Marching Speed of French Medieval Knight - new evidence

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

For all you DMMMMMMMMMMM players out there:
French Knights need an extra +1 pip to move:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8647621/French-soldiers-weighed-down-by-armour-at-Agincourt.html

(Pity it's the Telegraph!)
Just want him to fallover in the video!

[NTM]

So they tested walking and runiing in armour but not riding a horse.
Sure I've see numerous programmes by Mike Loades et al that have proved that armour did not encumber knights.

[hamsterking]

I saw the same reported via the BBC and was mildly interested. What I thought was most intriguing was that wearing a given  weight of armour was much more exhausting than carrying the same weight in a backpack.

Still and all I think trying to generalize this kind of study out to "exhausted French Knights lose Agincourt" is a huge jump on a very small evidence base. For example I think we know very little about the proportion of Knights wearing different styles and quantities of armour and how much physical training knights engaged in. Either would have big impacts on your outcomes.

Dave Turner

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I know, but they could have shown him trudge across a boggy field and fall over a few times for a laugh! 

[Hertsblue]

The article claims that the French knights were easily killed because they were exausted when they reached the English line. How easily would they have been killed had they advanced against massed longbows without armour? Very, is my guess.  Is this what's known as a lose-lose situation?

[O Dinas Powys]

Here's a couple of links to the BBC:

News page http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14204717

and the item from the Today program http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9543000/9543315.stm

[DanJ]

If armour was such a liability how come so much time and effort was spent in improving it?  The other side of this coin must be Stamford Bridge where the historians tell us the Vikings lost because they weren't wearing their arour so were easy victims to the armoured saxons.

There is a trade off between level of protection and encumberance and it was only abandoned when it no longer proved effective enough to warrant it's use but has now returned as modern arour is seen to provide a substantial enough degree of protection to make it worth while wearing it.

And didn't the much vaunted longbow, able to turn a lumbering steel clad frenchman into a pin cushion at a mile actually loose the hundred years war? 

[Leon]

I've always been slightly confused by the evolution of armour, maybe someone can enlighten me?

We go from solid body coverage in the form of plate/chainmail and helmets through to the end of the 17th C., and then just as folk start having to deal with higher velocity and greater ranged weapons, everybody started wearing brightly coloured uniforms with no protection whatsoever?  I don't get why people just stood there getting shot without thinking, 'Hmmm.. a bit of armour could be useful here...?'

[fred.]

Quite simply armour that was thick enough to resist musket balls was too heavy. Cuirasiers retained breast plates and helmets for longer than anyone, but they were typically big men on big horses - who didn't go charging around the place.

Some armour stayed in use - in WW1 snipers had heavy armour, in WWII the Russians had body armour for their engineers. But even by Vietnam although body armour was common it was more for protection against shell fragments than direct bullet shots. And of course now infantry wear lots of armour, which is pretty much bullet proof.

I think bright uniforms and standing close together was to do with morale - also muskets were so inaccurate that until you got to very short range no one was going to be hit - so hiding wouldn't help.

[Luddite]

I think you're basing things on the assumption that military developments were based on practicality and function, which of course, it wasn't.

Armour for example, irrespective of any protective benefit was mostly about status, particularly for the knights of this period.

The French at Agincourt for example, made things even worse for themselves because of the noble practice of 'ransom'.

English archers on the flanks were 'men of no account', that is worthless for ransom if captured.  So the Frnech knight bunched together as they all tried to get into the small number of English men-at-arms and nobles who were high value and worth capturing for Ransom!

Access to armour was often dependent on wealth and fashion often dictated the style chosen.

Of course once firearms begin to proliferate, armour ceased to be a mark of wealth/status, whereas the ability to raise a regiment and fully equip it in nice bright uniforms was!

This sort of thing also crossed cultures.

At Sekigehara in Japan in 1600AD the Shimazu clan turned up to the battle armed with bows, to the great amusement of their allies who all used arquebusiers.  Archers were considered 'old fashioned', despite being generally superior to the handguns.

Armour that was available was of course continuously improved in quality and effect, but we know that the later MEdieval bespoke suits were also objects of fashion and display of wealth and status.

These 'other factors' continue to influence things to this day.

Modern firearms for example have shorter range and are 'less lethal' than the rifles of WWI for example...and take the UK's adoption of the SA80.  For years the British army resisted 'upgrading' to a fully automatic infantry weapon because it wasn't felt to be needed.  when they finally went for the SA80, it was inferior to other options being considered like the Steyr AUG but was chosen for political reasons...

[Last Hussar]

and it doesn't work against Irish peasants.

Not that I'm bitter about Sunjester's dice rolling or anything. It was 2 years ago, why would I still remember...