Medieval Misconceptions: BATTLEFIELD, tactics, units, and formations

[Music] greetings i'm shad and it has become fairly evident that i need to make a video on the basics of battlefield tactics because more recently there have been some atrocious examples that show many writers lack of understanding or even the fundamentals of this subject the two most egregious examples of recent memory is the long night from the last season of game of thrones and uh mulan there is a disney remake of milan and some of the things that are depicted on there in regards to how you know certain units operate when to do what and how things play out it's just blindingly stupid mentally deficient almost with how dumb things are and so not only is there a need to try and get this information spread a bit more broadly i've also had a decent number of requests of people asking me to cover this subject because it is actually one of those things that can be a bit harder to try and figure out so i'm going to try and cover the basics the best of my ability and hopefully it'll be useful to you if you like to role play especially if you like to write okay and the things i'm covering here aren't just going to be applicable to the medieval battlefield any type of battlefield that uses similar type of units such as infantry archery cavalry uh siege we'll see engines we'll get there okay uh so hopefully this will give you a good baseline at the very least now to those of you who are writers as i mentioned i think this will be particularly beneficial but there's also another thing that i think will be very beneficial to you as well and that is the sponsor of this video which is campfire blaze campfire blaze is just about to come out of its beta and it brings a whole new host of additional features to its previous version campfire pro now what is this campfire thing well it's a writing tool that enables you to keep track of everything in your world setting and it's not just useful to writers but it's also useful to world builders role players game developers anyone 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world build documents are crazy and it's really hard to look up everything but with campfire blaze bank you just look it up exactly what was this character's background character trade this what happened in this history all there so really highly suggest you check it out there's a link in the description below and thank you to campfire blaze for sponsoring this video all right the medieval battlefield now a basic breakup of unit type is fairly kind of understood you have infantry which are soldiers that use melee weapons on foot you have ranged units and so this could be bows or crossbows and then you have cavalry such as heavy cavalry and light cavalry but it's a mistake to think that uh each one of these unit types can fall into a neat little box as to how well they perform against others for instance take infantry what type of infantry okay are they equipped with large shields so they can form up a shield wall or are they equipped with large spears or pikes and they form a sheltering type of formation as we saw the scots do and what i just said there is also a little bit too simplistic because you can have multiple different types of arrangements of weapons you could have the first line of infantry with shields and the line directly behind them with long spears and pikes to double up the defensive and offensive value but then you also have the arrangement of the specific unit itself i've made some simple props to help demonstrate this point you can have the infantry lined up in a longer line this lets them cover a longer line on the battlefield but it also can make their line thin if you make the infantry formation thicker this can be much more beneficial in helping defend against things like heavily cavalry charges because it's harder to break through and if the infantry line is thinner that might make it perfect target for a heavily cavalry charge to try and break through the line and break up the unit formation so how deep and wide the formation is is very significant because again if you make the formation deeper or suddenly you have less men on the front being able to do actual damage and so are you utilizing your men to the most efficient way possible do you see how gloriously complex and sophisticated just simple things like how thick or wide you make your unit formation how that can affect the entire flow of a battlefield and battles have been won and lost by the smallest little decisions like this like the unit formation itself and then going back to the weapons i was only describing two examples of say spears and shield walls but you have other types of infantry units as well and then on top of all this you also have terrain and that is a massively sophisticated complex thing that can change the course of the battlefield as well so i'm gonna do my best to try and give an example of under what circumstances each unit type would have certain advantages certain disadvantages what things we can learn from the historical battlefield that will inform us as to uh you know exactly that their strengths and weaknesses but i also want to talk a little bit about battlefield tactics and before we even get onto the battlefield there is a very large component to medieval warfare that involves these unit types but aren't necessarily in a battle yet sometimes it is and it's the idea of skirmishes now skirmish is a small type of engagement but not a pitched battle where you have a detachment in your army doing something to stuff up the opponent baits traps ambushes cutting supply lines and this is a crucial component that is often overlooked in hollywood battles and things like that and it is supply with any army there is going to be a large attachment on wagons pack horses whatever that is bringing food and supplies with them and not only that as the army is marching along having a direct line of supply is very important especially if the battle is going to be extended for a long period of time you need an unbroken line so supplies can keep coming in and if that line is broken suddenly things can get very very serious skirmishes are also crucial in manipulating the position of the opposing army if you can faint them bait them charge intimidate force them to move you can try and force them into a very compromising position on the battlefield because terrain plays a massive role in how effectively you will win or lose the course of entire battles have been determined by the effectiveness of certain skirmishes another massively crucially important element to the skirmishes is scouting knowing where the enemy is and being able to set yourself up in an advantageous position in the terrain in preparation this is exactly what happened with the battle of hastings harold was able to find out what the normans were doing and set himself up on a very advantageous position he grabbed the high ground and i'm actually going to go into a bit more detail about the battle hastings because that is a great case example of how things can play out differently in the battle itself to get people to lose the advantage of train that they might have gained and lose completely but because of the scouting he was able to put himself in a very good position and so knowledge is profoundly useful in the medieval battlefield as to where the enemy is where they're going and if you can intercept them or not and this is usually all played out in the fine craft of skirmishes but unfortunately skirmishes are often overlooked completely in the depiction of medieval like battlefield because this applies to medieval fantasy just as much by the way and oftentimes people try and adapt it into medieval fantasy all right let's now move to unit type and as i mentioned before a basic breakdown is infantry long ranged cavalry siege equipment is this odd thing i will come to now the idea that these function like a rock paper scissors similar to a video game is incorrect archers aren't particularly strong against cavalry which are then particularly strong against infantry and infantry particularly strong against archers and then their archers are weak against infantry infantry week against cavalry and cavalry weekend so it doesn't work like that actually very much depends on the type of units as i mentioned before for instance an infantry unit that has very large shields and can form shield walls can protect themselves very well against long ranged fire but in in reverse that if they're a type of pike formation like a children or they're armed with spears and less ability to protect themselves well guess what now they're going to be fairly vulnerable to long-range fire the utility of cavalry against both long-range units and infantry again very much depends and in this instance it can be dependent by terrain we have seen very clearly in the battles that say cressy and agincourt that bowman were profoundly effective against cavalry but that was very much due to terrain kind of circumstances and the type of approach that the heavy cavalry was taking the heavy cavalry was able to hit them on the sides or unawares they would have wiped the floor with those arches and it's also the type of cavalry as well heavy cavalry functions differently to light cavalry light cavalry is not made to break through unit formations but rely on greater mobility to surround and harry any formation and potentially bait them to get them to break apart and pursue and as soon as the unit can then is broken apart and is not held together tightly well then the light cavalry can actually really you know do some damage the mongolian-like cavalry were able to destroy the polish knights and that was through many engagements what the mongolian-like cavalry did was harass the polish knights get them to pursue them where they broke their lines and as soon as they were broken up the light cavalry was able to come in and destroy them but if they were to say use their light cavalry as say heavy cavalry and just charge headlong into these units they would have been destroyed okay and so it's not that cavalry has a universal advantage against infantry or vice versa or anything like that it's very much the types of units that affect how well they will do and even though one might have an inherent advantage based on certain setups doesn't mean that they will win because terrain and how they're utilized is again crucially important the next thing that i want to address in the classic kind of unit types of a medieval battlefield is the thing i've referred to a couple of times right here the notion of employing siege type weaponry in a battlefield stop doing it hollywood like seriously it's not to say it was never done in some circumstances it was done for instance in the battle of cressi they actually had some very early types of cannons that they were being used but i have yet to find a single historical battlefield maybe you guys know of any particular ones where a trebuchet was used on a medieval battlefield to my knowledge never happened why because a trebuchet is not a mobile weapon okay an army needs to be mobile to pursue the enemy or to flee from an enemy to find the right terrain and vantage and get ready for battle really quickly if they're lugging around a really big heavy trebuchet it's going to slow them down now of course they did carry siege weapons with them for sieges but to take the time to set them up okay they weren't you know taken with them ready to go okay especially trebuchets manganelles slightly different but by the way man canals were also rarely used in medieval times please watch my video on catapults again big things people get wrong with them because something like this is more of an anachronism than an actual representation of medieval siege weaponry okay catapult is actually more of an umbrella term that refers to anything that throws rocks and can more often is referring to a trebuchet in the medieval context than an actual you know catapult mangano thing they were much smaller and yes they could be used in the battlefield but rarely ever actually used their primary massive utility is when you have an opponent that isn't moving a stationary thing because when you like it's difficult to line up a shot okay and so oftentimes you need test fires to get the range right and all the enemy has to do is move and you've lost all that time in calibrating the thing in the range and trajecting all that stuff and you've got to start again and so using a trebuchet on a battlefield against a mobile enemy that can just move out of the way is profoundly dumb but we often see it in hollywood depictions of medieval like battlefields and those examples that i mentioned both of them have that the long night in game of thrones and mulan the most stupid mentally deficient uses of a trebuchet we've ever seen and i mean in the long night i actually set up the trebuchet outside the castle because all right if you're defending a castle having a trebuchet on the inside could be very beneficial not necessarily against the mobile enemy that can just move out of the way once you line up the shot but to take out the attacking siege weapon do they have a trebuchet that's going to hit your castle having one to take that out kind of useful and you'll probably keep it inside the castle not in a vulnerable on the open field and use it against mobile infantry oh my goodness but for the most part you can simply exclude this and you will have a much more accurate depiction of a medieval battlefield the next part is deployment and terrain this is a hugely significant component to medieval battlefield because it can be utilized in such a way that can nullify an enemy's advantage based on the unit types that they're employing also the terrain is going to affect the deployment of your units whether they can be spread out in a longer line or they have to be clumped up so let me demonstrate a couple of examples of unit arrangement their deployment and if you'll notice here the color coding i'm going is red is infantry white is ranged and yellow is cavalry so you can kind of understand what i'm doing with these uh lego lego props first of all why put men into unit formations like this well you don't need to think too hard to figure out the massive advantages if you have two opposing sides of say five soldiers each and one side has their soldiers spread apart and one side has them clumped together in a unit the unit can essentially focus in on one of the opposing soldiers at a time essentially turning the battle into five rounds of five verse one and of course one soldier has far less a chance to fight off five soldiers at once unit formations simply allow our side to maximize the advantage of their numbers especially if they're in a position where they can send all their numbers together against separated groups of their opponents which essentially turns what should have been an even battle the same numbers against the same numbers into something that greatly favors one side because they're fighting the opposing side in smaller successive groups the next part is a matter of protecting your vulnerable sides as an individual you can only really protect your front or protect your front most effectively if you have a guy to your side with another shield you suddenly don't have to worry too much about your shield or even your back if you have people on the back end protecting it as well the other advantage is more weapons facing the enemy by having several lines of say infantry the second line can actually still strike past the first line to hit the enemy but what about if you have a thicker formation like so advantages and disadvantages you have less men on the front lines being able to attack the opponents but the advantage is if anyone gets injured on the front line they can move back and be replaced by people who are in the rear who are uninjured and more fresh this is actually one of the big tactics that the romans used they would actually cycle out the front line of men down the back and the next lines would move up and they would do this in a successive order to keep the front line always fresh and ready to attack and fight but this only works particularly effective if you have multiple lines this limits the range or distance that you can affect on the battlefield with how many men you have at the front and so there are pros and cons but overall there are huge advantages and some disadvantages depending on the formation that you pick with your unit types particularly if you look at arches an archery unit could have multiple lines if they're shooting in volleys and as to how often did they shoot in volleys versus more point-blank straight from looking at medieval battles it seems to be a bit of both okay depending on circumstances they shot in longer volleys as far as they could i mean there is a quote from henry viii but that is a bit after the medieval period that the standard bowmen in the battle was expected to be able to shoot an arrow at 200 paces that's about 180 meters and that's pretty darn long so just to shoot at that range with a you know heavy war arrow it needs to be at least 70 pounds 100 pounds have a much greater chance of reaching it i've done some tests myself and found it can be difficult to actually reach that range at times but if you're going to be shooting at a much more shallow trajectory at closer range this type of formation isn't going to be beneficial because the arches behind the ones in front it will be difficult to shoot in between them so having a formation like this where there's a much longer line of arches i can shoot you know very clearly see who they're aiming for very clearly is more beneficial but that also makes a weaker line and cavalry units could come in and break them apart very easily if they can close the distance without getting shot to pieces and so in many instances these unit types are actually mixed and matched a little bit depending on circumstances for instance in the battle of cressi they had a unit of infantry at the center flanked by two units of arches this made it so that any approaching enemy unit whether it was cavalry or infantry could be intercepted by the infantry that were with the arches and the archers there that they could perhaps try and flank and hit the enemy on the sides or back them up or just simply be protected by the infantry that was with them so when you're picking the types of deployment for your men it is also affected by the terrain if you have any type of height advantage like on a hill it's very advantageous to put arches atop that hill depending on how broad the hill is if it's particularly wide you might be able to get away with a longer line of arches attacking the downhill slope to where the enemy is if you have a unit of infantry or cavalry might be good to keep them in reserve to come in and intercept any enemy infantry or cavalry that are approaching the adventure being up on a hill whether that's with archers or infantry is that it slows the approach of the enemy especially if they're using cavalry we actually saw this in the battle of hastings harold actually didn't have many arches with him at all but the attacking normans they did they had not only archers they also had cavalry and they had infantry what's really interesting about the battle hastings is that because the train and the type of infantry unit that was being deployed they were actually able to nullify at first the effectiveness of both william the conqueror's arches and his cavalry harold's infantry was mostly equipped with the classic shield walls and any types of weapons whether it was spears axes swords kind of mixed swords were of course less common during that time and so william led with a barrage of arrow fire but because they had shields they were able to defend against the arab fire quite effectively until basically the arafire stopped and then when the cavalry came in all we know is that williams cavalry at first was not able to break apart harold's infantry and we don't know what exactly was the deployment did they have a thicker line that meant if the cavalry hit in that would be just mired in a sea of enemy weapons and just get destroyed or that the shield was able to fend it off but i think the train played a very big role because going uphill will stall the speed and impact of a cavalry charge quite significantly so with the bowman and the cavalry proving to be mostly ineffective williams sent in his infantry to engage harold's infantry up on the hill and that lasted for quite a while until something really interesting happened we don't know if this was a faint or a legitimate routing but william's infantry line started to break and retreat down the hill harold's men took heart and then started to pursue them charging down and away from their advantageous position we even think this was against williams express orders this breaking information and this pursuing and as soon as they broke formation start to pursue down the hill or guess who could come in and hit them with all the strength that they could muster their heavy cavalry because the unit broke apart and lost the advantage of the high ground so that the meme about high ground being advantageous from star wars doesn't apply into single one-on-one combat nearly as much as it does for the battlefield and then williams cavalry was able to come in and just wipe the floor with harold's infantry and the battle of hastings was won by william the conqueror so it wasn't that heavy cavalry in this instance was just universally better than the infantry of the time it was affected by the deployment of the men and the terrain that they had additional reasons that give significant advantage to having the high ground is that it gives you a better field of view to see the enemy and their numbers where they're coming from where they might retreat if there's any units breaking off to try and flank your position and i did mention it can give your archers additional range but it can also hide additional troops you have behind the hills horizon it can mask redeployments or units you have moving to flank your opponent going uphill means it takes longer for the enemy to reach you which means more time for you to shoot volleys of arrows at them they have to exert more energy to reach you it of course slows charges i mentioned that one already but it also gives you the advantage to push the enemy back because they have to actively fight against gravity from falling downhill the next massive and kind of obvious component about the deployment of men are numbers yes generally speaking the larger army has the advantage but we've seen countless times in both the medieval and even classical periods that an outnumbered force can still wipe the floor if they use the right tactics this happened in cressie agincourt bannockburn but we need to understand it was the specific tactics that were employed that actually won the day for the outnumbered force all things being equal the side with larger numbers will usually win but it's not just tactics and maneuvering on the battlefield even though that plays a massive part it's like i mentioned terrain also plays a massive part but terrain advantage doesn't just come in having a high position it's also affected by lines of retreat whether that's going up or downhill having to cross a river being surrounded by marshland all those things i just mentioned have been employed on the medieval battlefield to the advantage and disadvantage of opposing sides in the battle of bannockburn robert the bruce employed marshy swampland as well as river waterways to stall charges to block the line to the retreat and to funnel an enemy almost into a kill zone position with very difficult retreat marshy ground was also used in agincourt to stall a cavalry charge because the weather plays a massive role in the battlefield as well not just with how the battlefield plays out if it rains the you know night before making the ground soggy but also how long a certain battle can play out it's very difficult to fight during the winter and having to deal with snow especially if you're going on campaign into an opposing country where you don't have a secure line of supplies this is why sometimes it's more advantageous to fortify in a castle or a city that is well defended with you know fortress type fortifications instead of meeting an enemy on a pitch battlefield and relying on the weather and also sicknesses that often creep into an army when they're on march or stuff like this and tree it's a horrible thing that actually befell many met medieval armies and just relying on these natural things to help take out the enemy for them the other thing that often encourages people to hunker down is it gives them time for relief for other people your allies to raise larger forces and to come in generally speaking the attacking force is always limited by time and the longer things play out the more advantage goes to the people they're attacking because they only have certain number of supplies and the defenders this is their land okay they are in a position to raise up more troops to defend themselves the last thing i want to talk about is the idea of retreat and how deadly medieval battlefields actually were and the answer might surprise you a medieval battlefield wasn't as deadly as in comparison to say a modern battlefield in actual fact the likelihood of survival was much greater uh but it balances out when you look at medical technology if you get a cut and an infection you'll probably die whereas it's much more survivable that type of injury it's much more survivable in the modern day but there was an artillery where you might get suddenly shelled without warning even poor soldiers could wear armor that was effective against most of the weapons of their day making the medieval battlefield far more survivable for the average soldier in comparison to modern warfare where one bullet could kill you instantly over a very long distance then there's a fact that most battles didn't fight to the last man standing but rather ended in routes retreats and surrenders because if you retreat you can live to fight another day and you have to understand how this kind of works you see every individual soldier doesn't know what's happening in other parts of the battle and so you could have multiple units of infantry engaging and this unit here starts to get the real heavy brunt and starts to be getting pushed back and without them knowing their two other units could actually be winning and if this unit breaks and flees even though their side was technically winning well guess what this unit can then start to attack the remaining two and the battle can be won even though the entire battle was going the other way it is amazing how many battles actually were determined by one side refusing to break lines in comparison to actually the number of men being lost this is why that idea of the heroic you know rousing of the men even when they're getting you know defeated and hammered and suddenly one side takes heart say the attacking side their leader gets killed shot okay and suddenly the morale starts to be shaken on the side that's actually winning and the losing side takes heart and just hammers him really quickly they could still have only inflicted an additional 10 casualties and technically still be vastly outnumbered but because they killed so many so quickly that can actually ruin the morale of the side and get them to break and flee and as soon as they break their unit formations well now they are vulnerable to the pursuing side but the pursuing side can generally only pursue so far the retreating enemy might find better terrain and actually reform up and the pursuing side because they were outnumbered could then be wiped out and so pressing your advantage too far could see you defeated which is exactly what we saw in the battle of hastings but retreat and surrender was far more common than fighting to the last man and you also have to understand this that the attacking side they don't necessarily want to wipe out the opposing army completely if they surrender well guess what they can ransom off the people of the surrender and get money from it as well and trying to kill everyone to the last man means their own people are going to be put at risk and even though you're able to wipe the opponent opposing side out you're still going to lose men all right here's a phenomenal you know realization okay people they don't like to die shocking i know and as a result the medieval battlefield and really any battlefield plays out in interesting ways as a result the idea of routing and retreating is exactly a manifestation of that if they if one side even if they're not really losing but especially if they are losing they don't want to die and so the way to survive that is to retreat and it's also a misconception that wars and battles play out in these large single engagements oftentimes there are many engagements that happen over multiple days sometimes they engage with a clear victor on one side but they haven't wiped out the opposing side by any measure for instance in the battle of bannockburn robert the bruce gained a decisive victory on the first day but the english still outnumbered them two to one so they weren't gonna just pack up and leave they still thought it was in the bag and robert the bruce was actually in a very vulnerable position he was considering retreating back to the fortifications that they had to hunker down and then something happened which is one of those really interesting things that can shift the entire course of the battlefield one of the english knights defected moving across to the scottish to let them know that the english were demoralized and he felt if the scots rallied and really pushed forward they could still win the victory even though they were outnumbered two to one so in the following day that's exactly what they did and the scottish did win if this englishman hadn't defected and didn't let them know that the english were demoralized robert the bruce might have retreated and he could have lost the war as a result and so it's amazing i find it so interesting that the course of entire battles can be shifted on such small little things like that if one side chooses to retreat too early or one side pursues which puts them in a vulnerable position if an enemy soldier defects giving key crucial tactical information which allows another side of the defendings attackers or whatever to know the deployment where they could set up arches to ambush cavalry to break apart things it's amazing all these things play a very dynamic way that should make battlefields depicted on screen or in role-playing games hugely fun but instead more often than not we see the most baffling stupid things happen on tv and in film because they don't understand the fundamentals the types of military units and the differences and diversities even within a single type like infantry their deployments the types of deployment where they deployed the terrain the leading up actions to the battle scouting skirmishes maintaining an army supply lines the shifting nature of the battle itself where one side might get routed one side might take heart and charge one side might make a tactical error an accident it is basically an endless resource for interesting conflict and and and something that could be hugely entertaining and engaging when it's done right but unfortunately we haven't seen it in the modern day so i hope i've at least been out to cover the basics adequately enough it's probably only scratching the surface because this subject is a very sophisticated and complex one so maybe you can do some further you know study in and of yourself but at the very least if you are planning out a battle in your writing role playing or whatever just think about the specifics okay don't just take it that infantry is always gonna be weak against cavalry what type of cavalry what type of infantry what are they armed with what's the terrain what's the lead up what are the circumstances who has the morale who might break and retreat first who has long range units that could be employed in very creative different ways it's just an endless thing that could just so many things can shift and it's really fun and engaging and so that would be my advice think about the specifics and of course i hope you have fun with it thank you for watching i hope you have enjoyed and of course i look forward to seeing you in the next video on shadowversity so until then [Music] you

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 677,270

Keywords: medieval, middle ages, history, historical, research, battle, battlefield, knight, knight's, sword, swords, castle, castles, game of thrones, lord of the rings, tactics, unit, deployment, cavalry, infantry, archery, longbowmen

Id: b_BFMw82l_s

Length: 32min 26sec (1946 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020