Medievil armour questions

In these armies archers (where they existed) had been riding horses, not marching on foot and they were privileged troops and did not even always considered an “infantry” which was on a bottom of the ladder and quite often simply did not exist as a branch: it does not look like the French had an “infantry” in any of 3 famous battles of the 100YW and they did manage to outmarch the English in 2 of them.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, but infantry were very much a part of late medieval armies. Aside from anything else, they were necessary for fighting defensively, fighting in sieges, fighting on ground unsuitable for cavalry, and so on, and were much cheaper as well.

Armies had been lance-based (ditto for the condotierry in Italy) and more or less meaningful infantry were various city militias which were usually acting not too far from their homes. The most prominent, for a while, were Flemish militias (mostly from Ghent) and they seemingly had been as heavy as possible (mail at Courtrai and probably some plate at Rosebeke) but it does not look like prior to Rosebeke they even tried to march away from a battle under unfavorable circumstances, which can be attributed either to their speed of march or to their arrogance or both.

The prominence of city militias had ended by the start of the 14th century. After that, most infantry were either professional mercenaries or in the retinue of a king or lord. There are also examples of armies acting far from home -- the English in the Hundred Years' War, for example.

It seems that the 1st European professional infantry, Swiss, were not overburdening themselves with an armor: soldiers may or may not wear any and the same goes even for the helmets. The same goes for the landsknechts (unless we assume that most of the contemporary depictions are pure fantasy).

Switzerland was a relatively impoverished region at that time, which may have had something to do with their lack of armour. By the time other nations started copying them, muskets were becoming more important, and it wasn't practical to give mass infantry formations armour thick enough to defend against musket balls. And the Swiss weren't the first European professional infantry; as mentioned above, there were mercenary companies, and soldiers in noble retinues, long before the Swiss rise to military hegemony.
 

Derek Pullem

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In these armies archers (where they existed) had been riding horses, not marching on foot and they were privileged troops and did not even always considered an “infantry” which was on a bottom of the ladder and quite often simply did not exist as a branch: it does not look like the French had an “infantry” in any of 3 famous battles of the 100YW and they did manage to outmarch the English in 2 of them.

Armies had been lance-based (ditto for the condotierry in Italy) and more or less meaningful infantry were various city militias which were usually acting not too far from their homes. The most prominent, for a while, were Flemish militias (mostly from Ghent) and they seemingly had been as heavy as possible (mail at Courtrai and probably some plate at Rosebeke) but it does not look like prior to Rosebeke they even tried to march away from a battle under unfavorable circumstances, which can be attributed either to their speed of march or to their arrogance or both.

It seems that the 1st European professional infantry, Swiss, were not overburdening themselves with an armor: soldiers may or may not wear any and the same goes even for the helmets. The same goes for the landsknechts (unless we assume that most of the contemporary depictions are pure fantasy).


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Partially true. Archers in continental armies were generally attached to lances following the French ordonnance model. In out of the way places like England they were still an independent arm and did indeed tend to wear some protection. Most late medieval / early renaissance troops wore some armour - the colourful landsknechts and to some extent the Swiss wore the colours over the top of their armour.

341-best-landsknechten-images-middle-ages-armors.jpg


It is true that the front ranks ere the most heavily armoured but most soldiers could afford something. Besides the OP is not asking what was worn but what could be made by an anachronistic group with skills far ahead of the times to outfit a large number of troops. Expense is not an issue here I believe.
 
Partially true. Archers in continental armies were generally attached to lances following the French ordonnance model. In out of the way places like England they were still an independent arm and did indeed tend to wear some protection. Most late medieval / early renaissance troops wore some armour - the colourful landsknechts and to some extent the Swiss wore the colours over the top of their armour.

341-best-landsknechten-images-middle-ages-armors.jpg


It is true that the front ranks ere the most heavily armoured but most soldiers could afford something. Besides the OP is not asking what was worn but what could be made by an anachronistic group with skills far ahead of the times to outfit a large number of troops. Expense is not an issue here I believe.

I quite agree with what you are saying. My initial point, which I kept repeating a number of times (and from which I was regularly detracted) was that to say something definite on the subject we need to have at least some reasonably clear idea about the deployed tactics and composition of that fantasized mass army and preferably something about its opponents and potential theater of operations as well. Simple fact of availability of something does not automatically mean that this something must be used no matter what. You can start with the notion of a mass army (pretty much nonexistent in the MA): if it is overwhelmingly bigger than any potential opponent, do you really need to put everybody into armor? Chances are that you would not have to fight any battles providing your troops are of a reasonable quality. Or perhaps (subject to the tactics), most of your troops can do with just padded jackets by the same reason. BTW, in the Muscovite state a big part of the cavalry had been wearing them and strelrsy of Ivan IV did not have any armor; most of the Tatars (in the late MA and all the way to the XVIII) did not have any armor and were OK.
 
What about the Spanish Rodeleros? They are late medieval, or really early modern era, 1480-ish to 1560-ish, they were relativelly high armoured as his work was introduce themselves inside the pike enemy formation and kill at short range, of course they need to be supported with pikes of their own againts cavalry, but is an example of a rich-ish country equiping his men

These were the guys that conquered Granada,America, and fight the Italian wars, and eventually give birth to the Tercio, they could be switly included in the OP scenario

rodelero+2.jpeg

images

Edit: some grammar horrors
Those guys were profesionals and never went to America. The Spanish conquest of the continent was mostly fought using local elements (indigenous) and the few spaniards that were there were normalish dudes trying to make a fortune in their big "adventure".
 
Those guys were profesionals and never went to America. The Spanish conquest of the continent was mostly fought using local elements (indigenous) and the few spaniards that were there were normalish dudes trying to make a fortune in their big "adventure".
They come most of.the guy thar come to america were ex-soldiers, wich migth explain their brutality againts captured enemies
 
They come most of.the guy thar come to america were ex-soldiers, wich migth explain their brutality againts captured enemies

To some degree their brutality to the captured enemies also could be explained by a habit of these enemies to sacrifice captured Spaniards to their gods. But not all of them were ex-soldiers: Bernal Diaz recruited as a soldier into expedition of Pedrarias Davila without any previous military experience, Cortes, by the time he became leader of the famous expedition was a clerk, civilian administrator (alcalde), plantation owner but never a professional soldier, not to mention a military commander, Pizarro also started his military career only in New World.
 
Those guys were profesionals and never went to America. The Spanish conquest of the continent was mostly fought using local elements (indigenous) and the few spaniards that were there were normalish dudes trying to make a fortune in their big "adventure".

Trued, but they were equipped like rodeleros (or at least all the pictures I've seen show them that way).
 
Trued, but they were equipped like rodeleros (or at least all the pictures I've seen show them that way).
But it made sense in this specific context: no need of the pike formation to protect from a cavalry and most of the participants had at least some experience with a sword and it was good enough against the enemy who was mostly trying to capture you alive. Not sure about all of them wearing armor: Diaz in his description of an early expedition wrote about the numerous casualties caused by the arrows and I doubt that an arrow with a stone head can pierce a quirasse or a shield.
 
Not sure about all of them wearing armor: Diaz in his description of an early expedition wrote about the numerous casualties caused by the arrows and I doubt that an arrow with a stone head can pierce a quirasse or a shield.

True, but there would still have been exposed legs, arms, and faces for the arrows to hit, even if they were all cuirassed up.
 
But it made sense in this specific context: no need of the pike formation to protect from a cavalry and most of the participants had at least some experience with a sword and it was good enough against the enemy who was mostly trying to capture you alive. Not sure about all of them wearing armor: Diaz in his description of an early expedition wrote about the numerous casualties caused by the arrows and I doubt that an arrow with a stone head can pierce a quirasse or a shield.
I think from records that almost all of them were armored, but that for ~60% it was generally just a helmet and padded armor, with chain mail and brigandine being predominant and elements of plate fairly rare and limited to ~10%. Though I could be remembering wrong

Mind you pikes are still very useful against infantry, but only in large numbers where you have a big enough block. Most of the Spanish colonial campaigns were too small to take advantage of such
 
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