Questions on medieval armies!

[Anime Kidd]

In my ongoing quest to describe my homebrew world with the utmost detail; I have a few qeustions on medieval armies.

#1 - How big was a typical army?

#2 - What troops were in it and what were their numbers?

#3 - Any sort of 'Special Ops' units?

#4 - What type of equipment would ordinary infantry have?

#5 - In a generic fantasy setting, how would magic and healing abilities play into the army?

#6 - What type of food did the troops eat? Just ordinary tail rations or were they fed with cooked food gathered by hunters?

#7 - Did I ask to many questions?

Anyone have any sites for this kind of info? Or book suggestions, etc?

 

[Mark CMG]

Some threads worth your while, I think-

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39669

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36401

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35266

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31556

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27767

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26762

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22357

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17562

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12478

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11444

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10583

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7265

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3810

Hope that helps!

 

[Azure Trance]

In my ongoing quest to describe my homebrew world with the utmost detail; I have a few qeustions on medieval armies.

Hey, you're back. Hi! Oddly enough, on a printed sheet of paper from last year I found a link to your Civil War Era Firearms webpage, and found out at that time (a month or two ago) that you haven't posted here lately. Good to see you're still around

 

[Azure Trance]

In response to #4:

The 2nd Edition DMG has a whoooole lot of samples of medieval troops from real life with what armor they were equipped with to what weapons. For example:

Norman Knight
Lance, Sword, CHainmail, Kite Shielf

Venetian Crossbowmen
Chain or Brigadine, heavy crossbow and short sword. Frequently served on galleys.

Late German Men-at-Arms
Platemail, battle axe, long sword, dagger

Etc, etc.

 

[Andor]

#6

#6 - Generally they ate whatever the could take from the local farmers. If the farmers were lucky (Or in D&D the army is LG/NG with good discipline) they only took food. This is why armies were unpopular.

Note that D&D magic can change the logistical equations radically. This is why a medieval setup rarely makes sense for a D&D world.

 

[S'mon]

#1 - How big was a typical army?

Army size varied throughout the period, but 5,000 men would be a typical number, eg the English army at Agincourt. This was about the most a country of 2 million could usually field. France, being a large and highly populous nation (up to 25 million in the high medieval) could field armies around 20,000 or so.

#2 - What troops were in it and what were their numbers?

Typical mid-medieval army comprised mounted heavy cavalry (knights/men-at-arms w heavy horse, lance, shield, chain or later plate), plus peasant levies (typically spears, shields, padded, or maybe just a knife or club), and yeoman missile troops such as longbowmen (England) or mercenary crossbowmen. Not sure about percentages but something like 20% knights/men-at-arms,
20% yeoman archers and 60% levies (usually fairly useless) might be typical. A poor nation like Scotland would have fewer cavalry and few if any mercenaries.

#3 - Any sort of 'Special Ops' units?

Not really - the king's house knights could be sent on 'quests', of course ("Hey, you know that Thomas a Beckett guy?"...). Knights trained constantly and the king's personal knights would be pretty darn tough!

#4 - What type of equipment would ordinary infantry have?

Depends on period, but levies usually had little if any armour and a simple polearm. By contrast Swiss mercenary pikemen would have heavy plate armour, at least the front rank (who often used greatswords for hacking enemy pikes AIR).

#5 - In a generic fantasy setting, how would magic and healing abilities play into the army?

Pass. Depends very much on how common magic is.

#6 - What type of food did the troops eat? Just ordinary tail rations or were they fed with cooked food gathered by hunters?

They 'foraged' - ie stole it all from local farms. That usually went for both attacker and defender. Armies could easily lay waste to wide areas, even of their own country! a very nich noble might sometimes pay for food, this was rare.

 

[S'mon]

Book suggestions - John Keegan's 'A History of Warfare' is interesting. If you can get a copy, Donald F Featherstone's 'Wargames Through the Ages' is actually a definitive listing of historical troop types by period, with lots of game-useable info, but take the stat ratings with a pinch of salt - Vikings weren't really twice as good as the later Normans, they were practically the same people! If the Normans were less militarily dominant than their Viking forebears, it was because their foes' tactics and equipment had improved over the 300 years of Viking raids.

 

[Xeriar]

Re: Re: Questions on medieval armies!

#1 - How big was a typical army?

Army size varied throughout the period, but 5,000 men would be a typical number, eg the English army at Agincourt. This was about the most a country of 2 million could usually field. France, being a large and highly populous nation (up to 25 million in the high medieval) could field armies around 20,000 or so.

Case in point, during World War II the United States managed to feild a sixth of its total population abroad in its armed forces.

In medieval times this would have been a logistic miracle (it probably would be even now). The Roman army peaked at about half a million men just before it collapsed.

Charlemagne attempted to get one man in every four families into a fully armed (ie knight) standing army, but it didn't work very well - the goal was too ambitious (the economy could support about one per six families) and there was too much petty politics involved in who got to feild the knight.

According to the writings of Sun Tzu, feilding an army of 100,000 (This was about the largest you would ever see on the field, from Africa to China) took 700,000 families out of the economy to support them.

 

[Anime Kidd]

After looking through the spell list for wizards and sorcerers, I see that magic isn't that great when it comes to helping an army. I mean, there are some spells that could help, but most can't can't affect a very large area, like a battlefield.
Magic would be more like sharpshooters. It has the potential to change the course of battles, but it is the common soldier that wins the war.

Thanks for the quick response folks. Thats why I love EN World; everyone is so full of knowledge.

 

[Victim]

Proper use of magic will make sure an army never makes intact to a battle.