ANST - curious about archers in war scenarios

Keith Hood jemuga at freewwweb.com
Sun Dec 7 23:52:19 PST 1997


In their wars against the French, the English used a combined arms 
formation that became pretty much their standard array:  the archers were 
placed in the center, with 'wings' of men-at-arms flanking them and 
slanting out toward the advancing enemy, forming in effect a funnel with 
the archers at the bottom.  They of course would set out stakes and 
caltrops and whatever other obstacles to their front that they could 
arrange.

Sometimes the archers would be arranged in one big block, and sometimes 
they were put in smaller groups groups between wedges of heavy infantry, 
preserving the 'fire funnel' effect in a series of smaller areas across 
the battle front.

Anyone wishing to attack the archers had to come straight down their line 
of fire; no deflection shots.  And of course, if they got close 
enough they would have to slow down and break their formation to weave 
through the obstacles, where they would find it pretty much impossible 
to keep their shield cover up while maneuvering and were pretty easy to 
clobber.  And they would be going down the middle between wings of 
men-at-arms, so they were vulnerable to close attack on the flanks if 
they went straight for the archers.  If they came across the battle front 
at an angle to attack one of the man-at-arms wings straight on, they 
exposed themselves to defilade fire by the archers.  However it's done, 
the thing is to force the enemy to move as you wish.  Force them to 
choose between arrows in the face and spear points in the ear, or vice 
versa.

If we do put effort into putting out obstacles (and we should), we need 
to remember, AND TAKE INTO ACCOUNT IN OUR TACTICS, the fact that 
obstacles from archer's stakes all the way up to pull-release mine fields 
are not meant to defeat or even stop an enemy.  The only real service 
they can provide is to slow and disrupt the enemy's movement, so they 
remain disorganized and under fire longer.  If we put out obstacles, we 
should not put our feet on the rearmost; we should array ourselves so 
that enemies negotiating the obstacles can be shot from a safe distance, 
or engaged piecemeal and defeated in detail as they try to come out of 
the obstacle belt.

I'm not sure what the Gulf Wars rules are about field obstacles.  Seems 
to me that if the rules allow it, this kingdom would do itself a lot of 
good to invest some money in rubber balls and glue to make some bucket 
loads of non-lethal caltrops.  Can you make archer's stakes out of 
regular lumber, or do they have to be rattan?  If the former, any Boy 
Scout should be able to cobble together a man-portable, folding stake 
from some 1x2's and rope.  Does anyone out there have a copy of the field 
rules from the last Gulf Wars?  If you do, please post them.  That would 
at least give the boffins a starting point for design ideas.
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