Hussite Wagon Forts - A Challenge To Heavy Cavalry In The Late Middle Ages | Late Medieval Warfare

the Hussite wagon fort answered a problem in late medieval warfare that puzzled military leaders of the time how could infantry deal with armies of heavily armored knights on horseback initially the Hussite armies consisted mainly of ill-trained farmers and city dwellers often only armed with the daily tools of your average farmer such as pitchforks thrashing flails but also pole arms but they made a virtue out of necessity and combined their farmers wagons with early handheld firearms and small artillery and managed to defend successfully against well-trained and well-equipped knights throughout the medieval and early modern periods a number of strategies and infantry formations were explored to fight heavily armored Knights effectively one strategy was to juice the terrain of battles with great care to use field fortifications and bottlenecks such as the Scottish at the Battle of Loudoun Hill in 1307 the Flemish at the Battle of Court wreak in 1302 or the English at crécy in 1346 another strategy was to deploy deep Pike squares as the Swiss did at non-si in 1477 the German lands connected at bacówka in 1522 and Spanish data Theo at hawk wa in 1643 however in the early 1400s the whose side wagon fort was a particularly spectacular way of coping with Knights contemporary historiography tells the story of the whose site's military innovation as follows the rat inferred was found by an important military leader of the who's sites the military genius Jung shisha sheesh covers the son of a bohemian aristocrat he pursued a military career and fought for example at the famous Battle of Tannenberg in 1410 he eventually became a well-known tactician and expert on exploiting Geographic conditions and terrain in the aftermath of the first defenestration of Prague in 1419 he quickly took a key position in the early whose secrets due to his military experience later he became the military leader of the who's sites whose side is a blanket term referring to various religious reformatory and revolutionary movements in 15th century bohemia these movements shared a conviction in the teachings of the theologian whose hence the name who cites the conflict between the reformatory movements and the church establishment escalated in 1420 in early march Pope Martin v issued the first of five Crusades against the whose sides because they refused to abandon their heretical teachings sheesh cars now hard-pressed to come up with a way to counter the heavily armed and well trained Knights while his own army consisted of many farmers and city dwellers but only few war experienced men at the Battle of pseudo mare he faced the enemy Knights for the first time the 400 whose sights awaited them between several lakes and the swamp their frontline and left flank were covered by a mere twelve wagons but they still managed to repel the first enemy charge subsequently the Imperials tried to outflank the whose sights but moved into a swamp which forced them to dismount from their horses this meant they gave away much of their advantage sheesh conned his men turned around and charged them flail swinging in vase marshy terrain the whose sides were in equal footings with the dismounted Knights and defeated them in melee the whose side suffered many casualties as well but in the end managed to retreat successfully according to Folker Schmidt Ian V expert on whose side wagon forts sheesh P looked at the qualities of his men and soon realized he really only had two things going for him his man's trust in the ability of their leaders and exceptionally high fighting morale much of which was due to their strong religious cohesion regarding those Givens he discarded to train his man in the Knightly way of warfare and looked for a strategy and for weaponry his men were already familiar with and which did not require much further training he founded on one hand in the daily tools of farmers such as pickaxes axes and threshing flails reinforced with iron bands and nails in the words of historian Rudolf Urbanek quote the habitual instruments in daily used by the peasants and artisans were made to serve new purposes and additionally the defensive duties on the city walls had familiarized many urban dwellers with crossbows and the new technology of early handheld firearms and artillery while the farmers had their experience in handling wagons and horses sheesh gas strategy was based on the specially though meager abilities of his fighting force and followed two fundamental principles firstly that action should never be imposed by the enemy and secondly that defensive warfare was superior to offensive warfare the result was a surprisingly successful combination of early firearms and simple wagons of course wagons had been used in warfare since antiquity mainly as a means of transport to secure the retinue or to create semi-permanent camps shishkin contrast may then the centerpiece of his new strategy he counted on mobility and sturdiness the marching order of his army was set up so that the entire convoy could be turned very quickly into a wagon fort by doing so a strong defensive position could be installed regardless of the terrain this made it possible to bring defensive warfare to the open battlefield this meant then now a defensive strategy could be used offensively sheesh cos men were already familiar with defending all kinds of defensive positions a skill which could now be transferred to open field battles this rendered the ill-trained and under-equipped whose sites well capable to cope with the heavily armored and well-trained Knights about the offensive views of the whose site wagons vanHoose piccolo meanie who later became pope pius ii even wrote the wagons were sometimes used to encircle and cut off parts of enemy armies but most historians regard this as highly controversial if not simply as a myth in the early days of the conflict the whose sights used simple former's wagons but after first combat experiences they optimized their vehicles for actual war sheesh coordinates Peche alized war wagons to be built after 1322 those wooden tanks were bigger and more stable than the carts intended for transport the crew could enter the wagon through collapsible ramps additional planks reinforced the outer walls and the log on the top also allowed a second protective side panel to be attached to further fortified a wagon this additional plating consisted either of two massive horizontal wooden planks or of planks with triangular embrasures this outer wall which had a simple protective function was placed in a slight angle resembling a capital A in order to break up the trajectory of an incoming missile or cannonball Schmidt he noted that each wagon carried along one of those additional walls and it was always attached to the side which faced potential danger to prevent being shot at from underneath the wagon another plank was placed between the bottom and to ground the crew of a war wagon usually consisted of about 20 men two of whom took care of the horses six were crossbow men two were equipped with hand cannons eight carriage flails Morningstar spikes or halbert's and two men carried big spare shields called Pahlavi Z's to cover gaps and Sally ports when on the move with the whose side wagons formed up to four columns and kept the outer rows longer than the ones in the center to be able to form a wagon fort quickly but marching in four columns was often impossible anyways because of the terrain yet experience showed that even when marching in two columns the transformation could be done very quickly at the tip of the convoy a group of Engineers and sappers cleared obstacles out of the way flags were used to pass orders along the convoy quickly a department of light calorie was responsible for scouting ahead and two additional slightly bigger cavalry formations from the van and a rearguard their main purpose was to delay enemy attacks so that the convoy had enough time to set up the wagon fort before it was either round or square depending on the circumstances of the terrain after the wagons were put in position the horses were brought to a place in the center of the formation and the wagons were bound together with chains the pavese bearers closed potential gaps in the formation and the Sally ports while the artillery and the hand cannons awaited the attack most of the food soldiers left the wagons and joined the rest of the infantry who often fought independently of the wagons crews note however that the whose size relied on clear and strict hierarchies each wagon from the tactical unit and had its own commander this enabled them to react quickly and execute orders of the general immediately and efficiently once the wagon formation was completed and everyone in position the second pillar of fishka strategy came to action the small and mid-sized guns within the wagons these were loaded with heavy stone balls or scatter shots consisting of nails small rocks or LED bullets Falcor Schmidt Ian stresses the efficiency of such rounds quote at an average fighting distance of about 100 meters such scatter shots had a devastating effect on both cavalry and food soldiers alike and code in contrast to the static artillery positions to whose side city dwellers knew from their fortified home cities the guns on wagons had an additional benefit they could be moved between and within the wagons very quickly in some whose side armies the guns on carts made up 1/5 of all the wagons this means that a wagon train of 185 fighting wagons had 35 cannons at its disposal whenever possible they were concentrated on the front from which an attack was to be expected in most cases one artillery volley was enough to take most of the momentum away from attacking troops after the enemy's onslaught had been interrupted by the artillery the Ravi's is covering the Sallyport stepped aside and the infantry launched a counter-attack in many cases the food soldiers attacked the enemy through the closest sally port while the cavalry left through a gap in the back of the formation they would ride around and get in the back of the enemy to charge them and then to run them down relentlessly the whose side wagon fort left a great impression on the army leaders and tack tations of the time and there were various attempts to integrate it into other armies until the 17th century wagon forts were mentioned again and again as an integral part of armies however no one implemented them as efficiently as the host sites the development of more and more powerful firearms made the defense with wooden wagons obsolete they could no longer withstand enemy fire so that they eventually disappeared from the battlefields of Europe you

Channel: SandRhoman History

Views: 842,960

Keywords: hussite wagen fort, wagenburg, hussite wagenburg, hussite wars, jan zizka, wagon fort hussite, educational, history, education, documentary, late medieval warfare, early modern warfare, sandrhoman, evolution of warfare, battel of sudomer, Battle of Sudoměř, hussite, hussites, hussite wagon forts, wagon forts hussite, hussite revolt, bohemia, medieval, middle ages, taborites, kings and generals, jan zizka hussites, jan žižka, jan zizka war wagons, zizka war wagons, czech history

Id: yGUEqszHRwI

Length: 11min 23sec (683 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Cajzl]

More like APC than technical.

[u/TangFiend]

How does it move?