"Agincourt, bow fire, and summing up" Topic

Okay, I thought a "fresh" thread (for anyone interested in continuing this discussion) might be welcome. I have written up my version of where I (and I assume Rocky) am coming from:

(I am quoting from the chart based on William A. "The Knight and the Blast Furnace", provided by Cap'n Gars in one of his links in the other thread TMP link ).

At a c. 30 degree impact angle, an arrow from a 100# bow would require 230 Joules (J) (280 if padded) to defeat steel armor with 0.5% Carbon content, aircooled in the heat treating process. The chart shows that an axe or sword generates 60-130 J. An arrow generates only 80 J. A crossbow bolt 100-200 J. An early 14th century handgun generates 250 J. Mid 15th century handguns 500-1000 J. An Arquebus (1475+) generates 1300 J. And a Musket (1525+)generates 2300 J.

Okay, now, we know that knights died in battle, slugging it out with each other. Yet the research shows that for all their banging away with sword or axe, no hits were effective, being only capable of c. 60-130 J, yet the armor requiring a minimum of 230 J to be overcome. So how are they being killed? Obviously by attacking the weak spots in the defenses and avoiding hitting the plate itself as much as possible. It wouldn't matter if the armor were made of titanium, it would still have the same number of weak spots because of the need for joints and the need of the wearer to breathe. This is where the arrows that are effective are striking.

A suit of plate has a high 80th percentile of glancing surfaces presented to the archer. This means that fully 90% plus of the arrows which strike the man at arms are going to glance off wasted. So far so good. The one in ten (or less) are going to strike an area which is weak. But the vast majority of these also are going to cause no appreciable damage, because of the interferring padding,
mail and plates positioned to deflect arrows away from the joints. (And any warrior who goes into battle against an anticipated arrow storm without his visor is just asking to get an arrow in the face – yet the evidence indicates that a number of knights always took their visors off, to increase their ability to see and breathe easily: we assume such men at arms advanced toward the longbowmen with their faces kept down.) But a percentage of those hits into the weak spots – and into the flanks and rear where the armor plate is thinnest – will get through.

Also, the quoted test results replicated a 30 degree impact angle. This is deemed to be an average impact angle. Actually, from experience, a 30 degree impact angle against a vertical surface must be well outside of 100 yards for a 100# bow, because my c. 55# bow would enter a vertical surface at virtually no impact angle all the way out to 50 yards, and up to 100 yards the impact angle was well under 30 degrees. So these tests are replicating long to middle range shooting, not pointblank. The greatest damage would have come at pointblank range, or c. 70 yards with a 70# bow, further out for a 100# bow.

It took the French men at arms c. 5 minutes to close the distance of 300 yards to the English army (at Agincourt). They had to traverse a muddy plowed field, otherwise it would have taken c. three minutes. If we only allow the earlier estimation of 5,000 archers (but the latest research shows 7,000 to 8,000), shooting six rounds each (in volley) every minute, this is 150K arrows into c. 8,000 men at arms, at decreasing range, until the last shots are into their flanks at pointblank range as they finally close with the English men at arms for melee.

If only 2,000 of those 150K struck effectively we would produce 25% casualties before the melee even began. 2,000 out of 150K is only .013 effective hits, or 1% of the total volume actually striking into the weak spots effectively.

If you consider that half of the arrow volley misses altogether (the result of trajectory shooting), then we are anticipating c. 75K of the total arrows landing where they can possibly hit the men at arms. 90% of these are wasted on the armor's glancing surfaces, leaving 7,500 arrows which hit weak, exposed spots. That is just about one effective hit per man at arms in the French first battle, during the entire advance.

Now, did all of those hits on weak spots do mortal injury? No. In fact, a rough (perhaps generous) estimate would be c. 10% mortal injuries (no vital organs are being pierced, and face hits would only account for a quarter or less of the total hits into exposed/weak areas of the defense), 25% serious, incapacitating injuries, 55% slight injuries, an unknowable percentage of which cause the faint-hearted to panic and bail out of the fight (i.e. rout), and finally 10% anomalies: arrows protruding far enough into the armor to "bite" the wearer each time he tries to use his weapon, or maneuver, thus rendering him useless in the hand to hand combat. In this hypothetical breakdown, we are considering c. one quarter of the effective hits as positively out of the battle, thus leaving the rest to reach the English men at arms for melee with having suffered c. 23% casualties. The seriously wounded and routed and ruined would still largely be there as the French rolled up to the English line.

But 23% casualties is enough to cause a unit to rout. Statistically, on the average (according to John Keegan, The Face of Battle) military units will rout (if they are going to) at c. 15% casualties. The French surely suffered at least that much – counting all the men at arms shot out of the battle from mortal to incapacitating wounds – before they got to the English lines. The melee against overwhelming odds pushed them finally to the breaking point: the combination of demoralizing and punishing arrow storm during the advance, their own exhaustion, and the English archers nimbly knocking them down into the mud in increasing numbers with their axes and mauls, finally made the first battle break.

Total French dead at Agincourt are estimated at 4K to 8K. Most of these happened as the killing of the prisoners and mercy killings the next morning. But we can see that statistically it is likely that anywhere from 500 to over 1,000 men at arms had been mortally wounded during that first advance. And out of a total volume of 75K "hits" into the target zone, that is only 1% effective hits causing death, or only about one in every 100 arrows that hits a given man at arms: his armor deflects away 90 plus percent of them, the rest which hit his weak/exposed spots are also not effective enough to kill, although his injuries suffered will likely put him effectively out of the battle c. 2.5% to 5% of the time. And if he is fainthearted, any "bite" through his armor will make him rout.

So from the above, you can gather I do consider the arrows the single most effective element of the English victory. But the mud, and resulting French exhaustion (in which the arrows also played a large part), contributed in allowing the English to win the melee.

Very well thought out and argued. I am curious though, as to whether every one of those French knights/men-at-arms would have been completely covered. I don't imagine every one would have been completely encased. Would not some have only partial armor, and wouldn't that have a perportional effect on the number of lethal hits?

Not contesting anything, I am just curious about that one supposition.

Jason

Interesting post but as we are speculating here, I would speculate that the mud was a much greater factor in the French defeat that was the English bow fire.

Five minutes to cover a muddy field in what I am presuming to be plate armor seems a bit quick to me, but I am guessing you have something that shows that this was the time period. Certainly 'some' might make it in 5 minutes, but I speculate that an 'organized' unit of the French making that trip in 5 minutes would hardly be the case.

Secondly, the French attack was 'funneled', which would cause a great deal of confusion in the ranks and would literally cause many to simply fall into the mud. It is much more difficult to get up out of mud wearing plate armor than it is wearing something made of cloth.

It would seem to me that the English archery would have been much more effective against the mounted French cavalry's horses than it would have been against the armored knight himself. The iron tipped English arrows would seem to have a greater difficulty penetrating the then steel armor of the French.

Just my two cents worth.

Hi,

The energy figures are somewhat misleading.
Just because a sword etc does a certain amount of "energy" which is insufficient to "defeat" armour does not mean that the force of the blow just disappears or is dissipated without effect.

If you bring a sword down on a man's head, it may not cut his steel helmet in two but it will rattle his brains, compress his spine or break a collar bone. You don't need weak points to down an armoured man, just enough brute force to render the soft pulpy bits inside to jelly.

Having actually been shot at with a bow (don't ask), the force of a single arrow from a simple 40lb hunting bow is disconcerting indeed. I would not want to be on the receiving end of anything more than that even in armour.

Hi

Hm.

For raw number consideration, an arrow launced for maximum range is loosed at 43degrees and impacts at 54degrees.

I had read that the chisel tip of the armor piercing point was designed to redirect the arrow on impact into the surface at zero. I did some tests with sheet steel plates at various angles so I could test this and found that, indeed the chisel point did have that effect, pivot straight.

A normal flight point, conical tip, doesn't do this.

R

Hmmm indeed. I watched a documentary recently where they took an armor plate of the type the French Knights would have been wearing at the time, and an arrow tip of the type the English would have had at the time.

Using all their new fancy equipment to recreate the situation, the arrow tip simply crumpled upon impact.

:-)

If you bring a sword down on a man's head, it may not cut his steel helmet in two but it will rattle his brains, compress his spine or break a collar bone. You don't need weak points to down an armoured man, just enough brute force to render the soft pulpy bits inside to jelly.

=D Very graphically spoken: "pulpy bits", I like that particularly. And the point is well made. Imagine getting hit by c. 100 arrows! Of course, you would be one of the less fortunate to "attract" that kind of attention, but some did I imagine.

Still, the energy required does point out that it was better to first incapacitate your opponent, i.e. knock him down, then finish him off through the vulnerable spots. I am sure that this is exactly what general blows to the body were intended to do. No one (except "Conan" – or, in my and Rocky's experience, "the Crazy Ranger!", had be been born at the place and time) was expecting to "get through" the steel plate first.

Very well thought out and argued. I am curious though, as to whether every one of those French knights/men-at-arms would have been completely covered. I don't imagine every one would have been completely encased. Would not some have only partial armor, and wouldn't that have a perportional effect on the number of lethal hits?

Yes, Cap'n and the others discussed this on the other thread, in passing at least.

Rocky and I believe that the typical French man at arms would have been wearing a lot of older stuff. It passed "muster" with the requirements for "full harness." I forget which original source it was now, but the description has mail past the knee, a mail coif, a bascinet and plate ("white") harness on the chest and legs. A lot of men at arms would have done with a "coat of plates" brigandine rather than a form-fitted steel breastplate. The point being, that yes, a lot of men at arms would have been wearing something less than Milanese state-of-the-art steel plate.

Added to this is the assumed increased numbers of longbowmen according to Currey, et al. It just gets worse.

If GRPitts is right, it just gets worse. Sure, more archers and longer firing time makes the longbow less effective, because we only have the results of all that arrow storm: that doesn't get worse just because of more archers and a longer shooting "window". We have c. 500 to 1,000 DEAD Frenchies in anycase.

GRPitts:

I don't see bunching as a problem. It sounds more like the French first battle divided into three columns to target the positions where their English counterparts were standing. (I don't accept the Osprey – "new and revised" – maps showing the English in a single massed center battle of men at arms. That ignores too many of the original source descriptions of the English triple-battle formation and subsequent French three-pronged attack.

I have never seen the Osprey book so I simply do not know what they say. If it's like the few I have purchased, I can very well understand your statement.

Still, the topography of the battlefield would seem to support that the French attack, no matter how it started, did in fact 'bunch up', or was funneled by virtue of the terrain. If you have ever tried to walk along a very muddy ridge or slope, you can very well understand why a man in armor would seek to stay on the level part of the land rather than walking the slope.

Someone suggested that perhaps 10% of the arrows fired hit a 'critical' spot, and while I feel this is way too high, let's say it was only one percent for the sake of speculation.

If, using the example of "7,500" hits we reduce that to only 750 hits, there is still a significant issue. In a crowd, or cramped formations, each man that goes down will affect some ten others in the formation. With 750 hits, it is very easy to believe that 7,500 men went down into the mud, creating quite a mess, further complicating the ability of the attacker to push forward on the field.

Just another two cents worth.

:-)

Bear in mind that the stress of combat reduces the effectiveness of shooting many fold.

Recent (1980's) studies showed a ten-fold degradation in shooting accuracy between target shooting and laser simulations and a further ten-fold decrease in actual combat.

I suspect you are massively overstating the number of arrows actually on target in your analysis. The stress of a bunch of guys walking through your arrow storm to kill you would presumably have a more significant impact than merely a 50% reduction given the 100-fold reduction with modern weapons.

That combined with your percentage wounds per hit figure which seems reasonable to me, suggests far fewer arrow casualties than you are estimating.

Assuming 15% casualties before breaking (a figure that stacks up over a wide period of time) and 50% of them from hand-to-hand casualties, I'd pick more like 600 arrow casualties of all types (about 150 kills, 450 wounded and out of battle). With you c. 5% of hits causing casualties, that is 12,000 hits or 8% hits from theoretical possible shots (and 0.4% casualties per shot), a reduction of a factor of 6 more than your estimate.

Now, before you say "that's far too low", muskets fired in battle at effective range in the early 1700's were scoring 0.2% kills! That's only 300 kills (without armour) by your 150,000 arrows for a weapon that was considered effective at the time.

Cheers

YatesP,

You are quite "On Target" with your numbers.

And indeed, with the battlefield only being some 1,000 yards wide of level ground, I feel the evidence of the French attack being 'funneled', because of topography and circumstance, to be quite credible.

- Greg

If you crunch the same numbers on a french victory, how well does the model work?

A French victory? Now that's asking a lot!

:-)

Recent (1980's) studies showed a ten-fold degradation in shooting accuracy between target shooting and laser simulations and a further ten-fold decrease in actual combat.

But this is speaking to the situation where you are getting shot back at. The English at Agincourt shot with complete impunity. I doubt that their effectiveness was lowered at all until the French started to get close. And even then, it wasn't the archers that the French were closing with. The archers waited until the French had clashed with their men at arms, then moved out and attacked the French flanks.

I suspect you are massively overstating the number of arrows actually on target in your analysis. The stress of a bunch of guys walking through your arrow storm to kill you would presumably have a more significant impact than merely a 50% reduction given the 100-fold reduction with modern weapons.

Perhaps, except that we are talking about trajectory clout shooting (and the French were not moving to attack the archers). Either it was effective at dropping a copious amount of the expended ammunition more or less on the target, or it wasn't. I suspect that the mandatory, weekly practice of longbowmen in groups made them very proficient indeed at judging the range to target. Clout shooting is actually very easy. And the target of a body of men at arms slogging though mud is SLOW, i.e. not difficult to range to. Assuming half the arrows as being outside the "clout" is probably close, but it might in fact be an over-statement of innacuracy.

Assuming 15% casualties before breaking (a figure that stacks up over a wide period of time) and 50% of them from hand-to-hand casualties, I'd pick more like 600 arrow casualties of all types (about 150 kills, 450 wounded and out of battle). With you c. 5% of hits causing casualties, that is 12,000 hits or 8% hits from theoretical possible shots (and 0.4% casualties per shot), a reduction of a factor of 6 more than your estimate.

Now, before you say "that's far too low",…

I won't say that. I in fact admitted that my breakdown of the less than 10% hits on weak areas was hypothetical. The number of mortally wounded men could be as you say.

In any case, allowing that the sheer volume of incoming hits MUST strike into vulnerable areas, because of the percentage of vulnerable area exposed, this indicates a lot of concern on the part of the target. If you have 600 to 1,000 (you haven't allowed for the routing and incapacitated) total wounded and killed men, that is still up to 20% of Cap'n Gar's (Currey's) "5,000 in the first battle." And 13% out of 8,000. By the time the French get there for the melee, they are already dangerously close to 15% casualties or more.

…muskets fired in battle at effective range in the early 1700's were scoring 0.2% kills! That's only 300 kills (without armour) by your 150,000 arrows for a weapon that was considered effective at the time.

The kind of shooting is very different. Firearms are shooting through the line. Most arrow shooting is dropping down onto the target, and onto a dense target at that in most cases, as at Agincourt. When your musket ball misses, there is a good chance it will miss altogether, because the lines are thin. An arrow falling in the killing zone has a good chance of hitting something. Also, muskets always fired by volley for maximum effect. Archers, English longbowmen specifically, fired in volley at longer ranges, but used rapid, aimed shooting from pointblank range and closer. Aimed bow shooting is many times more accurate than primitive musketry.

If you crunch the same numbers on a french victory, how well does the model work?

I "know" Agincourt.

French victories in the HYW were almost always through catching the English on the move, either by forcing them to attack instead of stand on the defensive, or catching them on the march. Missile use against the English was almost exclusively provided by the Scots. The French had thousands of crossbowmen and archers but seem to have seldom given them a second thought. So there is no battle, that I know of, where English casualties to "French" missile fire have been estimated.

The Scots used the longbow too. Nevertheless, while the Scots stood and traded arrows with the English at Verneuil, they seem to have inflicted severe casualties on the English archers, as would be expected from lightly armed men. The Scots archers seem to have always broken first in such exchanges. It was probably a difference in training and discipline. As late as Floden, the Scots archers get routed off by the deluge of English arrows.

Speaking as a mathematician, the one significant factor I don't see mentioned here is the distribution of hits. Delivering 1000 hits to 1000 men doesn't assure that they go one-to-a-customer. The adjustment would of course be a downward revision of the casualty figures, but probably not a very large one.

I mention it only because given the admirable number of relevant considerations Humphrey does mention, it seems a shame not to be complete.

JJW-T.C.H.

[A French victory? Now that's asking a lot!]

Ummm, the French won the Hundred Years War, in case you forgot.

"But this is speaking to the situation where you are getting shot back at. The English at Agincourt shot with complete impunity. I doubt that their effectiveness was lowered at all until the French started to get close. And even then, it wasn't the archers that the French were closing with. The archers waited until the French had clashed with their men at arms, then moved out and attacked the French flanks."

I have to completely disagree with you. It is not just being shot at that causes the problem, it is the "adrenalin rush" you get when confronted by a powerful opponent that you know will rip you apart if your missile does not hit the mark. Anyone that has hunted big game knows this "rush" and it is quite a factor in holding your aim.

Secondly, it seems unreasonable to assume that the 1,000 English men at arms could have possibly covered the 1,000 yard frontage. Some of the space would have had to be covered by some of the archers.

:-)

"Ummm, the French won the Hundred Years War, in case you forgot".

John, and in case you forgot, is was not because of the French knight, but because the Bureau brothers and the French artillery.

;-)

French victories in the HYW were almost always through catching the English on the move, either by forcing them to attack instead of stand on the defensive, or catching them on the march. Missile use against the English was almost exclusively provided by the Scots. The French had thousands of crossbowmen and archers but seem to have seldom given them a second thought. So there is no battle, that I know of, where English casualties to "French" missile fire have been estimated.
English historians have quite often worked hard to obscure and deny the role of the French missile troops prefering stereotypes to accuarate reserach. Even in a new release such as the 'Great Warbow' source quotes showing a diffrent picture of the effectivness or lack there of of the French crossbowmen and archers a left out. For example at Poitiers the French crossbowmen remianed on the field throughout the battle and effectively helped to suppressed the English archery as the final French 'battle' moved into the attack.

And lets not forget the French archers at Formigny and Castillion contributing to both victories quite impressivly. However acknowledging this would supposedly mena that the English archers loose their uniqueness which is why those two victories are atributed to artillery instead.

The Scots used the longbow too. Nevertheless, while the Scots stood and traded arrows with the English at Verneuil, they seem to have inflicted severe casualties on the English archers, as would be expected from lightly armed men. The Scots archers seem to have always broken first in such exchanges. It was probably a difference in training and discipline.
One major problem for the Scots archers were that they were recruited from poorer men and had access to less effective armour than their English counterparts. The English archers steadily improved their armour, especially during the 15th C when mounted archers in jack and mail plus bascinet/ sallet and at times even leg plate harness are recorded in the sources. The Scots archer in contrast would at best have possesed a jack and a helmet except for a few lucky ones (i.e Archers of the guard and such)

Mark Twain once said "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." All this analysis is well and good but if it is not supported by contemporary accounts it doesn't mean a lot. And, it is not supported by these accounts. Now before you say that these accounts only talked about the nobility and ignored the lowly bowmen, many of these accounts tell of the devastation caused by the longbow men on the initial attack by the mounted French. Even here it was the horses which were hurt not the armored riders. In fact, one of the chroniclers, Jean Juvenal des Ursins, wrote: "The French were scarcely harmed by the arrow fire of the English because they were well armed." It must be pointed out that he was talking about the foot attack. There is no indication that the arrows of the English did much harm at all on the French foot. Lest you think this was an abnormality, there are other accounts of battles in which the dismounted French were not hurt by English arrows. Because bow fire was arching fire, designed to seek the weakly armored areas of the horses, it would plunge down on the top of the horse. Arching fire would tend to hit the head, shoulder, and upper body of the men-at-arms. These were heavily armored.

As to the type of armor worn? It would have been the best available. All the 5000 men of the van were of the nobility. They refused to let join them any who were not of the high nobility.

Rich

Thurlac,
If you bring a sword down on a man's head, it may not cut his steel helmet in two but it will rattle his brains, compress his spine or break a collar bone. You don't need weak points to down an armoured man, just enough brute force to render the soft pulpy bits inside to jelly
That is easier said than done since palte armour together with paddign provide quite a bit of protection from those kinds of attacks. The brute force approach was also not somethign that the men-at-arms of the time trained for. As can be seen from every surviving fighting manuals (quite a few) armoured close combat focused on delivering a strike into a gap in the armour. Not on battering the opponet by brute force. Even with the poleaxe the main offensive weapon was the point, not the axeblade or back spike.
Brute force attacks were mainly used to set up the target for a follow up attack into a vulnerable gap.

"As to the type of armor worn? It would have been the best available. All the 5000 men of the van were of the nobility. They refused to let join them any who were not of the high nobility."

I respect your point, but I find it really hard to believe that a full 5000 soldiers (nobility or not) campaigning in the field would all have had the best and most complete kit on hand. When does any army in the field ever have complete armor and gear at its disposal?

The sound of so many axes being ground is giving me a migraine…. but thankyou, Humphrey, for this analysis.

At the end of the day it seems like some people think armoured knights were invulnerable, and others think their defeat by longbowmen was inevitable. The truth *probably* lies somewhere in between, and that's how I'm happy to game it. Any game which assigns a finite probability of an arrow killing even the most heavily armoured of targets does a perfectly good job of simulating weak spots and perhaps the occasional chance of a particularly good arrow going through particularly poor armour (however you want to define those terms so they don't offend your preconceptions).

The only thing I'd add is that, like Dr Moyle points out repeatedly w.r.t. the Crusades and Eastern / Middle-Eastern warfare in general, long- and short-ranged bowfire have dramatically different characteristics. Long-ranged fire works best when archers mass their fire, shooting large numbers of (sometimes lighter) arrows in volleys which arch down onto the target achieving good area saturation (and thus tending to find weak spots, horseflesh etc) but not proving particularly effective against the armour of the day (look at helmet designs; 'kettle' helms, sallets and to a lesser degree bascinets are all designed to provide most defence against attacks from overhead, hence why the helmets used in WW1 were based on these designs!). Shorter ranged fire can be more direct and aimed, and thus has a better chance of striking weak spots with enough force to go through (or past, if you like) the armour. I guess I am saying that everyone is probably right some of the time, but I'm not sure if any of you are seeing the whole picture. No offence to anyone in particular intended, of course.

 Valhallansurfer
"I respect your point, but I find it really hard to believe that a full 5000 soldiers (nobility or not) campaigning in the field would all have had the best and most complete kit on hand. When does any army in the field ever have complete armor and gear at its disposal?"

The king of France had declared the arriere ban (I think that's how it's spelled). This meant all, especially nobles, had to come to the aid of their king. Young nobles had been streaming in for weeks. One chronicler described these nobles flocking in as if they were going to a tournament. Another said that the normal French men-at-arms who were pushed back into the rear ranks as large enough to defeat the English without all these young nobles. Nobles, who should have known better, left their commands of the regular men-at-arms to join the mass of nobles in the van. After the battle, these regular men-at-arms simply left the field because they were leaderless. Their leaders had been in the van. In no way was the van representative of the normal French army.

As to the 'aimed fire', if the longbowmen simply aimed at the targets in front of them (angled as they were) this would have effected may three files on each side of the French van. That represents about 3% of the French advancing on the English. The archers were to fire into the mass of on comming French to try to disrupt as many of them as possible prior to the French attack on the English men at arms.

Anyway, that's how I read the chronicles. By the way, as to not seeing the whole picture, I want you to know I sat through both versions of Henry V and can assure you I saw the whole picture. :)))

Rich

Rich,
The arrier ban had not been proclaimed prior to Agincourt. The army was a paid force raised by a 'semonce de nobles' not a feudal levy as Anne Curry has shown in her latest book on Agincourt. The adminstrative documents clearly reveal that just as in the English army the French formed their army by enlisting retinues with a set ratio of men-at-arms to missile troops. In the French case 2:1

Much of the information left to us by the chroniclers about the French army is tainted by teh 'culture of blame' which grew out of the defeat, various factions with a particular axe to grind used the battle to vindicate themselves or to criticise their favourite target(s)

Btw the 'regular men-at-arms' were nobles themselves in just about every case so it's a bit wrong to speak of 'regulars' vs 'nobles', what was unusal about Agincourt was that so many of the 8000 or so men-at-arms present at the battle were drawn from the High nobility and it's retinues. The entire idea that the French were overcrowded and the 'regulars' pushed aside is pretty much discredited as the true size of Frenc army is reveal to be about half of the commonly assumed 24-25000 troops. Indeed the assembling of the overstrenght Vanguard seems to have been intentional rather than acidental.

Rocky and I believe that the typical French man at arms would have been wearing a lot of older stuff. It passed "muster" with the requirements for "full harness." I forget which original source it was now, but the description has mail past the knee, a mail coif, a bascinet and plate ("white") harness on the chest and legs. A lot of men at arms would have done with a "coat of plates" brigandine rather than a form-fitted steel breastplate. The point being, that yes, a lot of men at arms would have been wearing something less than Milanese state-of-the-art steel plate.

The source you are thinking of is Le Fevre, a French herald who viewed the battle :"… armed with long coats of mail, reaching below the knees. Below these they had leg harness and above white harness. In addition they had bascinets with aventails." I.e a description of a man in full head to foot suit of plate armour.

The next step down from the state-of-the-art steel harness would be a full harness of mixed quality iron&steel. Breastplates had been in large scale use for over 40 years by Agincourt and had largly replaced the Coat-of-plates. The famous 14th C mercenaries of the White Company got their name from the polished leg harness and breastplates they wore. varmouries.com/tran_01.html (Harness c 1380)

And coat-of-plates didn't necessarily proved significantly less protection. Cops foudn in both Sweden and Switzerland show that steel plates were used in the CoP as well

"I "know" Agincourt"

Unfortunately, its hard to validate a model with only one data point.

[John, and in case you forgot, is was not because of the French knight, but because the Bureau brothers and the French artillery.]

Ummmm, your original statement ridiculed the French. I reminded you that they ultimately won the HYW, regardless as to how. It is, however, debateable that artillery and the Bureau brothers were the sole reasons for the French victory.

John,

It was a joke regarding the French. From what I have seen on this board, anything is debatable, regardless of the history, the facts, or laws of physics.

- Greg

I'm going to side with GRPitts here. I'd like to get back to his first post dealing with the mud. All mud is not the same. In fact the soil at Agincourt is of a unique formulation and consistency that when wetted it was horrendously sticky. Something to do with the size of the clay and silica crystals. Some researchers determined that if the foot of a dismounted and armoured infantryman sunk to a certain level below the surface ( I forgot if it was 4,6 or 8 inches) it was virtually impossible to pull the foot out due to the suction. A fallen man would not get up unaided.

Then you add the Venturi effect of funneling these infantrymen down the field and you are looking at a surefire disaster.

I admit that this isn't as sexy as the discussions of arrows and armour but played an important part none the less.

Ralph

Hi

but it is all of a piece.

Relating the low hit rate and the 90% reduction understress is mixing the probabilites. In that a test at a single individual, or a skirmish line isn't the same as shooting at a mass of men.

In the case of defining the target at Agincourt, the simple thing is that the french approach is a SLOW COLUMN, and the "funneling" means that the target is BIGGER. You have produced a target that is going to be missed "randomly" that is, any "miss" is still likely to hit someone somwhere.

As for the "scarse any damage" arguement. There are similar quotes saying the opposite. Always a problem. We end up making an argument that sounds like "my source can beat up your source".

The french won the "Hundred Years War", but they lost a lot of battles and they lost a lot of nobility to the bow. Good people die even when they win.

Rocky

I admit that this isn't as sexy as the discussions of arrows and armour but played an important part none the less.

Oh I don't know about that. Nude, women mud wrestlers stir my chile.

Captain Gars
The arrier ban had not been proclaimed prior to Agincourt.

Jean Waurin wrote, "On this account, therefore, he (king Charles) required all his vassals and subjects to come to serve him without delay." This is the arrierre ban. Waurin continues, "He also despatched messengers into Picardy with sealed letters to the lords de Croy, de Waurin, de Fosseux, de Crequi, de Heuchin, de Brimeu, de Mammez, de la Vieville, de Beaufort, d'Inchy, de Noyelle, de Neufville and to other noblemen, that they should come to serve him with all their power, under the pain of his indignation, and to join the duke of Acquitaine [the Dauphin] whom he had appointed captain general of his kingdom." This is the older feudal call to serve the crown.

Waurin provides us with a letter sent to the bailli of Amiens: "Charles by the grace of God, king of France, to the bailli of Amiens or to his lieutenant, greatings. Whereas by our letters we have commanded you to make a proclamation throughout your bailliage for all nobles and others accustomed to bear arms and to all other men of war and archers living in your bailliage and on the borders of the same, to arms themselves and to come quickly before us and our very dear and well-beloved son, the duke of Aquitaine, whom we have nominated our captain general of the kingdom." This is how the arrierre ban was published. So yes Virginia, Charles proclaimed the arrierre ban. This is not to say this was the only way the crown raised troops.

Captain Gars
The adminstrative documents clearly reveal that just as in the English army the French formed their army by enlisting retinues with a set ratio of men-at-arms to missile troops. In the French case 2:1

What administrative documents? Condota's were certainly given to raise men-at-arms and to raise bowmen, primarily Italian crossbowmen. I've not come across examples of condotas to raise mixed arms. There re a number of battles in which the French fought only with men-at-arms. If they were required to raise both men-at-arms where were the archers?

Captain Gars
"Much of the information left to us by the chroniclers about the French army is tainted by teh 'culture of blame'"

True and the English chroniclers were tainted by the need to show that Henry's claim to the French crown was sanctioned by God. So what do we do, get rid of the chronicles because they are not objective? No, we analyze them and attempt to judge if what they are saying is feasible. We don't simply dismiss them because they are tainted.

Captain Gars
"Btw the 'regular men-at-arms' were nobles themselves in just about every case so it's a bit wrong to speak of 'regulars' vs 'nobles',"

Even at the beginning of the Hundred Years War a large number of men-at-arms who were not nobles. Edward III wrote to Sir Thomas Lucy, "On sunday 26 August when we arrived at Crecy, our enemy appeared near us in the morning with a great number of men, for he had more than 12,000 men at arms, of whom eight thousand were gentlemen, knights, and squires." This left 4,000 men-at-arms who were not nobles. They were raised by religious organizations, towns, and non-noble property owners.

Captain Gars
"The entire idea that the French were overcrowded and the 'regulars' pushed aside is pretty much discredited as the true size of French army is reveal to be about half of the commonly assumed 24-25000 troops. Indeed the assembling of the over-strength Vanguard seems to have been intentional rather than accidental."

Hardly, in the Geste des nobles francois it was learly pointed out that this gathering was not planned and was not what the leaders wanted. "All the lords wanted to be in the vanguard, against the opinion of the constable and the experienced knights."

crhkrebs
"Some researchers determined that if the foot of a dismounted and armoured infantryman sunk to a certain level below the surface ( I forgot if it was 4,6 or 8 inches) it was virtually impossible to pull the foot out due to the suction."

Don't forget, the English also marched through this mud to get close to the French. I believe this was a longer march than what the French did. Also, the French halted, reorganized and then charged the English ranks and drove the English back a ways in spite of the mud.

Rich

Hello; monday or tuesday on the west coast, the history channel had a show the topography of agincourt! they where digging to a depht of about a meter,what they thought it should at about 600 years ago? doing all kinds of experiments with the soil at that depht, men walking in plate armour and so on,then they made a computer generated map for the time of the battle! the english right flank and right center where gentle rising slopes up to their lines, the left center was a deeper slope almost a gulch, the left flank was a gentle rising slope! if this is true, the english would of had some dead ground to their left front from their original position, after advancing they ended up at the line just described,which would have made one nasty killing zone on their left center! has anybody else seen this show, i hope? oldbob

OldBob. Fascinating! I want to hear more.

Here is a webpage that looks at the topography of the battfield.
link

I think Old Bob may be refering to the History Channel's, 'Battlefield Detectives' series, this one on Agincourt. I always view the History Channels specials with reservation, but this one was very, very good.

This is the documentary I was in reference to in an earlier post. You can obtain the VCR tape by mail by going to the history channels website. I am sure it will be shown again, and I will certainly make a copy.

They also did one on Hastings, again, quite well done.

- Greg

Perhaps we can agree on two facts:

Missile fire is vastly overpowered in almost all wargames.

Effects of weather and terrain conditions are equally widely ignored in most wargames.

Well, I have never heard anyone complain that in DBM missile fire is too strong. :-)

As for my own rules, I am working on second edition and have had people say that missile fire is too weak. I am still working to get what I feel is the correct balance.

Then I decided to incorpate Medieval warfare, and this period is quite a can of worms with respect to missile fire.

- Greg

From that link to "Battlefield Detectives":

We can see that there is a "funnel" from the initial French position. This area drops in width from 140 metres to 70 metres which would increase the density of the French Troops from 2 people per square metre (marching troops) to over 4 people per square metre and a subsequent drop in the advancing rate from 1.3 metres per second (normal walk) to less than 0.4 metres per second. Given that the front line of troops will fall to the English Archers the fallen French soldiers would create a barrier to further advances.

There a few problems that I have with this. First, a square meter is the normal amount of maneuvering space for a single man in close order. Two men per meter is not a maneuvering density normally. And I fail to see how "four" men could even fit into a single square meter, much less move. I think BT's estimate of the crowding is very exaggerated. This is a FLAT field, comparatively. If they draw such conclusions on this field, what might they come up with on other battlefields where the ground is far more dramatically contoured? Their rates of advance are far too low because they overestimate the crowding, imho.

Second, there is no such thing (except within "pointblank range") as the "front line of troops" falling victim to the arrows. And even within pointblank range, most of the targets are going to be unscathed by the arrows; there simply isn't going to be enough guys in the "front line" going down to impede the forward movement of the body as a whole. The sources, afaict, do not say anything about a row or "wall" of bodies until the melee creates one. So BTs have got this wrong too.

Third, the topography is modern, not a meter down (600 years ago). So drawing conslusions based on the modern field is perhaps a little more than problematic.

Fourth, the original sources specifically describe the French first battle splitting off to attack all three places "where the banners were." This was a deliberate formational development, and betrays no funneling affect whatsoever, as the English line filled the space (c. 1,000 yards) between the two woods.

BTs make my scepticism level go up.

It make me feel that you missed something.

:-)

Hello; Rich K. link is the Battlefield Detectives website, unfortunately not all the information from that show is on the website! oldbob

oldbob:
"Hello; Rich K. link is the Battlefield Detectives website, unfortunately not all the information from that show is on the website! oldbob"

WHAT? How dare they. After seeing one of their first shows "Little Big Horn" I have always been skeptical of the analysis they provide. They showed (from the distibution of cartridges) how the dismounted cavalry was speadout and then fell back up the hill. They explained this as a loss of morale and the need to hundle together. Any idiot who knew anything about cavalry fighting knew that they started in skirmish line then fell back to a formed line. This had nothing to do with them loosing their morale.

Rich

My observation: If the arrows didn't kill (or at least seriously injure)somebody, no one would care if they were being shot at— and no one would bother to use them. So somebody must have died from the archery, and it must have been a lot of somebodies for anyone to even comment on the bows' presence, exaggerated reports or not.

I am very skeptical of "lab experiments" on longbows and armor, regardless of outcome. Unless you have a mass of trained longbowmen firing 80+# bows at real men encased in armor, you really can't claim to be recreating actual battlefield conditions— and no one's really going to want to do that.

Perhaps the closest you can come is to do the Mythbuster's type thing, and stick a thousand dummies in plate and push/drag them towards a large group of skilled longbow archers. *That'd* be a show! 8-D

Having said all that, I think Humphrey's analysis is quite interesting.

In any game, as long as bow fire has an impact— whether you call it "killing," or "morale breaking"— then I'm satisfied with it. If you'd be better off dropping the bendy sticks and poking arrows through eye-slits, then I'd consider the game unrealistically biased.

The info on the site about crowding is from my experience correct. I have been in four of our club battles where we had 500 plus per side and as a unit move up to the enemy they huddle and slow. in our group we have missle fire (bows) so it is a threat and we cover with our shields. I have seen SCA battles with 1000 people per side and the same dynamic is shown (no missle fire).

Lord Ghee.

Lord Ghee,

What you refer to is what we call "the herding instinct", and is very prevalent in warfare through the American Civil War (ACW). Surprisingly enough, as the ACW is so very well documented, a scholarly friend of mine found that many of the regimental formations had a much more compact frontage in actual battles than the texts showed what was supposed to be.

I have no doubt that your SCA experience showed the same.

The info on the site about crowding is from my experience correct.

I wasn't saying that massed units don't slow down as they get closer to the enemy. Some comments on this thread (or the other one) inferred that at least one of the original sources say that the French reordered their formation before the final rush on the English line. This may have been nothing more than the natural slowing that you observe.

What I disagree with BTs on, is the extreme amount of compression that they are advocating. I don't see it happening, either from the field the way it seems to be, or from the way the French attacked in three "prongs". BTs seem intent on portraying a mass of men as an uncontrolled "sludge" that "oozes" down into all the low areas of a field without any consideration of where the men themselves are intent on heading.

Military formations are "formations". They are deliberately adhered to to achieve a goal. If attacking, that means directing your course toward the defensive position. If BTs were right, then the French would not have slithered down into the low spots, they would have slithered and FALLEN down into the low spots. The kind of control of the ground over movement BTs are describing would not allow anyone to stay on his feet. But if instead of a surging mob, the French were moving as a deliberate military formation, then depicting them as a mere "crowd" is examining this battle from a false premise.

[Military formations are "formations". They are deliberately adhered to to achieve a goal. If attacking, that means directing your course toward the defensive position.]

True, but formations can easily degenerate into a disorganized mob, especially in an era where the focus was not on large unit tactics.

True, but formations can easily degenerate into a disorganized mob, especially in an era where the focus was not on large unit tactics.

But did the French degenerate in this instance? It doesn't look like it from the contemporary narratives. They managed to launch a more or less simultaneous, three-pronged attack into the the three places where the English battle standards were positioned. They had enough momentum to either drive back the English "a spear's length", or else the English took the French charge seriously enough to fall back on their own; thus "wrong-footing" their opponent's (Keegan) and taking the momentum out of their attack. None of that is possible with "four men per square meter". The BTs are grossly over-stating the crowding problem.

I think it is quite obvious the French attack became completely disordered. Even if you subscribe to the three column philosophy, they became pushed together by virtue of the terrain, which suited the English in defense and not the French in the attack. Seeing that the battlefront was only 1,000 yards wide, how many knights are we talking about coming forward? 20,000???
(I am asking because I don't want to get out some books right now. We just played Zama at 1 to 50 figure scale and I am spent).

So domeone please do the math. How many French were advancing along this constricted front? If the field is 1,000 yards wide, that is a max frontage of 1,000 knights. If there was 20,000 then that is 20 ranks deep, regardless of the number of "columns" or "battles" you wish to consider. Seems pretty clear to me.

Bottom line is they simply could not deploy and bring their numbers to bear.