RomanArmyTalk
Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Printable Version

+- RomanArmyTalk (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat)
+-- Forum: Research Arena (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Greek Military History & Archaeology (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare (/showthread.php?tid=7327)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 05-26-2010

.
Quote:I was more thinking in the way of chnaging horses completely, not of bringing more horses along. For they, like the others, can't take the pace of a forced march as well as the infantry. Junkelmann lists some very good examples from the Amercican civil war as well as WW I, where the infantry is initially left behind, but always catches up and after several days outmarches the cavalry.
I'd be interested to learn more about those Polish examples - were they also from a march or from tactical operations? Operational mobility on a single day is certainly different from operational mobility after a week of marching, in which the stamina of the man is better than the stamina of the horse.
I'll try to getr more specifics about the Polish examples - as I know the story they were multi-week campaigns.
By this time the Romans were learning most of their cavalry lessons (including cavalry dress and kit) from the Avars and turks, and I expect they had the usual modified-nomadic practice of bringing remounts along, and not in a herd but managed by the trooper and their servants. Certainly that was the practice that survived in pre-modern times among the turks, hungarians, rus, and poles. Horses stayed next to the trooper' unit's tents. The western cavalry practice was to bring remounts in a herd, a herd that was strung outside the camp area, and that survived right through Napoleonic times.
I agree as a former marathon runner that human distance endurance is excellent, but steppe ponies had the reputation of going 40-50 miles per day, day after day, loaded. The arabs and turk horses favored by later elite cavalry could not, with a load, but might unburdened.
Civil war 'cavalry' would be called dragoons any other time. They did not do remounts anything like true cavalry did. Recall the light brigade? they remounted a hour before they were charging through the 'valley of death' behind their lances... true traditional cavalry. Also, a little OT but telling - my civil war sabre manual says do NOT use the point of the sabre because what if you stabbed someone and could not extract your saber, then you would have no sabre! true cavalry in 11-17th C. style would have said use the point, and if your estock gets stuck in someone's chest drop it and pull your broadsword, and if you lose that pull out your battle mace, and if you lose that THEN pull out your sabre.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Paullus Scipio - 05-26-2010

...good Infantry can march 50 miles a day too, day after day, as has been proven on a number of occasions throughout history. Smile wink: ........though not with heavy loads.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 05-26-2010

I asked Radek Sikora about the Polish examples, who said:
"According to Jerzy Kudelski, a standard distance of 1 day of march in a good
weather was 50 km. Longer marches (over 10 hours / 60-70 km) were called forced
marches. After 3-4 days of forced marches, cavalry usually rested 1 day. It
gives an average speed of 45-56 km / day (180-280 km in 4-5 days). I don't have
data for longer marches.
Anyway, light cavalry was able to move even 160-300 km in a single march (I
mean, without a longer rest). Heavier cavalry was slower, but for example some
units of Polish hussars moved 120 km in 24 hours and in the meantime they
participated in 5-hours battle (it happened in the battle of Kluszyn 1610)."


The figures are for generally flat easy-travel terrain, with good grazing. The polish hussars certainly would have brought their prime battle horse along unburdened, while they rode other horses. To continue the comparison with baggage, each heavy cavalry post of (let's say) 3 fighting men had their own tabor wagon and two servants (who could perhaps fight in defense of the camp or in sieges, they also escorted remounts to the edge of the battlefield). The wagon was quite small and was pulled by two good horses, and could keep up with the cavalry's pace. They would have maybe 8 riding or spare wagon horses, and 3 good highly-trained fighting horses and 2-3 lesser quality fighting horses. The banner had some additional unit wagons, some of which might be like Conestoga wagons pulled by teams of 6 or 8 horses and could also keep up. If the grazing was not good (e.g. in winter or in bad terrain), the system did not work and the traveling horse parade went nowhere fast, because they counted only on bringing some bags of oats to supplement the fighting horse's diet. Professionals, they could of course operate in winter by doing the logistical legwork and hauling fodder and creating depots, and sometimes they pulled a surprise on Tatars who were operationally immobile in winter/early spring, because of fodder issues.

I mention this because the servant count and other hints are similiar to that recommended in the Strategkon. I don't know how much of this applies to the Byzantine way, but in the absence of other recorded details....

Above I mentioned the servants' role of bringing remounts to the edge of battle... maybe that is even into battle so they would have been armed - but expected to avoid fighting anyway. Pasek (a junior officer of the Polish pancerni-cossaks ca 1660) wrote of their job in collecting battlefield prizes - especially in the form of trained war horses which were extremely valuable....worth on average a cottage on 10 acres of land, and perhaps far more. Pasek told of overruning a muscovite cavalry unit and killing a richly dressed boyar (a young teenager, by the way) on an unusally fine horse, grabbing the reins and calling and looking around for his servant who was no where to be found ( he was expected to stay in sight?). His heart breaking and cursing his lacky, he let go of the horse because there was still fighting to do.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 05-27-2010

Radek later added: "For example
the retinue of Lithuanian hussar Gosiewski, where were 1 comrade (senior hussar) and 2
retainers (junior hussars), had 21 horses in 1698. It is 7 horses for a hussar.
The retinue of Polish hussar Jakub Michałowski had 45 horses in 1649. The
retinue had 1 comrade and 7 retainers. It means that there were about 5,5 horses
for a hussar.
However most of these horses were wagon horses."

Also, last night I checked Luttwick 's assertion that byzantine Cav used remounts while the arabs did not (because horses were especially rare and valuable in arab lands, which lack extensive pasture lands) (Thus the Tactica says the best thing is to use archery to kill the arab horses, which they value so much they immediatly demoralize and go home). He does not, alas, quote a source about the byzantine remounts.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Astiryu1 - 05-27-2010

In the "Forced March" to retain at least a fresher horse why couldn't/wouldn't they dismount to stay with the army. With the exception of mounted scouts. This would lighten the load on the horse and when they got to the fight; could mount again effectively.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - hoplite14gr - 08-01-2010

Byzantine Museum Athens. Poorly dated stuff found in Beotia


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Gaius Julius Caesar - 08-01-2010

I have not made it to tha tmuseum yet. Something to see next time.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - hoplite14gr - 08-01-2010

Military Saints with interesting details 14th to 16th centuries


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 08-01-2010

Quote:Byzantine Museum Athens. Poorly dated stuff found in Beotia

do you recall what they said about the one you tag as 'armor'? I have heard that style was in use by the mongols and others, and was later adopted in hyngary/poland/croatia/etc.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - hoplite14gr - 08-01-2010

Eastern Romans had a lot Asiatic foideratoi.
Herakleios is considered to have brought up Avar fashions.
I have seen similar head gear in the Historical Museum Moscow,
It has been used by Russians Alans Georgians, Cumans either copied or looted
The armor could have traveled westwards with nercenaries or raiders.
Hope it helps.

I am a bit pissed of becasue the give a range between 900 to 1200 AD
Is too much of arange in my opinion

Kind regards


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 08-04-2010

Quote:I am a bit pissed of becasue the give a range between 900 to 1200 AD
Is too much of arange in my opinion
Thanks. You would think that it would not hurt if the people with the most information gave the rest of us an educated guess? ( I have been researching Korean stuff and I keep seeing pictures of artifacts labled only as "Josin Dynasty"... thanks alot friend curator, that would cover only the time from before the invention of corned gunpowder to the age of powered aircraft.) End Rant.


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - hoplite14gr - 08-04-2010

Well I agree with you.
Archeologists (even the Medieval specialized ones) go to same schools and diciplines.
While they go to great pains to date ancient staff (2000 BC. to 400 AD) they do not give details on Medieval staff.
Seems to be international. There "Cuman type" iron face masks in Russia, Ukraine plus the ones found in the Great Palace in Constnatinopole.
The dates range from 500 to 1300 with no dating for each specific item.

Kind regards


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 08-11-2010

Any detailed pictures of Byzantine mace heads, anyone?


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Peter Raftos - 08-12-2010

Try this selection found mainly on Byzanto-Bulgar battlefields:[url:rsroobuj]http://www.worldmuseumofman.org/byzantinemaces1.htm[/url]


Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Adam E. - 08-29-2010

Hi Guys

I was in Cappadocia recently where I collected some frescoes of military saints. Some of them I've seen on the web before, others I haven't. Here's one you might find interesting. Note the construction of the klivanion and the shield pattern (from 'the Linseed House').