Would such a unit not be more or less able to take on anything?

[Elta]

Swiss Pikemen were for a good while the best units money could by.

Contrary to what we have seen in film etc they were in fact units of men, some armed with pikes, some with Xbws, some with Halbreds. The first of course to negate mounted units from charging, the last two to give them the ability to strike from a distance and to give them the upper hand in the push of pike.


Which got me thinking, couldn't they be equipped to do all three?

Each man carries a pike, Composite Bow with 15 arrows or so (Because a Composite bow is superior imo to a Xbow) and a small round shield with a one handed axe that has a axe blade and a pickaxe pick on the back for use against heavily armored foes.

A flexible unit like this would be a force to be reckoned with before the advent of serious artillery and muskets/Tercio units wouldn't it?


Now that I have lost enough weight to be down to my "final weight"

I am going to start working on my Ren. fair get up. I am going to try and carry all these weapons *strokes chin*

 

[LightSpectra]

Each man carries a pike, Composite Bow with 15 arrows or so (Because a Composite bow is superior imo to a Xbow) and a small round shield with a one handed axe that has a axe blade and a pickaxe pick on the back for use against heavily armored foes.

Given that it takes a lifetime of training to be useful with a longbow, such a unit would be inanely expensive. Though that's beside the point since the only corps in history that were a jack-of-all-trades like that were usually ceremonial units whose prestige was more important than their abilities; not mercenaries that were the backbone of the military.

Also, seeing as how marching around was a bit of a pain for armored soldiers, I don't think they'd appreciate all the luggage.

Generally speaking, it's also a bit self-defeating to engage in the subject of military history and criticize what people of past ages were doing.

 

[Elta]

Generally speaking, it's also a bit self-defeating to engage in the subject of military history and criticize what people of past ages were doing.

Oh of course, the reason such a unit never came up I think is because Artillery came up very quickly and dominated the scene.


The reason I ask is because I am reading a book called Dies the Fire, the premise is that some sort of mysterious light (you learn of it's origin in other books in the series) flashed across the world and electronics didn't work, nor did explosions of any kind. So no internal combustion, no guns etc.

In short they were taken back to the early 1200s technology wise.

Being modern people well educated in democracy, everyone was able to vote and obligated to serve. Kids getting a bow to play with at 4, every year getting a little bit bigger etc


Different regions had different types of armies etc.

I couldn't help but think that swiss pikes have been proven as the way to go in such a scenario.

 

[Bugfatty300]

I'd think that compressed air type guns would be favored over bows or pikes. Is there a mention of those in the book?

 

[Elta]

I'd think that compressed air type guns would be favored over bows or pikes. Is there a mention of those in the book?

I hear that in the 4th book there is some sort of reverse engineering of a fridges to get them to work, something to do with compressed air as well.


I don't want my friends to ruin it for me, so I put my fingers in my ear and yell la la la la la!


Another question, In the book SCA types and run of the mill street gangs (led under the supervision of a Historian) take over the areas talked about in the book.......

Which always struck me as well, dumb. I have a feeling that the national guard would still be the force to be reckoned with. They have the discipline, organisation and plenty of young fit people.

I know SCA members know how to swing a sword, but actually killing someone with one is quite different.

 

[innonimatu]

Combined arms tactics always relied on making good use of different specialized units. It wasn't impossible for a soldier who usually had one role to perform another, of course: knights converted to infantry, or the heavy cavalry equipped with bows which the Byzantines used with success to counter the turkish light cavalry - for some time. This last example is a good one to show why it didn't work: such soldiers were expensive and irreplaceable (quickly) when they were lost.
Plus, a soldier can carry only so much, and before modern transportation one very important part of a marching soldier's load was food. Nobles could afford to use different weapons in a battle, and often had people just to carry those weapons for them, the squires of the middle ages, later replaced with slaves. But a regular army couldn't have a much larger number of support people just to carry weapons, that's be a waste of manpower!

Much better to have more different specialized soldiers available. In the late middle ages and early modern time, the swiss mercenary formation which you describe and especially the tercios relied on that.

 

[Traitorfish]

Another question, In the book SCA types and run of the mill street gangs (led under the supervision of a Historian) take over the areas talked about in the book.......

Which always struck me as well, dumb. I have a feeling that the national guard would still be the force to be reckoned with. They have the discipline, organisation and plenty of young fit people.

I know SCA members know how to swing a sword, but actually killing someone with one is quite different.

True enough, yeah; even before modern technology, we'd long passed the point when highly skilled individuals dominated warfare. An actual military unit, even a reserve one, armed with spears and given a few quick drills would probably be more efficient than a professional swordsmen, let alone a motley gang of thugs and enthusiasts. The one exception may be sport archers, who actually possess a skill which would be hard to replicate with any speed, but they're already a trained bunch; most English longbowmen, after all, learned their craft through sport and training before they ever set foot on a battlefield. Some horse riders may even prove useful, if they could be trained as cavalry, and it wouldn't be to hard, I think, to train soldiers as such. The real danger would be places like Japan and Hungary, where horse archery, that bane of empires, is still practiced.
Of course, the problem there may lie in the idea that the destruction of technology throwing us back to the Middle Ages. If Wiki has the synopsis right, "high density energy" has been somehow "turned off", but that wouldn't put you much before the early 19th century, ignoring gunpowder.Even if coal was "turned off", that only really prevents the emergence of the industrial revolution, which only leaves you in something approaching a considerably enhanced 18th century civilisation. I don't know enough to say, but it sounds a bit like the author is taking creative liberties.

 

[Elta]

Good points, and on the creative liberties - yes definitely. I know I could never hack it as an engineer, but some of the stuff in there really made me raise my eyebrow at it.

 

[Masada]

I dunno about 18th Century. The collapse of modern agriculture and the inability of even existing agricultural land to be reworked in a manner suitable for pre-industrial practices would seem to imply mass starvation. Even in farming areas I find it unlikely that they would be able to survive largely because of the prevalence of mono-culture and the almost complete lack of experience or the equipment required to retrograde. That, and the massive outflows of people from the cities... no amount of organisation by rural dwellers is going to make up for the hundreds of thousands of city dwellers bearing down on them. You would want to be seriously poor farmer with a whole barn full of heirloom equipment and plough horses, more than a week or two walk from the nearest major population centre in order to have even a reasonable chance of surviving. I would venture to suggest that once the absolute majority of the population is dead from starvation the survivors, that is, the people most readily willing to adapt to eating other people; those capable of some measure of self sufficiency and those who were prepared beforehand (survivalists, preppers etc) would be the best placed. I doubt you would have the population densities for even a rudimentary medieval society. I suspect you would have bands foraging in the forests and the occasional settled population homesteading somewhere highly defensible.

 

[Elta]

Oh yeah, pretty much everyone dies in the book, and cannibals are everywhere.

IIRC the population of Britain in the book was down to 60K after bout two years.


That sounded a little extreme to me, but sounds about right.

 

[Lord Baal]

I dunno about 18th Century. The collapse of modern agriculture and the inability of even existing agricultural land to be reworked in a manner suitable for pre-industrial practices would seem to imply mass starvation. Even in farming areas I find it unlikely that they would be able to survive largely because of the prevalence of mono-culture and the almost complete lack of experience or the equipment required to retrograde. That, and the massive outflows of people from the cities... no amount of organisation by rural dwellers is going to make up for the hundreds of thousands of city dwellers bearing down on them. You would want to be seriously poor farmer with a whole barn full of heirloom equipment and plough horses, more than a week or two walk from the nearest major population centre in order to have even a reasonable chance of surviving. I would venture to suggest that once the absolute majority of the population is dead from starvation the survivors, that is, the people most readily willing to adapt to eating other people; those capable of some measure of self sufficiency and those who were prepared beforehand (survivalists, preppers etc) would be the best placed. I doubt you would have the population densities for even a rudimentary medieval society. I suspect you would have bands foraging in the forests and the occasional settled population homesteading somewhere highly defensible.

It's good to know that I'd live, though I'd have to hide my veggie garden somehow. Even on the second floor, snow peas are kind of obvious from close enough.

These books sound kind of like what would happen after the end to that horrible The Day the Earth Stood Still remake. Might be interesting, but they don't sound accurate at all. I believe in the truism that if one is writing fantasy or science fiction, one must make sure that everything other than the fantastic element - in this case, the strange flash that kills off technology - remains fairly accurate.

So, for example, Alien has class rivalries, a crew of people that don't like each other much even though they're on friendly terms, and greed is still important in human society. This allows people to 'get' the story, even with its fantastical elements; suspended animation, interstellar travel, and, the big one, a murderous humanoid alien with two mouths and acid for blood that gestates inside a human host. Without the former 'real' elements, the fantastical elements wouldn't work. It seems that these books you're reading fail at establishing the real elements.

 

[innonimatu]

To be fair, it's hard to write a fantasy book about a contemporary society somehow "fallen" back to the middle ages - how to justify the collapse? The usual way is to mention some devastating nuclear war. The problem with that approach is that the collapse is almost instantaneous - the process itself presents little to write a fiction book about. But it's not impossible, Walter Miller's use of that "nuclear catastrophe" expedient set a stage for what could have been interesting fiction books: a which hunt against technology, against scientists and technicians, for having built the weapons which brought about the destruction. Too bad he never developed that (as for realism in what he did write... let's just hope not).

I do agree that the books Elta described seem rather absurd, even as fiction.

 

[LightSpectra]

I once wrote a comic book outline of a post-apocalyptic world where because of thermonuclear global warming, Canada became the new medieval Europe.

I had trouble describing the epic wars of medieval Canada with a straight face.

 

[Dragonlord]

I do agree that the books Elta described seem rather absurd, even as fiction.

Actually, the books (by S.M. Stirling, BTW) aren't bad at all. To make things clearer: the premise is that all high-energy events no longer work. This includes gunpowder, but also any form of electricity generation etc.
In other words, modern civilization is no longer workable and the masses in the cities can no longer be fed - both because mechanized farming also breaks down, and because food stocks can no longer be easily transported.
Given the premise (sort of hard to swallow, I admit), Stirling makes a logical case for the consequences to society - or rather, to the different societies which evolve. One group (the MacKenzies) grow strong because they have a bowyer who knows how to make English longbows and use them - but it is explained how they have to practice on a daily basis to become and stay proficient. The SCA types around the 'Protector' thrive because they already have 'advanced' weapons (sword and armor) and know how to use them and reinvent a feudal monarchy. And so forth...
Pretty interesting, really.

As to National Guard etc. - forget it. How do you keep the National Guard (or the regular army, for that matter) under discipline, when their weapons no longer work, you can't feed them, and their families are in acute danger?

 

[Elta]

As to National Guard etc. - forget it. How do you keep the National Guard (or the regular army, for that matter) under discipline, when their weapons no longer work, you can't feed them, and their families are in acute danger?

The same way you would if you were in the Bear killers group etc.


Just look at Nevada, look at where all the bases are - Farm country 1,000s of young disciplined men on each base.

High ranking officers are taught military history in ROTC and West Point etc.

Most people can not shoot a bow for squat, catapults and such - not early on.

*Even a Battalion of 500 men with baseball bats would have no trouble taking a large area. In the same way the Protector's men easily took over the city and forced everyone out by using a show of force. A guy who has seen his buddies killed before in Iraq or Desert Storm will be a lot more fearless than a average person not knowing what to do.

*Keep in mind that I don't mean to say that the military of any large country would be intact - but elements of the military would at first try to reestablish order, when they fail due to lack of communication they would at least create their own little fiefdoms.

There were parts of the first book where I was like "OH COME ON!!!!" Like those bikers taking over a couple counties in a state. etc

Bikers are more fit, disciplined and united than the military? I don't think so.

I mean sure it is all luck of the draw and where you are. If you are in Tokyo, New York City, Mexico City, Paris, London - yeah, you are screwed. But their had to be bases in places where they could take advantage of the situation.



More on the subject,

I really do like the idea of 100s of guys on bicycle becoming as the book puts it "instant mongols", More like instant Dragoons - still cool though.


I wonder how a motorcycle helmet would hold up in such a battle. I don't recall any one using it in the book, but I've seen a guy get attacked with a tire iron while wearing one and he wasn't hurt at all.

P.S. I am on the second book, no spoilers man

 

[Dragonlord]

In all fairness, you're right that military groups would be expected to play a larger role than in Stirling's books - and he does have a couple such examples. I'm not sure at which point a certain group appears, so I won't say more - as you say, no spoilers!

As I see it, though, Stirling was trying to explore different societies that could evolve in such extreme circumstances, and having the military just take everything over would have spoiled that.

BTW, re motorcycle helmets - I'm a biker myself so I know a little about them. They are made for greatly reducing the shock of ONE impact, as in a motorcycle accident. Once you've had such an accident, you are supposed to get a new one, even if you can't see obvious damage. As a military helmet, it would be better than nothing, but wouldn't stand up to repeated knocks.

 

[Elta]

In all fairness, you're right that military groups would be expected to play a larger role than in Stirling's books - and he does have a couple such examples. I'm not sure at which point a certain group appears, *so I won't say more - as you say, no spoilers!

As I see it, though, Stirling was trying to explore different societies that could evolve in such extreme circumstances, and having the military just take everything over would have spoiled that.

**BTW, re motorcycle helmets - I'm a biker myself so I know a little about them. They are made for greatly reducing the shock of ONE impact, as in a motorcycle accident. Once you've had such an accident, you are supposed to get a new one, even if you can't see obvious damage. As a military helmet, it would be better than nothing, but wouldn't stand up to repeated knocks.

*Very well then, thanks

**Makes sense, they are a great deal lighter though. I wonder if some combo of metal helmets and light modern composite materials could create a superior combat helmet. *strokes chin* I know it would be impossible to recreate such a thing after the change, but a lot of those materials were still available for a while after.


Another non book related question
Just how much better is a compound bow compared to the best pre gun powder bows?

I wonder if the technology needed to make a compound bow was viable in 1500 if it would have slowed the spread of gun powder in tercios, probably not, but I could see a few units of long bowmen becoming very expensive and elite for 100 years or so.

What does everyone else think?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Swiss Pikemen were for a good while the best units money could by.

Contrary to what we have seen in film etc they were in fact units of men, some armed with pikes, some with Xbws, some with Halbreds. The first of course to negate mounted units from charging, the last two to give them the ability to strike from a distance and to give them the upper hand in the push of pike.


Which got me thinking, couldn't they be equipped to do all three?

Each man carries a pike, Composite Bow with 15 arrows or so (Because a Composite bow is superior imo to a Xbow) and a small round shield with a one handed axe that has a axe blade and a pickaxe pick on the back for use against heavily armored foes.

A flexible unit like this would be a force to be reckoned with before the advent of serious artillery and muskets/Tercio units wouldn't it?


Now that I have lost enough weight to be down to my "final weight"

I am going to start working on my Ren. fair get up. I am going to try and carry all these weapons *strokes chin*

Oh, you mean the Myrmidons.

 

[GinandTonic]

Their eponymous ancestor was Myrmidon, a king of Thessalian Phthia who was a son of Zeus and "wide-ruling" Eurymedousa, a princess of Phthia. She was seduced by him in the form of an ant.

A bull I can just about see, even a swan in a pinch. But an ant?

 

[Dragonlord]

A bull I can just about see, even a swan in a pinch. But an ant?

Gives whole new meaning to the ever-popular question: "Are you in yet?"...