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Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

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Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#251

Post by romanoderoma »

prepend wrote: post #244
romanoderoma wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it depends on who gets the arms. there is no "the people" as a single entity and interests when there is a revolt. if everybody is armed, the supporters of the tyrant are going to be armed as well. But with better equipment.

That would be true if it was just civilians fighting, but the military is usually on the side of the tyrant. It’s mathematically better, I think that armed populace has a higher chance of revolt vs armed loyalist populace + armed military than unarmed populace vs unarmed loyalist + armed military. And I also think the reasoning is that the anti-tyrannical populace will be much larger than the pro-tyrannical populace…

> It’s mathematically better, I think that armed populace has a higher chance of revolt

US is the only country in the western World who only made one real revolution.

And it was to not pay taxes, not against a true tyrant.

> And I also think the reasoning is that the anti-tyrannical populace will be much larger

The only thing that will be larger is the anti everybody else populace (tribalism, to give it a name).

USA had one major civil war and they keep killing each other like nowhere else in the World (like ten times more than the west average).

It's mathematically provable.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#252

Post by frockington1 »

WJW wrote: post #220
kebman wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

As a European I've always thought that this bit of US law has not aged all that well. Imagine a tyrant takes hold of the US armed forces and uses that to overthrow the rest of government so they can rule alone. The US armed forces have equipment going up to tanks, fighter jets, bombers, drones and nuclear weapons. A militia is going to struggle to field even heavy machine guns, let alone an air force. I doubt they'd…

Vietnamese farmers have a different view point. It's not about competing on an open field, its about not being able to be subjugated. Another historical example would be American snipers in trees picking off the British commanders during the revolution.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#253

Post by speeder »

zrobotics wrote: post #80
fencepost wrote: post #12

Mindset would likely have played a big part, and battle then vs battle now were very different things. A peasant could absolutely kill a knight but probably not in battle, and the opportunity to do so would be unlikely to arise because the knight would probably not be in a position to be ambushed. For most peasantry the very thought of going after a knight would also be almost unimaginable. Seems like a not-unreasona…

Huge thing is mindset- one thing the Total War series got extremely right was shock value and the ability to win battles by routing opponents. Getting charged with a horse would be terrifying (speaking from semi-experience, I've been charged by both bull moose and cattle). Nevermind the animal also having someone on top of it armed to the teeth, I can easily understand running away in terror. From my amateur research…

Nobility was nobility because they did stuff that didn't get them (directly) paid.

Defense, research, some higher level medicine, engineering, etc...

They would get money from rents, but were expected to spend that money in weapons, equipment for their civilian profession if they had any (for example building a telescope) etc...

And of course it worked MOST of the time, but not ALL the time, sometimes you had people that became infamous, like that "vampire" lady that killed a ton of random people to bathe in their blood...

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#254

Post by Dirlewanger »

WJW wrote: post #220
kebman wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

As a European I've always thought that this bit of US law has not aged all that well. Imagine a tyrant takes hold of the US armed forces and uses that to overthrow the rest of government so they can rule alone. The US armed forces have equipment going up to tanks, fighter jets, bombers, drones and nuclear weapons. A militia is going to struggle to field even heavy machine guns, let alone an air force. I doubt they'd…

And how did all that military might fare in Vietnam? How has it fared in the Middle East?

Now imagine turning all that might against itself where much of the population has small arms of some sorts.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#255

Post by b0rsuk »

b0rsuk wrote: post #231
chewz wrote: post #134

Crossbow - armor-piercing weapon was the RPG of Middle Ages. There were constant attempts to ban crossbows. Second Lateran Council banned use of crossbow against Christians. > And Western knights did not like it. Their armor protected them from most weapons they would face with the exception of the longbow, a weapon that took years to learn and decades to master. But crossbows could slice right through the armor at g…

A crossbow has several advantages, but it's main advantage is NOT power or armor piercing ability. That is likely a myth perpetuated by armchair historians with poor grasp of physics. The main advantage of a crossbow is that it's easy to use. Richard Lionheart, the English king, was famously killed by a boy wielding a crossbow. You need no more than 2 weeks to be proficient with a crossbow. To do that with an English…

I got a bit carried away, but the gist is that you don't measure bow/crossbow power in draw weight. You measure kinetic energy of the projectile.

Formula: (mass * (velocity * velocity)) / 2

Weighting is simple, but for measuring velocity you need a chronometer.

The great composite crossbow I linked above had 1257lb draw weight, and it managed 420 Joule energy with a 320gram projectile.

By comparison, Tod Workshop's 1000lb windlass crossbow shot achieved 110 Joules https://youtu.be/kHnZo6ELEV0?t=591

This is to give you an idea that crossbows of similar draw weight can vary wildly with their projectile energy. Note the composite crossbow used wood / great horn and it had much longer bow arms.

The 160lb draw weight longbow in the Tod Cutler / Joe Gibbs mythbusting video managed 123 Joules (10m from target) and 109 Joules (25m from target). Arrow weight was 80gram.

And the staff sling I linked above managed 107 Joules with a 3000grain (194gram) stone.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#256

Post by frockington1 »

WJW wrote: post #222
nlitened wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the second amendment about exactly that?

The government has weapons that are literally thousands of times more destructive than anything you can wield under the second amendment. That's just apart from the fact that the vast majority of citizens cannot afford even a single fighter jet or cruise missile.

I'm all for citizens owning cruise missiles but, I think that's missing the point. The point is that an organized and armed population of say Vietnamese farmers could theoretically hold off against the largest power in the world until they decided to move on

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#257

Post by zrobotics »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #199
brazzy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the comparison to an APC (armored personnel carrier) is apt- knights were armored enough to be nearly invulnerable to the weaponry a peasant would have access to. No. A knight prone on the ground was very easy to kill very quickly - just stick a dagger through the visor. There is nothing comparable a civilian today can do to an APC. Additionally, a single knight on a horse was not that hard to take down using r…

Lob a molatoff cocktail from above and hit the engine intakes and you can get a Mobility kill. Armour in built up areas is very risky with out infantry support and the APC's would not be just driving around with out having dismounts supporting them.

This, or spray paint in windows and periscopes. Or, smokey fires in air inlets, crews carry gas masks but not hours of supplemental O2.

Modern armor isn't invulnerable, but as I suggested it isn't easy to take out and likely would achieve similar to 40:9000 or worse in confrontations with civilians. Thankfully armor rolling over civilians like that isn't common enough for me to pull actual statistics, so we have to guess at efficacy compared to knights fighting peasants.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#258

Post by throwaway0a5e »

krapp wrote: post #221
romanoderoma wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously guys, 2nd amendment was written in 1791, the Annales Bertiniani are from 840. The idea that the 2nd amendment protects the peasants is also wrong and it's one of the reasons people laugh at USA, when the 2nd amendment was approved, Grand Duchy of Tuscany had already abolished death penalty. 2nd amendment was introduced to permit people to shoot tax collectors (i.e. the British)

>2nd amendment was introduced to permit people to shoot tax collectors (i.e. the British) The 2nd Amendment was introduced because the states were afraid a standing national army would give too much power to the Federal government, so the plan was to have individual states field their own militias instead. Also because the principles of the right to self defense were established in British common law at the time - bu…

> quote about those who trade a little liberty for safety deserving neither

He said stuff like that left and right. He was very much in favor of sticking to one's ideological guns even when personally inconvenient. He was arguing in favor of the federal government retaining the authority to tax in the instance everyone quotes.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#259

Post by bluGill »

WJW wrote: post #220
kebman wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

As a European I've always thought that this bit of US law has not aged all that well. Imagine a tyrant takes hold of the US armed forces and uses that to overthrow the rest of government so they can rule alone. The US armed forces have equipment going up to tanks, fighter jets, bombers, drones and nuclear weapons. A militia is going to struggle to field even heavy machine guns, let alone an air force. I doubt they'd…

Why do you assume the US military is united against the people like that. If a tyrant takes over the US military you can expect a large number of the existing military will leave. They might have jets, but it doesn't do any good when whoever is flying them takes off and then uses the bombs on yet, then ejects over enemy territory thus ensuring that you cannot use that jet anymore while they survive as a hero.

Others have replied to the other points.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#260

Post by bluGill »

romanoderoma wrote: post #251
prepend wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be true if it was just civilians fighting, but the military is usually on the side of the tyrant. It’s mathematically better, I think that armed populace has a higher chance of revolt vs armed loyalist populace + armed military than unarmed populace vs unarmed loyalist + armed military. And I also think the reasoning is that the anti-tyrannical populace will be much larger than the pro-tyrannical populace…

> It’s mathematically better, I think that armed populace has a higher chance of revolt US is the only country in the western World who only made one real revolution. And it was to not pay taxes, not against a true tyrant. > And I also think the reasoning is that the anti-tyrannical populace will be much larger The only thing that will be larger is the anti everybody else populace (tribalism, to give it a name). USA…

The civil war in the US was different. The last war fought with the old swords tactics, but using modern rifles. After it was over everyone looked in horror and decided that new ways for fighting were needed before they went to war again.
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