Medieval armour vs bullets

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/was-medieval-armor-bulletproof

Do you feel lucky punk...?

[Erpingham]

A tricky one because the right answer is "It depends".  The quality of the armour was important, as was the weapon and the powder and the range was fairly critical (spherical balls lose energy very quickly, so something that would go straight through at 10 yds might fail to penetrate at 50).

[Justin Swanton]

An interesting side issue in the article is when exactly the Middle Ages began and ended. The answer is so simple I still wonder what the fuss is about. The Middle Ages is the era of Western European Catholic Christendom, when the political and social order was founded on the precepts of the Catholic Church and ended when Christianity fragmented with the onset of the Reformation. So from 506 when Clovis defeats the Visigoths and the Frankish kingdom becomes the dominant (and only Catholic) barbarian state in Western Europe, until 1517 when Luther initiated the process of the disintegration of Catholic unity in Europe. A good thousand years (reminds me of Revelation 2.27 and 20 but that is completely off-topic).

[Erpingham]

The dating of the Middle Ages is one of those things scholars love to dispute and there are national preferences.  It also depends on what your indicators are e.g. artistic styles, religious changes. I've mainly an interest in the end of the period, where a variety of dates exist e.g. 1453 (fall of Constantinople), 1492 (Columbus goes to the Americas), 1517 (Luther produces 95 Theses).  For England, the probable best break point is the shift to official protestantism and the suppression of monastic institutions (1534-37), as this did create major social change.

However, linking things to something in the history of warfare which we might find useful for our purposes is much trickier 



 

[Justin Swanton]

The dating of the Middle Ages is one of those things scholars love to dispute and there are national preferences.  It also depends on what your indicators are e.g. artistic styles, religious changes. I've mainly an interest in the end of the period, where a variety of dates exist e.g. 1453 (fall of Constantinople), 1492 (Columbus goes to the Americas), 1517 (Luther produces 95 Theses).  For England, the probable best break point is the shift to official protestantism and the suppression of monastic institutions (1534-37), as this did create major social change.

However, linking things to something in the history of warfare which we might find useful for our purposes is much trickier 

if you're marking the end of an age then you need a major societal shift. "Middle Ages" after all is all about a certain type of society. So I would discount the Fall of Constantinople or Columbus. English society remained Mediaeval until Henry VIII upended it, but if we're talking about Western Europe in general then I go with the beginning of the Protestant Reformation since that permanently destroyed the sense of cultural unity that had existed in Western Europe from the Frankish empire onwards.

Warfare is much more arbitrary. If you're looking at fighting styles then certainly the invention of the matchlock and then flintlock is a major break. But how about the resurrection of the pike phalanx that ended the dominance of heavy cavalry? When does heavy cavalry start dominating and when exactly does it stop dominating? Are there abrupt breaks or a gradual transition? All this in Europe of course as it's very different elsewhere.

[Erpingham]

I think the argument for Columbus is it is a convenient marker for European powers starting to go global.  Not just the Spanish but the Portugese. So, start of a big shift.

On the military angle, if we stand in 1500 and look round Europe, we see handheld firearms still quite primitive and short ranged and muscle-powered weaponry still predominates.  Gunpowder artillery is on the rise but is still often used from fixed positions, just as it was in the 1450s.  Pike tactics are still pretty primitive and probably haven't moved on much from the 1470s. The Italians are still debating whether their traditional infantry can beat the Swiss style pike tactics, while the German Empire has gone for imitation. Cavalry warfare is changing with increasing use of lighter cavalry, some missile armed. But heavy gendarmerie is still a major battlefield force. Move on maybe 10 - 20 years and stuff is moving on fast in much of Europe, with hand-held firearms moving to dominate the missile arm and more extensive use of effective field artillery. So, the society's approximate end point, provided it is treated as a soft edge (because even in continental Europe change moved at a different paces, let alone on the fringes like England) is probably around right before everything becomes more "pike and shot" in feel.

[tadamson]

It's a rather odd question...

As battlefield missiles developed higher and highter KE and momemtun, armourers responded with better designs.
The key weapons were heavy crossbows and firearms.  By the late 16thC 'shot proof' and 'siege' armours appear on  sale and stock lists.
There is (from distant memory) an early 17thC source that descibes firing a pistol from about a yard, and the armour had to make it bounce off to be 'proof'.  (not something to try at home !!!)

[DavidMcCann]

From a military point of view, as opposed to a cultural one, the Middle Ages ends with the introduction of volley firing in the 1590s. A sixteenth century arms has pikes, shot, and lancers. A fourteenth century army has spears, crossbows, and lancers. The effectiveness and deployment style of the arquebus were much the same as those of the crossbow — the differences were that the arquebus was very much cheaper and much harder to break.

[Justin Swanton]

From a military point of view, as opposed to a cultural one, the Middle Ages ends with the introduction of volley firing in the 1590s. A sixteenth century arms has pikes, shot, and lancers. A fourteenth century army has spears, crossbows, and lancers. The effectiveness and deployment style of the arquebus were much the same as those of the crossbow — the differences were that the arquebus was very much cheaper and much harder to break.

One big difference are the pikes vs spears. The former could stop HC in its tracks, the latter could not. The passing of the knight as the dominant troop type on a Mediaeval battlefield was a pretty major shift. And with the knight passed the idea of the knight: chivalry and all that (I leave to the Doubters to argue the extent to which the concept of chivalry had any noticeable effect on Mediaeval society*).

*Chaucer is pretty ruthless with the clergy but admires the knight:

A KNIGHT ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the tyme that he first bigan
To ryden out, he loved chivalrye,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,
And thereto hadde he riden (no man ferre )
As wel in cristendom as hethenesse,
And evere honoured for his worthinesse.

[Erpingham]

The former could stop HC in its tracks, the latter could not.

It's not really that black and white.  Ask the English men-at-arms at Bannockburn whether spears could stop HC or not.  I also think you generally overstate the demise of heavy cavalry. The armies of the Italian Wars were still heavily dependent on their gendarmes as a striking force.

[Martin Smith]

....cue "how long is a spear? When does it constitute a pike?..." discussion 😁.

[Justin Swanton]

The former could stop HC in its tracks, the latter could not.

It's not really that black and white.  Ask the English men-at-arms at Bannockburn whether spears could stop HC or not.  I also think you generally overstate the demise of heavy cavalry. The armies of the Italian Wars were still heavily dependent on their gendarmes as a striking force.

Hang on, those were schiltrons armed with pikes.

HC continued to be important but without the aura of mystic invincibility.

[Justin Swanton]

....cue "how long is a spear? When does it constitute a pike?..." discussion 😁.

Easy peasy. A spear is held with one hand and 9ft is about the maximum manageable length. It won't stop a charging horse. A pike is longer, held with two hands and stops a charging horse dead in its tracks, especially if you ground the butt.

[Erpingham]

....cue "how long is a spear? When does it constitute a pike?..." discussion 😁.

Easy peasy. A spear is held with one hand and 9ft is about the maximum manageable length. It won't stop a charging horse. A pike is longer, held with two hands and stops a charging horse dead in its tracks, especially if you ground the butt.

So, you are going for a wargames-convenient definition?  Incidentally, it was pretty normal to ground spears (by your definition) and stand on them to resist cavalry.
One curiosity with this is, if 14th century men-at-arms dismount and use their lances without cutting them down, do they form a unit of heavy pikes?

[Mark G]

And you have not defined what a schiltron looks like and how it differs from -say the chaps at Coutrai a few months earlier.