How did soldiers in the front line willingly go into battle,

>>1625963
>knowing that 99% of them would die in the first minutes?
do you have a source for this bold statement

>>1625966
No, I was generalizing

>>1625963

Most soldiers died in the rout.

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Forlorn Hope were the true madmen of history

Because... GLORIOUS DEATH!

>>1625986
Not op, but care to elaborate? I know nothing about battles aside from /v/ tier memery.

>>1626001
>Your side is losd :DDD
>Run!
>With the collapse of organized resistance and everyone running for their lives, the enemy is now just picking you off.

>>1626001

In battles from antiquity to the early modern period most deaths in combat didn't occur during the opening or clashing stages of a battle.

Usually both sides would send out skirmishers, gauge one another's positions and dispositions, then engage one another with their line troops while maneuvering with cavalry in some way.

The strength of the combatants and conditions such as morale, the direction of the sun, weather, breakfast, fatigue, etc. would decide which line wore down first in the melee.

Once the people at the front started to falter they would begin trying to run into their allies behind them, usually to no effect while they got cut down by the now advancing enemy. This would continue until that side entered a full route, provided their general didn't rally them.

At that point the fleeing soldiers would usually drop their arms and run or surrender, at which point the victor usually killed most of them or enslaved them.

In many small battles it never entered that later stage, and one side would flee if it even sensed the risk of defeat- meaning many battles were incredibly flaccid affairs compared to today's murderboner fueled massacres.

>>1625963
they were payed more

>>1625963
disregarding the factuality of this post, I imagine they had the solace of going to the afterlife

>>1626013

To cite an example: every battle Alexander the Great won for the most part.

Persians ride up with 2-3x his numbers; array themselves, the generals get into an argument over arrangement. Alexander leads his army to punch the enemies in their weak spots; the persian leader tries to steal the enemies camp's crockery or some shit and then his army routs and gets massacred to a man while the generals run back to the next city leaving their wives behind.

Repeat this about 100x until he's conquered the world.

peer pressure, training, and harsh discipline.

>you get conscripted under threat of violence from your own state, or willingly join because of promises of loot and pay.
>if you desert at any time before the battle. they'll whip you, imprison you, sell you into slavery, or kill you.
>drilled constantly on the basics of combat. marching, standing in your formation, thrusting that spear, etc. so when you hear the order, you just do it as a reflex.
>you get formed up on the battlefield and you face the enemy. the marching, the drumming, the battle cries, and the adrenaline carry you into the melee.
>no one wants to be seen as a coward and be the first to run. especially if the battle isn't even engaged yet.

>>1626013
thank you for a better answer than >>1626007 (though I did enjoy a lesson in call of spurdo: benis warfare)

Battles did not happen like in Hollywood movies OP, or even most video games. There's lots of maneuvering and attempts to flank and encircle and skirmishing between light infantry. When the clash finally does happen it's because the commander who initiated is going in for the kill, convinced this is all it will take to break the spirit of the enemy. And he better hope it does break their morale or it turns into a battle of attrition, which in most cases comes down to numbers, but the strength and energy of the troops also plays a big part. If one group is rested and better equipped and the other is tired and poorly equipped, even if they outnumber the enemy they can still lose in a battle of attrition.

>>1626019
It's funny how many great victories are simply a result of gross incompetent on the part of one side.

>>1626049
or you're the Union in the American Civil War. you overcome the incompetence of your generals by simple industrial productivity and huge numbers of disposable Irish.

CSA had all the good generals at the start. The Army always punched above their weight. Lost usually because the Union just ground them down. Then of course Lee lost his damn mind at Gettysburg.

>>1626022
Very, very few societies would place conscripts like that in the front.

>>1625963
religion
literally why religion exists

>>1626268
Bullshit
The post

>>1626284
are you talking to yourself or just really really autistic wanting my attention and a reply?

>>1625963
>knowing that 99% of them would die in the first minutes?
because they knew that this wasn't going to happen.

Soldiers in the front rank were often paid double or received other privileges

>>1626284
> Hurr durr what's the Caroleans

>>1625963
I have a similar question. How does this scenario work in sieges? First to be over the wall will surely likely be dead, right? I know in Japan (among Samurai class at least. I don't know about regular foot soldiers) being the first to climb over the wall or stepping into fort after the gate has been broken was considered a great honor and rewarded handsomely after the battle. Did it work in similar way in the west too?

>>1626967
see>>1625995

That's what was called a Forlorn Hope. The group of guys who volunteered to be first into the breach. You'd do it if you had a raging glory-boner, wanted fat lootz quickly or if you fucked up really bad and pissed off whoever was in charge in some cases I think.

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>>1627001
>ywn be in the forlorn hope with a greatsword, slaying pike fucking shits

>>1626967
>among Samurai class at least. I don't know about regular foot soldiers
those regular foot soldiers were of samurai class too. it's extremely haram for ordinary peasant to raise his hand against a samurai. there is no way they would've let them fight in a battle.

>>1627001
I imagine alcohol also played a role.

>>1627024
Explain ashigaru then. It's hard to fight a war if you only limit your pool to an elite warrior class.

Other people have mostly answered, but I'll add a key idea: soldiers act mostly like you would act, not like they are shown in movies.

As in, armies don't run at each other and crash together in a big swirling melee, because that would obviously result in getting killed. Instead, they approach each other carefully, holding together in lines, jabbing at each other from a distance and retreating back and forth. The average soldier is mostly concerned with not getting stabbed, and will act accordingly. There will be few casualties until one side or the other loses discipline and breaks formation.

This is one reason why deep formations like the phalanx are so effective. The guys in back are mostly there to keep the guys in front from running away. So they keep moving forward, and steamroll over less organized armies.

>>1627024
>regular foot soldiers were samurai
no, samurai fucked around on their horses with giant bows and stupid armor and were basically LARPing with each other while the ashigaru did all the dying.

>>1627039
ashigaru were samurai. younger brothers, second sons and landless ones maybe, but samurai nevertheless.

>>1627050
I thought they were conscripted peasants who worked their lord's lands?

>>1627055
no. at first some of them were "knighted" servants and tenants of a higher samurai but even they were promoted to samurai class and that was when their caste system was just developing.

>>1627050
No....just no anon. Ashigaru were peasents armed and sent to battle by their lords but drilling and disciplined varies depending on who led and trained them. Samurai are a warrior elite and do not farm or toil in their spare time like ashigaru

>>1627084
> Ashigaru were peasents armed and sent to battle by their lords
no they weren't. they were lower samurai armed and sent to battle by their lords.
>Samurai are a warrior elite
samurai are a warrior class. some of them elite, some of them not so much.

>>1627079

Hideyoshi separated the ashigaru from the regular peasantry, before that some were ji-samurai, some were just normal garden-variety peasants that found themselves under arms for whatever reason.

>>1627019
I fucking love Warhammer.

>>1627039
Ashigaru only pop up in the sengoku jidai and then slowly phase out when isolationism hits in
Ashigaru could be bastard sons but they'd also be the serfs of the daiymo.

In the sengoku jidai thought you get many traditions changed, the first shot (typically from a bow) was an honour the daiymo' chief samurai would receive but the introduction of firearms meant peasants began to receive the first shot of battle

>>1627115
>ywn be Sigsimund, equipped with the best armour the emperor, and charge out of the breach of your broken walls to slay every champion you meet
Why live

>>1625963

From what I've been told, frontline soldiers from the pike and shot era up to the Napoleonic wars used to be quite boozed up to keep to give them dutch courage.

>>1627186
As a policy or just as a matter of fact?

Soldiers being boozed up before battle is one of the great constants of any war that actually has set battles.

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>>1627238
That siege of Halicarnassus.

>>1626049
Also, something to remember: leading men and commanding armies is not an easy feat. That's why those who did so well are glorified. If you've ever been on any kind of non-competive team sport like paintball or football with some friends who aren't football players, you know how difficult it is to get everyone to do what you think they should do. Now multiply that by 10,000 and add in the fact that they might die.

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>>1626013
>>1625986
>>1626007
Not /v/ memery, but lindybeige memery

>>1627256
Put up or shut up.

Nothing is worse in these kinds of discussions than fags who just go "nuh-uh" and leave it at that.

>>1627256
How is he wrong? Even in the most gruesome battles between the most hardened fuckers, they certainly wouldnt lose even half their men before breaking.

>>1627256
I'm none of those guys you quoted but If you need the backings of a serious scholar of military history to verify these truthful facts about the melee, I would recommend Adrian Goldsworthy, who has written extensively about these subjects and basically comes to the same conclusions. Way more people died in the rout or of camp diseases than were killed in the melee, and their strategic directive was not inflicting mass casualties but trying to break their morale

>>1627340

VDH has similar demonstrations, although he's mostly about classical warfare, not medieval warfare.

>>1625963
All of the Veterans they talked to lived.

>>1627250
I like the insight. Good post

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I think it's important to note that armies generally deployed their well trained and equipped troops in the front or wherever they thought the fighting would be the hardest.
A well equipped soldier is really damn hard to kill, especially when you consider that he isn't alone.

>>1626014
This is actually the only real answer in this thread
Nice aim