. But that would be either one of two things: a poorly made 100+ lb bow that doesn't shoot any better than a modern (better made) c. 70-80 lb longbow; or, an elite unit of the best and brawniest shooters in the realm.

c) only a few of the bows could successfully shoot the arrows onboard

No. Only a few of the bows on board the M.R. are in fact finished weapons.

d) the Kings showpiece ship carried unfinished weapons onboard (weapons which a skilled bowyer takes a couple of hours to make)

As I said, imports from Spain, ready to be finished in England.

e) evidence from analysing finds 100 years ago is preferred over modern analysis of newly excavated material

If the new material goes against earlier findings, then I want significant evidence of the earlier findings being at fault somehow. I have seen nothing to discount Pope's tests. And in fact the only fly in the ointment comparing the two is the claim that the "warbow" of the yeomen was 100+ lbs draw weight: in an earlier discussion on this topic, Rocky opined that it is possible that the earlier bows were in fact NOT as well made as modern examples are; thus producing the unexpected conclusion that the "warbow" we give to 90% of the longbowmen was therefore a poorly made 100 lb weapon and not comparable to the better made 70 lb longbows of today. This conjecture has not been determined either way: but it is necessary to determine, because one way would prove/show Rocky's earlier physics analysis of the various weapons that ended up in our missile tables: whereas the other way would show his findings to be faulty: and we would have a game that works to produce historical results as a mere fluke and total lucky guess.

If longbowmen at Agincourt are the only example of 'deep formation' shooting ( and they only do it sometimes !, why not always if it is so lethal ?) you have, then probably it is the rules that are wrong,not the history.

Ideally, the formation of shooters would match up to the depth of the attacking formation. Thus if the French are advancing eight ranks deep, the most effective depth for the English would be 8 to 10 ranks: anymore depth and more of the arrows get wasted on open ground in front of and behind the advancing target. There is no way to "center" the whole volley mass on the target: it can only elevate and "loose", producing c. the same shape where it lands as when the volley was launched. So there is no special added deadliness to deep shooting. Obviously, at Agincourt, IF the archers were 16 deep, their vollies were half wasted on the French vanguard if it was only 8 ranks deep; but once it divided into three columns it got deeper, and the vollies would have hit more targets (while the front ranks got in the last few direct, pointblank, aimed shots at as fast a rate as possible: I have reestimated this as impacting into c. 750 outer men-at-arms at the rate of c. 1,750 arrows every 5 to 6 seconds!).

There is no evidence for English troops shooting longbows indirectly. If there is, where is it?

You keep saying that: and I keep saying, Agincourt with 700 to 1000 yards and over 7,000 longbowmen. The number of archers who could not see varies is all; they don't ever not exist….

Hi

And staggering siz deep with "stagger" would, if everyone can see and shoot, be a lot bigger than just 3 feet files.

As for 3 feet. Well the romans mention it (as with 4.5 per horse) for about a thousand years. Those big shields and all.

without shields and a two handed sword….still need 3 feet.

PV, you are correct in that you cannot prove a negative. But that doesn't mean that you then reason by drill several hundred years in the future.

Saxton Pope built and tested, AND had access to hundreds of other styles from around the world. To my mind, making a replica and testing it works a bit better than determining with a priori from just looking.

But the real question to me is you asked the question and getting something you don't like, you argue. If you didn't want our peaches, why did you shake our tree?

Rocky

the concept of spline and the archer's paradox dates only from the 1930's. Ancient and medieval archers went by experience and developed skill.

Why would the archers shoot in situations where they knew only half of their arrows would hit when they were acknowledged as the finest shots in Europe ? Why not shoot at targets and get more hits ? Note that your model would allow half the archers to do nothing and get the same results.

The English battle line was formed to allow the archers to shoot effectively. trying to do a calculation to prove either way cannot work because we know neither the number of men on the field or the width of the field accurately. We do know the archers are in herce between the battles of men-at-arms and could be in herce or forward-angled on the wings.

This means the argument for their use must be based on what we do know. We know archers practiced to shoot at targets. We know the deadly effect they had in the battle.

Your argument suggests the archers MUST be in a specific formation never alluded to anywhere else and MUST shoot in a manner which cuts their efficiency by 50 percent. Your argument depends upon Curry's maximum number of archers used on as narrow a field as possible. Curry's discovery that the English had more men than previously known before they left on the march still does not pin down the exact number on the field which must have been smaller because of a) fall-out on the march and b) inaccuracy of paper strengths.

The basis of your argument is that archers adopt a formation for which we have no evidence in order to shoot less effectively.

Why not allow Agincourt to be fought in a way similar to battles fought before and later. Then the problem of deep formations goes away. It is your construct which is not needed.

Angled lines allow more men across the field. the Gesta tells us the archers stood in wedges between the men-at-arms.

re.MAry Rose its inventory was 250 bows, 168 were found. All finished and nocked. draw weights 80-160 ilbs.3500 arrows all of the same dimensions except for a few.

You have a hypothesis that English archers adopted a special deep formation for the Battle of Agincourt because the battlefield was too narrow for their normal practice. The hypothesis assumes that the English archers trained extensively in the special techniques used for this eventuality but the technique was never used before or subsequent to the battle. The hypothetical technique has two specific characteristics: it works best when the archers adopt the same formation as the men they are shooting at and if this is not the case then it is highly inefficient.

Unless there is some evidence for English archers shooting indirectly this hypothesis goes nowhere.

There is no evidence for English longbowmen shooting indirectly.

Doug:
"As I said, imports from Spain, ready to be finished in England."

This is a faintly ridiculous view. We are talking here about the Mary Rose. a "line of battle" ship in Henry VIII's navy, not a common transport vessel. Why on earth would it be transporting unfinished bows from Spain? It had just left port in England before it went down. Surely if she was carrying bows "ready to be finished in England", then they would have been off-loaded while she was in port?

Sorry, this just doesn't hold water – just like the Mary Rose! :-)

Rocky:
"To my mind, making a replica and testing it works a bit better than determining with a priori from just looking."

Quite right. Which is EXACTLY what Hardy et al did. Pope didn't even look – he just used the measurements "recorded in Badminton".

Trying to be fair here…

"Angled lines allow more men across the field. the Gesta tells us the archers stood in wedges between the men-at-arms."

Not strictly true, I'm afraid.
The Latin is: "intermisisset cuneos sagittariorum suorum cuilibet aciei"
Editors of the Gesta (e.g. Taylor and Roskell) were influenced in their translation of the Latin 'cuneos' as 'wedges' by the traditional view of English formations as propounded by earlier authors such as Oman and Burne, and most recent commentators have preferred the more neutral 'unit' or 'formation'.

The Latin word for wedge is 'cuneus' (pl. cunei) hence the confusion.

Note that your model would allow half the archers to do nothing and get the same results.

You're thinking of 16 deep, still. I don't believe they were that deep, and I don't believe the French were only eight deep. The depth of the two formations was similar, I believe: similar numbers on the same frontage, with the French stacking even deeper as they got closer to the English line and went for the standards.

Your argument depends upon Curry's maximum number of archers used on as narrow a field as possible.

Actually, her number is a "minimum". The old "5,000" is not supported by the records. And I am not saying the battlefield was any particular width: I always say "between 700 and 1,000 yards". And the number of archers on the field within that range have the back ranks, however many they be, not seeing the target they are shooting at.

Angled lines allow more men across the field. the Gesta tells us the archers stood in wedges between the men-at-arms.

If the "wedges" were set at 45 degrees, the archers shooting straight down the field would be even deeper, shooting at 45 degrees the front of their lines! You just make the problem of shooting deep more pronounced.

re.MAry Rose its inventory was 250 bows, 168 were found. All finished and nocked.

Source please? I am going by memory (probably not remembering this completely right), but iirc it was Hardy who contributed to the National Geographic article many years ago when the M.R. was first raised. And I recall that not all the bow staves were completely finished. It doesn't make much difference, if any at all, to the discussion of shooting deep, though….

The hypothesis assumes that the English archers trained extensively in the special techniques used for this eventuality but the technique was never used before or subsequent to the battle.

Impossible to say, for battles before and after Agincourt. So saying "never used" cannot be more than an assertion: we DO have Agincourt's field, which is more than we can say for the other battles.

Re. wedges. Good point.

herce – is a wedge. Cuneus is a wedge. Thus there is a contemporary justification for accepting wedge. Cuneos is not used of the men-at-arms.

However my argument is that a rigid model for how the English deployed is not necessary. Just that they deployed so the archers could shoot effectively.

Doug, re. sources.I have a pamphlet fromthe museum but google MAry Rose and the website and others have lots of references.

However my argument is that a rigid model for how the English deployed is not necessary. Just that they deployed so the archers could shoot effectively.

So come up with a battle map that shows how 7,000+ archers can all see to shoot (not more than four ranks deep, and that is pushing it), on a field 700 to 1,000 yards wide; and having to subtract a minimum of 250 yards for the men-at-arms (Curry has c. 1,500 men-at-arms, not 900 to 1,000, so even less room for the archers)….

Rocky: this discussion is about accepting or not accepting that English archers at Agincourt used a special technique to shoot in deep formations without seeing the target.

I think that is wrong and I have shown evidence to support my view. One,debateble,fact can be brought in opposition,which is that the geometry of the deployment makes a deep shooting formation the only possible solution. All the factors involved in determining the geometry of the deployment are uncertain.

Doug now says he doesnt think the archers were sixteen deep.

The logical conclusion is that a successful medieval army used its traditional method of fighting. The archers shot at targets they could see with awe-inspiring accuracy and effect then the men-at-arms knocked seven bells out of the enemy who still had fight left in them.

herce – is a wedge.

This is the subject of much debate actually. Herce has also been interpreted to be like a rectangular farm implement with stakes on the bottom, see, for instance The Battle of Crecy by Andrew Ayton, et al.:

link

Doug now says he doesnt think the archers were sixteen deep.

To clarify, I have been saying from the beginning, that the narrowest field (700 yards) and the most archers (something over 7,000) produces over 15 ranks of archers, i.e. 16, as we allow as a maximum for English HYW archers in our rules; and that I don't think the field was 700 yards, but it could have been: so I am saying "less than 16 ranks deep", but I am not saying precisely how deep, because that doesn't matter here: the depth exceeding c. 4 ranks cannot SEE, so it doesn't really make any difference how many ranks we are talking about.

I have invited you to map this out to "show" your objection works, instead of just repeating yourself "No, uhuh, no way, didn't happen", etc.

Btw, IF we use Curry's minimum number of men-at-arms to go along with her archers (round off to evens), we have only 325 yards left for archers on a field 700 yards wide, which would produce an archer depth of 21 ranks! That is the upper end for depth by the records and the possible field width….

…herce as a farm implement…

I am sure this refers to how the prongs are arranged and is not meant to be a reference to the stakes the archers drove into the ground. In a "herce" the prongs for harrowing are arranged "checkerboard" fashion. That's how the archers stood to shoot, and it's how they set their stakes as well (which would have produced a "herce-like" appearance, albeit angled).

The notion that the archer lines between the battles of men-at-arms were angled forward, as well as the "wings" of archers of the whole line, is supported by the wording in several sources, as well as the Gesta specifically describing French helmets getting pierced in the sides. This meeting of forward angled lines of archers attached to the flanks of each battle of men-at-arms would indeed produce a "wedge" shape, but it would most likely be a hollow one, not a solid wedge (triangle) formation as shown on most battle maps of Agincourt….

I am sure this refers to how the prongs are arranged and is not meant to be a reference to the stakes the archers drove into the ground.

Are you really sure? You seem to disagree with some of the more recent academic research.

The term "herce" also shows up in sources as meaning "hedgehog", a reference to archers stakes and pikes ("poles placed in the ground between the archers…"). It appears as if the early interpretations that it means wedge or triangle are wrong.

"Btw, IF we use Curry's minimum number of men-at-arms to go along with her archers (round off to evens), we have only 325 yards left for archers on a field 700 yards wide, which would produce an archer depth of 21 ranks! That is the upper end for depth by the records and the possible field width…."

Of course, these figures are all based on the assumption that a file occupied 1 yard of frontage. As I have shown above, even that assumption is open to question.

Even you seem to agree that more than 16 ranks of archers doesn't make sense so (again using your 1yd per man assumption) that forces the minimum frontage to be just over 800 yds.

I thing that the 36" per man is sound; from antiquity on, until you get to gunpowder weapons. It is a bigger mistake, imho, to take a spacing using totally different weapons and drill, and apply it to earlier periods.

I've already said in earlier discussions on this, that I don't think that the archers stood among their own stakes: they set them, then withdrew behind them. Fighting with sharpened stakes behind where you're standing would be dangerous rather than a defense!

"I thing that the 36" per man is sound; from antiquity on, until you get to gunpowder weapons."

Yes, but on what basis do you get the 36" per man? Fine if you are wielding a big two handed sword or something, then indeed you need a bit of space, but for other weapons where space to wield it is not required, then infantry will most often form up shoulder-to-shoulder. From a military point of view the more men you can fit in a given frontage the greater your fighting power, so why stand so far apart that an enemy could almost step between you?

"It is a bigger mistake, imho, to take a spacing using totally different weapons and drill, and apply it to earlier periods."

On the contrary, you are implying that the introduction of firearms caused a change to the drill and formations of infantry, spacing the men closer together. Where is this change documented? If there is no evidence for such a (fundamental) change then perhaps there was no change? It is interesting to note that as the firepower of firearms has increased, it has led to GREATER dispersion rather then less – which goes against your argument.

Rocky mentioned that Roman sources state the spacing for infantry and cavalry, which works out as c. 3 feet and 4.5 feet respectively. Keegan goes with 3 feet per man in "The Face of Battle." Who am I to argue?

Linear battle goes away first by degrees before the spacing between men gets spread out.

Contamine ("War in the Middle Ages" p. 232) shows how densely packed the Swiss and Flemish phalanxes could be. But they don't MOVE that way; they would require the usual spacing to move and maneuver. Once standing in defensive formation, they could turn sideways and press together. "At 200 men wide and 50 men deep, these troops occupy only 60m x 60m !" That's actually c. 12" per man.

Surely, you are not suggesting that the English or the French packed that close together?

And the variability in frontage, like field width, goes away as a tool for study, unless we use some reasonable assumptions. As spears and bows and horses remain the same, from the Roman empire to the WotR, I see no evidence to assume that the Roman dictum changed much if at all. So 3 feet per man is the best average to study battlefield numbers and ranks with….

It is interesting to note that as the firepower of firearms has increased, it has led to GREATER dispersion rather then less …

True. Spacing between files increased to reduce accidents! A lit match and gunpowder was a dangerous combination.

"Rocky mentioned that Roman sources state the spacing for infantry and cavalry, which works out as c. 3 feet and 4.5 feet respectively."

Can anyone indicate which sources these are?

"Linear battle goes away first by degrees before the spacing between men gets spread out."

Sorry, don't understand this statement at all.

"Contamine ("War in the Middle Ages" p. 232) shows how densely packed the Swiss and Flemish phalanxes could be. But they don't MOVE that way; they would require the usual spacing to move and maneuver. Once standing in defensive formation, they could turn sideways and press together. "At 200 men wide and 50 men deep, these troops occupy only 60m x 60m !" That's actually c. 12" per man.

Surely, you are not suggesting that the English or the French packed that close together?"

Don't know about the French, but the English were fighting a defensive battle and could easily form up at a spacing of 22" per man. Also a body of men formed up in "close order" (i.e 22" per man) can still move without difficulty.

"Linear battle goes away first by degrees before the spacing between men gets spread out."

Sorry, don't understand this statement at all.

Hehe. Me neither, when I went back and read it (AFTER the edit window was closed). It made perfect sense when I wrote it :)

What I meant is that with the invention of personal firearms lines rapidly got thinner, and as you noticed, the frontage per man got narrower, to increase firepower and at the same time reduce casualties due to excessive depth. The spacing between men in firing lines didn't start to widen out, disperse, until the rapid end of linear combat, mainly recognized during the ACW. (and the only thing this has to do with the subject of frontage per man is that we cannot extend backwards to the middle ages a frontage based on entirely different kinds of weapons, ergo, tactics….)

Your reasoning on 22" frontage seems logical enough, but as it derives from "Age of Reason" linear combat with firearms, I can't go with it.

The Roman dictum is more relevant to pre-gunpowder combat. Rocky is just going to have to chime in with the Roman sources: or not, depending….

Hi

I don't off hand remember which sources illustrated this spacing.

Note that in the field, not in tortuse, the romans do not over lap the shields, but have sword or pilum on side. the shield is over 2 feet wide, where is the weapon?

3'

Doors are 30" wide in my house. Stand in front with a "draw position" your elbow actually is out from your body at 90degres and you need that whole 30". Assumeing the elbow isn't touching the sholder of the next guy, you need 36.

If you have two ranks overlapping shooting through each others gaps, row three is shooting blind.

At a launch of CA 200fps, any shot taken at longer than 40 or 50 meters is at high angle. All of which means the guys in back cannot see. Now in armies with a small number of archers, like republican rome, usual bow deployment is very thin and open so that they can see. Regulars start going to formations too deep for direct sight.

Why? Well you are not shooting an an individual guy, but a BIG target. One dozens of yards wide, and 8 or 10 deep or more.

Thus on call, saturating a target makes sense.

Rocky

PV asserts it makes no sense to reduce effectiveness by deapth. History, however is repleat with instances of making that choice. In modern times, shot gun versus slug. automatic versus semi.

"Note that in the field, not in tortuse, the romans do not over lap the shields, but have sword or pilum on side. the shield is over 2 feet wide, where is the weapon?"

The Roman gladius is a stabbing sword, not a slashing sword. So the blade is just to one side of the scutum, thrusting forward. Won't need more than 3" or so more than the width of the shield. Even then the shield is not normally held full face towards the enemy but angled so as to protect the left side as well as the front (that's why it is curved). The pilum was thrown much like a modern javelin so from behind with the body twisted to the right. Not much space needed for that either.

"Doors are 30" wide in my house. Stand in front with a "draw position" your elbow actually is out from your body at 90 degrees and you need that whole 30"."

Look, I'm not an archer. I have shot a bow, but only a lightweight beginner's bow. But even I know that mechanically, if you are pulling ~70lbs on your fingers then the one place your elbow WON'T be is sticking out from your body at 90 degrees! Just take a look at the drawing at step 5 here:
link

The upper arm is at about 45 degrees from horizontal but the elbow is no further forward than his toes.

The elbow goes out to 90 degrees in drawing the bow string back. Rocky didn't mean that you hold the bow with the elbow at 90 degrees. You need the room to do the draw.

What were we arguing about again?

"The elbow goes out to 90 degrees in drawing the bow string back. Rocky didn't mean that you hold the bow with the elbow at 90 degrees. You need the room to do the draw."

Er … no it doesn't. At least not according to the diagram at step 4 here:
link

The upper arm is inclined at about 45 degrees from the horizontal, so doesn't stick out to 90 degrees. (Note the phrase "Keep the elbow of the drawing arm high, as this will help bring into action the back muscles needed to draw the bow to full draw.")

Actually, I just tried Rocky's door trick. My bedroom door is just under 30" wide. I went through the draw action and I needed nowhere near the full width of the door to do so. I got my wife to measure the distance from my back to the tip of my elbow (with my upper arm at 90 degrees to my body and horizontal) and it measured 17".

"What were we arguing about again?"

Well, I don't know about you, but I am trying to establish if there is a case for the archers at Agincourt to have been formed up in close order rather than the somewhat traditional view that they were formed up in order.

Three feet per man IS close order. Then there is, closer.

Arguing about how high an archer's elbow is as he draws is silly. It's a difference of a few inches at most….

"Three feet per man IS close order. Then there is, closer."

Er … no.
Three feet per man is "Order". In his book Military Discipline (1639), Barriffe states explicitly that 'order in file was three foot' and alongside, in the margin, 'The exact place from whence to measure your distance is from the Center of your men, whether it be Rank or File.'

See also:
link

Section 115. Normal file interval is:
"each man except the one on the left extends his left arm laterally at shoulder height, palm of the hand down, fingers extended and joined. Each man, except the one on the right, turns his head and eyes to the right and places himself in line so that his right shoulder touches lightly the tips of the fingers of the man on his right."

That's your "3 feet per man"

Close interval OTOH is:
"To form at close intervals, the commands are: 1. At close interval, 2. FALL IN. At the command Fall in, the men fall in as in a above, except that close interfals are obtained by placing the left hands on the hips as shown in Plate 28. In this position the heel of the palm of the hand rests on the hip, the fingers and thumb are extended and joined, and the elbow is in the plane of the body."

That's ~22" per man.

Notice that the intervals are established using "body measurements" – the oldest form of measurement in the world.

"Arguing about how high an archer's elbow is as he draws is silly. It's a difference of a few inches at most…."

Quite so. But that few inches per man makes a lot of difference across a frontage of 700 to 1000 yds.

This just gets sillier Defined your way (20th century drill? come on), the English army would take twice as much frontage to deploy!

Look, Mike, that's formal parade ground drill spacing. It has zilch to do with defining how close together men stood in a medieval or ancient battleline.

"Three feet per man" is close order, because it is like standing in the center of a box 3 x 3 feet, like chess pieces (archers do it differently when they form to shoot: they offset the "boxes" so as to shoot between the shoulders of the men in front). A man standing within his 3 foot "box", a la Roman style, occupies easily 30" of that space, leaving a foot or less between himself and his gear and the guys to either side. In stopping to form up this spacing would usually be held to; but you could turn sideways and cram together twice as dense on the static defensive, with pikes and such. There would be no individual "fightin' room" though.

"This just gets sillier Defined your way (20th century drill? come on), the English army would take twice as much frontage to deploy!"

??? I referred to 17th century drill (Barriffe) The 20th century drill were just for the illustration of how you get regular spacing without a tape measure – used from time immemorial.

"Look, Mike, that's formal parade ground drill spacing. It has zilch to do with defining how close together men stood in a medieval or ancient battleline."

It hasn't? Why not? Isn't that what drill is all about? Training the men to form up and move about as a unit so that they will do it without thinking on the battlefield.

""Three feet per man" is close order, because it is like standing in the center of a box 3 x 3 feet, like chess pieces"

Where on earth did you get that from? As I said, Barriffe clearly shows "close order" as being closer together than "order" ("order" being 3ft per man).

Hi

I am an archer, and I TRIED to make that draw without my elbow coming up and out.

Now, remember that, in addition, people aren't figs. You can cram figs together, troops moving need space. Hving the archer rub elbows every shot is silly.

Or even close.

R

"I am an archer, and I TRIED to make that draw without my elbow coming up and out."

Of course your elbow will come up and out. I never said it wouldn't. As I said, I am not an archer, but I have shot a bow and know enough about the movements involved to know that when I stood in front of a 30" door, it was more than enough room to draw a bow without contacting another man standing in front of me.

"Now, remember that, in addition, people aren't figs. You can cram figs together, troops moving need space."

But the archers at Agincourt were NOT moving! You imply that men spaced at "close order" (22" per file) cannot move. This is clearly wrong, as witness 20th century drill manoeuvres.

"Having the archer rub elbows every shot is silly."

Agreed, but if 22" is enough room to load and fire a musket then it is also enough room to shoot a longbow. Bear in mind that a soldier firing a musket has his elbow sticking out too …

Okay, given that a 17th century source is directly relevant clear back to the Roman legion, for missile troops, you still have spacing for melee weapons that are not locked lines like pikes. As 3/4ths or more of the English army was light troops with ASSORTED melee weapons, you can hardly expect that they would have formed up closer together than the men-at-arms.

I am with Rocky on this: pulling a bow involves the entire body (rewatch those YouTube videos of 100+ lb longbows being shot; I don't think that English longbowmen did that "dance", but they certainly got their entire upper body into the draw); which your hypothetical 22" per man would have them banging into each other.

But even if we allow as a given that a 17th century GUN source is describing 15th century longbowmen formations: at 22" per man, on the widest field of 1,000 yards, that's 750 yards left for the archers, or 1,227 men wide: that's still 6+ ranks DEEP. Half (or even two-thirds) of the archers cannot see: this is even more true than 3 feet of width per man, because the ranks in front are closer together….

"As 3/4ths or more of the English army was light troops with ASSORTED melee weapons, you can hardly expect that they would have formed up closer together than the men-at-arms."

Where did you get that from? I thought that all the troops that were not men-at arms were archers, not assorted melee weapons.

"I am with Rocky on this: pulling a bow involves the entire body (rewatch those YouTube videos of 100+ lb longbows being shot; I don't think that English longbowmen did that "dance", but they certainly got their entire upper body into the draw); which your hypothetical 22" per man would have them banging into each other."

Certainly drawing a heavy bow involves the entire body. I have indeed watched the YouTube videos and I can see no reason why the draw could not be performed in a 22" width space.

"But even if we allow as a given that a 17th century GUN source is describing 15th century longbowmen formations:"

and why not? As I said before, if there was a change then there would need to be some evidence for such a change. I see none.

"at 22" per man, on the widest field of 1,000 yards, that's 750 yards left for the archers, or 1,227 men wide: that's still 6+ ranks DEEP. Half (or even two-thirds) of the archers cannot see: this is even more true than 3 feet of width per man, because the ranks in front are closer together…."

Yup, don't disagree with that. In fact if you read my contributions on our previous threads you will note that I have always maintained that the archers were about 6 ranks deep.

I thought that all the troops that were not men-at arms were archers, not assorted melee weapons.

Archers, first, melee fighters second. It's how the battle of Agincourt was won: with archers joining in with assorted melee weapons (including stakes!). The fact that they issued out FROM their staked line to attack could be seen as evidence that they were too close together to melee effectively as light troops: but only in the event that the French men-at-arms had attacked the stake line, which they did not, since they ignored the archers entirely.

I have indeed watched the YouTube videos and I can see no reason why the draw could not be performed in a 22" width space.

We'll just have a difference of opinion on that too. I can't begin to expand one of those guys into thousands, all shooting as fast as they could with the guys in front of them weaving forward then back, and not a little side to side as they pull to full draw and release. Trying to avoid each other that packed together wouldn't work.

I have always maintained that the archers were about 6 ranks deep.

Which is fine. Back then (during the earlier discussions) you were also not advancing a hypothesis that the archers were 22" wide per man: so backing up and inserting there what you are saying here, you would not have (then) been arguing for six ranks, but rather less than, because you were not arguing for Curry's 7,000+ archers: iirc, you were going with the "old guys'" "5,000".

But 22" per man at six ranks deep still doesn't answer plastic's objection that all shooting was direct, aimed shooting. Half to two-thirds of your "packed" ranks could not see the target, ergo they shot in volley overhead; and if they could do it at all, they could do it a lot deeper at need….

Hi

Mike, 22"? You said 30 slightly above. Look, 22" with a hundred men, even 10 would end up with people bumping each other.

Ever drill real troops?

R

"But 22" per man at six ranks deep still doesn't answer plastic's objection that all shooting was direct, aimed shooting. Half to two-thirds of your "packed" ranks could not see the target, ergo they shot in volley overhead; and if they could do it at all, they could do it a lot deeper at need…."

Since I don't agree with PV2's suggestion that all shooting was direct, and I have no problem with 2/3 of them not being able to see the target. I don't think you do either since in your deeper proposed formations an even smaller proportion would be able to see.

"Mike, 22"? You said 30 slightly above."

Rocky, please read what I wrote. I said:
1. Napoleonic infantry were formed up in "close order" at 22" per file.
2. That your 30" door was plenty of width in order to draw and shoot a longbow.

"Look, 22" with a hundred men, even 10 would end up with people bumping each other."

Sorry, don't understand this statement.

"Ever drill real troops?"

Yes.

Like a battle-plan, formal spacings go to pot once in the proximity of an enemy. The herse/herce is a triangular iron frame for setting candles on,or a harrow which can both have offset rows of tines or triangular form. froissarts deployment for Crecy sounds very similar to that at Agincourt. An interesting factor is that archers stood in front of the men-at-erms at Crecy but that seems uncertain at Agincourt.Monstrelet, however, says they were.

The original discussion hinged on shooting indirectly.
There is no evidence for English archers shooting indirectly.

It is false to assume the battlefield width is a constant which allows variables to be determined with greater accuracy because we dont know how the battlefield looked on the day or where the battle was joined.

We know the English had an adequate battle-line at two places,where they started and where the battle was fought.

The larger French army was not crammed into the battlefield but as a result of their behaviour in the field (andMAYBE some projecting archer positions between the men-at-arms formations) crammed together in three places. So why could there not be space for the smaller English army ? The French van was larger than the English army yet expected to fight on the same frontage AND allow space for cavalry to operate on both flanks.

p.s. the archery diagrams are of no relevance. medieval archers shot with their front foot pointed at the target and drew away fromthe chest. This backs Rockys point that some space is needed to get a shot away and cramming does impede shooting.

p.p.s.Anne Curry seemsto believe there were archers in the woods shooting out. It is not necessary to draw a hard and fast margin to the battlefield.

Hi

So, when you formed up, "elbows" or outstreached arm?

r

"p.s. the archery diagrams are of no relevance. medieval archers shot with their front foot pointed at the target and drew away from the chest."

Er … yeah. That's what the diagrams illustrate .. apart from a slight change to the position of the front foot.

What evidence can you offer to support this shooting posture?

"So, when you formed up, "elbows" or outstreached arm?"

Both.

look at manuscripts for the draw.
Forming up – who knows, a pace, enough space to shoot, all ancient formations are relative, it is useless to talk of inches. The main point is they must not be bunched-up and must be able to drawe arrows from the belt or take them from the ground where they have space to stand up to 60 arrows,

Nobody with any evidence for English archers shooting indirectly ?

Plastic: I am not aware of Curry supporting any conjecture of archers IN the woods.

Of course the field isn't fixed at a given width; we've been admitting that the whole time. But the range of possible width and her minimum numbers makes half or more of the archers shooting "blind".

I asked you to map out how all the archers could see to shoot direct, aimed fire. I know I can't come up with anything that shows that; maybe you are more clever. So, "show me".

The French vanguard wasn't larger than the English army. It was approximately the same size or smaller. The whole French army was probably 6,000, 3,000 and 3,000, van to rearguard.

Monstrelet's description can mean the archers were angled forward; other sources describe the archers going "first, on the right and also on the left", i.e. forward-angled wings. This is most likely how Crecy was set up too: with the archer bodies forward of and on either side of the men-at-arms battles, making it easy for the French cavalry to "coast" the archers, i.e. go around them, and attack the men-at-arms instead. Other than a few archers perhaps in front of the battles of men-at-arms, I don't think that the English typically placed their archers directly in front of their men-at-arms….