I'm suffering from "Aw, what the %^%, I'm sick of biting my tongue" syndrome today, and posted the attached comments about how we need to improve re-enactment battles in the UK on one of the popular re-enactment webrings over here.

Anybody who's used to the big UK bashes like Tewkesbury have any comments I missed?

"Hi;

I'm going to stick my neck out, and ask "what do we need to do to make our battles look realistic?"

Please note, this is an academic question, and not intended to disparage existing events.

I'm also restricting it to BATTLES, explicitly not skirmishes, other LHE events etc.

My thoughts are;

- Acceptable kit standard. We've all seen battles where entire groups walk on wearing ARP lids and cheap polyester tunics. This looks **** , and doesn't encourage anybody else to take any effort over their kit.

- Correct period. We wouldn't let GIs with machine guns play at tewkesbury, so why the hell do we put up with people dressed as Normans, vikings or samurai.

Both those are going to lose me friends, as everybody yells "but how will newbies start, if they have to get full kit before they can play" or "But we need to get as many people on the feild as possible".

Fair enough, I can accept there is merit in both those arguments. Just don't try to tell me the result is in any way "realistic".

- Sensible force mixes. Most battles are way short of cavalry (...which is how we got into this), to the point that they are as unrecognizable as the armies they claim to be as a desert storm force without any tanks would be.

This is a tough one to resolve, because getting enough decent cavalry is going to be very difficult. However, we can't claim "realism" without it.

- Realistic combat training, both individually and as groups. Hacking away in lines is easy, but lines with open flanks (ie every re-enactment battle line) are going to be dogmeat against any proper opposition. It's boring to watch, too.

This means practicing UNIT LEVEL tactics, not just individual weapon skills, and having a proper tactical mix in each unit (ie for WoR, armoured men-at-arms as linebreakers, to create gaps for your billmen to pour into and exploit.)

And yes, this does mean that once their line is broken, units will die fast as they get overrun. Deal with it - that's what happens in the real thing. Once again, if you want to play a game where nobody dies until third clash, go right ahead, but see previous comments about not telling me it resembles the real thing even slightly.

And yes, I also know it will take more care and training to do safely than tick-tock line fighting, too. However, I'm not sure scaling the kind of fighting we're willing to do down to what we trust careless and badly trained people to do is remotely sensible, either, and that's the alternative.

- Sensible scripts. I don't think real medieval battles involve three clashes, interspersed with parleys and single combats on any frequent basis. Sorry if that offends those who want to ego-trip in splendour in front of the crowd, but that's the way it is.

I have no expectation that any of the above is likely, and some of it (eg cavalry), I don't even think is possible.

Keep up the good fight. Persistance can be a virtue. Frankly, I think it is possible to effect change, but your compromise will be having smaller numbers who are willing to go the distance rather than a large crowd of mediocraty. On the other hand, you might get a couple of hundred willing hands, which is better than a few dozen.

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Comment on the BBS I posted this has actually been surpriingly positive.

Unfortunately, while there's a good deal of agreement that what we're doing now ain't ideal, I think chance of change is minimal.

UK re-enactment is a pretty broad church, and most re-enactors dislike being told what to do, especially when it's going to involve them in money and effort.

The hobby is already splintered into far too many small groups, because a) it's full of people with big egos who want to be in charge and b) anybody who doesn't like one groups' rules, kit standard or whatever simply goes off and forms their own group.

If re-enactment was professionalised and licensed, with entry exams and state funding, maybe (....and even then, just maybe!) somebody would be able to push that sort of thing through. However, it isn't, ain't likely to be in the future, and I'm not sure that anybody (including me) would want it to be.

Some of what I want (...decent amounts of cavalry, used properly) isn't possible.

Some of it (changing the scripts away from three-clashes-with-parleys and single combats) is definitely possible, and might even happen.

The stuff in the middle (realistic tactical mixes etc), well, I'll keep arguing for it, but as an exercise in moral virtue rather than because I expect it to happen.

To an extent, that's missing the point of my post.

As a combat between lines of spearmen, that looks fine. In the same way, a lot of the UK wars of the roses battles are fine, as combat between lines of billmen.

The problem is that the battles we're recreating AREN'T combats between lines of billmen. There are whole aspects of the combat missing - no cavalry, no real archery after the opening phase - and other aspects that don't agree well with our accounts of the real thing - neat three-clashes-interspersed-with-single-combats scripting etc that isn't anything like the real thing etc.

To put it another way, your photos wouldn't be very good at all if they were supposed to be a receation of the battle of hastings (I know they aren't, but you see my point.)

Hope that makes sense

I caught that thread you were posting on when someone linked to it on Sword Forum. Boy, I do not know what to say, other than you have my deepest sympathies, and now I have an inkling of the difficulties you face.

I am bewildered to see so many people allegedly interested in the Medieval and Martial who haven't a clue as to how rich a mine we have to delve regarding Medieval combat systems. I would post on the thread, but I think it would be a useless effort, and garner nothing but spite.

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I attend large scale battles and just treat them as a game.

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Not bringing cavalry to your battle (unsuitable terrain, not a reconstruction of a specific engagement) sounds entirely sensible.

However, I was ranting about reconstruction of specific battles (eg Tewkesbury), which did involve cavalry and are fought (and re-fought) on what is essentially a flat plain.

My concern is also not just cavalry, but a number of other points (unrealistic unit-level fighting styles being my main problem.)

Now, I understand that there are tradeoffs between realism, safety, costs and fun, and I don't have a problem with this - if we say "look, we can do a medieval battle OTHER THAN these specified inaccuraccies, because there are things we can't safely or enjoyably do" (that nobody actually dies, for instance), that's fine and groovy.

What does irk me somewhat is when people make these tradeoffs, but insist that what they are doing is still "how a medieval battle really was".

As far as treating battles as a game....well, I'm just back from a day running around the woods doing free-form skirmishes, played largely as a game. It was great fun. However, we DIDN'T invite the public, and nobody involved thought or said that it was a "re-creation" of anything medieval.

Essentially, I think my problem is not with what people are doing, but when what they're doing (playing) and what they say they're doing(serious historical reconstruction) gets out of step.

Hope that makes sense

It was instructive to discover that on the left flank of the English line I was never aware of the charge and massacre of the right wing at all - till the evening after - it was not visible from where I stood, one of the unexpected lessons of fighting in a group that approximates the real size of an army . (In fact we had about one fourteenth of the numbers that actually took part, so it wasn't THAT close).

I'm assuming the sequence of events of the battle at Tewkesbury is fairly well known? In which case, perhaps somebody should look at scripting it.

The problem with a lack of cavalry (solved at Hastings, at least to some degree, by getting people from other re-enactment societies, particularly English Civil War and Napoleonic, to take the part) would be greater with you, because the cavalry would be the best armoured of all.

You couldn't do as was done at Hastings - provide each cavalryman with a helmet and shield and either a mailshirt or, in most cases, string mail, which though it's wrong, looks ok from 10 feet away, and made sure we at least had cavalry on the field.

I understand from previous posts on this forum that the archery rules are another problem - such that except at very specific times the asrchers havevery little to do, so it's not very attractive being an archer. Perhaps this could be addressed?

BTW, how many do you get to Tewkesbury, compared with how many were actually there?

Egfroth

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Go Smiggins Holes 2010!

Egfroth

Yup, sequence of events at Tewkesbury is fairly well agreed upon. As far as scripting it....well, most of the WoR battles are "scripted", but (with a few exceptions such as richard's charge at bosworth, the "scripts" are pretty much interchangeable for all the battles!

Insufficient archers (along with insufficient cavalry) was included under "we need sensible force mixes" - at present, we're basically fighting with lines of billmen.

Tewkesbury gets approx 2000 people, I think, though I've never sat down and counted.