Kit through the ages

[Josh]

http://www.tickld.com/x/13-complete-sol ... the-armies

Quoting the link doesn't really do it justice, since the images are the story. The evolution is interesting stuff, especially in the visual demonstration of how miniaturization increases versatility.

[Lys]

Very nice Josh, thanks for sharing. However i would like to point out that the first picture has way too many weapons. Specifically there is a dagger, sword, axe, great axe, and spear. The last couple are two-handed weapons which would be far too awkward to ever carry together, and most soldiers would carry a sword, an axe, or a dagger as their backup piece, not all three. A notional Anglo-Saxon infantryman at the battle should have a sword, maybe a dagger, and a great axe or spear. (Also a knife, but mainly as a tool.) The second picture, on the other hand, might actually be okay despite also having the five weapons on display, on account of the fact that it's depicting a mounted knight who benefits from the carrying capacity of a horse. A horse that has itself benefited from nearly two centuries of breeding since Hastings at that. Though i have some doubts about that axe, it looks a bit on the large side, and for that matter the sword looks oddly smallish, though it might just be my eyes deceiving me. Further on, the Agincourt archer is missing his maul. How do you think he drove that huge stake into the ground?

[General Havoc]

I have a suspicion that the author here has in certain cases confused either "all the gear this sort of soldier could have used" with "all the gear this sort of soldier would have been carrying at once." As Lys pointed out, a foot soldier will not be carrying multiple two-handed weapons around if they can avoid it, three different side-arms. A spear, sword, and dagger would be one customary combination. A great axe, throwing spear, and dagger would be another. You wouldn't generally blend the two.

[Josh]

Yeah, that threw me at first as well but I came to the same conclusion as Havoc. The tradition of paring out the useless shit and working down to the strict essentials ain't exactly a recent thing, and there's no way your average footslogger was going to haul that much steel around Swiss Army Knife-style.