"Was the longbow effective vs. infantry" Topic

Just wandering. It seems that WotR armies mostly fought dismounted, and all used equivalent complements of archers, which I've heard "cancelled each other out." Furthermore, the mercenary longbowmen in Charles the Bold's employ sure didn't seem to help him out much.

The longbow was very effective against infantry. They cancelled each other out because the bowmen were fairly well matched on both sides in many cases and neither side had the advantage. They were not able to easily destroy men at arms in full plate but they were able to slow them down by forcing them to dismount.

Furthermore, the mercenary longbowmen in Charles the Bold's employ sure didn't seem to help him out much.

If you are referring to the battles of Grandson, Morat and Nancy, the missile units were not deployed in the ideal fashion, ie. massed in well-sited position.

Grandson was largely a meeting engagement, in Morat most of the defenders were out of position when attack came, and in Nancy the Burgundians were heavily outnumbered and attacked both from front and flank.

"They were not able to easily destroy men at arms in full plate but they were able to slow them down by forcing them to dismount."

The longbow was deadly at close range, even against plate armour.

Well Charles did actually get at least decent service from his archers in the battles before the Swiss war. Indeed the performance of the archers at Brusthem was quite good just as it had been in the Ghentish war of the 1450's.
At Grandson the archers wounded many Swiss but killed few, at Morat the outnumbered archers shot up part of the Vorhut effectively but the Swiss rapidly turned the flank of the fortifications.

In the WOTR the archers seems to have expended their arrows shooting up each other in several battles. (At least as far as we can tell from the limited sources). The mutual murderousness of this type of archery duel were noted already in the HYW were for example Waurin remarked on the archery duel between the Scots and the English archers at Verneuil. Skill, arrow supplies and the armour worn would determine the outcome of these duels.

In other battles one side gained the advantage over the other, Tewkesbury is an example of this as Yorkist had the advantage thanks to a combination of archery and artillery.

One should not forget that the archers would have played an important part in the melee as well. Well equipped archers such as those of John Howard and the English & French veterans of the last decades of the HYW were well armoured and woudl have been effective fighters in hand to hand combat as they joined in with longsword, sword&buckler or polearms. Indeed the Bridport muster roll shows that even a fair number of levied archers would have been well equipped for the melee.
One man actually being equipped with sallet, Jack, breastplate, gauntlets, warbow, dagger and pollaxe.
Other archers in the roll had spears, glaives and bills in addition to their bows.

Wasn't there some photo's posted a while back of a huge group of Eastern European reenactment archers letting off a volley? It showed a good idea of how effective archers were…
Mick

Well Charles did actually get at least decent service from his archers in the battles before the Swiss war.

Though in the siege of Neuss they also managed to start a famous fight in the camp, and almost shot an arrow through Chuck when he showed up to calm them.

Not AGAIN! TMP link scroll c. halfway down for TMP links. The longbow gets discussed often here, and most often associated with the battle of Agincourt….

The longbow was COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE against infantry. So bring on your foot troops and attack my Burgundians deployed in a defensive position with longbowmen.

Longbow … an effective, expensive and finite resource.

The longbow was COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE against infantry.

That's just crazy talk. Ask the French at Agincourt and Poitiers, ask the Scots at any number of battles from Halidon Hill to Flodden, check in with Hotspur at Shrewsbury.

It's true that they were less effective against heavily armored infantry. The longbow were effective in the English tactical system, which was defensive in nature. So no, I don't think I'd be running out longbowmen against Burgudians in a defensive position--sounds like a wargamers wet dream, but not terrifically historical.

K

KSmyth,
I think he was being facetious.

Daniel, I would like to ask your opinion on the Bridport Muster Roll. Do you think it was representative for England? The only reason I bring this up is that Dorset was one of the richest parts of the country at the time, and Bridport was, well, a port, and armed against French raids.

That said, from foreign accounts from the time seem to show that the English archers were indeed equipped with a lot of good eqipment, so if Dorset archers were well armed, the rest of the country couldn't be too far behind, especially in Marcher territories and the North.

As for the effectiveness of archers and the "canceling out" idea- HYW archery was usually one-sided. The English archers outnumbered and outclassed their opposing numbers (usually Crossbowmen). Further, they were usually the best picked men that went to France. Same goes for the Scottish Wars where archery was so devastating.

However when both sides have large numbers of good archers, most of the shooting would likely be at extreme range, to inflict damage without having to face enemy arrows at effective range. Certainly Fauconberg's trick at Towton counted on fire being returned almost immediately. The first Yorkist attack at Northampton was stopped cold by archery (the Lancastrians behind works would have been less vulnerable to shooting).

TPC

Bodkin point.

The longbow was COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE against infantry.

That's just crazy talk. Ask the French at Agincourt and Poitiers, ask the Scots at any number of battles from Halidon Hill to Flodden, check in with Hotspur at Shrewsbury

I think that is called SARCASM! It's just been invented to lull your opponent into a false sense of superiority.

KSmyth,I think he was being facetious.

See, he got it….

Captain,
The Bridport roll is the only detailed document to survive, the only partially published Ewelme roll does not provide the same level of detail regarding the equipment but merely notes "harness", "whole harness" or "no harness" as far as the defensive equipment is concerned. (Information about the arms is equally limited)
So one must be very carefull when using these documents, I would certainly never claim that the Bridport roll is typical of all "arrayed men". Clearly the level of equipment possesed varied depending on the wealth or lack of it of an area.

But it raised important questions abotu classic interpretatiosn of the nature of WOTR armies. For example it shows that 69% of the listed polearms were owned by men who were archers. Thus it can not be used as proof of the existence of large numbers of 'billmen' raised by commison of array. (Many descriptions of the Bridport roll only lists the number of weapons which gives the impression that you had one set of men armed with bows, another set with mixed polearms and a variety of secondary arms such as daggers & swords spread between the two groups.

IMHO there was a considerable diffrence between the 'professional' archers serving in retinues in France or England and the men raised by commission of array. Indeed there was probably diffrences among the retainers as well as minor nobles & gentry would not have been able to equipp men as lavishly as John Howard. There is also the question of wether all great lords did issue equipment at that level as Howard.

French eyewitnesses certainly suggest that a lot of English archers were very well equipped indeed. "mostly armed with brigandines, leg armour and sallets, of who the majority were glittering with silver, or at least had good jacks and haubergeons."
With this level of armour it is no wonder that Talbot's archers were willing to assault the entrenchments at Castilion.

The HYW archery contests is to some extent an example of the historical record being distorted. Even as late as 2005 you can find 'English' historians turning a blind eye to primary sources which provide a diffrent view of these contests. Oddly enought they have no trouble using the very same sources (Le Baker and Waurin to name two) when the content favour the English. So the mutually murderous nature of the archery at Verneuil gets left out as do the fact that the English archery failed to defeat the French crossbowmen at Poitiers not to mention that the later were still shooting in support of the last French attack.

While massed archery often gave the English an advantage it was not all as one side as is assumed nor was English victory in the archery contest automatic even when facing crossbows.

ask the Scots at any number of battles from Halidon Hill to Flodden

Actually the primary sources show that the English archery was quite ineffective against most of the Scots at Flodden.

"The Scots were so surely harnessed with complete harness, German jacks, rivets, splents, pavises and other habiliments, that shot of arrows in regard did them no harm"

"They were so well appointed…with arms and harness… that few of them were slain with arrows"

That may be true Daniel S, but the longbow forced the Scots to pay points for upgrades to EHI armor.

EHI… bad memories. About twenty years ago I played my Wars of the Roses army against an acquaintance who had a Burgundian army, using Gush' Renn rules. I was inexperienced, but soon realized he was trying to hustle and swindle me every way he could, and that was BEFORE the game began. On top of that, his troops were held to the bases with fun tac, and before my eyes he rebased his Crossbowmen as skirmishers.

When the fun began, I found my massed archers couldn't scratch his "EHI Skirmishers". He sat there shooting my units down like grouse while I ran out of ammo to no effect. Even though it ended as a draw, the shock of seeing a system "gamed" like that made me reconsider the hobby!

TPC

Skirmish order is extended "open order", i.e. twice the space between men as even open order. The answer for the English is to also adopt skirmish order with their half-harness troops; then out-shoot the crossbowmen. If you were forced to shoot from a dense volleying formation, then those rules either suck or you were being manipulated….

was it not the case that by the WoTR, the best trained longbow men were off shore?

so while there were plenty of them in the battles, they were not the tip top condition professional fighters which were sent to Agincourt and Crecy in earlier years.

Yes. The "hand-picked" were there but so were the main mass of archers, who were not of the same calibre or physical prowess as the hand-picked lot. To reflect this in our rules, we make the WotR armies "up to 25%" with the usual "warbow", and the bulk of archers use a weaker bow (we even reflect Roger Ascham's "one man in ten" who uses a bow more powerful than the standard for the warbow; in earlier discussions -- see the links I referenced -- Rocky Russo and I hypothesize that it was these elite archers who later were recruited to Henry VIII's warships)….

There is a lot of time from 1356 to 1415, which allowed for a lot of innovation.

If the field of Agincourt had not been rain-soaked history might have been very different. The histories are heavily politicized…both regents needed a victory to consolidate their rule. Henry got his. Thus French chronicles wrote their histories in the midst of what was more less a civil war and English chroniclers wrote theirs to promote Henry.
I consider Crecy (1346) the high-water mark of the longbow. Poitiers and Agincourt both had other factors which contributed as much as the longbow.

But back to the innovations…the armor worn at Poitiers and the armor worn at Agincourt were very different. Recall that the French actually made it across the field to English lines at Agincourt, under arrows the whole way, only to be chopped down by the archers themselves.

Consider this:

At about 4pm, as if by some prearranged signal, the two hosts advanced simultaneously. Once Bedford had taken his troops within arrow range he ordered a halt and the archers started to drive their stakes into the ground, a simple but effective device for snaring cavalry. The ground had been baked hard by the summer sun, and the stakes could be forced in only with difficulty. Seeing an opportunity the French began an immediate charge out of synchrony with the Scots division. The archers on Bedford's extreme right were caught off balance (the tough armour worn by the Lombards may also have compounded the threat), allowing the French cavalry to break through their ranks, leaving that flank dangerously exposed. The opportunity was lost when the cavalry failed to wheel round. They continued their charge away towards the baggage train to the north, while the men-at-arms in Bedford's division began a spirited attack on the French infantry to their front. Unable to withstand the onslaught, Narbonne's division broke and was chased back to Verneuil, where many, including Aumale, were drowned in the moat.

So you can see above, archers facing armored horse on hard ground get their comeupance.

I suggest reading _Agincourt: A New History_ Anne Curry
link

The French failed to adopt the longbow. Why? I think this is because dealing with the English was only one of the multitude of matters the French had to deal with over the Hundred Years War. The English could only occasionally field archers on the scale they did. All longbow armies did not emerge. We always hear 'the long training' it took to become an archer a factor. Of course knights were also dedicated warriors and very costly…yet there never seems to be a shortage. I don't buy 'class' distinctions because frankly there were tremendous innovations going on in European society of the time. What difference would another make?

So far as WotR go I would compare the ratios of archers deployed in the classic 'longbow' battles e.g. Poitiers and Agincourt against those at WotR. I would bet the ratios of archers is lower. I assume WotR is War of the Roses? The battles I see for it are mostly on a smaller scale…yet longbowmen do not seem to dominate.

My 2 cents.

Hello Honcho,

You make some good points about quality of armour and the state of France politically at Agincourt. However I would disagree with you concerning the nature of the French army up to the post-war reforms, and the impact of the longbow. Expense was not the issue for why the nation did not adopt the longbow.

While the English passed laws limiting the use of Mercenaries on their soil (12-13th C), France did not. England armed their citizens who were more socially and politically free than their French counterparts, and ordered them to train with the longbow. The French rulers did the reverse- they did not want their citizen to be well-armed (due to the number of revolts they faced). Also, the middle class developed much slower in France, so money was more concentrated with the Nobility who could afford better equipment.

Please understand that this is a GROSS oversimplification of the situation (and I'm no expert in the period), but it might explain why France continued to field Knight/Mercenary foot armies almost until the Italian Wars.

So I don't think it was a case of the longbow being overrated. The French found ways to defeat the longbow- guns at Formigny (1450), fortifications at Castillon (1453), and a series of ambush/surprise battles in the previous decades (Bauge, Herrings, etc).

TPC

The French failed to adopt the longbow.

From the 1440's onwards they seemed to be quite keen on increasing the number of bowmen in their armies.

The regular ordonnance companies established in 1444 or so tended to have each lance consisting of 1 gendarme, 1 coustillier, 2-3 archers (though these eventually evolved into lance-armed cavalry) and 1-2 valets/pages. The later Burgundian ordonnance forces utilised a similar lance, though adding to it an infantry element (pikeman, handgunner and crossbowman).

Additionally in 1448 there was established the corps of Francs archers, a sort of militia force that could be gathered in times of need. Initially around 8000 strong, they later on numbered around 14000 altogether.

Hi

But Grief, that they were called archers on paper doesn't demonstrate they showed up or what their equipment looked like.

R

According to Gerry Embleton the French ordinance from 1448 stated that a Francs Archier was supposed to be equipped with "huque of brigandine or jack, salade, sword, dagger, bow, quiver or crossbow".

As for the required equipment for the French ordonnance troops, I have not seen detailed list.

For the Burgundian ordonnance forces, I don't think that there is any question on whether the archers were expected to bring bows or not.

The equipment for both Ordonnance archers and the Francs-archers is well described thanks to a wide variety of sources.

There are no doubts that the Ordonnance archers were armed with longbows, Late HYW sources describe them thus "The archers wear leg armour, salets, heavy Jacks lined with linnen or brigandines, bow in hand and quiver at side". They are also consistently called "archiers", never "arbalestriers"
The French sources describe both French and English mounted archers in the very same terms. The main difference is that leg armour is mentioned more often as part of the French equipment.

The Ordonnace archers used the longbow well into the Italian wars, in 1494 Italian eyewitnesses mentioned the large bows carried by the OA and the engraving of the battle of Fornovo shows dismounted archers supporting the Swiss pikemen. Detailed 1510 painting shows French longbowmen in action during the conquest of Genoa in 1507. They are illustrated alonside accurately portrayed Swiss pikemen, Gendarmes and Stradiots.

The Francs-Archers are much more diffult because not only did the original 1448 regulation allow for the men to be armed with either bow or crossbow but the new regulation issued in 1466 actually laid down 4 diffrent types of "Francs-Archers": archers, crossbowmen, voulgiers and spearmen.
As few muster rolls survive it is all but impossible fidn out how many of each was raised. The roll for Compiegne is a rare survivor, it shows 20 archers, 2 spearmen and 1 crossbowman.
Just to cause further confusion there is an example of a man listed as a "Francs-Arbalestrier" who is actually equipped as a voulgier. Another town record shows 30 men but these are called both Francs-Archers and Francs-Arbalestrier not to mention that the town armoury only mantained 20 crossbows for these 30 men.

Clearly the terms "Francs-Archer" & "Francs-Arbalestrier" must be considered generic terms just as the commonly used "Gens de Trait" which can mean both archer and crossbowman.

The best thing to to is look at the original text to se if the author uses "archier" or "arbalestrier"

It should be noted that the Francs-Archers were a more or less a copy of the archer "militia" establised in Brittany in 1425. The Dukes regulations actually stated that even the minor gentry were to equipp themselves as archers if they knew how to use a bow.

So the French did actually did adopt the longbow, France, Brittany and Burgundy all fielded increasingly large numbers of longbowmen in the 15th Century. Clearly they had learned the hard way that if you can't beat them, join them.