War Tactics - Writers Forum

Monkuta · 05-10-2008, 09:36 PM

I want to write a story from the perspective of a general, or a battalion of soldiers in medieval times. Unfortunately, I don't know much about battle tactics (especially those hundreds of years ago). Does anyone know anything or could point me in the direction of some basic and advanced war formations and strategies?

Sayuri · 05-11-2008, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monkuta

I want to write a story from the perspective of a general, or a battalion of soldiers in medieval times. Unfortunately, I don't know much about battle tactics (especially those hundreds of years ago). Does anyone know anything or could point me in the direction of some basic and advanced war formations and strategies?

YES. It might sound dorky, but buy "Medieval Total War" I or II. If you can find I and you have a computer old enough to actually run it, buy it--it only costs about ten bucks. Medieval Total War II costs about thirty bucks and usually includes the "Kingdoms" expansion pack, which includes gameplay for the Teutonic Wars, the Crusades, the Spanish imperialist expansion into the Americas, and... er.... something else that I forget. Anyway, here are a few general pointers about medieval warfare:

*Types of soldiers include various kinds of knights which are usually nobles, often of the second or third or fourth sons of noblemen, who have no land as the result of primogeniture; archers and crossbowmen; spearmen of various types including lancers; various types of cavalry including swordsmen, archers, javelinmen, and lancers; and ballistas, which include trebuchets and catapults.

*As an offensive OR defensive general, you want your army to be facing DOWNHILL, for obvious reasons.

*Widely spaced troops provide worse targets for archers--it's a good defensive position. Closely spaced troops provide a good charge--an offensive position.

*The best offensive tactic is to break your enemy's lines. This can be achieved by:

(1) Causing your enemies to rout; best accomplished by using fear. Flaming arrows, trebuchets, and catapults are good tactics.

(2) Sending a wedge formation cavalry against infantry (anything but spears, which are effective against cavalry). Ideally, you want to break your enemy's line and have a secondary cavalry force attack one or both of the flanks, causing your enemy to rout.

*Send spearmen against cavalry and archers against lightly armored troops.

*The phalanx is the. best. defensive. position.

If you're talking about siege warfare, that's a WHOLE 'nother category. If you can tell me the exact time period and physical location you're considering, I can provide much more detailed info. I am a total dork about this stuff.

Everything about the physical location is important--whether there are forests (hinders archers but aids ambushes), whether it's a siege issue (defense of a fortress), whether there's a bridge that must be defended (only one battalion can fight at one time), whether it's hot and dry or foggy and wet and cold.

Also, who you want to win is important.

Gimme details!

nacreous · 05-11-2008, 08:28 AM

I agree you should play some medieval wargames to get a feeling for this.
PSL guide to wargaming, by bruce quarrie, covers tactics and strategy for the era through the use of wargaming.
it was a bloody and ruthless struggle back then. the footsoldier had little protection and often died slowly. life was cheap and the soldiers were the decoys for the enemy.
make your commander ruthless, brave, and cruel.
good luck with your story.
p.s. put some cool stuff in the catapult, eh?

LionofPerth · 05-11-2008, 08:28 AM

Uh, what era? What period are you looking at, early gunpowder, late gunpowder, medieval, Crusades, could you please define the area of history are you looking at in particular.

Most of the time, the basics in Sun Tzu's Art of War is pretty good. It covers most of what you need to know, and history can do the rest.

Monkuta · 05-11-2008, 09:37 AM

Ooh, thanks for all of that Sayuri and Nacreous. I'll look into the sources you mentioned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LionofPerth

Uh, what era? What period are you looking at, early gunpowder, late gunpowder, medieval, Crusades, could you please define the area of history are you looking at in particular.

I'm not really writing historical fiction. it's more... fantasy-ish but as most fantasy stories are, it is based in medieval times. I supposed to best era to try and emulate would be... the transition into the early gunpowder age. Funny, I wasn't really thinking about eras until you mentioned them.

LionofPerth · 05-11-2008, 09:59 AM

Era is important as it determines technology, ergo, required settings, and even language to a degree. Basically, only a tradesman, like say a tanner, would know about sulfur(I think, they used a good few smelly things in their work), where as more people know about when gunpowder is used in weapons.

As far as I know at this point, the conversion to black powder weapons was it was simpler to train a person, weeks instead of years namely, and it made a loud noise. Psychological warfare, at least an early version of it.

Are you looking at having basic cannon, ie stone( I kid you not) over metal shot, or keeping it to the small scale, like early matchlocks, or the arquebesque, and I'm not sure on the spelling.

One thing you'll need to look at as well, as far as I know, my mother is more a fan of this era, where as I start at 1914 odd, is the powder caked or not. Basically, as I understand it, caked powder is more effective than the standard grains, for some reason.

At least that is what I know in the area. Another thing you would need to look at, pikes and swords, at least if you want the story to have early gunpowder in it. They were moving away from the long swords and broad swords of the Middle Ages at that point to thinner, longer weapons, in general. I suppose, looking at say, the Conquistadors and they're equipment could be a good example of military items.

Perhaps diggin up some history about Oliver Cromwell may give you a better idea of the technology and setting your story woulod take part it, as that seems to have most of the required elements in my eye.

Monkuta, I find if I narrow down the rough era I'm working in, I can better visualise my scenes and scenery. As for fantasy, it's fantasy, you don't have to explain anything, but, to quote Douglas Adams, the pressurised can before fire, is something you can't do, at least in relative levels of technology.

As for simulating, it can be overrated, but often useful, once, many years ago, I had a unit in game that never seemed to die, but that was many years ago now. It was WarHammer 40K, and from memory, it was a unit of Firewarriors, once beating a unit of Khorne Bezerkers in close combat. Don't ask me how, or why, but they did. In the end, I called them something whacky, perhaps it was a reference to Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy.

Rowan Hart · 05-11-2008, 10:33 AM

Might I suggest 'The Prince Of Nothing' series by R. Scott Bakkar? He does Crusader type mass battles very well.

Osprey reference books are very well researched and provide terminology and the like for almost all the historical unit types you'd ever expect to see on a battle field. The have a series of Campeign books also. Most useful to you - reference books on tactics!

Don't know if you have this organisation in The U.S ( you are American, Right? ) but try attending a 'sealed knot' battle. This is an English civil war re-enactment group who stage pitched battles. You get a real feel for the sensory element of a battle ( though no simulated dysentry. battlefields stank - soldiers at Agincourt for example were observed fighting with no hose because they had serious diarrhea!).

Other than that, can't really help you. My military knowledge stops at the advent of gunpowder. Ask me about hand weapons, bows and the like - no worries. guns - phah!

Monkuta · 05-11-2008, 11:11 AM

Lion - The reason I want to stage it in an emulation of the early gunpowder is because it's always an interesting story when the protagonist(s) have to face an enemy that bests them in every aspect. Creating a battle that takes place as these new technologies and weapons were being created is always interesting to read and imagine. I like to think of Saruman inventing bombs in LotR as an example.
I see what you mean about fantasy being fantasy, but I am (mostly) a pacifist but love to read about battles and stuff so I usually get the brunt of it and not the specific tactics, etc used.
Thanks for the references. I'll be sure to look up Conquistadors in my search.

Rowan - I'm not sure about sealed knot battles, but I'd definitely love to witness one. I'll check out the reference books, definitely and I'll also read the Prince of Nothing if I can find it.

Thanks guys! This is helping a lot!

LionofPerth · 05-11-2008, 11:46 AM

Conquistadors were about, what, say 1560 or so, so that era seems to best match the early gunpowder type of world you want, at least in my mind it does. If anything, it also gives you some potential options for the good guys to work around the advantages of black powder weapons.

That being said, and I have no way of checking up on this, apparently some of the early arquebesques were fired during a ballistics test by the Austrian army. One particular weapon was so dangerous, ie inaccurate, that they had to cancel the test, and it may have actually fired out of the hole the slow match goes in one case.

Non Serviam · 05-11-2008, 12:45 PM

The first use of gunpowder in Western Europe was in the mid-thirteenth century, by which time the Chinese had had it for more than five hundred years. They used gunpowder for making fireworks. Most sources suggest the Chinese didn't think of using gunpowder to make weapons, and imply this is because they're a lot more civilised than us--but unfortunately for this particular opportunity for political correctness, they did make simple bombs with it.

The Europeans took some time to figure out how to make cannons (which were the first gunpowder weapons of battlefield significance). When I say "some time" I mean about fifty years--so let's say you might start to see a simple copper cannon on the European battlefield around 1300 AD.

Up until gunpowder

Prior to about 1300, warfare was largely about castles and sieges. Castles were so important because they were the army's supply bases, from which they'd move out to raid, and because a relatively tiny number of men could hold them against huge numbers, so they were the main factor in defence.

Siege warfare had an elaborate set of rules, and you'd plan your defence on the basis that each castle could hold out against the siege for a certain number of days (such as fifty).

If fighting away from the castles, heavy cavalry was king of the battlefield, because pike-block tactics largely weren't in use to counter them. Heavy cavalry tactics are a bit more complicated that it might seem at first because there's a definite vulnerability--each cavalryman carries his shield on his left arm. Which meant that you wanted your heavy cavalry to charge their heavy cavalry from the right hand side.

Massed heavy missile weapons fire wasn't common during this period. ("Heavy" in this context is longbows and military crossbows. Normal hunting bows and crossbows couldn't really harm heavy cavalry because they couldn't puncture the armour.) It really came into its own at Agincourt, where the French were quite surprised that a mass of peasants with yew longbows could kill all their glorious chivalry on their beautiful chargers.

The infantry had spears and formed into spear-walls, and the idea was that once you'd killed your enemy's heavy cavalry, you'd use your cavalry to gallop round behind his spearwall. Then you'd advance your infantry towards his infantry and they'd surrender rather than be sandwiched between infantry and cavalry.

This "sandwiching" tactic is immortalised in the game of hnefetafl where the way to kill a piece is to surround it.

After gunpowder

Cannon made smaller castles with wooden walls useless, but big stone castles with cannon of their own were really powerful fortresses. (The border between England and Wales had several hundred such castles, most of which are still standing today--they're interesting to visit.) The best ones were deliberately designed as cannon fire-bases, in polygonal shapes so the castle could fire a "broadside" of cannon in any direction--square castles went out of fashion because their corners were so vulnerable.

Musketmen changed the battlefield completely. Using a pike in a pike block takes training, drilling and a fair bit of physical strength. Firing a longbow is a very skilled technique. (Archaeologists can sometimes tell if someone was a longbowman from looking at their skeleton. It seems the training is so rigorous it causes visible skeletal changes.) But anyone can use a musket, and muskets were so horribly inaccurate that most training doesn't help--it's okay just to spend a few hours learning to reload as fast as possible.

So warfare became all about having lots and lots of conscript musketeers facing each other. The trick there was to get the other guy's musketeers to fire first. He'd kill a few of your men, but most of the shots would miss. Then you could rush your musketeers forward and fire a volley at close range while he was still reloading.

The pikes and muskets killed off heavy cavalry tactics for good--or at least until the Second World War, where massed armoured assaults (the panzerblitz) gave them a new lease of life. For a while.

Monkuta · 05-11-2008, 03:39 PM

Wow, that was long. But very useful. Thanks for the response.

Rowan Hart · 05-11-2008, 04:55 PM

Don't forget the 'cuirassier' Non Serviam - in the age of gunpowder these were your heavy cavalry. And the earlier Dragoons who were bascally mounted musketeers themselves. Cavalry still played a role in gunpowder armies, just a different one. Consequently the training and breeding of horses changed to accomodate their new role. The Heavy destriers and coursers gave way to a different breed - confusingly often called coursers themselves in certain references.

Mass cavalry charges were still en vogue even in the victorian period - charge of the heavy and light brigade durng the battle of Balaclava, for example, and even in world war one. I remember reading something about some cavalry regiment making a successful charge at the start of the war. Then there is the famous cavalry action of the Polish regiments during the second world war - but these were famous as obsolete tactics and because they were massacres.

Just a few more ideas.

Ilasir Maroa · 05-11-2008, 05:21 PM

Some great advice here. But usually, medieval in fantasy implies at least some use of non-musket weapons, and by practical standards, muskets and their early brethern were extremely inefficient. But...

Never mind, that's pointless. You mention the early age of gunpowder as your possible time. Now, that could mean a lot or nothing, since historical fiction is not your goal. "early gunpowder" is very vague. Are we talking rifled barrels here, or just muskets or their forerunners? Depending on how advanced your guns are, the tactics will be extremely different. Also note that even up to the revolutionary war, the main tactic was to stand across from eachother in a field and slug it out. Doesn't sound like the kind of battle you'd have in a fast-paced war fantasy.

Sayuri · 05-11-2008, 07:50 PM

Oliver Cromwell is way too late--that's 17th century, the Stuarts, or 16th century, the Tudors (if you're talking about OC best known for the Protestant Reformation). The medieval era in England was under the Plantagenet or Angevin kings (which were the Normans). For early gunpowder, you want to read history after the Norman Invasion but before the War of the Roses. Apart from the conquest of Wales, I don't really know what happened in that era, but I'm pretty sure the early gunpowder period was around the time of Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV.

Ditto to what Ilasir said. Early gunpowder was inefficient and resulted in a lot of deaths from friendly fire. But it also caused fear, troops to rout, and most importantly for you I think, a lot of smoke and lack of visibility would result.

The sandwich maneuver that Non Serviam mentioned is the best oft-employed tactic of the era, but it can only be achieved with the element of surprise assuming roughly equal numbers of soldiers on each side. This means trees or hills on the landscape has to give the cavalry a place to hide. You can't do the "sandwich" on a flat desert landscape.

The battleground really determines everything, to a good general.

I'd read about Genghis Khan's military campaigns if I were you--he never fought the same battle twice, and it's about the right time, 13th or 14th century.

Monkuta · 05-11-2008, 08:33 PM

It's not so much early gunpowder as it is the transition into it (or something like that). The first image of this battle in my head was a troop of cavalry charging forward with swords and armor but the other side just pops up with some guns and shoots 'em right off their horses.