Fair enough, although the Romans still had plenty of spears around (eg Pillium, and early Triarii were armed with pikes).
The pilum was a javelin, not a spear. The only spear the Romans ever used was a hasta, originally used by the hastati (they were named for it) but eventually used solely by the triarii who seldom actually engaged in battle. The overwhelming majority of the fighting was done by the hastati and the principes armed with gladii and pila. With the Marian reforms the triarii were scrapped altogether and all Roman Legionnaires were of the same class, equipped the same way with sword and javelin. It remained this way for five hundred years.
This is a pretty broad generalization here that I don't find supported by history. That goes for cavalry not actually fighting
It's a historical fact that through most of the history of warfare the overwhelming pattern of warfare was that sides would line up against each other and exchange projectile weapons. Eventually one side or the other would mount an attack. The attack would either break the other side immediately, or if the enemy held, the attacking side would break. The overwhelming majority of battle deaths would be inflicted as the victorious force ran down the broken force.
This is a result of basic human psychology, and the way interaction is driven by the fight-flight and dominate-submit responses.
The exception was in larger battles where subsequent waves of attackers would trap the defeated first attack, preventing them from retreating (as happened at Agincourt). In these sorts of battle a large majority of combatants died by being crushed to death, suffocated, or trampled.
And also for spears and lances being "single use" and then discarded.
It's a simple practical reality. You can't spear someone from horseback at full gallop and hope to retain hold of your weapon. More modern Lancers of the Napoleon era were able to do so because they weren't shock troops but skirmishing troops, so didn't strike their targets at the charge.
Check out the Bayeux Tapestry for example, where Norman Cavalry are primarily seen attacking with spears.
Yes, that's because heavy cavalry on the medieval battlefield was a "shock" weapon intended for a single hammer blow which would break the enemy. Medieval heavy cavalry was used the same way Alexander the Great used his Companion Cavalry.
By the High Middle Ages heavy cavalry were seldom used on the battlefield at all - instead light, fast-moving skirmishers were preferred, mounted on rounceys, in particular horse archers, which became increasingly common from the 14th Century.
Understood that what we think of as a "Lance" may have been more of a tournament ornament.
Tournament lances were certainly bigger and heavier than battlefield lances, but a lance best describes the way the weapon is used, rather than it's actual shape or design.
Also of note: Cavalry "Lancer" units existed in European armies well into the 20th century.
Yes, the Lancer was revived as an anti-cavalry weapon during the Napoleonic Wars. Many modern armour units (which carry the legacy of old cavalry units) are "Lancers".
Yes, but they are on the end of tiny little arrows that can fit hundreds in his little quiver.
Having actually handled said arrows and quiver, I can assure you that none of the above is true. The arrows were about 30" long, the quiver was rather large, and it certainly didn't fit "hundreds". I never actually personally counted them, but you could probably fit as many as 40 in if you really tried, but normally they only had about 15-20 in them.
A 30 inch (or longer) arrow is a telephone pole for shooting
Perhaps in modern terms. For English longbowmen it was normal.
and I'm not sure that the accuracy matters much because they were generally shot into the air and lofted en masse towards enemy formations.
English longbowmen were required to practise both long-range en masse fire and accurate targeted fire. During the course of a normal battle they would do both, with their accuracy and lethality increasing as the enemy closed.
As for the Bodkin arrowheads and their use (or not) in piercing armor - I think I've been reading the same sources as you, and the big problem I see with the logic behind their testing is that they are shooting directly at armor, instead of lofting arrows up as they would be used in battles. My logic tells me that a heavy iron arrowhead would come down with a lot more force than a broadhead.
The weight difference between a broadhead and a bodkin would be negligible, in most cases. The issue is one of the chemical composition of the steel. Bodkins weren't tempered (at least none of the bodkin points that have been found were tempered), which means the iron would deform or break with sufficient impact.
On medieval bows being "more powerful" than modern bows... I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Although I did read one article that said there was "speculation" that Welsh longbows had draws up to 180lbs, the other estimates of 80-90lbs seems more likely given human physiology.
Minimum draws were about 80lbf with maximum draws estimated as high as 200lbf. A replica of a bow recovered from the
Mary Rose, used for testing performance, had a draw of 150lbf.
While it's true that a "normal" person would be physically incapable of such a draw, English longbowmen were not "normal". They were required by law to practise weekly, from a young age, and as such they developed unique physiological deformations - specifically enlarged left arms and bone spurs on the left wrist, left shoulder and right fingers indicating abnormally large tendons and muscles.
As a teenager my draw weight was about 60 lbs (on a compound bow where through the magic of mathmatics the draw weight reduces dramatically at full draw for aiming), and we had some guys that would crank their bows up to 90lbs or higher (normally guys who were trying to show off - it certainly doesn't help accuracy).
How many of them were professional archers who spent hours a week from the age of about 12 drawing a 100lbf bow? Did any of them have significant physiological deformations as a result of their archery practise?
The issue with higher draw weights is that your accuracy goes to **** because it's hard to hold and aim.
Not if your physiology has adapted for that specific task. We also don't know what techniques they may have used (such as drawing and releasing in one motion).
Not an issue when you are aiming "In the general vicinity" of your enemies. A really high draw weight is also cool if you want to shoot a long way (heavier arrows help with this too), whereas if you are trying to aim and shoot at something that you can see in front of you, a more manageable weight is nicer.
English longbowmen did both. If you had developed the right technique and physiology to handle a powerful heavy bow, they were substantially more devastating at short range, as actual medieval battlefield accounts indicate.
Of course everything you say of archers is true of
other medieval archers, but that's the very reason everyone else used crossbowmen, and the only archers found on a high middle ages battlefield were English longbowmen or horse archers.
Why would it be ridiculous to draw inference about medieval bows from modern archery? If I shoot in the recurve instinctive class at a tournament, I am shooting with medieval technology. As for an arrow's (or a bullet's for that matter) effect on flesh and blood... well I have direct experience with both of those, and I don't understand why it would be ridiculous or irrelevant.
Because modern archers aren't even physically capable of drawing the bows used by medieval longbowmen. Modern archery is almost entirely about accuracy, and the equipment and materials used are totally different.
Bear in mind this isn't speculation of theory. We have recovered real longbows and the skeletons of real medieval archers so we can determine draw weights with reasonable accuracy.
There's a whole lot of debate on whether or not arrows actually killed armored knights at Agincourt that stretches well beyond this forum. We do know that the French walked all the way up to the English lines through the mud under that hail of arrows where the English archers knocked the exhausted French down with mallets (the ones used for pounding in stakes) and killed them by the hundreds.
French men-at-arms in quality steel plate were effectively invulnerable to arrow fire, even at short range (although some experts think the thinner armour on the arms and legs could be penetrated at short range), but the overwhelming majority of men-at-arms had poor quality wrought iron armour which, amongst other things, being heavier, had to be thinner. Even at ranges of 220yds the thinner arm and leg armour could be penetrated by arrows, while at short range even breastplates could be penetrated.
The French who managed to make it to the English lines weren't just exhausted, but severely wounded as well, and the English longbowmen only attacked them hand-to-hand
after they'd exhausted their arrows.
Bear in mind the French only had to cover 300yds, and half of that would have been at a range that the English could selectively pick targets (from ranges of about 160yds English archers were expected to target individual soldiers).
Given the average speed of longbowmen (about ten arrows a minute), if they exhausted their arrows before the French reached them, it took the French about 4 minutes to cross the 300yds separating the armies (based on a standard load-out of 40 arrows per archer). That's pretty slow, and it means they would have spent a significant period of time at point blank range where the archers could have picked off targets one by one and driven their arrows through inferior armour.
) were unchivalrous, at least at the battle of Agincourt, was that they had so many prisoners and still had a force larger than their own to defeat (or so it seemed, in reality the last line of the French were melting away, but Henry didn't know it at the time), so the fear was that the prisoners would pick up weapons and rejoin the fight - from the rear - and easily overwhelm Henry's tired forces. Hence the order to kill. 
