Modern Soldier VS Medieval Army (and a bonus scenario)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Just a casual thought I had last night, suppose through an act of plot a modern western soldier appeared on a Medieval battlefield just as it was about to kick off and decided to take sides how much damage could he do? (yes, I appreciate that there are female soldiers as well!)

Assume he appears with standard weapons and kit, I imagine there would be pretty dramatic ‘shock and awe’ as the modern soldier laid into the opposing army with his rifle and grenades but that’s going to wear off and ammunition is going to run out so he’s going to be overpowered at some point, how much protection would modern body-armour provide against arrows and direct-impact weapons?

On the bonus scenario if you were being transported back in time to fight on the Scottish side against Edward Longshanks army as depicted in the initial battle in Braveheart (leaving questionable history aside, just go as depicted in the movie, I mean the battle where William Wallace first rallied the troops) how would you go about taking out the king and as much of his army as possible. What could you do assuming prep-time? Assume you can bring back whatever you want but only including whatever your wearing and what an average male could carry. A backpack nuke might be fun but a little unsporting.

I imagine a dug-in sniper position would be pretty effective but you’d be in trouble if they worked out where you were!

2

Probably wouldn’t make that huge a difference. The firepower of a modern solider might make him as deadly as twenty or thirty or even fifty medieval warriors but that’s still in the middle of a battle where hundreds if not thousands of warriors are fighting. And one disadvantage of a modern solider facing medieval warriors is that they wouldn’t know to be afraid of him- his weapons would have no deterrence value. Granted if he wasn’t shot from long range with arrows or blindsided the soldier could take out scores or a couple of hundred opponents, but what does that accomplish? The only way I see it as being a game changer is if the soldier identified the leaders of the enemy side and could fight his way to them. And that’s not going to be easy given the sheer press of men and horses to cut through.

3

True, the opposition might not even realise where the threat is coming from, did they have basic firearms at that point? (pre-twentieth century history isn’t my strong point) I do know that it took a long time and slow technological advancement before firearms were more effective and useful than skilled archers.

4

A modern sniper could quickly and easily ‘decapitate’ the opposition’s leadership long before he was detected.

5

A modern soldier will typically carry upwards of 200 rounds of ammunition; inthe Forces, our standard load was five magazines and we would have stuffed a few more in our pockets, so give me 30 rounds times 7 = 210.

Could I have killed a whole slew of dudes? You bet, but not as many as you would think.

To use, say the “Braveheart” version of the Battle of Stirling Bridge (which happened in 1297, long before any of the participants would have seen a gun) as an example (that particular battle did not actually go that way, aside from the fact that it was a lopsided Scottish victory, but it’s close enough to a typical battle of the time to work for this discussion) suppose I’m plopped down next to William Wallace and somehow we understand each other’s English enough for him to grasp that I’m on his side. All of a sudden shit gets real. How many English can I kill?

Well, firt of all, the fuckers are already within archery range. I would have been way, way better off being plunked down about a mile from their encmapment the day before, when I could have snuck up on them and started plinking guys from 300-500 metres away from a concealed position. As I am now in archery range I might be dead in ten seconds. I don’t havea shield. Thanks, Disposable.

But let’s pretend William and his buddies immediately understand the value of my boom stick and cover me with their shields while I start shooting. I sill can’t kill the whole English army; I only have 210 rounds. Furthermore, there’s not a hope in hell I will kill a man for every shot. I’m an excellent shot, but it doesn’t take THAT long for those guys to cross 200 yards or so of ground. In that period of time - let’s say it takes them 30 seconds to get to me - I can at most take 8-10 decently aimed shots. My best bet is to kill their generals, which should be pretty easy to do - they’re the really easy to spot guys in bright uniforms who I’m about to shoot off their horses - but still, in 30 seconds I’m not going to convince the entire army to run away and then all of a sudden I’m in a sword fight for which I am painfully lacking in training. Or swords, for that matter. To survive I’ll have to get up once they’re close and retreat, using auto bursts to cover my retreat, and then I’ll be unable to fire on the infantry because they’re mixed up with my new Scottish friends. All that is assuming I’m not hit by an arrow.

So really the best I could do in line is to kill perhaps 20, 30 men. From a concealed and distant position I could kill many more but no more than I have rounds, which given a standard loadout isn’t THAT many guys. The English had no fewer than ten thousand men.

An infantryman by himself really isn’t much. Armies are armies because they work together, using combined arms to exploit every strength and cover for every weakness. A proper army is a sort of giant game of rock-paper-scissors, where each combat arms capability has situations where it dominates and situations where it will be dominated, and the deployment of your arms must be designed to account for this.

6

Don’t mention it! As a wise man once said, ‘Where’s the fun in gambling for matchsticks?’ :smiley:

Anyway, interesting post, thanks. I would have thought though that once the English soldiers got close in a handgun would be weapon of choice instead of the rifle? A couple of grenades as they approached might cause a few doubts as well.

Edited to add that I thought modern body-armour and helmets would be fairly proof against arrows, but that of course only offers limited coverage.

Definitely, I imagine once you start adding increasing numbers of modern soldiers to the equation the numbers to destruction ratio would begin to skew very rapidly.

I once read a book which compared and contrasted various battles and militaries through the ages (possibly The Face of Battle by John Keegan) and the one thing which really struck me was the sheer increase in scale of a typical battle. One map showed The Battle of the Somme and inside that diagram was a small box showing the entirety of the Battle of Waterloo and inside that was an even smaller box showing the entirety of the Battle of Agincourt. I imagine the scale increased again for post-WW1 battles.

btw after writing this I recall a Korean movie I watched a few years ago with a similar premise, an OK movie even if I don’t recall much about it.

7

You might want to check out a series of novels by Eric Flint, that starts with one called 1632. The basic premise is similar to your OP, but on a larger scale. Due to some freak spatial/temporal anomaly, an entire 20th century West Virginian mining town is transported into Germany, 1632 - right in the middle of the 30 Years War.

The period is early Renaissance, not Medieval, so the natives are familiar with guns and the idea of machinery, but nothing as complex as a car or an M-16. And instead of one trained solider, it’s a town full of contemporary Americans, some of them veterans, most of them just ordinary citizens, and the series spends as much time dealing with the effects of 20th century technology and value being dropped in the lap of 17th century Europe, but the battle scenes are still pretty cool. The first book, in particular, has some great scenes featuring the effect a sniper can have on an enemy that thinks of guns as something with a range of a few hundred feet, or what a M-60 machine gun can do to a Spanish tercio.

Not great literature by an stretch, but a lot of fun.

8

Actually not necessarily. The helmet is because it’s solid. And the ceramic balistics plate would also provide protection. But it turns out that bulletproof vests are actually relatively poor protection against sharp bladed weapons. Unlike a bullet which smashes against the layers of Kevlar fabric, the sharp edges of knives and arrows tends to dig into the fabric and cut the fibres, reducing the protective ability.

9

Ha! As it happened, earlier today this thread had inspired me to re-read some of the better scenes in 1632. I always liked Julie Simpson the sniper girl. If anyone is interested, it’s one of the books available in the Baen Free Library.

10

Nighttime fighting is a relatively recent innovation, isn’t it? As such, I don’t think the soldier should go out during the day at all. If he had enough time, a special forces dude could stay under cover of his ghillie suit throughout the day and then use his night vision gear to go venture out and go cutting throats through the dark hours. As the alarm is sounded, he could then resume his sniper position and use a night scope to take out the king and most of the knights in short order. The opposing army would probably flee in panic at that point.

11

Or you could send an army cook, and kill them from within.

12

The OP said that the soldier had “standard kit”, but then mentioned something about sniper rifles - which are not issued to every soldier. So I’m assuming he means equipment that a soldier in a regular infantry platoon might carry, and not just the base gear. if so, I wouldn’t go with the sniper - I’d go with either the machine gunner, the light (52mm or 60mm) mortar operator, or the guy with the M-203 grenade launcher. Used properly, any of those could stop a massed cavalry charge in its track. The machine gunner would probably be the best - a light 5.56 machine gunner carried around 800 rounds; mow down the first row in broad sweeps, and the rest would probably break and run. Remember, you don’t have to use modern tactics. WWI tactics are probably more appropriate to the situation, anyway.

13

To take out the King you’d have to go find him. He wasn’t at the battle.

14

A French cook would only kill them with poison.
A English cook would be able to kill them with ‘leftovers’
A Scottish cook would be able to kill them with the freshly cooked main course

15

With a light machine gun, your tactics would probably be more akin to those of the Brits in their African colonial wars than anything. Remember:whatever happens, you have got a Maxim gun - and they have not.

16

What’s the soldier’s goal, though? If his purpose is to actually win a war, and not just survive on top of a hill for an additional very busy twenty minutes, then I think my suggestion is the only way to go.

17

Once you pop off a few rounds with a stick that spits fire, smells of brimstone and kills people at a distance, I give you 2 minutes before the guys closest to you (allies or not) have you warming on a bonfire as a witch.

Si

18

Remember, you don’t need to kill all of the enemy to win a battle; you just have to destroy their morale.

Say I’m facing a charge by 500 armored knights. I need 3 guys: a machine gunner, a designated marksman (who will also carry spare machine gun ammo) and a light mortar operator. So: first I wait until they’re about 300 years away. Then I have the marksman take out the bannermen (most important) followed by the leaders, while at the same time, I have the mortar start sending explosive shells *behind *the first rank of knights. This will cause the enemy’s front troops to falter , if only because they’ll be looking behind them to see what that noise was. Then I start with the machine gun. I’ll fire in relatively long bursts, sweeping slowly across the enemy, making no special effort to hit any specific target, or indeed to prefer shooting the men over the horses (dead horses are actually preferable to dead men - their riders will be neutralized anyway, and they’ll serve as useful obstacles for the rest of the cavalry). The enemy will be confused, with men and horses dying left and right, explosions all around them, smoke, screaming men and horses, no leadership and no direction. Chances are, they’ll break and run before they reach 100m from my position.

19

Surprised nobody’s mentioned yet: “See this? This is my BOOM STICK!”

20

Possibly the greatest typo in the history of the Straight Dope.