How do men riding horses and carrying lances lance people?

[JAR]

How do men riding horses and carrying lances lance people?

I've seen paintings of men on horses charging at full speed with lances pointed forward. What I don't understand is how they lance people. It seems to me that if a person was charging on a horse, he would have to let go of the lance when it went into a person to avoid injuring his arm or the lance would have to be made to break on impact. Yet I've read accounts of men lancing one person and then lancing another after that.

[kedo1981]

It depends on what the “knight” is doing; if it is in a tournament against another mounted knight then the object is to only unhorse your opponent. In battle, that kind of lance might have very limited usefulness. I would think a mounted knight would use a much lighter weight spear/lance to run down infantry.

[Mycroft]

Great question.

I suppose if you're a cavalier charging infantry, you could get a couple with your lance if they're packed close enough together. It doesn't seem likely that you could spear one fellow, then target another while carrying that weight around. Of course, under those circumstances your real weapon was the horse.

If you've seen reports of someone spearing one guy, then getting another while still carrying the weight of the first guy, I'd be tempted to put that down to after-battle exageration.

[Moccomouse]

Originally posted by JAR
It seems to me that if a person was charging on a horse, he would have to let go of the lance when it went into a person to avoid injuring his arm or the lance would have to be made to break on impact. Yet I've read accounts of men lancing one person and then lancing another after that.


IIRC, a knight on horseback would 'couch' the lance, often in a grove made into his shield or onto a support on the top of his saddle, to help support the lance, and keep it level. Lances used in warfare were actually a bit shorter and had sharp tips, like spears, and I suppose the biggest problem would be getting your opponent off the tip of your lance, and not injuring your arm, right?
In jousting, however, the object is to knock the opponent off his horse, and if your lance is planted correctly your opponent would fly right off, and I doubt you would have to worry much about recoil. Often, the lances did break though, and in some competitions the winner was determined to be the knight who broke the most lances.

[CFLarsen]

Well, he could do it, if he was lance...arm...strong... ;)

[Hypocolius]

Originally posted by JAR
How do men riding horses and carrying lances lance people?

I've seen paintings of men on horses charging at full speed with lances pointed forward. What I don't understand is how they lance people. It seems to me that if a person was charging on a horse, he would have to let go of the lance when it went into a person to avoid injuring his arm or the lance would have to be made to break on impact. Yet I've read accounts of men lancing one person and then lancing another after that.

Depends whether you're talking about Medieaval jousting or more modern Lancers. In jousting the lance is a fairly heavy wooden pole, which often shattered on impact, as you surmised. It was often used in tournaments, and occasionally in "real" combat, as a prelude to hand-to-hand combat (either on horseback, or on foot). The weapons used by Lancers (think 19th century) on the other hand were much lighter, and extremely sharp. They were used as a weapon against foot soldiers, who were ridden down and stabbed. The Lancer, if he was adept, could release the lance from the body of the soldier as he rode past, with a flick of the wrist, and go on to attack the next soldier. The idea behind this can be seen when watching Lancers tent-pegging, ie piercing a series of small wooden pegs one after the other.

[Cinorjer]

The way battles were fought back then, according to what I learned while living in England, the big lance was only supposed to be a "one shot" thing at the beginning of the battle. Your group of Knights on horseback would line up against the Knights on the other side and charge. Bodies and splinters would fly. After that, the survivors would draw swords and hack away.

[Charlie Monoxide]

Ahhh, the great equalizer of the middle ages between mounted knights and peasants, pikemen .....

Charlie (lets fight in a swamp you silly ka_nig_it) Monoxide

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Charlie Monoxide
Ahhh, the great equalizer of the middle ages between mounted knights and peasants, pikemen .....

Charlie (lets fight in a swamp you silly ka_nig_it) Monoxide

English/Welsh Longbows were better. 500(?) feet effective range, 10-20 shots per minute (I´ve seen both figures), and the arrowhead can easily pierce (medieval) armor. Sure, a shield can stop an arrow, but horses don´t carry shields. The English routinely massacred the French knights with their Longbows in the Hundred-Year-War.

[Nikk]

In post medieval times weren't lances used in conjunction with sabres?

The lance or group of lancers was used to break up an enemy formation and the sabre (a slashing weapon) was then used from horseback in the melée against the by now disorganised body of enemy troops.

[Zep]

The lancer charge had a two-fold effect.

First, the horse was use literally as a battering-ram into footsoldiers. Often they dropped their weapons and ran - a charging horse against hand-weapons is a pretty fearsome thing.

Second, as mentioned above, the lance was basically a spear similar to the pike, but it was actually aimed more downwards rather than forwards (as shown in jousting). The rider aimed to "peg" the footsoldier with the lance set at about 45 degrees down and drive him into the ground as he rode past. As he passed, the lance was then facing down and back, and could be easily withdrawn, then swung up to complete another pegging.

The mounted sabre-charge was similarly executed, although the sabre allowed the rider to hack as well as stab.

Generally speaking, a mounted charge against footsoldiers alone was usually fearsome enough to cause panic in the opposition. It was only when more concerted firearm opposition was employed that it's effect could be nullified - the charge could be broken up at a distance.

[Rose]

The early "knights" (as in the time of Hastings) actually used an overhead method of carrying lances. Once the use of stirrups became widespread, couching a lance allowed the weapon to be made longer, and used more effectively.

As far as i can recall reading, knights generally concentrated on fighting other knights. Economics being a major factor, since one could collect ransom from captured nobles. A calvalry charge by knights against peasant levies generally broke the rabble, and alllowed for some cheap entertainment running down the unfortunate footmen. Until the use of longer weapons(i.e. pikes) and increased discipline to hold formations together were developed, midevial warfare was much more a matter of surviving disease and enviremental conditions than surviving actual battle.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Chaos


English/Welsh Longbows were better. 500(?) feet effective range, 10-20 shots per minute (I´ve seen both figures), and the arrowhead can easily pierce (medieval) armor. Sure, a shield can stop an arrow, but horses don´t carry shields. The English routinely massacred the French knights with their Longbows in the Hundred-Year-War.

I saw a program that refuted this, saying that the soft iron bodkins wouldnt be able to pierce good quality armour of the type the french knigits would have used at agincourt. (the armour was not so good at crecy, so could have been pierced). Im not sure how true this is though.........

Horses often had a lot of armour on them as well, btw. Longbows would probably have still been quite effective right into the mid 19th century, only really made obsolete when rifles came around. However, it took training from a very young age to be a good longbowman whereas you could train a man to fire a musket in a couple of days.

[Lord Kenneth]

Also, if I am correct there were two ways to lance: one being with a rounded end on the lance, and two, using a pointed and thus more dangerous end.

Knights would try to deflect the lances with their shields. I'm sure it was an interesting game to watch.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


I saw a program that refuted this, saying that the soft iron bodkins wouldnt be able to pierce good quality armour of the type the french knigits would have used at agincourt. (the armour was not so good at crecy, so could have been pierced). Im not sure how true this is though.........

Horses often had a lot of armour on them as well, btw. Longbows would probably have still been quite effective right into the mid 19th century, only really made obsolete when rifles came around. However, it took training from a very young age to be a good longbowman whereas you could train a man to fire a musket in a couple of days.

I once read that the English used longbowmen at least until the battle against the Spanish Armada (1588). They were an elite force, however - not very numerous, but extremely effective for their numbers.

Early firearms had several disadvantages:
- rate of fire (one history textbook I read gives the infantry of Frederick the Great of Prussia (18th century) a ROF of 1-2 shots per minute; cannons in the 16th/17th century had about 10-15 shots per hour)
- inaccuracy, especially at long range (musketeers usually fired volleys at massed enemies instead of targeting individual soldiers)
- inherently dangerous ammunition (loose black powder can explode by accident)
- next to useless in bad weather (loose black powder can get wet and is useless then); although bows are also less powerful if the strings get wet.

A side note, however: I once read that firearms were banned in Japan following the end of civil war in the 17th century - they were called "weapons for cowards", because a peasant with an hour of training could kill a samurai with a lifetime of experience.

[Crossbow]

Generally, the long, heavy lances that one sees mounted knights using were used against other knights.

Sometimes they would be used against people on the ground, but not too often. Swords are much better for that sort of thing.

There are many records of lances being dropped, broken, or otherwise made useless after just one or two uses of the weapon. That is why they often had at least a few of them in order to replace the broken ones.

[Giz]

Originally posted by Chaos


I once read that the English used longbowmen at least until the battle against the Spanish Armada (1588). They were an elite force, however - not very numerous, but extremely effective for their numbers.


Not only that but a plan was actually mooted during the Napoleonic Wars for conquering France using Longbowmen as they had better range, accuacy, reliability and rate of fire than muskets (it was rejected on cost grounds, as it took 4 weeks to train a musketeer as opposed to 2 years for the bowman).

But to avoid derailing the thread:
Q:"How do men riding horses and carrying lances lance people?"
A: With the pointy end.

As others have noted the medieval lance was a one off weapon to make the impact of the initial charge as great as possible. Which, given the combined wieght of horse, armoured knight, etc as almost a ton (Knights horses weren't like race horses or somesuch, think shirehorse - BIG) and the lance was probably getting on for the length of a telegraph pole. Add that wonderful invention the stirrup and all the wieght of the impact could be transferred to the target.

Of course if some enterprising peasant then tried to defend himself with a crossbow the Knight would consider that as the very basest cowardly act! I mean, what real man would try and kill someone from a position of such safety?

[LW]

Originally posted by Lord Kenneth
Also, if I am correct there were two ways to lance: one being with a rounded end on the lance, and two, using a pointed and thus more dangerous end.


That may have been true in the early times (and perhaps in the late times, also), but during the high period of tournaments lances were asymetrical (at least thouse used in tournaments) and could be used in only one way.

For example, see a picture of a tournament lance (http://members.aol.com/dargolyt/TheForge/lance.htm).

[LW]

Originally posted by Chaos

English/Welsh Longbows were better. 500(?) feet effective range, 10-20 shots per minute (I´ve seen both figures), and the arrowhead can easily pierce (medieval) armor.

That effective range is on little high side. I think that most modern expert consider it to be somewhere around 100 yards or 300 feet. .

But anyway, when speaking of the great equalizer, it most definitely was [i]pike and other polearms.

You can take a massed infantry levy and spend two weeks time to teach them walk in a formation without hitting each other with their pikes, and you have an infantry force that knights can't win. [Supposing that the morale of the infantry holds].

You can't do that with bows or crossbows. The training takes far too long time.

[LW]

Originally posted by Zep

First, the horse was use literally as a battering-ram into footsoldiers. Often they dropped their weapons and ran - a charging horse against hand-weapons is a pretty fearsome thing.

But, if the infantry didn't drop their weapons and run, then the knights could be in a deep trouble.

One large problem in a cavalry charge is that it is very difficult to get horses run into large obstacles, and an infantry line looks a lot like such an obstacle from the perspective of a horse.

So, the horses would tend to slow down to walk before the impact if the infantry didn't break and run.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Well, he could do it, if he was lance...arm...strong... ;) Well, I'll acknowledge a good joke.

:clap: :clap: :clap:

[bangdazap]

Originally posted by Chaos


English/Welsh Longbows were better. 500(?) feet effective range, 10-20 shots per minute (I´ve seen both figures), and the arrowhead can easily pierce (medieval) armor. Sure, a shield can stop an arrow, but horses don´t carry shields. The English routinely massacred the French knights with their Longbows in the Hundred-Year-War.
No, they didn't routinely massacre french knights during the Hundred-Year-War, that is an exaggeration.
The secret weapon at the battle of Agincourt, for example, was mud. The french knights foolishly charged the english lines so eagrly that the first line became so crowded that they weren't able to swing their weapons. They were then pushed over and drowned in the mud.
And the longbow couldn't penetrate the knights' body armour.

http://www.aginc.net/battle/ops.html

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by LW


That effective range is on little high side. I think that most modern expert consider it to be somewhere around 100 yards or 300 feet. [I can't give source quotes since I'm away from my books and I'm not certain which books estimate the ranges].


Hmmm... bear in mind though that the longbowmen started out as longbowtoddlers and progressed up through to longbowteenyboppers before becoming longbowmen. Training for these bowmen wasnt done over one or two years, it was a lifetime. Archery practise was compulosry after church on sundays, all other forms of sport being banned on that day. Most of the archers were physically deformed...... so 500yards may not be too much...........

[richardm]

Originally posted by bangdazap

And the longbow couldn't penetrate the knights' body armour.


Not sure about that at all. I have seen live demonstations of longbows being fired through armour quite successfully (armour is surprisingly thin in the plates).

Archers did have special armour-piercing arrowheads for such occasions, so
perhaps they'd run out!

One other thing. It's been mentioned that longbows are better than muskets because powder gets wet and stops working. In fact, if you used a longbow in the rain your bowstring would stretch and stop it working too, so there's not much difference as far as it goes.

The real deathknell for the longbow was the musket because, as has already been pointed out, you could spend ten minutes showing fifty men how to use them and then have a withering wall of firepower to point at your enemy.

[LW]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london

Most of the archers were physically deformed...... so 500yards may not be too much...........

Did you really mean to write yards there?

In any case range and effective range are two different beasts.

I believe that it was in Sir Payne-Galloway's The Crossbow. Medieval and Modern Military and Sporting. Its Construction, History and Management. With a Treatise on The Balista and Catapult of the Ancients and an Appendix on The Catapult, Balista & Turkish Bow (that's so funny full title that I had to quote it) where the author gives a rather convincing argument that the effective range of a longbow was much less than its theoretical maximum range that was somewhere around 300 yards:

One of the Edward I's great castles in Wales [Caernavon, I think, but can't check as I lent my copy of the book to a friend some weeks ago] has a nearby hilltop that is ~250 yards away from the outer walls and that is actually higher than the walls.

Since the Welsh had longbows and they used them skillfully, it would have been stupid to the extreme for the English to build a castle so that the enemy archers could dominate its walls.

So, the argument goes, longbow's effective combat range was less than 250 yards.

[Added a note:]

In the same place the author mentions an English castle built about the time of King John that had an onlooking position 100 yards away and uses it as an evidence that longbow use was not widspread at that time.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by LW


Did you really mean to write yards there?

In any case range and effective range are two different beasts.


Yup, what Im saying is effective range when used en masse not effective range as used by a solitary bowman.

Consider, 1000 bowmen raining 6000ish arrows a minute on you from 500 yards (metres) away would be quite daunting. However, a single man firing the odd shaft here or there wont cause much worry. Now at 100 yards, that quite a different matter!!

[LW]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london

Consider, 1000 bowmen raining 6000ish arrows a minute on you from 500 yards (metres) away would be quite daunting.

Mind you, do you have any source for that range? I did some googling and the highest figure that I could quickly find was a claim that a longbow with a flight arrow has a maximum range around 400 yards and that's a flight arrow, not a combat arrow. Most sources that I've seen put the maximum range with a combat arrow to 300-350 yards.

There's also the tidbit of information in Payne-Galloway that when he conducted test shootings with the heaviest crossbow that he had restored (pull around ~1200 lbs), its quarrels flew ~500 yards.

Now, I'll give you that longbow arrows probably have a better aerodynamic shape, but that 15-fold increase in pull weight has to amount something.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by LW


Mind you, do you have any source for that range? I did some googling and the highest figure that I could quickly find was a claim that a longbow with a flight arrow has a maximum range around 400 yards and that's a flight arrow, not a combat arrow. Most sources that I've seen put the maximum range with a combat arrow to 300-350 yards.


No, I was semi-pulling it through my arse :D

I also saw 300-350 but considering that there is no-one alive today who could even hope to come close to the skill and power of the longbowmen of old. Thats gotta be worth an extra 100 metres, dont you think?

[peptoabysmal]

The really amazing part of the whole thing is the horse. Try getting on just any horse with a long pole sticking out and ride towards another rider with a long pole sticking out and see if you don't get bucked off.

There is a hotel in Las Vegas called Excelsior (if memory serves me) where you can see a pretty good re-enactment of jousting. Do take the kids, they really seem to get into this. Adults will find it a bit lame, but concentrate on the horsemanship in this show, it is an excellent show of horsemanship.

[plindboe]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Well, he could do it, if he was lance...arm...strong... ;)
:wow2: Great joke!!! A pure work of art! :wow2:

:dl:

[LW]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london

I also saw 300-350 but considering that there is no-one alive today who could even hope to come close to the skill and power of the longbowmen of old. Thats gotta be worth an extra 100 metres, dont you think?

So, on one hand there's the general consensus among military historians that the extreme range of longbow was around 300 yeards (I've seen figures from 250 to 350), and on the other hand there Jon_in_london's gut feeling that they are all wrong.

I hope you don't mind if I stick with the experts and not you.

Longbows were certainly a very important factor in the great English victories of the Hundred Year's War, but longbow in itself was neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for infantry to win knights.

For example, the Flemish had none but their infantry got a decisive victory from French knights at Courtrai in 1302. The contemporaries held their victory to be more astounding than the English victory at Crecy.

And for the sufficient part, consider the battle of Agincourt where the French managed to break into hand-to-hand combat against the English. Had they faced only lightly-armed archers there, they would have had a fair change of routing them, but the English men-at-arms managed to hold them until French morale collapsed.

By the way, the vast majority of casualties of most battles up to the WWI happened after the losing army routed and the victorious cavalry pursued them cutting them down.

[Hypocolius]

Originally posted by LW

And for the sufficient part, consider the battle of Agincourt where the French managed to break into hand-to-hand combat against the English. Had they faced only lightly-armed archers there, they would have had a fair change of routing them, but the English men-at-arms managed to hold them until French morale collapsed.

This is almost the complete opposite of what I understand to have happened. AFAIK at Agincourt the French Knights advanced over open ground, and were gradually cut down by salvo after salvo of arrows fired by Longbowmen on the flanks. The French were forced towards the centre of the field, and bunched together in order to avoid the arrows, this reduced their mobility considerably so when they eventually did reach the English Men-at-arms they were not able to use their weapons properly. In addition, many archers took the chance to attack the French more directly by pulling them down and stabbing them through the visor.

I'll google a reference for this now.

Edited to add:

http://www.geocities.com/beckster05/Agincourt/AgBattle.html

A fairly detailed account, showing basically that I over-simplified! That's what comes of trying to remember a History lesson 20 years on! Not too far off though.