This is coolbert:
Once more as extracted from the List Verse web site with comment we have:
"10 Blunderful Moments In French Military History"
# 10 Courtrai, 1302.
# 9 Crecy, 1346.
# 8 Nicopolis, 1396.
Shameful and disastrous French military defeats in each and every case. At least Crecy I was aware of, the others not.
In each instance too, massed heavy cavalry, men-at-arms, the armored knight on horseback attacking men-a-foot [infantry].
Those men-at-arms in most cases persons with noble rank, well equipped for mortal combat but eschewing proper tactics, rather engaging in foolish and ill considered frontal assaults against a defender armed in a proper manner and fighting from improved and prepared positions advantageous to the infantryman of the day.
Think not however, that the use of such tactics [frontal assault] during the medieval period by heavy cavalry with catastrophic loss confined strictly to the French.
Among other battles of such a nature think:
* Agincourt.
* Laupen.
* Bannockburn.
Those men-a-foot fighting as soldiers, resolute, trained, fighting according to a plan, their defense well thought out and preparations of an appropriate nature having been made, steadfast in the manner of the Swiss, the commoner defeating the noble knight, most galling and embarrassing.
coolbert.
A lot of knights fought without much in the way of tactics. The ideal battle would be more of an opportunity to engage in single combat than a team affair. They'd ride around on the battlefield looking for somebody worth challenging to single combat. I wouldn't be startled if sometimes other combatants stopped fighting to watch, say, a duke and an earl go at it.
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