Archers v. artillery

[Andreas Johansson]

A question that came up on the Triumph! forum, for which none present could think of any apposite examples: how good should decent or better archers (the sorts that be Bw (S) or Bw (O) in DBM(M)) be against field artillery?

I guess Formigny should be an example, but as I've mentioned before accounts I've read of it are disturbingly discordant.

[Erpingham]

A question that came up on the Triumph! forum, for which none present could think of any apposite examples: how good should decent or better archers (the sorts that be Bw (S) or Bw (O) in DBM(M)) be against field artillery?

I guess Formigny should be an example, but as I've mentioned before accounts I've read of it are disturbingly discordant.

Can you clarify?  Do you mean being shot at by artillery or shooting at artillery?  or both?

[Andreas Johansson]

Can you clarify?  Do you mean being shot at by artillery or shooting at artillery?  or both?

The latter, mostly. Cannonballs presumably care very little whether the men they hit are archers or not*, so the question is mostly how good archers should be at silencing artillery by killing or scaring away the crew. You might think shooting gunners outside of fortifications should be easy, but in at least some accounts of Formigny the English (presumably including many archers) elected to run up to French guns and capture them in close combat, suggesting it maybe wasn't.

* Tho in a HYW context archers might be somewhat worse off than men-at-arms as many guns would be light enough that armour is relevant.

[Erpingham]

You might think shooting gunners outside of fortifications should be easy, but in at least some accounts of Formigny the English (presumably including many archers) elected to run up to French guns and capture them in close combat, suggesting it maybe wasn't.

Two points on Formingny.  First, we don't know if the gun was in archery range.  Might be wise to use the range advantage to avoid return shooting.  Second, the English seemed intend on carrying off the gun, which you can only do by overrunning it, even if you've shot those defending it.

I am struggling to think of other archers v guns battles.  Gavere perhaps, though there is no evidence archery had a particular impact (and the Burgundians did have longbows, crossbows and handguns to try).  The Anglo-Burgundian guns at Cravant don't seem to have suffered much from the Scots archery (though as they were again well seconded by longbows and crossbows, the enemy may not have targeted them).  I don't think we have the detail of any WOTR battles which had guns and bows to judge their interaction.  At Flodden, the English archers don't seem to have gone near the Scots guns, leaving it to long-range counter-battery fire to scatter their crews.  Maybe some early Italian Wars or Hussite examples of guns v. archery?  Anyone know?

[DougM]

Can you clarify?  Do you mean being shot at by artillery or shooting at artillery?  or both?

The latter, mostly. Cannonballs presumably care very little whether the men they hit are archers or not*, so the question is mostly how good archers should be at silencing artillery by killing or scaring away the crew. You might think shooting gunners outside of fortifications should be easy, but in at least some accounts of Formigny the English (presumably including many archers) elected to run up to French guns and capture them in close combat, suggesting it maybe wasn't.

* Tho in a HYW context archers might be somewhat worse off than men-at-arms as many guns would be light enough that armour is relevant.

I wonder whether many guns weren't protected by mantlets while reloading, or the crew provided with pavisiers?  Gunners would have been a rarity and valuable.

[Mark G]

Fwiw, the optimal tactic against horse and musket artillery was skirmishing Infantry picking off the gunners.

Any formed body presented a target, but cannon balls are useless against unformed, and canister was saved for better targets too.

Not that our period archers were deployed as skirmishers.

So probably not relevant

[Patrick Waterson]

So we have a double challenge:
1) finding actions where archers engaged artillery
2) evaluating the effect(s) of archers on artillery in DBMM terms.

For DBMM ignoramuses like myself, a useful starting question is: how do they fare under the present rules?

[Andreas Johansson]

So we have a double challenge:
1) finding actions where archers engaged artillery
2) evaluating the effect(s) of archers on artillery in DBMM terms.

For DBMM ignoramuses like myself, a useful starting question is: how do they fare under the present rules?

As I said, the question arose on the Triumph! forum, so an evaluation in Triumph! terms would be more useful than one in DBMM ones I only mentioned DBM(M) to give an idea what sorts of archers we're talking about (non-skirmishing ones of decent or better quality) in terms I believe are widely understood.

Under the present version of the Triumph! rules (0.8), Archers (the relevant classification under Triumph! rules - lower-case archers may end up in different classifications depending on quality, tactics, and horsiness) are heavy favorites against artillery if within bowshot, shooting twice as often and being more likely to destroy the enemy with any single attack.

[Patrick Waterson]

Thank you.

So far, I have been unable to find any instances of longbowmen directly engaging artillery, and given the latter's slow rate of fire I suspect we shall find none, on the basis that after the first shot by the guns the longbowmen would find it easier simply to close rapidly to melee while the gunners ran away in the face of the oncoming attackers.

There are further complications.

If the guns are present in some numbers, i.e. a dozen or so rather than two or three, they can space their shooting so that one at least is always ready to fire, but will generate a significant amount of smoke when fired, which, on a windless day, will to an increasing extent obscure both themselves and their targets.  This in turn would permit the targets to close with little chance of actually being hit, and would more or less dictate closing to melee as the primary tactic.

If the guns have mantlets (see 42, here) the crews will to an extent be protected while firing the weapon, although not necessarily when serving it.  Of course, a breech-loading weapon would benefit much more from mantlet-type protection.  If mantlet coverage is good enough to render archery more or less ineffectual, the guns are best dealt with by closing rapidly to melee once they have shot and are reloading.

All of the above suggests to me that the preferred tactic for longbowmen dealing with artillery would be to let the guns shoot and then close rapidly for melee before they can reload.  The course of the battles at Formigny and Castillon would appear to bear this out.  I do not know if we can assume that guns on the battlefield would have mantlet protection, but suggest this would probably be the case, as the crews would have no wish to experience uninhibited longbow archery.

Not knowing the Triumph! rules, I can make no recommendations, but perhaps the above may serve as a basis for a more informed person to do so.

[Mark G]

I would doubt your logic there Patrick.

Medieval guns were horribly unwieldy.  You would not chose to add the extra encumbrance of mantlets for a field battle.

They are siege equipment, not field equipment, except in extremis.

[DougM]

I would doubt your logic there Patrick.

Medieval guns were horribly unwieldy.  You would not chose to add the extra encumbrance of mantlets for a field battle.

They are siege equipment, not field equipment, except in extremis.

Except that is not actually true, is it. We know they were deliberately brought to field battles.

[Mark G]

Which though.

The examples I am aware of, they were deployed around camp.

[aligern]

At Castillon 1453  there is an artillery camp. The French protected their guns with earthworks and fortfications. That might well be to protect the gunners from archery. Doesn't Babur do the same in India, protecting his gunners , presumably from bows. Don't the Hussites provide a fortified laager  with guns as part of the mix. It would appear that guns need other infantry and fortifications to be effective.
Roy

[Andreas Johansson]

At Castillon 1453  there is an artillery camp. The French protected their guns with earthworks and fortfications. That might well be to protect the gunners from archery. Doesn't Babur do the same in India, protecting his gunners , presumably from bows. Don't the Hussites provide a fortified laager  with guns as part of the mix. It would appear that guns need other infantry and fortifications to be effective.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, wagon laagers and the like with artillery are quite common across Eurasia. In many cases, tho, the evident intention is to resist cavalry rather than foot archers, e.g. Ottomans at Caldiran. I'd expect the same to aply to Babur's case, cavalry being the strike arm of 16C North Indian armies. The Hussites too - having many crossbowmen of their own - presumably weren't principally worried about being shot off the field (esp. as the crusaders tended to charge suicidally at the slightest provocation).

Castillon isn't quite the same, being a fortified camp rather than field fortification. I don't believe the French intended to fight Talbot there.

[Patrick Waterson]

Castillon isn't quite the same, being a fortified camp rather than field fortification. I don't believe the French intended to fight Talbot there.

True: Bureau set up his artillery arrangements for the siege of Castillon, with an eye to breaking down the walls and beating off a relief force: he did not set up his guns and their protection specifically to engage Talbot in battle, but rather on general principles.  For that matter, Talbot did not arrive expecting to fight a battle: he surprised the French out-guard of 1,000 or so archers at St Laurent Priory, and then received news that the French army was retreating.  He led his men on expecting to strike a blow at their rearguard - and too late found his information was incorrect and the French were solidly ensconced in their siege camp.  The rest is history.