Few questions for my new WotR project

[GeKi]

Hello

In the last week I got an opportunity to finally dig out my small amout of
Perry WotR miniatures. I started working on these guys 4 years ago but never finished since there was a lack of interest in our hobby group.

Now one of my fellow players asked me if we want to play some games of KoW. We tuned down the amount of models needed per regiment (8-10 instead of 20). In this way we need less space to play and have less to paint.

My collection of WotR minis now consist of 4 „regiments“. 2 xbowmen, 1x billmen, 1x knights on foot. I already bought a box of perrys light cavalry to get some riders.

Even if we are playing fantasy battles too (i just want to finally field these guys😄) I want to get the army done quite historically but have no real knowledge of army organization at this time.

So hopefully you guys can help me out here. How common were mounted
Crossbows and bows in the WotR? And how was the usual ratio between archers, cavalry and other infantry?

Thanks

[Charlie_]

Crossbows weren't really used in the WOTR, at least not on the battlefield. They might well have seen action in sieges and such, and in the hands of mercenaries, but generally its longbows all the way for English armies of the period.

And 'mounted crossbowmen'... That's a whole other kettle of fish. There are lots of references to such troops in Europe throughout the medieval era, but what were they? Were they actually cavalry, or were they just mounted infantry, as in foot troops who owned horses (thus making them more useful to have on campaign)? Did they ever fight on horseback, or always dismount? It might well be possible to shoot and load a crossbow from a stationary horse, but would it be practical or at all effective / worth doing?
My take on them is that they were flexible in their role  - they could dismount to fight with their crossbows, and would no doubt be doing so when acting defensively. They would probably sometimes fight as cavalry too, either as 'light' cavalry in scouting and skirmishing roles, or perhaps filling in the rear ranks of the 'heavy cavalry', maybe using spears / light lances in this role. I'm sure every now and then they would get some shots off whilst still mounted, but I doubt this is what they were recruited for. I highly doubt they were used as mobile missile troops in pitched battle situations, but were more likely to be doing such things which would be fun and interesting to us wargamers in small-scale skirmishes.

Anyway, I don't think English armies would have used such troops in the WOTR, unless they were European mercenaries.

Mounted longbowmen... they were absolutely a thing, but they DEFINITELY were mounted infantry. Read 'mounted' as being part of a lord's retinue and thus owning a riding horse and so able to ride around on campaign with the lord and his men-at-arms. Such mounted archers would probably be very well equipped, and often the lines between mounted archers and men-at-arms would be blurred. Presumably the word 'archer' means they were expected to fight in battle as longbowmen on foot, but often they would rise through the ranks and become men-at-arms (which would require more armour, i.e. more expensive equipment, but would also (I think?) see them getting better pay).
In comparison, infantry archers would not own a horse, would presumably be not as wealthy and less well equipped, probably be not as experienced in battle, and would march on foot on campaign.

[Captain Blood]

Glad that you are back to it

How common were mounted Crossbows and bows in the WotR? And how was the usual ratio between archers, cavalry and other infantry?

In case you hadn't seen it, there is a very long sticky and exhaustive discussion on ratios of troop types in the WOTR here: http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=59060.0
(Hopefully we won't have to have the whole discussion all over again, hence the sticky )
(Although to be fair I'm not sure it covers mounted bows and crossbows).

Worth noting that these discussions about the balance of late medieval troop types invariably end up in an admission that whilst there's a lot of fragmentary and circumstantial evidence supporting this theory or that, the only thing that's really certain is that nobody knows for sure.

[GeKi]

@Charlie_: thanks I think then its best to not use the crossbows from the perry sprue at all. I think I will just give them spears maybe some with bows but in KoW there are no rules for dismounting cavalry so I will think about that.


@Captain Blood:

Whoops, did not see that sticky topic, sorry.

Glad that you are back to it

Yes I need some variety frim time to time doing lots of modern stuff recently. And Im glad to finally dust of and finish my small yorkist force.
I will post some pictures of the troops in the next couple of weeks around here.

Cheers

[Charlie_]

@Charlie_: thanks I think then its best to not use the crossbows from the perry sprue at all. I think I will just give them spears maybe some with bows but in KoW there are no rules for dismounting cavalry so I will think about that.

You could put together some light cavalry with mostly spears, and just mix a few crossbows in for visual appeal - they don't need to actually be given rules, maybe?

[Arlequín]

Henry VII felt it necessary to ban crossbows as an acceptable 'bow' to conform with the law, so I would say that there were probably more crossbows within the wider body of archers than we might think. One of Edward III's numerous archery proclamations mentions bows that shot 'arrows, bolts and pellets', the last two being types of crossbow. That said, it doesn't follow that they were formed in separate units.

On armies...

A 15th Century English army could be pretty much what you want it to be. English society produced a widening martial pyramid, with nobles and knights at the top, followed by men at arms, mounted archers, foot archers and 'bills' (the mass of men armed with anything remotely pointy or sharp). For military leaders desirability was in the same order.

If you had a lot of time to raise an army you could draw your recruits from a very wide area and be quite picky over who you took. Henry V took six months to raise his Army in 1415, trying and testing the troops and turning away those who 'didn't pass muster'. He ended up with roughly two mounted archers per man at arms and a larger body of quite capable foot archers.

Troops for the Wars of the Roses were often raised very quickly and if you wanted a couple of thousand men, you had to take whoever turned up; which apart from your paid retainers, might mostly be men who earned less than soldiers wages in their normal lives. With no share of ransoms and plunder on home ground, apart from the promise of lucrative public posts in future for the high-ups, why would anyone leave home to fight for less income? Unless they were really committed to the cause or just liked killing of course. 

So your WotR force is either going to be the discrete picked force of men at arms, each with a couple of mounted archers and a few more foot archers, giving a total that was perhaps one man at arms to as many as eight archers of both types (Edward IV in 1475), or that same body bloated with a mass of poor quality archers and much more numerous rabble.

The smart guys started keeping stocks of weapons and armour to hand out to the best men who were willing to take their shilling, but giving a guy a bow does not make him an archer. Fast forward to the Flodden Era and about half the footmen are bills. I imagine those proportions were not that unusual some fifty years before.