Ladder safety during castle storming

Factual Questions
21

Some of the guys in my SCA barony fight in almost nothing but leather with a few strategically placed plates. Some of the leather stuff they wear is very thick and rigid. I could easily see how it would take a good solid hit with a good weapon to hurt it, let alone them underneath. Leather was very common back then, so making a good tough leather breastplate, shoulders, and arm/leg guards would probably not be too cost prohibitive.

little aside

Armor is a vary labor intensive process, I should start a “Ask the guy who is building a suit of armor” thread. I am working on my first set of armor for SCA combat.

By the time I am done it will probably be 50-60 hours of work and about $300-400 in materials. Just hammering out bowl shaped pieces for elbows and knees is a bit of a chore. This is not even full plate, there will be some leather components to it as well.

Granted I am using aluminum which is more expensive than steel but much lighter and I am doing things like hand staining my leather, mirror polishing aluminum, etc.

I am gonna look like one sexy beast.

22

Yup. Which is why they didn’t do it unless they *absolutely *had to. Much easier and safer to just wait it out.

Note however that the ladder thing is a bit overdone by Hollywood : it wasn’t that easy to push the ladder away because there would also be attackers at the bottom of the wall pulling the ladder down to secure it in place, if I’m being clear.

Ladders were also almost the bare minimum of siege work, just above ropes and grapnels. An assault involving only ladders would be very difficult against even a token defensive effort for obvious reasons, unless the attackers outnumber the defenders by a huge margin. And even then the casualty rates would be appalling.

Historical assaults would involve breaching the walls in multiple places with catapults or sapping, massive armoured siege towers instead of puny ladders, battering rams… Failing that, sneaking dudes in by night to open the gates or even bribing the defenders’ soldiers away was also common.

Destroying the fortifications with catapults/trebuchets/explosives, as often seen in the movies, was also something of a last resort BTW, at least in wars of conquest (as opposed to looting raids, but then again escapades of the sort rarely involved sieges in the first place).
The big prize then was to take the castle or fortified city as intact as possible so you could immediately use it for yourself. Fat lot of good a captured castle is if it’s got big gaping holes in it… which was yet another reason to simply wait it out.

Yup. Just take a look at the Bayeux tapestry, which depicts William the Conqueror’s invasion of England (so, early Middle Ages). Every guy is in maille from head to toe. And those were Norman huscarls, the direct continuation of Scandinavian Vikings - these guys weren’t big on horses to begin with.

As for the cost issue, for professional soldiers, man-at-arms, mercenaries or noblemen armour was just as much a tool of their trade as their swords, horses, crossbows etc…
An investment, if you will. Quite a sensible one if they were fond of that whole breathing thing, too.

23

Ive worn chainmail for reasonable periods.

Doing single actions isnt hard, but intense activity will wear you down very quickly. I wouldnt want to be running across a gap, climbing a ladder, then trying to fight at the top in it.

Not saying it couldnt be done but it wouldnt be a cakewalk.

Otara

24

Am I correct in assuming that the first guys up the ladders would be the strongest, most skilled, and most heavily armored that the attacking lord would have at his disposal? I’m pretty sure whoever it was would get a nice bonus in their little sack of silver as well.

25

The late 13th/ early 14th century was a very stereotypically medieval time in Great Britain. At this time most of the soliders would be commoners for whom a suit of full-plate armour would be way beyond their means, but an arm would also have of a large contingent of knights who would pretty much universally be heavily armoured. Often these knights would act as cavalry, but also they would fight on foot too.

It’s also worth noting that not all ladders were wooden affairs, rope ladders were used also used. Robert the Bruce used them particualrly effectively in capturing English castles in Scotland.

26

I’m by no means an expert, but I would want my least skilled troops going up first, as someone else mentioned earlier it seems likely that the casualty rate for the first men up the ladder would be damn close to 100%. Better to let some peasants soften up the defenders a bit, with your best men behind them to encourage them to keep moving up the ladders.

27

Not only that, but there were also massive bragging rights involved, which counts for quite a bit in a macho warrior culture. Seriously, in some cases people quibbled over who would get the *privilege *of going in first. Just to be able to go :

“Yesterday, boy, I climbed a 40 foot wall on a rickety-ass ladder, getting shot at right in the face all the way up and being the biggest target in the whole damn army. Then I reached the top, alone, right in the middle of them, completely surrounded, assholes from *our *side pushing me forward, 40 foot drop right behind me, 40 foot drop in front of me too, sharp-edged death everywhere else. And I proved to be such a murder goddamn machine I survived and we won the fucking thing. I basically have to use a wheelbarrow to carry my own balls around at this point.
So what did you do with *your *day, pussy ?”

That’s because you think like a tactician, not a feudal warrior.
If you were already noble, acts of near-suicidal bravery like that went on your personal record, with minstrels singing about you and everything. A petty knight could hope moving up the food chain, a king could prove he was the most badass motherfucker of them all. If you were a commoner that could mean a knighthood then and there that would set you up for life. That stuff could be a pretty big deal, really.

To give you a concrete example : Godfrey of Bouillon, who led the First Crusade, was among the first Christians on the walls of Jerusalem (albeit not the first - but history still remembers the names of *those *dudes, too). The guy had over 1.500 knights serving under him at the time, plus ~15.000 regular infantrymen and god knows how many fanatic pilgrims who’d come along for the ride, and he went on point. Different times.

Of course, that kind of scrotum-centric strategy cost a *lot *of victories too. Azincourt, anyone ?

28

No one was ‘bigger’ on horses than the Normans.

The whole modern concept of feudalism and knights and what not basically stems from the Normans and William’s conquest.

You are correct about the footmen being armored, however, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry.

29

You guys are making it sound like it wouldn’t be fun to storm the castle.

30

There was also a horse-related technological advance that the Normans had, while the English didn’t. This is shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. It clearly shows that the Norman horsemen used stirrups. These are a significant advantage – they allow a mounted cavalry to make sharper maneuvers without having people dismounted, and also allows horsemen better stability, thus more leverage (yielding harder blows on opponents) when using weapons while mounted.

31

Huh. Interesting. For some reason, I was convinced the Normans had mostly stuck with the Danish way of war (a big shield wall of heavy infantry, with maybe some light cavalry as scouts/screeners/flankers), while the Franks were the ones who’d embraced the heavy cav. devastating charge strategy. I stand corrected, thanks.

32

If it is Poland’s Malbork Castle, the answer is a very bent Pole:

33

I wondered a bit about leaders going up ladders first, so did a bit of googling:

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/be-wlxbo.html

“Timberwood and carpenters were brought from Jaffa in order to build the required machines of war, that is three rolling towers and catapults. The attack started during the night of 9 to 10 July; with the main attack launched on the evening of 13 July. On 15 July, Godfrey of Bouillon put his tower against the wall and entered the town with his brother Eustace of Boulogne.”

Not to say I wouldnt be wetting myself personally with either, but a tower and a ladder are pretty different things. Is this accurate?

Otara

34

/me crosses medieval soldier of the list of things to try when I invent my time machine.:eek:

35

That’s not really thinking like a tactician, though. Who were the first troops to hit the shore in Normandy? Rangers and commandos, not guys fresh out of boot camp. All armies send their best troops first into the breach, because they don’t want the enemy to gain the time they need to react and reinforce, and because if your first line of troops breaks and runs, there’s a good chance your second line will, too.

The toughest jobs are always given to the toughest soldiers. This was true during the middle ages, and it’s true today.

36

Yes it is. As I mentioned, ladders were never really the first choice, even before the Middles Ages and the considerable progress made in fortifications over the period. Siege towers date back to Antiquity, with examples cropping up as early as 800 BC.

When ladders were used alone, it was either because the attackers were really desperate and throwing a Hail Mary pass, the defenders were hopelessly outnumbered, or as a sneak attack : race as many ladders to the wall as possible, as fast as possible, and hope to catch the defenders with their pants down and to have established a secure foothold before reinforcements can react or wake up.

Which is not to say siege towers were safe places to be either. They would of course be arrow and boulder magnets, moved slowly and would often get bogged or stuck in the open and burned rather easily. Organized defenders could even hope to topple them from a nearby tower once they’d reached the walls.

Not all armies. The stereotypical Polybian battle line for example involved three lines, with the fresh blood in front (the light hastati), then the regulars (the principes) and finally the old, superiorly equipped veterans back, ready to plug the gaps, exploit breaches or simply hold the line to give the first two time to regroup and come back.
In many cases, the battle was won before the *triarii *even had to fight.

In a more general sense, it makes some sense to keep the crack troops in reserve and only use them to decisively tip the scales where they are really needed or once the defenders are exhausted.
Least, that’s how my sieges tend to go in Medieval 2. Defenders get ridiculous bonuses from fighting on the walls anyway :stuck_out_tongue:

37

I’m curious; how well documented were these acts of bravery? In other words, do we know to a fair degree of certainty that Godfrey really was among the first on the wall, or was he just the first man of any renown up there? Given that he was nobility he would have much greater control over the record, and would also make for a better story in general. “Sir Godfrey stormed the castle walls” does read a little better than, “A whole bunch of guys stormed the castle walls.” Could it have been a bit like the opening of “Star Wars”, where a bunch of nameless, not-important-to-the-historical-record grunts do the heavy lifting, allowing the nobleman to stride into the aftermath and “conquer?”

38

The whole Crusade was documented by an unknown scholar in the retinue of Bohemund I in the Gesta Francorum. It’s perhaps not as accurate as a CNN video, but it was in his direct interest not to make too much stuff up or to minimize the achievements of irascible, armed people.
As it is, this unnamed scholar did mention the very first people on the wall : Lethalde and Engelbert, a pair of otherwise unremarkable Flemish knights.

Now, the counterpoint to that is that he mentions the assault started two days before that happened - that’s the time it took for Godfrey’s tower to reach the wall (while Raymond of Toulouse stuck his in a ditch). What else went on during these two days ? I don’t rightly know. I do know the Crusaders had managed to destroy at least one section of the wall with a battering ram but failed to make it through the defense, but that’s about it.
So it’s a bit of both, I suppose.

39

Going back - admittedly - at least a millennium, Roman legionnaires would be awarded the corona muralis, mural crown, for being the first to climb the wall of a besieged city. This was a highly sought-after decoration and a great way to get glory (and spoils).

40

…but do they call me Kobal2 the Castle Stormer? No…!

But you fuck one goat!