"Hussite Wagon Forts explained..." Topic

YouTube link

An excellent description of how these unusual weapons worked.

Barry

Thanks. I'll watch that when I get the chance.

Good one.
Seems that the Hussites by chance stumbled over this one and unleashed a host of imitations around western and eastern Europe, up to the Gulay-Gorods of Russia.

Jan Ziska saw warwagons used in Poland, IIRC.

But what made it work was the ferocious discipline of the Hussites under Ziska.

Wagon crews were standardized, with each member having well-defined roles. They could cover 2x the distance of a typical late medieval army on the march, due to having dedicated engineers. They even managed a successful night breakout attack.

It was leadership and morale that made them lethal, not just wagons.

Interesting combinations of words from the speech to text subtitles.

This is very interesting. Ditto to Jim's comment above about the subtitles but if you get rid of that it was good. I was distracted by the to much uniformity of the address of the various participants everybody was dressed the same which I doubt. Nevertheless I found it very informative especially about the numbers of troops involved on each wagon and the roles they played.

@Lucius
I am interested in any usage of warwagons that predates the Hussites, especially when they inspired this specific line. Do you have any sources or battles where wagons were used other then a defended lager?

Afaik the first usage of the Hussites was when their army was surprised by a superior force and all they could do was to defend their train, which was so effective they made it a tactic, which then led to wagons specifically build for battlefield usage. I have to admit however that several lines of military warfare, especially in Eastern Europe, leave great gaps in my knowledge.