The Biggest Misconceptions About Historical Warfare

The modern military body armor and full battle kit was 85 pounds when I was in Iraq. That's not even including a pack you would need for extended missions and those weighed 40 or more pounds. Knight's armor seems light in comparison.

A good rule of thumb is that if you ever find yourself thinking how dumb these pre-modern soldiere were for not using or doing something that seems obvious, the chances are youre misunderstanding it. These peoples lives relied on being effective at what they do. I gurantee you didnt come up with some brilliant new tactic while playing dark souls

One of my pet peeves about how Hollywood portrays historical combat is the notion that you 'swing' your shield around like a maniac to intercept the enemy's attack. With the exception of very small bucklers, this is NOT how you use a shield. If you do, your arm will lose its ability to actually move within minutes. A shield was held close to one's body such that its center of weight was essentially in line with your stance, with virtually no weight actually being carried by the muscles of the arm. To defend yourself you basically 'ducked', you moved 'around' the shield to interpose it between you and the enemy's attack. You could shoulder shrug or crouch and such to move it a bit, but for the most part, shields were held largely in place. This was 'especially' the case when in formation with other shieldmen. Your compatriots gain little benefit from a shield wall if you are wildly swinging your shield around.

People need to realize that the sword performed essentially the same purpose as a pistol on ancient battlefields, it was a side arm.

Swords were, by all intent and purpose, sidearms for most of the pre-blackpowder era. Infantrymen used spears and pikes, cavalry spears and lances. Swords were backup weapon reserved for when pike or lance got broken or was lost. Notable exception were Roman legions of the classical era, who used short thrown spears called pilum to disrupt enemy formation before closing in with their famous gladius shortswords.

Simon is like the educational Rick Astley. It feels like every time I see a history channel I’ve never seen before I click on it and it’s him. 😂

It really can be summed up as "people have been killing for a long time, and doing it better has always been the goal." The Hollywood myths are hard to separate because they are the lens through which we often view "the past" but much as the Egyptians could build the pyramids, ancient commanders could lead armies, and weapons and armor were not chosen randomly. The idea of "primitive man" is perhaps the most pervasive myth among humans.

Concerning the weight of medieval armor: When I attended fire-fighting school we were told by the instructor that the total weight of the fire-fighting "Turn-Out Gear" which we were required to wear (NOMEX fire-proof suit, helmet, boots, gloves, SCBA breathing apparatus, air tank and mask, etc) came to about 70 pounds, or approximately the same weight as a medieval suit of armor. Wearing full "Turn-Out Gear" we were required not only to fight fires in a multi-story structure, but to negotiate an indoor obstacle course in pitch darkness within a limited amount of time. Many of the men with whom I did the course were in the 40s or 50s, and some were in their 60s.

One big thing is we assume they were all stupid. Their tactics were state of the art for their time, humans are the same, we are the same, just that technology has culture shaped us

Medieval armor was so mobile that there are videos out there of people in full plate doing forward rolls and cartwheels. As for swords, they were the ancient (and medieval) equivalent of a modern soldier's pistol, the secondary weapon you pulled out when your primary weapon (usually a spear or polearm) was broken or lost in battle.

My kit minus rucksack in Afghanistan was 65 pounds. That's M4 and M9, 210 rounds of 5.56, 32 rounds 9mm, one hand grenade, two smoke, MBITR radio, interceptor body armor, helmet, camelback, NODs, M25 binos, boots, uniform and other stuff I am forgetting. Historically the soldiers load (for combat) has remained 45-65 pounds.

I think that people might be thinking that knights couldn't move well in armor because they are looking at suits of jousting armor. Jousting armor of the 15th-16th century were heavier (up to 110lbs) to protect the jouster and weren't designed for combat on foot. Also, they've watched Excalibur too often.

1. Logistics in all its aspects were (and still are) way more deciding than battles

Late medieval jousting armor could potentially have been very heavy, sometimes with thick cast iron plates. I can imagine these could have been heavy enough for the rider to require help to mount the horse or get up if they were unhorsed. These jousting armors were a bit like an ice-hockey goalkeeper's outfit - good function and protection for a specific limited context, but certainly not something you'd wear on a battlefield...

Ashikaga Yoshimitsu himself experienced the Yari (Japanese spear) effectiveness in combat and if I remember correctly he once said "give 1 gold bar to a Samurai he could make 1 nice Katana, Give me 1 gold bar I could make 300 Yari and left over to hire a man to use it" In medieval Japan spear is everywhere, if you serve your load as a farmer at lease you would have a spear head at home.

Chapter three is my biggest pet peeve in depictions of ancient and medievel combat by Hollywood. It is well documented the great lengths units of infantry would keep tight ranks and order and discipline. There are exhaustive manuals on how the units could keep their lines absolutely shoulder to shoulder and be relieved by fresh units if order and morale started to break down. A unit that broke formation was generally defeated in short order.

I'm too lazy to actually check myself, but I seem to recall that the myth of knights being craned onto their horses comes from certain suits of tournament armor, which didn't need to be particularly mobile or really battle ready, so they were made thicker and heavier to maximize protection.

Can confirm. I served as a SAW gunner in Iraq with an M-249 and your typical load was about 60-70 lbs. Granted, we didn't have horses but luckily were mostly patrolling with HMMWVs so a typical patrol would have us out for anywhere from 6-12 hours and half that time you'd be in the trucks driving around, and the other half on foot. You'd easily go through a good bit of water and you could feel yourself losing weight and even if you downed a whole MRE that's about 3000 calories, you'd still wind up lean and hungry for dinner at the DFAC; not just because MREs were terrible mind you.

As an addition to your 2nd point about line infantry: The lines and especially the combat squares were all about protection against cavalry. A horse isn't stupid, it will not simply charge a dense wall of men with bayonets that hold their nerve (which isn't easy of course). These days we severely underestimate the deadliness of horse cavalry and overestimate single shot rifles. Against a charge you'd get only a few shots of. Bayonets were a primary weapon, not a last ditch thing for when you ran out of bullets. And a large cavalry charge will make mincemeat of spread out infantry like you said.

The idea of very Heavy armor on knights may be the result of the beautiful tournament armor that survived in museums and was very different from the battlefield armor worn by knights and men at arms. The church tried to outlaw tournaments several times due to the number of fighting men lost in the early years and I think overly heavy armor was a bit of compromise between free for all bloodsport and no practice against resisting and capable opponents.