Have you already heard about this battle?

According to a book, european haevy armoured knights army was take to piece by mounted mongols archers.

Is that true?

How did it happened? How can so well armed and equiped knights be destroyed by archers?

Thanks

 It seems the knights fell for the Mongols favourite trick, the feigned retreat.

 After being charged the Mongols seemed to flee with the European knights hot on their heels, however the knights were being drawn away from their infantry and once adequately seperated the Mongols sprung the trap.

 Which usually meant the Mongols would turn around and then shower the enemy with arrows, surrounding the enemy from every side firing as they rode, keeping their distance. If a knights armour proved impervious to arrows the Mongols simply aimed for the horse, a knight without his horse was very weak once the Mongols sent in their heavier cavalry to pick them off.

 It musnt have taken long for the knights to realise they had fallen for a very very old trick, by which time as is generally the rule it was to late to do anything about it and they were despite valiant resistance cut to pieces by the Mongols.

Check out TJK's essay http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=42&PN=2 - here

Thanks for this informations.It is surprising that europenans knights failed in this trick.

Knights could charge against mongol light cavalry to defeat them. Why didn't they use this tactic? It seems they let themselves defeated by mongols?

Armors of Europeans Knights were very strong and more resistant than armor of mongol cavalry. Cuirras of this armors  could resist against all medieval weapons. So how did mongol heavy cavalry to defeat the european heavy armored knights, even if they are dismouted? What kind of weapon did they use to pierce plate armors to kill european knights?

thanks

The Mongols would use their ellite heavy cavalry when they felt it would give them an advantage. Had the Polish knights attacked without abandon and linked up with the Bohemians then they could have created a favorable position. However, the Mongols just would not let themelves get caught in a pincer move or become outflanked. Thus it was futile to chase a Mongol army. The Mongols also rode away to cause a feigned retreat type ambush.

No not really, almost all adversaries of the mongols fell for that trick

Historically, heavy cavalry have been able to break mounted horsearchers, especially during the crusades. The mongols though were not like the turk horsearchers of the caliphate, they would not only harass their opponent, but also discharge massed volleys like the english longbowmen did during the hundred years war

Full plate armour appeared not until in the late 14th century - at the time of the mongol invasions european knights were protected only by mail and quilted fabrics, save the helmets and shields. The german knights facing the mongols would have been clad in mail from head to toe and the latest great helms, but the poorer polish knights would generally have had more primitive equipment - shorter mail shirts and old conical helmets. Still the mail-clad knights would have been somewhat better protected than the mongols, but arrows and lances would pierce the mail anyway. Also, the knights were heavily outnumbered - perhaps a thousand knights and men-at-arms at its most, the rest of Duke Henrys men being a motley collection of more or less ill-equiped and ill-trained levies. Crossbowmen were evidently present, but they were too few to turn the balance. Against them stood perhaps 10 000 experienced and well equiped mongol horsemen - the outcome of the battle was settled before it started...

In general, the best weapon to use against plate armor is the mace. While Swords, arrows and even lances are ineffective against plate armor, the mace is devastating. That is the weapon that the Ottoman sipahis later on used against armored western kinights at the battles of Nicopolis (1396) and Varna (1442), and also the weapon that many European kinghts themselves employed against each other.

As someone else pointed out, the Polish kinghts were unlikely to have had plate armor, but had chain mail instead.

The mace was indeed used by the mongols, and would have been effective against the knight's helmets - the only part of plate that was used.

Then you have other nasty weapons like war hammers, rondel daggers, battle flails, halberds and billhooks which could deal with plate armour. These were howewer from a later date and of course not used by the mongols 

The european knights were a devastating force when faced head-on - nothing could stand a well-led and executed charge with the couched lance without breaking. We have though numerous cases when lighter equiped mounted - and even foot! - forces managed to outperform the knights and beat them.

Some of evrenosgazi's statements are rather dubious (for instance the notion that "thousands of Norman mercenary " were deployed by Romanos - the number was more in the few hundreds, actually and during the crusade era the knights, always outnumbered and only a small percentage of the Christian armies anyway, won many, many victories against Turks and Arabs) but in general, the knights had also a number of weaknesses: they were heavy, of little use dismounted, slow and bulky, had no discipline, were usually ill-led too. And the armour was a hell of a burden in hot climates.

The Mongols were a real army - much as the Ottomans later on (not the Seljuks, though). They had order, discipline, good leadership, sophisticated tactics. Man by man, the knights were superior in every aspect. As an army... you better forget it. The Mongols were unequalled  in their times. 

Had they moved westwards, I think the history of Europe would be quite different... maybe the Aztecs would land on Spain and try to proselytize the heathen europeans... that different 

A knightley charge of heavy horse could in fact be withstood by disciplined infantry, as the lombard communal soldiers' victory against Barbarossas knights at Legnano 1176 proved. The knight armies were indeed often ill-disciplined, but not always. Especially the knight orders had a reputation of stern discipline, and with the right kind of leadership like Richard it could go well. Neither were they ineffectice when dismounted - the english would later use dismounted knighs with good effect against the french in the hundred years war. During the battle of Mohi, dismounted templars held the bridge against several mongol attacks before they were overcome by catapults and arrows. The knight armies may have been slow on campaign, but once in battle the war-horses were very svift - otherwise they couldn't have been able to catch the horsearchers at all. Armour was a problem in the desert - but not only for the crusader knights but for the armoured mamluks as well.

Aye, there have been very few occassions when a full-fledged knightley charge could be dealed with - but that is the (rare) exception, rather than the rule. The revival of the pike in the late 14th century provided with a semi-permanent solution to this "problem". The knight orders had discipline but that was just the knight orders - the outremer armies have been a rather disordered lot and that's a given. On mainland Europe things were much worse - no knightly orders operating here, with the exception (a tad later) of the "crusading" Teuten in northern-eastern europe.

Dismounted knights were good only on static defense. On the offensive... that would be an impossibility, wouldn't you agree?

I think the examples are abundant from the late 13th century onward. Knights were defeated later on at Stirling Bridge 1297, Falkirk 1298 (the inititial cavalry charge was beaten off by the scots, who were defeated only after being shot to pieces by longbowmen), at Courtrai 1302, Arques 1304, Bannockburn 1314, Morgarten 1315, Laupen 1339, Crécy 1346, Poitiers 1356, Auray 1364, Sempach 1386, Näfels 1388 and of course later on the pike made knighley charges hard to perform 

Then you have spanish orders like the knights of Santiago... Ordinary knights could be as disciplined - look at the austrian knights who dismounted and fought as a disciplined pike-unit at Sempach, or the french knights at Crécy who charged, regrouped and charged again no less than 16 times. But yet discipline didn't help them from disastrous defeats...

Yes in pitched battles they were impossible

At this times knights were not very well protected by amor. When knights are heavy armored with full plate armors, if they are very well disciplined, I think they are quite invulnerable because plate armor is missile proof. During HYW, french knights were destroyed because of there indiscipline.

Yes, knights and gendarmes in full plate armour were virtually impossible to withstand and they dominated warfare in the late 15th century, but they could be beaten by swiss and german pike-formations and cannons

This has been already answered, the truth is that a full blown charge by the miletes or men at arms (knights were only ever part of the cavalry) was only expected to sucseed in certain circumstances.  Another often overlookd item is thah many bodies of miletes and men at arms operated under good disciplnine, though there was always a potential for the uncoordinated impetuous charge (the 'French' at Crecy is a prime example).  There were also bodies of the military orders in all European countries, though they were primaraly active in the Levant, Iberia and Prussia/Lithuania.

Yes you're right, now I remember that the french used dismounted men-at-arms to attack the english at Poitiers 1356. Even thoug hthey failed with great losses, they were more sucessful than the mounted men at Crécy

How could have pike footsoldiers formations defeated heavy knights protected against weapons by their full plate armor?

Thanks

The knights horses couldn't charge into a hedge of pikes, if the horse fell, halbardiers could finish off the un-horsed knight