[Arralen]

To stirr up the discussion again:

Runciman claims that the East Roman Empire had a force of sixty thousand cavalry stationed on the Syrian frontier during the first half of the eleventh century. (Runciman, p 62)

It's from this page - an interesting reading, by the way.
(May fuel another heated discussion. Explains why DOM knights cannot trample - and are way to effective nevertheless)

And if we can agree - or at least trust the devs choice in music (medieval), DOMs settings is pretty much that of a medieval fantasy (or the other way 'round), very much like the Ars Magica Series (Paper'n'Pen RPG)

There's an interesting account about medieval warfare (and army size) in that doc, too:

Mobility was also a characteristic which suited the essential raiding nature of warfare in the medieval period, described accurately as "above all made up of pillaging, often of sieges, sometimes of battles" (Contamine, p 219) He argues for the "relative rarity of true battles" because of the very high casualty rates that accompanied them. (p 258) There is considerable evidence to support this view. The chronicle of Geoffrey Plantagenet's military campaigns mentions only skirmishing, raiding, and siege. In nineteen years of civil war in England between Stephen and Matilda, Henry of Huntington's History mentions only two actual battles, at Northallerton and Lincoln, compared with twenty four accounts of siege and constant references to 'harrying with fire and sword'. In the eighty-year period from 1136 to 1216 there are only four pitched battles, one of which took place during the Third Crusade. The battle of Arsuf was the only set piece battle, as distinct from siege and skirmish, that Richard the Lionheart actually fought.

Warfare in the medieval period is thus unlike our notion of war between nation states or large-scale societies. It is more in the nature of 'feuding' or guerre guerroyante. (Contamine,p 219) The armed forces of the Roman state, of the Byzantine empire, and of the nation states of Europe from c. 1500 until the present day are the opposite to a medieval host. They had (or have) a unified central command, paid regular units of all arms, a systematic program of training, and a hierarchical command staff. By comparison, a medieval army was an ad hoc gathering of warriors led by an hereditary aristocracy and lacking any notion of national loyalty. A gathering such as this was unsuitable for a protracted military campaign in the modern sense. The mounted warrior, however, was strategically superior to other arms in the skirmishing and raiding warfare of the period because of his ability to cover distance rapidly, and to pursue effectively.
...
One particular aspect of a battle is quite striking. The number of infantry in a set battle is always greater than the number of cavalry, and greater by a considerable degree. Runciman, for example, argues that the proportion of cavalry to infantry in the army of the First Crusade was probably one in seven, and the total force was likely to have been four and a half thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry. (p 336) Duby claims that the combatants at Bouvines probably numbered some four thousand cavalry (knights as well as sergeants) and twelve thousand infantry, a proportion of one in four. ( p 63) Green's analysis of twenty-three medieval battles, admittedly mostly from the later medieval period, shows that the infantry component considerably outnumbered the cavalry in every case.
...
Green's work also shows that the cavalry are almost without exception held as a reserve force, and that many of the knights usually dismounted to fight. This is the case with all twenty-three battles he discusses. Poole, discussing the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, claims that the mounted knights formed the core of a medieval army, but that the emphasis on cavalry fighting has been exaggerated. (p 23) There is abundant evidence that knights throughout the medieval period often dismounted to fight in a pitched battle. This is stated quite explicitly in a contemporary account of the battle of the Standard in 1138. According to Henry of Huntingdon, King Stephen and his knights dismounted and took up position in the centre of the line at the battle of Lincoln, 1141 (Hallam, p 172). John Beeler (1971), writing about the period AD700-1200, says:


"..to insist that the frontal cavalry charge was the sole tactical expedient of feudal generals is to ignore the evidence that can be found about literally scores of engagements" (p 251)




A.

[ January 16, 2004, 06:02: Message edited by: Arralen ]