How many knights in Armor would be on a battle field?

Submitted by autism_guy_69 t3_zjw9dr in history

I have always wondered when you see armor sets from the old times 15th century or so and the time and money it would cost to make those sets. I can't imagine there would be many soldiers wearing that armor into battle or more like generals etc? I've never gotten a clear answer. And my other question is did it really help in battle I feel it would just slow you down to the point where you would be an easy target. I have no real education in history just a random thought I've always had.

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thegagis t1_izwoiwv wrote

If I remember correctly, of the 8000ish english in the battle of Agincourt some 1 to 2 thousand wore heavy armour, since it indeed was expensive troughout history.

However, it was also so damn effective, that it was a worthwhile investment to protect any warriors who have enough training to make them worth protecting, since all that training itself was an extremely valuable investment too. Modern testing indicates that armour was typically extremely effective at protecting against blows from all sorts of weapons and an armoured warrior had a tremendous advantage against any unarmoured or lightly armoured opponents.

Modern testing also shows that you can move fairly nimbly and fast in heavy armour, it doesn't weigh much more than the loadout of a modern soldier, and is distributed more evenly across your body after all. For cavalry this is even less of an issue, since you have a horse to carry yours and your equipment's weight with.

Main hindrance caused by armour is how it moves your center of gravity from your belly up to your chest, which takes practice to get used to and can make moving in very difficult terrain tricky.

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Snoo-81723 t1_izwp2zj wrote

battle of Grunwald there was circa 50 000 knights together on both sides . On battlefield knight in full armour was like tank - unstopabble .

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Hyphenated_Gorilla t1_izx3dus wrote

Estimates are incredibly high even at 40k, no where near that would have been fully armored, mass production simply did not exist.
The Teutonic were the better armored and probably about 10-15k .

People forget that life was generally meaningless to the common man and cannon fodder was common.

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Snoo-81723 t1_izxddi5 wrote

both sides uses probably same weapons and aromours . Teutonics must adapt to fight in Samogitia forests and using lightly armors and shorter pikes . Lithuanian and russian forces were using that same. Polish knights were armed in western way. As for mass production Teutonic have big manufacture were produce weapons on big scale - in Malborg castle were over 100000 crossbow tip in stock.

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TheLateHenry t1_izzg7lx wrote

There were about 66,000 combatants total in that battle. There is NO WAY that nearly all of them wore full plate armour. I agree with the previous poster - 10-15k is more likely.

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izy4tpp wrote

Say that to the English long bowman! They would beg to differ

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IBAZERKERI t1_izyzion wrote

the Battle of Agincourt, where the fable of longbowmen crushing armored french knights is massively overblown. in truth it was mud and a hill that won that battle. most of the knights killed were stabed to death with knives after having to slowly slog through mud and becoming exhausted.

theres plenty of youtube videos exposing this lie and showing that an arrow fired from a longbow would at the very very best, leave a small dent.

so sorry to have to tell you this. But you and your mythical english longbowmen are wrong.

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izz6xww wrote

Didn’t the French use horses? and didn’t the English target horses because a thrown knight was usually a useless knight? Add that to the quagmire that was the battlefield and i would say that the archers decimated the French nobility.

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IBAZERKERI t1_izz8oxo wrote

do some research dude. seriously theres a bunch of videos about this subject.

its a myth the english nobility used as propaganda.

much like carrots improving your eyesight.

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izz92sj wrote

You don’t get it, I’m aware the longbow themselves didn’t kill armored knights, but you don’t have to blow up a tank to render it a battlefield casualty. You wound a knight, get em stuck in the mud, make them advance on foot vs horseback so they’re exhausted, it effectively defeats them.

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IBAZERKERI t1_izza7qe wrote

yes. i do. you are the one thats displaying a complete lack of understanding here. not me

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izz9ada wrote

What you’re basically saying is the outnumbered English basically got lucky the inept French decided to fight up a hill in the mud and just kept marching like lemmings to their death. Arguably one of the supreme powers of the day was not that inept.

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IBAZERKERI t1_izz9mu0 wrote

yes. this is what im saying and its the truth. they were that inept. atleast in this battle. the mud absolutely hampered there ability to both advance and retreat

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izzb92u wrote

You realize you can go to the Wikipedia page and read the whole account of the battle right? Like…. It says that the English archer was very effective at wounding the unarmored horses and causing a rout of the Calvary which then tore threw their own infantry ranks, the armored foot soldiers had to keep their visors closed to protect from the lucky arrow finding the weakest part(eye and breathing holes) thus making it hard to see and breathe…by the time the French men-at-arms reached the archers they were mostly wounded or heavily fatigued, and the archers use knives, hatches, clubs, or short swords to decimate the French…. So….. my argument that the longbow would won that battle would hold water you pompous buffoon

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izzbhae wrote

Never mind that that single battle resulted in either the death or capture of half the French nobility… you can argue semantics i suppose, and say that the longbow didn’t kill the knights, but the archers tired em out then poked em with knives instead, but that’s just foolish

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IBAZERKERI t1_izzbo7s wrote

yes, ive read the wiki, ive also watched numerous other videos on youtube that go indepth into things such as weather, tactics, armorment, commanders and more.

your the one thats changing the goalposts after being called out for making fallacious claims and now resorting to name calling. i think you need a rag to whipe all that paint off your face you clown. grow up

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izzc82e wrote

I’ve changed no such argument, i stated the archers defeated the “tank-like” knights, and that is fact.

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Superb_Tiger_8376 t1_j0658yr wrote

Choosing the right battlefield is not luck, though. They might have taken position their intentionally, knowing it would be hard for the knights.

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funkmachine7 t1_j02zy91 wrote

The French got off an walked.
It was not the first time they had faced english archers.

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Sgt_Colon t1_izzwc7o wrote

> of the 8000ish english in the battle of Agincourt some 1 to 2 thousand wore heavy armour,

Part of the issue here is that the English fielded significant amounts of longbowmen as light infantry, as English doctrine of the time focused on heavy use of archers for ranged supremacy, contrast this with the French who were reverse in proportion and fielded primarily heavy cavalry/infantry (men-at-arms and knights dismounting to fight on foot for tactical reasons) with small numbers of lightly armoured specialists such as crossbowmen, cannoneers or pavisers.

It is also worth noting, that this is the point in western Europe where large scale manufacturing starts bringing down costs and that even common infantry were becoming better armoured than just a helmet and aketon.

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ud_patter t1_izwvaup wrote

Around Agincourt, was heavy armour typically bought by the wearer, or would it also have been provided to valuable enough combatants?

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Skinny-Fetus t1_izwvxhn wrote

I believe it was usually brought by the wearer. Armoured knights were usually members of the aristocracy who unlike a peasant had the time, connections and money to become a knight.

Although I guess there's nothing stoping a noble family from giving armour and equipment to a particularly skilled lower class warrior. Point being it was all very personal and private. The central government rarely provided it

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TheGreatOneSea t1_j05j0hf wrote

Generally speaking, each lord contributing soldiers had to meet a certain standard, and the soldiers in question usually had a high enough status to equip themselves. It's likely there was some form of subsidy by the lord, but that would be case-by-case, like a lord acting as a creditor for a bulk order if payment was in goods instead of coin.

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hughjass6939 t1_izynlpf wrote

>Modern testing indicates that armour was typically extremely effective at protecting against blows from all sorts of weapons and an armoured warrior had a tremendous advantage against any unarmoured or lightly armoured opponents.

This is cool to hear. I always wondered when watching movies - what the hell is the point of their armor if literally not once in my movie watching history have I ever seen armor actually stop or deflect a blow from anything?

Makes sense that it's not actually realistic.

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thegagis t1_izyo1t9 wrote

Yeah, unfair advantages make for bad stories or bad games.

Real life warfare is all about stacking up as many and as unfair advantages as you possibly can. This applies troughout history up to this day. Makes it hard to sometimes remember that its something that storytelling and game design deliberately get wrong.

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WarriorKn t1_izwrpdj wrote

All comment are actually accurate. But a would add that the majority was in fact cannon meat with nothing but clothes.

The real number of knights in armor would depend on the amount of nobility in the empire, since only sons of dukes and the like would wear such armor.

And actually, killing a knight would be bad, since they had the money to pay ransom. Thats why the dead count was lower.

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Regulai t1_izwu0de wrote

It's important to remember that iron is an immensely abundant material in the mediaeval era even the smallest villages would have had the local blacksmith. and while the high-end plate armour of the best quality Steel would certainly been quite expensive there are many forms of armour like chainmail and brigandine that are relatively cheap and easy to make even for a relatively low skill low experience blacksmith.

If you look at something like the Hastings tapestry you'll find that pretty much everyone in a tapestry even the Archers are wearing at least full-body chainmail.

Long story short for a proper military army in the mediaeval period the majority of Regular troops would have been wearing full armour. It probably would have been of a highly varying quality and type but still it's only really more spontaneous peasant or civilian forces that would have had partial armour even then they probably had more of than you might expect.

As for effectiveness most armour allows for fairly normal mobility, you will tend to get tired more quickly compared to not wearing armour but it doesn't substantially slow you down and not enough to be a downside in that aspect. on the other hand it will make sure that anything short of a strong Direct blow isn't going to injure you and is especially useful for surviving arrows. The more extreme cases like full plate armour you're basically a tank that's nearly impossible to kill.

One of the best Testament to how effective full plate is is that they often stopped carrying Shields.

The only case where armour makes a big difference in mobility is cavalry. the heavy weight of all of the armour requires a more muscular horses end especially if the horse also has armour will drain the horses' stamina very rapidly causing lighter Calvary to be dramatically faster over distances greater than 100m. This has led to real cases in history of light Calvary outperforming heavy Calvary usually by being able to attack them in the fanks after wearing them down, at least before full plate

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Hyphenated_Gorilla t1_izx44j2 wrote

The Tapestry are as much propaganda as it is history, chainmail is time consuming to make, up to a YEAR for a single suit. Hides, padded armor, wooden and even layered clothing were the most common.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw2UDtU2SgM

I had to respond to your nonsense about Knights being impossible to kill as well, Maces/Morning stars changed that game immensely while ropes wold be used as well. Yes you have decent mobility however it's still limited. Yes I've fought in it.

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Regulai t1_izxapq7 wrote

It's just one example, but it's highly universal to most depictions.

Yes it's time consuming but this is the medieval era, everything is time consuming to make and labour is cheap, and we aren't even getting to the used and handed down armor. Hides and wood would not at all have been common armour outside very specific cases (usually nomadic groups). Gambeson was worn, but by literally everyone.

For the most part peasants don't fight (outside rebellion), it's literally a big part of the whole deal with being a peasant. Foot soldiers would have mostly been part of a knight/warriors entourage (servants, yeomen and otherwise) generally of a higher "middle" class and wealth then peasants even if they aren't nobles.

And don't be so pedantic about knight durability. Obviously you can kill a knight but there is a radical difference in how easy it was once plate came into being while they are actively defending themselves. And even in earlier era's there are numerous great examples showcasing just how absurdly durable knights were; for example in many famous crusader defeats, you can find that the number of executed after battles closely lines up with total number of knights, furthermore defeat most commonly came because they literally got too exhausted to move, rather than because too many of them had died.

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Hyphenated_Gorilla t1_izxbfy3 wrote

Peasants were used as shock troops as were slaves by pretty much every civilization, they were used to wear down the other side, life had little meaning for most of history.

It still does not in much of the world.

Overall you cannot view history from our lens, it's not realistic.

You cannot say "Well labor was cheap" skill was not so common and they simply did not have the time and the resources to do what you and many historians claim.
Moreover it belies the fact that propaganda and exaggeration served to better the Empire. "Look, they have this many fully armored men" no probably a fraction at best. Writings were also used to pump up their nobility, think of basically most of history filled with Ego's larger than life.

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Norumbega-GameMaster t1_izxnx4z wrote

The only time medieval peasants went into direct combat was when they were in open rebellion, or when they were defending their hometowns. They would not have traveled with an organized military force as they would be more a hinderance than a help from a logistics perspective.

And the idea that life had little meaning is just not accurate.

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War_Hymn t1_j02m3xj wrote

>And the idea that life had little meaning is just not accurate.

I mean for one, peasants were valuable as agricultural workers on a medieval noble's estate. It seems unwise to throw their lives away in battle when they could better used at home tending the crops and making you income.

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Norumbega-GameMaster t1_j03yhgk wrote

The idea that historically people have only been valued for their economic worth is a very limited and foolish reading of History.

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War_Hymn t1_j04hbkl wrote

I'm just making a pragmatic counter point against the poster saying that the lives of the common people were meaningless. Obviously, people were more than just economic resources.

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Regulai t1_izxd20x wrote

First we are talking about a particular time period and secondly...

no... just no.

Yes in many other historical periods or regions levying pesants and slaves was common, however there are few if any accounts of them being used as some kind of suicide softening force....

They might have been used as skirmishers to throw javelins/rocks but wouldn't be expected to fight in close combat...

The closest parables might be the Turks who would use a defense in depth strategy however the slave soldiers were there elites not the sacrifices, or the pre-marian Romans who had there youngest in the first row, but these were middleclass children not poor. The poor wern't even allowed to join the army.

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War_Hymn t1_j02pdqn wrote

And even when these peasant-based military forces did exist, the people fielding them eventually realize they were not ideal when fighting had to be done away from the homeland or for an extended time, and start to establish smaller but better trained/equipped forces to replace or supplement them. We see that transition happen in the Heian period of Japan (which saw the rise of the samurai warrior class) and Eastern Han in China.

In the case of early Republican Rome, a free citizen had to have wealth and property amounting to at least 150 drachmae (a silver drachmae at the time amounted to one day's wages for a skilled labourer) to be even considered for military service.

Even with the English archers in the Hundred Years War, most were middle-class gentry/well-to-do peasantry who had the means and income to afford their own military equipment and time to train for war/fight on extended campaign. Or were part of a noble's military retinue who was provided with equipment and income by their liege. With the latter, it'll be rather poor standing for a noble at the time to bring a band of poorly armed, rag-tattered peasants to a fight instead of a loyal/trusted, well-equipped and trained band of retainers.

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izy5hnv wrote

As I’ve said before, the English Long bowmen butchered the gentry, it was part of the reason the English won at Agincourt

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WelcomeScary4270 t1_j12wapt wrote

Chainmail was certainly not easy or cheap to make.

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Regulai t1_j13boad wrote

But relatively speaking it was, yes it's not cardboard cheap but it wasn't that outlandishly expensive either, labour was cheap, materials were cheap and the actual process of assembly although time consuming isn't high skill especially in an era when everything is hand-made. When coupled with elements like second hand, chainmail wasn't that luxury of an item. Maybe in the early middle ages when blacksmithing was a bit rarer but still.

Note that throughout the middle ages, majority of fighters were at minimum middleclass, not peasants, furthermore the act of building equipment was done over time and not just spontaneously, so while maybe it would be very expensive to a peasant farmer, to those of higher status, like the servant of a low ranking noble, or a yeoman it would have been relatively affordable.

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gregs711 t1_izwt164 wrote

The guys practiced quite a lot so we're very fit. Agility was key or they'd be injured or worse. According to https://m.armstreet.com/news/the-cost-of-plate-armor-in-modern-money the armoring for common footsoldiers was about a month's wages. For nobility around Lamborghini range. Kitting out a horse goes from 500k and up. All of which can be undone by a commoner with a crossbow or a dagger in a joint.

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[deleted] t1_izx3wh4 wrote

[deleted]

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PDV87 t1_izxlamg wrote

Peasant levies were not exactly the norm in medieval warfare. Kings and lords all had personal armies of retainers, vassals and men-at-arms who were well-equipped professional soldiers. Depending on the time and place in question you might see the levy used to augment this force, but even then, in many cases these conscripted troops were also trained specialists - English longbowmen for example.

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Norumbega-GameMaster t1_izxoc4o wrote

Peasants were generally only conscripted when they needed to defend their hometowns, or nearby areas. They rarely traveled with actual military forces.

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pheisenberg t1_izxjbnw wrote

Medieval armies used various troop types such as armored infantry and armored cavalry, but also archers, crossbowmen, light cavalry, etc. Heavy infantry and/or heavy cavalry were the core of many armies for centuries, but only rich armies could afford that, such as Greek cities, Rome, or late medieval kingdoms.

Armor was well designed and fitted, and soldiers were used to it, so they could be quite mobile. Compare football receivers and linemen: the big guys can keep up OK over a short distance, it’s long runs where they have less endurance. Armor could be a disadvantage in very warm weather or on swampy ground, but otherwise it worked quite well. One reason pikes became common was that they needed a big two-handed weapon to get through the armor.

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autism_guy_69 OP t1_izy9nuy wrote

Thanks everyone for info it has cleared everything up

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colborne t1_izzn6yb wrote

A long time ago I remember reading somewhere that very few knights wore full armour. It asked 'how many people do you know own a Lear jet? That's the equivilent of having a full suit of armour like you see everyone wearing in the movies.

After battles were over the survivors would scavenge the battlefield for whatever armour could be stripped from the corpses (as well as boots, clothing, coins in their purses, anything really). So they would henceforth wear whatever they scavenged chestpiece, greaves, etc..

The few that had full impressive armour would be marked as rich. These men would never be killed but captured and their families would be forced to pay a ransom for their safe return.

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Helmut1642 t1_izzpeog wrote

A account from the 1400's I read long ago of two noble families of five brothers were in a feud and decided to settle it by each side bringing 100 men and fighting until it was settled. Three days fighting later only the five brothers on each were standing and they called the matter settled. It was noted they were the only ones in full armour.

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The_Godless_Author t1_j0054qx wrote

Depends on the size of the army. But it will only remain a fraction of the army size. And if we’re talking knights, that means a feudal system like what we saw in the medieval period.

Now, armies in that period were rather small. This was due to the limited capacity of a decentralized state with little authority to raise, pay, feed, and maintain large armies. You need a large and complex bureaucracy for that, and the medieval period is characterized by a lack of such a bureaucracy. That’s why kings have land to lords, who gave land to their lords, who gave land to their lords, who gave land to minor lords and knights, who maintained a class of peasantry…

So armies are kinda small. The battle of nicopolis? A massive throw down between the well oiled military machine of the Ottoman Empire and a Holy Alliance of christian powers? 40 thousand soldiers tops.

The battle of Agincourt? The most powerful kingdom of medieval Europe against a rising warrior king?

35 thousand tops, with the French having maybe 25 thousand at best, with 10 thousand of them being men at arms. The loss of six thousand of such men crippled the kingdom’s fighting capacity.

So maybe 1/5 to 1/3 of your army is mounted, and maybe 1/2 to all of them may afford heavy armor.

This stuff was expensive

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ThatGIRLkimT t1_j26ussp wrote

I was fascinated by armor on how they made

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AnaphoricReference t1_izxx7fq wrote

Few. Credible accounts of major battles (i.e. the ones including finances, tallying losses etc) typically put the number of 'real' knights per side in the 500-1500 range.

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Quiet-Ad-12 t1_izzje7e wrote

Promotion amongst footmen was based on what armor and weapons you were able to pilfer off the corpses at the end of the battle. So if you lived, you grabbed what pieces you could. However, the highest ranking nobles were often captured alive (when possible) and ransomed back to their families or Lords.

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