MafiaMaster

If you were a General back in Ancient times and you were given money to build up an army for glory or what ever, but you could only have cavalry, infantry or archers, which would you pick? Personally, I'd have to pick Infantry. While archers can shoot and run and all of that, it's only so effective. And while Cavalry are fast and all of that, they are weak against spears. With Infantry, you can arm them with shields, to protect against arrows, and you can arm them with spears, to protect against Cavalry. Overall, infantry are the best, in my opinion, because you are able to defend against both archers and cavalry. What do you all think?

Lord_Cronus

I have to agree. I saw a show on the history channel a while back about the effects of cavalry. While they are good if the enemy is disorganized, if a unit has formed square they are uterly useless. They proved this by stacking up hay bales and sticking poles out of them while putting other obstacles in the way to simulate casualties and made a charge at the bales. The horses simply would not get within 10 foot of the bales without slowing down to a "mosey." While, these are modern horses that weren't trained for such, to a horse a line of men is gonna look like a wall and they siply wont run into a wall, or big objects in front of them.

Archers, while good at distance are horrible in melee. They can be of no service unless they are guarded by infantry. While, infantry is so versatile. They can move as a square for cavalry, stretch out in long skirmish lines to reduce effects of archers and move into a line of battle for an all out assault and do excellent damage in melee.

The roman legions used long shields, for A) protection and B) to push your enemies out of the way. The movie Troy was the only film I have ever seen this done in and it was a very good display.

Oh, I also remember seeing in the HBO series Rome, where they had the lines four deep. The Praetorians would blow a whistle and the second man in line would come to the front and the front man would go to the rear. Very good tactics. This is why the infantry is regaurded as the "Queen" of the battlefield.

Ragz

I agree with you gentlemen, give me a well trained infantry every time.

Belisarius

Confused; aren't archers infantry? Armour your archers and give them swords/axes, etc. and they can take on both spearmen and horsemen, viz English longbowmen. Just a thought.

MafiaMaster

The English Longbowmen were not really that skilled with hand to hand combat as good as I know. If you give archers armor and all of that, then they are limited with their ability to fire their bows. Armor gets in the way of pulling back the bowstring. However if there is no armor, then you can pull back farther and shoot your arrow harder. However that takes away from how good the archers are because that means they have less ability to defend themselves.

Commander

Back in Ancient times, it was all about having a well trained Infantry first and foremost, with the calvary and archers coming behind.

In todays wars however, infantry would probably be lower on the list with calvary (tanks and ships?) being more important.

Everytime I see Troy, and Achilles with his men and they form those huge walls madeof their shields and just march the field foot by foot I am amazed. You couldn't shoot an arrow into them, and they would murder a horse in a second.

Belisarius

Purely by coincidence, I was at a village fete yesterday where part of the entertainment was a group re-enacting events of the 100 years war. I got talking to one of their bowmen, who happened to be fully armoured in a jack and brigandine, helmet, buckler and a falchion [which he described as a “machete on steroids“] for close combat.
During the course of our conversation we discussed the tactics used by archers both during medieval/renaissance times and before. Armour was never an encumbrance to using a bow effectively [Archers of the 100 years war were expected to accurately shoot 10-12 arrows a minute as a minimum qualification, and many could manage 15. [Incidentally, “longbow” is a term that was never used at the time, archers called their weapons War Bows. The arrows could penetrate the armour of the time, and he showed me various different heads that developed as armour improved. The last type of armour piercing arrowhead used resembled a modern bullet, which I remarked on.
He agreed and said that was the whole idea of “missile fire”; crossbows, slings, bows, etc. It was to get a small piece of metal travelling at high velocity enough to kill at a distance. Only the means of propulsion changed form muscle to chemical.
By that argument, all modern infantry are “archers”. The only troop type to have survived throughout history from earliest times to the present, is the archer in some form or other. Spearmen, Pikemen, Legionaries/swordsmen have come and gone, but the only indispensable soldier to have in an army is an archer.
8)

Lord_Cronus

Excellent Belisarius. I envy that you live over there, and get to see Reenactors of Roman and English armies.

I do remember there was a time when infantry slowly began to become less effective, and the focus went to hitting your enemy at longer distances, thus sustaining less casualties. That's how artillery came to be the "King" of the battlefield, as they put the "balls" in it. :shock:

dienekes

what you guys are all forgetting is what kind of terrain would this battle take place? If it was open plain, of course infantry, if in the hills, archers, and in the confined forrests, cavalry

Nikd

^^ Agree,
Romans against european armies had no problem with infantry but had GREAT problem against Parthians and Huns who fought with Cavalry Archers, in low terrain, English long bows were very effective against French Knights who were very effective against infantry.
So the choice of a general depends of :
1. Resources of the country, a bow is cheaper than an armor.
2. Terrain, if you have cavalry you need space and passable terrain, if you fight in forest or mountains then infantry with archers is the better.
3. Perspective of each "school" of war, Romans and Ellines preffered shock infantry to "break" the opponent ASAP, Mongols preffered hit and run tactics with feigned retreat till the exhaustion and disorganization of the enemy, Germans and French relied on heavy cavalry, Chinese in their numbers and superior technology, Englinsh in long bows.
A good general must have always a good mix of all types of troops to be ready to adopt the fluid condition in a battle, cause battle never waits for the general !