Video of bloke puncturing steel with a selection of polearms in a barn

[fred]

If you're in the front row, there's not enough room to get a big overhand swing, so you just get to stabbing your pointy bit at the other crowd, keep them bastards well back.  Meanwhile those jerks are trying to poke your eye out, so you're constantly moving around a bit, ducking a bit, dodging a bit, avoiding their pointy bits.  Maybe if you keep them back long enough, your cousin Jack, safe enough behind you in the back ranks can get his polearm up and around and break a few of their twigs, maybe even crack a skull or two.

No direct experience of this, but have seen a bunch of re-enactors at Alnwick castle (in the snow) showing the effected of 6-8 guys with bills, in 2 ranks, vs a few swordsmen.

And it was a wall of points keeping the opponents away, with various swings from the second rank to cause damage.

Now found the photos - it was nearly 8 years ago, so my memory was a bit astray there were only 4 with bills.

1 vs 1 there was lots of movement and dancing around - they were well armoured, and seemed to be going for it.



They then ranked up.


3 bills in the front rank, one 'knight' in the second rank, ready to counter attack.



The 2 swordsmen attack, are blocked by the 3 with bills, and the armoured guy counter attacks, with overhead swing. I recall they were deliberately keeping the bill heads fairly low for safety.


The armoured guy, uses the hook on the helmet of the front swordsman - I guess if they weren't playing safe, he would have used the spikey end.



Here they have gone 3 vs 3, all with bills, and suddenly it is much more cagey - and more snowy!

[Arlequín]

What I'm thinking currently is (at least in terms of infantry) to classify units as 'lightly armed' or 'heavily armed', and leave it at that (the exception being pikes, which should present some unique tactical advantages and disadvantages). So for example, archers would be lightly armed, generally with swords and bucklers, and billmen and men-at-arms would be heavily armed, with various polearms (bills, halberds, poleaxes, etc), plus longswords and other hand weapons.

Some common contemporary terms in England were 'naked', '(de)fencibly arrayed', 'half-harness' or 'part-harness' and 'harnessed'. A harness being a full suit of armour.

Other peoples' mileage might vary on this, but as far as 'the law' went the top of the social ladder had to be fully harnessed, the gentry varied between harnessed and part harnessed (brigandines, partial plate etc) - both groups were required to be mounted.

The 'Yeomen' were the next step down and these were owners or tenants of land, who paid rent rather than provided service. They were all required to own bows and the top tier were also required to own horses. They varied from half-harness to 'fencibly arrayed' (helmets, brigandines, jacks and mail etc). The very top tier fell into the gentry and tended to be as above.

Next down were the ordinary guys earning above average wage; the journeymen, animal husbanders, skilled craftsmen who weren't yet 'masters' of a trade and so on. These were required to own bows and a helmet and that's about it. Top end of the class were require to own jacks.

Bottom of the pile are the labourers, unskilled workers and those earning below average wage. They were required to just own some form of hand or pole weapon of unspecified type... these are who we typically expect to be carrying a bill and are not quite the well-armoured bringers of death we imagine somehow. The ones who could begged, borrowed or stole bows to practice with, because it meant they could get the extra 2d a day as archers.

So in terms of heavily armoured you have the 'men at arms' ranging from fully armoured to part-armoured. The best of the archers are as well armoured as the lowest of the men at arms. The archers range from 'armoured' to 'lightly armoured' and 'unarmoured' and finally 'the bills' are at best lightly armoured but mostly have nothing.

In the Wars of the Roses some authors have commented that men at arms were used to 'stiffen the bills', but I don't recall ever hearing of them 'stiffening the archers'. In the HYW occasionally you find archers being signed up as men at arms, so in martial terms they were considered hardy enough to act in that role.

In short I think archers would be far less the shrinking violets you might imagine, while it was the billmen who were there with their knees knocking.

 

[Charlie_]

Of course, I do not underestimate the brave archer!

In short I think archers would be far less the shrinking violets you might imagine, while it was the billmen who were there with their knees knocking.

Ah, but that would be in an English context?

If we assume both the archers and the billmen were equally skilled and equally armoured, surely the billmen have the advantage, as the pics just posted by fred show.

[commissarmoody]

Your also thinking of the archer as only able to use his boy. In the English since at least they did not seem to have any problem getting stuck in.
The skill of the man or unit comes into play. Just like in the modern era, you can have the best kit ever made, but if your not trained or have the motivation you will lose to the cage under equipped guy from two villages over.

[Arlequín]

Of course, I do not underestimate the brave archer!

Ah, but that would be in an English context?

If we assume both the archers and the billmen were equally skilled and equally armoured, surely the billmen have the advantage, as the pics just posted by fred show.

Of course, the post was long enough without covering the entire world, which I couldn't do in any case.

  

The point is that bowmen and bill/spear/pike/halberd armed men are never equally armoured and skilled.

Sticking with the English, all those guys in Fred's photos are way too well-nourished and well protected to be billmen, they'd be archers. Pit one of them with sword and buckler against Baldrick with a bill, and who has the advantage?

That indentures for the HYW show men at arms and archers, but no bills, suggests they were not equal, nor considered to be so.

Moving into Europe and there will be similar disproportionate examples. Swiss pike versus Flemish, same class of guy, same weapon and armour, both conscripted. Except one has trained on a regular basis over a few years, while the other had never seen a pike before he was handed one.

Going a step further, Swiss pike versus 'Landsknecht'. The Switzer has training, but every time his canton raises men, it's a different set of men, whereas the Landsknecht fights year in and out as a rule of thumb. Given their record you'd have to flip a coin to determine who was better.

I'm not saying that there aren't some troops that are equal, but you need to avoid 'wargame lore' and assumptions and dig deeper, which is I guess the point of this thread and the contributions we've all made.

 

[Charlie_]

I'm not saying that there aren't some troops that are equal, but you need to avoid 'wargame lore' and assumptions and dig deeper, which is I guess the point of this thread and the contributions we've all made.

Indeed it is, and it's giving me lots to think about!

As is your blog which I've been perusing

And the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking equipment should be irrelevant on the tabletop. I'm definitely aware of 'wargame lore' and am trying to get as far away from it as possible. For instance I've long ago completely abandoned the idea of units comprising of identically equipped troops in a Warhammer style, i.e. this unit of men-at-arms has hand weapons and shields, this one has two-handed weapons and this one has halberds. That's certainly all nonsense!

I'm leaning now towards each unit's fighting ability being represented by just TWO stats - combat skill and armour, as an average across the unit. What they are armed with, and how many of them are in full plate and how many not, whether they have shields or not, what weapons have advantages over others etc, is all irrelevant.
(plus a separate discipline stat)

[Arlequín]

Thank you. I'm currently re-writing some posts on late French and Post-Charles Burgundians, so it's not all it could be and of course only one guy's view.

You are thinking in a way that makes sense to me... it's the man or men more than the weapons or armour... they skew the odds of course and a good man with the best of everything will always come out on top unless his advantages are neutralised.

I am inclined to view shooting as demoralising and disruptive in its overall effect, as opposed to dangerous and destructive... unless we were talking 'naked Irish' versus English archers. Typically we are talking about reducing a unit by missile shooting, but how about men being driven to anger by their inability to strike back at their tormentors?

I think trying to write a set of rules for all that's come up here alone is an unenviable task and I really hope you succeed.

 

[Jericho]

Charlie_ it looks like you might need a seperate thread for your developing ruleset 

And the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking equipment should be irrelevant on the tabletop. I'm definitely aware of 'wargame lore' and am trying to get as far away from it as possible. For instance I've long ago completely abandoned the idea of units comprising of identically equipped troops in a Warhammer style, i.e. this unit of men-at-arms has hand weapons and shields, this one has two-handed weapons and this one has halberds. That's certainly all nonsense!

I'm leaning now towards each unit's fighting ability being represented by just TWO stats - combat skill and armour, as an average across the unit. What they are armed with, and how many of them are in full plate and how many not, whether they have shields or not, what weapons have advantages over others etc, is all irrelevant.
(plus a separate discipline stat)

While I totally understand where you're coming from, aren't you afraid you are oversimplifiying things just a tad?
I completely agree with the armor and shields and such, your remark about weapon advantages sounds a bit weird. It's rather difficult to imagine men armed with daggers be evenly matched with a unit of pikemen. It would make of course sense should the pikemen be disordered by the shooting and such as you already mentioned before in the longbow thread.
Another question: how do you see those two stats, will they be rigid or susceptible to change? (like veterancy or training modifiers and so on)
Well anyway, I'm interested to see where your rules go 

I am inclined to view shooting as demoralising and disruptive in its overall effect, as opposed to dangerous and destructive... unless we were talking 'naked Irish' versus English archers. Typically we are talking about reducing a unit by missile shooting, but how about men being driven to anger by their inability to strike back at their tormentors?

I said something similar in the Longbow thread. Perhaps that the lower types would be more eager to flee while the higher more inclined to get stuck in there. (Kind of like in Lion Rampant and its Wild Charge)

[Charlie_]

Charlie_ it looks like you might need a seperate thread for your developing ruleset 

Yes, maybe....

While I totally understand where you're coming from, aren't you afraid you are oversimplifiying things just a tad?
I completely agree with the armor and shields and such, your remark about weapon advantages sounds a bit weird. It's rather difficult to imagine men armed with daggers be evenly matched with a unit of pikemen. It would make of course sense should the pikemen be disordered by the shooting and such as you already mentioned before in the longbow thread.

Well yes, let's just say my opinion on the whole weapon thing changes every day... or even every few hours...... Or maybe with every interesting informed post on these threads!!!!

Well anyway, I'm interested to see where your rules go 

Me too! It started out slight amendments to the WFB/WAB rules I was used to, then developed into quite a few big changes, and is now maybe going in the direction of something that stands by itself. Though there are one or two elements of WFB/WAB that are in there pretty much unchanged and anyone familiar with those rules will recognise...

I said something similar in the Longbow thread.

Yes I do seem to have two threads at the top of this board right now, that wasn't the intention.... And though this one started out with me just posting a video of a guy hitting things, I'm happy that it's developed into a discussion of medieval melee weapons in general!

[Atheling]

Of course, the post was long enough without covering the entire world, which I couldn't do in any case.

  

The point is that bowmen and bill/spear/pike/halberd armed men are never equally armoured and skilled.

Absolutely, even within the lower echelons of the Gentry as Arlequin has painted out already.

That indentures for the HYW show men at arms and archers, but no bills, suggests they were not equal, nor considered to be so.

This is very interesting..... As far as I have gleaned (and there has been a lot of gleaning unsuccessful over the years!) I have been unable to place the introduction of pole arms en masse in English armies. This suggests that they were in use to some extent for a long time prior to the HYW/Wars of the Roses etc

Moving into Europe and there will be similar disproportionate examples. Swiss pike versus Flemish, same class of guy, same weapon and armour, both conscripted. Except one has trained on a regular basis over a few years, while the other had never seen a pike before he was handed one.

Take the terrain out of the picture and Flodden is a very good example of what can happen without the fullness of training.

I'm not saying that there aren't some troops that are equal, but you need to avoid 'wargame lore' and assumptions and dig deeper, which is I guess the point of this thread and the contributions we've all made.

And this is the problem with nearly all Medieval rule sets that I have come across. I'm yet to find the holy grail; I don't expect to find it very soon One never knows though

[jon_1066]

There seems to me to be two main things to nail down when writing a rule set.  What are you attempting to model and how do you translate that into game rules.

For WWII there are lots of documentary evidence.  You can still interview people who were there.  The issue is therefore how to translate reality into game.

For the medieval period there is so much we don't know.  Even the stuff we think we know you can usually find a contradictory opinion.  It also covers a huge range of cultures, time and technology.  This makes the ultimate medieval rule set impossible since what rule set could accurately reflect the Battle of Hastings and Bosworth when we aren't even sure of the details and the details will have changed.

[Arlequín]

This is very interesting..... As far as I have gleaned (and there has been a lot of gleaning unsuccessful over the years!) I have been unable to place the introduction of pole arms en masse in English armies. This suggests that they were in use to some extent for a long time prior to the HYW/Wars of the Roses etc.

I'm not sure they were ever used en-masse in formal expeditions (there are after all a lot of indentures, patent rolls etc that survive from the entire HYW), but in domestic strife and against the Scots, it was a case of 'bring everyone' (someone has to dig the toilet pits after all   ).

There are some quite detailed indentures for the expedition to Brittany of 1492 which include billmen in very small quantities or none at all. The sole exceptions were men drawn from very poor areas; Herbert's Welsh contingent had 50% and I think another had 20%, but the rest were in numbers not really worth having (3 or 4 per hundred etc.), other than that it was all archers*.

* Along with 'men at arms and their custrells', mounted archers and 'demi-lances'  

I can't locate the original link, but I did make a list: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pm9768o47kpp2yj/1492%20Expedition.docx?dl=0


All that aside the generic 'men at arms' (or spears, lances, gens d'armes... yadda yadda) covered a whole host of people that were not fully armoured, in England the class above mounted archers were 'men at arms' yet only needed a haubergeon (or a brigandine would pass I expect), helmet, spear, sword and horse to qualify for their shilling and were the larger part of the greater whole of 'men at arms'.

So the 'retinue billmen' people bang on about, but which there is no historical record for, are actually the poorest of the men at arms (and their varlets, valets and 'custrells') and what are identified as 'demi-lances' in the list above... what we might call 'lesser men at arms', although no such distinction was drawn back then; at least until chief accountant Henry Tudor's time.

From a medieval perspective in terms of where the indentures largely come from, the accent is on who gets paid what, rather than what he's equipped with... so they are grouped by 4d, 6d, 1/, whatever 'knights' were paid and so on. The proof against 'massed bills' is that they would only have got 2d (iirc) per day and there are no entries for them.

You do find 'men at arms on foot' who get 8d in garrison lists, which is basically saying "you can have a horse, but you pay for it yourself", but essentially they are still 'men at arms' and get 2d more than the mounted archers in respect of their equipment costing more.

The 'hidden in the archers by lazy clerks' argument doesn't hold up for both the above reasons and that the rolls etc then usually go on to list virtually every cook, carpenter and bottle washer etc by his trade, even though they are mostly paid at the same rates.  

I'm fairly convinced (as might seem painfully obvious from most of my posts) that 'billmen' (who would be equally as likely to be spear, voulge, guisarme or whatever men) were the lowest of the low and generally were not called upon (or wanted) in the picked forces to go overseas and you would have to be pretty desperate to rely on them in other situations.

However... Richard III was ordering hundreds of 'welshe bylls' in 1483 and even giving permission to conscript blacksmiths to make them. So was he anticipating levying large numbers of men who had sod all in the way of weapons, or did he appreciate the value of polearms more than his contemporaries?

This makes the ultimate medieval rule set impossible since what rule set could accurately reflect the Battle of Hastings and Bosworth when we aren't even sure of the details and the details will have changed.

It does. I would suggest that concentrating on a specific area might be more fruitful. You wouldn't for example use a set of 'Napoleonic' rules to fight the Seven Years War or the Crimea, so why would you have one set of rules to cover Hastings to Bosworth?

In an ideal world you would have one set for the HYW, another for the WotR, and yet another for the Burgundian-Swiss Wars.

[Charlie_]

I like the idea of 'lesser men at arms'. Ok, so how frequently would such troops be armed with bills and other such weapons, rather than the more 'knightly' weapons such as poleaxes?

[Arlequín]

I really couldn't say...

Here's a pic from the 'Beauchamp Pageant' which according to your taste represents men at arms on foot, or 'retinue billmen', or ... I don't know what. The artwork was done sometime in the 1470s and I've tatted about with the image to make it clearer (I hope).



Working from the back I can see a voulge, a lance, a broadhead spear, some sort of pointy stick (a lancegay?), a bardiche and two guisarmes. No bills and no poleaxes... which considering they are English might be considered odd.

There are other illustrations, including one or two which show 'mounted men at arms' carrying a variety of polearms, suggesting (to me anyway) they clearly intended to dismount at some point. 

The full book is here: https://archive.org/details/pageantofbirthli00hopeuoft

[Warren Abox]

I do enjoy watching an enthusiastic amateur.
And that's what the chap in the original video was - a big kid playing in his barn.
It had about as much to do with the actual experience of medieval combat and weapon use/effectiveness as me tucking into last night's sausage and mash.

I don't know.  The guy demonstrated what he set out to demonstrate - that various pointy sticks powered by muscle can puncture steel plate with enough force to seriously jack up the guy inside.  Although he proved his point (heh), he still threw in a bunch of caveats and warnings about curved armor, heat of battle, and so on.  I wouldn't read much more into his demonstration than that it answered one very specific question.

It's kind of like those "Deadliest Warrior" blokes who analyze and demonstrate the various implements and tactics wielded by different soldiers through history.  Great at showing the physics and scale of trauma inflicted by different weapons.  Great at comparing defensive capabilities of different kinds of armor.  Absolute garbage when it came to direct comparisons of soldier X versus soldier Y.  Does what it says, and the people that read to much into it are the ones you gotta watch.