This is a bit of a nitpick, but when metal armor was commonplace swords were rarely a main battlefield weapon. Cavalry were more likely to use something like a war hammer or a mace.
There’s just no one single answer about how cavalry were used, any more than one answer about how ‘spears’ were used, over the 3,000 year history of horses in warfare.
I’m hardly an expert, but my understanding is that way early on (Ancient Egypt, etc), domesticated horses were still generally too small to ride, which is why chariots were used, mostly as mobile missile platforms. In early and mid-Roman times, horses were ridden, but without stirrups, nobody could really fight while on a horse. Mongol archers were way different from heavy armored medieval cavalry, and even the armored cavalry would be used way differently against a mob of quasi-peasants with pitchforks and a disciplined company of pikemen. And Napoleonic cavalary vs. musket-and-bayonet armed infantry was used differently again.
Depends on the type of armor used. Only the richest knights would wear the stereotypical full plate; most poorer knights and men-at-arms - meaning the bulk of medieval infantry and cavalry - would go to battle in partial plate, mail and brigandine, against which swords were still quite effective.
By “metal armour” I take it you mean “full plate”, because the sword was the principal cavalry sidearm (the lance or polearm being the primary weapon) for a lot of the time when metal chain was de rigeur.
And even there, I’d like to see you provide a credible cite for what cavalry was “more likely to use”, please - for one thing, period illustrations of battles depict a hell of a lot more swords (and then axes) than maces and hammers.
Because it’s easier to use a longbow when you’re calm? 
I think the point the writer was trying to make was the Crusaders lost 4,000 during the whole battle, the Turks lost 3,000 from a single charge.
Bit of a hijack, but speaking of “full plate…” contrary to what role-playing games have tried to codify, plate armor is lighter, easier to wear, and cheaper to make than mail (chain link) armor.
[ul]
[li]Mail is heavier because each ring or link is a three-dimensional piece of metal – a significant portion of which is merely connecting to other links, not in front protecting you against Bad Things.[/li]
[li]Because it’s flexible and can drape, the weight of mail pretty much bears down on the shoulders and the tops of the arms, whereas plate is rigid and can distribute its weight to various attachment points.[/li]
[li]Mail is also more expensive because manufacturing it is labor-intensive. All those links need to be made and then assembled together.[/li][/ul]
Nah. Those were the total casualties from a running battle with numerous skirmishes that went on many hours as recorded by Albert of Aachen. John France questions the precision of those numbers( as any medieval historian should )but says - They do, however, sound small enough to be credible and large enough to suggest heavy fighting*. Apparently multiple sources attest that most of the crusader casualties were stragglers that had become separated between the two main halves of the army and a substantial chunk of the crusader army lagging behind never engaged at all.
It is very likely the Turks took their heaviest casualties by far in those final flank assaults and subsequent rout. That’s usually when the biggest losses occurred in medieval battles and those Christian ‘stragglers’ kind of mimicked routed troops, being exposed individually or in small groups, instead of in a solid mass. But no way the Turks took all their losses in a single charge( for one thing there were multiple charges against different flanks ). That writer was just guilty of a bit of overselling ;). It was a hard fight, the crusaders came off the worse tactically and they probably won( beyond the efforts of a few key commanders like Robert of Normandy )in part on simple numerical superiority as the back half of the crusader army came lumbering up the road to support the fully engaged vanguard.
- From Victory in the East, A military history of the First Crusade by John France. 1994, Cambridge University Press.
From what I recall reading of battles, the ideal battle plan went something like;
- Lets not forget Archers were artillery, not infantrymen.
- Archers would release a volley of arrows at an arc at the enemy at about 300 meters. Most armour would stop an arrow at this range, but the sheer mass missiles mean that at leas some of them would hit some man or beat in an unprotected place.
- At 200 or so meters, a longbow arrow could pentrate over an inch of oak, at this point it starts having an effect on all but plate armour. Still loosing arroew en mass at an area.
- from 150-100 meters and below, even plate starts getting penetrated and as the range closes the Archers start taking aimed shots at specific targets.
Doesn’t plate require both more skill to manufacture and importantly much higher quality iron tending towards steel?
I think the biggest advantage to mail is that it’s (mostly) one-size-fits-all. If you make a suit of plate for a particular knight, then after that knight dies, retires, or puts on a lot of weight, that suit becomes just a museum piece. But if you make a suit of mail for one guy, and then that guy stops wearing it, you can just hang it over some other guy’s shoulders with no modifications needed. So the long-term cost ends up being a lot less, even if it’s a lot of work up front.
Why did Roman segmented armor go out of use? It seems like it would offer a good compromise between full plate and mail.
This is true
this is generally true, although a belt helps with the below-the-waist weight of mail
Yes and no. Getting larger flat sheets of steel was more labour-intensive than making short bits of iron wire or small iron rings, in the days before blast furnaces and rolling mills. And in the Middle Ages, labour costs were cheap. Plus the big factor - most plate was bespoke and custom-fitted, most chain was off-the-peg. So I disagree that mail was more expensive.
Making mail is rote work, making shaped plate takes much more skill (I’ve done both)
There is little evidence of its use after the Crisis of the Third Century. Either the Empire lost the science needed to make it, or it was too broke to issue it to troops. In later periods they reverted to using various forms of mail or scale, which actually predated segmented armor.
Incidentally, there *were *compromises between mail and plate developed - like the aforementioned Brigandine, which was very popular in the 14th-16th Centuries.
I have read that the Lorica Segmentata was never fully standard issue. The Lorica Hamata (chain mail shirt) was in use throughout.
It was hard to maintain, much harder than chain.
And it wasn’t the usual armour of the legions, anyway. They wore hamata (chain) for much longer - before and after - than they wore segmentata, and more of them probably wore hamata even in the period when they did have segmentata.
I know that segmentata is viewed as more iconically Roman, but it’s often shown in periods where it almost certainly didn’t even exist. For instance, it’s not thought that it was used by Caesar’s legions at all (the earliest date for segmentata being 9 B.C.). Yes, Asterix is a lie.
It may be worth mentioning that modern depictions of Roman soldiers seldom look like actual Roman depictions of Roman soldiers.
Modern depictions tend to be greatly over-armoured, with armour a few sizes too big, and they usually have shields about twice the size of real Roman shields.
See, for example, these soldiers on Trajan’s Column:
Just note that Trajan’s Column isn’t necessarily photorealistic, the shields may be shown smaller than actual to show the people better.
We do have actual scutum finds - the Duros-Europus semi-cylinder one was just over a meter tall, the Kasr El Harit oval scutum is 128cm tall. That doesn’t jibe with what’s shown on the column, but I’d choose actual artefacts over depiction, especially propaganda depiction. Contrast with the Altar of Domitus Ahenobarbus in terms of size depiction.
The Duros-Europus scutum may well have been a ceremonial shield, not a combat shield. The Altar of Domitus Ahenobarbus is from a totally different time period with very different shields and armour, but also shows a formal ceremony.
The Kasr El Harit shield is very likely Ptolemaic, rather than Roman, and may have been a cavalry shield.
We also have to distinguish between legionary shields and shields used by auxiliaries of various types.
There are too many depictions of small shields in Roman art in different times and places, and especially in depictions of combat, to think that it’s just a convention.
Didn’t Roman infantry tactics - which are fairly well-documented - require a large shield? It’s hard to form a shield wall with a buckler.
I’ve heard that before and there’s no real justification for it, it’s quite robust in construction.
“Very different” is an overstatement, you can find soldiers on Trajan’s Column with exactly that sort of armour. And the significance of it being a formal ceremony would be?
Again, I’ve heard this theory, but it doesn’t explain
a) why it matches the descriptions from Polybius
b) Why it looks the same as shields depicted in Roman art.
c) Where the Ptolemies were getting *birch wood *from.
d) What difference it being Ptolemaic actually makes, given that the Ptolemaic army of the time was heavily Romanized.
Naah, that’s reaching. Even the Trajan depictions of cavalry shields don’t have the centre spine like this did, but it’s characteristically shown on the oval infantry scutum. Also, a horizontal centre-grip boss like that would suck for horseback use.
It’s not really a distinction that matters, in terms of this discussion, I think. A scutum’s a scutum.
Other than Trajan, what have you got? I mean, I know there are other shield forms besides the scutum, so I’d expect other sizes.
But like I said first, artefact trumps depiction, especially when the depiction can be as variable as between the Column and the Altar. The arguments against the existing scuta finds not being just what they appear smacks of handwaving, whereas “artistic licence” is a real thing.