Increasingly effective artillery also killed the tercio. I have read of battles where the tercio formations were cut to shreds by enemy artillery...such an easy target.
General History Questions thread
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*achem*
rapier17 said:
Woops, I guess I zoned out a little as I read the post, not sure how I missed that. But yeah, artillery. 
Were the cuirass and the armours of, say, the first half of the XVII century (Thirty Years' War, English Civil War...) indeed bulletproof?
Couldn't a direct musket ball penetrate those armors, or a pistol shot at point blank? And what about the helmets?
I remember episodes such as the destruction of the swedish yellow brigade at Lutzen, 1632, by a devastating close range volley fire coming from imperial muskets. Well, the first rank of a swedish brigade was formed by a plotton of pikemen. How could they be so completely disarrayed by a single volley, considering the low accuracy of those muskets and the breast, upper legs, inguinal and head armor those swedes wore?
I know we cannot be too specific because it is still pre-industrial era, and I also know it is probably a silly question, but still I'm curious.
Couldn't a direct musket ball penetrate those armors, or a pistol shot at point blank? And what about the helmets?
I remember episodes such as the destruction of the swedish yellow brigade at Lutzen, 1632, by a devastating close range volley fire coming from imperial muskets. Well, the first rank of a swedish brigade was formed by a plotton of pikemen. How could they be so completely disarrayed by a single volley, considering the low accuracy of those muskets and the breast, upper legs, inguinal and head armor those swedes wore?
I know we cannot be too specific because it is still pre-industrial era, and I also know it is probably a silly question, but still I'm curious.
A smooth-bore musket packs greater muzzle energy than a .44 Magnum. They could definitely punch through armour. Cuirasses were only effective at stopping bullets fired from pistols and muskets at a distance.
djogloc02 said:
short answer: with great difficulty.
long answer: they kept changing it. the byzantine military was reformed sometimes every few decades. at some times they used a lot of mercenaries, at other times they just payed bordering kingdoms to attack their enemies, and very rarely they actually had a fully functioning standing army. it's not an easy question though, because the byzantine empire was around for almost 1000 years. i studied a tiny window of their history (7th-10th century) and they completely reorganized their army every time a new dynasty took over.
there are a few trends. up until the 700s they tended to use heavily armed melee cavalry, and masses of spearmen and swordsmen from their land and from their allies. later, when they had to fight steppe peoples in modern day armenia and bulgaria they began to adopt horse archers. still, they'd quite often just get lazy and comprise the majority of their army of mercenaries, or just disband the whole thing.
there was a dynasty of generals (the komneni) who staged a coup and made the army quite efficient in the 1100s, but as soon as they experienced a few years of peace, they went back to the terrible system they had before. by the 1400s when Constantinople fell, their army was a crapsack of hired foreigners who kept switching sides. only those big thick theodosian walls prevented byzantium from ending in the 1200s.
Who were the Iberia's natives before the Migration Period?
A mixture of celtic tribes, with the ancestors of phonecians. Probably not too different to gaul in the same period.
Mosin Nagant said:
Before which migration period? Before the Indo-European migration period the Iberian peninsular was inhabited by Iberian people, who spoke a language group of which Basque is member.
Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers
Second knight from the left: where is that style of noseguard from? Does anyone know where it originates from, if there are medieval effigies, statues, frescos, illuminations that show it? Was it interpreted as such from sources describing it? It feels like something dreadfully impracticle to wear or even add to a coif, not to mention it would still break your nose if anything hits you there...
Wide noseguards were around in the 12th century e.g. Knights on a bronze and gilt fragment from the Temple Pyx, but, I don't know what this one is attached to.
Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers
Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers
That's the real question; if it is simply tied around the forehead, it's a very feeble defence. If it is linked with the coif, it's a huge nuisance to wear and pull off and still offers close to no protection. I still can't find aa contemporary image that shows a noseguard hanging from a coif instead of being part of a helm
FrisianDude
Archduke
I half recall something similar with as text that the nasal is part of a small helmet worn underneath the coif.
That would make more sense but also beg the question: "why wear the less resistant piece of armour over the sturdier one?" I'm fairly sure a steel helm is more solid than iron mail...
