"Mounted crossbowmen" Topic

Late 15th century mounted crossbowmen.

They look very good, congrats!

They look great! Who makes them?

Very nicely done!!

Jim

> Who makes them?

Looks like Perry plastic as a base modified with greenstuff to me.

Great job!

Only one is a Perry plastic. Three of the others are metal Perrys (one with a headswap), and all of them have been put on metal Perry horses rather than the plastic horses they are designed for (the metals are conveniently smaller and more suitable for these troops I feel). The fifth one is actually a conversion of a Wargames Foundry sculpt, given new plastic Perry legs and right hand.

Fooled by select parts :-)

The amount of careful modelling going into these units is astonishing.

I never heard of mounted crossbowmen. Is that a real thing?

I wondered the same thing. Not really my era of armies but I had not heard of them either.

Mounted crossbowmen certainly existed – the question is whether they actually used their crossbows from horseback or not, or whether they were just mounted infantry (or acted like dragoons).

I plan to have a very small number of them, and they will be only used in certain scenarios, where they will represent scouts and such.

There is always the discussion over whether mounted crossbow men ever fired when mounted. It is my belief that they did.

However, I take the same approach that you seem to have taken – just don't use figures that are in a firing pose. It allows me to switch position if I need to.

Mounted crossbowmen certainly existed – the question is whether they actually used their crossbows from horseback or not, or whether they were just mounted infantry (or acted like dragoons).

And one possible explanation is that both of these types of crossbowmen existed.

The tricky part of operating a crossbow horseback is likely not the actual shooting part, but spanning the bow for the next shot. Apparently, with the suitable loading equipment (cranequin?) that became available in the late Middle Ages, it became practical to re-load on horseback. Probably lighter crossbows with lower draw weight would be easier to operate when mounted.

Thus, suitably equipped and well-practiced mounted crossbowmen would likely be able to shoot and reload their weapons while mounted with moderare effectiveness. Of course, should tactical conditions require they could of course opt to dismount and operate on foot.

Other crossbowmen may have been provided provided horses for transport, but lacked suitable equipment or expertise to operate effectively while mounted, and thus would always dismount before action.

As for areas known to feature mounted crossbowmen, 15th century Italy, Switzerland and Germany are the most well-known.

Someone has put together a load of medieval art showing mounted crossbowmen.
YouTube link

Using artwork is always fraught with interpretation issues and some (many?) of these are fanciful.
I think the most reliable ones showing the crossbow being using from horseback in this video are probably from the various Swiss chronicles,
The Hausbuch Wolfegg

has some great pictures of mounted crossbowmen but on the march rather than in combat. link for a zoomable version
They do tally well, though, with the depiction in the Kriegsbuch of Philipp Mönch
Some other pictures in the kriegsbuch are fanciful but this one seems okay – unless you don't believe in mounted crossbowmen in whcih case he has added a fanciful element!
The overall arrangement of the armies isn't identical to Philipp von Seldeneck's description link but has similarities though Seldeneck recommends mounted handgunners rather than crossbowmen. Again, this is a manual recommending tactics rather than a definite description, so the usual caveats apply.

See a Hungarian crossbowman shooting mounted in Chronica Hungarorum of Thuróczy János, Hungary, 1488

mirror site
a Hungarian crossbowman shooting mounted in Chronica Hungarorum of Thuróczy János, Hungary, 1488

Druzhina
15th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers