|
|
苏格兰史实中之穷困恐怕远超出很多人的想象，即便是在中世纪已近结束的16世纪，苏格兰一支500余人的民团竟只有区区11人装备头盔和锁甲，板甲根本无从谈起，大部分人的装备完全可以用“原生态”来形容。很难想象装备如此惊人破烂的国家可以抵挡自诺曼征服之时起的英格兰侵略达数个世纪，但是苏格兰人做到了，或许，是他们的勇敢与骠悍还有对自由的呐喊弥补了不足。
无论如何，既严重缺乏财力，又只有劣质小马的苏格兰不仅骑士屈指可数，连装备简陋的边境骑兵（或译巡逻骑兵，一种按大部分欧洲国家标准连骑马军士都不如的轻骑兵）也为数甚少，史载苏格兰骑兵仅占其总军队数的5%。所以本MOD中苏格兰将是除阿兹特克之外的骑兵最弱国。不仅如此，苏格兰的远程力量同样惊人的弱，与对手英格兰拥有大量训练良好的长弓手截然相反，苏格兰弓箭手基本只能用于打猎（虽然苏格兰人自称其弓箭手箭法如神，可以准确射中狂奔的鹿云云，但考虑到连苏军自己都很少组织弓箭手参战，或许他们这话只是安慰自己打猎很在行罢了）。
穷困而又不愿屈服的苏格兰人举起了长枪来保卫自己的家园，如果敌人的指挥官颇有“骑士精神”，直接派重骑兵冲锋，那么胜利者往往是苏格兰人。反之，若是英格兰指挥官智力处于正常范围，那么苏格兰长枪兵们便不免会被长弓兵射的死伤惨重，但这仍然阻止不了他们的前赴后继，数场战役中苏格兰长枪兵都几乎死伤殆尽，战斗精神不可谓不英勇。这种悲壮的局面直到后期苏格兰装备板甲的重装长枪兵出现才得以扭转，1513年弗洛登山战役苏格兰重装长枪兵终于可以让英格兰长弓无力杀伤，可惜本场战役中的英格兰主角是戟（钩镰）兵，于是英格兰损失了1500人，而苏格兰军队损失了至少12000人，基本全是贵族，包括苏格兰国王詹姆斯四世。英伦这场中世纪最大的战役就这样再次以苏格兰的悲剧收场。
总得来说，苏格兰在几百年的抗英战争中败多胜少（包括少数几次入侵英格兰）。至于MOD中，苏格兰本土完全没有重骑兵（只有一种接近欧洲重骑兵的“苏格兰贵族”），轻骑兵同样失败，弓箭手继续失败，只有长枪兵为主体的步兵十分英勇强悍，但大部分情况下他们装备简陋，易遭远程杀伤。
SOLDIERS at FLODDEN 1513.
Two English soldiers from the great battle .
Just a little late for the 500th anniversary , but you know how it is…
My apologies to my Scots friends for even mentioning this battle , but you get your Bannockburn anniversary this year.
An account is here..
http://www.1513club.co.uk/history/
The Batttle of Flodden was a clash between new miltary technology and older methods, one of those very rare events where the dominance of new weapons was reversed .It was a very big battle, the Scots fielding perhaps 27,000 men, the English more like 15,000.
The very able King of Scotland, James IV, had promised the French to support them in the case of war with England. To that end, he had imported advisers and weapons from Europe , and remodelled his army after the latest European thinking.
Traditionally, Scots had armed themselves as spearmen.
They were now retrained to use the pike, a longer 16 foot weapon requiring coordinated drill and a level field to be truly effective. Used under those conditions, it had carried all before it in European wars for the last forty years , chiefly in the hands of the Swiss, who had defeated the pride of armoured chivalry and opened a new era of Infantry supremacy. If pikemen maintained formation, they seemed both defensively unbeatable, and offensively unstoppable.
The Scots took to it dutifully, and backed it up with an expensive train of the latest bronze-cast artillery . They also invested in a great deal of armour, as a way of protecting the pikemen against their old bugbear , the English bow. The back ranks of course, who were the poorer men , had to make do with more improvised defence , and would have resembled this man , based on detailed description of a few years later :
(Thanks to Neilson Innes and the Pinkie Cleugh Society for that pic ) .
Basically padded linen armour , reinforced with chains along the limbs , a cheap helmet and small shield.
In the summer of 1513 , Henry VIII had invaded France with his main army.
The Scots thus duly invaded England , captured some castles, then sat down as a provocation in a very good defensive position on Flodden Hill, just a couple of miles inside the English border.
The English , led by the Earl of Surrey ( so old and arthritic he travelled in a cart . I know how he felt…) who had been awaiting the invasion, quickly raised an army in the time-honoured way by calling out all the retainers of the northern counties of England , assembled it at Newcastle , and marched north to meet them .
They then manouvered round the Scots , getting between them and their escape route to Scotland.
The Scots went about face, and occupied Branxton Hill, facing north.
As the English approached, the Scots’ artillery opened fire, but for some reason shot too high.
Despite what you see in films, cannon balls do not explode , and it’s incredibly hard to see the fall of a roundshot unless the ground is dry and dusty .It was very wet, so no bounce, and shot fired downhill tends to bury itself rather than bounce anyway .They probably couldn’t see where their shots were landing.
The smaller English guns replied, firing slightly uphill , and faster , silenced the Scots guns , then cut great lanes in the Scots pike blocks standing on the hill .
Goaded by this fire , the Scots had no real choice but to attack .
They came down off the hill in echelon of three great blocks of pikemen, against three hastily reorganised battles of English who were in shallower but wider array , and entirely made up of men-at-arms, billmen and bowmen , the front ranks well armoured men-at-arms with polearms, with some 1500 light horse as a reserve.
The English arrows made little impression because of the armour worn and pavises carried by the front ranks , and the first Scots battle rolled over its English opponent, sending it in rout .The English horse reserve of Border lancers , however , charged the victorious Scots in flank , and after a stiff clash the fighting ceased , as by mutual consent, and the first Scots battle withdrew back up the hill, and the Border lancers drew back to their own line.
The larger second and third Scots blocks , however , hit an unseen bog at the base of the hill, and got into disorder, enough for the English billmen to get inside their pike points.
There followed a hideous close quarters hacking match, lasting nearly an hour , which the English won, since once disarmed of their pikes the Scots had only swords. Their deep square formations also put them at a disadvantage, since the wider but shallower English battles probably wrapped round their sides, trapping a lot of men uselessly in their centres.
The fourth body of Scots, kept on the hill as a reserve , was largely of unarmoured highlanders, who were surprised in flank by Stanley’s Lancashire archers and billmen, who climbed unseen up the side of the hill , and made short work of them in a hail of arrows .
The Scots’ losses were tragic and catastrophic : their King , almost the whole of their nobility and something like 9000 others , having a profound effect on their society for the next thirty years .
It became big enough European news for the German engraver Burckmaier to make this woodcut .
 | This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 885x1024. |
You can see James IV lying left foreground. Interestingly the Scots are shown dressed in short coats in the German Landsknecht style , the English in long, but I don’t think we can draw too much information from that !
************************************************** ************************************************** ************************************************
The figures :
The Yorkshire Billman :~
The keeping of personal retinues by noblemen been suppressed under thirty years of Tudor rule , but there were some professional soldiers in the English army, particularly in Surrey’s retinue and with the Admiral , his son , who landed soldiers from the English fleet .
But most of them like this man were essentially part-timers , called out by their local masters to serve, for pay, for a particular campaign , as they had for centuries. To use a bill required no great skill, but a certain bodily strength . Some of them were small tradesmen from towns, including York . He’s stopped for a snack in Newcastle.
He has an old helmet ( about forty years old, and lacking a few rivets ) and a jack of plates , the cheapest kind of armour, of similar vintage. The iron plates inside several layers of canvas are held in place by cord sewn in a lattice, and proof against most things short of a bullet . The bill is the typical English type, and he has a short sword, an eating knife and food bag , and his cloak tied in a bundle for the march.
PIC helmet
He wears a white coat , the standard issue to English troops in the 15th and 16th centuries, since it was undyed cloth and thus cheap.The cap is one of several styles known as Milan bonnets, either knitted or made from felt.
He’s made of various fabrics , felt for the cap , mostly brushed cotton for the coat, doublet and hose. I tried putting some metal plates into his jack, but it was all too cumbersome , and in the end I compromised by making it of several layers of linen , with the stitching added by hand. His helmet is Fimo , as is the head of his bill .
The Lancashire Bowman
....is remarkable because of the detail we can reconstruct, very unusual for the period .
In Middleton church in Lancashire ( near Manchester ) is a unique memorial window, the first such pictorial war memorial in English history , showing Ralph Assheton and his company of archers. The men, who are probably captains of companies, are named , and are shown wearing blue livery coats.
The legible names included; Henricus Taylyer, Richard Wyld, Hughe Chetham, James Gerrarde, John Pylkyngton, Philipe Werburton, William Stele, John Scolefede, James Taylier, etc.
I bet you could still find those names in the local telephone book .The window probably dates to around 1515 .
Since they were , like most inhabitants of Lancashire , retainers of the Stanley family, I have added the eagles claw and crowns of their livery badge, which is described as being worn at Flodden in a ballad .
He has his arrows in an arrow bag, and a bracer based on an original one, and his clothes are a bit more fashionable than the billman, with a slashed yellow plackart to his doublet , beneath the coat. He has a falchion and a bollock knife for eating .Archers had to practise, which made them much closer to being professionals , but it’s uncertain whether the Stanleys maintained their men fulltime .
Both our men probably rode from home on little nags, which would be consigned to the baggage park once the battles were arrayed.
| This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 810x1024. |
The army was accompanied by large numbers of carts, for all the spare arrows, artillery ammo and food that were needed in what was a wilderness .
His bow is yew , and the arrows are headed with pewter cast heads , and fletched with pigeon feathers . So far I have managed to shoot one about twenty feet……..but the bow is too strong to get the figure to hold it at draw !
|
上一篇：双虎会~~总算组好 姗姗来迟~下一篇：这是在逼我发第一帖么！ACI 古希腊C\D款
|
发表于 2014-6-18 11:11
发表于 2014-6-18 11:20
