>>7054602They were used against France effectively, but the famous English victors literally all involved the English fighting from excellent positions that made it hard to get at the archers, usually with fortifications in the form of spikes or pits, and a lot of heavy infantry that the french would engage. They would outright ignore the archers as unworthy of their time and go after the English men at arms like fucking lemmings, even letting archers shoot into their flanks at will.
Even with all this, Agincourt, their most famous win by far, started off with a few hundred to just over a thousand cavalry charging at at LEAST 5,000 archers. Across a muddy field, covered in stakes. Even if they each only loosed five arrows, that is 25,000 arrows for 1,200 cavalry at most.
Some of those knights still reached the English. The commander literally lead the charge and came out alive. They're recorded as throwing their arms open and exposing their chest to taunt the archers as they rode.
Then the main attack came. On fucking foot. In deep mud. Through the stakes. It reached the english and ignored the archers in favor of everyone going full lemming after the men at arms. Honor and ransoms. The archers shot themselves dry. The french didn't break, and the archers were forced to charge the flanks in hand to hand combat before the french finally fucking broke.
Patay was a straight cavalry vs archer encounter.
They died.
Vernuil was army vs army, except the English couldn't get the stakes in the ground securely enough. The cavalry brushed the archers aside with ease and ran the entire formation over.
>>7054616Fascinating stuff. Any sources I can look into? Does this laminate wood bows (IE, "english" longbows) at all?
