@@mariomaiorano1859 pls hand your internet license to the nearest authority, your incapability of processing sarcasm has forced us to take this step. You can regain your license and thereby the right to comment by successfully finishing a humor rehabilitation course in a local ERP certified establishment.
I'm a member of a Civil War Reenactment group. Many times we've fought mock combat, both mounted and dismounted. Even in mock battles knowing that you won't be killed, it's hard to face a mounted charge without trying not to bolt. The temptation is overwhelming. What many people don't realize is that a horse/equine can cover ground very quickly, measured in seconds. Imagine a line of men charging you, screaming and yelling, firing weapons, often 4 to 8 pistols, along with a couple of sawed-off shotguns, all coming at you at an incredible speed. You hear the pounding of their hooves and feel it in the ground through your feet, spelling your DOOM! it's very nerve-racking. In ancient warfare, it was even more profound as along with the above, there was banging & clashing of weapons, men screaming death wails, accompanied by the unmistakable smell of fresh blood and bowels. Truly overwhelming!
Just imaging a modern Battelfield, a german Leopard A7 Battletank charges you directly, even with some sort of small Anti-Tank Weapon like a LAW or an RPG etc, you are knowing, you need a (very) Lucky hit to do more than just scratch it's Paintings, you will run - thats exactly what medieval Infantryman experienced when Knights charged: an nearly unstoppable State of the Art Killing machine, best avaiable and expensive Technic of their time, trained at best for just killing them if they do not run
plus they wernt used to that large gatherings of people so the first time you see 1000 people , 200 on horses 200 shooting bows at you and 600 charging you ,all trying to murder you
Lived near a stable when I was younger, one of the horses broke it's leg in a paddock about a km away from our house. The shrieking it produced still haunts me. Wouldn't want to experience that on a large scale.
It's really hard to imagine just how intimidating a big horse bearing down on you is unless you've been there. I've only been in reenactments, a couple of demos and on the edge of a racetrack. It's bloody terrifying and you just want to run or hug the ground. I can barely imagine hundreds of them charging you then you have the knights on top of them. How anyone stood there ground against that is amazing to me.
Due to actual pyhsics, you only have to stop the horse in front of you. Then you are not trampled. That wouldn´t protect you from any lances of the other knights going past you where your buddies went of running. I say, I´d be a lot more scared of the lances then of the horses, but I have worked with animals a lot. Don´t forget that people at that time were used to working with animals, not so much working with (or rather against) lances and knights.
Especially if you weren't familiar with a horse or knew to stand your ground. The Spanish would use this in the Americas: the native peoples had no familiarity with it. Like Romans against Pyrrhus' elephants, they would run rather than risk getting tramples. Unlike the Romans, they weren't given enough time to develop counter tactics until it was too late.
11:56 I read that when they filmed "Breavhart" they had dificulties to make the extras stay in line while riders and horses aporached them to simulate a charge. THEY KNEW it was fake, and that the riders would stop before reaching them, and even so they couldn´t hold the line. Now imagine this was seriuos.........I think I would have run.
Without joking though, that detail is actually pretty big. A lot of people don't realise that the thought you have put into stuff like this, or the training you have had, is not much different from what most others have had in the same span of time. A modern example would be video games. Try to compare PvE content to PvP. It's easy enough to theory craft a strategy against the AI, but implementing it vs real people is another thing. And even then there is comparing low-level PvP to high-level PvP.
@@barbiquearea Nah, the longsword is heavy for a toddler. THAT came later. When he was able to walk, the first training, it was something like the Roman Gladius, or Frodo's Sting. And the weawy fi'tht timeth - with a wooden training sword.
Conversely, competitive players often have a hard time playing the campaigns for the first time, at least on higher difficulties. Campaigns require a different play style than 1v1 matches. Eventually however, their ability to formulate a working strategy lets them steamroll missions.
@@Favour135 I heard different things in Zeughaus Graz Styria (the biggest armory of medieval weapons in Europe). A knight lying on the ground is dead meat if nobody helps him up. But hey if I am wrong it is also okay for me :)
The horse was also considered to be a spoil of war. A infantry grunt could use a horse on his plot of land to plow and haul heavy things to clear more land for planting.
i highly doubt a medieval levy would get their hands on a full on war horse let alone use if for plane old field work. if it were me at least, i’d sell it.
@@irisallender6796 Spoils of war figured out to be who got to what first. A plow horse would be priceless for a infantry footman's plot of land. He'd sell his wife and kids before parting with that horse. Also many a poor Knight also had to use his horse to plow his fields. Not everybody who had a title actually had heaps of money. Armies didn't get paid to fight as they do now. What you could snatch from someone's home is what you got paid with. That's what Pillaging ment.
Something extremely valuable like that would likely "go in the pool" so to speak, a communal pot of goods which the units quartermaster would then distribute out based on rank and performance. Although someone capturing a war horse would almost certainly get a bonus for doing so the horse itself would likely be paid out to a knight, with priority to any one who actually *did* get their horse killed out from under them.
I swear, it was in that article online I can't fight anymore! It was really there! I do, however, believe Mettatron more with that than my groupmates for a project.
Yeah that is if the knight gets up. Pending how the horse stopped the knight would have a good chance of being fucked. If it did run into thick, braced spears, the abrupt stop of the horse would send the rider flying behind enemy lines and hitting the ground really hard if the enemy lines didn't break his fall, and people die all the time from falling off a horse but this knight was just thrown at like 30mph-40mph from a charging horse, his armor would help soften the impact but he is still at high risk. Aside from probable injuries from being thrown if not out right dead already, he is now on the ground surrounded by enemy soldiers stabbing him in every joint. Dead knight is dead. If the horse slows down trying to stop, gets stabbed and rears up then falls over, well now there is a very good chance the knight's leg is pinned under the horse and broken (possibly with the horse failing causing more pain and injury). Unable to move the knight either gets trampled by other horses or stabbed because he is pinned and can't move or fight back.
@@Zankaroo I'm assuming if the horse is armored the only way to take it down as its charging you is to go for the legs by either cutting one clean off or simply placing your weapon in its path matador style, in which case it will fall out from underneath him, putting him into a somersault or a roll(as long as it doesn't flip over entirely), both of which are relatively safe. The weight of all he has on will keep him from being flung such a long distance as any normal rider would, as well as protecting him from the brunt of the impact like you mentioned, so when he gets up he won't be too happy with you.
@@Zankaroo this is an assumed instance where its just one knight and one guy(you), otherwise you're talking a full cavalry charge and a full line of infantry and it would be nearly impossible to get away with those variables.
As I have pointed out. We know for a fact that it was common for a knight to be out and out killed when his horse went down. A king of Poland died when his horse rolled over onto him.
I'm thinking another thing to consider is that the horse is coming at you at high speed. even if you manage to kill it, the thing would still be coming at you and there is a high chance you'd be crushed by the combined weight and momentum of the horse and the armoured knight falling on you.
@@lilslavboi2171 Such a tired meme. Tyson had plans. He prepared for fights. Having a plan and preparing for your opponent is what every successful fighter does. The problem is *bad* plans.
@@lilslavboi2171 The more accurate statement I’ve found is everyone has a plan until they get hot with a high single leg and are now on their back. A situation where 98% of humans apparently are entirely unprepared to be in.
Sigurd Torvaldsson not every line will be broken though so it won’t be that easy. Lines get broken almost all the time it’s just how long you can hold them
Until you realize a spear is unwieldy and you have not trained with the spear properly and that shit gets yanked out of your hands or deflected by a buckler or you aimed for the limbs like a moron and they got past the business end of the spear.
8:35 - The other big factors at Agincourt were not the amount of English archers and their dense formation. But also the dense formation of the French. Hence English 'arrow storm' was almost always going to hit something.
People often forget that, not only was the Knight trained, the horse the Knight is riding was specially trained, too. And it would be wearing its own armor to boot.
Remember that in battles of knights v knights, the horses would STILL be running towards lots of pointy things aimed at them, called lances, as well as at other horses, both of which were moving right at them. War horses were trained NOT to stop or shy away The armor that you see on horses pictured here was of the LATER period, and much of it was mostly for parade, rather than combat. An EARLIER war horse, if it had armor at all, would have a headpiece and chest protector made of boiled leather
Massive horse armour was most likely only used for tournaments and parades. It would be much too heavy to use on campaigns and battles. In battle, the horses would probably wear no or very limited armour.
@@kleinmeisterlein I've seen people say claymores are made to cut through armour like butter. These knuckleheads think wielding a big ass chunk of metal is realistic and historically accurate. I'll let you decide whether the latter or former are stupid.
plus, those horses are bloody valuable, a friend of mine trains horses, and she told me that a knight's warhorse was heavily trained and selected, so capturing one would make you rich. (hoping that your superiors don't take all the merit...)
It's just like modern times, you do all the hard work and your boss takes all the credit and the money. He MIGHT buy you a beer thougn if you're lucky 😜😜
@White-Van Helsing you aint never been to a paddock then. A lot have ppl have been killed or maimed by ornery horses. They warn you first to back off, but if you dont they kick harder than Hollie Holmes on Rowdy's face.
Well agree back in medieval times Hores was basically like a car about 2-3 decades ago(nowadays it's not that much of a luxury good really) a luxury that had a lot of utility, but still was expensive as hell to get and maintain, so bet that probably a typical grunt would prefer to knock knight off horse (what could be still hard thing but bit easier especially with polearms) and just keep horse for self, for transport or maybe even combat
A wall of horses that are not skittish, but trained as well as the knight in obeying and trusting the knight. The hunting of Boar, Wolves, and Bear could be more dangerous than the average battle. No knight would take a horse into battle that had shown any tendency toward skittishness or disobedience in stressful conditions, and knights could afford to be picky... Not to mention the knights would spend a good deal of their training on horse back, learning to control it with the slightest leg or body movement causing a corresponding movement from the horse. And I've herd some knights were known to be closer and more connected with their horses than with their wives.
william: we'll make spears. twice as long as a man. hamish: some men are longer than others. campbell: your mother been telling ya stories about me again, eh?
@@Inquisitor_Vex It's even more funny knowing the actor playing the Irish guy is actually Scottish and Brendan Gleeson playing hamish is actually Irish 👍🏻
this was also the first thing that came to my mind. I started wondering whether anyone ever successfully pulled the "surprise" pike trick in history. My guess is no, since the enemy would see you carrying a bunch of pikes when you move into battle formation. I don't remember how they pull it off in Braveheart.
Thats just foolish to believe. Yes, those horses were worth a lot, but as Metatron said, when the knights charge, you are likely in the worst scenario you could ever imagine finding yourself in. It is utterly ridiculous to assume, that even for a second one would think of spoils, profit, or gain in that case. Your brain shuts down and you rely entirely on instincts. The only thing that matters is how you will get out of this alive and with all your limbs in place.
@@woodys9841 you would think that but in modern and ancient warfare money was always a concern for leadership. Yes the individual war fighters might say screw it but those cases are the minority.
@@mathias3721 Carry 20 KG of sand bag on your back and see if you can still running faster than me. Knights were fast because of Horse. there was a time British long bowmen crushed French Knights, their horses were killed and knights got captured by longbow-men.
@@withastickangrywhiteman2822 Agincourt was mostly won due to the muddy terrain, it was also not JUST English yeomen, the English also had infantry and cavalry. Also, it's not a backpack, the weight is distributed over your entire body making it a lot easier to carry. AND knights were trained to fight IN armour, so it was barely a hindrance. A modern soldier carries more weight than a Medieval knight as well as having the weight mostly distributed in a backpack making it more cumbersome
@@mathias3721 No matter what you said, carrying 20 KG or wear clothes that heavy you simply can not outrun me. Unless i'm an daily American with 300 pounds of meat. LOL
@@needparalegal Well there are tales of people eating their war horses out of desperation. The siege of Antioch for example of the first crusade. Yes, they were expensive, but no cost is high enough for your survival.
The lance is pretty fucking cool lookin' though. Not the plain ones that lesser knights had. The really expensive ones with ornaments and shit. That look awesome.
The problem with pole weapons on horseback like lances and spears is that they easily become stuck in your opponent and you have very little time to retrieve it. Even sticking a sword in a body can be very difficult to retrieve after lunging at a gallop. Hacking and slashing weapons are simply easier to retain, whereas pole weapons are essentially one shot deals. I've been a cavalry reenactor of multiple periods for 13 years, since I was 13 years old and I've been riding my entire life, and I can't even retain a lance after the first blow. Either you ditch the lance or you're pulled from the saddle.
@@Jake_Steiner yea I always thought how you dont fall after someone is impaled because I bet with armour on and one hand holding the steer thing for the horse and one holding a big heavy pole that now also have a fully sized human on it probably also in some sort of armour luke how do can you keep one hand holding it theres atleast like 80-90 kg if it was light poles with a few on your back which you can ditch after a hit I'd get it but how the fuck did it work
So very accurate, everyone thinks it would be easy to take out elite warriors for some reason. They tend to forget that these people have been training for combat and/or have been in combat for a good portion of their lives.
Swiss Pikeman are a highly specialised unit. They were a trained, paid and elite unit. He is talking about pikeman in the general sense, and even the Swiss could be outflanked when using long pole-arm. It is the same as you comparing the Swiss with a proper phalanx from the Greek period where the lances were gigantic in length.
@@Sunderas this is why you need these badass to kill every knight in Europe, except the Mongols who would just shoot from a distance.These swiss stood toe to toe with the Marauding Landsknecht in rome and did a awesome last stand defense before was overrun as you said. Mounted and foot fears them this is why they are the exception.
@@Sunderas They became highly specialized unit later. In their first few battles with Habsburg they were just common farmers who were trying to defend their land and sovreignity. While trying to solve the issue they came up with Halbred as it used less metal and it was very effective strategy against the knights with their comparitively shorter lances.
@@PoppaPlacidPenis Yeah, people whose lives were spent (and in very high numbers lost) at war, not tryhards sitting in front of a screen with (generally speaking) not a single second of fighting experience.
@@PoppaPlacidPenis yes people did kill knights. But what they would probably say to you is not to be overconfident when fighting an athletic man who is has been trained since infancy clad in full plate armour with a weapon designed for war. And people who did kill a Knight would never, ever, say “I’d just kill the Knight!”.
most horses where blind folded and trained to run/gallop with the blindfold. even today "peasants" use a type of blind fold that let's the horse only see forward(he can still turn his/her head around though) so they go straight and only start turning when you pull him/her too. cavalry is formed by the horse AND human, doesnt make sense only the human or knight to be trained.
@@laytenci "oh man! You've really done it now!" "What? I killed his horse so that his height and reach advantage are diminished. " "Yeah, but now the knight wants you dead!" "Wait, the knight didn't want me dead a second ago when he was charging at me with a Lance?" "Well, yeah, but now he's angry and wants to kill you." I don't understand how this stupid argument is going around still as it's completely devoid of any sort of critical thinking. He's an enemy knight. Killing his horse is just step one of taking down a deadly threat of you're infantry. It's difficult, so most couldn't pull it off alone, but infantry are rarely alone whereas knights often are.
Dana Gray knights don’t charge alone, regardless of how armed they are because that would be suicide. by the time he reaches the fray and his horse has been downed most likely his company will be right with him. and if it’s a pikemen or something similar that killed his horse than the pikemen’s in trouble. The knight’s now most likely in close range and in the optimal distance for his weaponry. the situation is madly in the favor of the knight
My husband was a soldier and he did wonder how he'd really perform when the shtf. Then he went overseas. After witnessing a few atrocities (that really jacked him up), seeing what was done to the family of one of his local contacts, and what was DONE to one of his local contacts, he got over it. He very much wanted to kill the enemy. But it took a lot to awaken a bloodlust in this regular man. Nobody walks into war really understanding it. We can't imagine it until we've witnessed it for ourselves. Even for my husband, it wasn't the sights that got to him. He'd seen enough movies. It was the damn smell. The smells are what made it all real and that changed him.
The studies he's referencing have a lot of problems. I dont recall a great deal about it b/c I only looked into it a little bit, but its doubtful it was as big of an issue that its made out to be here.
Have not watched the video yet but i can already predict the reasons: 1. No refigerators, so the meat will go bad before you've had a chance to consume all the leftover fallen soldiers. 2. It would negatively impact the effectiveness of your own cavalry (assuming the knight who is on the horse is on your side). 3. The horse should be taken back to camp for a thorough interrogation, being a knights horse it has likely been present during battle/strategy briefings etc. Easy.
Also, thanks to movies, we tend to imagine that by stabbing enemies they just die. That's not how it works. Instant ko can only be obtained by striking the head or the heart, and even in the second case the heart leaves you some 10-20 seconds of activity before you drop dead. I have seen bulls at the Spanish corrida getting stabbed with swords a ton of times and still charging.
A "grunt" who captured a horse wouldn't have it LONG enough to ransom it(unless you were part of a PROFESSIONAL war band, in which case your boss MIGHT pay you for it). War trained horses were ENORMOUSLY expensive(about the equivalent of buying a top-of-the-line Rolls-Royce), and the guy you worked for, knight, baron, earl, whatever, would immediately claim any horses captured from the enemy as HIS property; "I'm a NOBLEMAN. YOU'RE a PEASANT. I have a hundred swords to back me up. YOU have NO ONE to back YOU up. The horse is MINE. You want to ARGUE?" If your lord was a nice guy, he might REWARD you for capturing the horse; a couple of shillings, for an animal worth over two hundred marks of silver. Either way, the horse would belong to HIM, not YOU
I was thinking good quality food... A knights horse had to be fed good, all that yummy meat on it... Big strong horse with lots of lean, clean, well fed meat. It would feed the village for a week!
Reason Number 3 is a VERY valid one. So much so that its the exact reason why the military began using Human shaped targets in their training of soldiers to shoot and use bayonets. And by doing so they noticed that more soldiers were less likely to hesitate shooting someone and it made it easier for them to simply consider another person as nothing more then simply a target if they got them use to shooting the human form, to recognize a human shape as the target/enemy. And they continue to do this to this very day as when I was in basic training ALL of our target where of exact size as a human torso.
I'd use fire magic first to scare away the horse then I would impale the knight with an ice spike and then I would revive the undead knight with necromancy and use him to kill the other knights
At the Battle of Crécy, quite a few horses died. This from Wikipedia: "Philip himself was caught up in the fighting, had two horses killed underneath him, and received an arrow in the jaw"
To be honest, in the medieval times knights were basicly divine beings, covered in more armor than your entire peasent batallion can muster in their lifetime. So basicly an iron man, blessed by the God.
@Senpaii Desuu I think you got the wrong idea.(1) Knights in armor were virtually impossible to kill. Unless you use special can openers (the spear is not) you won't get any results. (2) Knights are not slow and they don't have reduced movement. That's a fairy tale, you could just look that up on RU-vid for example. (3) Maybe 10 people could bring down a single knight, it's not impossible, but in a battle it's not possible to surround every knight with 10 guys, the knights will form battle formations. Most of your peasant soldiers would block each other. (4) Morale works for the knights. You can't imagine how desperate soldiers become when they just can't open up the plate armor. The knights would just slice through their ranks. Remember, you don't see 50000 vs 5000 in a battle, you only see those near you. And out of those few you will see your men getting slaughtered. You will rush forward to replace your own men getting slaughtered, realizing it's you who is next.
They were literally another species of human too because of their diet and regime. They analysed the remains of a knight found in Scotland and his diet was 90% fish (you know like power lifters pound basa by the kilo? Yeah that) and he was built like a modern rugby player.
@Senpaii Desuu I am sorry, I gave you valid reasons, but apparently you lack the knowledge to understand them. You seem to draw you knowledge from computer games and don't know anything about medieval battle tactics. Attacking infantry with ballistas? Simply attacking a battle formation from behind? That's some fantasy stuff right there. And what is a "Batista" anyway? A quick google search indicates you seem to be interested in wrestling rather than medieval warfare. Listen dude, heavy armored fighters were the way to go up until decent guns were invented. History already disproves your claims.
@senpaii Desuu yeah video games you really seem to compare cost like in a game. You can't just round up 50000 peasants theire not endless. And by the way if the knights have devimated 20% of the troops people would rout. These battes were more aboutshowing strengt not fight till the last man.
When you started talking about actually taking a life, it really unnerved me. I am a combat veteran and I can say that for me there was no hesitation, but afterwards... afterwards I became violently ill. It has been over 10 years and I still have nightmares of those days. I did what I was trained to do, but that does not make it better. In combat it really was as simple as "him or me" thanks to all the training. To kill, you don't just take a life, you take away what they were and what they could be. You snuff out any dreams and potential. You begin to wonder were they really evil or just misled. They had a family and people who loved them. I am a huge history buff and one thing that history has taught me is that humans will kill each other, they always have, they always will. We abhor violence but won't hesitate to destroy each other. Don't you just love the duality of mankind?
Indeed, and one way to bring your worried mind to rest might be to place a token of respect at the grave of the unknown soldier to honor the tragedy that you were pitted against eachother in a way that gave you no choise other than ending his life to save your own and the lives of your squad.
Yeah, you impale it on your stick, but it's still going to crush you to death. Might save your mates, but they might just break and run, being cut to ribbons anyways.
@@vinz4066 This is true. yes. Dressage for example is a remnant of that training. The Austrian Spanish Riding School in Vienna also is a remnant of this training.
That Horse, moving at say 20 mph, hits you with the same force as having swan dived out of a forth story window on to concrete sidewalk. For the next few minutes you will be very unhappy, then you will be dead.
Also, killing a charging horse with a sword or spear or any melee weapon there is a huge chance of you snapping your wrist, breaking your arm (both o which would lead to you dropping your weapon and being screwed) and even if you managed to kill it, it doesn't jus stop, it tumbles and falls at a high speed and if you didn't evade enough before you attacked it, there is a good chance it will just fall on you and crush you
Dodging a knight is not the best idea simply because during a charge there would be another knight next to him, and probably another, and another, and another, and another... And if an entire formation of infantry starts dodging at the same time in different direction, well, that's called a certain death.
Yeah, think the best would be to drop on earth. Despite this seemed very unintuitive, horses would certainly try to avoid you and don't trampled you, because they are animals and they don't want to stumple. Well, of course it's not 100% efficient, and not a viable tactic for an entire army. But it would certainly offer more chance of surviving than trying to outrun an horse ^^
@@onyxdragon1179 Well, from what I know throughout most ages spear was the base weapon of a footsoldier had he a shield or not. All the short weapons like swords and axes were backup for when it gets to a close melee, or they lose their spear. So yes, a well braced wall of spears does have a chance of repelling cavalry, or at least being threatening enough that they wouldn't charge at all. At least not from the front ;)
@@krankarvolund7771 If you're talking about knights that had the time and money to spend their lives training in warfare, chances are they could also afford to have an actual war horse as their mount. And, unlike the horse out in the pasture, who might not step on you if you lie down in front of them, a trained war horse would simply be SURE to step on you as they went over you. War horses were often stallions (rather than mares or geldings used as riding horses), and their natural aggressive instincts were trained and enhanced - so they WOULD step on you if you lay down in front of them. Being stepped on by a horse at full gallop (where the horse's entire weight is often supported on a single leg), with or without its own armor, ridden by an armored knight, would almost certainly be a death sentence.
@@Badger77722 Really? I wasn't aware of that, I thought that, you know, a horse would not want to stumple, even a human body may be an obstacle if he's at full speed ^^'
Thank you for giving such a detailed video. The psychological part is so often overlooked. Most of these farm-boy medieval infantry would be fricking terrified at the advance of the cavalry. Whether it's medieval knights or BC steppe nomads, a non-disciplined, amateur soldier was pissing himself while he non-consciously decided to fight or flee.
farmers typically had pretty good discipline also consider how everyone back then lived MUCH more communally than today so were probably used to working as groups
I imagine these would be horse killers would do the same thing when facing a modern tank "Oh I just jump out of the way of the explosion when it shoots me, dodge the machine gun, get on top of it and throw a grenade into the hatch"
actually infantry is extremely effective at destroying tanks unprotected by anti personnel means ( like guarded by your own infantry troops ) especially in urban areas
@@GlukAlex Well infantry was also great at dealing with cavalry inside towns. Immobile armors are always beaten by numbers. The problem comes when it's moving faster than you.
not as heavy as the rider is at first (and the horse needs the flexablity to move etc.) but still good enough to make it work. it can't stop a bullet or a flying cannonball of course (along with carcaus and quick lime shot and other types of shot etc.) but it will get the job done of protecting the flesh.
I think most people when they make the argument of, "Why not just kill the horse?!" they are imagining going for the legs of the horse. Horses didn't have leg armour...or at least not that I can think of.
@@StudlyFudd13 that's what i suspect as well though when they do state that question you should ask them that. do they mean going for the legs of the horse?
@@TheManofthecross I mean it seems kind of obvious. They are on foot so the legs are closer to them. And if you take something's legs out it tends to fall down. Hence throwing the knight on to the ground and then they think they will go stabby stabby, even if that is absolute BS and they would just die before any of that happened lol xD
One interesting fact, from someone who spent a lot of time around horses as a kid: You mentioned needing to cut deeply on their legs, but for a creature that is basically entirely built to Move Via Leg, those legs are *very* fragile.
I beg to differ. I was a Farrier for 25 years. I have seen God awful gashes on a horses leg and that horse refuses to go down. It is instinct. They know if they go down they are coyote food. Yep they look kind of spindly but I assure you they are WAY stronger then they look! Not only that most of them had armor on their legs and chest so you wouldn't have done much any way.
@@paulesterline5714 a sharp butchers knife will slice a horses leg right off at the knee in a single smooth forceful slice.. a single solid blow to a horses leg will cut it clean off with a large well sharpened cleaver.. some weapon of war . a bill, glavie long sword ect would to it much better. .. even an elephants leg you could sever with a single blow of a well sharpened weapon.. its flesh.. and relatively soft bone.. .. this is not an issue.. creatures dont normally let you get close enough to do this. and dont stay still letting you do it.
@@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367 Rubbish. In almost all circumstances, you couldn't deliver a blow with enough force to bring down a trained horse. If it was possible, people would have done it frequently, and therefore mounted warriors would have been ineffective. They weren't: they were very effective, which is why they dominated warfare for so many centuries. Everything is easy for an armchair warrior.
@@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367 and how many times have you done this???? I have dissected multiple horses legs.... your talking out you a$$! Sorry to call you on your BS but I am betting you have never cut a horses leg.... a horse doesn't have a knee (it is really more like a wrist, but I understand why your calling it a knee) also that bone is NOT AT ALL SOFT!! In fact it is a hard as hell! We won't even talk about the tendons in that leg that do not cut easily AT ALL! Same with an elephant.... yea, I have worked on them too. To further shread your lie, I make knives and swords.....Sorry you are clueless. Stop stating things as fact that you really don't know. Your statement needs a disclaimer attached.
@@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367 yea ok whatever you say. I now have even more questions for you then before. I bet the police and FBI would probably like to ask a few as well.
Most weapons and tactics in war rely upon psychological factors over the physical ones. Killing the enemy is the byproduct, defeating them is the intent. If all the high caliber, high explosive, hate and discontent one side is throwing at the other causes not a single enemy casualty, but makes the enemy too scared to react or causes the enemy to flee, then the intent has been achieved hasn’t it?
That’s why the American army has bred shooting the enemy to be a reflex rather than a decision. We’ve taught the reflex, but not how to deal with it after, which has destroyed so many lives. Awful.
@@metatronyt I love watching your videos and will continue to do so, but this may need a lot more research. Look up battles like Golden Spurs and Bannockburn along with many others, a well trained horse by most accounts WILL charge into a line of spears, I'm not sure if they would even see the points much less perceive the danger. Sadly many of the knights may not have been much smarter in those waning days of chivalry, being so used to being able to ride down any opposing infantry. As far as how easy it was to actually kill a horse look up the duel between Bertrand du Guesclin and Sir Thomas of Canterbury. I really hate to write this but I'm somewhat disappointed with this video, normally yours are much more thorough. I might be wrong in my assertions but even then I hope you make another video on this subject to answer these concerns as I doubt I'm the only one who has them. Best of luck with your future vids and hope to hear from you!
@@Eldariur depends on the time period. By the High Middle Ages knights were starting to have less and less of an effect, which is why they went into decline.
I would think that the biggest problem with killing a horse is that... horses aren't easy to kill. They are big animals with tough skin, strong muscles and all together "tough". Horses bred for war even more so. There are reports from both world wars how cavalry charges swept away infantry whose fire seemed to have no effect on the charging horsemen, only for the victors to realise that many of the horses had been in fact mortally wounded, some even several times, but only succumbed to their injuries after the fighting was done with. A 17th century polish cavalry man wrote: My horse was shot in the chest, cut with a bardiche once in the head and in the knee . I'd still ride him were it not for the knee wound. Poczobut-Odlanicki, a Polish hussar, writing about his militry service describes a battle in 1659 where his company charged swedish infantry twice and lost only two men and no horses. He also mentions a battle in 1660 where his company charged six times with total casualties at the end of the day being 20 men and 35 horses (dead and wounded).
I don´t think the world wars are really the example you want to use, as cavalry was almost completly ineffecient in those conflicts. You, very sensefully, listed reports from cavalrymen of the early modern period, where they were oftentimes the deciding factor in battles. Yes, I know that cavalry was used the world wars sporadically, but that is exactly the point. You can probably list the really good cavalry charges of those conflicts on one hand, while warfare was dominated by them from ancient times til the 19th century.
To right I work on a ranch, the wounds I've seen horses live through are astounding. We had one get kicked in the head split open to the bone and crack the skull we couk see brain. The vet comes out partially sedates her and we get to work. Drilled 1/16 inch holes in skull on but sides and using gold wire pulled it back together stiched her up and put in a drain line. His words if she dosent get infected she'll live put her on antibiotics. She is still being ridden 4 years later. Another one ran up on a broken fence the 2×6 went well into his shoulder my arm was up to the elbow getting the hunks of wood out, antibiotics and a daily cleaning with an iodine solution letting it close from the inside out. The are fucking durable critters. With one exception below the knee you can ruin a horse quick and not to terribly difficult, below the knee. Just like the guards in Whiterun.
Actually, even men can take a lot of punishment. If you don't hit a man where he is instantly killed or is gravely wounded to where he will bleed out, a properly angered man with adrenaline flowing can be a fearsome creature in and of itself! Back when there was some guy shot up a community college some time back, there was a reservist or national guardsman that actually confronted the dude and was shot seven times and survived! The moral of the story is when such an event occurs don't be cowering sheep, but get angry and confront!
Horses legs are very vulnerable...so I do not understand your reasoning. Dig a few strategic holes and they will break their legs, no close encounters needed, but if you do- grab an akse, spear, pole, something with a grappling hook etc.etc. if you need a horse damaged/crippled it is relatively easy. Especially if they are being ridden and have no longer full controll of themselves.
When I was young, I used to always walk on the side of the road adjacent to oncoming traffic. This way, I imagined, I would easily just run up the hood of any swerving car and jump safely over it. This is like the medieval equivalent of that delusion. Lmao
Ok so just to sum it up: 1. Have alot of penetration and precision 2. A horse is not a bike but a leaving being. 3. If your horse says "heeehehe" it means get off my back. 4. Play the game of chickens and you might win a chicken dinner 5. Stay away from Tom and Michael 6. It's not easy to dodge and sla sluh sli slit his throat 7. Keep your shit together
That's literally the most depressing image I've ever had.. "Not only did he die horribly in shit armour, with shit weapons... Skewered by a medieval tank... He died a virgin."
@Anthony Johnson He never even said anything about incels. Just because incels use the same words doesn't make him an incel, oh and what happened to being "tolerant"?
Basically folks explaining how they'd easily beat a medieval knight... would also use the same certainty, and the same tone of voice, to explain how they'd beat a UFC champion in a match in the octagon. Just do steps A, B, C, easy!
Actually that's what I said about Ronda Rousey And then she took her first loss EXACTLY as I said.... Although she was fighting one of the best kick boxers EVER. I said: 1. Know how to escape any arm hold submissions 2. Out box her But Like you said..... And the same as the video While you were playing Mario Cart He was training for battly While u were eating Snickers He was training for battle While you were drunk and flirting he was IN A BATTLE and WON
to be fair this guy isn't a historian he makes a lot of incorrect assumptions like all knights on horseback carry lances i don't actually know where this came from ive asked two actual military historians now and they don't know either normally lances were just used to attack enemy knights or break the enemy lines but they were often dropped and swapped out for their other weapons the problem i feel with these youtubers is that they read manuals and go "ok this is what happened always" but they don't actually read about the battles that took place because war and manuals aren't the same thing we can actually see this today the Chinese and Japanese (and ive seen this 8 years infantry) have not been in combat since pretty much WW2 so they follow doctrine to a T the problem with this is that they do things too text book and they don't have the ability to adapt and think on the fly simply because they have not got that experience both nations tend to panic if they are thrown a curve ball that their textbooks cannot combat and their go to response is to just withdraw
It's like someone saying they'd beat a tank with a handgrenade. Sure if you MAKE it to its latch you're good.. Good fucking luck making it across that open field without dying, and good luck avoiding the 15 other tanks beside it.
I was at a Civil War reenactment here in the USA several years ago. There was 2000 cavalry on one side and when they charged around it was thunderous and fearfully impressive. I cant imagine how much more it would effect a person facing that in an actual battle.
Yeah, an army of charging warhorses is extremely scary. Most armies weren't extremely disciplined Roman legionaries and simply fled the moment a charge broke their ranks or even before that when they approached, lances ready to skewer the first line and their massive steeds ready to trample everyone after that.
@@svenNLSame for you i dont know whats wrong but i actually stated an Army of Warhorses would not stand a chance against a Handfull of Marines. So whats your problem exactly ?
When you're talking about how the horse will not commit suicide by impaling itself on a pike, it reminded me of the many times I've seen human soldiers do exactly that, in these wild, uncoordinated, mixed up battles where enemy soldiers mixed in with each other about a hundred yards deep. NO WAY that happened very often. Even the most capable and heroic soldier could be easily killed by a blow from behind in that scenario. Casualties would have been annihilating on both sides. IT always irritates me in a medieval battle scene where everyone acts like berserkers and no one works together or cares a whit for their own lives. Stupid.
The dodging thing. A foot soldier is either: 1. In a formation. There is nowhere to dodge to. If the entire formation dodges, you just become the target of the next knight, who is also in formation. 2. Alone on the battlefield. You are dead either way. If cavalry is committed to fighting lone soldiers, the battle is already over and they're just mopping up survivors. Edit. The man up and hold the line thing. Well, yes. because, even if you personally aren't much threat to charging cavalry, you will slow it down, making it more vulnerable to the ranks behind you. And this goes for all ranks. The deeper the ranks, the less likely cavalry is to charge you. Which brings me to this: Cavalry charging infantry only happens if the situation really favors the cavalry. You don't risk the lord of whateverville for the sake of killing a bunch of peasants. So by favorable, I mean; from the flanks, and better - rear. Also, not where the enemy forms up. Particularly because of the pikes you mentioned. Cavalry was typically met by cavalry and whoever won that, would mop up infantry, but only once their own infantry was committed making the approach pretty much safe.
Dodging is almost impossible, A Chinese General of Ming Dynasty wrote in his books said he never put hope on some Kung Fu masters, when fighting enemies other soldiers will push your back with their shields, "This is not street fight" he said.
That or in a rout. The knights primary job on the battle field was yes fighting other mounted knights but mostly chasing down fleeing opponents. They were less about breaking lines and more about mopping up stragglers. You're completely correct, no sane commander would risk the most expensive and valuable component of their army like that.
Yeah, because if you charge from the side or behind, the guys in the side or at the back wouldn´t turn around, right? The knights have the same problem, no matter what side they are coming from. The reasons for attacking sides or rear are other than that the knights are not facing spikes from there. They might face a lesser degree of an organized pikes wall, yes. But the main reason wil be that there is space to maneuver on the sides of the battlefield and that they would be able to constantly be moving about and waiting for a chance to attack some "distracted" guys.
#1 it's a horse #2 you don't hurt horses #3 horses are our friends #4 horse did nothing wrong #5 if you kill the horse you now have an elite warrior who is very focused on killing VERY SPECIFICALLY... you.
@@gundorstoneskin5900 Oh no! The knight who was already trying to kill you is still trying to kill you! Wow, I guess you're in a worse spot than a moment ago when the knight was on horseback and out of reach of any attack you might level at him!
15:34 I'm given to understand this is also one of the things that separated pilots who became aces from other pilots during the 1st and 2nd World Wars. You have to keep your head about you, but there is apparently also a certain willingness and intent to kill for the pilot to actually go for the shots too. Modern armed forces have mostly gotten through that by training, but that wasn't a thing in the 40's.
A critical factor so few talk about even know. It took advanced study of how soldiers behave and then specific psychological based training to get soldiers to try and kill. They found that less than 10% of American WWII infantry tried to actually kill someone.
Metatron: Explains why killing a knight's horse is very hard and why the Noble Ones' arguments don't work. Noble Ones: Uses the same arguments anyway. Metatron: "Am I a joke to you?"
Good point. There was even terminology for specific types of horses, such as destrier, charger, courses and rouncey. George R. R. Martin uses some of these terms in his works.
A halberd was a bearded spear with a axe hook which was designed to hook armor you avoid the horse hook him by the hip or the shoulder and let gravity take him capture him by caving his helmet take the horse ransom him and the horse
This is something I have never seen commented on, but any baseball fan will know it. When you're in the outfield stands and a home run is hit in your direction, it looks until the very last second like the ball is coming right at you. Like it will land exactly right in your lap - until it lands in the stands about 30 feet over and 15 feet down from where you are sitting. Not really close at all, and yet you were sure until the last second you were getting that ball. The Same Thing Is True For A Cavalry Charge: To the infantry standing there, it looks like the entire enemy line of cavalry is coming exactly right at him. An individual horseman who is actually pointed at a guy 35 feet down the line from you would appear to be coming EXACTLY right at you. All of them appear by some optical illusion to be aiming right at you. It has to be absolutely terrifying. SO, if the men are professionals, and veteran fighters experienced in wars, sure. The Swiss Pikemen became famous all over Europe for being able to defeat mounted knights on any number of occasions when France tried to invade Switzerland. But, if the men weren't really well trained? No chance. They would run. It's just too hard to stand there and wait to be impaled by those lances.
Even if you kill it you’d end up with an animal that weighs around 2000 pounds (I’m generalizing here) with momentum going toward you not to mention a pissed off knight and that’s just one horse.
@@timtim6373 the horse would gorge itself on a spear if a knight was stupid enough to get that close to a spear wall formation the horse would stop and turn around its not going to dive headlong into a solid wall it sees no way of passing through or jumping over.
Thats the main problem with analysis of medeival knighrs as professional armies like during roman and greece times were uncommon and most infantry were recruited by mass conscription I guess you could call it so untrained masses who have a good chance of breaking at the onset of a charge but if they dont theyres not much a knight can do as a horse will not blindly charge into something it sees no way of passing through or jumping over and as history has shown during romes wars with that one nation (cant remember rn) that well cordinated and tight ranked infantry will shit all day long on an army that relies on calvalry charges to win the day (the mongols used different tactics then this but they also relied on the breakup of infantry to win the day not charging blindly into a spear wall) not to mention the cost of calvalry the extra horses a knight would need and the ever increasing reliability of projectiles and evolution of spears and clubs to further detract from a knights effectiveness there is a reason the time of the knight was so short and this over dramatization of how amazing they were is frankly annoying at this point when the french knights got stuck in the mud (cant remember the name of that battle either lol) and were killed by archers how amazing and op was their armour then? When a calvalry charge went bad and knights were slaughtered like pigs in a yard how amazing was their armour then? And did you know king richard almost had his head cleaved by a sword if he had not been wearing a heavy bucket helmet over his regualr helmet he would died to a blow from a sword (apparently a weapon unable to kill a knight) also clubs could be used to send such a shock to a knight in armour their bones would break or spears with hooks on the reaching 9 ft out to hook a knight as they tried to ride away then 10 men swarming stabbing and fucking that poor bastard over. The knight was effective in dealing with routing or disjointed armies not with charging spear walls horses are not hard to kill or maim there armour did not protect the body 100% and it also left glaring weakpoints open easy to stab since the infantrys spear would of probably been 4ft long making it an easy weapon to use and handle.
@@turtleman7806 Obviously the horse wouldn't do it, but assuming it did you would still be fucked. I don't know much about horses, but the math is simple: you got a thing weighing half a ton moving at you with a speed of 40mph/60kph (guessing those numbers). If it hits your spear, there is no chance of you actually holding on to that spear or stopping that horse - even if the spear was lodged in the ground it would just snap in half and the horse, now flailing in a hysteric panic would hit you with it's full force.
